Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Holloway's notion: that the three threads of political possibility each depend on the notion of the state, either as something one seizes, one controls, or one eliminates. Holloway posits a different possibility: that one can change the world without taking state power. But state power is part, if only part, of the means by which how the world is administered.
OK, so I'll keep reading.
OK, so I'll keep reading.
Monday, June 23, 2003
There is no way the fly can be objective, however much she may want to be: "to look at the web objectively, from the outside--what a dream," muses the fly, "what an empty, deceptive dream."
--from John Holloway's _Change the World Without Taking Power_, Pluto Press, 2002
--from John Holloway's _Change the World Without Taking Power_, Pluto Press, 2002
Friday, June 20, 2003
I've been trying to figure out, as I prepare for the 2003-2004 academic year, how the last line of defense that is the collective department chairs can best function under the new management structure Diablo Valley College has. I realize that some of the department chairs just want to get along with their deans (these imposed-from-above occupiers of what was once a faculty position) and get what they can for their programs and for their fellow faculty. I realize too that my fantasy of the chairs--as the Department Chairs Council or whatever we could become--is at this point just a fantasy. We meet the week before classes, with union and academic support, to figure out what we can and will try to do.
Still, a week or so ago I wrote to the VP of Something-of-Other to ask her if, when offices are assigned for next year, the dept. chairs could have one, as a central locale where we could share info, resources. The space is probably available; after all, we're not hiring full-time instructors during this budget crisis and we can always cram the part-timers into some corner or another (that's what we do now). But I have trouble imagining the VP wanting to legitimate our existence *as* a body. (I note that she hasn't responded--the most used tool of the administration seems to be the refusal to communicate. Strategy question: what is the best moment to send the follow-up query ["perhaps you didn't get my earlier message...."]?)
But my real question is, how necessary in an age of electronic communication *is* a physical space out of which to operate a corner of a resistance? I'll grant that that chairs thus far have been terrible at using e-mail to communicate with each other (thus when the X Dept voted no confidence in its--"their"?--dean, none of us knew right away; that would be unheard of in English, where we constantly share info on-line). But we can certainly call meetings, sit with each other in offices, empty classrooms, conference rooms, cafeterias, even off-campus. What *would* the advantage of an office for the fledgling group be, beyond my desire to put up a sign on the door that says, "No deanz allowed"?
Still, a week or so ago I wrote to the VP of Something-of-Other to ask her if, when offices are assigned for next year, the dept. chairs could have one, as a central locale where we could share info, resources. The space is probably available; after all, we're not hiring full-time instructors during this budget crisis and we can always cram the part-timers into some corner or another (that's what we do now). But I have trouble imagining the VP wanting to legitimate our existence *as* a body. (I note that she hasn't responded--the most used tool of the administration seems to be the refusal to communicate. Strategy question: what is the best moment to send the follow-up query ["perhaps you didn't get my earlier message...."]?)
But my real question is, how necessary in an age of electronic communication *is* a physical space out of which to operate a corner of a resistance? I'll grant that that chairs thus far have been terrible at using e-mail to communicate with each other (thus when the X Dept voted no confidence in its--"their"?--dean, none of us knew right away; that would be unheard of in English, where we constantly share info on-line). But we can certainly call meetings, sit with each other in offices, empty classrooms, conference rooms, cafeterias, even off-campus. What *would* the advantage of an office for the fledgling group be, beyond my desire to put up a sign on the door that says, "No deanz allowed"?
