Archive for the 'politics' Category

La Manifestation: a fictitious political collectivity

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

Une manifestation is the French term for a protest march in the street. It’s a pretty standard local political ritual, mocked and memorialized by local jokes and international stereotypes alike. “Don’t bother going today if you don’t feel like it,” an  American grad student tells me one day when I feel lazy, “there will always [...]

Student strikebreaking in early 20th-century America

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Via John K. Wilson, I came across a fascinating 1994 article by historian Stephen Norwood, “The Student as Strikebreaker: College Youth and the Crisis of Masculinity in the Early Twentieth Century.” It’s published at JSTOR but the full text is also available at findarticles. (Norwood was in the news last year for more controversial research [...]

The activist poise

Friday, May 14th, 2010

In case you wondered what campus activists look like in Aix, here are some people who were distributing tracts for the election I wrote about earlier. This fellow was from UNEF. As I asked to take his picture, an older man he was talking to edged back out of the frame, and the activist drew [...]

Student elections in Aix-en-Provence

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Last week I went to visit Aix, which might become one of my major fieldsites next year. The university building itself was falling apart; as it turns out, it was the one featured in last year’s complaint about the physical decrepitude of French universities. In spite of the physical decay, it was all lush with [...]

Student violence in Aberdeen, 1861

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

I was reading a curious old book called The Rise of the Student Estate in Britain (by Eric Ashby and Mary Anderson, 1970) and I came across a rather shocking passage: This happened in 1860 in Aberdeen. The students wanted Sir Andrew Leith Hay, the ‘local candidate’, and there was in fact a numerical majority [...]

Occupied “free space” at Paris-8

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

For about two weeks this month, a large space by the entrance to Paris-8 was occupied by students. It had formerly been a coffeeshop operated by a private company, but had been closed months or years ago. To enter after hours when the campus was supposed to be closed, you had to climb up on [...]

An ideological enigma: sex sells housing?

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Dozens of copies of this poster have been put up at the University of Paris-8. (Photo by Imen I., a student in sociological methods at Paris-8.)

Is the university burning?

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

Last month I went to a debate organized at the Sorbonne, “Is the  university burning?” (L’Université brûle-t-elle ?) Appropriately, it ended in chaos; but  midway through, there was a bit of performance art. Actors in masks, some with stockings over their heads, made a pretend argument for burning the university. For the foreigners in the [...]

“Our profession does not easily accommodate resignation”

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

I’ve been spending more time lately with La Ronde Infinie des Obstinés, the Infinite Rounds of the Stubborn, the little group which, in spite of all instrumental considerations, persists in marching every Monday in front of the Ministry. I said in my previous post about them that I was going to translate their tract, so [...]

French press release: Putting an end to precarity

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Monday afternoon this week there was a big meeting in a fancy auditorium at the CRNS (National Center for Scientific Research). I say it was fancy because the audience’s chairs were padded bright red, a long coat rack held a long row of dark coats, and, unlike the plebian amphitheatres at the public universities, this [...]