I discussed our arguments in Unprecedented? with New Humanist.
Extract from Unprecedented?
Unprecedented?: How Covid-19 Revealed the Politics of Our Economy is published this week, co-authored by me and three colleagues in the Department of Politics at Goldsmiths. You can read an extract from the book in the new issue of The New Statesman here.
‘The Problem of Trust in the Digital Public Sphere’
In February I was invited by Marion Fourcade to give a lecture at Social Science Matrix, UC Berkeley. The lecture, based on various recent arguments and pieces of mine on neoliberalism, platforms and the crisis of liberalism, was entitled ‘The Problem of Trust in the Digital Public Sphere’. You can watch it here.
Discussing happiness on KCRW
I was interviewed about my book, The Happiness Industry, on KCRW’s Life Examined show. You can listen to the whole episode here and to my interview here.
‘How many words does it take to make a mistake?’
Article in the London Review of Books, on EdTech, learning during lockdown and the mechanisation of ‘literacy’.
Podcast interview on neoliberalism & post-neoliberalism
I discussed neoliberalism and the recent edition of Theory Culture & Society on ‘Postneoliberalism?’, edited by me and Nick Gane, with Mark Pennington for the KCL Governance Podcast. You can listen here.
‘If Boris Johnson were a stock, canny investors would be looking to unload’
New column for The Guardian, on the “animal spirits” that drove up Johnson’s value, and could quickly abandon him.
‘Theory wars: how postmodernism became weaponised’
Review of Stuart Jeffries new book, Everything All The Time Everywhere: How We Became Postmodern, published in The New Statesman.
‘Post-Neoliberalism?’
Nicholas Gane and I have co-edited a special issue of Theory Culture & Society on the theme of ‘Post-neoliberalism?’. It features articles by Melinda Cooper, Quinn Slobodian, Dorit Geva, Roger Burrows and Harrison Smith, Alan Finlayson, Nicholas Gane and me, on various aspects of the challenges to neoliberalism, especially those from the political Right. The special issue was accepted and the pieces commissioned prior to 2020, so they don’t confront the most recent upheavals and challenges to the political-economic order. However, the Introduction (which is open access) does address the significance of the Covid-19 pandemic, and what it means for the status of ‘neoliberalism’.
‘Peter Thiel: Big Tech’s dark prophet’
I reviewed Max Chafkin’s book on Peter Thiel, The Contrarian, for The New Statesman
‘When others stay silent about the ills of British capitalism, liars like Johnson rush in’
Comment piece published in The Guardian, on Boris Johnson’s dubious claims for a new ‘economic model’.
Podcast interview with Novara on identity, recognition and reputation in the platform economy
I spoke to James Butler about my recent New Left Review article. The interview also mentions this article in European Journal of Social Theory, about the rhetoric of ‘injustice’ and this piece in London Review of Books about the politics of ‘like’ and ‘dislike’.
Punishing the young serves Johnson’s politics of nostalgia
Guardian comment piece on derisory ‘catch-up’ funding and failure to recognise the sacrifices made by children.
Review of Gordon Brown’s book
I reviewed Seven Ways to Change the World by Gordon Brown for The Guardian
Friend or threat?
Article for London Review of Books on the crisis of hospitality wrought by the pandemic.