Sentencing the Present: An Archive of a Crisis

Critical conversations in a time of crisis

A sentence is protean: It can describe, question, or cry out. A sentence is critical: In passing judgment, it names wrongs, makes decisions, and declares publicly. In a spirit of both open inquiry and political advocacy, and inspired by the response of readers to our own “Theses for Theory in ...
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Sentencing the Present: An Archive of a Crisis

Sentencing the Present: Part Five

Critical conversations in a time of crisis

This is the final seminar of the "Sentencing the Present" series. For previous seminars, see part one, part two, part three and part four. A sentence is protean: It can describe, question, or cry out. A sentence is critical: In passing judgment, it names wrongs, makes decisions, and declares publicly. In ...
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Sentencing the Present: Part Five

Taking Political Differences Seriously

Why I Did Not Protest John Yoo at the APSA Meetings

But I did not protest John Yoo's presence at this year's APSA meeting in San Francisco, and the reason why is simple: I believe the protest was misplaced and also advanced a principle that I find disturbing and cannot support. Let me be clear: I did not and do not “oppose” ...
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Review of Jodi Dean’s Crowds and Party

On Collectives, Communicative Capitalism, and Suspension of the Individual Ego

Nowhere was this sense more palatable than in Zucotti Park, where the #OccupyWallStreet protesters set up camp. It was a moment when, especially for the Left, the world paused as if the railroad switch of history might suddenly direct the country on a new, more equitable track. Six years later, even ...
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The Stack to Come

On Benjamin Bratton’s The Stack

What I like most about Benjamin Bratton’s The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty (MIT Press, 2015) is firstly its close attention to what I would call the forces and relations of production. We really need to know how the world is made right now if it is ever to be ...
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The Stack to Come