Radical Reading Group: Call (2004)

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Matt Peterson

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Jan 20, 2013, 6:17:24 PM1/20/13
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Some folks are getting together Tuesday to discuss the text Call (http://www.bloom0101.org/call.pdf), published anonymously in France in 2004, and thought to be associated with those who wrote Tiqqun (1999&2001) and The Coming Insurrection (2007). We'll be meeting at 7pm at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street, New York, NY 10014. Free and open to all.

It's part of an ongoing reading group that's been meeting weekly, give or take, since December 2010. We just finished a month-long focus on Italy's Years of Lead (1968-1979), and in the past have looked at notions of strike (general/wildcat/human/gender), (de-)subjectivation, urban rebellions, collapse in Argentina and Greece, etc. The texts and meetings are decided by the participants of the group on a session-to-session basis. Past reading lists are here:

As we wrote initially: It is not expected that we like or agree with the texts selected. They serve only as a means to facilitate discussion towards the sharpening of our analyses and understanding.

(We will not assume or judge anything about where you may or may not have studied; what you may or may not have read; what you may or may not have written; who you may or may not know, etc.)

Matt

On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 2:01 AM, Matt Peterson <mjj...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi friends,

Some folks are starting a new reading group: http://nyc.thepublicschool.org/class/3880 Click "I'm interested" on the right-hand side, and then you can post/get messages to/from everyone else participating.

The next meeting will be Wednesday at 7PM, space to be determined, and we'll talk about Raoul Vaneigem's BOOK OF PLEASURES from 1979, which is about 55 pages: http://www.mediafire.com/?5nadcd1f6d0dfk9  All the other texts, dates, and venues will be decided meeting-to-meeting by whoever shows up.

Please forward to whoever else might be interested.

M

Our Lives Are Not Negotiable: A Reading Group

We’d like to propose a new ongoing reading group which would collectively study anarchism, autonomism, biopolitics, communism, insurrectionism, nihilism, structuralism, our relationship to capital and the state, and other forms of exchange and authority.

We will think about these traditions in the context of the ongoing Occupy movement, which for many began here in New York on September 17th with the occupation of Zuccotti Park, before spreading both nationally and internationally. We will also take into account the movements which earlier in 2011 preceded it: in Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, and Greece.

These recent lived histories have forced many of us to re-think our understandings of democracy, organizing, and struggle, as we pursue ongoing political intervention among an ever-evolving social movement.

The texts and meetings will be decided by the participants of the group on a session-to-session basis. It is open to all who wish to engage with the above.

Some of the initial authors we've discussed looking at include Giorgio Agamben, Mikhail Bakhtin, Lauren Berlant, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Jacques Camatte, Cornelius Castoriadis, Guy Debord, Michel Foucault, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jan Patočka, Tiziana Terranova, Mario Tronti, Raoul Vaneigem, Paolo Virno, and many others.

This group comes out of an earlier Public School reading group, “Anti-State Communism”: http://nyc.thepublicschool.org/note/3053  which a number of us took part in. It met 32 times in the 10 months between December 2010 and September 2011, and looked at texts by, among others, Alain Badiou, Franco Berardi, Alfredo M. Bonanno, Conspiracy Cells of Fire, Gilles Dauve, Jacques Derrida, Endnotes, Todd May, Saul Newman, Nina Power, Jacques Ranciere, Theorie Communiste, and Tiqqun.

It is not expected that we like or agree with the texts selected. They serve only as a means to facilitate discussion towards the sharpening of our analyses and understanding.

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