Natasha Lennard: Journalist/Political Theory

@natashalennard

Babendir, Bradley. "How to Avoid a Fascist Future." Pacific Standard (July 24, 2019)

Estelle, Sean and Natasha Lennard. "Ecosocialism and Eco-Barbarism." Future Left (September 20, 2019)

Evans, Brad and Natasha Lennard. Violence: Humans in Dark Times. City Lights Books, 2018.

Gately, Alison. "A Fatigued Fight: Brad Evans and Natasha Lennard’s Violence: Humans in Dark Times.'" Los Angeles Review of Books (September 3, 2018)

Iqbal, Razia. "In Conversation with Natasha Lennard." Tank Magazine Podcast (July 26, 2019) ["Natasha Lennard is joined by BBC journalist Razia Iqbal to discuss her latest book Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist life. Published earlier this year by Verso, the book contains a series of pieces ranging from the London riots to the protests at Standing Rock to debating the moral right to euthanasia. Combining an intimate, personable tone with a fierce belief in systemic change, the essays together articulate a vision of what non-fascist living might consist in."]

Lennard, Natasha.  "After the Quarantine, The Flood." Commune (March 14, 2020)

---. Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life. Verso, 2019.

---. "Do Nothing and Help Dismantle Our Broken Criminal-Justice System." The Intercept (November 21, 2017) ["A new “slacktivist” app mines cryptocurrency to pay for bail funds."]

---. "Ecocide Should Be Recognized as a Crime Against Humanity, but We Can’t Wait for The Hague to Judge." The Intercept (September 24, 2019)

---. "Going Out: No Tomorrows." The New Inquiry (May 30, 2014)

---. "How the Prosecution of Animal Rights Activists As Terrorists Foretold Today’s Criminalization of Dissent." The Intercept (December 12, 2019)

---. "In Secretive Court Hearing, NYPD Cops Who Raped Brooklyn Teen in Custody Get No Jail Time." The Intercept (August 30, 2019)

---. "Law Claiming to Fight Sex Trafficking is Doing the Opposite — By Cracking Down on Sex Work Organizing and Advocacy." The Intercept (June 13, 2018)

---. "Madrid on the Brink." Salon (October 2, 2012) ["A new short film documents and explains the context of recent anti-austerity protests in Spain."]

---. "Know Your Rights." The New Inquiry (June 28, 2017) ["We limit our resistance to fascism by relying on liberal conceptions of human rights."]

---. "The NYPD Finally Fired the Cop Who Killed Eric Garner — but the Police Reaction Shows How Little Will Change." The Intercept (August 20, 2019)

---. "The NYPD Union’s War Against Parole Reform." The Nation (March 29, 2019) ["For decades, cops have aggressively opposed even minor reforms concerning accountability and criminal justice. Now, they’re finding they no longer have the state’s parole board under their thumb."]

---. "Of Suicide." The New Inquiry (December 10, 2014)

---. "On Non-Fascist Life." Politics Theory Other (August 14, 2019) ["Natasha Lennard joins me to discuss her book, 'Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life'. We spoke about whether or not Donald Trump and the movement that has coalesced around him ought to be characterised as fascist, we also talked about the contributions of Wilhelm Reich, Michel Foucault, and other figures in the anti-psychiatry movement to theorising fascism. We discussed the legitimacy and history of anti-fascist violence and its treatment by the media, and finally we spoke about Natasha's writing on suicide and how the act of suicide brings into question capitalism's positing of the idea of the sovereign individual."]

---. "On Violence and Non-Fascism." Left Anchor #69 (May 30, 2019)

---. "Ted Cruz’s Hearing on Anarchist Protest Violence Was a Total Farce." The Intercept (August 5, 2020) ["Cruz kept mentioning Democrats’ failure to condemn a murder that was actually carried out by the far right — and refused to be corrected."]

---. "This is Not a Time for Civility." The Nation (August 10, 2018) ["White-nationalist rallies are calls for genocide, and must be treated as such."]

---. "What Does it Mean to Live a Non-Fascist Life." Broadly (April 9, 2019)

Liu, Rebecca. "Natasha Lennard reflects on what it really means to live a non-fascist life." Dazed (May 1, 2019)

Solis, Marie. "What Does it Mean to Live a Non-Fascist Life." Vice (April 9, 2019)

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 30, 2019

Barro, Josh, et al. "Impeachment." Left, Right and Center (September 27, 2019) ["Nancy Pelosi says the inquiry is on, and it now has the support from nearly every Democrat and therefore, a majority of the House. This may be a rapid impeachment — just two months and just about the new Ukraine scandal. Should this be quick and easy? Or should there be more hearings and more charges? Spoiler alert: no one on the show expects the Senate to actually remove President Trump if he is indeed impeached, so what then is the strategic reason to impeach him? And how might this affect Democrats, including those running for president against Trump and those running for down-ballot races in 2020? President Trump railed against the whistleblower, insinuating that people who passed along information to that person were spies and spies should be executed. Bradley Moss, a lawyer specializing in national security issues and whistleblower protections, joins the panel to talk about President Trump’s comments, protocols for whistleblowers, and how this story saw daylight in the first place."]

Citizenfour (Germany/USA: Laura Poitras, 2014) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Cromwell, David. "‘How Dare You!’ The Climate Crisis And The Public Demand For Real Action." Media Lens (September 30, 2019)

It (USA: Andy Muschietti, 2017: 135 mins); It Chapter Two (USA/Canada: Andy Muschietti, 2019: 169 mins) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Kendi, Ibram X. "The challenge of antiracist thought to a racist society." This is Hell #1070 (August 24, 2019) ["Historian Ibram X. Kendi discusses racism and antiracism in American society - from the production and maintenance of racist thought to disguise inequity and manipulate the working class, to the promise of an antiracist challenge to the power structures that divide people from each other and a future lived in communion with all people. Ibram is author of How To Be An Antiracist from One World Literature."]

