This paper reimagines writing center labor’s place within the university’s production of knowledg... more This paper reimagines writing center labor’s place within the university’s production of knowledge after neoliberalism. This positioning of writing center labor reveals parallels and affinities with the “feminized” characteristics of service sector labor, a type of work which has proliferated after deindustrialization. While I explore dimensions of writing center work that this positioning reveals, important limits to these parallels emerge, and within and beyond these descriptive limits I advocate redefinitions of writing center labor. Accordingly, I assert that this work escapes economic measure while embodying an ethos that is antithetical to the neoliberal imaginary’s individualist assumptions. The constantly shifting, emergent identities of students and tutors, alongside the writing center’s activation of the feminist care ethic through social production, are what characterize this challenge to forces shaping the university in the context of neoliberalism.
Situations: a Journal of the Radical Imagination , 2019
GREGOR SAMSA IN THE SOVEREIGN DOUBLE BIND
Many analyses of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis proceed ... more GREGOR SAMSA IN THE SOVEREIGN DOUBLE BIND Many analyses of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis proceed by treating key moments in the larger narrative as self-contained and symbolic of the modernist subject's powerlessness, solitude and futility and the apparent meaninglessness that these convey. Abundant evidence exists for such a reading, not least of which the tragic and increasingly isolated inner monologues Kafka composes. While any number of such scenes are in themselves poignant comments on Gregor's isolation and psychological torment, examining Gregor's relationships with the deputy director of the company for which he works, and with his family, will instead reveal a continuous and consistent theme of psychological, economic and physical abuse of Gregor. The scenes that best demonstrate this lend themselves well to a more political reading of the text, rife with meaning for, and resonance with, our present historical moment. Subject to the will of his father and that of the deputy director, Gregor becomes victim to the decisions these characters make regarding his destiny, decisions which take on a sovereign character, in the sense of the term elaborated by Agamben in Homo Sacer. I submit that reading the Metamorphosis as a detailed depiction of the ways in which such power can be exerted in the economic as well as the juridical realms will also reveal the correlations between the treatment of Gregor-as-insect and the treatments of so-called vagabonds and vagrants in early capitalist England. His recollections of life as a worker, his transformation and the violence that this transformation invites upon his body, his subsequent imprisonment in his room and finally his death are all moments that resemble the consequences inflicted upon those who transgress and/or exit the coercive dynamic capital exerts on one's life and labor.
In this article, I explore the contrast between the recent
George Floyd protests and the lockdo... more In this article, I explore the contrast between the recent
George Floyd protests and the lockdowns immediately prior by
situating these rebellions in the context of Foucault’s disciplinary
society and subsequent scholarship on biopolitical management. I
assert that the disciplinary mechanisms operative in finance/debt,
policing and epidemiological management of the virus share similar
epistemological assumptions stemming from liberal individualism.
The revolutionary character of these uprisings therefore stems from
their epistemological subversions of the predictable individual, and
this figure’s spatiotemporal situatedness, a construction that helps
power make claims on our collective future. The protests push us to
see beyond a strict Foucauldian reading of this moment to uncover
the metastatic status of identities in rebellion, which sustain resistance to disciplinary society’s epistemological foundations
This paper reimagines writing center labor's place within the university's production of knowledg... more This paper reimagines writing center labor's place within the university's production of knowledge after neoliberalism. This positioning of writing center labor reveals parallels and affinities with the "feminized" characteristics of service sector labor, a type of work which has proliferated after deindustrialization. While I explore dimensions of writing center work that this positioning reveals, important limits to these parallels emerge, and within and beyond these descriptive limits I advocate redefinitions of writing center labor. Accordingly, I assert that this work escapes economic measure while embodying an ethos that is antithetical to the neoliberal imaginary's individualist assumptions. The constantly shifting, emergent identities of students and tutors, alongside the writing center's activation of the feminist care ethic through social production, are what characterize this challenge to forces shaping the university in the context of neoliberalism. Abstract Keywords Writing Centers | Neoliberalism | Service Sector | Affective Labor | Knowledge Production
For the Situations collective,
Michael Pelias
Peter Bratsis
Bruno Gullì
Josh Kolbo
Kristin Lawler... more For the Situations collective, Michael Pelias Peter Bratsis Bruno Gullì Josh Kolbo Kristin Lawler Jeremy Glick Arto Artinian Tony Iantosca Dominic Wetzel
Manifesto co-authored by the editorial collective of the Institute for the Radical Imagination: M... more Manifesto co-authored by the editorial collective of the Institute for the Radical Imagination: Michael Pelias, Peter Bratsis, Bruno Gullì, Josh Kolbo, Kristin Lawler, Jeremy Glick, Arto Artinian, Tony Iantosca, Dominic Wetzel.
