------ Original Message ------ Subject: [Reader-list] Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts To: reader-list@xxxxxxxxx From: Monica Narula <monica@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 07:44:25 +0530 Dear All, We are happy to announce the print and web publication of Sarai Reader 05 : 'Bare Acts' . Please find more details about the book below. We would welcome responses, reviews and critiques of the publication, and discussions based on its contents. If you would like to write a review of the book, and wish to obtain a review copy, do write to publications@xxxxxxxxx, mentioning details of the publication where the review will appear, and when it is likely to be published. The contents of the book may also be translated into other languages, and published elsewhere. We, and the authors, would like to be informed. Looking forward to your responses The Editorial Collective, Sarai Reader Series -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- Sarai READER 05: BARE ACTS Editors: Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Jeebesh Bagchi + Geert Lovink Guest Editor: Lawrence Liang Sarai Reader Series Editorial Collective: Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Ravi Sundaram, Ravi S. Vasudevan, Awadhendra Sharan, Jeebesh Bagchi + Geert Lovink Published by the Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, 2005 [cc] Produced and Designed at the Sarai Media Lab, Delhi ISBN 81-901429-5-X 584 pages, 14.5cm X 21cm Paperback: Rs. 350, US$ 20, Euro 20 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- Bare Acts This year, the Sarai Reader looks at 'Acts' as instruments of legislation, at things within and outside the law, and at 'acts' as different ways of 'doing' things in society and culture. Several texts and image-essays echo and complement themes that have emerged in earlier readers. Piracy, borders, surveillance, claims to authority and entitlement, the language of expertise, the legal regulation of sexual behaviour and trespasses of various kinds have featured prominently in previous Readers. This collection foregrounds these issues in a way that hopes to continue to provoke rigorous engagement and reflection. The 'Bare Act' is an expression used to specify the content of law, bereft of any interpretative gloss. In legal libraries in India and many parts of the English-speaking world, a Bare Act is a document that simply codifies a law without annotation or commentary. The 'Bare Act' is legality pared down to its textual essence. It expresses only what the law does, and what it can do. The enactment of law, however, is less a matter of reading the letter of the law, and more a matter of augmenting or eroding the textual foundation through the acts of interpretation, negotiation, disputation and witnessing. The law and practices within and outside stand in relation to a meta legal domain that can be said to embrace acts and actions in all their depth, intensity and substantive generality. This too is a stage set for the performance of 'bare acts', of what we might call 'naked deeds' - actions shorn of everything other than what is contained in a verb. The 'Bare Act' that encrypts the letter of the law, the wire frame structure that demands the fleshing out of interpretation, and the 'bare act' that expresses and contains the stripped down kernel of an act, of something that is done, are both expressions that face each other in a relationship of tense reflection and intimate alterity. Bare Acts generate bare acts, and vice versa. 'Bare Acts', the fifth Sarai Reader, proposes to be a considered examination of this troubled mirror image. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- See below for the complete table of contents. The complete text of 'Bare Acts', like the entire contents of previous readers, is available for free browsing and download as pdf files at http://www.sarai.net/journal/reader5.html For Purchase, Distribution and Other Enquiries, mail to - publications@xxxxxxxxx or, contact - Publications Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India Tel : (+91) 11 2396 0040 http://www.sarai.net E mail : dak@xxxxxxxxx Distributors: Seagull Books, Delhi & Kolkata (in India) and Autonomedia, New York (USA) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS OF SARAI READER 05 : BARE ACTS PREFACE - vi ARGUMENTS - 1 Invitation - Sarai Reader Editorial Collective - 2 Porous Legalities and Avenues of Participation - Lawrence Liang - 6 "Â?Bolti Band (SILENCED)!" - Clifton D' Rozario - 18 Lepers, Witches and Infidels & It's a Bug's Life - Francesca da Rimini - 26 Rested - Colette Mazabrard - 39 DISPUTATIONS - 45 Of Butchers and Policemen: Law, Justice and Economies of Anxiety - Gunalan Nadarajan - 46 Down by Law: A Critique for the 21st Century - Alexander Karschnia - 57 'New' Delhi: Fashioning an Urban Environment through Science and Law - Awadhendra Sharan - 69 Improbablevoices.net: An Improbable Monument to Witnessing and the Ethics of Trespass - Sharon Daniel - 78 TRESPASSES - 95 The Discovery of the Fifth World: Stealth Countries and Logo Nations - Daniel van der Velden, Tina Clausmeyer, Vinca Kruk, Adriaan Mellegers (Meta Haven Project) - 96 Transcoding Sovereignty: Naked Bandit/Here, Not Here/White Sovereign - KR + CF - 111 SMS to Passport - Vishwajyoti Ghosh - 115 The Strange Case of Qays Al Kareem - Tripta Wahi - 123 Marginalia - Kai Friese - 129 On Smugglers, Pirates and Aroma Makers - Ursula Biemann - 145 Sponge Borders - Guido Cimadomo + Pilar MartÃnez Ponce - 150 Notes on the Disappeared: Towards a Visual Language of Resistance - Chitra Ganesh + Mariam Ghani - 154 Dreams and Disguises, As Usual - Raqs Media Collective - 162 HACKS - 176 Trespasses of the State: Ministering to Theological Dilemmas through the Copyright/Trademark - Naveeda Khan - 178 Harmony or Discord? TRIPS, China, and Overlapping Sovereignties - Shujen Wang - 189 Innovating Piracy: The Bare Act of Stealing, and Shaping the Future - Menso Heus - 202 Is Hacking Illegal? - Yuwei Lin + David Beer - 205 Three Proposals for a Real Democracy: Information-Sharing to a Different Tune - Brian Holmes - 215 Roots Culture: Free Software Vibrations "inna Babylon" - Armin Medosch - 222 ENCROACHMENTS - 241 Touts, Pirates and Ghosts - Solomon Benjamin - 242 Daily Journey - Satyajit Pande - 255 Complicating the City: Media Itineraries - Media Researchers @ Sarai - 258 Begum Samru and the Security Guard - Anand Vivek Taneja - 287 My Driving Master: A Story of Everyday Trespasses - Zainab Bawa - 297 Naye Qanoon (New Laws) - 301 ANNOTATIONS - 305 Vis-Ã -Visage - I. Helen Jilavu - 306 Cybermohalla Logs/Acts/Texts - CM Labs @ LNJP-DP-NM - 308 NEGOTIATIONS - 323 The Act of Leisure - Iram Ghufran + Taha Mehmood - 325 Surveillance, Performance, Self-Surveillance: Interview with Jill Magid - Geert Lovink - 339 Living Between Laws - Ninad Pandit - 348 Negotiating Territory - Ateya Khorakiwala - 354 RECORDS - 359 Tis Hazari Diaries - Chander Nigam - 360 Bare Acts and Collective Explorations: The MKSS Experience with the Right to Information - Preeti Sampat + Nikhil Dey - 385 TRIALS - 397 Zimbabwe's 'New Clothes': Identity and Power Among Displaced Farm Workers - Amy R. West + Blair Rutherford - 398 Standardised, Packaged, Ready for Consumption - Ravi Agarwal - 412 The Act of Instruction - Jan Ritsema - 420 VIOLATIONS - 427 Womanhood Laid Bare: How Katherine Mayo and Manoda Devi Challenged Indian Public Morality - Alice Albinia - 428 Literature and the Limits of Law: Crime, Guilt and Agency in Premchand's Ghaban - Ulka S. Anjaria - 437 The Honourable Murder: The Trial of Kawas Maneckshaw Nanavati - Aarti Sethi - 444 Judicial Extract - 454 Representing a Woman's Story: Explicit Film and the Efficacy of Censorship in Japan - Hikari Hori - 457 The Queer Case of Section 377 - Siddharth Narrain - 466 ASSAULTS - 471 "For God's Sake, Be Objective!" - Somnath Batabyal - 472 Another 9/11, Another Act of Terror: The 'Embedded Disorder' of the AFSPA - A. Bimol Akoijam - 481 Warporn Warpunk! Autonomous Videopoesis in Wartime - Matteo Pasquinelli - 492 'First, Do No Harm...': Ensuring Humanitarian Military Interventions - Bikram Jeet Batra - 500 War Cake - Linda F. Beekman - 511 DISSENSIONS - 515 The Law of the Mother: Soldiers' Mothers and the Post-Soviet Army - Irina Aristarkhova - 516 Naked Protest and the Politics of Personalism - Isaac Souweine - 526 Analytical World Statistics Wall Chart, 2003 - Louise Kolff - 537 A Comparative Anatomy of Post-Mortem Acts - Smriti Vohra - 540 ALT/OPTION - 551 The Accidental Activist - Fredrik Svensk + Kristoffer Gansing - 552 'Our'chitecture - Jayson Claude - 559 Sex Workers' Manifesto - Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, Kolkata - 564 Bare Wiring - Sophea Lerner - 572 Notes on Contributors - 574 Image and Photo Credits - 581 ---------------------------------------------- -- Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective] Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. 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