Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory

Technology as functional simplification: revisiting Luhmann in the age of artificial intelligence and post-truth This article revisits Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory to address what is identified as a persistent conceptual deficit in the sociology of technology, particularly in relation to digitalization, ar...

I am very excited to announce that my work has finally been published in @distinktionjournal.bsky.social
It offers a systemic reading of technology and AI based on Niklas Luhmann's idea of functional simplification and develops it from a post-truth perspective
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

(Un)Fixing habitus: affective transactions and the becoming body How might emotional life be best explained and accounted for in sociological theory? How is it that phenomena that seem so subjectively fleeting, and fundamentally individual nevertheless display r...

My 2023 paper '(Un)Fixing habitus: affective transactions and the becoming body' is just out in the latest volume/issue (26/3) of @distinktionjournal.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/3evry2su
Some other great #socialtheory in that issue (e.g. Paul Gorby's paper on the biopolitics of fear and Agamben) #emosoc

Democratic self-defense: bringing the social model back in The rise of authoritarian populism has forced many democracies to consider how best to defend democracy against its inner enemies. In the literature on democratic self-defense, one often distinguis...

Sofia Näsström examines the possibilities for democratic self-defense, proposing the social security approach as well as examining common objections against it, in her article published in @distinktionjournal.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1080/1600...

New at @distinktionjournal.bsky.social: Immediacy, mediation and praxis: reading @annakornbluh.bsky.social through the lens of Guy Debord.
The article is currently open access!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Another article I commissioned for @distinktionjournal.bsky.social neoliberalism–fascism special issue is now out!
It examines the political aesthetics of tradwife imagery, using Nancy Fraser & Walter Benjamin to show how nostalgia for domesticity blends empowerment with neoliberal labour politics.

Contrarian optionality and negative mimesis: venture capital and the institutional logic of Silicon Valley This paper offers a theorization of contrarianism in Silicon Valley, presenting it as a strategic rationality underpinned by institutional infrastructure. Rather than treating contrarianism as prin...

Check out my new article published @distinktionjournal.bsky.social on contrarianism as a cultural practice enabled by the institutional logic of Silicon Valley VC. Read it here (open access): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New at @distinktionjournal.bsky.social: “A new political diagonal? how students in the United States constructed internationalist solidarity with Palestine”: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory Volume 26, Issue 2 of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory

New issue of Distinktion is out! This one is all about theorising the political present - with papers on the fascist uses of conspiracy theories, identity, hegemony and cities as anti-utopian blueprints www.tandfonline.com/toc/rdis20/2...

Trumpism, fascism and neoliberalism The recent US presidential election has re-energised a debate about Trumpism and fascism that has been percolating since 2015. This debate has unfolded in stark binary terms of presence or absence....

Very excited to see the first paper of our forthcoming special isdue on the intersections of neoliberalism and fascism out! Lloyd Cox and Brendon O'Connor argue that Trumpism is a 'proto-fascism' in whose emergence neoliberalism has been heavily implicated. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Hybrid materialities, power, and expertise in the era of general purpose technologies This article proposes three distinct perspectives on and approaches to the study of hybridisation across society, industries, and academia enabled by General Purpose Technologies like AI and blockc...

In their fascinating exchange, @ludovico-rella.bsky.social and colleagues argue that technologies like AI and blockchain cause hybridisation in the realms of materiality, power and expertise www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Beyond political theology: Marx’s materialist theorization of democracy and constituent power This article recovers and develops Marx’s highly original materialist theorization of democracy and constituent power in Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of State. Through close textual analysis and th...

And @mflohr.bsky.social recovers Marx's highly original theory of democracy and constituent power www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Symbiotic neoliberalism: Foucault and the impure critique of neoliberalism This article brings together two distinct research trajectories – the growing characterization of neoliberalism as a monster and the recent debate on whether Foucault was a neoliberal – to investig...

Luca Mavelli argues that Foucault's 'impure' critique of neoliberalism tells us something about the symbiotic entanglements particular to the neoliberal regime of truth www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Cornelius Castoriadis’ agonistic theory of the future of work at Amazon Mechanical Turk Digital innovations are rapidly changing the contemporary workplace. Big Tech companies marketing algorithmic management increasingly decide on the Future of Work. Political responses, however, oft...

Also in the new issue, @timchristiaens.bsky.social uses Castoriadis' early work to develop an agonistic theory of work at amazon's Mechanical Turk www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Sorting out economic forms: a field guide to contemporary capitalism A series of recent works have put forward a post-commodification understanding of the contemporary economy as based on one central economic form. While this approach allows us to conceptualize the ...

