I was recently interviewed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung about ratings and reviews on Airbnb. Why are ratings so consistently high and positive on the platform? Was quite proud of myself as well that I managed to do the whole interview in German. www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/a...

#COLUMN Moeten we ons verwachten aan een toekomst waar elke universiteit of andere instelling in een handomdraai gehackt kan worden? www.sampol.be/2026/05/de-t...

Wrote a piece for @sampolmaandblad.bsky.social about the recent Canvas hack and what we Europeans should learn from it. With more hacking capabilities on the horizon (Claude Mythos), we should invest in digital sovereignty and technodiversity to avoid US-dominated technological monoculture.

“Twenty years ago, UX researchers were already noting that in online reading, large sections of a text are skipped or scanned in accordance with digital scrolling habits. The eye, for example, tends to follow an F-shaped pattern across the screen” yalereview.org/article/shei...

Written a piece for @greeneujournal.bsky.social about “grey power”: what the growing political power of the elderly in the context of an ageing population means (link below). The grey vote matters, but it doesn't mean we should embrace inter-generational conflict as the future of politics🧵

The future starts with bouncy castle communism. www.laborpolitics.com/p/bouncy-cas...

Was at my favorite bookshop in Leuven for the first time in many years. Treated myself to two new books.

That feeling when summer approaches and you’re thinking about nice vacation readings, … but they’re more cool books coming out than you could possibly carry in a suitcase.

Anyone who believes French theory or philosophy can only be dry and pretentious, clearly hasn’t read Preciado’s Testojunkie. Philosophy can also be funny and pretentious!

I’m always surprised by how little heat stress is studied in critical theory given how it is one of the major signs of climate change.

Was at my favorite bookshop in Leuven for the first time in many years. Treated myself to two new books.

Marx reading Hegel (c. 1873, colorised)

Will be talking tomorrow about political theology and the body in Leuven with Elettra Stimilli. Elettra’s paper is really cool, so I hope to live up to it! hiw.kuleuven.be/nl/nieuws-ag...

In between teaching, making some notes for a book review of Roberto Esposito’s The Faces of the Adversary. In my view, Esposito ends up closer to Camus than he has ever done before.

Writing notes for a book review of Esposito’s Faces of the Adversary. Expected a book on political conflict and social struggle, but instead it’s about the metaphysical struggle with a world unfit for human flourishing. The closest resemblance is one of my favorite books … Albert Camus’ The Rebel.

With the final lectures of the semester in sight, I’m having a very “neoliberalism”-heavy day. Preparing classes on the history of entrepreneurship, Foucault on governmentality, social exclusion under neoliberalism, and Friedman’s defense of the primacy of shareholder value.

I hear critical positions towards so-called «artificial intelligence» nowadays framed more and more as «rejectionism», and this is especially formulated as a critique of the left. The argument often goes something like this: Rather than seeing the potentials of AI, the left merely rejects it 1/

Huey Newton on reactionary intercommunalism: statesa d national governments become increasingly powerless, while a handful of American companies decide the fate of the world with their investment portfolios.

Good to know for all those universities affected by the Canvas hack recently. Canvas is part of KKR, a company heavily involved in the Israeli military. universonline.nl/nieuws/2026/...

Shows how the global energy crisis is not felt first in the most energy-consuming countries, but in the Global South areas unable to forcibly capture access to fuel. Neo-imperialism as the capacity to postpone and displace the effects of global crisis.

Encounter with my spirit animal.

Strawb asmr

Teaching about Taylorism and disciplinary power in the workplace in a tutorial I give three times in a row on the same day. There is a certain kind of ironic injustice in that.

Diversity in corporate PR as a site of performativity struggles: contrary to economists' assumptions that diversity promotion can be *inherently* linked to business performance, social science shows that diversity is only valued if stakeholders fight for it. lpeproject.org/blog/diversi...

2020s as decade of reputational self-destruction for the institutions of the liberal world order. US lost global hegemony, FIFA turned into a corrupt price gouger, Eurovision became genocide supporter, and now Cambridge University planning collabs with dictators. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Ongewapende mannen, vrouwen, kinderen en zelfs ezels zijn kennelijk terroristen.

Was a great talk, super relevant also for thinking about university governance and democracy.

Writing notes for a book review of Esposito’s Faces of the Adversary. Expected a book on political conflict and social struggle, but instead it’s about the metaphysical struggle with a world unfit for human flourishing. The closest resemblance is one of my favorite books … Albert Camus’ The Rebel.

Making the internet unusable one app at a time.

Had much fun at this workshop; and, as usual, listening to Tim is a test of the will, not to immediately abandon one own projects and start working on whatever new fascinating topic Tim came up with

Review of Cyberboss by @benwray1989.bsky.social . eomail5.com/web-version?...

Had a great time in Leuven yesterday talking about Robert Michels, the iron law of oligarchy, worker cooperatives, and agonistic workplace democracy. We had a great workshop overall talking about technocracy with a.o. @masssimons.bsky.social and @posteurope.bsky.social .

Can Angela Davis and Huey Newton be regarded as part of the Frankfurt School? … I would say yes.

Review of Cyberboss by @benwray1989.bsky.social . eomail5.com/web-version?...

Making the internet unusable one app at a time.

Bourdieu's graphs are always very French and very 70s/80s, but I do remember I would be a great fit with secondary school teachers. And from personal experience, I can say that this is ... 100% correct :D

Diversity in corporate PR as a site of performativity struggles: contrary to economists' assumptions that diversity promotion can be *inherently* linked to business performance, social science shows that diversity is only valued if stakeholders fight for it. lpeproject.org/blog/diversi...

Found an online translation of Laura Conti’s 1977 classic “What is Ecology? Capital, Labour, and the Environment”. A Marxist political ecology on the labour process and, more specifically, the pollution workers suffer during their work and in the communities surrounding the factory.

London book buyers can browse safely under the watchful eye of Pier Paolo Pasolini,

Reading Roberto Esposito’s The Faces of the Adversary for a book review. I was expecting a book on social conflict and political theology, but actually it reads more like a reflection on personal suffering in a world unresponsive to human meaning. I’ll keep you posted!

My colleague Cansu Safak collaborated with the TUC on this important new report. Dynamic Pay is one of the most sinister developments in the labour market in decades and needs to be banned urgently. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

This is meant as a joke, but also it’s not. The more famous and prestigious some academics get, the more they get convinced of their own genius with no one around to contradict them.

“I like my AI, therefore all AI’s have consciousness” must be one of the most old white man tropes Dawkins has ever done.

Every year more people are killed at work than in wars. Most don't die of mystery ailments, or in tragic "accidents". They die because an employer decided their safety just wasn't that important a priority. On International Workers Memorial Day, we commemorate those workers

Multiple places in the Netherlands currently on fire because of … military exercises. Who needs war if soldiers are so incompetent to set their own country on fire? One would, by the way, assume that newspapers put that in the title of their reporting. But no. nos.nl/artikel/2612...

London book buyers can browse safely under the watchful eye of Pier Paolo Pasolini,

Traveling back to the Netherlands with a book I bought at this wonderful queer bookshop in Leeds. Not only is it run by some awesome people, but they also allow you to deface Harry Potter books 😛

Found an online translation of Laura Conti’s 1977 classic “What is Ecology? Capital, Labour, and the Environment”. A Marxist political ecology on the labour process and, more specifically, the pollution workers suffer during their work and in the communities surrounding the factory.

Europe is in a particularly bad position when it comes to climate change, which makes it even more infuriating to see how Europeans themselves are so enthusiastic to burn the planet for some AI-driven emails and being stuck in traffic with their cars all day.