{"id":3674,"date":"2018-01-10T17:35:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-10T17:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/?p=3674"},"modified":"2018-01-10T20:14:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-10T20:14:57","slug":"professor-sawyer-explores-political-forces-and-radical-politics-in-recent-publications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/2018\/01\/10\/professor-sawyer-explores-political-forces-and-radical-politics-in-recent-publications\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Sawyer Explores Political Forces and Radical Politics in Recent Publications"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alana Aamodt \u201918<\/strong><\/p>\n

Assistant Professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies Michael Sawyer has been hard at work, recently publishing three articles that span the topics of political theory, philosophy, and literature. The three articles, \u201cRadical Temporality, Fictive Realism, and Revolution as Context: Sonic Implosion of the Modern,\u201d<\/a> \u201cUndoing the Phaedrus: Melville\u2019s Rereading of Plato,\u201d<\/a> and \u201cSacrifice,\u201d<\/a> all tie back to Sawyer\u2019s greater research goal, which explores \u201cthe formation of political subjects through coercive force and further how those subjects construct regimes of knowledge and radical politics to unravel that condition,\u201d according to Sawyer. This interest in subjugated people’s responses to the dominant political regime has been a driving force in Sawyer’s research curiosities.<\/p>\n

The first of his works was inspired by his time in Italy, where he gave a series of lectures at University of Bologna’s Department on Global Cultures and Critical Theory last spring. There, Sawyer spoke on his book manuscript, \u201cBlack Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X\u201d (Pluto\/University of Chicago Press), due out next fall. Following his lectures, scholars in attendance requested Sawyer expand on the concepts of radical temporality and modernity,\u201d or how modern subjects can exist outside of society\u2019s normal relationship with time. The resulting paper was just published in Italian.<\/p>\n

Of perhaps humbler beginnings, Sawyer\u2019s piece \u201cUndoing the Phaedus\u201d was the result of conversations in his own classroom about \u201cMoby Dick\u201d and \u201cthe complexity that was revealed working with the students.\u201d This piece compares the relationship between \u201cblack vs. white\u201d and \u201cgood vs. bad\u201d in Melville\u2019s classic novel, arguing it is a dismantled, flipped version of Plato\u2019s logic in \u201cPhaedus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of his third work, \u201cSacrifice,\u201d Sawyer says: \u201c\u2018Sacrifice\u2019 is from a larger project in political theory that engages well-known political theorists and philosophers (of which I am not numbered) to take a term and redefine it from a theoretical perspective. For example, Gayatri Spivak’s concept is \u2018development,\u2019 Jaques Ranciere took up the question of \u2018occupation,\u2019 and \u00c9tienne Balibar wrote on \u2018exploitation\u2019 and Susan Buck-Morss on \u2018civilization.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The interdisciplinary nature of these articles reflect Sawyer\u2019s diverse academic interests, which range from applied science, political science, and international security policy, all the way to comparative literature and political theory. Endless topic combinations and the obvious ability to multitask, balancing writing and teaching, are signs Sawyer will continue on as a prolific author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alana Aamodt \u201918 Assistant Professor of Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Studies Michael Sawyer has been hard at work, recently publishing three articles that span the topics of political theory, philosophy, and literature. The three articles, \u201cRadical Temporality, Fictive Realism, and Revolution as Context: Sonic Implosion of the Modern,\u201d \u201cUndoing the Phaedrus: Melville\u2019s Rereading of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Professor Sawyer Explores Political Forces and Radical Politics in Recent Publications”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":648,"featured_media":3677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kudos","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/files\/2018\/01\/MSawyer.jpeg?fit=960%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/648"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3675,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions\/3675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/atb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}