Author Archives: david

Going back to Said after the Election

I found this a while ago, but with everything said and done in the aftermath of this crazy election, maybe this is passage will come across as funny rather than just plain scary. This is a passage of an article written by Andy McCarthy, contributing editor of the Nation Review, exposing Obama’s ties to “Rashid Khalidi – former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat” or, according to the liberal-leaning Wikipedia, “an American historian of the Middle East, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.” Here’s a passage from McCarthy’s piece:

“At the time Khalidi, a PLO adviser turned University of Chicago professor, was headed east to Columbia. There he would take over the University’s Middle East-studies program (which he has since maintained as a bubbling cauldron of anti-Semitism) and assume the professorship endowed in honor of Edward Sayyid, another notorious terror apologist.”

I wonder if McCarthy has ever read Said, or if he just uses the power of imagination (albeit an racist imagination) to construct the objective narrative of men with frightening, non-anglo names.

Hollywould this Saturday – Extra Seats Available

Just copied and pasted the e-mail from my inbox. If you want to go (I can’t promise if it will be good, but I’m going), shoot Claire Bridge a response at  cbridge@scrippscollege.edu. Sweet.

Dear Bus-Trip Participants –  

The L.A. Freewaves “Hollywould” bus trip is this Saturday, October
11.  REMINDER:  Be at 10th and Columbia (in front of Balch Auditorium)
at 11:45 a.m. – bus will leave at 12 noon.  The bus will return at
approximately 7:00 p.m.

WE HAVE A FEW EXTRA SEATS!  Please e-mail me a.s.a.p. if you’d like to
bring a friend.  Reservations for extra seats on a first-come,
first-served basis.

Thanks,
Claire Bridge

***********************************************************
The Scripps Humanities Institute will sponsor a FREE bus tour to L.A.
Freewaves “Hollywould”
Saturday, October 11
Bus will leave at 10 am and return at approximately 5pm
Meeting spot: 10th & Columbia, next to Balch Auditorium
All are welcome; RSVP to Claire Bridge (cbridge@scrippscollege.edu)

The 2008 Freewaves festival, entitled “HollyWould,” will fuse media
arts and Hollywood Boulevard from October 9-13, 2008. The festival will
transform the iconic boulevard into a massive, multi-faceted screening
room for experimental videos, films and media art from every continent.
Selected works will be projected onto buildings, displayed on LCD
screens inside stores and installed in storefront windows. The festival
will also feature screenings at American Cinematheque, sidewalk sound
installations, and a film and musical event at the Musicians Institute,
as well as portals connected to the festival’s unique web-based content.
“HollyWould,” the theme for this year’s festival, is a playful and
evocative turn on Hollywood, both as an international symbol of the
American entertainment industry and as a Los Angeles neighborhood very
much in flux.

fmi about the program:  http://www.freewaves.org/hollywould/release1.pdf

fmi about the bus tour:  cbridge@scrippscollege.edu  / x18326

The Politics of Post-structuralism

First off, let me apologize for the lateness of this post. I hope this didn’t screw with anyone’s schedule or cause any general sense of unease.

Both essays by Eagleton and Said seem to suggest a material quality of a text, questioning the binary relation of speech to writing. According to Eagleton, the text has been treated as the shadow of the spoken word since Plato, considered in Western thought as a tool to approximate the presence of experience. In response to the structuralists who had constructed scientific methods of interpretation based on a model of representation,  E and S attempt to unground the referents that stand before them (e.g. God or Truth), claiming that a fiction’s will can be felt directly in the creation of its own contexts. To these authors, there is something deeply political at work in a writing. With this in mind, how do E and S constitute meaning as a system of power relations?