Yasmin Nair

Working Skin: Joseph Hankins Writes about Leather, Japan’s Buraku People, and Global Circuits of Identity Formation

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date April 1, 2015

“This is an attempt to trace the conditions that reproduce the logic of the suffering/savage slot, even as I position my own work within those conditions.”

Film, Art, Television, and Media

Don’t Let Sean Penn’s Joke Distract You From All That Other White People Stuff At the Oscars

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date February 23, 2015

When it comes to internet squalls, we continue, endlessly, to take our aim at easy and often misplaced targets.

Tags Celebrity, Hollywood, Oscars

Film, Art, Television, and Media

Ronan Farrow Bites the Dust, But Media Myths Continue

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date February 20, 2015

At the heart of the Farrow hiring was and is the biggest lie both media and consumers like to hold up: that what matters most is not substance or talent, but the ability to attract attention.

Tags Celebrity, Hollywood, Television

Prison industrial complex Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Justice for an Indian Grandpa, None for Black Bodies, and Affect and Questions Abound

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date February 18, 2015

The violence of exclusion practiced by immigrants whose biggest fear is that they might be identified as Black.

Tags Police Brutality

On Books and Publishing

Harper Lee Announces a Second Book, And Conspiracy Theories Break Loose

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date February 5, 2015

It makes sense that Lee never produced another book. Who could, with such a weight on their shoulders?

Gay Marriage Race, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

The Gay Marriage Campaign Shamelessly Exploits Martin Luther King

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date January 19, 2015

As gay marriage becomes legal everywhere in the United States, marriage activists will eventually drop their pretenses at being inclusive.

Academia Labour

Solidarity without Affect: The MLA Subconference Enters Its Second Year

Post author By Yasmin Nair
Post date January 6, 2015

“Our struggle needs to be understood as capable of generating material and theoretical gains for us all, not less for the few through a misguided ‘race to the top.'”