Comments on: Is the university burning? https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/03/14/is-the-university-burning/ critical anthropology of academic culture Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:10:12 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.1 By: eli https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/03/14/is-the-university-burning/#comment-1221 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:10:12 +0000 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=1254#comment-1221 p.s., the Zapatista Air Force is pretty wild! Thanks for the link.

]]> By: eli https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/03/14/is-the-university-burning/#comment-1220 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:07:11 +0000 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=1254#comment-1220 A pleasure to hear from you, Nick! Yes, you may be right about the Zapatista imagery, although I wouldn’t guarantee that it was conscious on the actors’ part. Balaclavas are probably susceptible to becoming a deracinated political meme, you know… though that said, when I look back at this post from last summer, it does seem obvious that the Zapatistas were deliberately depicted (see the big mural whose photo is about halfway through the post).

It would be really neat to read a history of the circulation of these kinds of radical images — I’ll keep my eye out for one here; there’s plenty of research on french radicalism but I’d need to look more deliberately for work on this kind of internationalist connection.

]]> By: nick https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/03/14/is-the-university-burning/#comment-1219 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:45:12 +0000 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=1254#comment-1219 By the photo documentation alone, I would guess that the performers, clad in balaclavas, are making reference to the Zapatistas and Subcommadante Marcos. At least within the leftist, more academically-oriented political groups I have come into contact with, Marcos and the Zapatistas have provided the major touchstone and model for alterglobalization movements over the last decade. The “Zapatista Air Force” (really paper airplanes; see http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/reports/air_mail_jan00.html ) is one of those stories that gets passed around and helps to form the mythology of creating other forms of power. The story you transcribed regarding trying to rub paper together seems to connect with this history of the contemporary radical imagination.

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