so late, sorry folks.
on the poverty of student life

next week we’re reading chapters from the art of destruction, specifically “let’s destroy the privilege of the artist” (page 22), and “the art of destruction” (page 55). if you’d like to read more, birds also recommended “uncertain rebellion” (page 15), but 30 pages might be too much for some, so that will be the proverbial extra credit. There are definitely other fun things in the book, so the whole thing has been posted.

thanks to birds for being always on the ball with readings!

the rest of Now (ie chapters after the first two) see previous post for link…

we’re going directly to now, by the invisible committee, the first two chapters, and bypassing sahlins’s piece, which we have on informed authority is too referential to other theory, without footnotes, to be intelligible. so, now!

this coming week we’re reading this story from anarchistnews, by david graeber and some other anthro, how to change the course of human history

the following week (and it’s long, so you might want to get a head start on it) we’ll read this piece by sahlins

and the plan is that the following week we’ll read an excerpt from now, the newish book from the invisible committee (in actual hard copy!).

we’re reading the rest of desert.

poked with the question of anti-civ theory that considers the collapse and immediate aftermath, we’re reading the first two chapters of desert. that is, “no global future” and “it’s later than we thought.”
aside from desert, there are definitely pieces on parts of likely collapse scenarios, but not from anarchists (as far as i know).
it also came up last night that people are trying to post comments here and can’t so i’m checking on how to fix that, because it’s terrible! i hear this has been fixed; yay!

i read an article years ago that talked about how just the decomposition of a lot of bodies concentrated in one place would be a toxic disaster on its own. i am not finding that kind of information, and maybe that’s not the sort of thing we’re trying to think about here anyway. but i’m interested in it.

amazing historian and translator shawn wilbur sends the following email, which requires me to make a decision, so i’m somewhat arbitrarily going with the first two, the intro and the garlic one (’cause YOU KNOW), and if folks are into it, we can always read the rest–we could have a month of fourier, semi-curated by shawn!
The obvious intro piece by Fourier, from my perspective at least, is “Note A” from “The Theory of Four Movements.” It’s very short, but explains how individuals will organize according to the passions in Harmony. There is a translation in the Cambridge edition, but I’ve made one that can be used freely.

Charles Fourier on the Pear-Grower’s Series

You might also be amused by “Intermeshing of the Series by Cabalistic Gastronomy,” which includes the amusing episode of the girl who loved garlic, but not grammar:

Fourier, “Intermeshing of the Series by Cabalistic Gastronomy”

re: the first reading, here are some questions/thoughts i had:

what is brought out of people when they try to create utopias (or just, better systems)? A practical, practice-based way of thinking of what is truly human – so what is fourier saying about what is deeply human?

relationship to bolo’bolo (limited size, based on some level of intentional/understanding of desire)

daniel will be doing a little intro to stirner, and we’re reading an article by alejandro on making stirner one’s own.
if you want to do extra reading, then this piece by jason mcquinn is a good addition.

chapters 2-6 of the same book. woo hoo berkman! cake!