The assassination of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia drew the attention of both the local and international media. Most reporters connected the murder to her work, though they highlighted different aspects of it. The BBC , Economist , Guardian , and Washington Post recognized the global…

By the 1830’s, the ‘proud and overbearing Maltese’ of the first decade of British rule had turned into a submissive people who cringed before their colonial overlords and had internalized, even at a bodily level, a complete dependency on them. by David Edward Zammit Collage: Isles of the Left O ver…

It was through their ‘tolerance’ of Carnival and other Catholic rituals, that the British aimed to freeze the flow of time in order to actively prevent social change from taking place in Malta. by David Edward Zammit Image: Sketches of Life at Malta. Carnival Time: Mummers Going Through the Ceremony…

GAN (Generative Adversarial Network), Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy, 2018. Courtesy of Christie’s. On Thursday, in the same auction in which an Andy Warhol print sold for $75,000 and a work by Roy Lichtenstein sold for $87,500, a computer-generated artwork grabbed $350,000…

Accel­er­a­tion­ism pushes towards a future that is more mod­ern, an altern­at­ive mod­ern­ity that neo­lib­er­al­ism is inher­ently unable to gen­er­ate. 01. INTRODUCTION: On the Conjuncture 1. At the beginning of the second decade of the Twenty-First Century, global civilization faces a new…

http://rougesfoam.blogspot.de/2009/10/hauntology-past-inside-present.html?m=1

The message of many things in America is “Like this or die.” — George W.S. Trow, Within the Context of No Context , 1980 The Seeing Robot The camera is a small, white, curvilinear monolith on a pedestal. Inside its smooth casing are a microphone, a speaker, and an eye-like lens. After I set it up on…

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3169-communal-luxury-kristin-ross

Haunting presence ... Jacques Derrida, who coined the term hauntology, in a still from the documentary Derrida Hauntology is probably the first major trend in critical theory to have flourished online. In October 2006, Mark Fisher - aka k-punk - described it as "the closest thing we have to a…

Science and Technology Environment Our new issue, on what a President Bernie Sanders could actually do in office, is out now. Subscribe today to receive it ! Pamela Anderson on Europe’s Turmoil Pamela Anderson Srećko Horvat Introducing The ABCs of Capitalism Editors A Blueprint for Universal…

Ne produis rien. Change de sexe. Deviens le maître de ton professeur. Sois l’élève de ton étudiant. Sois l’amant de ton chef. Sois l’animal de ton chien. Tout ce qui marche sur deux pattes est un ennemi. Prends soin de ton infirmière. Entre dans une prison et rejoue la scène centrale de la Ferme des…

http://www.openculture.com/2016/09/why-marvel-and-other-hollywood-films-have-such-bland-music.html

JD Lasica Cambridge Analytica & Facebook Facebook may face multi-billion dollar fine for Cambridge Analytica scandal In nearly 500 pages of answers, Facebook stonewalls some senators’ questions Cambridge Analytica files for bankruptcy amidst “siege” of negative attention Cambridge Analytica shuts…

Today is the publication anniversary of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses ; it is also Joyce’s birthday. Elsewhere on Literary Hub, I took a look at the very different responses other famous writers have had to Joyce’s most notorious work, but what about your everyday bookworm? Turns out, regular readers…

On the suggestion of my primary supervisor, I have been taking a look at Jacques Lacan and Lacanian theory as it pertains to critical theory and literary criticism. To someone outside my academic field, this might seem slightly odd, but once you start to read into the subject, it begins to make a…

http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2017-12-25/blogs-opinions/The-Lord-s-Prayer-the-Maltese-Semitic-version-and-its-historical-origins-6736182976

This summer, I seriously considered withdrawing from any involvement in politics. Exhausted through overwork, incapable of productive activity, I found myself drifting through social networks, feeling my depression and exhaustion increasing. ‘Left-wing’ Twitter can often be a miserable, dispiriting…

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-blathering-superego-at-the-end-of-history/

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/cockblocked-by-redistribution

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/21/privatizing-public-services-trump-democracy?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Add_to_Instapaper

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The Verso Prize for Cultural and Critical Studies is a new prize for the top student graduating from Birkbeck’s MA Cultural and Critical Studies . The inaugural prize has been awarded to student Neil Fitzgerald, for submitted work that was described as “truly exceptional” by the external examiner,…

