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a day ago
27 min

I hate economics

I'm an imbecile at economics. Over the years, I've tried to educate myself, but it never really works. My brain does philosophy and psych...

3 days ago
10 min

Detritus from a dead poetic imagination

Life in the 21st century as we all wait consciously or unconsciously for the apocalypse is boring and driven by distractions, an endless ...

5 days ago
4 min

Thoughts on classical fascism

[Student notes from ten years ago.] Reading Robert A. Brady’s classic Business as a System of Power (1943), which influenced Chomsky. The...

Jul 30
16 min

The heartbreak of staggering self-consciousness

Today I came across a copy of Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and was reminded of myself in my twenties, when I was ...

Jun 29
15 min

Laboring Against Racism: The Textile Workers Union of America in the South during the 1960s

[An old student paper.] The conventional understanding of labor unions and their membership in the 1960s is of a conservative and bureauc...

Jun 28
7 min

Old student notes on random philosophy articles

Sometimes I like to return to philosophy in order to get the sort of intellectual stimulation that reading history doesn't provide. E.g.,...

Jun 26
8 min

Capitalism and colonialism

As I constantly and tiresomely reiterate, academic writing tends toward sophistry, superficiality, and obscurantism. Personally, my aesth...

Jun 16
2 min

Primary sources on Communists and the unemployed during the Great Depression

While writing my PhD dissertation a few years ago ("Down But Not Out: The Unemployed in Chicago during the Great Depression"), I accumula...

Jun 14
19 min

Critical remarks on Thomas Nagel

[From 2009.] I’m reading Thomas Nagel’s famous book The View From Nowhere (1986). Nagel seems more sensible than most contemporary philos...

Jun 13
6 min

Gender norms in a Chilean copper mine

[This was supposed to be a short outline for a student presentation I had to give. So excuse the roughness. Here are more book reviews.] ...

Jun 12
4 min

Student notes on "Poor People's Movements"

[Maybe it's self-indulgent of me to keep posting old notes from my student years, but just in case anyone out there gives a shit, I guess...

Jun 9
8 min

Old syllabus and lecture notes

[Here are some notes from the first syllabus I wrote for the U.S. History After 1865 survey course. Below them are overly ambitious notes...

Jun 8
7 min

Appreciative and not-so-appreciative thoughts on cultural theory

[These notes, for what they're worth, are from, respectively, 2010 and 2018.] Reading Raymond Williams’ classic Marxism and Literature (1...

Jun 6
17 min

Rambling reflections on Camille Paglia

I've been reading Camille Paglia's collection of essays Sex, Art, and American Culture (1992). I disagree with a lot of Paglia's opinions...

Jul 30, 2019
18 min

Notes on a radical interpretation of the Cold War

[Also here]. I’ve been reading Gabriel and Joyce Kolko’s classic The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945–54...

Jul 27, 2019
5 min

On the fight against misogyny

As a leftist, "I wish we could all just get along." Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe it would get boring pretty quickly. But a little less co...

Jul 24, 2019
20 min

A little misanthropy can be a healthy thing

This is from a letter Sigmund Freud wrote to his pastor friend Oskar Pfister: I do not break my head very much about good and evil, but I...

Jul 22, 2019
10 min

Marxist theories of imperialism

[Years ago I took notes on the book mentioned below, which I thought I'd post here for the heck of it. Maybe someone will find them usefu...

Jul 19, 2019
7 min

A plea for honesty in discussions of sex and gender

A recent article of mine, called "Political Correctness Is Getting Out of Hand," elicited some angry emails. Not from people who disagree...

Jul 19, 2019
3 min

Thoughts on planning vs. the market

Been reading The People's Republic of Walmart: How the World's Biggest Corporations Are Laying the Foundation for Socialism. It's a good ...

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