Alexander S Dent
Biographic Data
| ID | 81575 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexander S Dent |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexander S |
| FAMILY NAME | Dent |
| SIGNATURE | DENT A S |
| AFFILIATIONS | George Washington University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8071-5708 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Cellular ambivalence in a digital age
This article explores ambivalence to understand the cellular technology use of teenagers, their parents and teachers in Washington, DC. Our interlocutors view phones as crucial for managing school, work, friendship and family - while also providing potentially dangerous 'distractions'. The intimate possibilities afforded by these cell phones interact in unpredictable ways with the vast and largely unknown networked publics that phones often provi…
Ludic Authoritarianism
What's a Cellular Public
This article argues that the forms of "public" subjectivity associated with cellular phones are defined as much by the positive valuations of cellular technology as by the negative ones. Furthermore, cellular publics depend upon a critique of a previous era's fixed-line telephony. All of this suggests that the material affordances of the devices which mediate public subjectivity are important. It also suggests that "publics" are inherently histor…
The Devil in the Deal
This essay uses Melville's analysis of confidence to look at the importance of uncertainty in contemporary capitalism. I focus, in particular, on the invocation of confidence in political spheres as a way to index ostensibly underlying economic realities. In The Confidence Man , Herman Melville proposed that scrutiny of confidence was crucial for any understanding of 19th century America. He posited that, following P. T. Barnum, a larger and larg…
The Dilemmas of Appreciation
The Dilemmas of Appreciation Ian Whitmarsh and Alexander S. Dent "Proper" histories of disciplines tend to imply that issues and -isms develop unilineally and from within. An alternative notion of movements and receptions highlights "charmed circles"—constellations of expatriates, émigrés, amateurs and professionals ("Native" and "Stranger" alike) engaged in dislocated writings and performances. —James A. Boon, "About a Footnote" (1999:x) James A…
Paraguayan Horses
In this paper I consider law and lawlessness as interpretive practices that seek both to unleash and control the Internet in Brazil. I analyze diverse institutions and actors: the government, lawyers, judges, NGOs, hackers, pirates, and police. Whereas users of "new" media frequently distance themselves from previous media forms along technological lines, in this Brazilian case, policy makers index their border with Paraguay. They also point to w…
Intellectual Property, Piracy, and Counterfeiting
This review argues that the elastic space between intellectual property (IP) and unauthorized use (including piracy and counterfeiting) is an increasingly important feature of contemporary textual production and circulation. Within the context of digital textuality, circulatory legitimacy becomes integral to both contextualization and entextualization. The dynamic relationship between IP and piracy/counterfeiting appears as a means of organizing …
Policing the unstable materialities of digital-media piracy in Brazil
Around the world, antipiracy NGOs train police to recognize the unauthorized use of music and films and to publicly destroy illicit CDs and DVDs. For those who enforce laws governing intellectual property (IP), music and film piracy underscores how digital reproduction can be conceived of as forgetful, inconstant, and promiscuous. In Brazil, discourses about "cleaning" (limpeza) unite incitements to greater security, more active governance, and s…
Introduction
IntroductionThe Cellularity and Continuity of Protest in Brazil Alexander S. Dent and Rosana Pinheiro-Machado It is not enough to say, as the French do, that their nation was taken unawares. —Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx 1963:21) As the echoes of the World Cup die away, and the Olympics are poised to alight in Brazil, the world is watching closely. Last summer (or winter, as they call it down south), a series of street pr…
Intellectual Property in Practice
Policy is made in small-scale situations mediated by language. This article examines the ways in which the United States Trade Representative establishes a mandate by esoterically interpreting canonical texts and then using that mandate to filter testimony. Its goal is to maintain a watch list of countries that disrespect intellectual property. This involves managing intertextual relations in ways that efface some perspectives and highlight other…
Introduction
Introduction:Understanding the War on Piracy, Or Why We Need More Anthropology of Pirates Alexander Sebastian Dent Would the Real Pirates Please Stand Up? What is piracy? Is it an occasional immoral tear in the fabric of an otherwise harmonious market? A justified critique of a coercive labor system or pricing scheme? Both? Or something altogether different, such as Johnny Depp channeling Keith Richards (with permission, one hopes)?1 One of the p…
Piracy, Circulatory Legitimacy, and Neoliberal Subjectivity in Brazil
Understanding current neoliberalism in Brazil requires an analysis of the piracy that has been going on there since at least the 1970s. Early phases of neoliberalism shrank the state, liberalized markets, and privatized resources. Current forms of neoliberal practice are characterized by large informal economies, intellectual property (IP), circulatory "legitimacy," individualized consumption, and the reproductive fidelities of digital technology…
Country Brothers
Brazilian "country" music, both in its commercial (música sertaneja) and folkloric (música caipira) forms, is performed by duplas (duos), most often of brothers. In this paper, I account for the increasing popularity of brotherhood as the means of organizing rural musical performance. I also account for the fact that, even in cases where the dupla is composed of friends rather than brothers, male siblingship still provides the most important orga…
High ropes and hard times
Adventure-based education, drawing on crucial aspects of the muscular Christian ethos, enacts a bifurcated model of, and for, society, where individual is to group as high is to low. Sublime experiences mediate between these extremes. This adventure-based social model emerged from an engagement with the doctrines of Outward Bound in the 1950s, a modification of contemporaneous programmes that had, in turn, descended from the camping movements of …
Cross‐Cultural “Countries
This article uses concepts from anthropological linguistics to examine a cover of “Achy Breaky Heart” within the genre of Brazilian commercial country music (música sertaneja). I argue that cross‐cultural cover songs create spaces in which culturally located notions of time and place are laminated together in performance. I detail how the anthropological concept of structures of conjuncture elucidates this process. Furthermore, using ethnographic…
Piracy, Circulatory Legitimacy, and Neoliberal Subjectivity in Brazil
Understanding current neoliberalism in Brazil requires an analysis of the piracy that has been going on there since at least the 1970s. Early phases of neoliberalism shrank the state, liberalized markets, and privatized resources. Current forms of neoliberal practice are characterized by large informal economies, intellectual property (IP), circulatory "legitimacy," individualized consumption, and the reproductive fidelities of digital technology…
Ludic Authoritarianism
Policing the unstable materialities of digital-media piracy in Brazil
Around the world, antipiracy NGOs train police to recognize the unauthorized use of music and films and to publicly destroy illicit CDs and DVDs. For those who enforce laws governing intellectual property (IP), music and film piracy underscores how digital reproduction can be conceived of as forgetful, inconstant, and promiscuous. In Brazil, discourses about "cleaning" (limpeza) unite incitements to greater security, more active governance, and s…
Introduction
Introduction:Understanding the War on Piracy, Or Why We Need More Anthropology of Pirates Alexander Sebastian Dent Would the Real Pirates Please Stand Up? What is piracy? Is it an occasional immoral tear in the fabric of an otherwise harmonious market? A justified critique of a coercive labor system or pricing scheme? Both? Or something altogether different, such as Johnny Depp channeling Keith Richards (with permission, one hopes)?1 One of the p…
Cross‐Cultural “Countries
This article uses concepts from anthropological linguistics to examine a cover of “Achy Breaky Heart” within the genre of Brazilian commercial country music (música sertaneja). I argue that cross‐cultural cover songs create spaces in which culturally located notions of time and place are laminated together in performance. I detail how the anthropological concept of structures of conjuncture elucidates this process. Furthermore, using ethnographic…
Paraguayan Horses
In this paper I consider law and lawlessness as interpretive practices that seek both to unleash and control the Internet in Brazil. I analyze diverse institutions and actors: the government, lawyers, judges, NGOs, hackers, pirates, and police. Whereas users of "new" media frequently distance themselves from previous media forms along technological lines, in this Brazilian case, policy makers index their border with Paraguay. They also point to w…
Country Brothers
Brazilian "country" music, both in its commercial (música sertaneja) and folkloric (música caipira) forms, is performed by duplas (duos), most often of brothers. In this paper, I account for the increasing popularity of brotherhood as the means of organizing rural musical performance. I also account for the fact that, even in cases where the dupla is composed of friends rather than brothers, male siblingship still provides the most important orga…
