Greetings all:

Just back from very stimulating conference in the heartland, 'Constant Capture: Visibility, Civil Liberties, and Global Security' - http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CIE/AP/Constant_Capture/index.html - where I aired for the first time a down-and-dirty edit of the 29 palms footage - and show-cased some of the work being done in our Global Media Project and seminar. Good response, and our blog should be getting some data-flow from the participants - including a promised posting of a remarkable set of glyphs on the event, taken by one of the organizers, Lane Hall.

I decided to take advantage of the remarkable mix of participants (described by someone as 'eggheads, artists and wonks'), and try out our secret Project Z (I did wait until everyone was in a receptive post-cocktails-and-dinner state of mind): once again the zombie zietgeist opened up like some kind of space-time portal: got some great feedback, good intertexts (more on that in class), and then, the next day I was approached by a performance artist/student who had gotten wind of our after-hours discussion. Turns out she is an honest-to-god zombie-buster, living the anti-zombie creed (keeping her hair nub-short - so the zombies cannot grab it - taking karate, getting competent with weapons). Check out her website for some essential info - http://www.zombiedefense.blogspot.com/.

W. Benjamin - yet again - says it best: 'The genuine liberation from an epoch, that is, has the structure of awakening in this respect as well: it is entirely ruled by cunning. Only with cunning, not without it, can we work free of the realm of dream. But there is also a false liberation; its sign is violence.' (Arcades Project, p. 173).

And a few schedule changes/reminders: 1) Jean Bethke Elshtain, eminent public philosopher, is coming to speak at Watson this Wednesday, 4 pm, on Sovereignty and Hannah Arendt. Since this overlaps with our themes and is sure to provoke some new thinking on research projects, I propose students present in the first half of the seminar and then we de-camp to Joukowsky for second part (with reception to follow); 2) Thomas Levin, from Princeton, situationist guru, surveillance buster, and curator extraordinaire, will be joining us Tuesday May 2, 5-7, with an array of clips and flurry of words (tell yer friends - he's not to be missed); 3) Santos will be back in the House! this Wed to the next, so best time to solicit research project responses.

See you tomorrow, JDD