Mic check! Mic check! Lacking amplification in Zuccotti Park, Occupy Wall Street protestors addressed one another by repeating and echoing speeches throughout the crowd. In Occupy , W. J. T. Mitchell, Bernard E. Harcourt, and Michael Taussig take the protestors’ lead and perform their own resonant call-and-response, playing off of each other in three essays that engage the extraordinary Occupy movement that has swept across the world, examining everything from self-immolations in the Middle East to the G8 crackdown in Chicago to the many protest signs still visible worldwide. “You break through the screen like Alice in Wonderland,” Taussig writes in the opening essay, “and now you can’t leave or do without it.” Following Taussig’s artful blend of participatory ethnography and poetic meditation on Zuccotti Park, political and legal scholar Harcourt examines the crucial difference between civil and political disobedience. He shows how by effecting the latter—by rejecting the very discourse and strategy of politics—Occupy Wall Street protestors enacted a radical new form of protest. Finally, media critic and theorist Mitchell surveys the global circulation of Occupy images across mass and social media and looks at contemporary works by artists such as Antony Gormley and how they engage the body politic, ultimately examining the use of empty space itself as a revolutionary monument. Occupy stands not as a primer on or an authoritative account of 2011’s revolutions, but as a snapshot, a second draft of history, beyond journalism and the polemics of the moment—an occupation itself. “If you, like I, have been moved, inspired, consternated, and frustrated by the new political disobedience, then read this trio of provocative, thoughtful, and troubling inquiries. With originality and insight, they illuminate both the underlying meaning and consequences of demonstrations ranging from Tahrir Square in Cairo to occupations in Zuccotti Park and everywhere else.” -- Victor S. Navasky, author of The Art of Controversy: Political Cartoons and Their Enduring Power. “ Occupy  is a difficult book to review. The subject is complex and important and each of the authors has approached it from quite different routes. But while the difference between each of the essays is stark, it creates a strong sense of the pastiche which is the Occupy movement. Taussig’s gonzo-academic narrative, Harcourt’s broad but incisive analysis, and Mitchell’s rich criticism combine to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.” -- Hamish Clift ― LSE Review of Books “There are many valuable insights, most notably a positive understanding of the movement’s refusal to appoint leaders and adopt demands, either of which would have subverted its true purpose for the sake of helping politicians. . . . The account gives an accurate picture of the movement and its importance.” ― Choice Bernard E. Harcourt is Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and the director of the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought.  Michael Taussig is emeritus professor of anthropology at Columbia University. He is the author of many books, including And the Garden Is You and  Mastery of Non-Mastery in the Age of Meltdown , both published by the University of Chicago Press. OCCUPY THREE INQUIRIES IN DISOBEDIENCE By W.J.T. Mitchell, BERNARD E. Harcourt, MICHAEL Taussig THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS Copyright © 2013 The University of Chicago All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-226-04274-9 Contents Preface, W. J. T. Mitchell.................................................viiI'M SO ANGRY I MADE A SIGN Michael Taussig................................3POLITICAL DISOBEDIENCE Bernard E. Harcourt................................45IMAGE, SPACE, REVOLUTION The Arts of Occupation W. J. T. Mitchell.........93 Excerpt CHAPTER 1 I'M SO ANGRY I MADE A SIGN Michael Taussig A NOTE ON FORM I have inserted the signs in Zuccotti Park as set-apart quotationsin the center of the page. And sometimes I have also insertedquotes from texts by philosophers, poets, and other peopleworth listening to. They, too, look like signs. I don't think youwill confuse them, but it's better if you do. A NOTE ON STRATEGY Nietzsche says somewhere that a historian has to create a textequal to what is being written about. This would seem especiallycompelling when it comes to Occupy Wall Street. In The Gay Science , Nietzsche has a paragraph, "To DestroyOnly as Creators," which I take to mean a demand not for "positivecritique," but that we be aware of how description andanalysis of an event is a culture-creating activity, and write accordingly. Coming back to this text of mine six months after it waswritten is like visiting a strange and fabulous land. I imagine itwill be the same for you. Wall St is everywheretherefore we have to occupy everywhere 11:00 P.M., OCTOBER 13, 2011 On my way downtown to Occupy Wall Street, Zucc