Julia Elyachar

I will start telling my students that the biggest chance for them to succeed in the future job market is to spend their entire (under-)graduate studies learning how to think for themselves. If they survive this hardship & frustration, they’ll eventually outdo everyone cutting corners
#AI #ContraAI 🤖

“Larry Ellison’s Oracle & Peter Thiel’s Palantir now form a single operational spine for digital governance and defence, from cloud infrastructure to predictive analytics. And Trump’s Gaza peace plan looks like the vehicle thru which that spine could extend into Gaza’s reconstruction.” 10/16/25 …1/

The amazing ppl at IDEAS ON Fire are offering a free first book webinar.#academicsky

Balaji (a close associate of Thiel & Andreessen) leads the “network state” movement, which encourages tech elites to build their own “countries” by acquiring physical territory w/in host countries & building “parallel institutions” to replace existing ones in media, education, finance, & science 1/

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

Brett Kavanaugh is basically arguing tha there have been "sufficient remedies" for racism.

This seems like a good time to bring up the @politico.com about how young Republicans have *remedied* racism.

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Race and the question of Palestine in a time of genocide: Lana Tatour | Podcast Episode on RSS.com The second episode of 2 Pals & a Pod features special guest Dr Lana Tatour, a ‘48 Palestinian, academic, writer, and relentless critic of settler colonialism. Tune in as we discuss Lana’s new co...

A truly remarkable interview with my colleague Lana Tatour on race and the question of Palestine: rss.com/podcasts/2-p...

AFP (10 freelancers in Gaza across text/photo/video) : since the agency founded in 1944 we’ve had journalists killed, injured or imprisoned, but none of us can recall a colleague dying of starvation.

Which is imminent.

China is building 74% of all current solar and wind projects, report says Beijing is dominating construction of renewable energy sources, according to Global Energy Monitor

In an effort to win this contest, China is building hegemony by exporting not just its green products but also in a structural shift exporting its technology, engineering, supply chains, and financing.
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/bri...
www.ft.com/content/e517...

Bombing a seed bank

A chart showing NYC mayoral primary results (still being counted) by regions from largest to smallest, showing the top 12. Not going to recount all the numbers, but Cuomo leads in the top two neighborhoods: the upper west side and the upper east side (generally the "older" people's neighborhoods... and then Mandami wins bsically everywhere else. Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Astoria, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Washingtong Heights, Harlem, Flatbush, Bushwick and the East Village.

Fascinating...

to call this a crime against humanity is true but inadequate — it’s a crime against all creation

Coercion and Inequality | Esfandyar Batmanghelidj & Zep Kalb The distributional effects of sanctions in Iran

"Iran has been subjected to the world’s most extensive sanctions program for the better part of the last decade."

Not an original point but worth saying again - there is not a single element in this picture that identifies any of these folks as law enforcement agents. No badges, no uniforms, no vests. Out of context it just looks like a bunch of random guys are kidnapping a mayoral candidate.

Trump declares war on cities

“We must expand efforts to detain & deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as LA, Chicago, & NY, where Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, & other Cities, are core of the Dem Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base”

The Fiscal State Under Siege: Why People Hate the IRS, and Why You Should Care How Trump, DOGE, and Project 2025 Are Turning the IRS Into a Tool of Authoritarian Rule Editor’s Introduction: Hello readers, it's Nathan Tankus and I am very happy to bring to you the first in a l...

If you're following the GOP tax bill disaster, my latest in @crisesnotes.bsky.social traces how this effort builds on a longstanding campaign to weaken the IRS and consolidate fiscal power in the hands of the wealthy. This is the first in a series on DOGE, taxes, and the future of public governance.

This was always a likely tactic, but it also says a lot about the inability of the Israeli military to actually control and hold Gaza

Here's a long thread on an issue dear to my heart. This Tuesday evening I’m doing an Intellectual Publics with Macarena Gomez-Barris on publishing. Like last year’s conversation with Denise Cruz, or the prior year’s with Racquel Gates, we will talk about how to find a publisher, turn a thesis... 1/

The shocking far-right agenda behind the surveillance tech used by ICE and the FBI Clearview AI’s founders always intended to target immigrants and the political left. Now their digital dragnet is in the hands of the Trump administration.

