ezra winton

Revisiting the Cyborg Manifesto

Posted by in Academix

On Donna Haraway’s A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s Donna Haraway’s journey to cultural and feminist studies is a circuitous one – having earned a degree in Zoology and Philosophy and later a PhD from Yale in Biology. Along the way Haraway has always pushed for critical interrogations of the relationship that humans have with our surrounding environment, other animals, and each other. Her 1972 doctoral thesis examined the role of metaphor and masculine bias in developmental biology, and her work has continuously applied…read more

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Activating Imagination: Stepping Away from the SUV

Posted by in Broadsides

We would do well to imagine a world of peace, harmony, equality and compassion. We would do better to snap ourselves out of our daydream between white privileged rituals and act on our dreams. The human condition has no colour, and certainly the negative aspects of our condition exist throughout the spectrum of ethnicity. But I maintain, it is North America driving the SUV. It is North America peering endlessly into the digital, each day, each night, as reality TV and FaceBook and other pleasures of electronic communication consume the…read more

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Finally, the media gets it (almost) right

Posted by in Cinema Politica

The Montreal Mirror printed a story today about a recent screening of a Cinema Politica film at Concordia that I helped organize. While the piece does make me sound like some raving, volatile activist freak, hats off to Patrick Ljtenyi, for printing my quote on the ILLEGAL OCCUPATION of Palestinian land by the Israeli government. It’s the first time any media has had the chutzpah to include the descriptor “illegal” in my quote. Shalom! From the Mirror (it’s short, so instead of linking, I’m reprinting…hopefully they don’t sue me): ConU…read more

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Neoliberalism, Big Brothers, Coops, and the Canada Council

Posted by in Academix, Cinema Politica, Personal Travails, World Inc.

Neoliberalism: My PhD is keeping me busy with 250+ pages of reading per week, but I’m immensely enjoying it. The program at Carleton is what I had hoped for – four of us students in a small classroom with one professor engaging deeply with the material we’ve read for a good three hours. We just finished a great book by Armand Mattelart (pictured at left) called “Mapping World Communication: War, Progress, Culture.” Here’s my Favorite quote from this excellent historical reading of the field of communication: As we have already…read more

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Concordia corruption knows no ends

Posted by in Broadsides

Concordia, how I miss thee! As I pack my bags tonight and ready myself for another trip to Ottawa for classes at Carleton, I’ve been thinking: how did things get so utterly Orwellian at Concordia? As of late, I’ve heard from student friends who were being incredibly radical by handing out flyers on campus, ones that called for “free education,” when members of Concordia’s current Student Union Executive including the easily influenced Noah Stewart and his sidekick sycophant Angelica something-or-other called security to have them removed! Damn those radicals! (the…read more

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Wal-Town is number two!

Posted by in Doc Side, Projects

Just a quick hurrah: it seems that right now the documentary on the project I helped create – Wal-Town – is the number two most purchased/ordered NFB film in the educational division. This means that across Canada, teachers and librarians are ordering many, many copies of Wal-Town The Film. This is amazing news, both for Sergeo Kirby, the director, and for the gang of us who put the project into action. We always thought the film was an important aspect of reaching a wider audience, and now it seems we’re…read more

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The Revolution Will Not Be Funded (But it will be fun)

Posted by in Dispatches, Doc Side

I’m writing this from the bus to Ottawa, which left Montreal at 8 AM this morning. I’m on my way to Carleton for my PhD orientation. Can’t believe it was only a week or so ago that I was finishing my MA thesis…wow. In fact, just last Friday Svetla and I celebrated my handing in my final draft of my thesis to the Graduate office and Svetla mailing her 5 kilos of immigration documents. Last night we had two visitors arrive from my hometown, Courtenay: Jim and his daughter, Lisa….read more

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Bottled water and a new blog look

Posted by in Doc Side, World Inc.

You’ve probably noticed by now that I’ve switched my blog over to WordPress, and the snazzy digs have inspired me to get back into posting. Right now I’m concerned about submitting my finished thesis to the Graduate Studies Office of Concordia, but soon after that, I’ll be setting aside time to post the odd rant here. For now, I’d like to point you in the direction of a great article I’ve just found on line. I’ve been doing some research for Liz Miller’s documentary film The Water Front, and well…read more

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Thesis successfully defended – Woop!

Posted by in Academix, Doc Side, Personal Travails

After a long, long hiatus I’m back to report that yesterday I successfully defended my MA thesis (picture on the left is me after defense with my profs)!! I have a few minor revisions to make, but basically I’m all set to start my PhD. I had charged my cell phone and waited for calls last night, but alas, defending a thesis seems to not measure up to getting married or having a baby. Speaking of which, congratulations to my niece, Sarah, who has just had a baby girl and…read more

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