Month: November 2021
-
A beginner’s guide to Omicron
-
What will post-neoliberalism look like?
I increasingly find James Meadway the most insightful analyst of the political economy of Covid-19. He explores the epochal transformation which this crisis has the potential to bring about but does so in a way which is grounded in the identification of existing socio-economic mechanisms, in many cases ones which preceded the current crisis. In […]
-
We need a military history of the culture wars
This is a wonderful phrase Finn Mackay uses in their book Feminine Masculinities and the Gender Wars (pg 3). It’s used in a slightly off-hand way but I think has a clear analytical meaning in terms of the historical unfolding of the disputes which get subsumed under the category of ‘culture wars’. Interestingly MacKay is […]
-
The things which bring us together
I’m fascinated by how we assemble around things and how events of particular types ensue from the nature of these things. As Dreyfus and Spinosa (pg 274) describe in Philosophical Romanticism this is something which was a significant theme in the work of the later Heidegger: For Heidegger, the gathering of people around things like […]
-
A Heideggerian reading of Margaret Archer
There are many reasons I drifted away from social theory. One of the most irritating was how pervasively people would misread Margaret Archer’s work on reflexivity (the biggest inspiration for my theoretical project) and how fruitless conversations which attempted to correct these misunderstandings would often be. Its not that I thought the work was faultless, […]
-
Will QAnon go mainstream through evangelical christianity?
-
So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
-
Resources for organising online conferences
I’m trying to compile a list of resources for organising online conferences: Here are resources which are relevant without being related to online conferences: If you have suggestions could you share them in a comment and I’ll add them to the list? I’ll eventually make this into a padlet unless someone has a better idea […]
-
The inner life of behaviourists
I’ve often wondered about the inner life of those who deny the inner life of others. This extract from Ian McEwan’s Atonement (pg 36) captures my own experience in childhood of realising others must experience inwardness as well, even if not everyone experiences this in the same way: [W]as everyone else really as alive as […]
-
The existential challenge of the post-capitalist condition
I thought this was a beautiful observation by Hugh Lemmy in his strange but thought-provoking newsletter about Frasier: It’s a state usually attributed to teenagers. This weekend my boyfriend and I took the dog for a long walk in the mountains that surround the city we live in. Realising, at one point, that we had […]
-
Sing, Sing, Sing
-
How Covid-19 accelerated the transition into post-capitalism
Varoufakis argues there has been a decoupling of money markets from real capitalism. Speculators see that Covid-19 has put capitalism in suspended animation and that it is damaging our economies in a way that is at least medium to long term. It is causing a new tsunami of poverty which deepens and entrenches existing inequalities […]
-
We’re leaving neoliberalism and entering something worse
For much of this crisis there has been a dominant sense that we will eventually return to pre-pandemic normality. There are many reasons why this hope is misplaced, with the pandemic likely to accelerate existing tendencies towards digitalisation, automation, occupational polarisation and political turbulence. If we have been in a Gramscian interregnum since 2007/08 then […]
-
I don’t rate you 👊
-
The emptiness that comes with online performance
I found this interlude by Brian Fallon at the start of his first live performance since the pandemic began incredibly resonant. I think he’s in a socially distanced venue while also live streaming but it’s possible the venue is completely empty: I’m going to trust that you’re there. I can’t see you or feel you […]
-
Social media is reshaping universities’ value systems in a scramble for likes and shares
Universities’ value judgements about research are becoming ‘coupled’ to social media platforms as they compete for funding by demonstrating their influence beyond academia, an analysis suggests. The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge, focused on how universities use social media in ‘impact’ case studies, which are a requirement of the Research Excellence Framework […]
-
New Paper: Platforms and Institutions in the Post-Pandemic University
Universities’ value judgements about research are becoming ‘coupled’ to social media platforms as they compete for funding by demonstrating their influence beyond academia. Find out more in the new paper by myself and Katy Jordan. Here’s an interview about the paper in the Times Higher Education. The cartoon by the brilliant Tom Gould captures the […]
-
Yanis Varoufakis on Post-Pandemic Technofeudalism
Mark Carrigan 