Culture, Power and Politics » Podcast

Recorded Live at the Ridley Road Market Bar, Dalston, London, on May 3rd 2023 WithAnthony Barnett, Founder of Charter 88 and open Democracy, author of many books including Taking Control: Humanity and America after Trump and the Pandemic and The Lure of Greatness: England’s Brexit and Trump’s America.  Laura Clancy, Lecturer in Media, Lancaster University. Author of Running the Family Firm: how the royal family manages its image and our money and the forthcoming What is the Monarchy For?

This is an audio recording of the event held to launch the book Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (and how we win it back). The seminar took place on January 11th at the October Gallery in London, and featured the book’s authors – Jeremy Gilbert & Alex Williams – along with guests Natalie Fenton, Will Davies and Jacob Mukherjee.

This is the last in the ‘This Conjuncture’ series of seminars hosted by the journal New Formations in Autumn 2021. Corporate ‘wokeness’ puts positive messages deriving from radical politics to work in the interests of consumer capitalism. Join Rosalind Gill, Akane Kanai, and Francesca Sobande, who will develop an analysis of ‘woke capitalism’ beyond the reductive charge of selling out. Speakers: Rosalind Gill is Professor of Cultural and Social Analysis at City, University of London. She is the author, co-author or editor of many books and articles, including Gender and the Media (2015) and Creative Hubs in Question: Place, Space and Work in the Creative Economy (2019, co-edited with Andy Pratt and Tarek Virani). Akane Kanai is Lecturer in Media and Communication Studies at Monash University. She is the author of Gender and Relatability in Digital Culture: Managing Affect, Intimacy and Value (2018). Ros and Akane’s article ‘Woke? Affect, neoliberalism, marginalised identities and consumer culture’ was published as a contribution to This Conjuncture. Francesca Sobande is Lecturer in Digital Media Studies at Cardiff University. She is the author of The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (2020) and co-editor, with Akwugo Emejulu, of To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (2019).

with Gabriela Méndez Cota and Benjamín Arditi The electoral success of Mexico’s leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the MORENA coalition has given rise to both optimism and concern. While aspects of the agenda have proved transformative, Obrador is seen to have mishandled the pandemic and action on climate breakdown has been inadequate. Join Gabriela Méndez Cota and Benjamín Arditi for an assessment of recent political mobilizations in Mexico, drawing on conjunctural analysis and continental political thought. Speakers: Gabriela Méndez Cota is Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México. She is the author of Disrupting Maize: Food, Biotechnology and Nationalism in Contemporary Mexico (2016). Gabriela’s article ‘Policing the environmental conjuncture: structural violence in Mexico and the National Assembly of the Environmentally Affected’ was published as a contribution to This Conjuncture. Benjamín Arditi is Professor of Political Theory at the National University of Mexico. Amongst other works, he is the author of Politics on the Edges of Liberalism: Difference, Populism, Revolution, Agitation(2012).

Patriarchy in the digital conjuncture Digital platforms create new opportunities to express misogyny in increasingly extreme ways, intersect with the structures of patriarchy sustained in everyday life. In the form of misogynistic ‘rationalism’, these ideas also permeate the culture of Silicon Valley. Join Sarah Banet-Weiser, Ben Little and Alison Winch to discuss networked misogyny and male victimhood in the context of the growing power and influence of digital platforms. Speakers: Sarah Banet-Weiser is Distinguished Professor of Communication and Director of the Annenberg Centre for Collaborative Communication. Her books include Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (2012), and Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny(2018). Ben Little is Lecturer in Media and Cultural Politics at the University of East Anglia. He is the co-author of The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism (2021) and Russell Brand: Comedy, Celebrity and Politics (2016, with Jane Arthurs). Alison Winch is Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of East Anglia. Her books include The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism (2021) and Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood (2013). Alison and Ben are the authors of ‘Patriarchy in the digital conjuncture – an analysis of Google’s James Damore’

The fourth seminar in the ‘This Conjuncture’ series hosted by the journal New Formations. With Gargi Bhattacharyya and Anamik Saha.

This is the third seminar in a series hosted by the journal New Formations, inspired by the journal’s special issues on ‘This Conjuncture’, dedicated to the memory of Stuart Hall. In this seminar Ashley Dawson, Ben Highmore and Kate Soper discuss our contemporary environmental conjuncture. The seminar is chaired by Jenny Taylor. For information about New Formations see https://journals.lwbooks.co.uk/newformations.

This is the second of a series of online seminars hosted by the journal New Formations (current editor: Jeremy Gilbert) in Autumn 2021, organised by Rebecca Bramall and Jeremy Gilbert. The series marks the publication of the journal’s series of issues published under the title This Conjuncture and dedicated to the memory of Stuart Hall. This session features contributions from Anthony Barnett, Ellie Mae O’Hagan and Scott McCracken

This is the first of a series of online seminars hosted by the journal New Formations (current editor: Jeremy Gilbert) in Autumn 2021, organised by Rebecca Bramall and Jeremy Gilbert. The series marks the publication of the journal’s series of issues published under the title This Conjuncture and dedicated to the memory of Stuart Hall.Angela Merkel stands down as German Chancellor this autumn after 16 years in the role, but will Merkelism – the mode of crisis management that has dominated since the mid-2000s – continue to inform German politics? Fresh from the polls, join Moritz Ege and Alexander Gallas to discuss the legacies of Merkelism and the nation’s cultural-political future. Speakers: Moritz Ege is Professor of Cultural Studies and Popular Cultures at the University of Zurich. Moritz is the co-editor of two books: Against the Elites! The Cultural Politics of Anti-Elitism (with Johannes Springer, forthcoming) and Urban Ethics (with Johannes Moser, 2021). Alexander Gallas is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Kassel, and one of the editors of the Global Labour Journal. He is the author of The Thatcherite Offensive: A Neo-Poulantzasian Analysis (2015). Moritz and Alexander are the co-authors of The exhaustion of Merkelism: a conjunctural analysis, published as part of This Conjuncture.

An analysis of, and response to, UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer’s project-defining pamphlet ‘The Road Ahead’. With Alan Finlayson and Jeremy Gilbert.