Dismantling the apparatus of domination?: Left critiques of AI

In November 2021, over 140 Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers signed a letter asking the German government to oppose developments in autonomous weapons systems. With this they attempted to draw distinctions between beneficial and destructive AI: ‘Just as most chemists and biologists have no interest in building chemical or biological weapons, most AI researchers have no […]
Grid of nine hands making abstract gestures overlayed by node diagrams

Covid-19 and rebordering the world

In April 2021, dozens of asylum seekers were moved back to the Napier Barracks in the UK, after the barracks had been emptied a month earlier following protests and media reports on its unsuitable conditions. Migrant support groups and NGOs denounced the ‘terrible conditions of the substandard accommodation and the effects it is having on […]

Left-wing populism: A legacy of defeat: Interview with Éric Fassin

Martina Tazzioli [MT] Your latest book, published in 2017, Populisme: le grand ressentiment [‘Populism and deep resentment’], develops a critical reading of the concept and political role of populism today. 1 You offer an explanation for the apparent appeal of populist options in recent elections in Europe and the US, and you distance yourself from […]

196 Reviews

REVIEWS Oxymoron Paolo Virno, When the Word Becomes Flesh: Language and Human Nature, trans. Giuseppina Mecchia, Semiotext(e), South Pasadena CA, 2015. 264 pp., £12.95 pb., 978 1 58435 094 1. In Paolo Virno’s previous book, A Grammar of Multitude, grammar – in other words, the philosophy of language – played second fiddle to the multitude […]

‘Become a permanent migrant to the UK!’

COMMENTARY ‘become a permanent migrant to the uk!’ claudia aradau Since 2005, when citizenship tests were effectively introduced in the UK, the official guidance book Life in the United Kingdom has been a veritable battleground over identity, history and knowledge. ‘Could you pass a citizenship test? ‘Most young people can’t’, the media reiterate with each […]

179 Reviews: Books Reviewed: Adrian Parr, The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics Alexander R. Galloway, The Interface Effect Andrew Gibson, Intermittency: The Concept of Historical Reason in Recent French Philosophy Giacomo Marramao, The Passage West: Philosophy after the Age of the Nation State Kate Schick, Gillian Rose: A Good Enough Justice Miguel de Beistegui, Aesthetics after Metaphysics: From Mimesis to Metaphor Lee Braver, Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Badiou and Deleuze Read Literature Christian Borch, The Politics of Crowds: An Alternative History of Sociology

Reviews A differing shade of greenAdrian Parr, The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics, Columbia University Press, New York, 2013. 224 pp., £20.50 hb., 978 0 23115 828 2. This book is a welcome addition to the spate of recent books on the ecological and resource calamities currently facing the planet. Unlike so […]

What’s left of biopolitics?

Patricia Ticineto Clough and Craig Willse, eds, Beyond Biopolitics: Essays on the Governance of Life and Death, Duke University Press, Durham NC and London, 2011. 400 pp., £75.00 hb., £17.99 pb., 978 0 82235 003 3 hb., 978 0 82235 017 0 pb. François Debrix and Alexander D. Barder, Beyond Biopolitics: Theory, Violence and Horror […]

173 Reviews: Books Reviewed:Patricia Ticineto Clough and Craig Willse, eds, Beyond Biopolitics: Essays on the Governance of Life and DeathStephen J. Collier, Post-Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, BiopoliticsRoberto Esposito, Immunitas: The Protection and Negation of LifeBen Watson, Adorno for RevolutionariesTosaka Jun, Ideologie, Medien, Alltag: Eine Auswahl ideologiekritischer, kulturund medientheoretischer und geschictsphilosophischer SchriftenJussi Parikka, Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and TechnologyArthur Bradley, Originary Technicity: The Theory of Technology from Marx to DerridaCostas Panayotakis, Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic DemocracyDominic Pettman, Human Error: Species-Being and Media MachinesDonna V. Jones, The Racial Discourses of Life Philosophy: Négritude, Vitalism, and ModernityTimothy Bewes, The Event of Postcolonial ShameClaudio Calia and Antonio Negri, Antonio Negri Illustrated: Interview in Venice

Reviews What’s left of biopolitics? Patricia Ticineto Clough and Craig Willse, eds, Beyond Biopolitics: Essays on the Governance of Life and Death, Duke University Press, Durham NC and London, 2011. 400 pp., £75.00 hb., £17.99 pb., 978 0 82235 003 3 hb., 978 0 82235 017 0 pb. François Debrix and Alexander D. Barder, Beyond […]

The Roma in Italy: Racism as usual?

On 30 October 2007, Giovanna Reggiani, a 47-year-old Italian woman, was robbed and murdered in a deserted area of northern Rome. The man accused of murdering her was a Romanian Roma, Nicolai Romulus Mailat, who had been living in one of the ‘unauthorized’ settlements in Rome. The media immediately reported horrific stories of torture and […]

159 Reviews

Reviews Trend lines and frontlines Gopal Balakrishnan, Antagonistics: Capitalism and Power in an Age of War, Verso, London and New York, 2009. xiv + 290 pp., £14.99 pb., 978 1 84467 269 1. ^ Geopolitics and political economy are registers that the recent revival in the fortunes of radical political thought has largely evaded or […]

The myth of preparedness

Look at this place! It’s buzzing… [Bomb explosion. People screaming. Chaos] Were you caught off-guard? That’s the problem. Can you imagine life without the places where we congregate? These are convenient places, places where we want to go, are free to go. In airports and stadiums you can monitor access, they are contained. Public spaces […]