In our new issue, @alexdobeson.bsky.social @toteraltermann.bsky.social and Saskia Brill develop a field guide to the most salient forms of contemporary capitalism www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The algorithmic big Other: using Lacanian theory to rethink control and resistance in platform work Despite burgeoning literature on platform work, there has been a lack of scholarship which carefully considers what we mean by the terms control and (particularly) resistance in the context of algo...

@islates.bsky.social and @mohanjdutt.bsky.social use Lacanian theory to rethink control and resistance in platform work www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory Volume 26, Issue 1 of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory

New Issue of Distinktion is out! 💥This one has a focus on contemporary capitalism, desire and algorithmic governance www.tandfonline.com/toc/rdis20/c...

Cornelius Castoriadis’ agonistic theory of the future of work at Amazon Mechanical Turk Digital innovations are rapidly changing the contemporary workplace. Big Tech companies marketing algorithmic management increasingly decide on the Future of Work. Political responses, however, oft...

My paper on Castoriadis and workplace struggles over digital technology in @distinktionjournal.bsky.social received an issue number. When Big Tech today looks like an unstoppable force of destruction, I hope we can still see how to contest oppressive technologies.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

'A science of stereotypes: paranoiac-critical forays within the medium of information' @distinktionjournal.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/1600...

My special issue proposal on Silicon Valley has been accepted by @distinktionjournal.bsky.social 🎉 Excited to work with great contributors: Sherryl Vint, Hugh O’Connell, Jeannette Estruth, Susannah Glickman, Matthew Darmour, Erdogan Sima, & Max Haiven. More to come but for now, celebrating this win!

@arthurbueno.bsky.social

Fame democracy? Social media and visuality-based transformation of the public sphere We argue that a shift in the underlying values that inform people’s actions in the public sphere is taking place in the social media age. From ways of qualifying the public sphere as a space that p...

Contra the presumption of a rational public sphere, Eeva Luhtakallio @luhtakallio.bsky.social and Taina Meriluoto @meritaina.bsky.social show that fame matters for how value is publicly assigned
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Karl Marx’s critique of the state as an alienation of society in his 1843 Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of State Alienation became a central but controversial concept in the reception and interpretation of Karl Marx’s thought after the posthumous publication of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts in 19...

Mikkel Flohr @mflohr.bsky.social argues that we should think Marx's critique of the Srate through the concept of alienation www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Reaction value: affective reflex in the digital public sphere The concept of ‘reaction’ has been frequently viewed pejoratively in the history of social and moral theory, as unthinking and often resentful. But ‘reactions’ of various kinds play a central role ...

William Davies @will-davies.bsky.social makes the case that we should take reaction seriously as subjective and social expressions in the digital public sphere www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory Volume 25, Issue 3 of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory

New issue of Distinktion is out! With a fantastic special section on Lukács and the Critique of Capitalism, including papers by Alberto Toscano @alfatau.bsky.social, Timothy Bewes and Arthur Bueno, www.tandfonline.com/toc/rdis20/c...

Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory Explore the current issue of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, Volume 25, Issue 2, 2024

New Distinktion issue (25:2) is out! It is a special issue on "Forms of Theorizing" that explores how, from which building blocks, and to what end we make social theory - individually or collectively.
www.tandfonline.com/toc/rdis20/c...

Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory Explore the current issue of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, Volume 25, Issue 2, 2024

New Distinktion issue (25:2) is out! It is a special issue on "Forms of Theorizing" that explores how, from which building blocks, and to what end we make social theory - individually or collectively.
www.tandfonline.com/toc/rdis20/c...

Freedom from tragedy: remarks on the early Lukács This essay explores some of the ways in which, between 1907 and 1911, the young Lukács articulated a conception of life as that which could not be formed or transformed under the fallen and inauthe...

Great to see that Alberto Toscano publishes in @distinktionjournal.bsky.social, where he discusses how the young Lukács viewed life as resistant to transformation under modern capitalism and explored the potential for self-transformation in modern drama. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Henry Maher is organizing a special issue for @distinktionjournal.bsky.social, on "The Neoliberal-Fascist Nexus." If you are interested in contributing to this timely topic, please send an abstract to Henry at henry.maher@sydney.edu.au. Details here: think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

Avengers’ anti-Oedipal endgame How do we deal with the inescapability of the political present? In making sense of an all too binding temporality such as the Anthropocene, we seem to find a standpoint in the crisis of the human ...

Our beautiful journal, @distinktionjournal.bsky.social, has released its new issue, which includes our article on Avengers: Endgame. We are so happy that it has been assigned an issue number! Additionally, we have 50 free copies available. You can read it here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

It's alive!

New issue out now. Open Access. cambridge.org/core/journal...

It's got everything you need: currency internationalization, infrastructural ambivalence, sustainable finance, and a whole forum on the rise of central banks. Come one, come all, bring your friends.