Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
Michel Foucault: A Collection of Available Texts
Provided below are the various Foucault texts — including the complete lectures at the College de France — accumulated over the past 2 1/2 months here made freely available to all seekers of knowledge:
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences
The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction
The History of Sexuality, Volume II: The Use of Pleasure
The History of Sexuality, Volume III: The Care of the Self
Psychiatric Power (Lectures at the College de France: 1973-1974)
Abnormal (Lectures at the College de France: 1974-1975)
Society Must Be Defended (Lectures at the College de France: 1975-1976)
Security, Territory, Population (Lectures at the College de France: 1977-1978)
The Birth of Biopolitics (Lectures at the College de France: 1978-1979)
The Hermeneutics of the Subject (Lectures at the College de France: 1981-1982)
The Government of Self and Others (Lectures at the College de France: 1982-1983)
The Courage of Truth (Lectures at the College de France: 1983-1984)
Foucault in an Age of Terror: Essays on Biopolitics and the Defence of Society
Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings
The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature
Politics, Philosophy, Culture — Interviews and Other Writings: 1977-1984
Selected from the AbeBooks’ Weird Book Room: Donald I. Roger’s Teach Your Wife to be a Widow
Won’t this give her even more of an incentive to murder your patronizing ass?
Sarah Diemer (via cassket)
This is why we write stories with queer characters. We didn’t grow up with any.
(via fattiesinlove)
This, this, this, this, THIS.
(via deadladyofclowntown)Every once in a while I like to share books with Tumblr. This time I bring several books on the politics of imperialism, Orientalism and Empire narrative(s) experienced by post-colonial nations in the Middle East and South Asia as well as Africa. Five writers from five different places with excellent thoughts for you to read and share: (From left) Eqbal Ahmed from Pakistan, Edward Said from Palestine, Hamid Dabashi from Iran, Vijay Prashad from India, Aimé Fernand David Césaire (Frantz Fanon’s teacher!) from Martinique.
Click on the links in order to download the books:
- Confronting Empire - Eqbal Ahmed.
- Culture and Imperialism - Edward Said.
- Brown Skin, White Masks - Hamid Dabashi.
- The Darker Nations A Peoples History of the Third World - Vijay Prashad.
- Discourse on Colonialism - Aimé Fernand David Césaire.
Have fun learning (and dismantling hegemony).
A new vending machine has been released which can print any book within minutes.
The Espresso Book Machine has access to 500,000 different books - the same as 23.6 miles of shelf space - and can even churn out a fresh copy of Crime and Punishment in just nine minutes.
Pages are printed at a rate of over 100 per minute and are then pressed, glued and cut to produce a pristine book.
Users simply pick the book they would like on a screen and wait for it to be printed … it certainly is a novel way of getting a new book.
As a feminist who enjoys a lot of genres that aren’t usually lady-friendly, it always irks me when people claim they have strong, feminist characters in their stories, but in reality they’re neither of those things. Sometimes a character’s qualities are debatable, but I wanted to make a list of things that don’t necessarily make a strong female character:
1) She is a woman/girl. Okay, so you created a female character. That’s a good start. But even Bella Swan from Twilight is a woman and I wouldn’t call her a good representation of feminism and modern womanhood. Is your character reflective of real women, or is she part of a stereotype? Do you even know the kinds of problems real women face? Does she face appropriate obstacles?
2) She can kill people, ergo she is a strong woman. Being a strong woman does not necessarily mean she can bash in skulls or toss people across the room. It means that she is psychologically, emotionally, and sometime physically well developed and can hold her own against opponents. Yes, it is refreshing to see female characters that are not physically wimpy and dependent, but if her character isn’t fully fleshed out, she’s just a tool. Try to make your female characters as complex and realistic in the story as possible.
3) She is a feminist. Okay, who says she’s a feminist? You, or her actions? Being a feminist is more than just saying “I’m a feminist.” Does she illuminate women’s issues during her story arc? Does she legitimately stand for all women’s rights, or just a stereotype of women’s rights (i.e. fauxminism)? Don’t make a straw feminist (see Feminist Frequency’s video on the Straw Feminist).
4) She doesn’t act like other women. Okay, this is really common in genres like fantasy and scifi, and it’s really problematic. First, you are assuming that all women act in a certain manner, which is not the case. Second, this most likely means that you are not writing a female character, you are writing a male character with boobs. This isn’t necessarily a good representation of womanhood. The point of avoiding stereotypes and cliches when writing for a female character is not to eliminate femininity and womanhood, but instead to adopt a more enlightened and diverse perspective on womanhood. Many things factor into a woman’s life that make her unique from other women. You have to consider things like class, race, culture, situation, history, and other perspectives that you design for her. This is also why it’s important to have multiple women in any story, because if you write five very diverse male characters but only one female character, it is easy to assume from the audience’s perspective that all women behave as that one female character does, and this is part of why sexism is so prevalent in media today.
