BRETT Murray’s The Spear has generated an extraordinary amount of media and political commentary, social media twittering, marches and protests, including the defacing of the painting itself. The rage expressed by many in response to the depiction of the private parts...
cultural
Of green economy and sustainable capitalism
The European Environment Agency recently released a report on progress towards the “green economy” in Europe. The EEA defines the “green economy” as one in which “the environmental, economic and social policies and innovations enable society to use resources...
What is at stake at Rio+20 | by The International Coordination Group (CG) of the People’s Summit for social and environmental justice
For Unity and Mobilization of peoples For Life and Commons, social and environmental Justice Against Commodification of Nature and « Green economy One month before the United Nations Conference Rio+20, peoples of the world don’t see any positive advances in the...
Information is not knowledge | by Andy Wilson
David Stubbs, Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don’t Get Stockhausen (Zero, 2010), £9.99_ The Tate Modern is one of the biggest cultural attractions in the UK, welcoming over five million visitors a year.1 Thousands flocked to see its recent Futurist and...
Taming transgressions: South African nation building and `body politics’ | by Antje Schuhmann
Abstract This text questions the support that Caster Semenya received in the name of patriotism, arguing that the heteronormative and patriarchal home base of nationalism, its gendered matrix so to say, reflects a dilemma: the popular support for Semenya reinforced...
Love and Its Discontents: Irony, Reason, Romance | by Eva Illouz
...in my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love. Like falling in love. Do the young still fall in love, or is that mechanism obsolete by now, unnecessary,...
Feminism, Capitalism and the cunning of history | Nancy Fraser
I would like here to take a broad look at second-wave feminism. Not at this or that activist current, nor this or that strand of feminist theorizing; not this or that geographical slice of the movement, nor this or that sociological stratum of women. I want, rather,...
Rocky Road to Gender Equality in Latin America | by Erika Guevara-Rosas
The increased participation of women in traditional politics in Latin America has made headlines for several years now. Last month, The New York Times published an analysis of the 2012 Women in Politics Survey of UN Women and the Inter-Parliamentary Union by Luisita...
The naked truth about our culture | by Simphiwe Sesanti
This week the world witnessed a heated debate around Brett Murray’s painting exposing SA president Jacob Zuma’s genitals. Those in defense of Murray argued that this was purely an artistic act, while those in favour of Zuma argued that it was merely the work of a...

