THE
PUBLIC
SCHOOL
TELIC ARTS EXCHANGE

Next Sunday will be the first session of "Neoliberalism and Human Capital" http://la.thepublicschool.org/class/1897 and it may be of interest for you all.

Here is a note from Ken about the class:

Dear All:

Really looking forward to getting started on this material. Feels like the timing for this class is just right.  After the Continental Drift last weekend, which contained a number of related conversations on precarity, finance capital, speculative economy, neoliberalism, and the excesses of privatization; February’s TPS seminar on Immaterial Labor, where Jason Smith led a very rigorous discussion about Autonomia, as well as outside events like Brian Holmes’ presentation on neoliberal subjectivity at UC, Riverside on March 3, there seems to be a number of ongoing threads that can be extended through this class to give it richness and complexity.

The idea for the class is this: the current financial crisis has broadened and intensified an analysis of neoliberal economics as it has been and continues to be critiqued from the left.  But these analyses are usually founded upon the refrain of positions taken up in secondary sources without any direct reference to the primary source material that helped establish and legitimize the economic logic itself.  Many of us on the left--I include myself here--are quick to engage in a critique of neoliberalism without a deeper understanding of what that word actually means in its own native sense. Thus “Neoliberalism” often vaguely stands for anything that generally seems bad about our contemporary political, economic, and cultural situation; this tends to dilute the force of the critiques behind it. With this in mind, one might say that the objective of this class is to know your enemy, to work through some of the key primary texts and discuss the generative historical context of the development of neoliberalism by carefully attending to the writings of the Chicago School, a group that was instrumental in shaping the implementation of the economic doctrine in global economic and social policy ca. 1980.

I still think we should continue to read some secondary sources to fill in the critical analysis side of things, and this brings me to the other piece of fortuitous timing of the class.  It so happens that the scheduling for this class falls on the exact same dates as Foucault’s weekly lectures on American neoliberlaism 31 years ago and which can now be read in English with the recent translation of The Birth of Biopolitics.  Whether written in the stars or simply a serendipitous accident, it seems a perfect time to revisit Foucault’s lectures over the next three weeks, getting his read on neoliberalism in its incipient form.

So the reading for this first class on March 14 will be the following:

Michel Foucalut, The Birth of Biopolitics, pp. 215-237. (March 14th lecture)
Gary Becker, Human Capital,  pp. 1-11.
Gary Becker, The Economic Approach to Human Behavior, Part 1, pp. 3-14

Next week we will read more Foucault along Hayek, Friedman, and possibly some more Becker and/or Andre Gunder Frank and perhaps something about the fascinating cultural history of the Chicago School in Chile. But this is all up for discussion.

All readings are on aaaarg of course.

Best,

Ken

The CA strikes and occupations of March 4th are now moving outwards.

Ideas for action in NY, Boston and Lousiana
http://takethecity.wordpress.com/

All of us have also been trying to connect with community orgs. & local artists. I hope this will show on M4 too.

For those interested in what's going on at UCLA in the first week of March:

Right now we are set to have a two day event on March 2nd and 3rd called NewCLA, an alternative university project, between 12 and 4 on both days. The emphasis will be on discussions, workshops, art and art activist works. Some possible themes to deal with are:

The Limits of Capital at the University Front
Precarity & Student-Worker Consciousness
Occupation as an Artistic Strategy
"Unproductive" or Inoperative Education
Histories of Art Activism / Living Art Activism
Artists + Students + Workers + Community Orgs. (How to build solidarity?)
Foreclosure & City Space

(again, much overlap with the Drift)

Plus if anyone is interested in the official schedule of the protest here it is:

March 4th Schedule!

3-5am Undergraduate Dorms; Grad Student Housing
Dorm Storming

6:30-Noon Campus-wide
Picket set-up and student led pickets at campus entrances.

7-11am Campus-wide
Students reclaim campus with outreach, activist art, chalking, flyering, drums, music, etc.

