Arıkan, Yağız. "Get Out." Film Critique (2018) ["When we see a horror film, we usually have a faint idea on the style or the content. We expect to be scared or surprised by a creepy clown, a monster or a killer. In the horror film "Get Out" by Jordan Peele, we do get surprised, not by one of the mentioned above but with an unexpected message on racism, and on our society. In this video, I explain how this message is portrayed, and if he really stays true to the roots of the horror genre."]
Blackard, Cat, et al. "The Lighthouse (2019)." Horror Queers (August 24, 2022) ["We know yer fond of our lobster because we're talking about Robert Eggers' 2019 treatise on homoeroticism and toxic masculinity, 'The Lighthouse.' Joining us to discuss yet another wet'n'wild island movie is The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program's Cat Blackard. We discuss Eggers' trademark dedication to technical precision, shooting conditions in Nova Scotia, Androeroticism, defending Robert Pattison (and his accent), 'The Lighthouse' as rom com (with farts) and Cat’s own epic monologue around the 43:30 minute mark."]
Brown, Alfie. "Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships (Pluto Press, 2022)." New Books in Science, Technology, and Society (August 24, 2022) ["We are in the middle of a 'desirevolution' - a fundamental and political transformation of the way we desire as human beings. Perhaps as always, new technologies - with their associated and inherited political biases - are organising and mapping the future. What we don’t seem to notice is that the primary way in which our lives are being transformed is through the manipulation and control of desire itself. Our very impulses, drives and urges are 'gamified' to suit particular economic and political agendas, changing the way we relate to everything from lovers and friends to food and politicians. Digital technologies are transforming the subject at the deepest level of desire – re-mapping its libidinal economy - in ways never before imagined possible. From sexbots to smart condoms, fitbits to VR simulators and AI to dating algorithms, the 'love industries' are at the heart of the future smart city and the social fabric of everyday life. Alfie Bown's Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships (Pluto Press, 2022) considers these emergent technologies and what they mean for the future of love, desire, work and capitalism."]
Chappell, Paul K. Soldiers of Peace: How to Wield the Weapon of Nonviolence with Maximum Force. Easton Studio Press, 2017. ["Soldiers of Peace, by West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran Paul K. Chappell, is the sixth book in his seven-book Road to Peace series. The titles in this important series can be read in any order. All are about waging peace, ending war, the art of living, and what it means to be human. In a world where so many “solutions” deal with surface symptoms rather than the root causes of our problems, Chappell's books provide real guidance we can follow to change ourselves and change the world for the better. In Soldiers of Peace, Paul discusses how to wield the weapon of nonviolence with maximum force so that we can understand, confront, and heal our personal and societal wounds. To create realistic peace we must be as well trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war. Chappell discusses how our misunderstanding of peace and violence originate from our misunderstanding about reality and the human condition itself. This book offers a new paradigm in human understanding by dispelling popular myths and revealing timeless truths about the reality of struggle, rage, trauma, empathy, the limitations of violence, the power of nonviolence, and the skills needed to create lasting peace. Through the educational initiative of peace literacy and the metaphor of the constellation of peace, Soldiers of Peace offers a practical framework so that all of us can apply this new paradigm to our daily lives, and therefore create realistic peace within our friendships, families, workplaces, communities, nations, and the entire world. In a time of increased strife and violence in our society, this book is more critically needed than ever."]
Cockburn, Jay, et al. "Gamify Everything: Turning Work Into Play." Darts and Letters (August 24, 2022) ["Setting goals for the new year? Learning a language? Going for a run? Delivering food? Picking packages off a warehouse shelf for delivery? There’s a game for that. Or, at least, a gamified system designed to nudge you in a series of pre-programmed directions in the service of the state, techno-capitalist overlords, or any number of other groups and entities that chart the course of our hyper-connected, cutting-edge, dystopian 21st century lives. On this episode of Darts and Letters, guest host Jay Cockburn and our guests take us through the gamification of…everything."]
Jan, Ammar Ali. "The Floods Devastating Pakistan Are More Than a Natural Disaster."Jacobin (September 3, 2022) ["A decade since the last mega-floods that hit Pakistan in 2010, the country is once again reeling from devastation on an unimaginable scale. Monsoon rains and melting glaciers have combined to displace at least 35 million people from their homes while over a thousand people are already reported dead. It is estimated that Pakistan is losing at least $10 billion due to the widespread destruction caused by the floods. Moreover, agriculture and livestock has been destroyed on a massive scale, triggering fears of severe food shortages in the coming months."]