This paper reimagines writing center labor’s place within the university’s production of knowledg... more This paper reimagines writing center labor’s place within the university’s production of knowledge after neoliberalism. This positioning of writing center labor reveals parallels and affinities with the “feminized” characteristics of service sector labor, a type of work which has proliferated after deindustrialization. While I explore dimensions of writing center work that this positioning reveals, important limits to these parallels emerge, and within and beyond these descriptive limits I advocate redefinitions of writing center labor. Accordingly, I assert that this work escapes economic measure while embodying an ethos that is antithetical to the neoliberal imaginary’s individualist assumptions. The constantly shifting, emergent identities of students and tutors, alongside the writing center’s activation of the feminist care ethic through social production, are what characterize this challenge to forces shaping the university in the context of neoliberalism.
Situations: a Journal of the Radical Imagination , 2019
GREGOR SAMSA IN THE SOVEREIGN DOUBLE BIND
Many analyses of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis proceed ... more GREGOR SAMSA IN THE SOVEREIGN DOUBLE BIND Many analyses of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis proceed by treating key moments in the larger narrative as self-contained and symbolic of the modernist subject's powerlessness, solitude and futility and the apparent meaninglessness that these convey. Abundant evidence exists for such a reading, not least of which the tragic and increasingly isolated inner monologues Kafka composes. While any number of such scenes are in themselves poignant comments on Gregor's isolation and psychological torment, examining Gregor's relationships with the deputy director of the company for which he works, and with his family, will instead reveal a continuous and consistent theme of psychological, economic and physical abuse of Gregor. The scenes that best demonstrate this lend themselves well to a more political reading of the text, rife with meaning for, and resonance with, our present historical moment. Subject to the will of his father and that of the deputy director, Gregor becomes victim to the decisions these characters make regarding his destiny, decisions which take on a sovereign character, in the sense of the term elaborated by Agamben in Homo Sacer. I submit that reading the Metamorphosis as a detailed depiction of the ways in which such power can be exerted in the economic as well as the juridical realms will also reveal the correlations between the treatment of Gregor-as-insect and the treatments of so-called vagabonds and vagrants in early capitalist England. His recollections of life as a worker, his transformation and the violence that this transformation invites upon his body, his subsequent imprisonment in his room and finally his death are all moments that resemble the consequences inflicted upon those who transgress and/or exit the coercive dynamic capital exerts on one's life and labor.
In this article, I explore the contrast between the recent
George Floyd protests and the lockdo... more In this article, I explore the contrast between the recent
George Floyd protests and the lockdowns immediately prior by
situating these rebellions in the context of Foucault’s disciplinary
society and subsequent scholarship on biopolitical management. I
assert that the disciplinary mechanisms operative in finance/debt,
policing and epidemiological management of the virus share similar
epistemological assumptions stemming from liberal individualism.
The revolutionary character of these uprisings therefore stems from
their epistemological subversions of the predictable individual, and
this figure’s spatiotemporal situatedness, a construction that helps
power make claims on our collective future. The protests push us to
see beyond a strict Foucauldian reading of this moment to uncover
the metastatic status of identities in rebellion, which sustain resistance to disciplinary society’s epistemological foundations
This paper reimagines writing center labor's place within the university's production of knowledg... more This paper reimagines writing center labor's place within the university's production of knowledge after neoliberalism. This positioning of writing center labor reveals parallels and affinities with the "feminized" characteristics of service sector labor, a type of work which has proliferated after deindustrialization. While I explore dimensions of writing center work that this positioning reveals, important limits to these parallels emerge, and within and beyond these descriptive limits I advocate redefinitions of writing center labor. Accordingly, I assert that this work escapes economic measure while embodying an ethos that is antithetical to the neoliberal imaginary's individualist assumptions. The constantly shifting, emergent identities of students and tutors, alongside the writing center's activation of the feminist care ethic through social production, are what characterize this challenge to forces shaping the university in the context of neoliberalism. Abstract Keywords Writing Centers | Neoliberalism | Service Sector | Affective Labor | Knowledge Production
For the Situations collective,
Michael Pelias
Peter Bratsis
Bruno Gullì
Josh Kolbo
Kristin Lawler... more For the Situations collective, Michael Pelias Peter Bratsis Bruno Gullì Josh Kolbo Kristin Lawler Jeremy Glick Arto Artinian Tony Iantosca Dominic Wetzel
Manifesto co-authored by the editorial collective of the Institute for the Radical Imagination: M... more Manifesto co-authored by the editorial collective of the Institute for the Radical Imagination: Michael Pelias, Peter Bratsis, Bruno Gullì, Josh Kolbo, Kristin Lawler, Jeremy Glick, Arto Artinian, Tony Iantosca, Dominic Wetzel.
