Comments
fortmis OP wrote
lol my condolences ... and my solidarity
kin wrote
Thanks
And am being dead serious btw, I got ripped over 6 g (my whole savings} by someone who I thought I could trust. I even considered doing something really ridiculous that could me land on jail. Time to cut off the losses I guess, the other day when I mentioned a plan to drop-out the city life was partly bc of this..
Anyway, I was gonna start reading two small books when the shit hit the fan: H.P.Lovecraft. La disyunción en el Ser by Fabian Ludueña and Fragment d'histoire future by Gabriel Tarde. The first was read like an essay and skimming through it was ringing some bells.
Bezotcovschina wrote
Downloaded a huge archive of tabletop rpg books for different systems. Trying to widen my horizons in this regard
tuesday wrote
What'd you grab?
fortmis OP wrote
Niiice. Anything stand out yet?
Bezotcovschina wrote
So far Degenesis stands out with interesting setting and great character design and art.
Eclipse Phase looked promising with authors clearly stating their radical and antifascist bias, but it's too much transhumanism for my taste, might salvage some ideas.
veuzi wrote
Alexander Dunlap - "I don't want your progress, it tries to kill me": Decolonial encounters and the anarchist critique of civilization.
I was just made aware of this professor and was surprised to find this peer-reviewed and published scholarly article that comes very to close to praising anti-civ anarchism and insurrection, and fiercely criticizes academia, especially the field of "decolonial academia", for ignoring it. Never saw quite anything like this when I was in university, anything approaching radicalism was always Marxist in nature.
Tequila_Wolf wrote
Yeah Dunlap is a quiet gem working in scandinavia or something. I think he draws both from bookchin stuff and anti-civ stuff, but he does do cool work tying decolonisation to anti-civ, and he edited a volume that argued that policing is perhaps the largest cog of the climate collapse.
Somebody posted about it recently here actually, let me see if I can find it. Here we go: Enforcing Ecocide
tuesday wrote
The Elements of Legal Style
Boring. Do not recommend if you aren't like into legal writing style guides. If you are then it's pretty helpful.
A Prayer for the Crown Shy
Reading for the second time, very good. Anarchist utopian fiction y'all. Highly recommend. It's the second novella in the series though so read A Psalm for the Wild-Built first.
The Monstrous
A collection of horror short stories. It's hard to say like if I recommend it yet. I'm just a couple of stories in and they were ... fine.
Classic Writings in Anarchist Criminology
Just started this recently, I don't have any real thoughts yet.
An Immigration Law textbook.
Tequila_Wolf wrote
I've been reading a bunch of stuff about anthropology. . David Graeber's Fragments of An Anarchist Anthropology might be my favourite of his work. And it's relatively short too. I enjoyed it quite a lot for a few reasons and would recommend it to people who are interested critiques of academia and anarchists in academia, thinking through the uses of anthropology as something primitivists rely on, how we relate to human nature, and what we think social sciences should be for.
He also clearly makes a case against majoritarian democracy of all kinds, so maybe his pro-democracy language is just semantics. I don't know. He's techno-optimistic under anarchy and all but its not enough of a feature that the book gets painful.
I've also been reading a bunch of local stuff, e.g. Christopher McMichael's Shoot to Kill: Police and Power in South Africa. It reads a bit like a South African version of Kristian Williams' book on cops. Hopefully will finish that this week.
I've also been trying to read a bit of Marxist and anti-Marxist stuff because I'm having to be around some over-educated Marxists a bit more at the moment so I hate the idea tha they might use some kind of expertise to try to outflank me. I prefer not to second-guess myself around people who are way more educated than me.
And yesterday because I was interested I downloaded that Islam and Anarchism book that was posted a couple days ago an read the introduction. I'm very curious about it because it seems to be proposing an anti-colonial approach to the problem of Islamic assimilationism in the US that draws from anarchism and Deleuze. The idea that a Deleuzian metaphysics can work with a transcendent god is intriguing and I'm curious what they will have to mangle to make that work. It's weird shit like that that has the potential to give you new ideas (sometimes) imo, even though all of these theistic anarchisms seem fundamentally to miss the mark for me.
fortmis OP wrote
Wow so much great stuff.