Intellectual Property in Practice
Policy is made in small-scale situations mediated by language. This article examines the ways in which the United States Trade Representative establishes a mandate by esoterically interpreting canonical texts and then using that mandate to filter testimony. Its goal is to maintain a watch list of countries that disrespect intellectual property. This involves managing intertextual relations in ways that efface some perspectives and highlight other…
Cellular ambivalence in a digital age
This article explores ambivalence to understand the cellular technology use of teenagers, their parents and teachers in Washington, DC. Our interlocutors view phones as crucial for managing school, work, friendship and family - while also providing potentially dangerous 'distractions'. The intimate possibilities afforded by these cell phones interact in unpredictable ways with the vast and largely unknown networked publics that phones often provi…
What's a Cellular Public
This article argues that the forms of "public" subjectivity associated with cellular phones are defined as much by the positive valuations of cellular technology as by the negative ones. Furthermore, cellular publics depend upon a critique of a previous era's fixed-line telephony. All of this suggests that the material affordances of the devices which mediate public subjectivity are important. It also suggests that "publics" are inherently histor…
The Devil in the Deal
This essay uses Melville's analysis of confidence to look at the importance of uncertainty in contemporary capitalism. I focus, in particular, on the invocation of confidence in political spheres as a way to index ostensibly underlying economic realities. In The Confidence Man , Herman Melville proposed that scrutiny of confidence was crucial for any understanding of 19th century America. He posited that, following P. T. Barnum, a larger and larg…
Introduction
IntroductionThe Cellularity and Continuity of Protest in Brazil Alexander S. Dent and Rosana Pinheiro-Machado It is not enough to say, as the French do, that their nation was taken unawares. —Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx 1963:21) As the echoes of the World Cup die away, and the Olympics are poised to alight in Brazil, the world is watching closely. Last summer (or winter, as they call it down south), a series of street pr…
High ropes and hard times
Adventure-based education, drawing on crucial aspects of the muscular Christian ethos, enacts a bifurcated model of, and for, society, where individual is to group as high is to low. Sublime experiences mediate between these extremes. This adventure-based social model emerged from an engagement with the doctrines of Outward Bound in the 1950s, a modification of contemporaneous programmes that had, in turn, descended from the camping movements of …
Cross‐Cultural “Countries
This article uses concepts from anthropological linguistics to examine a cover of “Achy Breaky Heart” within the genre of Brazilian commercial country music (música sertaneja). I argue that cross‐cultural cover songs create spaces in which culturally located notions of time and place are laminated together in performance. I detail how the anthropological concept of structures of conjuncture elucidates this process. Furthermore, using ethnographic…
High ropes and hard times
Adventure-based education, drawing on crucial aspects of the muscular Christian ethos, enacts a bifurcated model of, and for, society, where individual is to group as high is to low. Sublime experiences mediate between these extremes. This adventure-based social model emerged from an engagement with the doctrines of Outward Bound in the 1950s, a modification of contemporaneous programmes that had, in turn, descended from the camping movements of …
Country Brothers
Brazilian "country" music, both in its commercial (música sertaneja) and folkloric (música caipira) forms, is performed by duplas (duos), most often of brothers. In this paper, I account for the increasing popularity of brotherhood as the means of organizing rural musical performance. I also account for the fact that, even in cases where the dupla is composed of friends rather than brothers, male siblingship still provides the most important orga…
Introduction
Introduction:Understanding the War on Piracy, Or Why We Need More Anthropology of Pirates Alexander Sebastian Dent Would the Real Pirates Please Stand Up? What is piracy? Is it an occasional immoral tear in the fabric of an otherwise harmonious market? A justified critique of a coercive labor system or pricing scheme? Both? Or something altogether different, such as Johnny Depp channeling Keith Richards (with permission, one hopes)?1 One of the p…
Piracy, Circulatory Legitimacy, and Neoliberal Subjectivity in Brazil
