User Profile

Jim Brown

jamesjbrownjr@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 10 months ago

jamesjbrownjr.net English professor Teaches and studies rhetoric and digital studies Director of the Rutgers-Camden Digital Studies Center (DiSC): digitalstudies.camden.rutgers.edu

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2023 Reading Goal

21% complete! Jim Brown has read 17 of 80 books.

Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (Paperback, 2019, Fitzcarraldo Editions) 4 stars

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating …

"And I think it tallies with one of my Theories - my belief that the human psyche evolved in order to defend us against seeing the truth. To prevent us from catching sight of the mechanism. The psyche is our defense system - it make sure we'll never understand what's going on around us. Its main task is to filter information, even though the capabilities of our brains are enormous. For it would be impossible to carry the weight of this knowledge. Because very tiny particle of the world is made of suffering." (225)

Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by  (Page 225)

Abolition Geography (Hardcover, 2021, Verso) No rating

New collection of writings from one of the foremost contemporary critical thinkers on racism, geography …

An extremely useful introduction

No rating

I was familiar with Ruth Wilson Gilmore but primarily because I've seen her cited by others. This book laid out some core concepts for me when it comes to her work on abolition (anti-state state was one of these).

I also appreciated that many of the essays here both describe and enact activist scholarship, describing her work with organizations and other scholars.

There's a lot here, and it spans many years of an incredible career.

A Spectre, Haunting (2022, Haymarket Books) 4 stars

China Miéville's brilliant reading of the modern world's most controversial and enduring political document: the …

A book about how to read

No rating

A book about how to read, and a wonderful demonstration of the method. This is about the Manifesto, it's history, its debates, its import, but it's also just about how to read generously and rigorously:

“The only reasonable way to read the Manifesto - or anything - is to be as flexible as the text itself.”

“We should strive to read as generously as possible - and to read ruthlessly beyond that generosity’s limits.”

One of the best books I've read, full stop. It made me want to dig back into Miéville's fiction, especially since The City and The City is another favorite of mine.