The Telos Press Podcast: Georges Van Den Abbeele on the Precariat, the Gig Economy, and the Challenge of Mutual Aid

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Georges Van Den Abbeele about his article “Can the Precariat Be Organized?: The Gig Economy, Worksite Dispersion, and the Challenge of Mutual Aid,” from Telos 198 (Spring 2022). An excerpt of the article appears here. In their conversation they discuss the history of the welfare state in the context of mutual aid, the idea of the “precariat” and how it relates to the idea of the working class and the question of mutual aid, and the new forms of mutual aid that are now possible with the rise of both the gig economy and new forms of social interaction. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 198 are available for purchase in our online store.

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The Telos Press Podcast: Linus Recht on Foucault, Plato, and the Ethics of the Self in the Internet Age

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Linus Recht about his article “After Desire: Foucault’s Ethical Critique of Psychological Man and the Foucauldian Ethos of the Internet Age,” from Telos 196 (Fall 2021). An excerpt of the article appears here. In their conversation they discussed Foucault’s critique of the psychological self and his search for a form of selfhood that would allow for continual reinvention and the discovery of new pleasures; how a reading of Platonic psychology demonstrates the weakness of Foucault’s critique of the psychological self as a historical construct; how contemporary social media has translated Foucault’s ethics of the self into reality; and how the ubiquity of mobile phones and similar devices in our everyday life, particularly the way that they subject us to a constant stream of distracting stimuli, suggests that Foucault’s notion of what the self could be might actually be a recipe for misery. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 196 are available for purchase in our online store.

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The Telos Press Podcast: Roundtable on the Changing Character of the Public Sphere

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Jay Gupta, Mark Kelly, and Tim Luke about the changing character of the public sphere. Their wide-ranging conversation covers a number of topics, including the ways that social media has fragmented the public sphere into separate echo chambers; how the internet has contributed to an insurgent populism around the world and the efforts by traditional stakeholders to shut it down; the atrophy of the value of truth and the dominance of “bullshit” in the Trump era; the extent to which moral earnestness preserves an aspiration to truthfulness; Trumpism and the critique of society as controlled by unaccountable New Class elites; the ongoing Trumpification of the Republican Party; and the conflation versus the interpenetration of elitism and expertise. Telos 195 (Summer 2021) features a forum on the public sphere with articles by Gupta, Kelly, and Luke, excerpts of which appear here. Read the full articles at the Telos Online website (subscription required). To learn how your university can subscribe to Telos, visit our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 195 are available for purchase in our online store.

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The Indian Farmers' Movement 2020–21: Part II: The Global Indian Diaspora and Digital Activism

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On February 2, the second day of Black History Month, a tweet from a Black woman in the United States unleashed a war of words in India, with global resonance. Rihanna, the Barbados-born U.S. singer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and cultural activist posted a one-liner: “why aren’t we talking about this?!” with the hashtag #FarmersProtest and a link to a report about the government of India shutting down internet services in areas bordering the national capital, New Delhi, where farmers have been carrying out a movement to oppose three contentious farm laws.

Rihanna’s tweet went viral. The climate activist Greta Thunberg, Hollywood actor John Cusack, U.S.-based lawyer and supporter of Black Lives Matter Meena Harris, former adult star Mia Khalifa, Instagram influencer Amanda Cerny, R&B singer Jay Sean, and music composer Dr. Zeus all expressed support for the Indian farmers’ protests in their own independent tweets. Kisan Ekta Morcha, the official twitter account of the United Farmers’ Front, thanked Rihanna for her support of the movement, and countless Indians praised her for drawing international attention to the movement.

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Now Available: Timothy W. Luke’s Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society

Now available! Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society, by Timothy W. Luke. Purchase your copy in our online store and save 20% by using the coupon code BOOKS20 during checkout. Also available in Kindle ebook format at Amazon.com.

Screens of Power
Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society

by Timothy W. Luke
With a Foreword by Ronald J. Deibert

This new edition of Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society, first published in 1989, reintroduces the innovative critique of informational culture, politics, and society outlined by Timothy W. Luke in Telos and other publications during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much has changed, but far more has stayed the same, making this new edition useful for many readers, as digital images ground personal identity, informatics is geopolitics, grand history endlessly reruns as televisually formatted ritual, electronic electioneering never ends, tele-traditional cultures spin up the spirit of tele-ethnicity in new social movements, and digital divides continue crashing against cybernetic exchange.

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New from Telos Press: Timothy W. Luke's Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society

Now available for pre-order: Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society, by Timothy W. Luke. Pre-order today in our online store and save 30% off the list price. Release date: December 1, 2020. Also save 30% on Luke’s Anthropocene Alerts: Critical Theory of the Contemporary as Ecocritique and on A Journal of No Illusions: Telos, Paul Piccone, and the Americanization of Critical Theory, edited by Tim Luke and Ben Agger.

Screens of Power
Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society

by Timothy W. Luke
With a Foreword by Ronald J. Deibert
Release date: December 1, 2020

This new edition of Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society, first published in 1989, reintroduces the innovative critique of informational culture, politics, and society outlined by Timothy W. Luke in Telos and other publications during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much has changed, but far more has stayed the same, making this new edition useful for many readers, as digital images ground personal identity, informatics is geopolitics, grand history endlessly reruns as televisually formatted ritual, electronic electioneering never ends, tele-traditional cultures spin up the spirit of tele-ethnicity in new social movements, and digital divides continue crashing against cybernetic exchange.

On now countless screens of power, which are embedded in billions of smartphones, taxi seats, elevator panels, automobile dashboards, refrigerator doors, airport walls, work cubicles, skyscraper displays, exercise machines, and home video centers, a mix of disinformative mystifications exploits with vivid images of violence the unprecedented inequalities and inequities expressed in America’s bitter racial, gender, ethnic, and class conflicts. Their impact is sparking widespread popular resistance because many citizens feel oligarchy and demagoguery in both political parties are eclipsing democracy and opportunity.

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