openDemocracy
Splinters Collective
Short essays on the here & now published in a monthly edition, featuring Rosemany Bechler (openDemocracy), Samir Gandesha (SFU), Iain Galbraith (author), Leonie Rushforth (author), and Christos Tombras (author).
July 2020
This month: How far is a social distance? ... Axioms of choice... ANTI-SONG... The Part that Has No Part ... Whatever happened to Dunkirk spirit? Part Two
June 2020
This month: Whatever happened to Dunkirk spirit?... SLIMY KNOWLEDGE... Endgame?... The Fire of Moscow.
May 2020
This month: Truth, with strings attached... On Love and Loathing... Street Opera... A qualified welcome to a new Labour leader in the UK...The Gift of COVID-19.
April 2020
This month: "Genocide is Not an Essential Service!"... Family likeness... THE WEST IS WINNING: Pompeo's address... Ten Seconds from Now... Evelina isn’t herself?
March 2020
This month: The Left Contra Critique... HIGH-VIS.... Of Reasons and Causes... AGAINST EXTINCTION III – a revenant... Confusing green signs
February 2020
This month: AGAINST EXTINCTION II... Thought Experiment... India after Modi... Trope-hunting... Julian Assange: another other
December 2019
This month: The dimensions of the smirk... Johnson and I... A matter of choice... Spectres 2... The unravelling of the Reithian BBC, Pt.2.
November 2019
This month: Beyond Descartes... The Devils Work (in 3 parts) ... Spectres... The unravelling of the Reithian BBC
October 2019
This month: Family life... Chatter .... Great little men... DeepTrust ... Against Extinction
Columns
“A period of enormous opportunity”: the crisis of ‘critique’ (December 20, 2019)
As the year closes, we return again to the thinking of Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt: this time, to find the contours for rethinking left populism in their concepts of ‘critique’ and judgment.
Not only the difference between identities but the differences within them (November 19, 2018)
Thoughts on Asad Haider’s 'Mistaken Identity: race and class in an age of Trump' (Verso, 2018) contributed to a panel discussion at the fifteenth Historical Materialism annual conference in London. Review.
The lessons of the World Cup for our victim culture (August 2, 2018)
If these rebels hadn’t somehow found the courage to strike out in bold, new and, frankly, dangerous directions, we would all be the poorer for it.
Understanding right and left populisms (May 23, 2018)
Neoliberal globalization has increased both economic insecurity and cultural anxiety. Have theories of populism taken adequate account of such insecurity – key to understanding the difference between right and left populisms?
Is symbolic politics an impediment to economic equality? (April 13, 2018)
The politics of representation are mostly symbolic. In Canada, we have seen over the past two years such a politics of representation at work in the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau.
In defense of free speech (March 10, 2018)
The “No-platforming” of speakers with whom we fundamentally disagree can suggest that force ought to prevail over speech that is itself regarded as “violent.” This suggestion is deeply corrosive.
Letter from a petro-state (December 3, 2014)
In the wake of the US Senate narrowly failing to pass the Keystone XL pipeline bill, we must return to the central question: is Canada becoming a petro-state?
Elsewhere
- “From Anti-Human to Post-Human Fascism.” LA Review of Books, August 22, 2020 (forthcoming).
- “Dictatorship Contra Critique.” Le’Espace Art Actuel: Pratiques et Perspectives 125 (Spring-Summer 2020): 62–67.
- “Canada’s Battle Against First Nations Shows Slide Towards Authoritarianism.” Truthout.org, February 1, 2020.
- “Spectacle of Terror.” Contours Journal 9 (Summer 2019).
- “The Lessons of the World Cup for Our Victim Culture.” Vancouver Sun, July 27, 2018.
Reprinted in openDemocracy, August 2, 2018.
Reprinted in Socialist Project, August 2, 2018. - “Is Symbolic Politics an Impediment to Economic Equality.” Canadian Dimension Magazine, Spring 2018.
Reprinted in openDemocracy, April 11, 2018 - “The Real Extremism of First-Past-the-Post.” The Vancouver Sun, April 21, 2018.
- “The Case for Electoral Reform.” The Vancouver Sun, February 3, 2018.
- “Unfolding the Folds: On Jeremy Isao Speier’s ‘Little Tokyo.’” Little Tokyo: Collaborative Essay Series. Vancouver: Talon Books, under review.
- “The Neo-Liberal Personality.” Special Section, “The Frankfurt School and the New Right.” Logos Journal.
- “Quebec and the Future of the Left in Canada.” Platypus Review, December 2015.
- “Slapp Suits Threaten Democracy.” With Byron Sheldrick. Globe and Mail, November 2014.
- “Is the State of Extraction a State of Exception?” Contours, Spring 2014.
- “Threshold: On Germain Koh.” In CJ Press Anthology of Exhibition Reviews, edited by C. Jeffries. Vancouver, BC: CJ Press, 2011.
- “Inscription/Counter-Inscription: On Harun Farocki.” Topia: A Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 11 (2004): 141–46.
- “The Lastman at the End of History/Der Letzte Mensch am Ende Geschichte.” Perspektiven Internationale Zeitung, 36 (Juni 2000): 11–12.
- “Ideas to Work With: Stuart Hall.” Canadian Dimension Magazine (May/June 2000): 22–23.
- “Who’s Afraid of the Squeegee Kids?” Canadian Dimension Magazine (Jan/Feb 2000): 19–22.
- “Spoils of Empire.” Text and Images. Borderlines Magazine 48 (Winter 1999): 10–11.
- “New York City Man.” Borderlines Magazine 47 (1998): 12–14.
- “The Dictator and the Despot.” Culture, Art, News 1, 5 (November 1998): 7–8.
- “The Communist Manifesto: One Hundred and Fifty Years Later.” Culture, Art, News 1, 1 (July 1998): 7–8.
- “Flowers in the Dustbin, or, Requiem for Punk.” Borderlines Magazine, 45 (1998): 8–14.
- “Food as Metaphor: Is Diversity the ‘Spice’ of Life?” Fuse Magazine 20, no.1.
- “Safe European Home: Notes on and from Cesar Chavez Street, San Francisco.” Borderlines Magazine, no. 41 (Fall 1996): 34–38.