Understanding current neoliberalism in Brazil requires an analysis of the piracy that has been going on there since at least the 1970s. Early phases of neoliberalism shrank the state, liberalized markets, and privatized resources. Current forms of neoliberal practice are characterized by large informal economies, intellectual property (IP), circulatory "legitimacy," individualized consumption, and the reproductive fidelities of digital technology…
Intellectual Property in Practice
Policy is made in small-scale situations mediated by language. This article examines the ways in which the United States Trade Representative establishes a mandate by esoterically interpreting canonical texts and then using that mandate to filter testimony. Its goal is to maintain a watch list of countries that disrespect intellectual property. This involves managing intertextual relations in ways that efface some perspectives and highlight other…
Introduction
IntroductionThe Cellularity and Continuity of Protest in Brazil Alexander S. Dent and Rosana Pinheiro-Machado It is not enough to say, as the French do, that their nation was taken unawares. —Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx 1963:21) As the echoes of the World Cup die away, and the Olympics are poised to alight in Brazil, the world is watching closely. Last summer (or winter, as they call it down south), a series of street pr…
Intellectual Property, Piracy, and Counterfeiting
This review argues that the elastic space between intellectual property (IP) and unauthorized use (including piracy and counterfeiting) is an increasingly important feature of contemporary textual production and circulation. Within the context of digital textuality, circulatory legitimacy becomes integral to both contextualization and entextualization. The dynamic relationship between IP and piracy/counterfeiting appears as a means of organizing …
Policing the unstable materialities of digital-media piracy in Brazil
Around the world, antipiracy NGOs train police to recognize the unauthorized use of music and films and to publicly destroy illicit CDs and DVDs. For those who enforce laws governing intellectual property (IP), music and film piracy underscores how digital reproduction can be conceived of as forgetful, inconstant, and promiscuous. In Brazil, discourses about "cleaning" (limpeza) unite incitements to greater security, more active governance, and s…
The Devil in the Deal
This essay uses Melville's analysis of confidence to look at the importance of uncertainty in contemporary capitalism. I focus, in particular, on the invocation of confidence in political spheres as a way to index ostensibly underlying economic realities. In The Confidence Man , Herman Melville proposed that scrutiny of confidence was crucial for any understanding of 19th century America. He posited that, following P. T. Barnum, a larger and larg…
The Dilemmas of Appreciation
The Dilemmas of Appreciation Ian Whitmarsh and Alexander S. Dent "Proper" histories of disciplines tend to imply that issues and -isms develop unilineally and from within. An alternative notion of movements and receptions highlights "charmed circles"—constellations of expatriates, émigrés, amateurs and professionals ("Native" and "Stranger" alike) engaged in dislocated writings and performances. —James A. Boon, "About a Footnote" (1999:x) James A…
Paraguayan Horses
In this paper I consider law and lawlessness as interpretive practices that seek both to unleash and control the Internet in Brazil. I analyze diverse institutions and actors: the government, lawyers, judges, NGOs, hackers, pirates, and police. Whereas users of "new" media frequently distance themselves from previous media forms along technological lines, in this Brazilian case, policy makers index their border with Paraguay. They also point to w…
What's a Cellular Public
This article argues that the forms of "public" subjectivity associated with cellular phones are defined as much by the positive valuations of cellular technology as by the negative ones. Furthermore, cellular publics depend upon a critique of a previous era's fixed-line telephony. All of this suggests that the material affordances of the devices which mediate public subjectivity are important. It also suggests that "publics" are inherently histor…
Ludic Authoritarianism
Cellular ambivalence in a digital age
This article explores ambivalence to understand the cellular technology use of teenagers, their parents and teachers in Washington, DC. Our interlocutors view phones as crucial for managing school, work, friendship and family - while also providing potentially dangerous 'distractions'. The intimate possibilities afforded by these cell phones interact in unpredictable ways with the vast and largely unknown networked publics that phones often provi…
Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Politics (9 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Art (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Media studies (4 works)