About
I am a media and cultural theorist, as well as an experimental writer, editor and publisher. I work at the nexus of digital culture, politics and technology. I am Professor of Media in the Institute of Creative Cultures at Coventry University, UK, where I am director of the
Centre for Postdigital Cultures (a disruptive iteration of the
Centre for Disruptive Media). I am also
Visiting Researcher in the
Centre for Philosophical Technologies at Arizona State University in the US.
I am author of
A Stubborn Fury: How Writing Works in Elitist Britain (Open Humanities Press, 2021),
The Inhumanist Manifesto (Techne Lab, 2017),
Pirate Philosophy (MIT Press, 2016),
The Uberfication of the University (Minnesota UP, 2016),
Digitize This Book! (Minnesota UP, 2008), and
Culture in Bits (Continuum, 2002). I am also co-author of
Públicos Fantasma – La Naturaleza Política Del Libro – La Red (Taller de Ediciones Económicas, 2016) and
Open Education (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2014), and co-editor of
Experimenting (Fordham UP, 2007) and
New Cultural Studies: Adventures in Theory (Edinburgh UP, 2006).
My current research interests include: class, inequality and digital capitalism; the afterlife of DH, new materialism & posthumanism; political ontology; transitional thinking; non-liberal and non-humanist forms of collaboration & commons; critical infrastructure; radical OA; piracy.
Mastodon Feed
If you wanted to be generous, you could mount a defence of this strategy on the grounds ‘this is less an effort to get more independent school kids into Cambridge and more an attempt to encourage the ones that are applying for these subjects anyway to consider Trinity Hall’. Still, there’s no denying it’s a remarkable failure to read the room. https://wonkhe.com/blogs/what-is-going-on-at-trinity-hall/ The again, it’s clearly not just those actually at Cambridge who think like this: ‘It would be tempting to make an argument that this represents a failure in access and participation. But it is also very possible that this is not a failing on behalf of the university. There are very few schools … that can prepare people for these particular entry requirements, and that’s before we get into family and social backgrounds that are able to support sustained musical practice, or learning multiple (ancient or modern) languages.’ What, so now you need to be of a certain family and social background to study languages?! (2026-01-09 ↗)
Even if Trinity Hall, Cambridge backs away from this reportedly 'immoral' strategy of targeting recruitment at elite private schools such as Eton and Winchester, it still tells you a lot about what many people in these institutions really think. https://thetab.com/2026/01/08/cambridge-college-set-to-target-elite-private-schools-for-its-recruitment Defund them! https://openbookcollective.org/books/book/5679981/ #HE #highered #universities #oxbridge #Cambridge #class #classwar (2026-01-09 ↗)
Some favourite passages from Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas: '… as Pablo [Picasso] once remarked, when you make a thing, it is so complicated making it that it is bound to be ugly, but those that do it after you they don't have to worry about making it and they can make it pretty, and so everybody can like it when the others make it.' #art #picasso #novel #literature #modernism (2026-01-08 ↗)
Deborah Levy has a new novel coming out in April on Gertrude Stein: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/319061/my-year-in-paris-with-gertrude-stein-by-levy-deborah/9780241457801 Not a huge fan of Levy (although I know people who recommend Hot Milk). But was reading Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas over the holidays, so this will be a good follow-on read. Curious to see how Levy approaches Stein. #novel #literature #modernism #paris #deborahlevy #fiction (2026-01-07 ↗)
Eat the Rich (but maybe not me mates x), by Jade Franks Really wanted to see this show but it’s already sold out. https://sohotheatre.com/events/but-maybe-not-me-mates-x/ Still, reassuring to know there are so many people interested in culture that is thinking critically about Oxbridge privilege and how #class plays out in Britain today: https://openbookcollective.org/books/book/5679981/ http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/a-stubborn-fury/ #theatre #comedy #classwar #culture #Oxbridge #priviledge (2026-01-06 ↗)
