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. 🧵
Fintech Capital discussion is starting now - on Teams - dip in!
v.gd/fintechcap
I've been reading too much Habermas maybe but this seems kind of bad?
For all of you who celebrate Avril 14th Day, I assembled a genre-bending ambient MEGAMIX.
Spanning from soft jazz and shoegaze to jungle and chiptune, each of the 39 tracks is Avril 14th, just like every day should be.
soundcloud.com/rasmusfleisc...
@jcultecon.bsky.social @paullangley.bsky.social @andrewleyshon.bsky.social @tgpb.bsky.social @delaeconomia.bsky.social
For UMG the play was always "yes we represent Big Music but if you value culture then you need us to fight Big Tech on the terrain of finance": a legitimacy narrative built through streaming, to get consumers, artists, govt on board - and then asset managers. So this is a logical move.
Trump-backing US hedge fund billionaire (Bill Ackman) handing €16.5bn to Le Pen-backing French fossil billionaire (Vincent Bolloré) to acquire the world's largest music group. All good 🙃
www.ft.com/content/3322...
Uh huh! Especially yikes because of the particular fund - I don't know how tolerant they'd be of "activist investor" activity - but let's see what they do. Bolloré was bad enough - cf @theobourgeron.bsky.social - but relatively hands off I think.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Discussed this a bit with @volumecontrol10.bsky.social last year where he put it more succinctly: "yeah they're assholes - but they're OUR assholes".
bsky.app/profile/tgpb...
For UMG the play was always "yes we represent Big Music but if you value culture then you need us to fight Big Tech on the terrain of finance": a legitimacy narrative built through streaming, to get consumers, artists, govt on board - and then asset managers. So this is a logical move.
Screams: "It’s shocking how unschooled we are in thinking at the level of social structures."
dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
@newbooksnetwork.bsky.social discussion of the book newbooksnetwork.com/walter-benja...
A long read for the long weekend?
I wrote up a few things that somehow disparately connect in my own head. Habermas & Kluge vs Alex Karp & Marc Andreessen. The Birkbeck School of Critical Theory. And "Why is the music industry still so obsessed with water?"
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/04/03/h...
Thanks Mark. I don't want to be overly nostalgic or idealistic. But I can't help be a bit mystified because of how healthy it seemed, both in number and "quality", 15 years ago. I don't know how CW is but OK I hope.
A long read for the long weekend?
I wrote up a few things that somehow disparately connect in my own head. Habermas & Kluge vs Alex Karp & Marc Andreessen. The Birkbeck School of Critical Theory. And "Why is the music industry still so obsessed with water?"
tgpbennett.wordpress.com/2026/04/03/h...
I've been thinking quite a bit (/starting to write) about this question. It feels like the university is no longer an adequate space for that kind of work. Maybe it was only ever smuggled in. Anyway, I'm sorry to hear of the travails. I hope there's some stability and/or other sources of good news.
Well that's utter rubbish news. (Or is it? I don't know the details.) But now being in a position of constantly having to think/argue about what PG education looks like "in the age of [whatever]", that experience is the model I have in my head. Maybe idealistically. But it feels scandalous to me.
@drblacklock.bsky.social @afoggyplace.bsky.social Hello! Sorry to ask... I was just looking up MACCS on Birkbeck's site and I can't see any trace of it. I know the dept has gone through some painful nonsense. Does the MA still exist? 🫤
*an origin story
And this too is the origin story of JCE as you can read in @tgpb.bsky.social brilliant account open access here www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
What about the bottle itself?
Yes and possibly another that looks at boundaries/borders/fences? But in general tends not to dig up the depths. What do you use to approach wine?
Another chapter would've been "Coat", which would move from Marx's 20 yards of linen (especially via Peter Stallybrass), to Veblen's conspicuous fashionistas, to global commodity chains (etc).
This textbook also feels relevant to the interests of @delaeconomia.bsky.social...
Yes both consumption and production (and their mediation etc). The "Grape" chapter would've covered "taste" but also "terroir", land, "cultivation" - also wine production was a canonical case for industrial clustering in business literature. But I like his emphasis on exports of low quality NZ wine!
I don't know if this is a "take". But if it were, two other components of it would be: The style is kind of annoying but I like that JCASC still allows people to write like this. Finally, how did you find the one article to mention Chingford?? That bit was closest to my interests.
Haha OK, well... I basically agree. You could switch "wine" for any cultural product. It's similar to my own little argument in the same journal about book publishing. (I once had the idea for a textbook: a cultural economy of canonical "things", where one of the things would've been "grape"...)
OK this one got me.
An opportunity, anyway, to revisit Steven Connor on the mondegreen.
www.stevenconnor.com/earslips/
An opportunity, anyway, to revisit Steven Connor on the mondegreen.
www.stevenconnor.com/earslips/