Snowden, Edward. "Permanent Record: Why NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Risked His Life to Expose Surveillance State." Democracy Now (September 26, 2019) ["Six years ago, Edward Snowden leaked a trove of secret documents about how the United States had built a massive surveillance apparatus to spy on Americans and people across the globe. Snowden was then charged in the U.S. for violating the Espionage Act and other laws. As he attempted to flee to Latin America, Snowden became stranded in Russia after the U.S. revoked his passport. He has lived in Moscow ever since. Snowden just published his memoir, “Permanent Record,” in which he writes about what led him to risk his life to expose the U.S. government’s system of mass surveillance. From Moscow, he speaks to Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and Juan González about his life before and after becoming an NSA whistleblower." Part 1: "'Financial Censorship Is Still Censorship': Edward Snowden Slams Justice Dept. Lawsuit Against Him."  Part 2: "Edward Snowden Condemns Trump’s Mistreatment of Whistleblower Who Exposed Ukraine Scandal." ]

--. "Private Contractors Play Key Role in U.S. Intelligence’s 'Creeping Authoritarianism.'" Democracy Now (September 30, 2019) ["As a whistleblower complaint against President Trump rocks Washington, Democrats begin an impeachment inquiry and Trump threatens “big consequences” for the person who came forward, we continue our conversation with one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers: Edward Snowden, now in exile in Russia. Six years ago, he shocked the world when he leaked a trove of secret documents about how the United States had built a massive surveillance apparatus to collect every single phone call, text message and email, and pry into the private lives of every person on Earth. He has just published a memoir titled “Permanent Record.” In Part 2 of our interview, he talks about how the government initially attempted to say that he was just an outside contractor and not a key figure, but he describes the central role contractors play in the intelligence community." Part 2: "Snowden Reveals How He Secretly Exposed NSA Criminal Wrongdoing Without Getting Arrested." Part 3: "Whistleblower Edward Snowden on Trump, Obama & How He Ended Up in Russia to Avoid U.S. Extradition."]

It (USA: Andy Muschietti, 2017) & It Chapter Two (USA/Canada: Andy Muschietti, 2019)

It (USA: Andy Muschietti, 2017: 135 mins); It Chapter Two (USA/Canada: Andy Muschietti, 2019: 169 mins)

Anderson, Jake. "It: Chapter Two." Letterboxd (September 25, 2019)

Cassidy, Brendan, J.D. Duran and Richard Newby. "It, Top 3 Stephen King Adaptation Scenes, Willow." InSession Film #238 (September 13, 2017)

DeVito, Sandy and David Hart. "It." Pop Culture Case Study #268 (September 10, 2017)

Eggert, Brian. "It." Deep Focus Review (September 9, 2017)

Hancock, James and Tom Horan. "We All Float Down Here." Wrong Reel #317 (September 2017)

Lamb, Robert and Christian Sager. "The Science of It: Deadlights and Derry." Stuff to Blow Your Mind (October 5, 2017) ["If you’ve read Stephen King’s “It” or recoiled in fear from the 2017 film and the 1990 miniseries, then perhaps you’ve wondered what science can reveal about Pennywise the Dancing Clown and the horrors of Derry, Maine. Join Robert and Christian as they consider the monster science of the creature itself and various, real world explanations that grown-ups might turn to for a town gone bad."]

London, Alex. "Horror as Strength: Queer Armor in Stephen King’s IT." TOR (October 26, 2021)

Modhz. "It (2017)." Letterboxd (September 12, 2017)

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 26, 2019

Anderson, Jake. "It: Chapter Two." Letterboxd (September 25, 2019)

Begley, Chris. "I study collapsed civilizations. Here’s my advice for a climate change apocalypse." Lexington Herald-Leader (September 23, 2019)

Benton, Michael. "20th Century World Cinema (2)." Letterboxd (Future film course)

Brooks, Chris. "Arrests, Presidential Candidates, and Electric Vehicles: Updates on the General Motor's Strike." Labor Notes (September 24, 2019)




Carr, Jeremy. "Fifty Shades of Deep Red: Piercing." Film International (January 31, 2019)

Lennard, Natasha. "On Non-Fascist Life." Politics Theory Other (August 14, 2019) ["Natasha Lennard joins me to discuss her book, 'Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life'. We spoke about whether or not Donald Trump and the movement that has coalesced around him ought to be characterised as fascist, we also talked about the contributions of Wilhelm Reich, Michel Foucault, and other figures in the anti-psychiatry movement to theorising fascism. We discussed the legitimacy and history of anti-fascist violence and its treatment by the media, and finally we spoke about Natasha's writing on suicide and how the act of suicide brings into question capitalism's positing of the idea of the sovereign individual."]




Moosavi, Ali. "An Absurdist, Black Comedy Mixer: Pig." Film International (January 31, 2019)

Moskowitz, P.E. "The Problem of Free Speech in an Unfree World." This is Hell! #1070 (August 24, 2019) ["Writer P.E. Moskowitz examines the limits of the First Amendment in American society - as a concept rooted in an equality that will never exist in a capitalist society, and as a cultural battleground almost exclusively fought on the right's terms - for the right's gains. P.E. is author of The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent from Bold Type Books."]

"Rape Culture Syllabus." Public Books (October 15, 2016) ["Scholars and activists, poets and playwrights have been writing about rape for centuries. What would the conversation around sexual assault, police bias, and the legal system look like if investigators, police officers, and judges read deeply into the literature on sexuality, racial justice, violence, and power? It is in view of this question that the following syllabus is offered as a scholarly resource—and object of critical discussion and debate—on “rape culture” in the 21st century."]




Schwarz, Jon. "The Best Movie Ever Made About the Truth Behind The Iraq War is 'Official Secrets.'" The Intercept (August 31, 2019)

Thunberg, Greta. "How Dare You! Greta Thunberg Slams World’s Focus on Economic “Fairy Tales” While Ecosystems Collapse." Democracy Now (September 24, 2019) ["Scores of world leaders gathered in New York on Monday for the U.N. Climate Action Summit, but the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters announced few new measures to address the climate crisis. President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence briefly attended the summit but left after just 14 minutes. At the beginning of the summit, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg delivered an impassioned address to world leaders, explicitly naming their inaction on the climate crisis. “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing,” Greta said. “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”" Part 2: "In Landmark UN Complaint, 16 Children Accuse Nations of Failing to Protect Them from Climate Change." Part 3: "Meet Brazil’s Indigenous Leader Attacked by Bolsonaro at U.N. over Efforts to Preserve the Amazon."]

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 25, 2017

Blakeslee, David, Trevor Berrett and Matthew Gasteier. "Late Ozu, Part 1." The Eclipse Viewer #58 (July 1, 2017) ["In this first episode of a three-part series, David and Trevor are joined by Matthew Gasteier to discuss two films (Early Spring and Tokyo Twilight) from Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu."]

El Goro. "Tales from the Crypt (1972) and Ghost Story (1981)." Talk Without Rhythm #399 (December 18, 2017)




Fraga, Victor. "The Operative (Die Agentin)." Dirty Movies (February 10, 2019)

Gooding-Williams, Robert. "Membership, Citizenship and Democracy." Public Books (September 24, 2019)

Kahn, Brian. "It's Kids vs. the World in a Landmark Climate Complaint." Gizmodo (September 23, 2019)

"Kentucky Miners Blockade Coal Train." This is America #84 (August 6, 2019)

Neoliberalism (Key Concept) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Orleck, Annelise, et al. "Worker protections help (almost) everyone (Labor Rights)." Best of the Left #1263 (April 9, 2019) ["Today we take a look at the overwhelming benefits to society of labor, health and safety regulations and how the only people who don't come out ahead are those who have to pay for them."]

