The online laments that followed the second to last Game of Thrones episode, “The Bells,” is instructive, I think, for it makes evident that many of us support violence when it is in service of our interests. Continue reading “The Violence that We Like”
Always Historicize
You know me, I’m all for critiques of authenticity — the way we authorize happenstance interests by portraying them as normative, inevitable, timeless….
But what about croissants? Continue reading “Always Historicize”
Names and Things
There’s a new theory as to where the term “eskimo” originated.
Click the above image to read the brief article, but here’s a snippet: Continue reading “Names and Things”
So Wrong It’s Right
I watched “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” (2002) the other day — sure, I’ve seen it a few times before but I always get a kick out of the way it lampoons the creation of diaspora identities and the way they can end up being over-the-top parodies (because they’re based on estranged memories) of the thing people think they’re just modeling. Continue reading “So Wrong It’s Right”
War of Words
I assume you’ve heard plenty of news from the Hamas/Israel conflict that’s happening right now, particularly the back and forth over the innocent civilians who are either being terrorized by rocket attacks into Israel or the innocent civilians being killed daily in Gaza. Or, to rephrase, maybe you’ve heard the arguments for why it is or is not improper to consider certain people as civilians, i.e., arguments for why so-called non-military targets are as legitimate as any and not just the unfortunate (or perhaps inevitable) “collateral damage” that comes with war. Continue reading “War of Words”
Tea Time
Although I grew up in Canada, I’ve now spent twenty years living and working in the southern United States (5 of those in southwest Missouri, though midwest by some standards, didn’t feel much different from the three previous years in Tennessee, to be honest). I’ve been here long enough to learn to take some things for granted (like saying Zee instead of Zed) but others, at certain moments, still stand out, signaling to me that I am indeed a resident alien. Continue reading “Tea Time”
The Future is Now
“When a group of engineers who can see the future meets a team at Goldman Sachs who can see potential…”
So starts a brief online add from a few years ago. If you’ve not seen it, take a look (but click the “Watch this video on YouTube” link, below, since it can’t be embedded). Continue reading “The Future is Now”
Secret Agent Man
The approach to identification advocated here at the Edge puzzles some readers since it troubles the usual notion that we have of the individual who does things for certain reasons. We talk about interests and purposes, yes, but we don’t presuppose the usual sort of agent doing things in the world.
Is that a contradiction?
I don’t think so. Continue reading “Secret Agent Man”