This blog doesn’t have a mandate, though it seems to have a theme. I started this blog in January of 2008, and posted a series of entries that addressed or reviewed literature, discussed social issues, discussed critical or literary theory, or presented (as I still do) news events and links to articles/videos. Now that I think back, I’m not sure what it was about the blog that I disliked, but I was unhappy with it and so I deleted all the posts and left it to rest for many months. It might have had something to do with it not having a fully articulated vision, it might have felt purposeless—but it is precisely these things which I now embrace. I believe blogs are an important form of alternative media, and necessary to combat censorship and reappropriate agency in a world where our primary collective medium (language) is co-opted by the corporation. Furthermore, the requirement of a mandate or a vision buys into corporate determinism—a reduction of lived experience and the stratification of dialogue from which I seek to move away. It is because discourse in the humanities is following this line of thought, paired with the reduction of degree-completion-times, that I believe intense focuses in discourse produces thinkers whose work falls within narrow perimeters.
When I become involved in the SFU Community Coalition, that sought to protest funding cuts to post-secondary education in this province, in early 2009, I found a need to resuscitate the blog. However, the re-election of Gordon Campbell’s Liberals (with more seats) in the province of BC, I decided that neoliberal hegemony was bigger than I could take-on at this point, and that whomever voted for Campbell’s government might fit the category of ‘complacent’ [that's not really what I want to say] and don’t deserve people fighting for their rights (things like affordable health care or thorough, engaged education) … so I turned again toward weaving literature into my posts. I therefore blog about things that I think are worth noting, be it political, literary, or both. I seek to excite the interest of intelligent people, but also to encourage activity beyond thought.
