Misc.

Afterthoughts is a discussion series from The Point where our editors talk to writers and readers about new issues of the magazine. On this episode, Rachel, Jon and Joey are joined by Michelle Taylor and Daniel Silver to discuss their essays in issue 24.

Essays discussed in this episode:
“The Logic of the Like” by Daniel Silver: https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/the-logic-of-the-like/
“No One Is Talking About This” by Michelle Taylor: https://thepointmag.com/criticism/no-one-is-talking-about-this/

Subscribe to The Point to read this issue and more: http://thepointmag.com/subscribe

Afterthoughts - Issue 24

Season 2 Episode 3 of Cambridge PhDcasts with PhDcaster Andy Wimbush.

Andy Wimbush is a third year PhD candidate in English at Darwin College researching Samuel Beckett's enduring interest in quietism as a personal solution and artistic inspiration.

For further information and related links please see http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/gallery/video/andy-wimbush-beckett-and-quietism.

The Cambridge PhDcasts are presented by John Gallagher and produced by Richard Blakemore and Ruth Rushworth with thanks to CRASSH.

Andy Wimbush: Samuel Beckett and Quietism

Der Historiker und Autor Pankaj Mishra stammt aus dem Norden Indiens und ist für seine kritischen Analysen unserer Gesellschaft bekannt. Der Schrifsteller Nadeem Aslam wurde in Pakistan geboren und lebt heute in seiner neuen Heimat England. Beide wurden mehrfach für ihre literarischen Werke und essayistischen Veröffentlichungen ausgezeichnet. Im Gespräch mit der Journalistin und Autorin Charlotte Wiedemann gaben sie am 12. September 2014 einen tiefen Einblick in die Entwicklung Asiens und reflektieren vor diesem Hintergrund die Entwicklung des Westens und Europas.


Über die Autoren:

Pankaj Mishra wurde 1969 in der nordindischen Stadt Jhansi geboren. Er studierte Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Universität von Allahabad und Englische Literatur an der Jawaharlal-Nehru-Universität in Delhi. Anschließend verfasste er Rezensionen für Zeitungen, später Essays, Kritiken und Kolumnen für amerikanische und britische Publikationen (u. a. The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s, The New Yorker).

Nachdem er in dem Band "Temptations of the West" (2006; dt. "Lockruf des Westens", 2011) die Paradoxien westlicher Modernisierungstendenzen in Süd- und Zentralasien offengelegt hat, untersucht er in der gefeierten, zwei Jahrhunderte umspannenden Abhandlung "From the Ruins of Empire. The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia" (2012; dt. "Aus den Ruinen des Empires", 2013) die binäre Differenzierung zwischen Ost und West aus asiatischer Sicht anhand der Biografien von Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Liang Qichao und Rabindranath Tagore. 2013 wurde er dafür mit dem Crossword Book Award in der Kategorie Sachbuch und 2014 mit dem Leipziger Buchpreis zur europäischen Verständigung ausgezeichnet.

Nadeem Aslam wurde 1966 in der pakistanischen Metropole Gujranwala geboren. Während des Regimes von Generals Zia-ul-Haq musste die Familie, als er 14Jahre alt war, aufgrund der politischen Überzeugungen des Vaters nach England emigrieren. An der University of Manchester studierte er mehrere Semester Biochemie sowie Literaturwissenschaft, gab das Studium allerdings zugunsten seiner Schriftstellerkarriere auf.

Aslams jüngstes Werk "The Blind Man’s Garden" (2013; dt. "Der Garten des Blinden", 2014) greift die punjabische Tragödie "Heer Ranjha" auf und lässt sie neu interpretiert vor dem Hintergrund des Kriegs gegen den Terror in die Handlung einfließen. Zeitlos und aktuell zugleich mäandert der Erzählstrom zwischen den Charakteren in der Grenzregion von Pakistan und Afghanistan. In Rezensionen als ausgereiftestes Werk Aslams gefeiert, wurde der Roman für die Shortlist des DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2014 nominiert.

Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

Südasiatische Perspektiven auf den Westen: Pankaj Mishra und Nadeem Aslam

Speaker(s): Professor Judith Butler | Recent debates about human shields in the summer bombardment of Gaza raised the question of how the unarmed human form comes to be regarded as a military instrument. The lecture will consider how the perception of racialized bodies as threatening instruments informs both the public debates on the use of children as human shields in Gaza and the numerous figures of unarmed Black men and women in US cities who are gunned down either because they seem to be reaching for weapons or because their gestures, including their standing still, are regarded as weapons. In the context of the increasing militarization of police forces tasked with containing or eliminating social protest against social and economic inequality, how is racial perception both built and ratified through recasting the human form as threatening instrument?  To what extent does the racialized structure of the visual field become instrumental to justifying the unjustifiable? Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as Founding Director. She received her PhD. in Philosophy from Yale University in 1984 on the French Reception of Hegel. She is the author of Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France (Columbia University Press, 1987), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge, 1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (Routledge, 1993), The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection (Stanford University Press, 1997), Excitable Speech (Routledge, 1997), Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (Columbia University Press, 2000), Precarious Life: Powers of Violence and Mourning (2004); Undoing Gender (2004), Who Sings the Nation-State?: Language, Politics, Belonging (with Gayatri Spivak in 2008), Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009), and Is Critique Secular? (co-written with Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, and Saba Mahmood, 2009). Her most recent books include: Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012) and Dispossessions: The Performative in the Political (2013), co-authored with Athena Athanasiou, and Sois Mon Corps (2011), co-authored with Catherine Malabou. She is also active in gender and sexual politics and human rights, anti-war politics, and serves on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace. She was recently the recipient of the Andrew Mellon Award for Distinguished Academic Achievement in the Humanities (2009-13). She received the Adorno Prize from the City of Frankfurt (2012) in honor of her contributions to feminist and moral philosophy as well as the Brudner Prize from Yale University for lifetime achievement in gay and lesbian studies. She is as well the past recipient of several fellowships including Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Ford, American Council of Learned Societies, and was Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and at the College des Hautes Etudes in Paris. She has received honorary degrees from Université Bordeaux-III, Université Paris-VII, Grinnell College, McGill University and University of St. Andrews. In 2013, she was awarded the diploma of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Cultural Ministry. LSE Law (@lselaw) is an integral part of the School's mission, plays a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world.

Human Shield [Audio]

Voice: Barry Ward
Electronic Sound: Robin Warren
Producer: Michael Garrad

Entry to KCL's Responses to Modernism competition 2015. 

This recording is interested modernism's concept of making it new and conversely how outmoded techniques can evoke the futuristic and etherial. A squeaking drawer is the source for the electronic sound, recorded and manipulated on ancient quarter-inch tape machines, extracting hidden sound. The reading is monotone, breathless and the digital recording eliminates dynamic with harsh sibilance, distortion and extreme compression.

Beckett's 1957 radio play All That Fall is a landmark in British electronic music, as the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's first commission. Beckett was fascinated with a (then state-of-the-art) reel-to-reel tape recording of his novel Molloy, consulting a technical manual in writing Krapp's Last Tape.

In the selection from How It Is, the narrator, static in an abstract land of mud, has a lucid moment, reminiscing of 'life above' with his wife, whose death torments him. The piece crosses futures and pasts, warmth and harshness, and in its form exists out of body, place and time.

How it is by Samuel Beckett (pp.64-67)

Is there such a thing as a conservative intellectual? In the inaugural episode of Rather Be Reading, The Point Magazine podcast, we discuss  the "What Happened to the Public Intellectual?" panel that we attended during the Brooklyn Book Festival and why there is resistance to the notion that conservative intellectuals exist. Plus, a "Charitable Reading" segment on why lefties despise David Brooks (featuring famous Brooks hater Jake Bittle) and a bit where we check in with Jon's mom.

Editors: Jon Baskin, Anastasia Berg & Rachel Wiseman
Guests: Jake Bittle, Judy Wise

Rather Be Reading, Episode 1: Conservative Intellectuals

On Episode 2 of Rather Be Reading, The Point podcast, we discuss the #MeToo social media campaign, shitty media men, and moral education with Becca Rothfeld and Jennifer Frey (00:54). For Charitable Reading, Jon Baskin talks to literary critic Nicholas Dames about Franco Moretti and the so-called "digital humanities bust" (27:22). Plus, we call up comedian David Heti to get his opinion on Larry David's controversial SNL monologue—and hear his latest Holocaust jokes (44:17).

Editors: Jon Baskin, Anastasia Berg & Rachel Wiseman
Guests: Jennifer Frey, Becca Rothfeld, Nicholas Dames, David Heti

Relevant Sources:
- "The Fratty Wolf in Your Grandmother's Clothing" by Becca Rothfeld, in the Baffler. thebaffler.com/latest/fratty-wolf
- "Can Feminist Scholarship Stop Sexism?" by Becca Rothfeld, in the Chronicle of Higher Education. www.chronicle.com/article/Can-Femi…ship-Stop/240428
- "The Digital Humanities Bust" by Timothy Brennan, in the Chronicle Review. www.chronicle.com/article/The-Digi…ties-Bust/241424
- "Letter on the New Humanities" by the Editors, in The Point. thepointmag.com/2014/criticism/the-new-humanities
- "System Reboot" by Justin Evans, in The Point. thepointmag.com/2016/criticism/system-reboot
- "Things Don't Make Sense" by Sheila Heti & David Heti, in The Point. https://thepointmag.com/2017/dialogue/things-dont-make-sense-conversation-comedy-sheila-heti-david-heti

Rather Be Reading, Episode 2: Sex Pests

William Faulkner Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

On Episode 3 of Rather Be Reading, Anastasia Berg interviews Andrea Long Chu about her debut essay in n+1 “On Liking Women” and the problem with trying to get our desires to conform to our political principles (1:03). Then Rachel Rosenfelt, the founding editor of the New Inquiry and new publisher of the New Republic, joins us to talk about the history of Occupy at leftist magazines and the future of the New Republic (26:24). Finally, we call up Jon’s mom for her two cents on Doris Lessing, sexist bosses and Bernie bros (36:59).

Editors: Jon Baskin, Anastasia Berg & Rachel Wiseman
 Guests: Andrea Long Chu, Rachel Rosenfelt & Judy Wise

Relevant Sources: 
- “On Liking Women” by Andrea Long Chu in n+1: 
nplusonemag.com/issue-30/essays/on-liking-women/
 - “Does Anyone Have the Right to Sex?” by Amia Srinivasan in the LRB:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n06/amia-srinivasan/does-anyone-have-the-right-to-sex
 - “Lesbianism or Feminism: Synonyms or Contradictions?” by Robin Morgan, 1973 West Coast Lesbian Conference address:
http://www.onearchives.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Lesbianism-and-Feminism-Synonyms-or-Contradictions-by-Robin-Morgan-April-14-1973.pdf
 - “Tired of Winning” by Jon Baskin in The Point: thepointmag.com/2018/politics/tired-of-winning
 - “Occupy a Bank” by Sarah Leonard in the New Inquiry: 
thenewinquiry.com/occupy-a-bank/ 
- “Switching Off” by Rachel Wiseman in The Point: thepointmag.com/2018/examined-life/switching-off 
- “Leaving Herland” by Nora Caplan-Bricker in The Point: thepointmag.com/2018/politics/leaving-herland

+ the rest of our new intellectuals symposium:
https://thepointmag.com/point_symposia/what-are-intellectuals-for

Rather Be Reading, Episode 3: Bad Desires

The Point is a magazine founded on the suspicion that modern life is worth examining. www.thepointmag.com

Rather Be Reading, Episode 3: Bad Desires

The Point Magazine

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