Blog | Political Passions

Welcome to Political Passions

Feb 2nd

Posted on: February 2nd, 2009

Political Passions is a site of ‘things’ and ‘places’, a collection of trinkets and artefacts tracing the revolutionary, enchanted and passionate lives of the political.

Follow us as we document the steady flow of Maoism into the marketplaces of contemporary China, where political passions are constantly being re-channeled, calmed and outlawed…but in many ways remain ubiquitous still in the streetscapes of cities like Beijing. Witnessing the shifting fortunes of political intensity in contemporary China, paves the way for a re-evaluation of our own understandings of the centrality of passion and affect to Western modes of politics.

Political Passions Blog Launch

Feb 2nd

Posted on: February 2nd, 2009

An exciting innovation for the re-launch of Political Passions in 2009 is the addition of this blogging tool. Updated and expanded, Political Passions can now truly achieve my desired intention of documenting, reflecting upon and exchanging academic resources pertaining to the all too often erased, but deeply central notion of affect in contemporary political lives.

Join with me in experiencing, exploring and sharing stories from the street, both in China and in the West, in an attempt to put affect back on the political agenda.

- Michael

For those new to the site

Feb 22nd

Posted on: February 22nd, 2009

The new Political Passions website is growing and new resources are being continually added. Finding these resources is made simple by the Home Page 'site map' - a map which is at once every city as it is no city.

Often it is from seemingly passionless landscapes that things of tremendous beauty, tremendous terror and tremendous interest arise. Barren streetscapes murmur with a hum and life that often remains imperceptible to state-sanctioned eyes. Suburbs seemingly groaning under the weight of quotidian sterility are often rich in ‘other’ ways of being.

So too, the Political Passions site map will reveal what often goes unnoticed by contemporary, political eyes…