Thinking the Present

On Critique – Luc Boltanski

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Questions always seem to haunt us: What are we fighting? Are we fighting it in a way that could make a meaningful difference?

Summer of Hate – Chris Kraus

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In vintage Kraus (and feminist) style, there is no possible separation of love and sex from politics and philosophy.

Alberto Toscano

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We want to think about those works which try to “totalise” our current conditions, to thematize those facets of social existence which are particularly symptomatic of the trends and tensions in today’s political economy: financial markets, logistical complexes, commodity chains.

What it Sounds Like After You’ve Gone Soaring

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There’s a new trend in pop music: a sibilant, machine-like, static white-noise. Since these things are supposed have names, let’s call it “the fizz.”

Fatalism in American Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy – Robert Pippin

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Given our recent history, an attempt to develop a theory of agency that probes behaviors like risk-taking and gambling is a welcome philosophical exercise.

Chris Lehmann

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I do believe in that H.L. Mencken expression, “the politics of the horselaugh.” When you are describing things that are absurd, you laugh to keep from crying, in a certain way.

How Oprah, TED, and 7UP Are Ruining the World

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To the extent that anything can really ruin the world, liberalism is ruining the world.

Eyal Weizman

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The built environment is seen as the depository of political events. But can we read and interpret events from images of trash and rubble?

Tea for ’12

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The scent of madness is in the air.

Elegy for a Census Form

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In a neoliberal America, even information-gathering has been outsourced to private enterprise.