Twitter hashtag #AAA09 for AAA meetings…

Twitterers can use hashtag #AAA09

Blogging or Tweeting the AAA Annual Meeting?

from American Anthropological Association by Brian

If you plan on blogging or tweeting the upcoming AAA annual meeting in Philadelphia, please email Brian Estes (bestes AT aaanet DOT org) with your name (optional) and a link to your site or twitter feed. In the interest of providing the most comprehensive meeting coverage possible–particularly for those who are unable to attend–we would be happy to link to your content, including session write-ups, event photos and more.Twitterers can use hashtag #AAA09 when posting meeting related content.

New book: The Anthropology of News and Journalism: Global Perspectives

Such a nice volume on the The Anthropology of News and Journalism has recently been released. Contributors are great scholars from the area of media anthropology. I could not get it yet, but it is in my immediate reading list ,of course…

In Switzerland, Fascism seems to be getting ground…

last updated: 30 Nov 2009- 02:30

Even fundamentalist Islamic countries did not vote about the shape of religious institutions…

It is a sad day. The referendum result made me really angry first but now sadness prevails. This is such a stupid referendum and a stupid result. Switzerland is known to be a peaceful and civilized place and whatever the reasons behind the ban, it just doesn’t fit. How come a country like Switzerland can do something like that? It is basically beyond reason. As a Swiss friend of mine, Ariane Beldi, stated in Facebook, this small, rich and civilized country declared itself to be the first officially anti-Muslim country in Europe! Discrimination against Muslims has become unashamedly constitutional… My goodness. Again in Ariane’s words “in their haste to protect the Judeo-Christian heritage against Islam, a good deal of people seem to be forgetting some essential elements of this heritage, like intellectual rigour, rationality, honnesty, tolerance, etc…”

Some Eurobloggers reacted fast and they deserve an applause. A growing roundup follows…

Swiss appear to back minaret ban

from BBC News | Europe | World Edition

Projections from exit polls suggest Swiss voters have backed a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets.

Swiss minaret referendum today.

Swiss Minaretxia

from tabsir.net

Cows will no longer give milk in Switzerland if minarets are allowed to stand.

The rightwing political parties in Switzerland are up in arms, preparing for a vote on Sunday to save their alpine paradise from the dreaded cultural eyesore of mosque minarets. This proposed ban on minarets comes from the same friendly yodelers in the nationalist Swiss People’s Party that has previously campaigned against

Turks at War (with themselves). Part V. 1954 wounded, 2 died in a single day.

Waiting to be sacrificed. I took it as I was waiting for the green light...

At the end of the first day of Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, 1954 people were reported to be injured in Turkey as they were trying to slaughter sheep and cows, as Hürriyet reports.2 died of heart attack during the act of amateur butchership.

Eid al-Adha | Turkish Islam | Muslim holidays

Previous year reports here.

And more the Turkish society:

Carl Bildt stopped by Istanbul

Turkey’s Shifting Diplomacy

from NYT > Turkey by By ALASTAIR CROOKE

Frustrated by Europe and the U.S., Ankara is bolstering its ties with Iran, Syria and Iraq.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (L),Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (C) and Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis (R) pose for media before their Turkey-EU Troika Ministerial meeting in Istanbul November 26, 2009. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

Agamben’s “What is an Apparatus?”

I have meaning to read Giorgio Agamben for a long while. Prof. Agamben has become a trendy personality in philosophical circles and I was curious about him, naturally. and I admit I am ashamed, I should have read him before. Anyway, I had bought Homo sacer among some other of his books but did not have time to start. Recently, I got his essayistic “What Is an Apparatus?” and Other Essays and actually read it. It is an 80-page book with three essays. He has a style very easy to read. And what is more he writes about apparatus, contemporary and friendship all of which consists major scholarly themes to follow for me. Some may know my probably most successful publication ever done is about the idea of Assemblage (“This article shows how, in recent works of cultural analysis, the concept of ‘assemblage‘ has been been derived from key sources of theory and put to work to provide a structure-like surrogate to express certain prominent values of a assemblage………”) co-authored with George E. Marcus. And the idea of assemblage is directly related to Foucault’s Apparatus that Prof. Agamben focuses on.Anthropos today: Reflections on modern equipment is recent treatment of how Foucauldian concepts of apparatus and assemblage interplay.
Similary, the notion of contemporary is a hot topic in anthropological circles at least. Prof. Rabinow has been working on it for a while: Marking Time: on the anthropology of the contemporary

Well, don’t expect any scholarly discussions about the recent literature. Prof. Agamben does not care or just ignores all that new stuff. He goes back to Foucauldian or Ancient Greek texts and discusses in an essayistic tone and without making a difference between apparatus and assemblage as Foucault himself did, I could not know how this can be helpful at all. Honestly, discussion itself is not exciting, too. Sometimes, some big philosophers go back to an ancient text and discusses to vehemently that we actually get something new. But not in this book… I still plan to read his major books. I take this essayistic book as an exception…

Barroso II Commission announced

Copenhagen: the next Seattle?

from FP Passport by Joshua Keating

Some environmental groups are planning disruptive protests for the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen, taking cues from the anti-globalization movement:

“We feel that right now in Copenhagen there is a real opportunity for things to come together a little bit like they did 10 years ago at the World Trade Organization protest in Seattle,” Müller told SPIEGEL ONLINE….

Alleged civilian Ergenekon leader spotted in Amsterdam

 

Bedrettin Dalan, who is claimed to be one of the highest leaders of Ergenekon gang and who is on the run, was spotted in Amsterdam as several dailies gave the news…

Ergenekon fugitive Dalan photographed in Amsterdam
Today’s Zaman
Former Mayor of istanbul Bedrettin Dalan, who is named as a suspect at large in the Ergenekon investigation, was spotted at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport .

Ruling through manipulation and provocation: The unwritten history of Turkey
Today’s Zaman
Later, its president, Sinan Aygün, was indicted in the Ergenekon trial, but no one paid any attention to the active campaign his organization was conducting

”ve ersele aleyhim tayran ebabil…” (Pul)

by iç-mihrak

An anarchist art case: juxtaposing Quranic verse with Turkey’s first female pilot, Sabiha Gökçen, who was one of the bombers over the Dersim rebels in a fictional stamp: “And send against them swarms of flying creatures,…” (Quran, 105/3)

First Kurdish signs by Diyarbakır municipality, a huge roundup on Ergenekon case etc follow:

Let there be a happy bairam for all of us!

The four-day Kurban Bayramı (Eid ul-Adha; i.e. “Sacrifice Bayram”) starts…

I am back at my parents’ place with twins gathered. My dad will take care of the “sacrifice” aspect of the event in the morning. I do not have the slightest interest in being involved. Probably, I will symbolically be forced to attend the bayram prayer, which is not a big deal, I can do that. To visit relatives is a pain in the a**. Being the oldest child of the family, I have to visit all while other kids flee the duty. But this may change this time:)

Beşiktaş fans’ blog in Australia celebrates the Bairam:

We pray for everybody to live through a blessed and happy Eid.