Culture and the Death of God: Terry Eagleton

First posted February 28, 2014 In Culture and the Death of God he deploys all his formidable skills to explain how the high hopes of many generations of secular materialists collapsed along with the twin towers. Culture and the Death of God – Terry Eagletonreviewed by Jonathan Rée Atheism is in trouble, according to Terry Eagleton. Throughout the 20th century it… Read More Culture and the Death of God: Terry Eagleton

EXIT GOD, ENTER MADNESS: Nadeem Paracha on religious extremism in Pakistan (2012)

First posted July 06, 2012 As one distraught friend of mine once prayed: ‘May Allah save Islam from Pakistan.’ The self-claimed ‘bastion of Islam’ has gradually mutated into becoming a bastion of deluded messiahs and mindless, violent ranting machines to whom anything, from incoherent malangs to the reopening of Nato supply routes, are conspiracies against Islam. On… Read More EXIT GOD, ENTER MADNESS: Nadeem Paracha on religious extremism in Pakistan (2012)

Paper trails

Husserl’s well-tended archive has given him a rich afterlife, while Nietzsche’s was distorted by his axe-grinding sister Peter Salmon I have a terrible fear that I shall one day be pronounced holy: from Ecce Homo; by Friedrich Nietzsche On the morning of 24 September 1938, a Franciscan priest by the name of Herman Van Breda… Read More Paper trails

Grains of Life: How Chotanagpur’s Adivasis Are Reviving Native Varieties of Rice

Farmers and local NGOs say the indigenous rice varieties that are fast becoming extinct have unique nutrition, climate-resilience to ensure food security in increasingly unpredictable weather. Anumeha Yadav Sundargarh (Odisha), Latehar (Jharkhand): Deep inside the lush sal forest in Odisha’s Sundargarh, Albisia Lakda, an Adivasi farmer living in Subdega block had divided the rice crop on… Read More Grains of Life: How Chotanagpur’s Adivasis Are Reviving Native Varieties of Rice

Elizabeth Humphrys: Anti-politics and the illusions of neoliberalism

First posted March 10, 2015 The latest issue of Oxford Left Review has a number of engaging articles on the nature and consequences of neoliberalism. Neil Davidson from the University of Glasgow examines the changing social base of neoliberalism, where he explores the shift from vanguard to ‘social’ neoliberalism and the relationship of the latter to the middle… Read More Elizabeth Humphrys: Anti-politics and the illusions of neoliberalism

MONEY TO BURN: Over 300 banks and investors back 6 of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn

First posted December 15, 2019 Barclays, HSBC and Santander among names behind companies implicated in rainforest destruction Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley also among key financiers. The burning of the Brazilian Amazon this summer illustrated in the most graphic way possible humanity’s war on the planet. But such scenes play out… Read More MONEY TO BURN: Over 300 banks and investors back 6 of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn

Greed, cruelty, consumption: the world is changed yet its worst persists / ‘If we free up space in cities, we can plant trees’

By Omar Sakr First posted August 23, 2020 I have no great hope we will use this chance to transform for the better, but this is an unconvincing darkness, and we do not have to stay in it… The days have become months, and the world has changed far beyond the scope of this essay, with… Read More Greed, cruelty, consumption: the world is changed yet its worst persists / ‘If we free up space in cities, we can plant trees’

The Aporias of Marxism / Archaism and Modernity. By Enzo Traverso

First posted September 14, 2017 Enzo Traverso is an Italian historian of the Holocaust and totalitarianism The Aporias of Marxism: In a letter to Walter Benjamin, dated 13 April 1933, Gershom Scholem described the rise of Nazi Germany as ‘a catastrophe of world‑historical proportions’ which permitted him for the first time ‘to comprehend deeply’ the expulsion… Read More The Aporias of Marxism / Archaism and Modernity. By Enzo Traverso

Ralph Dumain: Paranoia Papers Bibliography. The (Un)Natural History of Social Paranoia

First posted October 19, 2020 Fascism has awakened a sleeping world to the realities of the irrational, mystical character structure of the people of the world: Wilhelm Reich… .. the concept of ideology makes sense only in relation to the truth or untruth of what it refers to. There can be no talk of socially necessary delusions… Read More Ralph Dumain: Paranoia Papers Bibliography. The (Un)Natural History of Social Paranoia