{"id":1187,"date":"2023-04-26T10:40:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T10:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/?p=1187"},"modified":"2025-06-04T19:40:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T19:40:46","slug":"on-birds-kitchen-tables-conversations-of-in-the-undercommons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/?p=1187","title":{"rendered":"On Birds &#038; Kitchen Tables"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"Standard\"><span lang=\"EN-US\"><strong>On Birds &amp; Kitchen Tables: Conversations of\/in the Undercommons<\/strong><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"Standard\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u201cThe weapon of theory is a conference of the birds. The kitchen table is its public and its publisher.\u201d \u2013 Stefano Harney &amp; Fred Moten<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"Standard\"><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\">In the ten years since it was published, one of the most striking things about <\/span><i style=\"font-size: 1em;\">The Undercommons<\/i><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\"> as a text was how it resonated, and continues to resonate, with different groups of people, from disenfranchised teaching assistants to precarious artists and political organizers. The patterns of circulation and engagement with it as a text provide an interesting example of undercommon sociality, or as Moten and Harney refer to it, black study.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"Standard\"><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\">To mark the tenth anniversary of the book\u2019s publication Minor Compositions is planning a series of events, discussions about the book and how it resonates with people. Think of it as a conference of the birds, or maybe even literally a conversation around a kitchen table. Keeping in mind the ethos that informs the text these events will less be formal presentations, and more picking out selections from the text for reading and discussing together.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"Standard\"><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\">People will be invited to read out sections from the text that they found particularly compelling or interesting, and this will be used as a basis for a discussion. This moves the presentation of idea from a one to many relationship, the \u2018call to order\u2019 of traditional teaching methods, towards something more like a collective practice of reading and discussion, one that is more fitting with the concept of the undercommons. Keeping in mind the arguments put forward by Harney and Moten, it is a compilation of voices and readings, bringing together and building upon the text, as a form of study through circulation and engagement. The eventual goal of this is to produce something of an \u2018audio book\u2019 version, one that is composed not by the voice of one professional voice actor, but assembled from a motley crew of voices assembled many kitchen tables.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"Standard\"><b style=\"font-size: 1em;\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Dates \/ Times<br \/>\n<\/span><\/b><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\">May 3<\/span><sup>rd<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\"> @ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/918873552654215\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Online, 2PM UK Time<\/a><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\">June 29<\/span><sup>th<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\"> @ <a href=\"https:\/\/maydayrooms.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">May Day Rooms<\/a>, London<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\">June 30<\/span><sup>th<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\"> \u2013 July 1<\/span><sup>st<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: 1em;\">, <a href=\"http:\/\/londoncritical.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">London Conference in Critical Thought<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>For more information email minorcompositions@gmail.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Birds &amp; Kitchen Tables: Conversations of\/in the Undercommons \u201cThe weapon of theory is a conference of the birds. The kitchen table is its public and its publisher.\u201d \u2013 Stefano Harney &amp; Fred Moten In the ten years since it was published, one of the most striking things about The Undercommons as a text was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fred","category-stefano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1457,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions\/1457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.minorcompositions.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}