11am-Noon Ackerman Turn-Around
Student and Worker Picket

11:30am-Noon Campus-wide
Any students still stuck in class are encouraged to WALKOUT!

Noon-1pm ALL OUT TO BRUIN PLAZA!
Rally followed by March around UCLA campus; Speakers, media coverage, chanting, opportunities for circulating petitions, etc.

1-3pm Bruin Plaza and Campus Wide
Revolution Dance Party- DJ, musical acts, hip-hop artists, student-led teach-ins, etc.

3-4pm Bruin Plaza
Teach-in with various faculty members.

4:30-5:30pm Bruin Plaza
Rally; Speakers, media coverage, chanting, petitioning, etc.
UTLA, CFT, CTA, LAUSD, Community Colleges, and California State Universities join.

5:30pm Westwood
March to Westwood and Wilshire

For those from the public school interested in collaboration, you can check out NewCLA and these events, the first on Feb. 22, and the next on March 2 & 3. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=278505619309&ref=ts

I am at UCLA and helping organize them.

The first event will focus on UCLA student based performances & art activism, but March 2nd and 3rd should be more open to workshops / critical projects / experiments from outside the university. If anyone wants to talk more about possible collaboration through NewCLA or elsewhere, let's get the ball rolling! Only 4 weeks left.

----
NewCLA [nü⋅c⋅l⋅a] is hope for the UCLA community.
It is a multi-perspective group started by students to provide a free space to re-imagine the University. It spans from art activism to alternate models of peacefully demonstrating that we want change. The budget crisis affects everyone at UCLA and instead of holding us down, it will bring us together, in the form of NewCLA.

This related class is meeting TODAY at 3pm: http://la.thepublicschool.org/class/1985

any more meetings? i couldn't make the last one.

Hi all,

We haven't met yet, but my name is Zen Dochterman and I just found out about the class today.

I am a grad student at UCLA and have been involved in the occupation & Nov 18-9 protest there, worked with the unions, Crisis Fest, and run the (very tiny and in need of much updating) blog "We are the Crisis" on blogspot.

I'd be interested in getting involved in your class in whatever way seems fitting. I would love to share what we are doing at UCLA now and what we've learned from our friends in Berkeley, Santa Cruz and CS Fullerton. I'm also glad to see you are compiling a list of readings, including the "Communique from an Absent Future," and some of the fact-based articles on the economics behind the "crisis." I'm working on compiling many of these readings as well, so it would be great to collaborate. Right now we are also holding an "alternative university" class with grads and undergrads with a focus on arts activism that will also engage some of these readings.

At bottom however, it seems that this class hopes to frame the studnet-worker movement in California in terms of the larger crisis in Capitalism. This makes me especially happy, and is something I am especially trying to do since our on-campus discourse can often get mired in talk of the 32% cuts, or the decline of education, rather than focusing on how this is merely one aspect of increasing privatization and cuts to public services demanded by neo-liberalism.

Anyway, sorry for the long intro, but I am enthusiastic to learn more.

Feel free to email me: zendochterman@gmail.com

Hi -- I am going to propose a class about Korean guitar manufacturing workers who have been occupying their factories in Korea for years -- struggling against displacement after being fired for unionizing, after which the company abruptly moved its factories to China and Indonesia. Then I saw this class/discussion - which sounds like it would be a good collaboration between the two- students who occupy institutions that are supposed to be 'public' and workers who occupy a factory that had employed them for decades but threw them off as soon as they wanted basic rights like minimum wage. I wonder if perhaps at the Jan. 9 class anyone in this class would want to hear from these workers who have been conducting an occupation for years. They will be coming to LA in January and will be there at this time for the NAMM Show 2010. cortaction.wordpress.com.

Just a reminder that we'll be meeting tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon at 2pm!
We're meeting at 951 Chung King Road (same place, only this week we'll be in the back part, where the kitchen is).

