The Intellectual

In this episode, Caitlin Woolsey (Assistant Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute) continues the miniseries on sound and visual art in conversation with Niall Atkinson, an associate professor of art history at the University of Chicago. Niall's research concerns the relationship between sound, space, and architecture and their role in the construction of pre-modern urban societies. They discuss his research methods for working on historical soundscapes, and ways of reconstructing sonic relationships in the past even if the sounds and sonic experiences themselves are now lost to us. 

Should we question the traditional periodization of Foucault's oeuvre? What is the difference between biography and intellectual history? Why read Foucault today? Stuart Elden, Professor of Political Theory and Geography at the University of Warwick, will share his view about Foucault and the method of intellectual history.

Gardening and George Orwell might not be the first pairing that comes to mind but he uses gardening metaphors in his writing and made many notes about the growth of vegetables and flowers he had planted. Rebecca Solnit discusses how this focus helps us understand his work and that of other writers interested in flowers. Shahidha Bari is also joined by Amy de la Haye, curator and author of 'Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion', Randy Malamud, whose study of cut flowers in culture is called 'Strange Bright Blooms', and Simon Morley, author of 'By Any Other Name: A Cultural History Of The Rose'.

Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solnit is out now. You can hear her discussing her ideas about truth in a previous episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008wc1

Producer: Luke Mulhall

(Re:) Claiming Ballet (Intellect Books, 2021) by Dr. Adesola Akinleye explores the history of movement through ballet, representation, and the future of dance. Though ballet is often seen as a white, cis-heteropatriarchal form of dance, in fact it has been, and still is, shaped by artists from a much broader range of backgrounds. This collection looks beyond the mainstream, bringing to light the overlooked influences that continue to inform the culture of ballet. Essays illuminate the dance form’s rich and complex history and start much-needed conversations about the roles of class, gender normativity, and race, demonstrating that despite mainstream denial and exclusionary tactics, ballet thrives with “difference.” 

With contributions from professional ballet dancers and teachers, choreographers, and dance scholars in Europe and the United States, the volume introduces important new thinkers and perspectives. An essential resource for the field of ballet studies and a major contribution to dance scholarship more broadly, (Re:) Claiming Ballet will appeal to academics, researchers, and scholars; dance professionals and practitioners; and anyone interested in the intersection of race, class, gender, and dance.

For her choreographic work, Akinleye has been awarded ADAD Trailblazer, Bonnie Bird, New Choreography Award and One Dance UK Champion Trailblazer. For her work in community dance and education she was awarded Woman of the year in Community Dance by the Town of Islip, New York. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Royal Society of Arts (RSA). She holds a PhD from Canterbury Christ Church University, and MA (distinction) in work-based learning Dance in Community and education (2007), and an MA in Film (distinction) 2020 from Middlesex University. Akinleye is also a certified Gyrotonic® and Gyrokinesis® instructor.

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This episode explores with Ranabir Samaddar the specific nature of democratic politics during the COVID-19 crisis. Anchored in the specificity of the experience of the pandemic in India, the episode also addresses the global transformation of politics in a time of crisis. How has the pandemic changed our understanding of politics? What does it mean to refocus on life as the primary object of politics? And what does the COVID-19 crisis reveal about the nature of the contemporary Indian state and the fundamental concepts of sovereignty and citizenship?

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

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• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Podcast Company: Novel

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Bibliograpy:

Samaddar, R (2017). Karl Marx and the Postcolonial Age. Calcutta: Palgrave MacMillan.

Samaddar, R (2007). The Materiality of Politics: The Technologies of Rule Volume 1. London: Anthem Press.

 Samaddar, R et al (2022) India’s Migrant Workers and the Pandemic. New York: Routledge.

Grebmer, Klaus von, Jill Bernstein et al (2021). Global Hunger Index: Hunger and Food systems in conflict settings: Bonn / Dublin.

 Agamben, Giorgio (1998). Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life. California: Stanford University Press.

Glossary:

What is Global Hunger Index? 
(00:2:17 or p.1 in the transcript) 

The Global Hunger Index is a peer-reviewed annual report, jointly published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe, designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and country levels. The aim of the GHI is to trigger action to reduce hunger around the world. Source:

Who is Foucault and what does biopolitics mean? 
(00:3:36 or p.1 in the transcript) 

Foucault and biopolitics: Michel Foucault was a major figure in two successive waves of 20th century French thought–the structuralist wave of the 1960s and then the poststructuralist wave. Foucault’s work is transdisciplinary in nature, ranging across the concerns of the disciplines of history, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. At the first decade of the 21st century, Foucault is the author most frequently cited in the humanities in general. The concept of biopolitics was first outlined by Michel Foucault (2003, 2007, 2009) in his lectures at the Collège de France  in order to name and analyze emergent logics of power in the 18th and 19th centuries. According to Foucault, biopolitics refers to the processes by which human life, at the level of the population, emerged as a distinct political problem in Western societies. Biopolitics refers to the style of government that regulates populations through "biopower" - the application and impact of poitical power on all aspects of human life. Source:

