The packed launch event of Lapavitsas’ The Left Case Against the EU earlier this week suggested that there is increasingly fertile ground for arguments against the European Union that appeal to Leftists. While these arguments have been made previously — indeed, nothing in what I’ve written here is new —…

For a Left Populism by Chantal Mouffe (London: Verso, 2018; 98 pp.; ISBN 978–1–78663–755–0). In her new book, the political theorist Chantal Mouffe aims to give a theoretical framework to “left populism”, a political strategy that she sees as embodied by a range of new leftist projects across Europe including…

For more on Fisher’s Capitalist Realism see here (blog) or here (podcast). The cultural theorist Mark Fisher, in a short piece on rave and its influence on art and culture, talks of rave as a baroque sunburst. He quotes Fredric Jameson in Valences of the Dialectic: ‘From time to time…

For a fuller analysis, see the latest episode of Aufhebunga Bunga, where we talk through the contemporary relevance of the idea of capitalist realism. Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, published in 2009, was one of the founding books of the Zero books imprint. Short (only 80-odd pages), well written, and…

Winners and losers The necessary winners won: The Shape of Water for best picture and Frances McDormand best actress for Three Billboards. It’s just a shame that The Shape of Water was the worst film of the year, filled with schlocky, clunking metaphors and a mute female lead. As Maren Thom…

In his Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life (London: Verso, 2017, 359pp., ISBN 978–1–78478–043–2), Adam Greenfield examines the technologies that are remaking our everyday lives in late capitalism. Greenfield’s account is engaging and deeply thought-provoking, highlighting the importance to social theory of an engagement with the concrete technologies that…

Christy Kulz’s Factories for Learning (2017, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 208pp., ISBN: 978–1–5261–1619–2) is an ethnographic study of a class, race, and social mobility in a London academy. It offers a critical analysis of the ‘mobility mythology’ that drives that academy’s success and that is often offered as the ideological…

2017 was a strong year for podcasts. Although the medium is yet to reproduce the mainstream success of the first season of Serial, this year saw the release of a wide range of high quality and listenable content. Two networks in particular, Gimlet (Crimetown, Homecoming, Mogul: The Life and Death…

In his short Lenin Lives: Reimagining the Russian Revolution (Zer0: 2017), Cunliffe explores what the twentieth century could have looked like. He takes as his starting point the key event of the century, and one of the most contentious moments of human history: the Russian Revolution. Celebrating its centenary year…