University of Minnesota Press

“White people passed laws specifically in order to take away this land from our people. And then we did these other things in order to try to survive.” ALLOTMENT STORIES is a volume that collects more than two dozen chronicles of white imperialism and Indigenous resistance, highlighting how Indigenous peoples have consistently engaged creativity to sustain collective ties, kinship relations, and cultural commitments in the face of land privatization. Two contributors to this volume, Sarah Biscarra Dilley and Joseph M. Pierce, are here to share their pieces of this history.Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini) is an artist, educator, and PhD candidate in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, nitspu tititʸu tsʔitɨnɨ patwin, in the unceded homeland of the Patwin-speaking people (unratified Treaty “J” region).Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee Nation) is associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Argentine Intimacies: Queer Kinship in an Age of Splendor, 1890–1910 and, with S.J Norman (Koori, Wiradjuri descent), cocurator of the Indigenous-led performance series Knowledge of Wounds.ALLOTMENT STORIES: Indigenous Land Relations under Settler Siege is a collection of essays edited by Daniel Heath Justice and Jeani O’Brien. More info: z.umn.edu/allotmentstories.

How is it possible that you are—simultaneously—cells, atoms, a body, quarks, a component in an ecological network, a moment in the thermodynamic dispersal of the sun, and an element in the gravitational whirl of galaxies? Joshua DiCaglio’s SCALE THEORY provides a foundational theory of scale that explains how scale works, the parameters of scalar thinking, and how scale reconfigures objects, subjects, relationships—while teaching us to think in terms of scale, no matter where our interests may lie. DiCaglio is joined here by author Dorion Sagan in a dazzling conversation about how a theory of scale might challenge perspectives on space and time, philosophy, innerness, psychedelics—with careful attention to scientific thinking as well as fascination and mysticism, much attuned to the way scale transforms both reality and ourselves.Joshua DiCaglio is assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University.Dorion Sagan is an award-winning writer, editor, and theorist. He is the son of the astronomer Carl Sagan and the biologist Lynn Margulis.References and citations:-Scale Theory (Joshua DiCaglio)-Cosmic Apprentice (Dorion Sagan)-Dazzle Gradually (Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan)-Cosmos (Carl Sagan)-Powers of Ten video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0)-Inner Life of a Cell video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKW4F0Nu-UY)-Jakob von Uexküll-Microcosmos (Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan)-Symbiotic Planet (Lynn Margulis)-Simon Levin-Samuel Butler-Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Heather Anne Swanson, Elaine Gan, and Nils Bubandt, editors); Sagan has a contribution in this volume.-The Philosophy of Science Fiction: Henri Bergson and the Fabulations of Philip K. Dick (James Edward Burton)-Darwin’s Pharmacy (Richard Doyle)-Friedrich Nietzsche-Luigi Fantappiè-Molecular Capture (Adam Nocek)

In the 1960s, Christopher Isherwood gave an unprecedented series of lectures at California universities about his life and work. During this time, Isherwood spoke openly for the first time about his craft and spirituality. The release of the updated edition of ISHERWOOD ON WRITING includes the long-lost conclusion to the second lecture, including its discussion of A Single Man and A Meeting by the River. This conversation brings the volume’s editor, James J. Berg, into conversation with fellow Isherwood scholars Chris Freeman and Claude Summers.BIOS:James J. Berg is a writer, editor, and scholar living in New York, and editor of ‘Isherwood on Writing.’ Chris Freeman is professor of English and gender studies at the University of Southern California. The two are coeditors of ‘Isherwood in Transit,’ ‘The American Isherwood,’ ‘Conversations with Christopher Isherwood,’ and ‘The Isherwood Century,’ winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Studies.Claude Summers is William E. Stirton Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and professor emeritus of English at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. A founding member of the Modern Language Association’s gay and lesbian caucus, Summers helped lead the gay studies movement to maturity within the academy.NOTE:This episode includes archival audio of Christopher Isherwood speaking at the Honors Convocation at the University of Southern California, 1974.

In a time when online classrooms and meetings have become both indispensable and mundane features of the university, STUDIOUS DRIFT asks: What kind of university becomes possible when digital tools are not taken for granted but hacked into and tinkered with in order to set study adrift? In part a meditation on the essence of the studio space, this book looks at ways we can creatively and critically muddle through the rise of e-learning logics to redefine education. Authors Tyson E. Lewis and Peter B. Hyland both teach at the University of North Texas, and are joined here today by colleague and studio artist James Thurman.Tyson E. Lewis is professor of art education in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas.Peter B. Hyland is director of the Jo Ann (Jody) and Dr. CHarles O. Onstead Institute for Education in the College fo Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas.James Thurman is associate professor of metalsmithing and jewelry in the Department of Studio Art at the University of North Texas.References:Gert Biesta (“learnification”)Alfred Jarry’s pataphysicsThe Undercommons / Stefano Harney and Fred MotenLinks:-Read Studious Drift free online: z.umn.edu/studiousdrift-m (also available for purchase: z.umn.edu/studiousdrift)-Watch: Education as Experimentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llUj_Qyd5Zo-Education as Experimentation: The Studio-D Project (homepage): https://onstead.cvad.unt.edu/studio-d

The new book ‘Cacaphonies’ takes fecal matter and its place in literature seriously. In a stark challenge to the tendency to view 20th- and 21st-century French literature through sanitizing abstractions, Annabel L. Kim argues for feces as a figure of radical equality. ‘Cacaphonies’ reveals the aesthetic, political, and ethical potential of shit and its capacity to transform literature and life. Here, Kim is joined in conversation by Merve Emre, Rachele Dini, and Laure Murat.Annabel L. Kim is the Roy G. Clouse associate professor of Romance Literatures and Languages at Harvard University. A specialist in 20th- and 21st-century French literature, Kim is author of ‘Unbecoming Language: Anti-Identitarian French Feminist Fictions’ and ‘Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature.’Merve Emre is an associate professor of literature at the University of Oxford and a contributing writer at The New Yorker.Rachele Dini is senior lecturer in English and American literature at the University of Roehampton, London.Laure Murat is professor of French and Francophone Studies at UCLA’s Department of European Languages & Transcultural Studies and author of several books.Episode references:Louis-Ferdinand Céline; Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night)Caca communismJean GenetKristin Ross (Fast Cars, Clean Bodies)Susan Signe MorrisonPhilip Roth (Patrimony)Anne GarrétaSamuel Beckett (Molloy)Rey ChowJames Joyce (Ulysses/Leopold Bloom)Alain Resnais (Providence)

ON THE WANDERING PATHS is Sylvain Tesson’s literary adventure and philosophical reflection during a three-month journey of solitude and personal contemplation while walking along vast stretches of mountain ranges and rivers, ancient bridges and villages, of France’s countryside. This exquisite chronicle through landscapes that continue to resist urbanization and technology is a thoughtful and thought-provoking glimpse into a poet’s adventurous life. Author Daniel Hornsby, who writes the Foreword to the new English translation from University of Minnesota Press, joins the Press’s Eric Lundgren in conversation.Eric Lundgren is the Outreach and Development Manager at the University of Minnesota Press. His novel The Facades (Overlook Press) was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and a finalist for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize. His writing has appeared in Tin House, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Boulevard, and The Millions, and a new story, "Actaeon at the Movies", is out in Post Road 39. Daniel Hornsby is the author of Via Negativa (Knopf) and Sucker (Anchor, February 2023). His stories and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bookforum, The Missouri Review, and Joyland.This translation of On the Wandering Paths is published with the support of Villa Albertine, in partnership with the French Embassy.

Exploring new concepts of the relationship between form and function while thinking through object-oriented ontology (OOO), Graham Harman (ARCHITECTURE AND OBJECTS) deepens the exchange between architecture and philosophy, providing a new roadmap to OOO’s influence on the language and practice of contemporary architecture.Art after Nature is a series from University of Minnesota Press that engages with the politics and contradictions of the Anthropocene. Each volume aims to provide the opportunity to creatively engage with new and alternative discourses at the intersection of art, science, and philosophy. More: z.umn.edu/artafternature.Graham Harman is distinguished professor of philosophy at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, and author of many books, including Architecture and Objects; Speculative Realism; and Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything.Dr. Giovanni Aloi is an author, educator, and curator specializing in the representation of nature and the environment in art. Aloi is editor-in-chief of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture.Caroline Picard is a writer, cartoonist, curator, and executive director of Green Lantern Press.Episode references:Object-oriented ontology (OOO)Bruno LatourMartin HeideggerJacques DerridaGilles DeleuzeDavid RuyAristotleImmanuel KantClement GreenbergJoanna Malinowska (exhibit, Time of Guerrilla Metaphysics)Edmund HusserlMichael FriedAldo RossiJeffrey KipnisMichael Young (Young & Ayata)Mark Foster Gage Tom WiscombeMarcel Duchamp

