I’ll be giving a talk on May 20 at 3pm, at Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington.
I’ll discuss my recent research on counterinsurgency and community policing. I’ll outline the counterinsurgency model, describe its transfer from the military to the police and back again, explain how it is being implemented domestically, and consider some implications for social movements.
I’ve written a couple reviews for The Comics Journal, just before it re-invented itself.
One is a review of Audrey Niffenegger’s latest, The Night Bookmobile. The other is a review of Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection. Given how different the books are, it’s interesting how alike they are — creepy yet beautiful.
I also wrote a profile of Tequila expert Clayton Szczech for the Reed College alumni magazine.
I’ll be giving presentations at two conferences this month, both in Portland.
The first is the Counter-Counterinsurgency Convergence at Reed College, April 8-10. I’ll be giving a presentation with Will Munger at 9am, Saturday the 9th. I’ll be discussing the adoption and development of counterinsurgency techniques by domestic police, and Will will present a case study based on his field work in Salinas, California. For details on the conference, visit: http://countercoin.wordpress.com/convergence-schedule/
The next weekend, April 15-17, I’ll be speaking at the Law and Disorder conference at Portland State University. I’ll give a talk called “Police Accountability and Police Abolition: Dilemmas, Paradoxes, Strategies.” In the first half of the session, I will consider the sometimes thorny relationship between the police accountability perspective and the police abolition perspective, outlining the fundamental differences in their assumptions and goals, and considering the possibility for cooperation on short-term campaigns. The second half of the session will be opened up for audience discussion, and I’ll ask the participants to reflect on their own experiences in pursuing demands for accountability or organizing toward abolition. The talk is presently scheduled at 10:30 am on Saturday April 16, but check the website for any updates: http://lawandisorder.wordpress.com/about/
The past few years I’ve been working here and there on a book about Oscar Wilde and anarchism. As I don’t have a publisher — and therefore also, don’t have a deadline or an advance — my output has mostly taken the form of short pieces that I can publish in article form now and (I hope) somehow fit together later to create a complete whole.
My two most recent installments are:
“The Soul of Man Under. . . Anarchism?” New Politics. Winter 2011.
and
“The Anarchist Aphorist: Wilde and Gottesman, Paradox and Subversion.” Anarchist Studies. 2010.
The first is an examination of the few times that Wilde described himself as an anarchist, compared to his more common use of the socialist label.
The second is a comparison of Wilde’s aphorisms and some others published in Mother Earth, with attention to the use of paradox to create subversive meanings. (It’s not on the web; sorry.)
In relation to this Wilde project, I’ve also written:
“Why Does Your Lily Droop?” OutSmart. August 2010. (A review of Oscar Wilde in America: The Interviews.)
“Pictures of Dorian Gray, Images of Oscar Wilde.” The Comics Journal. May 2010. (A nine-part series on Wilde’s depiction in, influence on, and relationship to cartooning.)
“The Roots of Wilde’s Socialist Soul: Ibsen and Shaw, or Morris and Crane.” The Oscholars. Spring 2010. (An investigation into the inspiration for “The Soul of Man Under Socialism.”)
“Dorian Gray and the Moral Imagination.” The Common Review. Winter 2010. (A critical study of the ethical perspective of The Picture of Dorian Gray.)
“Reading Oscar’s Books.” Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. 2010. (A review.)
and
“‘A Criminal with a Noble Face’: Oscar Wilde’s Encounters with the Victorian Gaol.” 2009. (A thorough look at Wilde’s prison writing, and his anti-prison writing.)
This last one was written thanks in part to a grant from the Institute for Anarchist Studies. Thanks are also owed to the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation for its support.