Taylor, Astra. "It Would Feel Like Having a Future: On What Democracy Might Be." This is Hell (February 16, 2019) ["Filmmaker Astra Taylor explores the big questions around democracy in the 21st century - as the framework of the 20th century liberal order collapses, a public raised on the precarious edges of capitalism is looking for new answers to the old dilemma of which people get what power."]

Neoliberalism (Key Concept)

Abofum, Pablo, et al. "Taking to the Streets in Chile and Around the World to Protest Neoliberalism." Best of the Left #1317 (November 5, 2019) ["Today we take a look at the many protests ongoing around the world with a very strong through-line of demands to reverse austerity, lessen inequality, and improve public services, all hallmarks of neoliberal economic policies."]

Blanc, Eric, et al. "Teachers at the forefront of a resurgent progressive labor movement." Best of the Left #1250 (February 15, 2019) ["Today we take a look at recent teachers union strike in the Los Angeles school district and see it as another event in an emerging pattern of progressive uprisings that have been stirring for the last decade, fighting back against the status quo, the neoliberal instinct to privatize everything for the ultimate benefit of billionaires."]

Brown, Wendy. "A Neoliberal Pandemic." Economics & Beyond (June 18, 2020) ["UC Berkeley political theorist Wendy Brown talks to Rob Johnson about how the pandemic and protests against police brutality lay bare a crisis of neoliberalism."]

---. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution. Zone Books, 2015 (Excerpt 9 - 45).

Chomsky, Noam. Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order. Seven Stories Press, 1999.

Cook, Jonathan. "Our Leaders are Terrified. Not of the Virus – of Us." Counterpunch (March 26, 2020)

Haider, Asad. "Way more is possible: On depoliticization, resurgent radicalism and seeing the revolutionary horizon." This is Hell! #1137 (March 2, 2020) ["Writer Asad Haider examines the problems of depoliticization in modern politics - as the dominant ideological frame blinds us to the limits of our present politics and the possibilities of future alignments, the left must confront the failures of past revolutions and realize that another world is not just possible, it's necessary."]

Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Hickel, Jason. "The Neoliberal Optimism Industry." Citations Needed #58 (November 28, 2018) ["We're told the world is getting better all the time. In January, The New York Times' Nick Kristof explained "Why 2017 Was the Best Year in Human History." The same month, Harvard professor and Bill Gates' favorite optimist Steven Pinker lamented (in a special edition of Time magazine guest edited by - who else? - Bill Gates) the “bad habits of media... bring out the worst in human cognition”. By focusing so much on negative things, the theory goes, we are tricked into thinking things are getting worse when, in reality, it's actually the opposite. For the TEDtalk set, that the world is awesome and still improving is self-evidently true - just look at the data. But how true is this popular axiom? How accurate is the portrayal that the world is improving we so often seen in sexy, hockey stick graphs of upward growth and rapidly declining poverty? And how, exactly, are the powers that be "measuring" improvements in society? On this episode, we take a look at the ideological project of telling us everything's going swimmingly, how those in power cook the books and spin data to make their case for maintaining the status quo, and how The Neoliberal Optimism Industry is, at its core, an anti-intellectual enterprise designed to lull us into complacency and political impotence."]

Juhyundred. "Reading Colonialism in Parasite." Tropics of Meta (February 17, 2020)

Kenton, Will. "Neoliberalism." Investopedia (April 9, 2019)

Klein, Naomi. "Disaster Capitalism: The New Economy of Catastrophe." Harper's (October 2007): 47 - 58.

---. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador, 2007.

Mirowski, Philip. Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown. Verso, 2013.

Monbiot, George. "The horror films got it wrong. This virus has turned us into caring neighbours." The Guardian (March 30, 2020)

Orleck, Annelise, et al. "Worker protections help (almost) everyone (Labor Rights)." Best of the Left #1263 (April 9, 2019) ["Today we take a look at the overwhelming benefits to society of labor, health and safety regulations and how the only people who don't come out ahead are those who have to pay for them."]

Prashad, Vijay. "The political tide sweeping South America won’t accept predatory capitalism." Monthly Review (November 6, 2019)

Saad-Filho, Alfredo and Deborah Johnston, eds. Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader. Pluto Press, 2005.

Stoller, Matt. "Monopoly vs. Democracy." Open Source (October 24, 2019) ["It’s new for most Americans that we’re embarrassed by our democracy. We don’t know where it went wrong, or whether it’ll survive. Matt Stoller explains it this way: we’ve come to do politics the way we do commerce, online and at the mall. Sellers are remote; critical choices are made for us. Our stuff comes from Walmart; our books, groceries, and now everything else from Amazon. Our lines on politics, news, opinion, and gossip come through Facebook. Our lives are designed and run to concentrate power and profit in the hands of a few faraway monopolists. No wonder we’re in a panic! Matt Stoller is here to tell you the fault, dear people, is not in our stars or even our selves but in these overnight monopolies that might just as well own us."]

Watters, Audrey. "Fables of School Reform: Ed-Tech Investors Keep Chasing Their Own Tales." The Baffler #43 (February 2019)

West, Cornel. "Maintaining Hope in the Time of Struggle and Darkness that is the Age of Trump." The Chauncey DeVega Show #258 (October 31, 2019) ["Cornel West is one of the United States’ and the world’s leading public intellectuals and truth-tellers. He is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and holds the title of Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris. Cornel West is the author of several bestselling books including Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. He is also a frequent guest on CNN, C-Span and Democracy Now. Cornel West explains why hope must be kept alive in times of darkness and struggle, the power of the Black Freedom Struggle and blues sensibility to sustain and improve American democracy, and why neoliberal gangster capitalism’s assault on our humanity must be resisted. He also reflects on his support of Bernie Sanders and why Dave Chappelle is an example of the artist as truth-teller and essential provocateur."]

Zha, Carl, et al. "Hong Kong Protests (Where Colonialism meets Neoliberalism)." Best of the Left #1314 (October 25, 2019) ["Today we take a look at the complicated range of forces driving the protests in Hong Kong that span the ideological spectrum."]

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 23, 2019

This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality by Peter Pomerantsev
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Some interesting bits on troll farms and the attempts to influence elections/voters. Hampered by rambling discussions that go nowhere (and loong reflections on his family history), clearly motivated by his indoctrination into continuing post-cold war politics (notice, no comment on Ivan's job for Radio Europe as similar to what he fears now), no critique of the US/UK for similar tactics (not even a mention or sign that he knows anything about it - which we might suspect he does) ....

One could almost imagine this as coming from the propaganda mills Peter critiques.

View all my reviews

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El Goro. "Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)." Talk Without Rhythm #398 (December 11, 2017)

Kelley, Lauren. "Waiting for the Roe to drop (Reproductive Justice)." Best of the Left #1262 (April 5, 2019) ["Today we take a look at the current state of abortion rights - Hint: They're already in tatters - and speculate about what's to come as Roe vs Wade faces relentless chipping away and the possibility of full repeal."]