OK, cara agrees on 2pm also, so can someone update the time in the actual class schedule? Is it too late to send another mass email with the new time?

there is that ACP "three women" event at 4, so let's say 2pm?

Ugh, sorry, but can we move this back to 2pm? I said in person last week that a noon meeting is really like a 9am meeting for those of us who live in San Diego and I'd love to be on time this time. Or how about 3pm or 4pm after the latex mold making workshop, since we already have a time conflict anyway...

i am really looking forward to our discussion and the opportunity to act collectively and critically with one another and friends, comrades and cahoots who wrote these texts in the months that follow. i will also post to aaarg site theoretical texts that inspire these actions (by word of participants/contributors) and some that are relevant and contemporary but may have been overlooked. however, i would stress that this is a moment in which intellectuals are thinking and acting critically and discursively in the present and calling for our meaningful engagement in the same register.

that excites me.

please do read the communiques, bob meister letter, and necrosocial if nothing else. there is a lot more information already collated and available (including international statements of solidarity and occupation) online at occupycalifornia on wordpress. no need to duplicate that, but i encourage everyone to tune in there.

from 'we are the crisis' and 'we want everything' to 'we are the ones we've been waiting for'

solid

cara baldwin

just to add to the virtual, viral, various reading list(s). ranciere's "the emancipated spectator" (ironically) and _the ignorant schoolmaster_ (interestingly) would be valuable (i think) to fold into the discussion(s), perhaps not saturday, but in the future(s). and, what are is (are) future(s) of this class/discussion/think-thank, etc.? i mean, more to follow?

btw, ranciere wrote _the ignorant schoolmaster_ in the 80s during the other educational debates (one may say politico-aesthetics ruptures) in france (and beyond), and it resonated in the us and uk with the debates in education under the reagan and thatcher regimes. the intro by kristin is brilliant -- she is brilliant.

anyway,
robt

Here's an alternative proposal for class organization...
(and I think robert's post about the calstates etc. is awesome)
If this feels wrong, I don't need to stick to this plan at all.

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One exciting thing about saturday is the fact that we have a range of people affiliated with the UC system present.

From unaffiliated but with institutional connections to other art programs and institutions throughout socal, to phd students, to adjunct lecturers and
people with vaguely more affiliation then that.

From my perspective, a good approach to saturday would be a 50/50 split (or something) between theory and praxis...

1. Theory and analysis (a less text based and more generative discussion on theorizing both the reasons of the crisis)
a, looking at theoretical responses to it (all the articles posted),
b. looking at tactical responses to it (a review of recent events)
c. analysis of the response (how its been, places where the movement has made inroads, roadblocks towards a broader movement and a place for Robert's pertainant points...)

2. A second half might be devoted to both plans, proposals and statemets.
a. proposal
b. pedagogy towards engagement
c. statement writing(?)

If I were to get really directorial here, I might even propose that in advance we have folks line up to bottom-line discussions around these sections,
give them time limits etc...

There is something already excluded from this discussion, and it is the exclusion of the CSU system, which has had the same amount of protests and deeper cuts. I think we have to think across the educational system (how far across, I do not know, and does the Public School get included in this critique?). But, I think by focusing, or what appears to be the focus, on the UC system only perpetuates the exclusion of excluded (all those marginalized) from the UC system. There is a hierarchy here: Berkeley and UCLA are more prestigious than, say, Cal State Long Beach or Los Angeles, so there is already a blind spot(s) in this critique and thinking of higher education. What of this blind spot(s) and what how does it, through its criticism of the UC system (and beyond [what is this beyond?]), perpetuate issues of race and class? How can we find "our" blind spots -- perhaps only in the future and/or from other (anamorphic) angles.
So, if a class critique is to be made (and it will be ironic), then should we not think of the various classes and where certain classes get in (we may want to move past Marx and include what he excluded: race and gender)? I wonder why no disruption at PrincetonYaleHarvard ... OtisArtCenterCalArts ...
In sum, I think "we" should be mindful of what will be excluded (and it will be ironic and it will happen) and what will be included. Of course there is no discussion without its exclusion, no expressions without its suppressions, no critique without its blind spots, but "we" must be critical in "our" very criticism/s and critical of where, why, and how these criticism/s take place, and what space they make, and who will ocuppy those space,and who will not: again the always excluded, the supplement, etc. I think "we" must also be critical and cautious of empty slogans, which have been floating around, as well as the failure to think the future otherwise (read: in a Derridian and deconstructive manner) -- it doesn't have to be defined or discussed in the way the "Invisible Community" says, and its various supporters. I will stop (t)here.
-Robert

