Re-upping for the Wednesday crowd: My latest roundup of reading and listening recommendations, taking in militarism/conflict in the Middle East/Horn of Africa, reactionary governmentalities, and institutional racism in Britain, among other themes.
All reposts (and subscriptions) much appreciated. x
The existence of Liam Rosenior implies the existence of a Liam Rojunior, whom Chelsea should clearly appoint next.
Re-upping for the Wednesday crowd: My latest roundup of reading and listening recommendations, taking in militarism/conflict in the Middle East/Horn of Africa, reactionary governmentalities, and institutional racism in Britain, among other themes.
All reposts (and subscriptions) much appreciated. x
In the very grim position (in Bexley) of hoping the older vote for them holds up rather than switching to Reform.
Aptly, I initially thought you were talking about the detective show…
At the same time I think there’s also something historically specific about the way that relationship has now begun to unwind, with the uneven collapse of some of the economic and institutional bases of both politics and cultural production, and the opportunities this offers for the winners in both.
Yes, I think that’s totally correct, it is a somewhat artificial divide and an historically and geographically contingent one, relating to the commercialisation and industrialisation of cultural production in relation to a particular stage in the history of Western capitalism and state formation.
👇🏼 @samgrinsell.bsky.social captures the dynamics of JKR specifically really well in this mini-thread.
I also think often about the Saturday Night Live parody of the 2016 US presidential election debates, with Alec Baldwin playing Trump and Kate McKinnon Hilary Clinton, and the obvious limitation - as comedy and political commentary - that these just weren’t figures equally worthy of ridicule.
…and paradoxically privileges inherently hierarchical ideas of the political and political commentary. It can also harmfully invest political authority in someone’s cultural credentials (e.g. the idea that as she’s a high profile ex-Labour supporter, the party needs to listen to JKR on trans rights)
A good example of this is the routine labelling of Spandau Ballet as somehow exemplary of the Thatcherite 80s when principal songwriter Gary Kemp was in Red Wedge. But more routinely there is an expectation that artists should be political with a big P that both falls unevenly on women and PoCs…
Relatedly, I think there’s another failure where we go from seeing culture as both a worthy form and object of political critique (🙋🏻guilty!) to expecting it to act as a straightforward metonym for politics itself, to load it with assumptions it does not bear, to see moral value in aesthetic choices.
…reducing complex political figures to caricatures, failing to distinguish between bad and relatively good actors. We’ve often seen talented satirists become disappointingly reactionary or equivocating in their political statements thereafter, which somewhat encapsulates these implications.
A couple of things I’d also add with regards to @robertsaunders.bsky.social’s post: I think satire can be a really valuable way of highlighting some of the absurdities and failures of politicians and politics, but can also fuel a kind of nihilism, offering little by way of theory of change…
Being a bit Bourdieusian about this, I would define this in terms of an acceleration in terms of the exchangability between economic, cultural, and political capital - an accursed form of single currency, if you like.
But I also think there is a distinction within our lifetimes between The Simpsons joking about Trump becoming President and Trump actually becoming President, or to give a more positive example, Zelenskyy going from playing an outsider who becomes President to being an outsider who became President.
There has always been a degree of interpenetration between them as fields it’s important to note: a long history of politicians and political theorists being cultural producers, using popular culture as valuable modes of ideological expression, and of cultural producers being involved in politics.
…to a collapse in the boundaries between them as fields, whereby the political is undifferentiated from culture, and politicians and cultural producers, and political processes and genre forms, are talked about in interchangeable ways.
Thinking about this (and the posts Rob responds to here), I see a key change as a shift in the relationship between politics and culture, from seeing the political as something separate from culture, albeit with the political always acting upon culture and culture refracting politics…
My pleasure, Christine…really looking forward to reading the book itself!
My latest weekly roundup of reading and listening recommendations, taking in militarism and conflict in the Middle East and Horn of Africa, new reactionary modes of governance, and institutional racism in Britain, among other themes. 🧵
This is genius. All banger Columbos.
NGL, looking forward to the day when quite a few current government ministers are no more than a trivia question. May the arc of the moral universe bend towards their complete irrelevance.
Footballer player Cole Palmer with a monk style haircut
When you’ve got United in the 21st century at 8pm and vigils in the 14th century at 5am
Congrats, Emma, they’ll be lucky to have you!
Higher Education continues to burn through talented people, imitating their 'competitors' in a strategy toward oblivion. University leadership across the nation only has one idea and it is cruel and self-defeating.
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@mattseybold.bsky.social, @quinnslobodian.com & @bentarnoff.com on The American Vandal; Richard Atwood, Shewit Woldemichael & Alan Boswell on @crisisgroup.org's Hold Your Fire! pod; and @emilywither.bsky.social on BBC World Service's Assignment programme.
and listening from @ntinatzouvala.bsky.social, @azohra.bsky.social & @nasiahadjigeorgiou.bsky.social on Called to the Bar; @drdaveobrien.bsky.social & @christinegrandy.bsky.social on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social...
Ft. writing by @ezgibasaran.bsky.social; @joshuatait.bsky.social; @hhassan.bsky.social & Kamran Bokhari for @newlinesmag.bsky.social; Amel Mukhtar for @vittles.bsky.social; and @nescio13.bsky.social...