darkmatter Journal » Issues | darkmatter

Aesthetic Interrogation of Refugeeism, Migration and a Post-September 11 World

Shinhyung Choi — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:07:04 +0000

Like Barthes’ photographic image containing accidental punctum, the texts and the pictures in Elsewhere, Within Here work to startle, wound and move us into thinking.

Re:Imagining Change

Jason Harle — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 09:58:37 +0000

Long-time activists Patrick Reinsborough and Doyle Canning have drawn from their wealth of practical contributions to successful and creative campaigns for ecological and social justice to craft the insightful and useful book, Re:Imagining Change.

Reframing 9/11: Film, Popular Culture and the “War on Terror”

Enrica Picarelli — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:44:34 +0000

At the heart of Reframing 9/11 is an investigation of the processes of cultural formation unfolding within a system of power which takes as its object the coming into being of the subject, that is, the whole of the processes by which we develop an understanding of ourselves and represent it to the world through semiotic means. This is the regime of biopolitical sovereignty that informs...

Transgressing Virtual Geographies

Maryam Monalisa Gharavi — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:08:44 +0000

Maryam Monalisa Gharavi interviews Ricardo Dominguez

As co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance Theater, Ricardo Dominguez’ name has long been legendary among hackers, proto-internet enthusiasts, and performance artists. For more than 20 years Dominguez has pretzeled a non-traditional professional trajectory…

Screening Strangers: Migration and Diaspora in Contemporary European Cinema

Emiliano Perra — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:06:53 +0000

Right from the outset, Screening Strangers lets the reader know what it is about. With a clever pun, the title refers to the act of screening (as in putting on screen, representing in cinema) migrants that are also screened (as in filtering the desired and the undesired) by a whole array of institutions within Fortress Europe.

Revisionist Multiculturalism and its Neo-Racist Proclivities

Gopal Nair — Fri, 20 May 2011 12:17:06 +0000

The central focus of this article is to demonstrate insufficient media attention to a subterranean coded message beneath the ideological demagoguery dressed as revisionist justifications against multiculturalism. The media rationalizations, currently in vogue, not only challenge and reject permeation of…

Promised Land – The Reinvention of Leeds United

Max Farrar — Fri, 06 May 2011 13:27:53 +0000

It’s a truism that everyone now is a sociologist, since sociological thinking – so strikingly novel fifty years ago – infuses most intelligent commentary these days. Perhaps ‘cultural studies’ is now entering the mainstream too? Anthony Clavane, history graduate, ex-school teacher and now a sports writer at the Sunday Mirror, has produced a book which is as comfortable with novels and films and the history of Leeds...

Editorial: ‘All the pieces matter’ – introductory notes on The Wire

Ash Sharma — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:00:02 +0000

What Do Real Thugs Think of The Wire?^[1]

The Thugs were bored. Episode 7 [Season 5] failed to move them.
“Too slow,” griped Shine
“They’re making us wait,” said Orlando.
“See, that’s when this stuff gets unreal.

…

“B5—it got all the dinks”: Schools and Education on ‘The Wire’

Lawrence Blum — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 09:55:41 +0000

Season 4 of The Wire adds to the continuing story of the drug trade, the police, and city government from the previous seasons a new element—schools and education. Season 4 introduces and follows four boys, Duquan, Randy, Namond, and Michael,…

Walled States, Waning Sovereignty

Ben Pitcher — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:59:57 +0000

At the heart of the problem of race is the trick of substantiation: the art of teasing something out of nothing, of giving meaning to meaninglessness and getting it to stick. Once conjured into existence, fact accretes around an empty nucleus. Objective powers grow from the groundless fantasies of blood or soil, thickening a carapace so vast and complex that it structures the whole architecture of the social.