Caleb, those are good suggestions, but The Necrosocial wasn't written by agamben. It was written by some students at ucsb as far as I can tell and ends with a quote by Agamben. Although it seems like sections of The Coming Community by Agamben would be good to read, as they're very present in the necrosocial and in The Coming Insurrection. The chapters are those but the opening chapter on "Whatever" seems very relevant along with the chapters "Without Classes" and "Outside".

But we only have a few days, can someone compile this into an actual list of suggestions, perhaps in the wiki, so we can decide what to read and read it?

another text for what its worth... my sense is that this tactical piece is written
by a bay area marxist group...
http://advancethestruggle.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/occupations-spread-ac...

http://ahh.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/3/1/41

derrida, the university to come

Yes, I think those are three good texts.... What do others think?
--Clootz

I vote for reading:

The U.C. Strike
By Brian Holmes
http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/the-u-c-strike/

The Necrosocial
Giorgio Agamben
http://anticapitalprojects.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/the-necrosocial/

We want everything
Communiqué from an Absent Future: on the terminus of student life
http://a.aaaarg.org/text/4309/communiqué-absent-future-terminus-student-life

And then just browsing what has been posted to aaaarg and the other websites that have sprung up.

-c

I'm slightly confused: can someone clarify the specific texts to be discussed in the contexts of the occupations? The aaaaarg and wiki pages do not correspond... I like that Necrosocial text for what it's worth.
-C

OK i just went for it with Saturday at noon..
I think a wiki is useful and not redundant... thanks for setting it up! the way i see it:
* aaaarg - text sharing
* notes - like a blog for the class
* wiki - something in between?

oops, didn't see the aaarg.org discussion link. we can use that, didn't mean to duplicate effort... whatever's easier...

Micha/Azdel is spoken for. see the comment below mine last one. Saturday's fine for me too, I guess.

After the Kultural Kapital works for me, as Christina and I could switch hit... but saturday might work as well.
Some of us (Ken, Michael, Mischa) have been chatting about how this class might go already independently as well.
I know that Michael has childcare issues to navigate if he's to attend as well, and ken well, any day now, any day now.

Saturday, dec 5th at noon works for myself and my partner elle. We'd love to do this and then join the performance class too..

I also started a wiki page so we can start developing a syllabus, feel free to register (its automatic, you just have to do an email confirmation (to prevent spammers)) here:

http://bang.calit2.net/wiki/The_UC_Strikes_and_Beyond

I propose that we set a meeting for this for noon on Saturday (before the Performance class) or at 3pm on Sunday (after Kultural Kapital)?

In the meantime, we could collect PDFs on AAAARG (http://a.aaaarg.org/node/6353) or post material (news, photos, video, etc) as notes (see the tab on the class web page).

just added this as a note but it looks funky so here is the url again: http://defenduci.blogspot.com/. news of rallies and other such actions at UCI (there is one tomorrow!).

this sounds great. it could be a great way to talk about how to bridge what's been happening at the UC's to broader issues about the economy and other education actions, because there's no reason the UC organizing should be only about the UC... i'm there!

I'll share then.

you read our minds! i also made an aaaarg issue, which i've attached to the class so we can collect and share texts too