2nd Annual Lecture:
Henry A. Giroux War On Youth
The critically acclaimed public intellectual Henry A. Giroux discusses the state sponsored assault being waged against young people across the globe, especially in the United States. For Giroux, what is no longer a hidden order of politics is that American society is at war with its children, and that the use of such violence against young people is a disturbing index of a society in the midst of a deep moral and political crisis. Only a fundamental rethinking of our political priorities can rescue us from this tragic foreclosure of hope. A close friend of the late Paolo Friere, Henry has made groundbreaking contributions to numerous fields, including education, critical theory, youth studies, media studies and public pedagogy. He currently occupies the Global TV network Chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.
See Zygmunt Bauman’s Inaugural Lecture
Reflections:
John Steppling
Theatre of Mayhem
The question of violence, the playwrite John Steppling argues, in popular culture is now inescapable. The sheer volume of gun shots, explosions, car wrecks, torture, beatings, and the amount of noise this generates is available and screened pretty much 24-7. This forces us to live in a psychic cell of violent spectacles – a veritable theatre of mayhem, invariably leaving us exhausted by the suffering. This is not incidental, but most revealing of late liberal societies today which depend upon profiting for cruel fates. Our response must be a counter-aesthetics to emancipate us from such fascistic desires.
New Press:
Michael Dillon
Deconstructing IP
Michael Dillon is internationally regarded for his contributions by political philosophers, international relations scholars and security studies experts, as well as by philosophers more broadly. This book draws together some of his key works and is framed by an introductory Preface that features here. It is the first full-length work to draw on the insights and techniques of deconstruction to analyse international relations. Influenced primarily by Derrida, it critiques the cornerstones of international relations such as modernity, the state, the subject, security and ethics and justice.