adam searle

Unmasking Academe’s Gilded Boys’ Club The Epstein files reveal an elite, chummy, and venal scholarly network.

I’m quoted quite a bit here so perhaps I’m biased but I feel this is a good run down of what the Epstein files tell us about how power works in academia. with some good commentary from @jessicacalarco.com, too:

i shared this a few months ago but it is certainly worth a second read!!

"... in spite of everything, people are still speaking up, people are still making art, people are still teaching real history, people are still fighting back against the abduction of their neighbors. People still know what it means to feel joy. People still know what it means to be free."

Reform would create ICE-style agency and end leave to remain, Zia Yusuf to say Nigel Farage’s party plans to deport up to 288,000 people a year on five flights a day and expand stop and search

i've had infuriating conversations with people over the last year who sort of roll their eyes at everything happening in the USA, tutting from their high horse, that this stuff could never happen in Britain; a reminder that this is the most popular political party
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Cover of Media Rurality edited by Patrick Brodie and Darin Barney. The cover photograph depicts mountains in the far background, behind a city, and winding roads leading to rural fields in the foreground. The title appears in mixed serif and sanserif fonts in large type on the top left of the cover. The editors' names are in small caps immediately below.

In "Media Rurality," edited by Patrick Brodie and Darin Barney, contributors show how rural territories are highly mediated, technologized spaces profoundly enmeshed with global capitalism and colonialism. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/M8lC4sJ

On the history of the primate trade and colonial/postcolonial ecologies of extraction, conservation and care. Thanks to my co-editor Tara Suri and all who contributed to this Focus section in Isis. FREE ACCESS!
#envhist #sts #conservation #primates

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

this cruelty is genuinely unfathomable and this child's letter is a heartbreaking read

THE HIDDEN ABODES OF CAPITALIST SPACE: Rethinking Crisis and the Built Environment This article develops a new theory of the relationship between the built environment and the reproduction of capitalism. To do so, it pursues a critical engagement with David Harvey's landmark texts ...

I have a new article out in
@ijurresearch.bsky.social!

"The Hidden Abodes of Capitalist Space: Rethinking Crisis and the Built Environment."

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Should be of interest to those writing/thinking about Hegel, Harvey, capitalism's "hidden abodes," and much more

Promotional image for Oli Mould's book 'Postcapitalist cities' published by Manchester University Press. The book sits against the background of an empty gravel path and blue sky. Text reads: What could a city look like after capitalism?

Promotional image for Oli Mould's book 'Postcapitalist cities' published by Manchester University Press. The book sits against the background of an empty gravel path and blue sky. Review quote reads: 'Truly global and deeply humane... Oli Mould proposes a radical urbanism that draws on past, present and future visions that could reshape the world.'

Promotional image for Oli Mould's book 'Postcapitalist cities' published by Manchester University Press. Gravel background with blue sky. Review quote reads: 'A much needed antidote to the daily escalation of urban authoritarianism and the existential threat of planetary destruction.'

Publishing today!🏙️

In a world of environmental degradation, inequality and social strife, a vision for what comes next is vital.

@olimould.bsky.social takes readers from strikes in Santiago to urban commoning and Solarpunk, revealing how communities are making a new kind of city possible.

Next week, 26th Feb, I am giving a lecture discussing my forthcoming book at Goldsmiths University, as part of their Visual Cultures programme. 5-7PM. Details at www.instagram.com/p/DUtQULJl63...

The poetics of knowledge in the Anthropocene: Rancière and the politics of posthuman knowledge - Ben Bowsher, 2026 This paper responds to debates over the politics of knowledge in the Anthropocene, which often centres on affirmational and negative approaches to posthuman the...

Posting my article again in hopes of finding you! Dear reader who is interested in posthuman theories and radical politics!

If this isn’t ‘you’, please share until I find the right ‘you’.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Rethinking the ‘Bogus’ Student Throughout modern history, overseas students have neither been entirely rejected nor genuinely accepted. Nilakshi Das examines this discourse as it shifted over time.

'Changes in rhetoric exemplify the liminal position of overseas students throughout history, as they have neither been entirely rejected nor genuinely accepted'.

Nilakshi Das: 'Rethinking the "Bogus" Student'

The UK universities cutting geography have lost their bearings From climate change to geopolitics, the knowledge, skills and insights of geographers have never been more relevant, say five professors

Geography's 'combination of STEM, social science and arts and humanities can sit uneasily within university faculty systems, heightening the risk that we are dismantled into separate components.' 1/2

The UK universities cutting geography have lost their bearings From climate change to geopolitics, the knowledge, skills and insights of geographers have never been more relevant, say five professors

important commentary!!!

www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/uk-u...

For the next two weeks only (16-28th Feb), selected titles are 70% OFF as part of our February Flash Sale.
Simply use discount code FLASH70 at checkout.
Head to our Blog to shop the full selection: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/blog/2026/02...
Valid for UK customers only. #booksky

Decentering tech oligarchy Published in Science as Culture (Ahead of Print, 2026)

Is tech oligarchy a proper term to describe the conditions of current-day political economies?

In our latest forum contribution, @ulyssespascal.bsky.social, Cheng Fang, and David Bassens see merit in deploying the concept, but also consider its empirical limits.

🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0950...

Epstein Family Values • EQUATOR The billionaire patriarchs of the American far-right want to rule an economy of masters and servants

What does Epstein’s household economy reveal about the billionaire far-right? Melinda Cooper traces the disturbing logic connecting primal patriarchy, transhumanism, and the rule of masters over servants.
www.equator.org/articles/eps...

May Labour's Yvette Cooper, the former Home Secretary, be remembered always as the politician who imposed the ban at the behest of Britain's powerful weapons industry, so it could continue to profit from the deliberate massacre of the people of Gaza

Breaking: on two counts, the High Court has ruled that the Labour government's proscription of the campaign group Palestine Action was unlawful – a win for its co-founder Huda Ammori, who sought a judicial review of the ban

Samplers of the marine environment: Knowing the oceans with seabirds, 1958–Present This article focuses on monitoring and tracking seabirds from the mid-twentieth century to the present. It illustrates how seabirds have been reconfig…

'Samplers of the marine environment: Knowing the oceans with seabirds, 1958–Present'

A fantastic new article from Oscar Hartman Davies exploring the shifting roles of seabirds in marine science and monitoring over the second half of the twentieth century

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Huge solidarity with @ucuessex.bsky.social and @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social, both out on strike today over threats to jobs and pensions.

Let’s do this #UCU #UKHE

sigh

Image displays the front and back jacket of 'Unsettling Extinction', a book in the Global Challenges in the Environmental Humanities' series. The jacket image depicts a bird on a perch in a bell-jar with a spike through it. Jacket blurb reads: Biodiversity loss threatens to transform the ecological foundations of all biological life on the planet, yet solutions to this crisis are fiercely contested. This book addresses extinction by exploring species decline and conservation with a particular emphasis on divergent cultural framings, temporal scales, and media. Drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, cultural geography, environmental history, philosophy, literary studies, media studies, and studies of religion, this book explores how the engagement with biodiversity loss challenges basic assumptions in these disciplines and opens up new avenues of thought and activism for shaping the multispecies communities of the future. Featuring contributions from key names in the field alongside some of the most exciting new voices, this collection presents cutting-edge work on species extinction from a wide variety of perspectives across the environmental humanities.

Really nice to see the final paperback jacket proof for the latest in @bloomsburylit.bsky.social 'Global Challenges...' series. Edited by Roman Bartosch, Ursula Heise & Kate Rigby, 'Unsettling Extinction': www.bloomsbury.com/unsettling-e...

We've put together a 'call for papers' for the 2026 RGS-IBG Conference in London (1 - 4 September). The theme: *pessimist geographies*. Get in touch if you have any questions.

www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa-j...

also, this paper was by far the best I’ve ever experienced the review process. Genuinely so thankful for the generosity of ideas and support provided by all 3 reviewers, one of them even went out their way to read Becky Chambers’ book and offer their opinions on our reading of somaforming theory!

a genuine joy to work on this article since we first presented it at @greenhouseuis.net in November 2022 (a lifetime ago!). Since then I've been very thankful to receive feedback from many supportive colleagues; mostly my thanks go to Roxane for being such an inspiring and interesting collaborator!!

Figure 2 from the article: "Kojima, Tomoki, et al. "Cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid biting fly attack." PLoS One 14.10 (2019): e0223447." The original caption in the academic publication is: "Example of the area of legs and body used to count biting flies on cows." The image shows a cow who has been painted with white paint so that they resemble a zebra.

2) the painting of cows to resemble zebras, thus reducing the incidences of biting fly parasitism (expected to increase significantly without population crashes due to warmer winters).

We posit that somaforming experiments risk foreclosing alterity through their pre-emption of an alien Earth.

Figure 3 from the article Laible, Goetz, et al. "Holstein Friesian dairy cattle edited for diluted coat color as a potential adaptation to climate change." BMC Genomics 22.1 (2021): 856. The original in-article caption is: "Color dilution phenotype of genome edited calf. Shown are pictures of the PMEL mutant calf with non-edited control calves for direct comparison of coat colors and distribution of white and dark markings." The image compares cows that have been subject to gene editing with a control group. The top-right image in particular shows how pigmentation dilution results in a significantly lighter coat.

We read the politics and practices of somaforming in the case of bovine agriculture on an increasingly alien Earth. We follow two examples which caught our attention:

1) the use of gene-editing to dilute coat pigmentation, thus reducing solar radiation absorption and therefore heat stress; and

Cover art for Becky Chambers' 2019 Novella, To Be Taught If Fortunate, (Voyager publishing version). It shows an astronaut floating in space, looking back at Earth

Somaforming human astronauts to survive on alien exoplanets is presented by Chambers as an 'ethical alternative' to terraforming: the 'lighter touch'. But in her wonderful novella (To Be Taught, If Fortunate, 2019), somaforming leaves astronauts estranged and alienated from their home planet.

🐄 NEW OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE

We sitatue livestock agriculture as a terraforming practice making Earth alien. We develop SF author Becky Chambers' concept of 'somaforming' to examine the shaping of nonhuman bodies to suit alien Earth and how this preempts futures:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...