The article interrogates the concept of Multitude in capitalist society and challenges the simple notion of social exclusion as an operative force in contemporary social formations and their spatial dispositions. The Shadow will be offered as a spatial and psychosocial relational horizon of differentiation systemically inscribed into the social…[Read more]

In this article, I will be focusing specifically on cryopreservation and two of the American biotechnomedical tenets introduced by Robbie Davis-Floyd and Gloria St. John in their technocratic model of medicine: the “body as machine” and “death as defeat.” These axioms are embraced by both the biotechnomedical establishment as well as the cryopre…[Read more]

This chapter discusses the inaugural dissertation of the first ex officio professor of natural law in Denmark, Andreas Hojer: the 1735 Dissertatio iuris publici universalis de eo quod iure belli licet in minores. In doing so it seeks to shed light on a little known figure in the early Danish enlightenment, albeit one who was very influential in…[Read more]

On the untenable and unaccountable legality of this definition, and the dangers it poses to free speech, minority rights, and democratic legitimacy. Summarizes some points in “Legal Form and Legal Legitimacy: The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism as a Case Study in Censored Speech,” Law, Culture and the Humanities (2018) but with additional ref…[Read more]

Cities of InfraRed is an abstract for my proposed contribution to a book that is being put together by Cornelia Sollfrank, Shuhsa Niederberger and Felix Stalder. The book has the working title of Aesthetics of the Commons, and arises out of the Creating Commons research project at the Zurich University of the Arts.

A version of Cities of…[Read more]

Among the most persuasive arguments against hate speech bans was made by Ronald Dworkin, who warned of the threat to political legitimacy posed by laws that deny those subject to them adequate opportunity for dissent. In his influential defence of hate speech bans, Jeremy Waldron addresses these objections. Dworkin’s concern with political l…[Read more]

Public racist stereotypes after the election of Barack Obama

On the photographs of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the visual politics of power

On pacifist and patriotic visual imagery and the tenth anniversary of the First World War in Weimar German

On the work of Krzysztof Wodiczko

On looking at lynching photographs

The politics of Rivera’s RCA mural in New York City.

One of the most pressing challenges in the world today is access to clean water. This chapter explores the crises of contaminated water in Flint, water shutoffs in Detroit, and larger questions about the control of water by private corporations and the changing nature of urbanization. As neoliberal policies seek to privatize infrastructure and…[Read more]

Two-part interview about the book Beautiful Terrible Ruins

By depicting urban decay and ecological crisis, ruin imagery shows the people and places that capitalism left behind.

Why are academic and policy discourses on child soldiers relatively silent on sexual violence against boys in armed groups? Drawing from the experiences of boys forcibly conscripted into the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), this Chapter seeks to transcend the gendered language of sexual slavery, concubines, forced pregnancy and rape. Most sexual a…[Read more]

The objective of this article is to examine the implications of the intellectual property provisions in the US–Jordan Free Trade Agreement (US–JO FTA) and whether they serve as a template for other Arab countries who will be concluding free trade agreements with the USA. My claim in this article is that the intellectual property part of the US–…[Read more]

Is it worst to be killed by a crazed mob wielding machetes or to die via conveyor belt and filing system? The Better Angels of Our Nature keeps falling victim to the halo effect, creating an aura around reason itself. The question, then, is whether the book should be viewed as a jewel in reason’s crown or as among its costume jewellery.

In an ideal society, all inhabitants would be treated equally, but in reality there are divisions with groups of varying dominance, whether clear or hidden. Usually the dominant groups, powerful either by political, cultural or social hegemony create the narrative of ‘otherness’ and pass laws, some of which could be discriminatory. This is esp…[Read more]

The idea of a critical theory has colonized the social consciousness of academia, and become an integral part of the pursuit of higher knowledge. Competing ideas have thereby become standard bearers in that critical theory acts as a measure of true understanding . The only problem, however, is that many of the distinct theories similarly answering…[Read more]