New Review of Timothy W. Luke’s Screens of Power

Writing in the current issue of New Political Science, Saladdin Ahmed reviews Timothy W. Luke’s Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society, recently published in a new edition by Telos Press. Purchase your copy of Screens of Power today in our online store and save 25% off the list price.

An excerpt of the review:

Screens of Power first came out in 1989, a time that would turn out to be the most significant historical turn in global politics after World War II. The book’s author, Timothy W. Luke, offers a concrete account of the history of neoconservatism, grounding his claims in critical analyses of the production of signs, codes, and mass opinion that were at the time making evident their systematic role in the perpetuation of what would emerge as capitalist absolutism. Luke’s book offers a groundbreaking view of both the macro levels of social mobilization and micro processes of ideological hegemony under which corporate capitalist actors would eventually achieve this end. . . . About three decades later, the soundness of Luke’s analysis barely needs any defense. To be clear though, as an exemplary work of critical theory, Screens of Power did not engage in the business of prophecies and game of predictions. Instead, it had the ability to look directly into the actually existing, and one might say with hindsight, ever-growing abyss of capitalist absolutism. The book may have seemed pessimistic in 1989, but now it reads as a faithfully realistic analysis of the neoliberal age.

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The Telos Press Podcast: Timothy W. Luke on Screens of Power

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Tim Luke about his book Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society, recently published in a new edition by Telos Press and available for 20% off in our online store. Their discussion covers a range of topics, including the definition of informational society, the transformation of consumers into data and capital assets, the shift toward permissive individualism and consumerism, the commodification of tradition and religion by televangelism, the rise of politics as televisual spectacle, the changing character of social movements, and the role of critics and intellectuals. Listen the podcast here or through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or your preferred podcast provider.

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Berlin, a “Failed State”? Bureaucracy, Ideology, and Global Competition—Comments on Wolfgang Reitzle

Wolfgang Reitzle is one of Germany’s premiere business executives, and Klaus Boldt, part of the editorial leadership of Die Welt, one of the foremost business journalists. The wide-ranging interview here points to the multiple dimensions of the problems facing Germany at the end of the Angela Merkel era. The general elections in late September are sure to lead to a new coalition government in Berlin—and a new chancellor—who will face all the problems that Reitzle diagnoses, with the possible exception of the pandemic, hopefully over by the fall, even in Europe. While the coronavirus’s economic, social, and political consequences are however sure to linger on, it figures here primarily as an example of massive government failure and the toxic mixture of bureaucracy, ideology, and incompetence that Reitzle denounces and that leads him to call Berlin “a failed state.”

Those are harsh words from a prominent leader of the German business community, especially when one recalls how in the U.S. political discussion in recent years Germany has been repeatedly held up as the better alternative to the Trump administration. Not long ago the myth of Angela Merkel as the new leader of the free world circulated through the press. That once-glowing imagery has now vanished in the face of the catastrophes of the German and the EU corona response, and the prospect of continued slow economic growth, fraying infrastructure, and insufficient support for technological innovation in the country where one would least expect it. Reitzle helps us understand why.

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Telos 194 (Spring 2021): Political Theology Today

Telos 194 (Spring 2021): Political Theology Today is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats.

What does political theology mean today? At the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute conference from which many of the essays in this issue originated, a primary goal was to discuss the crisis of secular liberalism and “how faith is reshaping culture and politics today.” But even this project perhaps limits too much the scope of political theology, implying that we have a choice between reason and faith, or that political theology is a commitment to faith rather than an analysis of the element of faith that underlies all of our endeavors. The idea of political theology begins with the premise that every existing human order is built upon some understanding of ultimate meaning. The task would then be to analyze the kind of meaning that each existing order embodies and determine the kinds of decisions about meaning that are made and need to be made at various points in its history. Even secular liberalism, to the extent that it constitutes an existing order, presumes some answer to this question of meaning, and a closer look at the political theology of the United States reveals a mythic dimension that underlies its liberal democratic processes. The essays in this issue examine the political theological underpinnings of economy, politics, technology, and religion, laying out the ways in which these areas of human life develop not as autonomous spheres but as the result of struggles over a set of political theological choices.

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The Telos Press Podcast: Mark G. E. Kelly on Trump, Fascism, and the Threat of Techno-Neoliberalism

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Mark G. E. Kelly about his article “Is Fascism the Main Danger Today? Trump and Techno-Neoliberalism,” from Telos 192 (Fall 2020). An excerpt of the article appears here. 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. Purchase a print copy of Telos 192 in our online store.

Listen to the podcast here.

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The Telos Press Podcast: Steven Knepper and Robert Wyllie on the Philosophy of Byung-Chul Han

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Steven Knepper and Robert Wyllie about their article “In the Swarm of Byung-Chul Han,” from Telos 191 (Summer 2020). An excerpt of the article appears here. 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. Purchase a print copy of Telos 191 in our online store.

Listen to the podcast here.

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