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Papers by Tony Iantosca
Many analyses of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis proceed by treating key moments in the larger narrative as self-contained and symbolic of the modernist subject's powerlessness, solitude and futility and the apparent meaninglessness that these convey. Abundant evidence exists for such a reading, not least of which the tragic and increasingly isolated inner monologues Kafka composes. While any number of such scenes are in themselves poignant comments on Gregor's isolation and psychological torment, examining Gregor's relationships with the deputy director of the company for which he works, and with his family, will instead reveal a continuous and consistent theme of psychological, economic and physical abuse of Gregor. The scenes that best demonstrate this lend themselves well to a more political reading of the text, rife with meaning for, and resonance with, our present historical moment. Subject to the will of his father and that of the deputy director, Gregor becomes victim to the decisions these characters make regarding his destiny, decisions which take on a sovereign character, in the sense of the term elaborated by Agamben in Homo Sacer. I submit that reading the Metamorphosis as a detailed depiction of the ways in which such power can be exerted in the economic as well as the juridical realms will also reveal the correlations between the treatment of Gregor-as-insect and the treatments of so-called vagabonds and vagrants in early capitalist England. His recollections of life as a worker, his transformation and the violence that this transformation invites upon his body, his subsequent imprisonment in his room and finally his death are all moments that resemble the consequences inflicted upon those who transgress and/or exit the coercive dynamic capital exerts on one's life and labor.
George Floyd protests and the lockdowns immediately prior by
situating these rebellions in the context of Foucault’s disciplinary
society and subsequent scholarship on biopolitical management. I
assert that the disciplinary mechanisms operative in finance/debt,
policing and epidemiological management of the virus share similar
epistemological assumptions stemming from liberal individualism.
The revolutionary character of these uprisings therefore stems from
their epistemological subversions of the predictable individual, and
this figure’s spatiotemporal situatedness, a construction that helps
power make claims on our collective future. The protests push us to
see beyond a strict Foucauldian reading of this moment to uncover
the metastatic status of identities in rebellion, which sustain resistance to disciplinary society’s epistemological foundations
Michael Pelias
Peter Bratsis
Bruno Gullì
Josh Kolbo
Kristin Lawler
Jeremy Glick
Arto Artinian
Tony Iantosca
Dominic Wetzel
Many analyses of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis proceed by treating key moments in the larger narrative as self-contained and symbolic of the modernist subject's powerlessness, solitude and futility and the apparent meaninglessness that these convey. Abundant evidence exists for such a reading, not least of which the tragic and increasingly isolated inner monologues Kafka composes. While any number of such scenes are in themselves poignant comments on Gregor's isolation and psychological torment, examining Gregor's relationships with the deputy director of the company for which he works, and with his family, will instead reveal a continuous and consistent theme of psychological, economic and physical abuse of Gregor. The scenes that best demonstrate this lend themselves well to a more political reading of the text, rife with meaning for, and resonance with, our present historical moment. Subject to the will of his father and that of the deputy director, Gregor becomes victim to the decisions these characters make regarding his destiny, decisions which take on a sovereign character, in the sense of the term elaborated by Agamben in Homo Sacer. I submit that reading the Metamorphosis as a detailed depiction of the ways in which such power can be exerted in the economic as well as the juridical realms will also reveal the correlations between the treatment of Gregor-as-insect and the treatments of so-called vagabonds and vagrants in early capitalist England. His recollections of life as a worker, his transformation and the violence that this transformation invites upon his body, his subsequent imprisonment in his room and finally his death are all moments that resemble the consequences inflicted upon those who transgress and/or exit the coercive dynamic capital exerts on one's life and labor.
George Floyd protests and the lockdowns immediately prior by
situating these rebellions in the context of Foucault’s disciplinary
society and subsequent scholarship on biopolitical management. I
assert that the disciplinary mechanisms operative in finance/debt,
policing and epidemiological management of the virus share similar
epistemological assumptions stemming from liberal individualism.
The revolutionary character of these uprisings therefore stems from
their epistemological subversions of the predictable individual, and
this figure’s spatiotemporal situatedness, a construction that helps
power make claims on our collective future. The protests push us to
see beyond a strict Foucauldian reading of this moment to uncover
the metastatic status of identities in rebellion, which sustain resistance to disciplinary society’s epistemological foundations
Michael Pelias
Peter Bratsis
Bruno Gullì
Josh Kolbo
Kristin Lawler
Jeremy Glick
Arto Artinian
Tony Iantosca
Dominic Wetzel