Costelloe-KuehnMemo31

memo 31 exemplary texts:

Identify two or three texts that you have in your imagination as beautiful texts - and you want to write something similar (can be popular press; any text that is good to think with)

For each include: the title, narrative about why it is exemplary /what was compelling about I don't know this book well, but just got an e-mail about it from the [ciresearchers] listserv: 'Innovating for and by users' Edited by Jo Pierson, Enid Mante-Meijer, Eugčne Loos and Bartolomeo Sapio I like the focus on way it addresses users as creators, consumers as producers. i also like the focus on innovation.
 * 1,000 plateaus - deleuze & guattari
 * If i could take one book to a desert island, this might be it.
 * Ok, so in a lot of ways my first book will be very, very different. But I am inspired by the style of this text and the way it "works" in my imagination. I find it fun to read & it conveys the passion of the authors against fascism, for democracy. what i most want to "imitate" is the way the text functions as a connector to many other texts, theories, projects - not explicitly; rather i find that the book has taken up a prominent position in my imagination and has helped me think in new ways.
 * But, this book is fairly unapproachable for people that haven't soaked up a great deal of poststructuralist theory. I don't think it is "intentionally obfuscationalist," but its style is off-putting to many. I want my book to deal with complexity, but also be readable to a non-specialist audience. advocacy after bhopal is a great model of a text that negotiates this double-bind: the book should be complex but it also shouldn't...
 * in the d&g's book on Kafka (much shorter, but equally complex and "difficult") they use a fine-grained analysis of Kafka's work to develop the concept of a "minor literature." i am inspired by the way they use literature to think differently about social change. i think experimental media practices are a fantastic search-space for exploring what "minor literatures" are and could be. at the same time i would like my book to push back against d&g's notion of what makes a "revolutionary text." they write of the "power of [Kafka's] nonciritque," but critique is still needed... despite/in addition to being called "affirmative," 1000 plateaus is certainly "critical" in some sense of the word...
 * temporary autonomous zone, ontological anarchy, poetic terrorism - hakim bey/peter lamborn wilson
 * this text represents an approach that highlighting and valorizes alternative possibilities. he integrates historical work (pirate utopias) with imaginative "visioning" of possible utopias - along the lines of agamben's "coming communities." his style is often quite poetic and passionate. in some ways it is quite similar to 1000 plateaus, but (for better/worse) it largely avoids drawing on and creating new "jargon."
 * contra to their popular image, the anarchists i've read don't talk much about "smashing the state" (which is how they tend to be represented in the media, when they are represented at all) rather they talk a great deal about democracy - experimenting with decision-making processes, developing alternatives "in the shell of the old" (much as D&G write about rhizomes forming in the heart of trees... or developing minor literatures in major languages/discourses...).
 * BUT i also think that anarchists sometimes really do see "the state" as a thing, and as evil. i prefer thinking of "the state" as contingent, as an assemblage of social relations and desires, as modifiable, and as presenting many productive double-binds (the chapter on "anarchism and its discontents" in advocacy after bhopal has helped me think through some of this).
 * r.f. day's Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements
 * "revolution"
 * i want to write about "revolution" and have not come across many examples in STS... In Terry Eagleton's "after theory," he writes (perhaps incorrectly?) that "late" foucault "renounced all aspirations to a new social order" (37). perhaps post-modernism's distaste for "grand-narratives" makes this an uncomfortable area (amenable to multi-sited ethnography's strength of keeping it local but also in/of the global?). the "anti-capitalist movement" is super-important because it is emerging in a context that has suffered from a lack of "memories of collective, and effective, political action" (7). Day's book provides contemporary examples and beautifully situates them within a theoretical framework that draws together post-structuralism and anarchism, while advancing a "new" theory about non-hegemonic social change. I want my book to contribute more examples of collective political action, higlighting both their "successes" and "failures."
 * after theory by terry eagleton
 * although i think he sometimes slides into "straw man" arguments, eagleton is largely quite level headed in talking about where "theory" has succeeded and failed. his style is quite "clear" and is an example i want to draw on in writing about complexity for multiple audiences. I also like Eagleton's discussion of morality (Drawing on Aristotle, i think, not as a repressive machine, but as developing ways for people to live the "good life," to re-learn sociality so as to gain pleasure from helping others live "good lives") and (radical) politics as developing forms of collectivity that help as many people possible live this kind of "moral" lifeIn
 * community media: people, places, and communication technologies by kevin howley
 * advocacy after bhopal
 * geoff dyer's novels
 * graeber's Direct Action: An Ethnography
 * example of someone combining artistic practice, media production, ethnography/social science research and activism?

The book looks at socio-technological transitions and shifting roles of users in the design and innovation of broadband technologies and digital media. The different chapters aim to shed more light on the ‘black box’ of design and use of ICTs. In this way we hope to contribute to the empowerment of people in their relationship(s) with new media and - through this - to increase the quality of social life. The title ‘Innovating for and by users’ refers to insights on how to innovate by involving users more intensely in the design of technological innovations, which can lead to innovations that create more benefits for these users. The different authors deliver a timely reality check on the current information society in Europe from a users’ perspective, in a general (theoretical) sense as well as in specific domains (digital television, e-publishing, care sector...). This is done in an interdisciplinary way by integrating social science views and engineering approaches. The findings are based on academic and industry-driven digital media research in various European countries.