For my Technoculture students, this is what we will be discussing on Monday: Look at the New York Times report from 2004 of Agamben’s cancellation of a US visit in protest at the policy of fingerprinting arriving visitors and employees from other countries. Malcolm Bull discussed this refusal in the context of his book State of Exception in a London Review of Books article, the text of which is available here. His open letter “No to Political Tattoing”, first published in Le Monde (11 Jan 2004), explains his reasons for refusing to travel to the USA.
Slavoj Zizek, “Knight of the Living Dead”, New York Times op-ed critiquing the normalization of torture in US politics (March 2007), referencing Agamben.
Hynes, Sharpe and Fagan. “Laughing with the Yes Men,” Continuum 21, no 1, March 2007 (Informaworld access to the article here – use SwetsWise for access via U. of Greenwich library service).
Another fine documentary from PBS’s Frontline series came to my attention: Growing up Online, broadcast 22 January 2008. I don’t know how, just yet, but I’ll have to make room in some of my classes to show at least some of the segments.
One good thing about this documentary is that it attempts to keep the hysterical “omigod, your kids are doing whatever they want online” attitude in check long enough to point out that socializing online is not a passing fad – it’s now part of the everyday media environment.
Watch the full programme and explore additional materials here.
For my Technoculture students, here are some links to illustrate what we’ve been talking about for the past few weeks – interfaces, virtual worlds, and what exactly people buy and sell in Second Life…
