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The pleasure of returning to novels
I’ve spent the last month rereading most of Irvine Welsh’s novels. In the late summer I read Jonathan Franzen’s novels again, after his most recent book reminded me of my love for his work. I feel a vague sense of guilt when I read books again. In part it’s awareness that the constraints of the […]
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Choose life: some notes on Lacan’s death drive
I found this lecture from the excellent Derek Hook extremely helpful for understanding how Lacan reconceived the classical Freudian sense of the death drive, which it should be noted was originally proposed by Sabina Spielrein. I’m interested in this topic for a number of reasons, not least of all the compulsive elements of digital agency […]
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Next year’s going to be better than this
I’d like to take this opportunity and toast to me For being exactly who I’m supposed to be ‘Cause life is gonna do what life does I don’t wanna look back and regret who I was Let go of the expectations and then fire one Forget the tally sheet before all my time’s up And […]
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I miss my old house
I’ve written recently about how much of a wrench it was to leave my old life in Cambridge. However as much as I valued that life I never felt entirely uncomfortable with where I was living, much as as my clear sense of what ‘home’ looked like created a problem in the 2010s in a […]
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The time a bus went boom outside a conference I was organising
I was looking for something else in my e-mail archives and I just came across this blast from the past. During my time at the Warwick Business School’s Data Science Lab I led the organisation of an international conference with 50 speakers and 300 delegates. It was a deeply stressful few days which became much […]
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I’ve been taking some time to be distant
Hi Ren… I’ve been taking some time to be distant I’ve been taking some time to be still I’ve been taking some time to be by myself and I’ve spent half my life ill But just as sure as the tide starts turning Just as sure as the night has dawn Just as sure as […]
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But then why do you write? Nietzsche on the necessity of getting rid of your thoughts
I’ve been dipping back into The Gay Science today which alongside Ecce Homo was my gateway into Nietzsche in my mid-20s. Whenever I’ve returned to them I’ve found new passages which resonate, as with this account (pg 90) of why writing for Nietzsche was a necessity: But then why do you write? – A: I […]
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What I’ll be working on over the next five years
This post is a professional/intellectual counterpart to this reflection. It’s been deeply therapeutic to write these after an exhausting year and it affirms why I’ve kept a personal blog over the last 12 years. Here’s an extract from chapter 7 of Platform and Agency: Becoming Who We Are In A Digital World which conveys the […]
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If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being […]
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How will universities cope with ChatGPT?
I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT over the last few days and the quality of the responses is really unsettling. I imagine there would be a certain set of skills needed to use this effectively to cheat on assignments, given the truncated character of the answers. But its capacity to offer coherent responses to relatively […]
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I’m going to make it through this year if it kills me
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Jouissance: Enjoying in the margins
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I’m a lifeless face that you’ll soon forget
Well, I’ve lost it all, I’m just a silhouette I’m a lifeless face that you’ll soon forget My eyes are damp from the words you left Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest And if you’re in love, then you are the lucky one […]
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The death drive as a will to create from zero, to begin again
I found this incredibly thought provoking from Richard Seymour as a reflection on the possibility of hope in a time of crisis. It suggests we need to move through despair because there is no way around it, but that on the other side we can find a hope grounded in a coming to terms with […]
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Why has social media become so grim?
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The lights are out, the phones are dead
The lights are out, the phones are dead And I’m the only thing that’s running in this city Except for the clouds and man, they’re coming down If I knew my way around, I wouldn’t feel so dizzy
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Who should we trust when the apocalypse comes? Some thoughts on post-horror
I’m currently working on a project with Milan Stürmer exploring how post-horror films both pre-figured pandemic imaginaries (2016-2019) and responded to them (2020-2022). It emerged from conversations in pub beer gardens in Cambridge during the summer of 2021 at a point when some vestiges of normal life had returned but things nonetheless felt extremely strange. […]
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Hope is optimism with a broken heart
I wrote when leaving Cambridge in August 2021 how “Prior to the pandemic I was rapidly getting institutionalised into the university, pottering around the city over the course of the day between my office, college canteens, green spaces, coffee shops, college gardens and cinemas”. It was the first time in my life I had experienced […]
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What would happen if every human suddenly disappeared?
Building on this extremely interesting looking book: On a similar theme, though I haven’t watched it yet:
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Mark Carrigan 