Kafalier, Utku. "Call Me By Your Name." FilmCritique #1 (ND) ["When one finishes watching Call Me by Your Name (Guadagnino, 2017), the image that is stuck with them is the main character Elio, crying in front of a fireplace as the credits roll and Sufjan Steven's song plays out. This is not surprising since it is the last image of the movie and it is stuck there for a long time. Naturally we are likely to remember it the most. What is interesting is why this is chosen as the image that the movie wanted to leave us with in this particular way. There may be several implications for this choice and in this essay I will go through it from the realist movie perspective by dissecting the nature of the long take and its placement within the movie. After that, I will talk about the scene with its archetypal implications with mythic theories and will try to understand why the movie specifically wanted this image to be representative of the film."]
Mialon, Melissa. "Big Food & Co. (Thierry Soucar Editions, 2021)." New Books in Food (August 26, 2022) ["In the 1960s and 1970s, the exposure of Big Tobacco’s aggressive lobbying and internal efforts to obscure science showcasing the harmful effects of smoking changed U.S. public opinion of the industry and of product safety protocols, both of which had largely obscured these harms from public view for decades. Public awareness grew, triggering regulation on disclosure related to political influencing strategies, marketing tactics, and transparency regarding the devastating toll of tobacco products on many communities, including and especially children. As similar approaches to assessing the public health impacts of Big Oil and Big Pharma, among other industries, have gained traction in recent decades, Dr. Mélissa Mialon’s new book, Big Food & Co (Thierry Souccar Editions, 2021), adds the amalgamation of multinationals and transnational supply chains that make up Big Food, to that list. Rising health inequities across race, class, and geography are subtle, yet central themes throughout Dr. Mialon’s meticulous accounting of a complex puzzle in which the marketing and distribution strategies of soft drink companies and ultra-processed food manufacturers are quietly but steadily ushering in a new globalized era of related public health crises – measured by increasing rates of of diabetes, cancers, and heart disease, etc– a crisis that has long been felt in the United States. Whether branding t-shirts and games at summer camps in France for underprivileged children or blanketing entire streets in Mauritius with the unmistakable bright red and white flag of Coca-Cola, Dr. Mialon describes a taxonomy of commercial determinants of health common to nearly every example – whether multinational food companies’ policy advocacy in Colombia, public-private partnerships in Brazil, or culturally responsive branding for holidays in Southern Africa. Between academic research and investigative journalism, the survey of trends in Big Food’s operation, marketing, and regulatory capture, offered throughout the book are additionally grounds for laying out a policy roadmap with public health indicators at the center of a wide range of potential reforms including campaign finance and heightened disclosure protocols for public-private partnerships to mitigating conflicts of interest in scientific studies related to food, agriculture, and health, among many others. Dr. Mélissa Mialon is Research Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin, in Ireland. She is a food engineer with a PhD in nutrition and co-coordinates the « Governance, Ethics and Conflicts of Interest in Public Health » (GECI-PH) network, based out of the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. Her research focuses on commercial determinants of health, and particularly on the practices used by corporations to influence public health policy, research and practice."]
Scott, Brett. "Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets (Harper Business, 2022)." New Books in Economics (August 24, 2022) ["In Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets (Harper Business, 2022), Brett Scott tells an urgent and revelatory story about how the fusion of Big Finance and Big Tech requires “cloudmoney”—digital money underpinned by the banking sector—to replace physical cash. He dives beneath the surface of the global financial system to uncover a long-established lobbying infrastructure: an alliance of partners waging a covert war on cash. He explains the technical, political, and cultural differences between our various forms of money and shows how the cash system has been under attack for decades, as banking and tech companies promote a cashless society under the banner of progress. Cloudmoney takes us to the front lines of a war for our wallets that is also about our freedom, from marketing strategies against cash to the weaponization of COVID-19 to push fintech platforms, and from there to the rise of the cryptocurrency rebels and fringe groups pushing back. It asks the most pressing questions: Who benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind? Is the end of cash the end of true privacy? And is our cloudmoney future closer than we think it is?"]
Sonnenberg, Rhonda. "Unbanning History: Georgia teen organizers fight back against school censorship." Southern Poverty Law Center (September 2, 2022)
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