Writing for undergrads on anxiety, capitalism, race and empire, universities, Amazon, opioids, palm oil....
For those cobbling together syllabuses for the coming term, here's some stuff that might be useful.
Like many of you, I’m working on creating and renovating some university courses for the new term (fall, in the Northern hemisphere). I am always on the lookout for short, accessible texts that undergraduate students can read that introduce key topics/debates and can get a conversation rolling. Here are a few recent thing’s I’ve helped write or make that might be of use.
They’re all free and open-access, unless otherwise specified.
The anxiety epidemic, universities and financialization
No one working in the university can have avoided the profound distress of students. Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou and I link it to financialization, debt and the neoliberal transformation of the university. Useful for starting conversations about political economy, structures of feeling, social construction of health, etc.
A short essay, “From anxiety to revolt? Against the financialized university” in ROAR Magazine.
An academic article, “An ‘Anxiety Epidemic’ in the Financialized University: Critical Questions and Unexpected Resistance” in Cultural Politics 18.2. It’s paywalled, but email me for a copy.
The Order of Unmanageable Risks: A podcast about capitalism and anxiety. Highlighted episodes:
“Capitalism is psychologically unsustainable” with Mikkel Krause Frantzen
“What is our psychiatric future?” with Nikolas Rose
“Is Anxiety a Weapon?” with A. T. Kingsmith
The opioid crisis and racial capitalism
The opioid crisis, a form of capitalist murder, has killed at least 500,000 Americans and countless more around the world. But the growing mainstream discourse surrounding it leaves a lot to be desired, including the wider history of drugs, race, empire and capitalism.
A 14-page graphic novella, Opioids: Capitalist Murder I wrote with Hugh Goldring, illustrated by Pia Alizé Hazarika.
A short essay, “Purdue pharma’s collapse will not answer the realities of racial injustice behind the opioid crisis,” contextualizing the graphic novella
A 55-minute radio interview, “The Politics of the opioid crisis” on KPFA’s Against the Grain.
A book chapter, “Our Opium Wars:
pain, race, and the ghosts of empire” in Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts. You’d need to buy the book, but I can send you the chapter and you have my permission to reproduce it for classroom purposes.
Amazon, science fiction and workers’ inquiry
In 2021, Graeme Webb, Xenia Benivolski and I started a project where we talked with rank-and-file Amazon workers about science/speculative fiction to try and understand, together, the changing nature of capitalism. In 2023, we’ll follow it up by starting an SF writing circle for Amazon workers (stay tuned).
A short essay, “From the Belly of the Beast: Amazon workers, sci-fi and the space between utopia and disaster,” in the magazine of the Sociological Review.
A slightly longer essay, “Is Amazon the Borg? We Asked Their Workers,” in the LA Review of Books.
“Recasting the future with Amazon workers,” a book chapter in the forthcoming Routledge International Handbook for Creative Futures (draft here).
BONUS: The Curse of Amazon, a participatory artwork by the University of the Phoenix (to which I may or may not belong), who worked with M-Turk workers to curse their exploiter. (8min video). It’s funny, but it’s not a joke.
Palm oil
Regular readers of this newsletter are likely sick and tired of hearing about it, but I recently published Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire with Pluto Press. It’s a short (120pp), accessible text that emerged out of my undergraduate teaching.
It uses an object we all encounter every day to help stimulate conversations about capitalism, globalization, food politics, ecology, the histories of race and empire, consumerism and much else besides.
In addition to the book itself, some recent shorter things.
“Far from Ukraine, Putin’s War Worsens Palm Oil Crisis,” a short essay in Boston Review.
“The Sacrificial Altar of Extractive Capitalism: Notes on Abolition and Transition,” a not-so short essay as part of the Berliner Gazette’s series over at Mediapart. (also in German)
“Using radical imagination to confront our reliance on palm oil,” a 24-minute interview I did with the CBC’s Sunday Magazine.
“Oily Business,” a 55-minute interview I did with KPFA’s Against the Grain.
Conspiracies and games
A. T. Kingsmith, Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou and I have been working on a project about what makes conspiracy theories both so much fun and so dangerous. It’s certainly topical these days! Good for starting conversations about “fake news,” ideology, cultural politics, epistemology and radicalism.
“Whither Harmony Square?: Conspiracy Games in Late Capitalism,” an public-facing essay we wrote for the LA Review of Books.
Also available in audio (24-min)
“Dangerous Play in an age of Technofinance: From the GameStop Hunger Games to the Capitol Hill Jamboree,” an academic article we wrote for the journal TOPIA and forthcoming later this year (early edition at the link above).
Conspiracy Games and Countergames, a podcast. Highlighted episodes:
“An interview with an (ex)conspiracist” - with Brent Lee
“Anti-Black conspiracies and white paranoia” - with El Jones
“The Q in Qonspiracy” - Interview with Wu Ming 1