What might we be able to build in the future that we can't build today? For the @TheIdeasLetter, I wrote about the political economy of technology and technological change in a world beyond capitalism.
www.theideasletter.org/essay/a-real...
Bethany Moreton talking now about the Christian reconstructionist movement, Gary North, and the relationship between neoliberalism and religious far right at the KHC in Oxford/Wadham.
holy smokes huge honor to be next to these books
Turning citizens into enemies, neoliberal governments hamstring democracy
Out today - The Choice of Civil War: Neoliberal Strategy and the Politics of the Enemy by Pierre Dardot, Haud Guéguen, Christian Laval and Pierre Sauvêtre
Baltimore! Join the great Nathan Connolly and me at @redemmas.org on January 29th!!
An epidemic of workforce demoralization? "Intensive AI use is demotivating and deskilling, fuelling boredom and mediocrity. We could even see a reverse ‘productivity J-curve’: short-term productivity gains rapidly overwhelmed by a deterioration in labour quality" newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...
Debates continue to circulate—as they should—about the utility of neoliberalism as a category of analysis and political practice. Myself + three other historians wrote a brief overview of how it works in our field for the Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Very grateful for this smart and far-reaching review of Born in Flames by @david-helps.bsky.social in @dissentmag.bsky.social
dissentmagazine.org/article/the-...
'Writing the History of Neoliberalism: A Comment' bit.ly/3LKB8NF - new article in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'.
With contributions from Quinn Slobodian, Priya Lal, Gary Gerstle & Tehila Sasson.
@quinnslobodian.com, @priyalalista.bsky.social @tsasson.bsky.social #Skystorians 1/2
In case you missed our last newsletter of 2025, check out our latest publications, a couple CFPs, job and fellowship ads, and more:
Today, @quinnslobodian.com takes you inside a recent conference devoted to the world after neoliberalism. What emerged, he argues, was less a rupture with the past than a centrist project of status-quo stabilization.
Very grateful for the opportunity to receive feedback from the @hpe-project.bsky.social community on my doctoral project, after receiving a HPE summer grant to conduct further archival and interview research in Geneva and Paris
Happy to share the CFP for next year's Social Science History Association conference under the leadership of Ho-fung Hung - "Decentering Modernity." Proposals due by March 1 - details here: ssha2026.ssha.org
"[P]ublic housing was the only type of housing spared by the inferno… What would it mean to take that finding seriously?" @benchansfield.bsky.social on implications of the 1970s arson wave for the housing justice movement today: www.hpeproject.org/blog/firestorm
Is infrastructure sabotage always a destructive act led by seditious individuals? no
my new article in Human Geography studies Colombian public sector workers ‘breaking’ infrastructure to oppose privatization in 1992, and argues sabotage can reshape policies, politicize society & more
Really enjoyed sharing thoughts on Aditi Dey’s & Charli Muller’s excellent papers!
For our concluding keynote presentation, Joel Suarez delivered a wonderful talk on “informal” work, immigration, and notions of freedom in global capitalism. And that’s a wrap on our fourth annual grantee conference!
Diana Wylie (Emerita, BU) and Christy Thornton (@llchristyll.bsky.social, NYU) brought additional perspectives from South African history and global social movements into dialogue with these excellent presentations.
Flavia Canestrini (@flaviacanestrini.bsky.social, EUI) presented research on how grassroots actors in the U.S. worked to exert financial pressure on banks to divest from apartheid South Africa
Our final grantee panel of the weekend! Chloe Bernadaux (Northwestern) analyzed how the UN embargo of Iraq in the 1990s was interpreted domestically through discursive frames of legitimacy, humanity, and imperialism
@dygottlieb.bsky.social
Responses from Dylan Gottlieb (Bentley) and Betty Anderson (BU) opened the floor to a wide-ranging conversation about local, regional, and global narratives of state and capital
Bench Ansfield (@benchansfield.bsky.social, Temple) then introduced an exciting new project on catastrophe bonds, climate change, and the politics of risk
Day 2 of our grantee conference! We started things off with a fascinating presentation by Jan Altaner (Cambridge) on real estate speculation in Beirut and its imbrication in global capital flows
A round of wonderful responses from Francine McKenzie (Western Ontario) and Quinn Slobodian (@quinnslobodian.com, BU). And that's a wrap! We'll be back tomorrow with more highlights.
Edward Knudsen (@tedknudsen.bsky.social, Oxford) presented his research on how historical memories of interwar protectionism have been reconstructed over time in service to shifting hegemonic projects.
In our final session of the day, Connor O'Brien (@connorpobrien.bsky.social, Cambridge) zoomed in for a presentation on the history of "good governance" in the context of struggles over development and political authority around the globe.
We were thrilled to have Sarah Bellows-Blakely (@bellowsblakely.bsky.social, Freie Universität Berlin) deliver our conference's first keynote presentation, based on her book Girl Power? A History of Girl-Focused Development from Nairobi: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
