A friend of mine handed me a recent (November 15) article by Slavoj Žižek, entitled “Resistance Is Surrender”. It comes from the London Review of Books. This friend wanted to know my opinion. My answer? The short version is not appropriate for a public audience, so I’ll share with you the long version. Just about everything in the article is worthy of a counterpoint, but I’ll try to limit myself. I encourage the reader to read Žižek’s article in full first. Most of it has been quoted below, but there are a few chunks I left out: (more…)
December 2, 2007
Antiquity as a natural resource—آثار كموارد
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In the early 19th Century, Muhammed Ali, often credited with bringing Egypt into the modern age, effected that modernizing project in no small part through the use of antiquities, either a) as more-or-less direct payment for the services of foreign experts, b) as bribes or c) to curry favor with Western notables easily charmed by shiny old things (sort of like “The Pilgrims” trading beads with “The Indians” for food and clothing, but in reverse). (more…)
