The Undercommons

Published Jan. 5, 2013 by Autonomedia.

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5 stars (2 reviews)

The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study Stefano Harney and Fred Moten Introduction by Jack Halberstam

In this series of essays Fred Moten and Stefano Harney draw on the theory and practice of the black radical tradition as it supports, inspires, and extends contemporary social and political thought and aesthetic critique. Today the general wealth of social life finds itself confronted by mutations in the mechanisms of control: the proliferation of capitalist logistics, governance by credit, and the management of pedagogy. Working from and within the social poesis of life in the undercommons Moten and Harney develop and expand an array of concepts: study, debt, surround, planning, and the shipped. On the fugitive path of an historical and global blackness, the essays in this volume unsettle and invite the reader to the self-organised ensembles of social life that are launched every day and every night amid the general antagonism of …

1 edition

Poetic postcolonial theory

4 stars

Some books are hard to write about, for example because they are artistic or because they are dense. This is both. Poet Moten and academic Harney blend their voices together in this work, and it shows. The text is around 100 pages long, and begins with an observation: In films, colonial people who land on shores are often surrounded by spear-wielding "natives". The narrative suggests that colonial people act in self-defence, and that enclosure happens as a result of this need for protection.

From this beginning, the book explores enclosures, borders, public/private space and identity. This is not an easy book, and sections required rereading not only because the language is dense, but also because the concepts are layered and complex. However, even as an object to enjoy in a moment, as a poetic response to a long and dark history, it is a brilliant piece.

The second half is …

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5 stars