Leigh, Mike. "Peterloo." Film Wax Radio #547 (April 4, 2019) ["“Peterloo” is an epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The film stars Rory Kinnear and Maxine Peake, and is being distributed by Amazon Studios."]

Mata, Alas and Baj Mukhopadhyay. "A Gathering of Radical Health Workers." Talking Radical Radio (June 18, 2019)  ["Baj Mukhopadhyay is a physician who is based in Montreal and practices mainly in remote and Indigenous communities in northern Quebec. He also writes about and is active in grassroots politics related to struggles around resource extraction, migrant justice, and health. Bilal Mamdani is an organizer with a long history of involvement in land defence, water protection, and struggles against resource extraction, and he is currently a medical student studying in southern Ontario. And Alas Mata is an Emergency Medical Technician based in southern California and a member of Frontline Medics, a collective of medically trained women of colour committed to providing communities of resistance with aid and support. Scott Neigh interviews them about the recent Liberation Health Convergence."]

Sie, Trish and April Wolfe. "Snowpiercer." Switchblade Sisters #9 (January 4, 2018) ["April talks to Pitch Perfect 3 director Trish Sie about Bong Joon-ho's frozen feature, Snowpiercer. They discuss the amazing performance of Tilda Swinton as the authoritative Mason, the commanding directorial style of Bong Joon-ho, and the train car on the Snowpiercer they'd most like to spend time in. Trish also talks about getting her start directing the famous OK GO "treadmill video" for the song 'Here It Goes Again' and what it's like taking over an existing franchise with Pitch Perfect 3. She also shares some fascinating tidbits about the eating habits of polar bears."]

"Veterans Reach Their Tipping Point Against Our Post-9/11 Wars." The American Conservative (September 10, 2019)


Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control from Rising Up With Sonali on Vimeo.

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 21, 2019

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Those truths are well established. They are read in every page which records the progression from a less arbitrary to a more arbitrary government, or the transition from a popular government to an aristocracy or a monarchy." — James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

Carrington, Damian. "Huge reduction in meat-eating ‘essential’ to avoid climate breakdown." The Guardian (October 10, 2018)

Greenhouse, Steven. "One Job Should be Enough: How workers’ voices were silenced in America—and how they’re fighting back." American Scholar (August 23, 2019) ["Steven Greenhouse was the labor and workplace reporter for The New York Times for 19 years. His last book, The Big Squeeze, is a detailed report on how American workers are being abused by corporations and bosses: freezing wages; replacing long-term employees with contractors, subcontractors, and freelancers; reducing hours. And where full-time employees are to be found, bosses are replacing pensions with 401Ks; trimming down paid holidays, vacations, and sick days; pressuring workers to do more per hour; forcing arbitration instead of lawsuits; mandating non-compete causes—not to mention off-shoring jobs to countries with fewer labor or environmental protections and cheaper wages. In the 10 years since Greenhouse’s book appeared, corporations haven’t exactly changed their tune—but the labor movement has. There’s been a surge in organizing from the service industry to Silicon Valley: the Fight for Fifteen, #REDforED teachers’ strikes, walkouts at Google and Wayfair, and, this month, 11,000 airline catering workers across 28 cities voting to authorize a strike for better conditions. Where did this momentum come from? In his new book, Beaten Down, Worked Up, Steven Greenhouse tries to answer that question, alongside its corollaries. Why did worker power decline so much over the past 50 years? And what can we do to rekindle that collective power?"]

Hampton, Rachelle, Inkoo Kang and Marissa Martinelli. "Who Is The Hate U Give For?" Spoiler Specials (October 19, 2018) ["In this week’s episode, assistant editor Marissa Martinelli, editorial assistant Rachelle Hampton, and culture writer Inkoo Kang discuss The Hate U Give, starring Amandla Stenberg. How does this adaptation of the YA novel by Angie Thomas represent black trauma? Does the ending take away from its overall message? And who, ultimately, is the movie trying to reach?"]

Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra. "Hitler is Not Your Friend: Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit (Toronto International Film Festival)." Film International (September 19, 2019)

High Life (Germany/France/UK/Poland/USA: Claire Denis, 2018) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Hussain, Murtaza. "War on the World: Industrialized Militaries Are a Bigger Part of the Climate Emergency Than You Know." The Intercept (September 15, 2019)

Merchants of Doubt (USA: Kim Roberts and Robert Kenner, 2014: 93 mins) ["Merchants of Doubt looks at the well established Public Relations tactic of saturating the media with shills who present themselves as independent scientific authorities on issues in order to cast doubt in the public mind. The film looks at how this tactic, that was originally developed by the tobacco industry to obfuscate the health risks of smoking, has since come to cloud other issues such as the pervasiveness of toxic chemicals, flame retardants, asbestos, certain pharmaceutical drugs and now, climate change. Using the icon of a magician, Merchants of Doubt explores the analogy between these tactics and the methods used by magicians to distract their audiences from observing how illusions are performed. For example, with the tobacco industry, the shills successfully delayed government regulation until long after the health risks from smoking was unequivocally proven. Likewise with manufacturers of flame retardants, who worked to protect their sales after the toxic effects and pervasiveness of the chemicals were discovered. This is all made analogous to the ongoing use of these very same tactics to forestall governmental action in regards to global climate change today."]

Monsanto (Multinational Agricultural Biotechnology Corporation) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Saini, Angela. "Junk Science: How belief in biological racial difference pollutes the world of science, from eugenics to genetics." American Scholar (August 9, 2019) ["For our 100th episode, we welcome back science journalist Angela Saini, whose work deflates the myths we tell ourselves about science existing in an apolitical vacuum. With far-right nationalism and white supremacy on the rise around the world, pseudoscientific and pseudointellectual justifications for racism are on the rise—and troublingly mainstream. Race is a relatively recent concept, but dress it up in a white lab coat and it becomes an incredibly toxic justification for a whole range of policies, from health to immigration. It is tempting to dismiss white-supremacist cranks who chug milk to show their superior lactose tolerance, but it’s harder to do so when those in positions of power—like senior White House policy adviser Stephen Miller or pseudointellectual Jordan Peterson—spout the same rhetoric. The consequences can be more insidious, too: consider how we discuss the health outcomes for different groups of people as biological inevitabilities, not the results of social inequality. Drawing on archives and interviews with dozens of prominent scientists, Saini shows how race science never really left us—and that in 2019, scientists are as obsessed as ever with the vanishingly small biological differences between us."]

Monsanto (Multinational Agricultural Biotechnology Corporation)

[Part of a series of responses to astroturf campaigns]
by Michael Benton

A colleague was driving home through Ohio recently and began to notice billboards with a similar theme about the centrality and importance of our nation's farmers.

