After a week back home I have read or reread Badiou’s texts in his Les possibles matins de la politique, Interventions 2016-2020. Two things impress me about his concept for L’Ecole des Actes. First of all, he rejects the notion of the “migrant” or the legal or illegal immigrant, as well as the legitimacy ofContinue reading “Plague Thoughts Recalling France”
Author Archives: pfannkuchea
Plague Thoughts Upon Returning Home
Yesterday I had a long day from the rue Tholozé to my door. Everyone there and here was swimming against the opaque heaviness of this time of fear and alienation. My student friend Cody picked me up at Chicago O’Hare and the drive down to Bloomington-Normal went fast because of our good conversation about working-classContinue reading “Plague Thoughts Upon Returning Home”
“The Soviet Union Was Never Yours.”
Michèle said those words to me at a bar last night. She is right, the Soviet Union was not my toy to play with, indeed, it was gone long before I even came into this world. Michèle would tell me that it belonged to the people who lived there, I think it belongs to everyone.Continue reading ““The Soviet Union Was Never Yours.””
French Oppositional Voices
During my stay here I have honed my French listening comprehension skills by tuning in YouTube recordings by politicians and public intellectuals on subjects of politics and philosophy (for which I possess the relevant vocabulary). I got to know Jean-Luc Mélenchon, first as a debater and then as an orator. In the former capacity inspiring,Continue reading “French Oppositional Voices”
U.S. Proletarian Anxiety
There’s one thing that I have failed to realize in the past, that has been a recent revelation over the past year. I’ve been working at a large distribution warehouse for the past nine months, and what has struck me is the heavy reefer use of workers there. Now, this is nothing new, I workedContinue reading “U.S. Proletarian Anxiety”
The Hidden Extremes of Paris
In the interval of eight days, I think I have encountered and to a degree studied several of the political and cultural extremes of this city and country. First, I met M-L, my neighbor downstairs, a cultivated and independent-minded artist who lived in the US before returning to her native Paris to devote her lifeContinue reading “The Hidden Extremes of Paris”
Reconsider the Lobster
Before beginning this blog, I would write long comments under pieces of art on my Instagram. I wrote this when I was first in Angers on 29 October 2019. I’ve rewritten it slightly, but the core remains the same. The emotions I felt then and now are not the same, but they rhyme. In 2004Continue reading “Reconsider the Lobster”
A New Paradigm of Identity Over Conversion? (An Exchange of Views)
Andy, I think you have the wrong idea when it comes to Eileen’s identity as a communist. People don’t embrace Marxism through scientific analysis or rigorous study, I don’t even think Marx did, there’s something temperamental inside of you that leads you down that path. When you coal miners suffering in southern Illinois you couldContinue reading “A New Paradigm of Identity Over Conversion? (An Exchange of Views)”
How did the Paradigm of Change Shift to that of Identity?
In consequence of our recent exchange regarding Sally Rooney’s novel Beautiful World, Where Are You? it dawned on me that the paradigm of opposition has shifted from one based on change and conversion to one based on identity in a more static social-political setting. The immediate clue lay in the fact that I found Eileen’sContinue reading “How did the Paradigm of Change Shift to that of Identity?”
Thoughts of a Warehouse Proletarian
The best definition of wage labor is when one sells time out of one’s day to labor for someone else, most commonly at an hourly rate. Under a capitalist economic system, the majority sell their time (set by the owner), to perform labor that is not of one’s choice, for money. Even though workers sellContinue reading “Thoughts of a Warehouse Proletarian”
Normal Thoughts 