#64 | Notes - "Domination and the Arts of Resistance" by James C. Scott (1990)
My personal notes on James C. Scott's "Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts" (1990)
It took two months since I first asked, but I finally found a reading group (thank you, Metalabel!! 🙇♂️🙇♀️🙇) who was keen to read James C. Scott’s “Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts”!! 🥳 (Hooray for the power of the internet to unite random strangers with similar reading interests! 🎉) We currently meet every Wednesday evening at 7p ET and joining is completely free! All are welcome! If you’re interested, instructions here. 🙂
Meanwhile, as I customarily do, whenever I read nonfiction, I always take notes publicly online. Historically I’ve done it on Bluesky but this time I thought I’d try jotting down my notes on Substack.
I first heard of Domination because Yancey Strickler mentioned it, like, literally every other episode on the excellent New Creative Era podcast. This book comes up a lot on NCE. It’s also by internet darling, James C. Scott. Sixteen years ago, Venkatesh Rao wrote about Scott’s work on legibility which nerd sniped an entire generation of internet people and since became a ubiquitous internet touchstone so I was curious to read some of Scott’s other works too.
Anyway, as always, these are more notes to myself than anything else, so my scribbles may not always make sense. 😅 I am always keen to meet others with similar interests though so feel free to DM/comment/ping me if you’re also interested in this stuff! Always game to meet cool new people!! 😎
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Syllabus
Ch. 1: “Behind the Official Story”
Wednesday, February 11 · 7:00 – 8:00pm ETCh. 2 “Domination, Acting, Fantasy”
Wednesday, February 18 · 7:00 – 8:00pm ETCh. 3: “The Public Transcript as a Respectable Performance”
Wednesday, February 25 · 7:00 – 8:00pm ETCh. 4: “False Consciousness or Laying It on Thick?”
Wednesday, March 4 · 7:00 – 8:00pm ETCh 5. “Making Social Space for a Dissident Subculture”
Wednesday, March 11 · 7:00 – 8:00pm ETCh 6. “Voice under Domination: The Arts of Political Disguise”
Wednesday, March 18 · 7:00 – 8:00pm ETCh 7. “The Infrapolitics of Subordinate Groups”
Wednesday, March 25 · 7:00 – 8:00pm ETCh 8. “A Saturnalia of Power: The First Public Declaration of the Hidden Transcript”
Wednesday, April 1 · 7:00 – 8:00pm ET