Very excited for another term of the Utopia Reading Group! Open to all Terrans living in and around Oxford interested in Ursula Le Guin's political thought and fiction

jacobin.com/2025/09/utop... The brilliant Polina Whitehouse writing in defence of utopia: "... the Right is already doing a good job of painting pictures of alternatives; the Left needs to compete."

For all you horrors who have been waiting, “Here Where We Live is Our Country” has a pub date! April 7, 2026 Preorder here bookshop.org/p/books/here... Preorders mean everything, so get one for all your friends. Haters, get some and have a book burning

it would be nice if the big annual conferences didn't fall on pesach — just a thought

We are accepting applications for the part-time (2-year) role as Network Coordinator until August 10. More info here: shorturl.at/NI9lu Looking forward to hearing from you!

Teaching utopia? I’ve started a public Zotero group for sharing syllabi, reading lists, & teaching materials on utopia: www.zotero.org/groups/60695.... Whether you’ve taught More or Morris, Bloch or Bogdanov, Le Guin or Lewinsky—your contributions are welcome! #utopia #teachingresources

Marxist theory has done wonders for my complexion

A very good review of a very bad book

We’re launching a website of revolutionary speculative fiction, art and poetry set in the world of Everything for Everyone! We’re calling it Project 2052. To support author honoraria, subscribe as a sustainer, make a one-time donation, or pitch a story here: www.commonnotions.org/project2052.

Anyone going to #APSA2025 and looking for affordable housing? Me and another grad student have two spots in a lovely 4-bed private dorm, 25-min walk to the Convention Centre. Just $350 for 4 nights! Feel free to DM or share

What would an anti-oligarchic, republican economy look like? UBI? Wealth tax? Workplace democracy? Strong trade unions? Investment democracy? I explore a radical republican economics in my new book, 'The Wealth of Freedom', which is now out online. academic.oup.com/book/60075

'What, however, is art? whence does it spring? Art is man’s embodied expression of interest in the life of man; it springs from man’s pleasure in his life;' -William Morris, 'The Worker’s Share of Art'

Registration for our annual graduate conference is now open! To join us on the 5th of June, please register below ⬇️ intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/event/oxford...

This was such a wonderful, interesting, and well organised conference! I'm so glad I got to be part of it. Thanks to the organisers and all who presented

Amid the ruins of the present, happy at least to announce that my book, Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left, is now available for pre-order and will be out July 2025, from Verso Books 1/5 versobooks.com/products/278... @versobooks.bsky.social

Talking about Yiddish grammar is so satisfying because the term for "word order" is "verter seder" (װערטער סדר) and every time I hear that I think about the little words sitting around a seder table eating a nice matzo ball soup

Another Passover-related Yiddish cartoon, this time by Zuni Maud from Der Groyser Kundes, April 18, 1924. This one's a doozy, and *quite* pertinent to our present national moment, so let's break it down in stages:

After five terms convening the Oxford Utopia Reading Group, I'm pleased to share that this coming term we'll be reading (one of my favorite utopias), William Morris's News from Nowhere (1890). Reading list below or as a PDF here: tinyurl.com/utopiaTT25 1/5

In an attempt to preserve what remains of my sanity, I'm continuing to update the Academic Target Tracker map @elotroalex.bsky.social and I threw together last weekend. It includes info about academic workers who have been detained or had their visas revoked in recent weeks. You can find it here:

Very excited to share the program of the upcoming WHPT conference! It promises to be a wonderful couple of days, and we cannot wait! @maryjomacdonald.bsky.social @sophiecardin.bsky.social @abbsleblanc.bsky.social @rosscarroll.bsky.social @tmbejan.bsky.social

'Art is man’s embodied expression of interest in the life of man' -Morris, 'The Worker’s Share of Art' (1885)

a reader with good taste either downsized, retired, or died — I dedicate this thrift haul to them, with love

Marx and Engels Collected Insults: a thread. Feel free to contribute: 1: "He is nothing but a social contradiction in action". Marx on Proudhon

Very excited for this! Eve was the teacher who introduced me to political theory ♥️

Looking forward to presenting my research at the European Association for Jewish Studies Graduate Seminar tomorrow! I'll be talking about Esther Frumkin's Marxist Yiddishism

Came across this gem from Edward Carpenter while building the reading list for the upcoming term of the Oxford Utopia Reading Group. From Carpenter's 1894 pamphlet 'Homogenic Love and its Place in a Free Society' printed for private circulation by The Labour Press Society Limited

an obligatory oxford appreciation post before departing for the states: recent moody skies and sunny days

On the committee for this conference - should be a great two days of discussions!

It was such an amazing time organizing @farbindungen.bsky.social 2026 with these incredible people!

A "Bad Yiddish" keynote @farbindungen.bsky.social , ft. Saul Zaritt on shund and cultural porousness & Natan M. Meir on minhag and the everyday histories "hidden in plain sight". #Farbindungen25

#Farbindungen25 panel 1 — underworlds, shund, and disappointments.

‘knowledge will guide us peacefully over the sea of tears and pain to the land of life.’ -A Vilna worker (1892)

An excellent new article by Max Fenner: "Murray Bookchin and the Postwar Environmental Moment: The Early Bookchin and the Politicization of Ecology, 1948–1964," Modern Intellectual History (2025) @thecambridgeschool.bsky.social bit.ly/4jwDkEB

It’s an honor to be recognized by @politicsoxford.bsky.social for my research and a pleasure to share the honor with such lovely people!

You, beholden to traditional greetings: Dia duit / Dia is Muire duit Comrade "Anois is Arís" Irish course by RTÉ from 1981:

We are excited to share the series on 'Historical Anxiety' and how it impacts our understanding of the past and the future, sponsored by University College, Oxford. It features contributions by Jeffrey Andrew Barash, François Hartog, Stefanos Geroulanos, and Hartmut Rosa. All information below⬇️

Some beautiful editions of Buber’s Tales from a used bookshop. Came with a letter tucked inside wishing Edgar a merry Christmas in 1964

Thomas Hardy’s great end-of-year lyric poem, ‘The Darkling Thrush’, was originally published in The Graphic on 29 December 1900 – though a deleted 1899 on the manuscript suggests he may have written it earlier.

One of my favourite exchanges about the status of the Bund in the RSDLP from the minutes of the 2nd Congress

Feels very weird to hear people still talk about how Yiddish is basically dead while reading a paper published 40 years ago complaining about people saying that Yiddish is basically dead while showing that people have spent the last 250 years talking about how Yiddish is basically dead

just a jew looking for something to do on christmas? Why not go see the smallest lady in the world at the grand museum on grand street? Or, if you prefer, attend a christmas eve ball and concert to support the russian workers movement in russia?

our yiddish homework today is to translate this 1906 letter to the Forverts advice column from a heartbroken mom begging for advice on how to convince her son to spend less time at socialist meetings and more time planning his wedding lmao

you will be visited by three spirits

It’s beginning to look a lot like Lispector season: