Kali Tal
scholar, editor, author
author, artist, activist
All posts by Kali Tal
A review of Wendy Harcourt (ed), women@internet: Creating New Cultures in Cyberspace (2001)
Originally published by the Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies in March 2001. RCCS archives vanished from the net sometime in the 2010s. Publisher: London: Zed Books, 1999 women@internet is unique among cyberculture texts, offering us a look at the ways in which feminists working within non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are using the Internet to connect Third…
A review of Julian Dibbell’s My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World (1999)
My Tiny Life is mostly about sexual temptation. Early in the book Dibbell announces that his problem with his current real life relationship is that he can’t seem to make a commitment to his lover. His MOO adventures take place in a sort of liminal state — the space between boyhood and manhood, irresponsibility and assumption of duty. His progress (like any pilgrim’s) is interrupted by a series of temptations including the thrill of gender-swapping and netsex.
Violence in Nonfiction Prose
Representations of violence in nonfiction prose comprise a large category, and are a feature of American nonfiction literature from the period of colonization to the present. One may find such representations in genres ranging from memoir, personal narrative and biography, to writings within the fields of history, political science, sociology, psychology, and law. Accounts of violence are also contained in primary documents, including legal records (depositions, briefs, case studies, trial records), medical records, political papers, and military documents.
It’s a beastly rough crowd I run with: theory and the “new university”
Contemporary graduate students—particularly in literature—are indeed being trained in “theory.” But they’re likely learning it in a class taught by a part-time or non-tenure-track faculty member, unless they are at one of the elite institutions which house the leading lights of theory—the profession’s “stars.” The work of the previous generation of activists (many of them also theorists) has served as a wedge to open the humanities—and, particularly, the literary profession—to previously underserved groups, benefiting those who work in feminist studies, ethnic studies, and post-colonial studies a great deal, while shaking the previously solid foundations of the traditional world of mostly white, mostly male humanities scholars.
Duppies in the Machine, or “Anybody know where I can buy a copy of the UPNORTH-OUTWEST GEECHEE JIBARA QUIK MAGIC TRANCE MANUAL FOR TECHNOLOGICALLY STRESSED THIRD WORLD PEOPLE?”
For Vibe the unusual and compelling fact about John Lee is that he gained entry and attained high status in the predominantly white world of hackers. For Slatella and Quittner, for Wired, and perhaps even for Lee’s friends in MOD, the compelling fact about John Lee is that he is black, and not just black but a particular kind of black which vicariously confers status, hipness and the aura of street danger on an essentially middle-to-upper-class white past-time—hacking.
On the Cover of the Rolling Stone: Toward a Theory of Cultural Therapy
The cultural therapist, examining the survey results gathered from questions about the Vietnam War, would formulate certain important questions: 1) What are the bases on which this generation has decided that the U.S. should not have been involved in the Vietnam War? 2) What fears or anxieties are reflected in this generation’s reluctance to involve itself in foreign wars which it perceives to be similar to the war in Vietnam? and, 3) In what terms are these issues addressed?
The Self-Reflexive War: War looking at film looking at war
Soldiers’ expectations about their Vietnam experience, and influenced their actions while they were in Vietnam.They made life and death decisions based on film images, and the consequences could frequently be fatal. The devastating effects of their betrayal by the film medium brought about a deep ambivalence toward film in Vietnam War veterans. Film has also become an acknowledged weapon in the battle over who owns the narrative rights to the Vietnam War.
When History Talks Back: Using Combat Narratives and Vietnam Veteran Speakers to Teach the Vietnam War
The very thing that makes veterans’ testimony so attractive to us — the authenticity of it — makes that testimony suspect as history. The Vietnam veteran has a tremendous personal investment in his version of the story. Retelling the war is his way of rebuilding personal and national myths that have been shattered by the wartime experience. Vietnam veterans, in this respect, are no different than their Civil War, World War 1, World War 2, or Korean War veteran predecessors.
Captive Audience: Telecoms in the Prisons
What was once called a bastard business has become a billion-dollar industry thanks to the convergence of two trends: the competition unleashed by telecom deregulation and the explosion of prison building caused by an inmate population boom. Restrictive telephone privileges, conceived to curb crime and harassing calls as well as to manage inmate behavior, have spurred the phone companies to come up with intelligent service platforms like Maximum Security or BellSouth’s Meridian MAX.
That Just Kills Me: Black Militant Near-Future Fiction
That white people were bound to misunderstand Black militant near-future novels was assured. Their general ignorance of Black culture guaranteed that Black satire aimed at Black audiences would simply not make it on to their radar. A tendency to take literature (especially literature by minorities) literally, an uncritical acceptance of racial stereotypes, and a lack of facility with the brilliant pyrotechnics of African American vernacular made it likely that few white readers would see these novels as anything other than trashy, cartoonish, and crude.