The Syllabus

Who Makes a Doll of their Ex? | History's Worst Break Ups | Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society Listen to Who Makes a Doll of their Ex? | History's Worst Break Ups from Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A 'bad boy' of Austrian art meets the 'loveliest girl in Vienna',…

Oskar Kokoschka and Alma Mahler’s turbulent romance inspired art, scandal, and the bizarre. This dialogue traces how Kokoschka’s obsession drove him to commission a life-sized swan-skin doll of Alma post-breakup, which he ceremoniously destroyed in a drunken fit.

With Caitlin Hoerr

The Gunpowder Hegemony: The Assault Rifle as a Vector of Sociopolitical and Territorial Transformation in Rio de Janeiro Analyzing public security in Rio de Janeiro over the last four decades requires isolating a variable that transcends its tactical function to assume an ontological status in criminal governance: the…

Rio de Janeiro's assault rifle epidemic has redefined crime, power, and governance. This piece argues that tackling this crisis demands dismantling international supply chains and choking the financial lifelines of criminal factions.

By @robertouchoa.bsky.social

Beirut’s History Is Being Repaved Developers have dismantled part of the ancient Roman walls in the city center to make way for a parking lot

This piece traces the erasure of the Roman city wall beneath a new parking lot in Beirut, exposing how private capital and complicit officials conspire to sever the city’s living residents from the archaeology underfoot.

By Madeline Edwards in @newlinesmag.bsky.social

This video is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Social Justice: buff.ly/JIQWK6V

In this webinar, prof. Fressoz explores how the idea of “energy transition”—from wood to coal, coal to oil, and now to renewables or nuclear—has shaped the way we imagine climate solutions. It… Energy Transition: A Reassuring Future Built on an Imaginary Past

This webinar debunks the widely accepted notion of seamless shifts from one energy source to another, arguing instead that energy history is one of "addition," not substitution, with fossil fuels continually expanding alongside new technologies.

Featuring Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

buff.ly/iAzK4Cu

This book can be found in this week's edition of the Best of Social Justice: buff.ly/JIQWK6V

Medicines That Feed Us: Plants, Healing, and Sovereignty in a Toxic World We will be performing site maintenance on Thursday, Feb. 26 and expect checkout to be unavailable for several hours beginning at 8:00 a.m. EST. If you need assistance during this time, please contact…

If the line between poison and remedy is shaped by power, whose health—and soil—gets sacrificed for the promise of progress? This book responds by tracking Tanzanian plants and healers who refuse to let “toxicity” remain invisible.

By Stacey A. Langwick on @dukepress.bsky.social

buff.ly/HSjrjeY

Egalitarian dreams often cast long and troubling shadows: that's the key takeaway from our open-access article of the week, which argues that efforts to produce equality always hinge on the violence of commensuration.

By Natalia Buitron & Grégory Deshoullière

buff.ly/UdlzsAC

This episode can be found in this week's edition of the Best of Social Justice: buff.ly/JIQWK6V

Needs No Introduction: Pension divestment: From funding crises to a radical pension politics In our third episode of the season, Tom Fraser, a union researcher and author of Invested in Crisis: Public Sector Pensions Against the Future, and Becca Steckle, a research and policy analyst with…

Canadian public sector pensions are entangled with global capital markets, driving housing crises, militarism, and even funding human rights violations like the occupation of Palestine. This conversation examines how pension funds profit from exploitation.

With Tom Fraser et al.

buff.ly/0JyBozN

The university is under siege—from both the right and from within. As our video of the week details, decades of privatization have transformed higher education from a public good into an individual investment, feeding both popular resentment and elite capture.

Ft. Craig Calhoun

buff.ly/YlBp41q

This piece is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Social Justice: buff.ly/JIQWK6V

Housing Cost: One in Seven Municipalities in Europe Unaffordable for Nurses This map by CORRECTIV.Europe shows the places where even a mid-level salary like a nurse's isn't enough to afford a small apartment.

Europe’s housing crisis is squeezing out essential workers. This data analysis shows that even nurses, earning middle-class wages, can't afford small apartments in over 15% of EU cities.

By Lilith Grull & @fridathurm.bsky.social in @correctiv.org

buff.ly/LvCxYx3

The past is not an emotional void, our podcast of the week insists, but a landscape of feeling shaped by contested histories and ruptured boundaries. As the guest argues, emotions are embedded in historically contingent “emotional communities.”

With @barbararosenwein.bsky.social

buff.ly/cSRFTfi

Between 1934 and 1935, Simone Weil, then a philosophy professor, immersed herself in factory work. Our French pick of the week analyzes Weil's critique of how Taylorist rationalization weaponizes time, turning rhythm into cadence, and laborers into automatons.

