The fusion of Silicon Valley, private finance, and the traditional military-industrial complex is reshaping the nature of modern war. From tech giants to Gulf petrodollars, our hidden gem of the week maps the political economy of today's "forever wars."
By Shana Marshall
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The greenback's global supremacy remains deeply entrenched. Chronicling how Washington wields the dollar against its adversaries, our book of the week argues that de-dollarization is unlikely any time soon.
By @paulblustein.bsky.social on @yalepress.bsky.social
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South Korea faces a troubling surge in far-right movements. This talk examines how right-wing groups have exploited generational frustrations and nationalist leanings, mimicking strategies from global far-right networks, including MAGA-style tactics.
Featuring Myungji Yang
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Ukraine’s journey from the Maidan uprisings to war is not a simple tale of democracy versus autocracy. This reassessment exposes the fault lines within Ukraine itself: fractured elites, deep social divides, and competing visions of the nation’s future.
With Volodymyr Ishchenko
Brutal Scotland digs into the cultural legacy of Scotland’s post-war modernist architecture. This piece highlights how the exhibition captures the tension between decay and resilience, rescuing these buildings from neglect.
By Simon Cartwright in @aestheticamagazine.com.web.brid.gy
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This video is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Social Justice: buff.ly/eSfzCrN
The narratives of urban fiscal crisis in Michigan shifted from framing financial distress as a structural issue to blaming cities themselves. As this talk shows, this "incompetence story" gained dominance by the 1980s.
Feat. @motorres.bsky.social at @umichstonecid.bsky.social
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This essay is part of this week's edition of the Best of Social Justice: buff.ly/eSfzCrN
Salvador Dalí’s “Christ of Saint John of the Cross” shattered conventions—literally and figuratively. Rooted in Dalí’s “Nuclear Mysticism,” this piece argues the work fuses physics and theology, yet strips the crucifixion of its humanity.
By Ed Simon in @hyperallergic.com
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A century before the “sharing economy”, E.R.A. Seligman envisioned democracy as the spread of luxury—good dinners, art, leisure—to all. Our open-access article of the week traces how Seligman interpreted mass consumption as a potentially emancipatory force.
By Rosanne Currarino
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This podcast can be found in this week's edition of the Best of Social Justice: buff.ly/eSfzCrN
Our laws and activism are steeped in feelings—disgust fuels bans on queer expression, and love demands inclusive sex ed. This interview dissects how emotions create an “emotional grammar,” shaping LGBT rights battles.
With @senthorun.bsky.social on @hightheorypodcast.bsky.social
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Digital cartography remains beholden to Cartesian logic and data structures that erase or distort non-Western and Indigenous realities. Our video of the week interrogates the supposed neutrality embedded in both analog and digital mapping.
Featuring Clancy Wilmott
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This work is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Social Justice: buff.ly/Ha0o1b3
Policing in America didn’t become impervious to democratic control by accident. This book traces the ascent of police as an autonomous political bloc, recounting how organizers weaponized public reaction to build unions.
By @stschrader1.bsky.social on @basicbooksgroup.bsky.social
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Chicago is one of the most populous cities in the US. But when was it founded? Tracing a throughline from the catastrophic 1812 Fort Dearborn massacre to decades of treaties and land seizures, our podcast of the week examines the long history of Chicago.
With Ann Durkin Keating
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Behind today’s “spiritualized tech,” the old alliance of power, myth, and hierarchy is being repackaged. Our French pick of the week explores how digital media intensifies the tension between religion and technology.
Ft. Mihaela-Alexandra Tudor et al. at @sciencespo.bsky.social
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Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz reveals how energy chokepoints have long underpinned imperial power. Our essay of the week argues that the current crisis is accelerating the erosion of American dollar hegemony.
By @mona-ali.bsky.social in @equatormag.bsky.social
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Universities in Europe have become key enablers of the continent’s border regime. Our hidden gem of the week unpacks the‘border-industrial-academic complex’ entangling academia, the security industry, and state power.
By Mark Akkerman at @tninstitute.bsky.social
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The default idea of tech as a neutral “tool” camouflages the way tech elites transform platforms into environments for their own gendered form of power. Our book of the week critiques a system of inclusion it calls “Big Tech Feminism.”
By Sarah Sharma on @dukepress.bsky.social
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Positioning Dostoevsky and Dickens at the nexus of 19th-century materialism, this talk examines how allegory becomes a tool for capturing the shifting interplay of minds, bodies, and signs, resisting rigid positivism.
Featuring Melissa Frazier at @nyujordancenter.bsky.social
South Africa’s digitized housing market entrenches apartheid’s racial inequalities under the guise of neutrality. This conversation examines how credit scores now gatekeep access to homeownership with “color-blind” algorithms.
With @jmigozzi.bsky.social
Music reshapes how we experience time, space, and each other. This symposium mines neuroscience, history, and philosophy to argue that music’s beauty can create profound bonds of communal belonging and moments of personal transcendence.
With @spparkle.bsky.social et al.
This piece is featured in this week's edition of the Best of Journalism: buff.ly/cjTLHYF
Football is a battleground for politics, power, and progress. This interview calls for reclaiming football from neoliberal dominance through collective ownership, accountability, and grassroots activism.
By David Goldblatt in @africasacountry.bsky.social
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This piece is part of this week's edition of the Best of Journalism: buff.ly/cjTLHYF
Corporations have weaponized the rhetoric of identity politics to shield themselves. By hijacking liberal ideals of equality and freedom, this piece argues they’ve twisted doctrines to serve profit over public interest.
By @kfrydl.bsky.social in @lpeproject.bsky.social
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In the 1950s–60s, Soviet photography theory argued for a hybrid “artistic photojournalism." But as our article of the week contends, this approach was less artistic progress than a bureaucratic compromise.
By Jessica Werneke in @russianreview.bsky.social
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This piece can be found in this week's edition of the Best of Journalism: buff.ly/cjTLHYF
Oil, empire, and glossy cross-cultural curiosity rarely make for stable bedfellows, but Aramco World—the magazine of Saudi Aramco—endures as a paradox. This piece unpacks its history as both corporate balm and orientalist artifact.
By Krithika Varagur in @parisreview.bsky.social
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