Monday, January 3, 2011

The New Year

What have we got in the way of resolutions? I'm a minimalist, so I've only got two. First, I will submit at least one book review for publication this year in an academic journal. When I counted up our reviews from last year, I realized just how many I had written for The Notes Taken. What's one more this year? Second, I will complete, with the Hegel reading group, The Phenomenology of Spirit by the end of April.

Otherwise, it seems like everything else is a list of deadlines, some self-imposed. At the moment my time is scheduled around the paper I'm working on about Marx and Rancière. I've been writing about Rancière for the past few days, and have to start on Marx's Capital (Vol. 1) on Wednesday to stay on track. Although this makes it sound like a chore, I have to say that I've been having a lot of fun writing this paper. In a way, it has been very useful for self-clarification regarding problems like 'what do I talk about when I say "capital?"' 'what can Harvey's concept of 'accumulation by dispossession' contribute to this discussion?' and 'how does Rancière contribute to thinking struggles against capital?' 

Quick look back at last year also revealed that my spare time is being spent as it was last year: reading about, and listening to, jazz, although this year I'm reading Robin D.G. Kelley's Theolonious Monk, whereas last year, I was reading reviews about it.

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