Wow, been like six months since I posted anything here. No excuse – just haven’t bothered.But writing today cause I am off to New York tomorrow to see my brother, who is an applied mathematics prof at Stonybrook. No, don’t ask me what an applied mathematics prof is, cause it’s way beyond me. It’s math plus physics plus chemistry, and involves lots of theory, from what I can tell. At least, that’s what I gather from the little I understand when he talks.
Anyway, Occupy Wall Street is in full swing, and we’re excited about checking that out. Meeting up with an old friend of Meg’s who is in the city at the same time as us, and we all figure a protest gathering is an appropriate place to reconnect. And Mica is excited about Central Park and fashion and cool shops and cafes, as a 13 year old girl is inclined to be. Mostly I’m just glad to have some time with my brother, who I don’t see nearly enough and who has been going through a rough time lately.
And Conrad. Tonight I sent an email to an old friend and professor. Conrad came to UBC in the mid 90s as a visiting professor, fresh from his PhD at Austin. Coming out of the autonomist Marxist tradition and having worked with the awesome Harry Cleaver, Conrad landed in the Latin American Studies Dept at SFU while I was beginning my MA and the post-modern assault on class analysis was in full swing. He electrified the place – teaching us to read intelligent conservative thinkers if we wanted to really understand capital’s strategy for the class struggle; reminding us that there is lots to learn in voices we fundamentally disagree with; showing a communism that was not about the state, not about abstract ‘contradictions’, but about struggle, hope, struggle, hope, and ever wider horizons.
There were a few autonomists and anarcho-communists around at the time. Nick Dyer Witheford, Dorothy Kidd and others. And good radicals from other traditions - Mike Lebowitz and the much loved and much missed Bob Everton. And a few of us students from various departments, too. And we talked and we organized and we learned from each other and tried to sort out how marxism and anarchism and post-structuralism informed one another and how they didn’t, and we formed a little reading group – the infra-reds – that met every few weeks to have our own little radical university.
It was an amazing time, and profoundly impacted me intellectually and politically. And there were lots of important mentors and comrades. But when I think of those days, when I think of the lasting impact on my thinking and my analysis, I think of Conrad. And I miss him. So it’s awesome to have found him, now teaching in New York, to have made contact again, and to soon have time to see him and catch up.
So this is a thanks. To Mike L., to Nick and Dorothy, to all the infra-reds. To Bob, who so impacted me politically and personally, and to Conrad, who so impacted me intellectually. Can’t wait to see you, comrade.