By Laurent Perreau

buff.ly/flreX2F

Styled as an accessible left critique of neoliberalism, Han Byung-Chul's philosophy offers readers a sense of recognition while sacrificing political depth. Our essay of the week critiques Han's streamlined "Sloterdijkian" method.

By @worldless.bsky.social in @eflux.bsky.social

buff.ly/7CGqkqu

Democratic planning invites us to imagine politics beyond liberal frameworks, but why do radical blueprints keep falling flat? Our hidden gem of the week charges that democratic planning is too often hobbled by a tacit allegiance to liberalism.

By Ben Hinder et al. at @ucl.ac.uk

buff.ly/cACdwhG

Organized crime is less an aberration than a hidden architect of the modern world. From the Bronx barrooms of New York’s Five Families to the cocaine routes of the Medellin Cartel, our book of the week dissects the entanglement of outlaw power and statecraft.

By Ryan Gingeras

buff.ly/i2uj4Em

Using the cultural icon Bad Bunny to amplify the island's history and agency under five centuries of colonial rule, this dialogue details how Puerto Rico’s struggle is both global and deeply personal.

Feat. @fluentmundo.bsky.social & @jmelendezbadillo.bsky.social on @npr.org

Eisenstein’s Unrealized Worlds - Public Books Can a film that was never finished reveal the possibility of an alternative social system?

Sergei Eisenstein left behind a trove of unrealized projects. From films about antisemitism in imperial Russia to the Haitian Revolution and capitalist greed, this piece shows how Eisenstein sought to challenge oppression worldwide.

By Lora Maslenitsyna in @publicbooks.bsky.social

This document is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Technology: buff.ly/LHss2jz

(PDF) Narratives of FinTech: The Political Economy of Disruptive Discourse PDF | In policy discourse, financial technology (FinTech) is commonly framed as a challenge between fostering innovation and safeguarding financial... | Find, read and cite all the research you need…

FinTech isn’t upending global finance as much as it’s being harnessed by central bankers to serve a controlled narrative. This paper presents a unified stance among regulators: innovation is welcomed but must be balanced against financial stability.

By @alfredo-hs.bsky.social

buff.ly/UJly81U

This video is part of this week's edition of the Best of Technology: buff.ly/LHss2jz

In this interview, we sit down with research fellow Zane Maddux, author of the Clay-Gilmore Institute's latest and urgent newsletter, "The Threat of Palantir Technologies: Counterinsurgency,… Algorithms of Empire (Episode 3); Special Guest: Zane Maddux

From its origins in CIA-funded projects like Palantir, this interview unpacks how AI has infiltrated domestic life, perpetuating racialized surveillance, predictive policing, and automated discrimination cloaked in supposed objectivity.

Feat. Zane Maddux at @uoftethics.bsky.social

buff.ly/xUO3Qj2

When modern football’s founders gathered, they weren't merely standardizing rules, but codifying a new moral order. Our article of the week shows how “fair play” translated codes of honor into the disciplined ethic of bourgeois society.

By Dominik Döllinger in @culsoc.bsky.social

buff.ly/chJf99K

This episode is part of this week's edition of the Best of Technology: buff.ly/LHss2jz

Building the plane while it’s flying: data centers, utilities, and the new rules of power Podcast Episode · Interchange Recharged · 02/10/2026 · 44m

Surging electricity demand from data centers and AI is testing the limits of U.S. power grids. This conversation details how these pressures could amplify struggles over rate hikes while spurring investment in renewables.

With Chris Seiple on @interchangeshow.bsky.social

buff.ly/w72lri7

Each time Ursula Le Guin started writing, she would begin by drawing a map. Our video of the week foregrounds Le Guin's cartography as tools for imagining the violent coordinates of gender, property, and planetary crisis.

Ft. @suchmayer.bsky.social, @unamccormack.bsky.social et al.

buff.ly/vMDnQiW

Bullshit Bots | Sohini Desai Is AI really coming for entry-level jobs first, and the rest of the workforce next? Tech CEOs certainly want you to think so.

By selling frictionless convenience, this essay argues that tech giants demand total access to our personal lives while gutting wages and gigifying work. These bots won’t revolutionize productivity, the author suggests.

By Sohini Desai in @thebaffler.com

Fundamental to Earth’s habitability, responsible for mass extinction when unbalanced, and used by fossil capitalism—CO2 is the real protagonist of our planet. Our podcast of the week traces the deep history of carbon dioxide.

W/ @peterbrannen.bsky.social on @tgspodcast.bsky.social

buff.ly/1zEIw5w