What is Malthusianism? 
(00:12:23 or p.3 in the transcript) 

Malthusianism: Thomas Malthus, English economist and demographer who is best known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply and that betterment of humankind is impossible without stern limits on reproduction. This thinking is commonly referred to as Malthusianism. Source:

What was the Great Deccan famine? 
(00:12:33 or p.3 in the transcript) 

The 1630–1632 famine was the worst that occurred during the Mughal Empire in India. It was caused by a severe drought, followed by a huge flood and a plague of locusts. During that same period, the Ganges in East India changed its river bed, which led to bad harvests in the following years. Source:

The Wrong Boys are joined by David Wengrow to talk about changing human history (starting with the past) and his new book, co-authored with the late David Graeber, on myths about the origins of human society, why both Hobbes and Rousseau are wrong, and why human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.

Support our show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/srslywrong

Links:
Buy “The Dawn of Everything”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/616885/the-dawn-of-everything-by-david-graeber-and-david-wengrow/9780771049828
How to Change the Course of Human History: https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/
Hiding in Plain Sight: Democracy’s indigenous origins in the Americas: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/democracy/hiding-plain-sight
Graeber and Wengrow on the Myth of the Stupid Savage (Video – 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8
David Graeber & David Wengrow Teach-Out (Video – 2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNbWlD-lqYQ
Graeber/Wengrow: Paleolithic Politics & Why It Still Matters (Video – 2015): https://vimeo.com/145285143
Slavery and Its Rejection Among Foragers on the Pacific Coast of North America: A Case of Schismogenesis? (Video – 2018): https://www.college-de-france.fr/site/philippe-descola/seminar-2018-03-22-10h00.htm
Unfreezing the Ice Age: The Truth about Humanity’s Deep Past (2021): https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/19/unfreezing-the-ice-age-the-truth-about-humanitys-deep-past
Forget ‘Liberté’ – 17th-Century Indigenous Americans Knew a Lot More About Freedom Than Their French Colonisers (2021): https://novaramedia.com/2021/10/19/forget-liberte-17th-century-indigenous-americans-knew-a-lot-more-about-freedom-than-their-french-colonisers/
Rethinking cities from the ground up (Wengrow, 2019) – https://medium.com/whose-society-whose-cohesion/rethinking-cities-from-the-ground-up-73d92059b15f


Correction: The Wrong Boys mispronounce the word “Teotihuacan” (Saying ‘Teo-teh-hoo-i-can’)- It is actually pronounced “Teo-Tiwa-Khan” (/teɪˌoʊtiːwəˈkɑːn/)

Opening Theme Song by E June
Closing Theme Song by Spam Risk:
https://spamrisk.bandcamp.com/album/s-t

Today I talked to Michelle Caswell about her new book Urgent Archives: Enacting Liberatory Memory Work (Routledge, 2021).

What is the place of archives in our society? In archival studies, an answer to this question often presents an idea of linear, progressive temporality. A common trope goes: We learn history to have a better future. That is why history, and archives as a site of historical evidence, is important. In her thoughtful, groundbreaking work, a feminist archival studies scholar Caswell challenges the white imaginary of linear, progressive time embedded in our conception of archives. Pointing out how community archives from different ethnic communities across the US present cyclical temporalities where oppressions repeat, Caswell emphasizes the importance of activating the archives for their liberatory potential in the present. Over a year has passed since the murder of George Floyd and the beginning of the global pandemic that has highlighted not only structural inequality, but also an ongoing material and symbolic annihilation of Black Americans. As Michelle Caswell argues in her book, imagining liberatory memory work is an urgent project that needs to happen in the now.

In the introduction, Caswell begins with the question of the liberatory potential of community archives. Chapter 1 outlines the cyclical conception of time in critique of chronoviolence of white, dominant linear temporality. In chapter 2, Caswell draws from four focus groups to show how different ethnic groups use community archives to address repetitive oppressions by constructing corollary records. Chapter 3 focuses on her work with the South Asian American Digital Archives (SAADA) and the road to discovering the importance of liberatory activation. In Chapter 4, Caswell pushes back against the idea of archivists as passive technicians and repositions them as liberatory memory workers. In the conclusion, Liberation Now! Caswell emphasizes the need to disrupt the dominant narrative on future by embracing the joy of advocacy in the present. Urgent Archives will be an excellent resource for anyone who is interested in critically re-evaluating archives in academia and beyond.

In the interview, Caswell recommends following two readings to the listeners:

SAADA. Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America. Philadelphia: SAADA, 2021.

"The Chronopolitics of Racial Time," Time & Society, Special Issue: The Social Life of Time, 29, no. 2 (May 2020): 297-317. 

Michelle Caswell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the co-founder of the South Asian American Digital Archive.

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