The Activist Polis: Topologies of Conflict in Indigenous Solidarity Activism

Interpersonal conflict poses a serious threat to social justice activism. In the context of indigenous solidarity activism in southern Arizona, conflicts are often born of the challenges accompanying differentials in social privilege due to differences in race and ethnicity relative to white supremacist settler colonialism. This paper examines activist collaboration between Tohono O'odham and non‐Native anarchist activists in southern Arizona, arguing that a topological activist polis is a useful lens through which we can better understand the roots of conflict in social justice activism. Non‐Native activists are often aware of the ways white supremacist settler colonial society privileges particular identities while marginalizing others. Nonetheless, settler and white privilege give rise to tensions which can be seen topologically through the very different relationships non‐Native and indigenous activists have to ongoing processes of white supremacy and to histories of the genocide of indigenous peoples.     

The Language of Postwar Intellectual Schmittianism

The article analyzes the work of Hanno Kesting, Reinhart Koselleck, Roman Schnur, and Nicolaus Sombart—four young followers of Carl Schmitt in postwar Germany. Their “intellectual Schmittianism” was less than a full commitment to Schmitt’s political positions, yet had more than an arbitrary similarity with them: it pertained to assumptions, categories, and modes of thought. Drawing on Pocock’s terminology, I identify a particular “language” of intellectual Schmittianism, introduce its key components, and analyze their interaction. I focus on six categories derived from Schmitt’s narrative of European political modernity: discrimination, historical parallels, secularization, global civil war, open/latent civil war, and category blurs. The analysis shows that these categories were interlinked argumentative devices rather than mere rhetoric and that they systematically upheld the postwar scholars’ arguments. While the Schmittian language enabled the young scholars to express their political skepticism without necessarily rejecting the newly adopted institutional forms, it also constrained their choices. Linguistic resources can always be used for novel purposes, yet the dense internal structure of the language of postwar intellectual Schmittianism hindered revaluation and selective utilization. Kesting excluded, the young scholars gradually grew critical of Schmitt to varying degrees, but they never directly confronted his problematic language.     

Tracing Imaginations of the State: The Spatial Consequences of Different State Concepts among Asylum Activist Organisations

Abstract: This paper examines the spatial consequences for activism of viewing the state through either a statist or post‐structural lens. It is argued that understanding the state in different ways produces very different spatial strategies among activists. Drawing upon detailed case studies of two asylum‐seeking activist organisations in the UK, the connections between imaginations of the state, spatial strategies towards institutionalised authority, and the pros and cons of these strategies for activism itself are examined. Through these cases, the paper emphasises the importance of everyday theories about the state not only for understanding what the state is, but also for understanding how relationships with the state are formed and points towards the constructive power of imaginations of the state in their own right.     

精神备忘录--颜一烟长篇自传体小说《盐丁儿》

颜一烟是中国现代坛上知名的作家,1928年开始创作学作品,早年在日本留学,抗日战争爆发后,在上海从事抗日救亡运动,后赴延安参加革命。《盐丁儿》是作家一部自传体长篇小说。本不仅对小说全进行了独有见解的评析,而且介绍了作的生平经历与小说主人公－－盐丁儿的关系。同时通过小说展示的革命与反革命背景环境的分析,以及学性、思想性的分析,阐述了小说所具有的社会深度和学深度,因本非常重视作家以数十年前的经历作为创作素材,故取名为“精神备忘录”。     

Intellectual Piracy

Book reviewed:
Doron S. Ben-Atar. Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. 304 pp. Illustrations. $38.00 (cloth).