(Dis)placements

Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One opens with the claim that “It should not be surprising that Marx remains as inexhaustible as capital itself, and that with every adaptation or mutation of the latter his texts and his thought resonate in new ways and with fresh accents … rich with new meanings” (Jameson 1). Together with Valences of the Dialectic (2009), this is Fredric Jameson's latest chapter in a life-long project of actualization and affirmation of different categories of Marx’s dialectic, from alienation to commodity fetishism, all thoroughly criticized and somewhat abandoned after the (post)structuralist turn of Marxism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By positing the category of representation in the center of his reading of Capital, Jameson is moving against the current of those appropriations of Marx that amidst the unprecedented global financial crisis of 2008, aimed to find their foothold in the supposed objectivity of the economy – projecting onto the economy ...

“My darling sister, you have a hole in your butt,” Ivka says in all seriousness, as if relating a particularly important discovery. Children giggle and point fingers at the torn up stitching right in the middle of Tona’s round butt. Tona has just bent over while dragging the wooden stool from the kitchen, and now, broad and strong, she stands up next to the stone table. Villagers let go of their chatting and prick their ears up. There is a smile lurking at the corner of their lips – they know what their Tona is all about. Even now, when you can clearly make out her white panties under the wide, colourful skirt, it doesn’t cross her mind to cover the hole with her hand, let alone feel embarrassed. On the contrary, it’s as if she has been waiting for fancy Miss Ivka to slap that remark in the middle of a hot summer afternoon. Her tiny eyes pop with delight and people know her tongue, so sharp and witty, is half way out to snap back at Ivka.“First, it’s not a hole, it’s a cranny,” she fir...

EstagfirullahInna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'unda će plutati. Pa, mislim da me dom ispljunuo, nestanci struje i policijski sat kao jezik uz klimavi zub. Bože, znaš li kako je teško pričati o danu kada te vlastiti grad vukao za kosu, kraj starog zatvora, kraj školskih vrata, kraj gorućih torza nabijenih na stupove kao zastave? Kada upoznam druge nalik sebi, prepoznajem čežnju, nedostajanje, sjećanje na pepeo na njihovim licima. Nitko ne napušta dom osim ako dom nisu usta morskog psa. Nosila sam tu staru himnu u ustima tako dugo da više nije bilo mjesta ni za jednu drugu pjesmu, drugi jezik i drugi govor. Poznajem strah koji te prekriva, u potpunosti guta. Rastrgala sam i pojela svoju putovnicu u hotelu zračne luke. Naduta sam jezikom koji si ne mogu priuštiti da zaboravim.*Znam da je nekoliko stvari istinito. Ne znam kamo idem, a odakle dolazim nestaje, nisam dobrodošla i moja ljepota ovdje nije ljepota. Moje tijelo gori sramom nepripadanja, moje tijelo žudi. Ja sam grijeh sjećanja i o...

She looked loathingly at the spoon. It was a metal spoon, dark, with a small engraving on its handle – a sharp taste. “Open your mouth, slowly, eaaaasy, like a little birdie in its nest,” he said, bringing the spoon to her mouth. He hated spoons; they had seemed despicable little things since he was small. Why did he now find himself having to wield it, full of soup, having to usher it now into this young child’s mouth, as his parents had done to him, as surely as his parents’ parents had also done? If they even had spoons then, if some fool had already invented them. He had to find himself an encyclopedia and figure out when the first spoon had been forged; he had to get his hands on an encyclopedia, a source of infinite knowledge by which he might survive. Spoon: A piece of silverware with a concave scoop at its end; typically used for carrying liquids to the mouth.

The work of Erwin Piscator as a theatre director is marked by attempts to introduce communist ideology into theatre, which was reflected in various aspects of his theatrical practice. This paper focuses on the agitprop productions staged by his Proletarian Theatre, which propagated the communist narrative of class struggle by the use of an irrational aesthetics. These performances embodied the contradiction that can be found in communist practice, which appealed to the scientifically rational analysis of history as class struggle, but in practice abolished criticism and transformed class struggle into a myth. Piscator’s production of Russia’s Day staged the conflict between the capitalist and the proletarian class according to the scientific analysis of history as class struggle, but the irrational aesthetics of the performance immersed the audience into the staged history, transforming the communist narrative into a myth.Keywords: Erwin Piscator, agitprop, Proletarian Theatre, Russia’...

This article is about twelve middle-class students, previously studying in elite primary and secondary schools, making another attempt at getting into university in Hong Kong. Despite their failure at a critical educational stage, which contradicts a general pattern of middle-class educational success, they decide to seek a second chance by reading an associate degree in community college, a perceived inferior educational option. Despite feeling determined, they are anxious and uneasy with taking up this option. How the middle class feel about their academic pursuits, especially after a critical failure, is under-researched. This article attempts to fill this gap by referring to Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and field to make sense of the complex or contradictory feelings of 12 students with a self-conscious, high-status, middle-class habitus in encountering a perceived low-status community college. I shall conclude this article with the normative implication of our discussion in makin...