Mujeres errantes: Cuerpo, género y política revolucionaria en el cine judío latinoamericano

This article focuses on the points of contact between Jewishness, gender, and revolutionary politics in Latin American films set in the 1960s and 1970s. The piece introduces the term “mujeres errantes” to explore how Latin American Jewish women filmmakers have crafted depictions of Jewish women who err from the norms with which they are expected to conform as they come into contact with pan-Latin American revolutionary political move­ments of the 1960s and 1970s. The study analyzes the specific representations of women- and Jewish-identified fictional protagonists in the films El amigo alemán and Novia que te vea. Through a discussion of how each film engages with the notion of “Mujeres errantes,” this article considers the place of revolutionary politics in film as cultural representations of Jewish Latin American women.

Foucault’s Outside: Contingency, May-Being, and Revolt

In this paper, I argue for an alternative reading of Michel Foucault as an anti-correlationist thinker. Specifically, I position him as aligned with what philosopher Quentin Meillassoux calls speculative materialism (an offshoot of speculative realism). Given the resurgent and exciting prioritization of speculative ontology over concrete politics among these thinkers, coupled with the need for a revolutionary anti-capitalist political movement, my approach aims to take speculative materialists’ claims regarding access to the in-itself seriously while also devoting attention to their (underdeveloped) political dimension. It is in this latter realm Foucault proves particularly helpful to think alongside. Though Foucault has often and convincingly been portrayed as an anti-universalist, postmodern, and epistemologically-oriented figure, I present him as concerned with the subject’s access to the Outside (the great outdoors, things-in-themselves) as well as the politics of such access. I do so through a study of a wide selection of his works (books, essays, interviews, articles), a comparison between his philosophical position and that of Meillassoux’s, and an expansion upon Foucault’s analysis of Diego Velázquez’s “Las Meninas” in The Order of Things, positing the artwork as a speculative object. I suggest, in short, that Foucault’s concepts of thought, force, and the subject have surprisingly striking similarities to Meillassoux’s absolute contingency and his political subject (the ‘vectoral militant’). We can, then, begin to see a revolutionary politics arising out of what I understand as Foucault’s speculative stance—hopefully providing an opportunity to both (re)consider Foucault and highlight the politics incipient in contemporary explorations into the Outside.

Radical Detours: A Situationist Reading of Philip K. Dick

<p>In this project I read four Philip K. Dick novels against the writing of the Situationist International (SI). In doing so, I seek to disrupt two critical trends that arguably impede Dick criticism: the depoliticization of Dick and the lack of focus on his style. Through reading his work against the politics of the SI, Dick’s own radical politics can be defined and reaffirmed. I make the case that Dick is a writer predominantly concerned with politics and ideology over and above philosophy and ontology. Secondly, I argue that the political power of Dick’s work is inseparable from his avant-garde style; in particular, his frequent use of what the Situationists termed détournement. With revolutionary politics and avant-garde aesthetics in mind, I re-examine the canonical novels Martian Time-Slip and Ubik, and redeem two of Dick’s neglected novels, The Game-Players of Titan and Galactic Pot-Healer.</p>

Radical Detours: A Situationist Reading of Philip K. Dick

<p>In this project I read four Philip K. Dick novels against the writing of the Situationist International (SI). In doing so, I seek to disrupt two critical trends that arguably impede Dick criticism: the depoliticization of Dick and the lack of focus on his style. Through reading his work against the politics of the SI, Dick’s own radical politics can be defined and reaffirmed. I make the case that Dick is a writer predominantly concerned with politics and ideology over and above philosophy and ontology. Secondly, I argue that the political power of Dick’s work is inseparable from his avant-garde style; in particular, his frequent use of what the Situationists termed détournement. With revolutionary politics and avant-garde aesthetics in mind, I re-examine the canonical novels Martian Time-Slip and Ubik, and redeem two of Dick’s neglected novels, The Game-Players of Titan and Galactic Pot-Healer.</p>

Jewish Workers Meet the Russian Revolution

This chapter treats Europe’s Russian colonies as a crucial locus of Jewish emancipation. It explores how professional revolutionaries—both Jews and non-Jews—made contact with Yiddish-speaking Jewish workers abroad, integrating the latter into the radical networks centered in the colonies. In the process, many Jewish proletarians became radicalized and more engaged in Russian politics than ever before. The exchanges between Russified intellectuals and working-class Jews in emigration created a new style of revolutionary politics from the bottom up that was sensitive to the special experiences and needs of Jewish workers yet sought to marshal these particularities for the cause of universal emancipation. The chapter closes with an exploration of how émigré networks transported the new political styles developed abroad back to Russia and examines the role that exile politics played in the creation of the Bund, an event usually understood as purely domestic in origin.

Southern Palm, Northern Pine

This chapter examines how Civil War memories anchored farmer-labor radicalism during the 1870s and 1880s. The Greenback-Labor Party in particular used wartime tropes to submit that the popular commemoration of the war, as either a North-South or Black-white axis, was fatal to class and trade organization. Instead, party members advocated a “class reconciliation” of workingmen across both sections. Although such a reconciliation was thwarted by internal contradictions and external resistance, Greenback politics offered discrete opportunities for interracial remembrance after the decline of Reconstruction, with veterans bridging out of major parties and toward reformist and revolutionary politics.