How do educational policy studies need to shift to remain adequate to the emergence of powerful forms of technology? In ALGORITHMS OF EDUCATION, Kalervo N. Gulson, Sam Sellar, and P. Taylor Webb explore how, for policy makers, big data creates the illusion of greater control over educational futures. They propose that schools and governments are increasingly turning to “synthetic governance”—where what is human and what is machine becomes less clear—as a strategy for optimizing education. In this episode, Gulson and Sellar discuss new strategies for, and a new politics of, education.Kalervo N. Gulson is professor in education policy at the University of Sydney. He is author of Education Policy, Space, and the City: Markets and the (In)visibility of Race and coauthor of Education Policy and Racial Biopolitics in Multicultural Cities. Sam Sellar is professor in education policy at the University of South Australia. Most recently he coedited the World Yearbook of Education 2019: Comparative Methodology in the Era of Big Data and Global Networks.References:N. Katherine HaylesLuciana ParisiGilles DeleuzeFélix GuattariBernard StieglerPierre BourdieuMichel FoucaultIsabelle StengersKeller Easterling (Extrastatecraft)AlphaGo (and 2017 documentary of it)Shoshana Zuboff

“Capitalism defeated traditional societies because it was more exciting than they were. But now there is something more exciting than capitalism: its destruction.” In the face of things with true power (capitalism, the law, public opinion, etc.), philosophy is not provisioned to battle them head-on. But it can wage “a guerrilla campaign against them,” writes Andrew Culp (referencing Deleuze) in his new book A GUERRILLA GUIDE TO REFUSAL. Harnessing critical theory, this book takes us on a journey through a subterranean network of communiques, military documents, contemporary art, political slogans, adversarial blogs, and captive media. This conversation among scholars traces a nonfascist life at the end of the world as we know it.Andrew Culp is professor of media history and theory in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts. He is author of A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal (2022) and Dark Deleuze (2016).Will Conway is a PhD candidate whose research centers around disability, biopolitics, and theories of resistance.Jose Rosales is an independent researcher. With Claire Fontaine and Iman Ganji, they are co-author of Foreigners Everywhere and the author of 'Communism as the Riddle Posed to History' in The Double Binds of Neoliberalism (Rowan & Littlefield, 2022), as well as various other texts that can be found online. Currently, they are co-editor (alongside Andreas Petrossiants) of the multi-volume series, Diversity of Aesthetics. Violet is a queer independent researcher based in India working on theories of resistance, biopolitics, and destituent communism.References:Gilles DeleuzeMichel FoucaultArlette FargeMay 68Jean GenetGuy HocquenghemJohann MostLucy ParsonsFriedrich EngelsPaul B. Preciado (and “Marcos”)Christopher Chitty (Sexual Hegemony)Karl MarxJacques DerridaRoberto EspositoAntonio NegriFélix GuattariBernadette Corporation’s Get Rid of Yourself (film)Edward SaidEqbal Ahmad (Confronting Empire)Frantz FanonRobin D. G. Kelley (Race Rebels)Homi BhabhaFred MotenNahum Dimitri Chandler (paraontology)Claire FontaineTiqqunSaidiya HartmanKwame TureNanni Balestrini (The Unseen)     Keywords: archive, power, surveillance, cybernetics, refusal, political, political control, philosophy, anarchy, class, class war, transformationSeveral references are made to specific current events, and as such we want to mention the date of this recording: March 31, 2022.

In SIDE AFFECTS, Hil Malatino opens a conversation about trans experience that acknowledges the reality of feeling fatigue, envy, burnout, numbness, and rate amid the ongoing onslaught of casual and structural transphobia in order to map the intricate emotional terrain of trans survival. In May 2022, Malatino was joined in conversation by Zena Sharman, author of The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory and Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health. This conversation was hosted virtually by White Whale Bookstore of Pittsburgh, PA.Hil Malatino is assistant professor in the departments of women's, gender, and sexuality studies and philosophy at Penn State. Malatino is author of Side Affects; Trans Care; and Queer Embodiment: Monstrosity, Medical Violence, and Intersex Experience.Zena Sharman is a writer, speaker, strategist, and LGBTQ+ health advocate. Sharman is author of The Care We Dream Of, and editor of The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Health Care. More info: ZenaSharman.com.Topics discussed: trans and queer community, affect, rage, trauma, liberatory health care, liberated futures, family, aging, burnout, carceral systems, collective care work.References in this conversation include:Susan StrykerMaría LugonesJames C. ScottLeah Lakshmi Piepzna-SamarasinhaDean SpadeMyrl BeamT FleischmannSins Invalid disability justice primerAurora Levins MoralesEli ClareShayda KafaiAnn CvetkovichA transcript of this episode is available at: z.umn.edu/51222p