In the print ad there is an absurd slogan stating vaguely that "America's farmers grow America" and a website is listed below the slogan: America's Farmers. At the top of the site we clearly see the Bayer Fund listed and the careful visitor to the website will notice that this all brought to you by the multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto  listed in small print at the bottom.

Now we could consider this an act of compassionate support by a multinational corporate giant for the embattled American farmer, unless, of course, you are skeptical because you are aware that Monsanto has long been suing and bankrupting independent farmers around the world. They are also long practiced at addressing any negative attention to corporate policies, practices and products. Remember they were originally a chemical company and were the producers of Agent Orange (with the Dow Chemical Company).

Recent documentaries like Food Inc., The Future of Food and The World According to Monsanto (and many more) provide extensive documentation of the abuses of multinational agricultural companies like Monsanto and how they hide from the public the destructive nature of their policies.

Monsanto is aware of a public movement criticizing the multinational corporation for its predatory and destructive practices. Monsanto is attempting to get you to think of the idyllic images of All-American small farming operations when you think of Monsanto's products/companies. They want to incite the long history of populist protectionist attitudes for the sanctity of the American farmer.

These Monsanto advertisements (because that is what they are), disguised as public service announcements (because that is what Monsanto wants you to think they are), are another example of Astroturfing. In this way they subtly are working to frame American thinking so that they associate notions of the small, independent, hard-working, honest American farmer when they think of the multinational corporation Monsanto. They most fervently hope to keep the American public from feeling they need to investigate the actual practices, policies and products of the multinational corporation Monsanto. Most of all they want to counter reports like these:

Cummins, Ronnie. "The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto." Counterpunch (January 28, 2011)

Franceschini, Amy and Christina Ulke. "San Francisco Victory Gardens." Journal of Aesthetics and Protest #6 (2008)

The Future of Food (USA: Deborah Koons, 2004)


Gillam, Carey. "How Monsanto Plants Stories, Suppresses Science & Silences Dissent to Sell a Cancer-Linked Chemical." Democracy Now (August 14, 2018) ["As Monsanto comes under scrutiny for allegedly hiding the dangers of its weed killer Roundup, we talk to a reporter who says the company attempted to censor and discredit her when she published stories on their product that contradicted their business interests. Carey Gillam is a veteran investigative journalist and author of “Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science.”"]

Gillam, Carey and Gary Ruskin. "Documents Reveal Monsanto Surveilled Journalists, Activists & Even Musician Neil Young." Democracy Now (August 9, 2019)

Kampmark, Binoy. "Monsanto, Scientific Deception and Cancer." Counterpunch (May 27, 2019)

"Keeping Tabs on Monsanto." You Grow Girl (January 21, 2011)

Klein, Naomi. "The Tyranny of Brands." The New Statesman (January 24, 2000)

LaVeck, James. "Compassion for Sale? Doublethink Meets Doublefeel as Happy Meat Comes of Age." Satya (September 2006)

Magdoff, Fred. "Food as a Commodity." Monthly Review 63.8 (January, 2012)

Mills, Frederick B. "Venezuela and the Battle Against Transgenic Seeds." Revolución Alimentaria (December 7, 2013)

Monsanto vs. Schmeiser ("Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan Canada whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready Canola. Monsanto's position was that it didn't matter whether Schmeiser knew or not that his canola field was contaminated with the Roundup Ready gene, or whether or not he took advantage of the technology (he didn't); that he must pay Monsanto their Technology Fee of $15/acre. The Supreme Court of Canada agreed with Schmeiser, ruling that he didn't have to pay Monsanto anything.")

"Newly Released Documents Shed Light on Years of Environmental Lies." PR Watch (July 31, 2019)

"ORGANIC FARMERS AND SEED SELLERS SUE MONSANTO TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM PATENTS ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEED: Preemptive Action Seeks Ruling That Would Prohibit Monsanto From Suing Organic Farmers and Seed Growers If Contaminated By Roundup Ready Seed." Public Patent Foundation (March 29, 2011)

Philpott, Tom. "Why Monsanto is paying farmers to spray its rivals' herbicides." Grist (October 20, 2010)

"The Poison Papers Expose Decades of Collusion between Industry and Regulators over Hazardous Pesticides and Other Chemicals." PR Watch (July 26, 2017)

Ross, Alexander Reid. "Monsanto: the Toxic Face of Globalization." Counterpunch (May 26, 2014)

Sholette, Gregory. "Disciplining The Avant-Garde, The United States versus The Critical Art Ensemble." NeMe (January 20, 2006)

Whitney, W.T. "Monsanto's Chemical War in Colombia." Counterpunch (May 29, 2015)

Wilce, Rebekkah. "Corporate Front Group, American Council on Science and Health, Smears List of Its Enemies as 'Deniers for Hire.'" PR Watch (January 24, 2019)

"Whole Foods Market Caves to Monsanto." PR Watch (January 28, 2011)

The World According to Monsanto (Canada/France/Germany: Marie-Monique Robin, 2008: 108 mins)

High Life (Germany/France/UK/Poland/USA: Claire Denis, 2018)

A mesmerizing but elusive study of primal emotions under the pretense of cerebral science-fiction, Claire Denis’ High Life is, unmistakably, a significant film. It’s the most expensive and, on the surface, commercially viable film ever made by the French auteur, who is often cited as one of the greatest living directors. But rather than embrace the conventions of her chosen genre here, she excises any need for the traditional film grammar or storytelling put forth in the guidebook for making a so-called successful film. It’s no more a pure science-fictioner than her 2001 effort Trouble Every Day was your run-of-the-mill cannibal movie. Denis somehow assembles a motion picture that has the production value and cast of a Hollywood feature, yet she does not betray her penchant for opaque filmmaking, preoccupations with the body, and entrenched symbolism contained within a nebulous framework. High Life is headlined by Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche, two of today’s best performers, who set out to explore black holes in deep space; however, the machinations of the plot may exist entirely as a pretext for whatever else is on Denis’ mind. It’s the sort of film that has the potential to be everything to everyone. And it’s no stretch to claim that it’s about life, death, everything in-between, and whatever awaits in infinity. Above all, it’s experiential viewing, where your response depends less on a clear breadcrumb trail left by Denis for you to follow, and more on something that taps into the subconscious. -- Brian Eggert, High Life (April 5, 2019) 

High Life (Germany/France/UK/Poland/USA: Claire Denis, 2018: 110 mins)

Azevedo, Luis. "The Sensual World of Claire Denis." Little White Lies (April 15, 2019) ["Filtering the cinematic landscape of this master filmmaker through the five senses."]