“We were going to use technology to…overturn the monetary system,” Peter Thiel said in 2010, explaining the reasoning behind starting PayPal. He added that “we cld never win an election…bc we were …a small minority. But maybe you could…unilaterally change the world… thru a technological means.”
1/

Not dealing with this being almost out yet! The small box of author copies is on my desk; haven't done the requisite picture holding them. So far it has felt obscene to self-promote...for now, my endless gratitude to all who helped make it happen..more soon!

Israel just launched its offensive to permanently ‘conquer’ Gaza as Trump’s Arab Gulf tour wraps up Israel announced the initial phase of “Gideon’s chariots,” the expanded ground invasion to permanently “conquer” Gaza, amid reports that Trump reneged on his deal with Hamas to lift the blockade, and ...

mondoweiss.net/2025/05/isra...

Exterminating Gaza was always Israel’s plan, but now it’s official Israel carried out its plan to erase Gaza over the course of 18 months. Now that the plan has clearly fallen into place, the Netanyahu government is openly discussing ethnic cleansing. And still, Israel...

Israel carried out its plan to erase Gaza over the course of 18 months. Now that the plan has clearly fallen into place, the Netanyahu government is openly discussing ethnic cleansing. And still, Israel enjoys complete international impunity.

Americans have tuned out Gaza at the worst possible moment Israel has a horrifying new plan for “the concluding moves” of the Gaza war. Yet it’s flying under the American radar.

Israel has announced a "concluding" plan for Gaza that, if implemented, would amount a moral crime of historical proportions. There's still time to stop it — but America is looking away

www.vox.com/world-politi...

New York City’s Trump Administration Lawsuit Was Fundamentally Amended Based on Notes on the Crises Memo No. 1 I have a lot of writing to get out over the next couple of weeks, especially following up on the Trump Tariff Crisis and the Future of the Dollar. I also need to dig back into the state of play at the...

NEW @crisesnotes.bsky.social PIECE: the very first Notes on the Crises Legal Research Memo led to New York City to fundamentally revise its lawsuit of the Trump administration just 7 days later. This is an extremely powerful proof of concept for the memo project.

www.crisesnotes.com/new-york-cit...

Jewish faculty decry Republican panel members ahead of antisemitism hearing Lawmakers on key committee have quoted Hitler and are associated with calls for Jews to convert to Christianity

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Very happy to have this short piece on emergencies and state violence in #Egypt published - thanks for the opportunity

As Trump’s Family Crypto Business Gains Steam, Ethical Concerns Mount A crypto company part-owned by the Trump family stands to earn millions of dollars from a business deal involving a state-backed investment fund from the UAE. The arrangement amounts to “foreign policy...

A crypto company part-owned by the Trump family stands to earn millions of dollars from a business deal involving a state-backed investment fund from the UAE. The arrangement amounts to “foreign policy for sale,” critics claim. www.wired.com/story/as-tru...

Cover of On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo by Julia Elyachar. The cover features a dark, geometric background pattern from a brass decoration on an ancient door in Cairo. The title is displayed in elegant serif fonts, with "On the Semicivilized" in gold and the subtitle in white and italicized text. The author's name appears in pink in the bottom right corner.

Among our exciting new titles out this May is "On the Semicivilized" by Julia Elyachar @jeelyachar.bsky.social . #MiddleEastStudies #Anthropology
buff.ly/BWX6cDK

April is the Cruelest Month | The Polycrisis Diversification and dedollarization in the world economy

“In international relations, trade, security and markets, the themes are the same: the rest of the world is seeking to diversify, decarbonize, defend, and dedollarize.”

NEW by @katemac.bsky.social + @70sbachchan.bsky.social on the month since Liberation Day www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/apr...