deterritorialization

The Slander of the Commons Ryan Ward explains the long tradition of justifying enclosure based on asserting the flawed morality of the commoners

A few great pieces have been published in our journal so far this month. This one, in particular, deserves as much attention as possible.

They don't see the irony in their nationalistic, genocidal practices, so why would they see it here?

Every successful act of liberation, every movement, turns its own history into a manual, a technique of government(ality). Let us not forget this, especially today.

Happy #Mayday, comrades.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure there's actually a place for philosophy in social media. It just doesn't sell well.

Yet, if we question this latter understanding and define fate as a culmination of a process encapsulating all of our historical decisions, the conversation might actually turn reasonably productive.

There's this popular take about the “fate” of mankind, especially with relation to climate change. As is usually the case with the term itself, it plays with its metaphysical definition that understands fate as a predetermined journey from point A to point B.

#BlackMirror S07E01 is, for now at least, in a genre on its own--subscription horror. I believe this type of story will become all too common in the near future.

Depression, Critique, and Critical Theory as Political Therapy Critical theorists, especially in the Frankfurt School tradition, claim that normative thought and critique arise from experiences of suffering and oppression. It seems intuitive that oppression some...

I have a new article on depression and critique out in Constellation - in case anyone needed more depression on their timelines! I discuss to what extent, and how, feelings of depression can be politicized and channeled into resistance.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

From the Archive: Andrea Mubi Brighenti, 'On Territorology: Towards a General Science of Territory' - conceptualizes territorial components, technologies, effects, and their interplay, in order to establish the main lines of inquiry for territorology. (2010) journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Yet, they are grounded in the conditions that made the dehumanization possible in the first place. As result, these moralizing acts, winks of good will, are even emptier than if they weren't there at all. They are just a cautious move aimed at shutting his critics before their voices were raised.

I sort of understand the appeal that Taylor Sheridan’s writings have to many people worldwide. His neoconservative shows (Yellowstone, Landman, etc.) with socially charged yet oversimplified commentaries and humanizing gestures, are what make them so popular.

Aziz Rana, Constitutional Collapse — Sidecar Trump and the law.

"attacks on the administrative state and on the universities are very much of a piece with this aim to reconstitute collective life on far-right terms. ... A left cultural world has been built before, ... and there is no alternative to building it again"

newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

The Anti-Revolutionary Left And its ‘actors’

Revolution is (or at least ought to be) an all-encompassing and pervasive phenomenon. Its aim should be (and this is especially true of the stakes today—the possibility of a future) the refashioning of every element not only of the world we share but also of the one we share with everything else.

Musk complies with Turkish autocracy’s requests to suspend pro-democracy accounts to “ensure X remains available” for Turks.

He didn’t seem to care about X being shut for Brazilians last year when a democracy requested far-right account suspensions, which he rejected on the basis of “free speech”.

How do we survive this constant monitoring, through stats and analytics, of how well we manage to drag and hold each other's attention?

However it is, it won't last.

These cancellations are on top of the ongoing partial shutdown of NIH. Reviews of applications submitted since the Fall of 2024 are happening only at a trickle, due to Trump and DOGE’s use of a bureaucratic loophole to slow the process. Importantly, that loophole is preventing NIH from scheduling many of the expert panel reviews I described above. Even more concerning are recent reports that NIH might gut its workforce, cutting up to 25% of its employees. Cuts at that scale, with staff that have highly specialized knowledge, would grind NIH to a halt. It also includes program officers who provide oversight throughout the process, from providing advice on applications to ensuring proper oversight once grants are actually made.

The NIH’s mission is to "to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability."
It can't achieve that mission if the review process becomes hostage to political whims.

Isn't that just another way to say "we want to be productive as well," thus, you know, holding to the very ethos of the system we should be fighting; a system which turns life with all it's marvelous disharmonies into a competition of production?

Isn't that just another way to say "we want to be productive as well," thus, you know, holding to the very ethos of the system we should be fighting; a system which turns life with all it's marvelous disharmonies into a competition of production?

What Aaron Bushnell Is Still Teaching Us His protest was both a rejection of the idea that human life is expendable and an acknowledgment that, for so many, it already has been.

For @thenation.com, I reflect on Aaron Bushnell’s death & the limits of protest.

I deny that he self-immolated to raise awareness, or because he thought he could quell the Gaza genocide, & I claim that part of his message was: watch this, nothing will change.

www.thenation.com/article/acti...

I'm tired of people tired of political art, backing one that deals with some universal humanness. "We need to know what it is to be human, not what it's to be the one who is treated as non-human."

Keep your art made in indifference and boredom for those you belong to--the indifferent and bored.

I think it's time for the critical take on human rights, law, and jurisprudence more generally (something that Pashukanis initiated so thoroughly) to come forward.

One can feel the internal contradictions of the notion of rights here. When he asks, "Who has the right to have rights?" and then asks us to unite to defend our rights, it already points to the direction that they are anything but given and, therefore, something that can be taken ad hoc.

The answer is obvious—everyone and no one at the same time. You might have them today, yet “your rights” might not be there tomorrow. They are instruments of power and therefore are subjected to its caprices.

Mahmoud Khalil asks, “Who has the right to have rights?” in his dictated letter from prison, which he reads over the phone. Isn't this question already pointing to the absurdly problematic notion of rights, of law, and of jurisprudence more generally?

2/27/25 - Pietro Bianchi This is "2/27/25 - Pietro Bianchi" by e-flux on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

The recording of my talk at @eflux.bsky.social is now online.
If you want the misfortune of hearing me rambling about psychoanalysis, the optical unconscious, the gaze and the digital image for more than an hour, here is your chance.

vimeo.com/1058822880/7...

This one really makes you think about the dimensions of the war happening before us. One not between AI and us, but between AI and all the operative algorithms making the virtual possible.

Teknemachia.

This one is spot on. Great read.

Stuart Hall’s Marxism w/ Michael Denning The Dig · Episode

Wooww - that is such a fantastic episode on Stuart Hall's marxism and method to investigate historically specific and antagonistic social relations that produce capitalist social formations.

Amazing work by @thedigradio.bsky.social!

open.spotify.com/episode/5ODA...

Agree. Also, one can see the connection with modern-day self-made, self-care, self-help, and self-development trends sparked from a profanation of this otherwise highly philosophical and sophisticated discourse.

The petite bourgeoisie has a history of supporting fascist governments: Italy, Germany, and Spain are good examples. They don't want change in the sense you mean it. They want more market for themselves and less possibility for their return to the working class. Hence the ambivalence (and support).