Balsom, Erika. "High Life: Claire Denis probes the outer reaches of human taboos." Sight and Sound (June 13, 2019)

Bittencourt, Ella. "High Life." Reverse Shot (July 1, 2019)

Bramesco, Charles. "High Life: Orgasmic brilliance in deepest space with Robert Pattinson." The Guardian (September 10, 2018)

Brody, Richard. "Claire Denis' Disappointing Journey Into Space." The New Yorker (April 10, 2019)

Dallas, Paul. "Elementary Force: Claire Denis on High Life." Filmmaker (March 14, 2019)

Denis, Claire. "High Life." The Treatment (April 26, 2019) ["Despite his young age, French director Claire Denis knew after meeting actor Robert Pattinson she'd found the lead for her film. "High Life" tells the eerie story of a man and his baby trapped among the last survivors of a deep space mission. For Denis, this film was best represented as an examination of humanity through the lens of youth. Today on The Treatment, Denis discusses her need to juxtapose life against death in her new film and explains the mark that growing up in French colonized West Africa made on her life and film making."]

Denis, Claire and Robert Pattison. "High Life." Film Comment Podcast (April 17, 2019) ["For our latest Film Comment Free Talk, Claire Denis and Robert Pattinson joined FC Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold to discuss their singular new High Life. The film, in theaters now, features a cast including Pattinson and Juliette Binoche as a group of death row inmates set adrift in space as part of an intergalactic science experiment. In his feature on the film, Nick Pinkerton writes that, “while High Life is the biggest and most expensive movie that Denis has ever made, it gives little indication of its scale having been bartered for at the sacrifice of freedom—or with the stymieing of the go-with-the-gut intuition that has produced a sui generis body of work, created with enormous craft but a total disdain for the rules of the ‘well-made’ film, elliptical in approach and full of jarring tonal shifts.” In this conversation, the filmmaker and her lead actor discuss working together to bring High Life to the screen, Denis’s remarkable eye for physicality, encountering the taboo, considerations of genre, and much more."]

---. "Talk High Life at NYFF 56." The Close-Up #224 (April 25, 2019) ["Claire Denis’s High Life was one of the most buzzed-about movies at last year’s New York Film Festival. Starring Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche, the film is set aboard a spacecraft piloted by death row prisoners on a decades-long suicide mission to enter and harness the power of a black hole."] 

Goldsmith, Leo. "Claire Denis' Early Career." Reverse Shot (June 26, 2009)

Gregory, Alice. "The Fearless Cinema of Claire Denis." The New Yorker (May 21, 2018)

Hughes, Darren. "High Life and the 'Idea of a Claire Denis Film.'" Notebook (April 16, 2019)

Kaufman, Sophie Monks. "High Life." Little White Lies #79 (March/April 2019) ["I’ve seen this film three times. Why see a film three times? The lure of intense mystery that beguiles you into trying to solve it again and again; the transference of an intoxication that makes you feel physically different afterwards. It sounds hyperbolic to describe art as having such power, but surely the reason we care about art is a belief that such power exists. High Life is too layered, too ambiguous, too potent to be about any one thing. My interpretation is unlikely to be the same as other interpretations. All I can say is that it’s a pleasure to have my reviewing faculties blown and my psyche splintered by this master filmmaker. The art we love works to expose our values, our tastes. My taste for Claire Denis leaves me feeling totally exposed, like a baby burbling to a benign authority while adult emotions twist in the darkness of the universe."]


Kilkenny, Katie. "Claire Denis on How Stephen Hawking Inspired High Life." The Hollywood Reporter (April 16, 2019)

Koresky, Michael and Jeff Reichert. "Binoche Auteur." Reverse Shot (July 1, 2019) ["From her breakthrough appearance in André Téchiné's 1985 Rendez-vous; to her emergence as an art-house darling in the late eighties and early nineties in such coolly "adult" films as The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Damage, and Blue; to her surprise Oscar win for The English Patient, which led to a period of middlebrow prestige dramas such as Chocolat; to her re-emergence as a formidable presence in daring world cinema from many of our greatest directors, including Assayas, Claire Denis, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Kiarostami, Binoche has helped create a through-line in otherwise disparate works for generations of cinephiles. She has continually brought to her roles intense dedication, as well as a methodical approach to neuroses that can toggle between effortless and effortful; some can find her showmanship off-putting, while some of us are captivated in a purely pleasurable way."]

Lazic, Manuela. "The Perfect and Perfectly Inexplicable Genius of Claire Denis." The Ringer (April 4, 2019)

Paveck, Hannah. "No Other Voice: Claire Denis' High Life." Another Gaze (May 27, 2019) 

Petkova, Savina. "High Life." Photogénie (October 19, 2018)

Pinkerton, Nick, Nicolas Rapold and Madeline Whittle. "High Life and Beyond." Film Comment Podcast (March 20, 2019) ["With a cast featuring Film Comment cover subject Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche as members of a group of death-row convicts trapped on an experimental, interstellar journey, High Life tells a story of intimacy, isolation, and taboo. Though it touches on themes of family and group identity that may be familiar to fans of Denis, the film’s setting and nods to science fiction make it a both a continuation and a complication of many of the ideas, feelings, and sensations that she’s explored before. For the occasion, Film Comment Editor-in-Chief Nicolas Rapold welcomed FC contributing writer Nick Pinkerton (author of the March-April issue’s High Life cover story) and Madeline Whittle of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, to discuss both High Life and one other Denis film chosen by each guest."]

Preziosi, Patrick. "“Why Don’t You Ever Take Me In Your Arms”: Claire Denis’ Cinema of Intimacy." Photogénie (November 16, 2018)

Walton, Saige. "Cinema and Sensation: French Film and the Art of Transgression by Martine Beugnet." Senses of Cinema #50 (April 2009) ["Those familiar with French director Claire Denis will be aware of the exquisite sensuality of her cinema. Whether coming together with another body in the world through the shared space and flesh of desire, or being driven apart from others by personal and sociopolitical circumstance, bodies – their gestures, bites and kisses, alternately languid or energetic movements, postures, habits and rituals – are the very “stuff” and substance of the film experience here. Given her privileging of the senses and her amenability to, as well as considered dialogue with, philosophers of the body, Denis is at the forefront of a number of contemporary directors (by no means exclusive to France, if we consider the work of figures such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, David Lynch or Wong Kar-Wai) who are generating much interest from sensually alert film scholars. Adrian Martin, for instance, identifies “the bedrock of Denis’ cinema [as] the flesh”, while Elena del Río comments that the “film body” of the cinema itself becomes a “sensation producing machine” in Denis, as if each film were “sending ripples of affect and thought across a diversity of its movements”, independent of the body of the viewer. The arresting materiality that infuses Denis forces us to look anew at sensory encounters with the cinema."]

