Let’s begin with Marx and Engels from The Communist Manifesto (published in 1848): “Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones […]
Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) was an urban sociologist and French Marxist philosopher who theorised on the production of urban space, the right to the city, and the nature of everyday life. The below quote is from the Foreword of his book Critique of Everyday Life (Volume 1) in which he identifies the key feature of everyday life as […]
The following is a full recording of and written extracts from my book chapter, “On Identity Politics, Ressentiment, and the Evacuation of Human Emancipation”, in Nocella and Juergensmeyer (eds.) Fighting Academic Repression and Neoliberal Education (Peter Lang Publishing). My chapter and its podcast examine a neoliberal wave of identity politics in the form of intersectionality and privilege theory. […]
I’m reminded of the Daily Mash post, “Woman ends 20-year attempt to like jazz”, and feel relieved that my two decade journey ended differently. My lazy critique of jazz went along the lines of, ‘I like a beginning, middle and end’ and ‘when does the tune start?’ My bodily experience of jazz was irritation. Jazz […]
One feels insignificant amidst the natural landscape of Iceland and strangely that’s a comforting feeling: an awe and reassurance that there is something bigger than us. And yet, at the same time, one is reminded of the betrayal of our custodianship of planet Earth.
Iceland, Geography, and Biophilia My child-like excitement for an impending university geography field trip to Iceland has led me to exploring the concept of biophilia. The distinct lure of Iceland feels like a spiritual calling to the wonder and beauty of the natural world. My excitement reminds me of the draw to studying geography: a […]
“In late modernity, authoritarian movements have arisen again that seek to ideologically combine an organic and holistic natural-social order, a purified nationality, a primeval mysticism, and a belief in a superlative civilisation that was created by an ancestral community of blood.” (Bhatt, 2000: 589) Post-9/11 sections of the British Left have championed the term ‘Islamophobia’ […]
Much of the British Left comprehends antisemitism as the exclusive property of the Right: either as a phenomenon of the far Right (fascists) against Jewish people, or as a false accusation by the Israeli Right and its allies against the Left to silence political criticism of Israel, or as an ironic bedfellow of the Israeli Right to justify its existence […]
“Moments are the elements of profit”, so quotes Marx from a factory inspector’s report in Capital Volume I. On reading Marx’s Capital, I am struck by how central ‘time’ is. Capital robs us of time: time for emotional and intellectual growth, time for fresh air and daylight, time for human connection. As central as it […]
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” (Schmich, 1997) The following essay by the American journalist and newspaper columnist Mary Schmich was originally published in the Chicago Tribune in June 1997. Although Schmich makes no reference to cycling, her outlook nevertheless captures the spirit of cycling perfectly. Every single time I contemplate riding my bicycle I feel […]
