Cultural activism : practices, dilemmas, and possibilities / editors, Begüm Özden Firat, Aylin Kuryel.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Firat, Begüm Özden.

Kuryel, Aylin.

Series:

Thamyris/Intersecting: Place, Sex and Race 21.

Thamyris/Intersecting: Place, Sex and Race, 1879-5846 ; 21

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social change.

Politics and culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (255 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; New York : Rodopi, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This volume addresses contemporary activist practices that aim to interrupt and reorient politics as well as culture. The specific tactics analyzed here are diverse, ranging from culture jamming, sousveillance, media hoaxing, adbusting, subvertising, street art, to hacktivism, billboard liberation, and urban guerilla, to name but a few. Though indebted to the artistic and political movements of the past, this form of activism brings a novel dimension to public protest with its insistence on humor, playfulness, and confusion. This book attempts to grasp both the old and new aspects of contemporary activist practices, as well as their common characteristics and internal varieties. It attempts to open up space for the acknowledgement of the ways in which contemporary capitalism affects all our lives, and for the reflection on possible modes of struggling with it. It focuses on the possibilities that different activist tactics enable, the ways in which those may be innovative or destructive, as well as on their complications and dilemmas. The encounter between the insights of political, social and critical theory on the one hand and activist visions and struggles on the other is urgent and appealing. The essays collected here all explore such a confrontational collaboration, testing its limits and productiveness, in theory as well as in practice. In a mutually beneficial relationship, theoretical concepts are rethought through activist practices, while those activist practices are developed with the help of the insights of critical theory. This volume brings scholars and activists together in the hope of establishing a productive dialogue between the theorizations of the intricacies of our times and the subversive practices that deal with them.

Contents:

Preliminary material / Editors Cultural Activism

Introduction. Cultural Activism: Practices, Dilemmas, and Possibilities / Begüm Özden Fırat and Aylin Kuryel

The Notion of Irony in Cultural Activism / Gavin Grindon

The Resonance of Romanticism: Activist Art and the Bourgeois Horizon / A. K. Thompson

Lots of Money Because I am Many: The Luther Blissett Project and the Multiple-Use Name Strategy / Marco Deseriis

The Separation Wall in Palestine: Artists Love to Hate It / Ronen Eidelman

Breaking Out of the Specialist “Ghetto”: Performative Encounters as Participatory Praxis in Radical Politics / Anja Kanngieser

A Proposal for Grounded Cultural Activism: Communication Strategies, Adbusters and Social Change / Emrah Irzık

Bakunin’s Poor Cousins: Engaging Art for Tactical Interventions / Christian Scholl

Clowndestine Maneuvers: A Study of Clownfrontational Tactics / L. M. Bogad

Play with Authority!: Radical Performance and Performative Irony / Michael Shane Boyle

Appendix: Inventory of Practices / Editors Cultural Activism

The Contributors / Editors Cultural Activism

Index / Editors Cultural Activism.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-283-00925-0

9786613009258

90-420-2982-X

OCLC:

707068797

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789042029828 DOI