Christian Haines

They really do great reviews.

photo of paulina borsook

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it).

But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

Jameson at 90: A Verso Blog Series Fredric Jameson died on September 22nd, aged 90. Few radical thinkers have had such a phenomenal impact on literary criticism, critical theory, and philosophy. To mark his 90th birthday, in April 2024...

A year ago: a series of essays in honor of Fred Jameson turning 90.
www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/j...

Cover art is in! Wastelands and Wonderlands coming in April. Massive thanks to the creative team at SUNY for another brilliant cover! This has some amazing contribs and I can't wait for you to read their work!

Photos capture Chicagoans’ protest against ICE and Trump’s intervention plans CHICAGO (AP) — Thousands of protesters marched in Chicago on Saturday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and President Donald Trump’s plan to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to the city.

Thousands of protesters marched in Chicago on Saturday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and President Donald Trump’s plan to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to the city.

Worker's Planet this wkend in Brighton has an amazing line-up. If you're coming, I'll be talking on this session - come say hi!

Pay Up: Who should pay for the crisis and how can we make them?

⏰ Time: 5pm - 6:30pm

🎟️ Get your ticket workersplanet.org/2mworkers_pl...

Critical Theory: Verso Student Reading Critique your critical theory reading with this crucial list of books, including Anna Kornbluh’s analysis of contemporary cultural style, Marx’s writings on Indigenous communism, and never forgetting ...

40% off Verso's Critical Theory back to school list!
www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/3...

Critical Friends Episode 15: On Time-Pass Dan Hartland is joined by Sneha Pathak and Tansy Gardam to discuss the kinds of text which many don’t find worthy of criticism at all.

🎧 New Critical Friends for your listening devices!

This month, Sneha Pathak and @tansyg.bsky.social talk to me about texts often dismissed as too slight to review - books, films, genres with which we might be accused of merely passing time.

How should critics approach this sort of work? And why?

I have a book cover!

Opinion | Bernie Sanders: Kennedy Must Resign

Clear and incisive, though I wish it didn't need to be said. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/o...

It’s outrageous that Sec. Kennedy is trying to fire the CDC Director — after only a few weeks on the job — for her commitment to public health & vaccines.

The Sen. HELP Committee must hold a hearing with Kennedy & the CDC Director as soon as possible.

Vaccines save lives. Period.

Been thinking about playing this or Metaphor ReFantazio. Looking forward to your posts about playing!

Great choices! Are there secondary or supplementary sources, too? Would love to know if you have any favorite essays on the topic that you're assigning.

In case you missed it, you can now catch @kathunfeld.bsky.social and Andreas Malm discussing *Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature* with author Alyssa Battistoni on the Historical Materialism YouTube channel.

Yep, every day.

a woman with pink hair is wearing a teddy bear sweater and making a funny face ALT: a woman with pink hair is wearing a teddy bear sweater and making a funny face

K Pop Demon Hunters has a killer soundtrack for running(and I assume high intensity workouts). My actual knowledge of the film is limited, as it's mostly just by osmosis from my kid watching it. But it seems fun and funny!

Very excited for this-i hope games journalists, as well as game studies and indigenous studies folks, read it! #gamestudies

Indiana University’s Disciplining of Ben Robinson is an Embarrassment and an Outrage August 19, 2025 Ben Robinson is a tenured Associate Professor of Germanic Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he has taught for over 20 years. Rick Van Kooten is a tenured Professor o…

"The disciplining of Ben Robinson is a violation of his academic freedom that sends a chilling message to all faculty members."
jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2025/08/19/i...

What we miss when play is only pleasurable Professor Aaron Trammell on torture, military strategists at conventions, and learning from his cats.

Scholar and author @aarontram.bsky.social spoke to us about play's blurry other side -- where it isn't always fun or consensual -- and what we risk by ignoring it.

FWIW, I'm speaking of LLMs in particular, though I think there's much one could say about the irresponsibility of framing AI as a substitute for human activity.

AI is theft. AI is environmental destruction. AI is anti-labor. AI concentrates power in tech capital. AI atrophies intellectual capacities. Here's something useful for struggling against its effects in education, courtesy of Anna Kornbluh, Eric Hayot, and Krista Muratore.
against-a-i.com

Playing only trans characters in tabletop RPGs helped me understand myself Cisgender people tend to exclusively play cis characters in games such as D&D, so what’s wrong with me only playing transgender characters?

This is good @dicebreaker.com.web.brid.gy www.dicebreaker.com/categories/r... (via @fionawh.im )

BRADLEY J. FEST / POSTROCK — always crashing Things show restraint. The guitar’s evening light, the decades, at least three ways of space running on, spilling over from us no matter the font of being’s omissions. It, that: here. Here . Let’s ...

It would only be possible to describe @bradleyfest.bsky.social's Postrock as "epic," both in its scope but also our modern sense of GREAT. I've gotten to spend some good time with the poem/ms this summer and am very excited to see the poem out in the world!

www.alwayscrashing.com/current/2025...

Games Transformed 2025: Smash the Fash Lenoon heads to antifascist gaming event Games Transformed!

Wrote up my experience at @gamestransformed.bsky.social 2025 - good theory, good praxis, good fun too!

www.goonhammer.com/games-transf...

The #HugoAward for Best Related Work goes to Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right, Jordan S. Carroll (University of Minnesota Press). “Insist that tomorrow belongs to everyone.”

Against a gold background, white text "Aurora Award for Best Novel - Winner!". Below, the paperback cover for THE SIEGE OF BURNING GRASS by Premee Mohamed. The white Solaris logo is in the bottom right corner.

Congratulations to the fabulous (and MULTI award-winning) @premeemohamed.com: THE SIEGE OF BURNING GRASS has won the Aurora Award for Best Novel!

(And well done to Premee again, for winning Best Novella whilst wearing a different publishing hat!)

geni.us/siegeburning...

Don't forget Tamsin, my favorite (so far) Beagle book. Strongly recommended for fans of 17th century Britain, ghost stories, and strongly subtextual gay teen romance, including our beloved #Katyana. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311946...

Same here.

Here's how to get a 20% discount our children’s book, *Fearless Benjamin: The Quaker Dwarf who Fought Slavery*, co-written with Michelle Markel and illustrated by Sarah Bachman, to be published Oct. 14, 2025 by @pmpress.bsky.social. Use BEN! at checkout.

pmpress.org/index.php?l=...