June 13, 2005
I've just come across Naked Punch courtesy of a Gauche It addresses the future based on a shift away from the academic journals locked up and inaccessible to those without subscriptions, and the new philosophical writing available on the web that is forming. We are not there yet and more online resources are needed.
The promise of Naked Punch is a good one. The task it has set itself:
"...is to lodge itself in between so called 'high academic' discourse and the dubbed down gibberish of publications we shall not name! All too often it seems impossible to pick up a journal without either being utterly baffled by an obscure argument resting upon an army of footnotes or down right disappointed when faced with yet another 'Science vs. Religion' paper, glossy pictures of bearded men included.
Naked Punch pitches it 'just right', walks the middle road: we believe that what readers are looking for are informed, well-written, sometimes entertaining pieces of criticism.
One shouldn't have to siphon through a mass of references or understand Heideggerian jargon to get to the real heart of an article. The radical questioning which does not see theory and practice as divided that impassions us must be as accessible and lucid as possible.
At the same time we are interested in furthering a more overtly theoretical philosophical and political discussion, reason for which some of our articles do sometimes include a few footnotes and a few "technical" terms."
Sounds so good doesn't it. Hits all the right spots. Too good to be true?
Naked Punch mostly works the philosophy and art vein. A selection of articles are online, and there is the odd article on philosophy and politics.
In this selection from an 'Interview with Antonio Negri' Negri says:
"I see our period as a major transitional stage, like a classical interregnum ... I have a feeling that we are living through a phase of transition from the modern into the post-modern, which is itself endowed with a series of very peculiar characteristics. And it is a phase in which a battle is taking place to decide who and how will exercise the power over the empire, over the entirety of the surface of the globe, and to identify and determine the structure of power within a market and a general structure already completed. The most fundamental concept that needs to be grasped is the capitalistic convergence over a common interest in constituting a structure of command, namely a normative structure."
Yes, we are living through a major transitional stage and there is a battle taking place to decide who and how this power over empire will be exercised.
But that does mean we turn away from what is happening inside nation states:
The law does not exhaust the question of an ethical response to the mandatory detention camps and the way they are run. "Why do we need to keep people locked up until they've lost their mind?" ask Jud Moylan.
An ethical confrontation is required: one based on the testimony and witnessing of those who endure a bare life in the camps.
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