I'm curious about the Graeber book... and speaking of anthropology, have you heard of Archeology of Violence by Pierre Clastres? It's a series of essays about indigenous communities in South America -- an analysis I guess of their power dynamics and the use of violence in very specific ways. I haven't finished it and am regretting daily my decision to leave my copy in another country.... Can't wait to get at it again.
Bless your work dealing with those Marxists hehe. I'm sure your preparations will aid your defense and the preservation of your dignity! \
Tequila_Wolf wrote
I haven't read it yet, but increasingly I'm interested to check out his stuff.
I'd also love to read a contemporary anarchist speak to the limitations of Clastres's work. But people are quite serious about him even today. Deleuze even uses his stuff quite consistently, with some adjustments. The few anarchists who do eat shit their way through academic type work often produce really remarkable work.
fortmis OP wrote
Haha your last sentence took me a few tries, until I realized "eat shit" is a complete verb unto it's own hahaha
I'd also be interested to see contemporary critiques. Not surprised to hear most people are still boosting him. His work is truly remarkable, like nothing I've ever read before. He must've had a really sensitive presence and insightful eye, in order to be able to reflect on situations the way he did. I think his work is also holding its own as a rebuttle (travelling to us from the past) to Graeber's The Dawn of Everything
Tequila_Wolf wrote
ntil I realized "eat shit" is a complete verb unto it's own hahaha
Ah yes, sometimes my idiosyncratic language is even more obvious. This is bad security culture lol
I think his work is also holding its own as a rebuttle (travelling to us from the past) to Graeber's The Dawn of Everything
I was too bored by the book to get through it. Would you be willing to explain the positions and the rebuttal?
when_you_sleep wrote
I've been reading a text compilation of Renzo Novatore's writings called "La Conquista de la Nada" (The Conquest of Nothing), it has been a pretty good read and i love his way of writing, it's like he's doing poetry while insulting all the ideologies in the world, and there's also actual poetry!, and i also loved it, i still haven't finished the compilation yet but so far it has been one of my favorite reads
Majrelende wrote
Not going to specify what it is (sorry), but an old book I found on plant propagation.
fortmis OP wrote
Whatttt why the secretttt. I've spent the last few days reading about propagationnnnn
Majrelende wrote
Nevermind. It's The Nursery-Book by L.H. Bailey--old, so you should be able to find it online. It seems to be very detailed, with many simple methods people today either don't know or keep secret.
fortmis OP wrote
Bless you kind and generous soul
rattledlove1139 wrote
Revisiting childhood books mostly i guess..
Archaplain wrote
Leviathan Wakes: the first novel of the expanse. i just go the first three for my birthday a few weeks ago.
fortmis OP wrote
Just googled. A crime/mystery, science fiction, space thriller? holy shittttt. Is it good?
Archaplain wrote
Yep its got great politics too especially anti-colonialist. Theres a tv show adaptation as well which is pretty good.
subrosa wrote
My reading is more 'project'-oriented these days. Currently focusing in on Voltairine de Cleyre, putting together a heavily annotated "complete works" pdf, for myself. Also focusing in on Alfredo M. Bonanno and the whole Anarchismo run, which demands lots of translating, and putting together ideas from a mix of bad translations and my bad Italian reading skills.
Also, Proudhon's War and Peace, but I'm no longer in any hurry about it.
And chapters from books on Italian cinema, German cinema.
fortmis OP wrote
What's the motivation behind the annotated Voltairine de Cleyre collection ?? Very cool that you're doing that. And I'm curious what your thoughts on her are!
subrosa wrote
"Annotated", well... I don't comment on it, I just keep filling in any and all details I can find, and make the whole thing more 'browseable' by inserting internal links. I wanted to have some of her material in one place and in chronological order; it eventually turned into a much more comprehensive collection. And then into an exercise in editing/presenting text, to get a feel for what's possible in pdf.
About Voltairine de Cleyre, right now I don't feel like formulating any too general thoughts. I might try again later.
moonlune wrote
Right now the third book of the SeaWorld series. I don't think I like it as much as the first two. The second book is my favorite so far.
kin wrote
Ma bills..