Punk and conveniences
I had to take a slightly longer gap between newsletters this time. Alongside my usual commitments I've been working toward the conclusion of a project. I can't say anything about it yet, but hopefully there will be something soon that I can share. So, more news on that to follow in the summer.
Punk Soc in paperback…
On the publishing front, my book Punk Sociology is now out in paperback. It was originally published in early 2014. The paperback marks five years since the publication of the hardback and ebook. The book attempts to use a punk ethos to invigorate the sociological imagination. It's really about how we can draw inspiration from different places to help us to understand, create and communicate ideas about the social world.
Looking back I'm reminded of the fun I had writing it. I tried to keep it as short and punchy as possible, so that it might feel a bit like the music.
Uber price…
In the last letter I mentioned the Uber flotation and valuation. I ended up writing a piece about it for The Social Review. The article looks at how tech companies imagine the future to generate value in the present. I argue that these future visions are loaded with values and ideals that we might want to contest. In short, the future is too important to be left to the tech industry to dictate.
Where to go…
This piece on toilets by Owen Hatherley in the London Review of Books is excellent. Owen discusses his experiences with Crohn's disease and then links this to the closure of toilets and the transformation of the relations between the public and the private. It’s a great piece. The same issue of the LRB also has a review of the recent collection of Mark Fisher's writing.
Platforming…
There is a special issue of Discover Society on ‘The Platform University’. It includes a dozen or so articles on how tech platforms are changing learning, teaching, knowledge and the organisation of universities. I'd especially suggest looking at the articles by Ben Williamson and Mark Carrigan that frame a number of these issues.
Whose an expert?
Will Davies, who always has an interesting and fresh perspective on the state of things, continues his series of articles and podcasts on the status of experts and expertise. In this detailed podcast he discusses some of the ideas from his book Nervous States and reflects on the undermining of expert knowledge.
More surveillance capitalism…
There is a detailed review of Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Katie Fitzpatrick in The Nation.
What did you call me?
Lots of metaphors and historical comparators have been used to describe data - being the new oil is one of the most common. In this article ‘Data is the New What?’ Luke Stark and Anna Lauren Hoffmann explore some of the ways that data are approached in terms of them being a new stage in social change. They focus on examining some of the popular metaphors used to describe data.
Fish heads and tales…
The excellent Politics Theory Other podcast has an interview with Owen Hatherley about the music of Scott Walker.
On the future…
Paul Mason’s new book Clear Bright Future was published last week. I’m not sure exactly what the book covers but it seems to pick up some of the threads concerning technologies and the future that he began to develop in his previous book Postcapitalism, which was published in 2015 (I wrote this piece about Mason's earlier book for OpenDemocracyUK).
Super ethics…
Mark D. White writes some fantastic books. His new book Batman and Ethics has just been published by Wiley.
Dave Beer