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 17, 2019

Key Findings:
On average, entertainment headlines get over three times more coverage than environmental stories for nationally prominent news organizations.
Most nationally focused news platforms have very high crime-to-environment ratios despite the fact that many of the crime stories are local in nature and can be classified as not being nationally relevant.
Crime-to-Environment Ratios - Morning network news: 69-to-1
Cable news: 9-to-1
Online news: 6-to-1
Evening network news: 5-to-1

Fox News had the highest percentage of headline environmental stories 3 (1.57%) among cable and network news outlets, even beating out PBS (1.43%); with CNN having the lowest (0.36%).
Local newspapers prioritize environmental coverage nearly three times more on the average compared to nationally focused news organizations (with the Daily Herald [WA] leading at 7.3%).

The Huffington Post was the environmental coverage leader for nationally focused news organizations with 3% of headlines (nearly 3x the national average).

Anecdotal evidence shows that independent news organizations are also prioritizing environmental coverage much more than mainstream news organizations; with some outlets averaging 15x more than the national average.
Source: Project for Improved Environmental Coverage (January 2013)

Barboza, Craigh. "The Strength of Street Knowledge."  Film Comment (September-October 2019) ["Pioneering filmmaker John Singleton captured the humanity and horrors of the modern urban world"]

Hughes, Harriet Smith. "On Regarding Susan Sontag." Another Gaze (March 29, 2016)

Klein, Naomi. "What's In a Trump Straw?" The Intercept (September 15, 2019)

Koresky, Michael. "Lost and Found." Film Comment (September-October 2019) ["Pedro Almodóvar taps into both the anguish and the eroticism of memory in Pain and Glory, his most personal film yet"]

Thomas, Dana. "Fashion Kills." The American Scholar (September 6, 2019) ["How our hunger for more clothes is killing the environment and exploiting workers."]











“People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does.”
― Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (Vintage Books, 1965)

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 15, 2019

Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death] by Simeon Wade
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Read this on a lazy, warm (but not oppressively hot), Sunday; drifting in and out of the narrative, searching out long forgotten philosophers/books mentioned, remembering my own trips in remote Western desert wonderlands, nostalgic for when I was so electrified when dining/partying with visiting intellectuals/artists at my universities and recognizing the stifling culture of a repressive academic environment (in this case, Claremont Graduate School, I had others in mind) that is unable to completely contain the wild flowering of jouissance amongst those fervently committed to its 'ecstative cultivation' (my conception: ecstative is imaginative discourse that does not stop and builds to an explosive point of multiple moments of discovery/wonder).

As you can see in some of the negative/disappointed comments on this book too many approach this slim volume as if it may be the great lost Foucauldian codex that holds great secrets of the life and transformation of the long-dead Foucault, an impulse he dismisses as pointless throughout this portrayal of him on this trip (and verified in many interviews). Those making the comments kind of remind me of the stifled/arrogant academics that assault Foucault with banal questions after his productive discussion with the students near the end. Instead, the book is about Foucault accepting an invitation to hang out with some scholars (which just happens to include an acid trip in the desert) and having a series of open discussions about whatever was on their minds (as we do in those informal settings). It is not a guidebook to Foucault's thinking, instead it is a glimpse into/of Foucault as experienced/remembered by a young scholar.

View all my reviews

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Brockell, Gillian, et al. "Sleepwalking." Sleepwalkers (May 2, 2019) ["Welcome to the A.I. revolution that is already transforming our lives, for good and evil. But what exactly are we sleepwalking into? We start by investigating the connections between online dating, terrorism, and screen addiction."]

Christopher Leonard: Business Reporter/Food Production/Koch Industries Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Hertz, Barry. "An oral history of cléo: from a ‘semi-formed’ e-mail to a landmark Canadian journal of film and feminism to a victim of Ontario arts funding cuts." The Globe and Mail (August 28, 2019)


What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire?_Trailer from KimStim on Vimeo.


Minervini, Roberto. "Why Making Documentaries is an Act of Resistance." Talkhouse (August 27, 2019) ["What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? director Roberto Minervini on the profound importance of nonfiction filmmaking, now more than ever."]





Pinkerton, Nick. "Fear of Fear." Artforum (August 16, 2019) ["Nick Pinkerton on Roberto Minervini’s What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (2018)."]

Walvin, Jim. "The Remembrance of Slavery in Material Culture." Slavery and Its Legacies (March 27, 2017) ["In this episode James Walvin, Professor of History Emeritus at the University of York, discusses how traces of slavery are often overlooked in the material culture we value, from porcelain sugar bowls to mahogany tables."]

Stay Woke: A People's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter from Rising Up With Sonali on Vimeo.

Christopher Leonard: Journalist/Business Reporter/Food Production/Koch Industries

Burrough, Bryan. "The Truth about Koch Industries." The New York Times (August 15, 2019)

Kelly, Sharon. "Christopher Leonard's New Book Puts an Ever-Expanding 'Kochland' on the Map." Desmog (August 16, 2019)

Leonard, Christopher. "An inside look at how Koch Industries does business." The Washington Post (July 1, 2017)

---. "Charles in Charge." Harper's (August 2019)

---. "The Chicken Competition." Guernica (October 1, 2014) ["How poultry companies concentrate wealth and pit farmers against each other in a secretive tournament pay system."]

---. "How an Oil Theft Investigation Laid the Groundwork for the Koch Playbook." Politico (July 22, 2019) ["In the late 1980s, Charles Koch faced a federal probe, rallied all of his resources to fight it off and came away with lessons that would guide the Kochs for decades."]

---. "Is the Chicken Industry Rigged?" Bloomberg BusinessWeek (February 15, 2017)

---. "'Kochland': : How David Koch Helped Build an Empire to Shape U.S. Politics & Thwart Climate Action." Democracy Now (August 27, 2019) ["Billionaire conservative donor David Koch died Friday at the age of 79 from prostate cancer. David Koch — who was worth some $42 billion — and his brother Charles poured massive amounts of money into funding climate change denial through conservative think tanks and politicians. The Koch brothers founded the political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity in 2004, which is credited with turning the “tea party” into a full-fledged political movement. They also backed “right-to-work” efforts, which aim to weaken labor rights and quash union membership. The brothers made their fortune running Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held company in the United States. We speak with the business journalist Christopher Leonard, who just last week published a major new book examining the business dealings of the Koch brothers. It’s titled “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America.”" Part Two: "Christopher Leonard on the Secret History of Koch Industries & U.S. Corporate Power."]

---. Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America. Simon & Schuster, 2019.

---. "The Meat Racket." Radio West (March 7, 2014) ["Just a handful of companies raise nearly all the meat consumed in America, and among them, Tyson Foods is king. According to the journalist Christopher Leonard, Tyson wrote the blueprint for modern meat production. He says there’s no better way to understand how our food is produced than to know how the company works. In a new book, Leonard explores how Tyson mastered the economics of factory farming to rise to the top, and how it transformed rural America and the middle class economy in the process."]

---. The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business. Simon & Schuster, 2014.

