Jo Giardini

Sandwiched between two men on the Montréal metro, one reading ‘The Prince,’ the other Camille Paglia.

My Life in the New Millennium It was true that the more I hated people the more I loved cats. Then people started to surprise me. Often this involved fire or Coca-Cola bottles with petrol which amounts to the same thing. Once fire is the form of the spectacle the problem becomes how to set fire to fire. Some friends were prepared to help with this which Michael Jackson having died and then Whitney Houston was the new pop music. Without an understanding of the world system and the underlying truth of land as the place of politics and the sea as the space of commerce it is hard to integrate that other most important fact of our era. Pirates. My friends and pirates and cats —it comes down to comrades known and elsewhere.

Joshua Clover—the start of much to reread

Rest in peace, Joshua. I vividly recall our first conversations, in the midst of the 2012 student strike in Montreal—his uncompromising intelligence, comradeliness, commitment to the real movements of our times, his poetics, all impressed me then, and on every encounter since.

"Man eats hearty meal, imperilling his sustained fast."

In what possible world is this 'imperilling' the cease-fire, rather than simply breaking it without apology?

Did we somehow never talk about 'By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept'?

🧵 IN SHOCKING MOVE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY FIRES UNION PRESIDENT ONE DAY BEFORE CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS BEGIN, IN FURTHER CRACKDOWN ON FREE SPEECH

Yes, signed this when it was circulating! Was just wondering if, as due dates for panel submissions arrive, people are working to re-publicize this, and put pressure on those who are moving to participate…

Sending power to Sterne, and all those near him. The speech he gave is accessible on his blog, here: superbon.net/2011/11/14/t...

Through the next months he would continue to be outspoken, even at the most conservative of universities in Quebec. I’m grateful for his powerful scholarship, and I’ll always think of it as an extension of a commitment to the public, contestatory work of thinking in common.

who were gearing up for the monumental strike of 2012, and insisted that police presence on university campuses must not be normalized. It was a powerful speech of solidarity, in support of a vision of the university as a space against privation and privatization, in support of a more just world.

I’ll always remember a speech Sterne gave in November 2011, after riot police had indiscriminately assaulted people in McGill and the adjacent Milton Parc neighbourhood. He affirmed the ongoing fight by public unions in Quebec for fair compensation, spoke in support of student activists…

I can’t imagine participating in the MLA conference in Toronto next year, and I’m curious if anyone has been organizing a more formal response—a statement from members who will continue to refuse engagement after the stifling of the statement on Gaza and scholasticide last year?

Congrats David!

So so good! Didn’t realize that there’s been a vinyl release.

After Accountability launch at Red Emma's with Stevie Wilson, Peter Hardie, and Esteban Kelly February 22, 2025 6:00-7:30 PM Red Emma's 3128 Greenmount Ave.

Baltimore! Join us this Saturday for a conversation on the new @haymarketbooks.org edition of After Accountability at @redemmas.org, starting at 6 PM! We'll be joined by @estebanitos.bsky.social @genderhorizon.com @maxfox.bsky.social and Stevie Wilson to discuss withfriends.co/event/227083...

And somehow that's the best of the three pages?

I teach a couple chapters from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's 'As We Have Always Done': '7. The Sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples’ Bodies' & '8. Indigenous Queer Normativity' to help make this connection.

Ah! So looking forward!

If you need any other club members…

(feeling devastated, today, and trying to find strength in these words which have been close)

Collective liberation is entwined with the freedom of children, and their abilities to grasp towards new worlds. I've been so grateful to learn this anew in conversation with @lalouverouge.bsky.social. I can't think of something more vital than making sure that trans children continue to flourish.

And today, in a different class, we discussed this passage from Jan Morris' 'Conundrum,' envisioning (with an unfortunate orientalist framing) a version of identity which emphasizes its relationality, its ability to travel.

Last week I taught John D'Emilio's 'Capitalism and Gay Identity,' and lingered with my class on this late paragraph—affirming the necessity of allowing children the ability to explore their own futures, to live lives beyond the identities which they're told are available to them.

Anyway—as someone who’s also at a SLAC with a generalist bent, if we ever end up at the same conference I’d be excited to talk, and combat cliquishness!

ACLA had long been a favourite conference of mine though—the seminar format can lean cliquey, but it’s also a chance to develop involved conversations with new people, and there’s a generalist bent to a substantial chunk of it.

I only did ASA for the first time this year, but was really impressed by the range of conversations and the generally welcoming vibes—but lots of variability across panels.

ACLA and ASA!

Not a single one of those things seems to be suggested nor implied by Matt, and I would challenge you to demonstrate otherwise. Rather, Matt’s numbers suggest that the organization makes active choices about where to prioritize allocating its funds, and that these choices are not inevitable.

And ‘Trans Cultural Production’: