Fleabag, Let Things Get Lost

Wonder, confusion, and why film needs more of it.

I want to talk about wonder in film. Wonder isn’t some starry-eyed luxury. It’s tantamount to messy, confused, vulnerable searching where all the possibilities of one’s world are up in the air, and one’s bearing is anxious. Wonder peeks out in mainstream film, but filmmakers should follow it and see ...
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The Political and Intellectual Entanglements of Post-Truth

A review of Steve Fuller’s Post-Truth: Knowledge as Power Game

Three years after the Oxford English Dictionary made the term "post-truth" the word of the year, we still live in a time in which, according to the definition, “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” As both Nicholas Baer and Maggie ...
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Assessing the Macri Legacy

How four years of economic policy matter for the upcoming elections

One of the most critical decisions that started this downward spiral was Macri’s rollback of “retenciones” or taxes on agricultural exports, primarily soy, that had been increased during the government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2008. This reduction in public revenue of about US$2 billion a year immediately ...
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FBI on College Campuses, John Bolton, and Technology and Women’s Voices

Past Present Episode 196

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: The FBI has urged U.S. universities to monitor certain students and scholars visiting from China. Natalia referred to this history of spying on campus from the Harvard Crimson.National security adviser John Bolton is the latest Trump appointee to have left the administration. Neil referred to this New Yorker profile of Mike ...
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Warren is Not Too Late

Of course Jacobin prefers Sanders, but this does not make him the obvious candidate of the broad democratic left

Kilpatrick and Sunkara’s argument is complicated, and somewhat convoluted (they say “paradoxical”), and boils down to this: while Warren is passe because her vision is grounded in the failed promises of financial regulation under the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that can be traced back to the politics ...
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What is at Stake in Argentina’s Elections

A Series

Beyond the economic debates animating the campaign (between Macri’s more restricted business-friendly form of the welfare state, and Fernandez’ mirror opposite: a sovereigntist, Keynesian Industrial Policy focused narrative), the campaign invokes debates about social justice and national sovereignty. For historical reasons, the Fernandez ticket links the presence and activity of ...
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The Pilgrim and the Spectator

attraverso il buco della serratura

Through this embellished gap the frozen image of the eternal city is shown to the visitor’s eye. Curtains of gardened grass frame the setting, accompanied by the copper green dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica, the pinnacle of Roman Catholicism; one of the many centers of the world. This still image, ...
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The New School’s Long Road to a Four-Year College

100 years in, the New School’s experimental ethos lives on

Most American universities start as 4-year colleges, eventually adding masters and doctoral programs, professional schools and conservatories, and ultimately continuing-ed programs. The New School did things pretty much back to front. It took the better part of its first 100 years to establish a 4-year undergraduate college. This wasn’t an ...
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The New School’s Long Road to a Four-Year College

The Demons of Neoliberalism

Adam Kotsko’s Political Theology 

This critique was left tantalizingly underdeveloped in The Prince of this World. How could more freedom make us less free? Neoliberalism's Demons answers this question by reading neoliberalism through the lens of political theology. The result is not a new history of neoliberalism but a refocusing on how such an economic system makes ...
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Franco Columbu, Kamala Harris, and NYC’s Gifted and Talented Program

Past Present Episode 195

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Italian bodybuilding icon Franco Columbu has died. Niki referred to the film Pumping Iron, in which he appeared with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Natalia cited the importance of physician Kenneth Cooper’s 1968 book Aerobics in both mainstreaming the idea of working out and challenging the pre-eminence of weightlifting ...
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The Aspirations and Ambiguities of De-Colonial Politics

Imran Khan’s First Year as Pakistan’s Prime Minister

Imran Khan’s ascension as Prime Minister of Pakistan in August 2018 preceded and instigated an avalanche of alarming prognoses issued by a range of motley characters. Their convergence made for an interesting union of otherwise incompatible bedfellows. Self-anointed Pakistan experts at neo-conservative U.S. think-tanks, editorials of mainstream Western media, South ...
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