---. "Rising Profits, Rising Injuries: The Safety Crisis at Koch Industries’ Georgia-Pacific." Pro Publica (August 8, 2019)

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 13, 2019

Ours is a discursive history that shows how its effects were materialized and institutionalized, how they were productive of new subjectivities and bodies. By doing this work, we are seeking to contribute to, but also to reframe, the insightful political and cultural histories of the normal on which it builds, such as Lennard Davis's Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body, which shows how the medical treatment of deaf subjects throughout the twentieth century constitutes the enforcement of normative assumptions about hearing, and Rosemarie Garland-Thompson's Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature, which introduced and denaturalized the concept of a "normate" body. Cultural historians and scholars of sexuality such as Elizabeth Reiss, Dean Spade, and Alice Domurat Dreger have similarly demonstrated how concepts of the normal have informed the medical and legal treatment of intersex, trans, and conjoined subjects. As Julian Carter observes in the Heart of Whiteness: Normal Sexuality and Race in America, 1880 - 1940, the normal derives its disciplinary force from the way it obscures its political partiality behind an appearance of scientific impartiality. In the late nineteenth century, Carter shows, medical and scientific writing began to adopt the word "normal" as a way to describe "whiteness" and "heterosexuality" in apparently neutral terms, scrubbed free of their political history of violence. Although the normal is veiled by its "appearance of blank emptiness and innocence," Carter notes quite accurately, closer analysis reveals that it "has a long history as a covertly political phenomenon." What this history makes clear, Carter shows, is the extent to which "from its inception, modern 'normality' involved both a positivistic claim about the pure neutrality of facts, and a distinctly eugenic element of judgement about which human bodies and behaviors were best." The norm is a value disguised as a fact, Carter argues - although, as Mary Poovey has shown, the fact itself cannot be understood as neutral or impartial but it is rather inextricable from the political or cultural context in which it came to be recognized as a "fact." The normal, used in its contemporary senses, carries great cultural force. Jeannette Winterson's memoir Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? exemplifies this common understand of the normal as a system of dreary conventionality, showing how the normal functions as a hidden system of compulsory conformity. Despite all this, the normal retains it s privileged cultural position and its discursive poise. Michael Warner has famously contended that normal is what most people aspire to be: "Nearly everyone, it seems, wants to be normal," he writes with brio, "and who can blame them, if the alternative is being abnormal, or deviant, or not being one of the rest of us? Put in those terms, there doesn't seem to be a choice at all. Especially not in America, where normal probably outranks all other social aspirations." (5-6) Cryle, Peter and Elizabeth Stephens. Normality: A Genealogy. The University of Chicago Press, 2017. 

Jones, Sarah. "David Koch's Monstrous Legacy." The Intelligencer (August 23, 2019)




O'Malley, Sheila. "Present Tense: Matthias Schoenaerts." Film Comment (September 12, 2019)

"Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0." Black Perspectives (September 8, 2018)

Sutton, Matthew, et al. "Apocalypse Now." Throughline (June 13, 2019) ["Evangelicals have played an important role in modern day American politics - from supporting President Trump to helping elect Jimmy Carter back in 1976. How and when did this religious group become so intertwined with today's political issues? In this episode, what it means to be an evangelical today and how it has changed over time."]




Tafoya, Scout. "3 From Hell." Roger Ebert (September 13, 2019)

"Welfare Reform Syllabus." Black Perspectives (August 24, 2016)

Dialogic Cinephilia - September 12, 2019

Gilbertson, Annie."Policing the Police." On the Media (April 2, 2019) ["California recently passed a law that eliminates some of the barriers to accessing records on egregious police misconduct and deadly use of force. With the floodgates open, journalists, like KPCC investigative reporter Annie Gilbertson, are elated and terrified. Just one police violation can come with hundreds of associated documents for journalists to comb through. So, instead of fighting tooth and nail for the scoop, over 30 media organizations across the state are teaming up to share resources, bodies and insight as they begin the arduous task of combing through the newly-available records. The coalition is called the California Reporting Project. Bob Garfield talked with Gilbertson about what the project is uncovering."]

"Identity Unmasked." Intelligence Report #167 (Summer 2019) ["Using fake names and fictional avatars, wannabe killers and hatemongers exude courage and commitment to their hateful causes. Until the world learns their real names. Until someone exposes their plans. In the anonymity provided by chat rooms, angry, prejudiced hate-filled people express lethal intentions and develop plots to harm or marginalize people because of their faith, ethnicity or sexual orientation. In this issue of the Intelligence Report, we unmask people who are brave in the dark and expose the impact of fighting hate with light."]

Pontypool (Canada: Bruce McDonald, 2008) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Schyler, Krista. "Butterflies, Bison and the Border Wall." She Explores (2019)
["Conservation photographer Krista Schlyer describes the almost 2,000-mile border between the US and Mexico as a vibrant landscape teeming with life. Raising awareness for its biodiversity has become an integral part of her life’s work and is the focus of a new documentary film she directed, Ay Mariposa, which came out in May. We hear a lot about the border wall in the news, but we don’t often talk about the wildlife and landscape that its construction impacts.
Note: We want to emphasize that while there’s a lot of talk about flora and fauna in this episode, it’s not to discount the very human elements of the US/Mexico border – it’s simply to highlight what exists alongside it."]

Serwer, Adam. "Democracy for Me -- But Not for Thee." On the Media (August 9, 2019) ["As revealed last week by presidential historian Tim Naftali, that snippet had for years been withheld by the National Archives — apparently to protect Reagan’s privacy, who presumably was unaware the conversation was being recorded. To Adam Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic, [Ronald] Reagan’s remark was not only racist and condescending, but emblematic of a certain just-between-you-and-me white supremacism that persists to this day at the highest levels of government and continues to contaminate American democracy. In this segment, Bob and Adam discuss the history of excluding black and brown Americans from our system of self-governance, from the founding to the Reconstruction to the present."]

Thunberg, Greta. "'We Are Striking to Disrupt the System': An Hour with 16-Year-Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg." Democracy Now (September 11, 2019) ["In her first extended broadcast interview in the United States, we spend the hour with Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who has inspired millions across the globe. Last year she launched a school strike for the climate, skipping school every Friday to stand in front of the Swedish parliament, demanding action to prevent catastrophic climate change. Her protest spread, quickly going global. Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren around the globe have participated in their own local school strikes for the climate. Since her strike began in 2018, Greta has become a leading figure in the climate justice movement. She has joined protests across Europe. She has addressed world leaders at the U.N. climate talks in Poland and the European Union Parliament. She has even met the pope. And now she is in New York to join a global climate strike on September 20 and address the U.N. Climate Action Summit on September 23. Greta has refused to fly for years because of emissions, so she arrived here after a two-week transatlantic voyage aboard a zero-emissions racing yacht. She is also planning to attend the U.N. climate summit in Santiago, Chile, in December."]