December 2013 Image: Killoffer, "La Manif," 2009, Graphite on Paper48 x 63 cm, Courtesy of Galerie Anne Barrault This month we're showcasing the sparkling innovations in form and literature produced by the members of the Oulipo. The Paris-based literary collective explores how literature might arise…

A digital library would make knowledge, culture and literary achievement available to anyone with internet access. Photograph: Getty Images/Getty Images/Dex Image S cholars have long dreamed of a universal library containing everything that has ever been written. Then, in 2004, Google announced that…

As diplomats gather at the United Nations in New York this week to consider the future of global drug policy, one Portuguese official, João Goulão, will likely command attention that far outstrips his country's influence in practically any other area. That's because 16 years ago, Portugal took a…

Getty Images Igor Mordatch is working to build machines that can carry on a conversation. That’s something so many people are working on. In Silicon Valley, chatbot is now a bona fide buzzword . But Mordatch is different. He’s not a linguist. He doesn’t deal in the AI techniques that typically reach…

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/the-hidden-systems-at-work-behind-gentrification

Robert Maniscalco Dylann Roof (second from left) during the initial stage of jury selection for his trial for the murder of nine worshipers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina, September 2016 In early January, three weeks into the federal trial of Dylann…

Our new issue, on what a President Bernie Sanders could actually do in office, is out now. Subscribe today to receive it ! Pamela Anderson on Europe’s Turmoil Pamela Anderson Srećko Horvat Introducing The ABCs of Capitalism Editors A Blueprint for Universal Childhood Megan Erickson Labour Has A Plan…

An armed guard stands at the entrance of the Survival Condo Project, a former missile silo north of Wichita, Kansas, that has been converted into luxury apartments for people worried about the crackup of civilization. Photograph by Dan Winters for The New Yorker Steve Huffman, the…

https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/trumpism-and-the-davos-man/

When I hear other people talking about procrastination, I find myself getting proprietorial: surely their fleeting pauses are as nothing to mine. Procrastination is the main way I express anxiety and depression, if I can use these medicalised, dignifying terms. It’s franker to say that I put things…

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/magazine/the-great-ai-awakening.html?&version=readinglist&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=c-column-middle-span-region&region=c-column-middle-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-middle-span-region

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has revived the idea of a union of Southern European countries, a proposal first launched by another philosopher, Alexandre Kojève, just after World War II. This "Latin Empire" could act as a counter weight to the dominant role played by Germany in the European…

Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in October, 2016.Photograph: Getty Images B elow the medieval citadel in Kazan, two vast frozen rivers turn the landscape white. On a Saturday afternoon there are a few hardy locals shuffling through the icy sludge to take selfies against the mosque, the…

Now imagine if an aerial image of New York could camouflage itself as one from Hong Kong, or Milan. That’s just one of the things Invisible Cities , a new project from Italy’s Opendot (which includes Gene Kogan, Gabriell Gambotto, Ambika Jib Samsen, Michele Ferretti, Andrej Boleslavsky, Damiano Gui,…

Arts+CultureQ+A ‘Art Fair’ is a film made by Talk Hole that looks at the deathly competitiveness of New York’s art scene and how no-one’s really saying anything, are they? 1 December 2016 Text Thomas Gorton Maybe you’ve been to an art opening, or an art fair. You’re clutching a flute of lukewarm…

Donald Trump owed his election victory to his popularity in rust-belt areas, such as Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania.Photograph: Mark Makela/Getty Images I have no tribe. I have no comfort blanket, no default button that enables me to join the prevailing hysteria and cry in unison, “Of course, it’s…

Nonfiction A scene from “High Anxiety” (1977), with Mel Brooks and Madeline Kahn. Credit 20th Century Fox Amazon Local Booksellers Barnes and Noble When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. AMERICA THE ANXIOUS How Our Pursuit of Happiness Is…

The Holy Southern Empire: a proposal for Southern European anarcho-papism Written by Federico Campagna, 16.09.2013 Cura hominum potuit tantam componere Romam, quantam non potuit solvere cura deum. Hildebertus, Carmina Minora , no.36 Beyond the Latin Empire A few months ago, the Italian philosopher…