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digest 2004-08-15 #001.txt
litsci-l-digest Sunday, August 15 2004 Volume 01 : Number
070
In this issue:
Steve Kurtz/Critical Art Ensemble discussion at SLSA meeting
'Bibliography of First Person Narratives of Madness'
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Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 11:27:22 -0400
From: bjr3@buffalo.edu
Subject: Steve Kurtz/Critical Art Ensemble discussion at SLSA meeting
Hello once again,
I think that there has been enough of a response to my initial request
(pasted below) to go ahead with the Friday lunch discussion of the
CAE/Steve Kurtz case. I will be attempting to make arrangements for box
lunches from hotel catering in the next few weeks, and will keep the
list posted on my progress (I make no promises, however). Please
continue to let me know if you are interested in attending or if you are
interested in presenting a brief paper or opinion on the subject. And
of course everyone is cordially invited to attend.
I will send along more information as it becomes available.
Regards,
Benjamin Robertson
Quoting bjr3@buffalo.edu:
> Hello all,
>
> I was wondering/hoping if some of this year??s SLSA participants would
> be
> interested in taking part in an informal, brown bag style discussion
> of
> the case surrounding Critical Art Ensemble member Steve Kurtz. Such
> a
> discussion, which could take place during the lunch break on Friday,
> is
> a must, given the timeliness of the subject (so timely that I was
> unable
> to get together a proper panel on the case), CAE??s interest in the
> intersections of science/art/discourse, and SLS??s recent
> transformation
> into SLSA.
>
> For those who might not be familiar with the case, a summary:
>
> University at Buffalo art professor Steve Kurtz, a member of Critical
> Art Ensemble (a group of collaborative artists who investigate
> alternative forms of political/economic protest in the context of art
> that critiques, most recently, genetically modified food), woke up on
> the morning of 11 May 2004 to discover that his wife had stopped
> breathing (she died of undisclosed causes, a tragedy often lost in
> the
> midst of the events that were to follow). Paramedics on the scene
> spotted what, to them, appeared to be lab equipment with bioterror
> implications. The FBI, in full hazmat suits and with pistols drawn
> and
> leveled, entered the house and confiscated Kurtz??s equipment,
> computer,
> and papers and cordoned off his house. Kurtz was arraigned on
> Patriot
> Act-inspired bioterror charges, which were later dismissed (the
> organism
> in question turns out to be used by middle-school students in biology
> experiments). Other CAE members, UB faculty and Autonomedia were
> also
> subpoenaed for the grand jury hearing. Once the initial charges
> proved
> to be impossible to prosecute, Kurtz and a University of Pittsburg
> scientist were indicted for mail fraud, which carries a possible
> penalty
> of 20 years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine.
>
> Notably, given the context of the charges, CAE advocates an activism
> based in ?¨fuzzy sabotage,?Æ discussed in Molecular Invasion as
follows
> (note: all of CAE??s books are available as PDFs at
> http://www.critical-art.net/books/index.html; for sale at
> http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.cgi):
>
> ?¨The fuzzy saboteur has to stand on that ambiguous line between the
> legal and the illegal (both criminally and civilly). From that point,
> the individual or group can set in motion a chain of events that will
> yield the desired final result. The opening activity??the only one to
> which the saboteur should have any direct causal link??should be as
> legal
> as possible and hopefully within the rights of any individual. The
> more
> links in the chain, the better from a legal standpoint, but extending
> causal chains increases the difficulty of controlling all the
> exponentially growing number of variables that could doom the action.
> For the most part, such actions will only have two phases??the
> legitimate
> or fuzzy act and the upheaval it causes. The authorities then have
> the
> legal conundrum of proving guilt by indirect action??an unenviable
> task
> for any attorney. Moreover, unlike CD, fuzzy sabotage does not
> require a
> physical confrontation with authority, and in many cases does not
> require any type of trespass.?Æ (101)
>
> Coupled to the focus of CAE??s work, this statement and the politics
> it
> implies offers an opportunity to not only investigate the
> relationships
> of biotech to its economic and cultural milieu (a discussion that has
> obviously been going on for quite some time), but also the chance to
> think through the implications of current US policy and its effects
> upon
> those of us who investigate/question such relationships.
>
> Please contact me off-list (bjr3@buffalo.edu) if you would like to
> take
> part in the discussion and/or if you have any suggestions for how we
> might get such a discussion off the ground. Wayne Miller has
> suggested
> that we might be able to use the room where lunch will be held on
> Saturday and that we might be able to arrange for ?¨box lunches?Æ from
> the
> hotel caterers. I would be happy to try and make these arrangements,
> unless someone has another suggestion.
>
> I will send along another post once I have figured out some of the
> logistics, and whether or not there is enough interest to warrant the
> discussion in the first place.
>
> In the meantime, some links:
>
> See the CAE site at: http://www.critical-art.net/.
>
> For more on the Kurtz case see the CAE Defense Fund site at:
> http://www.caedefensefund.org/.
>
> Two informative, if tepid, Wired News articles:
> http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,63637,00.html
> http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,64040,00.html
>
> (Warning: shameless plug.) Also see the collection of links (if not
> the
> actual commentary) at:
> http://www.semioclast.com/archives/000342.html
> http://www.semioclast.com/archives/000338.html
> http://www.semioclast.com/archives/000335.html
> http://www.semioclast.com/archives/000332.html
>
> I look forward to hearing from some of you.
>
> Regards,
>
> Benjamin J. Robertson
>
>
> PhD candidate in English
> Teaching Assistant
> University at Buffalo
> www.semioclast.com
> -
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> Please see the following URL for the LITSCI-L archive, Web resource
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> http://www.law.duke.edu/sls
>
>
PhD candidate in English
Teaching Assistant
University at Buffalo
www.semioclast.com
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------------------------------
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 20:06:50 -0700
From: Robert Maxwell Young
Subject: 'Bibliography of First Person Narratives of Madness'
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Gail A Hornstein, Professor of Psychology and Education at Mount
Holyoke College, Massachusetts and author of a distinguished
biography of Feida Fromm-Reichmann -- To Redeem One Person Is to
Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (Free Press,
2000) -- has prepared an update of her
'Bibliography of First Person Narratives of Madness',
which can be downloaded as a PDF file at her web site:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/misc/profile/names/ghornste.shtml
There is also a link at the Free Associations web site
http://human-nature.com/free-associations/contents.html
The link to the bibliography is at the bottom of the page of her web
site. Once you have downloaded it, you page through it by pressing
'Page Down' at the top of the PDF file.
- --
Professor Robert Maxwell Young, PhD
Psychotherapist, writer, editor, publisher, supervisor
26 Freegrove Road, London N7 9RQ, UK
Tel. + 44 (0)207 607 8306
Email: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk NB: NOT including POP3
CV & Home Page: http://human-nature.com/rmyoung/
Writings: http://human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/
Human-Nature.Com Web Site: http://www.human-nature.com
------------------------------
End of litsci-l-digest V1 #70
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Please see the following URL for the LITSCI-L archive, Web resource
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