5) She is the main character. Again, this kind of goes back to point #1. It is great to have women in main roles instead as just a sidekick or love interest, but if she isn’t a well developed, strong, and complex character, there’s really no point for her to even exist, other than to maybe be eye candy or a foil for a scenario.
I could go on and on and on forever and ever about sexism in media, mostly in fantasy, scifi, and horror (which are my favorite genres), but that would take way too long and I have to make a taco pizza (that’s a pizza with taco ingredients for toppings, if you were wondering). If you’re interested in this sort of stuff like I am, then check out Feminist Frequency. They offer great videos on a variety of topics concerning women in media. These were mostly just some tips I wanted to offer for young writers, film makers, game designers, comic artists, and other crafters of media about handling women in media. If people like this post, I may consider doing one for queer people, too…
Black History eBook Pack 3: Ivan Van Sertima
- Blacks-in-Science-Ancient-and-Modern
- Golden-Age-of-The-Moor
- They Came Before Columbus
- Early America Revisited
- Black-Women-in-Antiquity
- African Prescence in Early Europe
- African Prescence in Early Asia
- Eygpt Revisited
- Great-Black-Leaders-Ancient-and Modern
- Great African Thinkers Volume I: Cheikh Anta Diop
- Download Link Black History eBook Pack 3 part 1
Download Link Black History eBook Pack 3 part 2It is compressed in a RAR file. If on a mac use Zipeg to uncompress the file. If on Windows you use WinRAR. All the files in the folder are pdf’s. You can view on your laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native American authors
“Tuscon schools champion science fiction as basis for new public schools curriculum”
Myles na gCopaleen’s first Cruiskeen Lawn column (originally all in Irish) on October 4th, 1940, as quoted in Taaffe, p. 96
As Taaffe describes it, this was a parody of the Irish-language “revival’s limited image of the language”, but also obviously a riff or commentary on wartime journalism (it’s pretty hilarious that he glossed ‘Molotov bread-basket’, a Russian aerial dispersal bomb, as Manna Rúiseach, using a word that is of course not Irish, but familiar to a rigorously Christian population, that in fact explains more than does the original idiom). There was also a political subtext to the satire:
“The revivalist argument that the Irish language was a bastion of purity and nationhood which would protect the Irish people from the depravity of modern European or American culture had always been farcical. Now that Ireland’s isolation really had been achieved, not by linguistic fiat but by political machinations in wartime, the aspiration was doubly ironic. After all, the revivalist ambition itself was a product of European romanticism, and […] there was an ominous similarity between the arguments of exclusivist nationalists and the tenor of contemporary European politics.”
The “hackneyed Irish phrases”, as noted in the reference, “betray the revival’s emphasis on classical bardic poetry [dán díreach, a particular metre/type of poetry] and the folk Irish proverbs [sean-fhocla, or literally ‘old words’] and ‘common speech’ (lit. ‘the speech of the people’) [caint na ndaoine].”
What’s more interesting to me, however, is the fact that béarla is the Irish word for ‘dialect’ or speech, as well as, capitalised, the English language (both my foclóir póca and Dinneen agree on this). ‘English’ as describing a person or place is, of course, Sasánach, presumably derived in a rather racialised manner from ‘Saxon’ - much like the Irish are referred to as Gaels both in their own language and, traditionally, as Béarla. But it means that when coming to describing the greatest linguistic and cultural imposition* on Gaelic life, it seems we didn’t even bother to come up with a new word - it’s just (other) speech. Is that post-colonial [poco] or what?
*Dinneen also gives béarla Críort, literally ‘Christ language’, as Latin; my more modern pocket dictionary gives the much less inspiring, but possibly more historically accurate, Laidin**.
**bearlachas (uncapitalised), which I suppose directly translates to language-ness, is the Irish for ‘anglicism’, or more generally speech which translates directly between English and Irish without regard for proper grammar, syntax or idiom.
(via hardcorefornerds)Free eBooks | History Is A Weapon
A site with free ebooks (and readable on mobiles too, it seems) on a long history of radical activism within the United States (and also internationally). From their Starter page:
If you aren’t dealing with a particular question, feel free to work your way through all the starter essays and head back to the issues that stirred you the most. Here we go:
- What is this America? Three books by authors trying to redefine what America is, the horror and the potential. We’re a little biased, but Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is a fine beginning.
- Learning To Surrender The role of education: How does a system teach us about itself? Malcolm X describes his education and its effects on him in this excerpt from “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”
- The Long Chain These essays tackle the relationships between the economy, police, prison, and slavery. A good starting point is Christian Parenti’s talk based on his book “Lockdown America”
- Voices From The Empire People all over the world have identified what the American system means for them and what they have to do. The next section identifies how this is a world system and how the world has responded. Walter Rodney addresses the relationship between a Black American Prisoner and the international struggle in his short essay George Jackson: Black Revolutionary.
- Looking Inward There comes a moment when those inside the core examine the relationship to the colonized. Here, we examine those questions, starting with Bartoleme de Las Casas in his Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies.
- Raising Our Voices Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and abolitionist, was asked to give a Fourth of July speech while slavery still existed. His fiery talk is what this section is about: People within America recognizing that the American promises ring hollow.
- Against The War Machine Americans speaking and acting out against war is the next subject. Don Mitchell got a chance to speak to the bureaucrats of the military and talked about Americans as people of the world living under the same empire.
- Repression James Madison outlined what was needed to keep Americans from enjoying the fruits of democracy too much. Written over two hundred years ago, his essay, Federalist 10, identifies ways to control people that were impossible then.
- From Resistance to Revolution If you’ve read through all of this, you’ll probably be itching about what is to be done. There are numerous examples and one excellent one isSocialist Feminism: A Strategy for the Women’s Movement. It is long, but readable and in-depth.
- Appendix A: Maps Everybody loves maps!
Feminist texts written by women of color
This list is still a work in progress, but I really wanted to get it posted. I have either read parts of/all of the texts below or they have been recommended to me. Please reblog and add your own suggestions to the list. Each time someone adds something new, I’ll go back to this original post and make sure to include them. Thanks and enjoy!
Books
- Women, Race, and Class by Angela Davis
- Women Culture and Politics by Angela Davis
- Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
- Borderlands/La frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua
- Aint I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
- Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks
- Feminist Theory from Margin to Center by bell hooks
- Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
- Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity by Chandra Talpade Mohanty
- Medicine Stories by Aurora Levins Morales
- Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home by Anita Hill
- Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
- Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide by Andrea Smith
Anthologies
- Companeras: Latina Lesbians by Juanita Ramos and the Lesbian History Project
- Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism edited by Daisy Hernandez
- This Bridge Called My Back edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa
- this bridge we call home: radical visions for transformation edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating
- Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color edited by Gloria Anzaldúa
- Women Writing Resistance: Essays from Latin America and the Caribbean edited by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez
- Unequal Sisters edited by Ellen DuBois and Vicki Ruiz
- The Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology
Essays
- “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” by Adrienne Rich
- “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” by Kimberle Crenshaw
- The Combahee River Collective Statement
Other authors and poets you should know
- Maya Angelou
- Toni Morrison
- Alice Walker
- Nawaal El Sadaawi
- Mary Crow Dog
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Arundhati Roy
- Zadie Smith
- Dorothy Roberts
- Nikki Giovanni
Reblogging for future reference.
- At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance - a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle L. McGuire
y’all i’m reading a really gr8 book. you should probably check this shit out. it tells the stories of the black womyn activists that are generally reduced to footnotes in mainstream historical accounts of the modern civil rights movement. i was a little offput to find out that the author is a white womyn (our stories are getting told the same way they always do, i suppose), but it’s still super interesting and informative. i would love to know if something like this has been written by black womyn writers!
(via cupcakesnotbombs)
“I wanted to suggest by this that the entire region and the way its parts interact is full of complexities and contradictions. So that Nelson Mandela is not a saint, but a skiving , jazz-freak student radical, lately given to wearing stupid shirts; so that Thabo Mbeki did not fail by simply lack of efforts in his ‘quiet diplomacy’ with Robert Mugabe, but was driven by complex and highly learned patterns of reasoning; so that Robert Mugabe himself did not become a tyrant because of a love of tyranny, but lost himself in the contradictions of his convictions until his stubborness became malignant and finally malevolent; so that Jacob Zuma did not gain the leadership of the ANC by sheer vulgar populism , but by harnessing an unlikely allience of brilliant political and business minds who helped him for the sake of their revenge. The ambition of this book is to endow what the Western media has turned into black caricatures with the same sort of life we would automatically assume was inherent in Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George Bush, Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy. It was also to repay some debt to a region that helped form me”
# Earlier today , I bought this book. I chuckled when I read these sentences of the book’s introduction but I can already tell that this is going to be good read.
