Another new feature. When I meet cool or interesting people, or hear a talk that I find particularly engaging in one way or another, I will make mention of them here with a link to their work. I may or may not be loquacious. So, first up is Rupert Cox, social anthropologist, who’s been doing …
Author Archives: Jonathan Sterne
…and we’re back…
So that whole social media “platform” this was an interesting ride, wasn’t it? Turns out, nothing is ever free, the new captains of industry are as selfish and narrow minded as the old ones, and we are just the product. Oh wait, we knew that already: I submit that the materialist answer to the question — What …
Testing to see if I’m a human
Crickets….
This place sure has been quiet. But I’m missing the long form randomness of writing. So some cleanup will ensue, followed by updates….
An Open Letter in Support of Divest McGill
As I’ve mentioned before, McGill students have been organizing a campaign to get McGill to divest from fossil fuels. This seems eminently sensible to me. This past week, the Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility released a report to the Board of Governors recommending AGAINST divestment because (among other things) oil companies have …
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Geoffrey Bennington’s review of the new translation of Derrida’s Of Grammatology: read as a commentary on the humanities.
Read the review here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/embarrassing-ourselves This was a great read over breakfast. I want to leave aside the intra-Derridean sniping and draw some bigger lessons from this review: 1. It’s dangerous for scholars to cut corners: look at the text, not your notes on the text. Advice for students and super stars alike. (or rather, we …
2015 in Review
Like most years, 2015 was mixed with both good and bad. It was a tough year for a lot of my friends, and lots of terrible stuff happened in the world, but I’m not one of the “good riddance to 2015” people. On a personal level, I have a lot of good memories. My travel …