Theresa May, Goop, and Father’s Day
Past Present: Episode 88
In this week's episode, Niki, Neil and Natalia debate the outcome of the recent British election, Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop, and the history of Father's Day.
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Pride Month, the Paris Accords, and Kathy Griffin
Past Present Episode 87
In this week's episode, Neil, Natalia, and Niki debate the politics of pride marches, the history of climate change, and Kathy Griffin and the politics of offense.
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On Adivasi Development and Resistance in India
Existential questions faced by the subaltern
Existential questions faced by the subaltern
When accepting the 2004 City of Sydney Peace Prize, Arundhati Roy remarked, “there's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” This quote aptly captures the persecution and repression faced by people marginalized by society’s relentless ...
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Who Knew Running Yahoo Was So Hard?
Marissa Mayer Takes One for the Team
As we begin to think about writing the history of the Age of Trump, my advice is to follow the money.
For example, answer this question: how do CEOs make a fortune by killing businesses and putting working and middle class people on the unemployment line? If your answer is "Sending ...
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An Interview with Justin Leroy
Racial finance and the question of moral progress
On Wednesday, March 29th, Justin Leroy, an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Davis, delivered a presentation entitled “Race, Finance, and the Afterlife of Slavery,” as part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the seventy-eighth installment of the longest-running survey of American art. Leroy’s talk, which drew from an article ...
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Evil is Not a Psychiatric Illness
A reflection on Dr. Steven Reisner’s message
Since the earliest days of Trump’s candidacy, media has been glutted with op-eds suggesting he is unfit for the role of presidency because he is “mentally ill,” with doctors and psychiatrists intentionally violating the Goldwater Rule by attempting to diagnose the new president without having had any clinical contact. At ...
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Sweatshop City
Laura Y. Liu
Laura Y. Liu is Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Eugene Lang College, The New School. Her ongoing research project, Sweatshop City, examines the urban geography of migration, industry, and neighborhood change in New York City.
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TFW… Gucci Releases a Line of Memes
Could it be the most terrifying news in the world?
Last week, Gucci released a line of “memes.” Their website tells us that “The word ‘meme’ was coined by the British biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 to mean an ‘imitated thing,” and that memes are “the common currency of social media.” The memes feature pictures of Gucci watches, often captioned ...
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Populism as Neoliberalism
On John Smith’s Imperialism in the 21st Century in the Trump Era
Are neoliberalism and Trump’s populism incompatible? In the scattered debates that have arisen in the wake of his presidential victory, these two somewhat vague terms are contrasted with one another in order to make sense of his rhetoric of protectionism for US manufacturers and labor, to the detriment of immigrant ...
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Interview with Dr. Kris Manjapra
On racial, gendered, colonial capitalism (the only kind of capitalism)
Cooper: I’d like to begin first by asking you to elaborate just a little bit more on your notion of Foucault and his thesis about repression and how it applies in your own work.
Manjapra: Foucault was observing that in the 19th century there was a moment of discussion and talk ...
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Universal Basic Income, Scientific Racism, and Malls
Past Present: Episode 80
In this week's episode, Natalia, Neil, and Niki debate the push for universal basic income, the rising visibility of scientific racism, and the disappearance of shopping malls.
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A Utopia for Money
A visit to the secretive art warehouse at the Singapore airport
I have visited money’s utopia: it is not only a utopia for those with money, but a utopia for money itself.
Sequestered in the winding roads of an industrial park, next to the airport tarmac of one of Asia’s busiest airports, a mere block away from the garrison of the border ...
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