Let's see how well this ages.

AN #EARLYMODERN POST!! They still exist! And a lovely one at that, for five years and with the brilliant people at KCL who have turned that place in quite the hub of exciting early modern research. Run, don’t walk.

APSA 2025 impression: academic conference receptions are practically Hieronymous Bosch paintings.

As an anthropologist, I'm inclined to try to understand stuff that looks like magical thinking rather than mock it, but proposing to build a God and then expecting him to tell you how to get rich is really testing all of my professional training...

I have reviewed Inés Valdez's book, Democracy and Empire: Labor, Nature, and Social Reproduction of Capitalism, for Political Theory journal. I highly recommend it on its integration of political economy into political theorizing. 👇

Here's your "fiscal headroom."

Excited to see the website is now live for my forthcoming book, The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (PUP, March 2026) press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

My article on capitalist racialization and Chinese migration in British Asia received an Honorable Mention for the Outstanding Article Award from APSA's International History and Politics Section. Open access👇

Nominations are now open for BIAPT’s Early and Mid-career prizes. Please consider nominating someone’s whose contribution to our field you really value. Note that self-nominations *are* permitted. Deadline is May 23rd. Details 👇 www.associationforpoliticalthought.ac.uk?p=4842&previ...

A useful overview of the state of the art on "racial capitalism." www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

You get a lot of centrist YIMBY types going on about planning and "get government red tape out the way and just build build build!" but impossible to look at this graph and draw any conclusion other than "oh, shit, the shortfall is just state housing"

Join us on 11 April at SOAS for the workshop, "Globalizing Political Economy: Uneven Topographies of Capitalism." Full program below. Attendees need to register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/globalizin...

Join us on 11 April at SOAS for the workshop, "Globalizing Political Economy: Uneven Topographies of Capitalism." Full program below. Attendees need to register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/globalizin...

"“We are living through the nightmare edition of ‘Great Men Make History’,” wrote the leftwing theorist Mike Davis shortly before his death in 2022. “... there are few safety switches between today’s maximum leaders and Armageddon." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"I'm an American prince with 10 million dollars that I need to get out of the country. I will give you one million dollar if you help me. Please send me your bank account information. God bless you."

Last call -- happening tomorrow "Empire and Emancipation"

An excellent initiative. "The Return of Political Economy to Intellectual History."

Bloody hell. What a point.

Really looking forward to this, thanks @ulasince.bsky.social for organizing and bringing us all together!

Join us on 11 April at SOAS for the workshop, "Globalizing Political Economy." Details and registration here: www.eventbrite.com/e/globalizin...

Join us on 11 April at SOAS for the workshop, "Globalizing Political Economy." Details and registration here: www.eventbrite.com/e/globalizin...

I wish I was "junior" enough to attend this. Hopkins has a terrific group of scholars working on race, capitalism, and political economy.

Happening in a few hours.

"Empire and Emancipation" Panel organized by London Political Theory Network 4 April, 3pm. SOAS, Senate House Rm 104. Register at the link:👇

Once the legitimate preserve of the boomers and an object of cringe for everyone else, mustaches are back - presumably in the quasi-ironic mode just as plaid shirts and beards were once the rage amongst hipsters. In that spirit, I'll leave this gem of a song here for the newly 'tached. We love you.

I'm giving an online lecture next week at the Center for the Study of Developing Societies, based on my critique of Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson. Zoom link and details: www.csds.in/saving_capit... And the critique itself: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

I made a meme. Americans unhappy with Trump need to accept there is not a normal to go back to.

Being able to drop a quarterly US GDP prediction by 5.1% from +2.3% to -2.8% in a single week is one of the most impressive economic developments in the history of the world.

Racial Capitalism in the History of Political Thought. This is a good occasion to take stock of the state of the subject in the field of political theory, though my take is admittedly bit of an outlier . Conference details 👇 uchv.princeton.edu/events/racia...

#OpenAccess from our new issue - Law, time, and (in)justice after empire: Germany's objection to colonial reparations and the chronopolitics of deflection - cup.org/4fTQhFy - Sinja Graf

International Theory - Volume 17 - Issue 1 - March 2025 - cup.org/3CUE0mz A Journal of International Politics, Law and Philosophy #OpenAccess

@antipodeonline.bsky.social has countless brilliant articles. This is the most read list over the past 12 months. From Robinson/Hall to profit repatriation and uneven development to Israel/Palestine to finance and extraction. Pick your choice onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1467...

Me, staring at London's bleak skies: - No wonder they invented the pub. My partner: - Yeah, and the Spain.

Racial Capitalism in the History of Political Thought Conference Princeton UCHV, 22 February. Details and program here: uchv.princeton.edu/.../racial-c.... Featuring Charisse Burden-Stelly, Inés Valdez, and others.

Tell me more...

Racial Capitalism in the History of Political Thought Conference Princeton UCHV, 22 February. Details and program here: uchv.princeton.edu/.../racial-c.... Featuring Charisse Burden-Stelly, Inés Valdez, and others.

Recent reclamations of Smith as a skeptical cosmopolitan do so by overlooking his sanctioning of the visible hand of the imperial state to bring the recalcitrant within the fold of commercial civilization. 1/4

When you suddenly start tearing through the air safety bureaucracy with an ax after two decades-plus of near perfect US commercial air safety any plane that suddenly careens out of the sky is probably on you.

Nugget from the book I'm currently writing, attesting to the dynamics of capitalist racialization in the long 19th century: "In his 1902 Romanes Lecture on race relations, James Bryce argued, “for economic purposes, all mankind is fast becoming one people, in which the hitherto backward nations ...

Chinese censorship is written into DeepSeek’s code

Huge if true. “I thought the AI chatbots would do a lot better,” said del Rio-Chanona, corresponding author of the study and assistant professor at University College London. “History is often viewed as facts, but sometimes interpretation is necessary to make sense of it.”

Ever alive to the prospect of the tired but convenient charge of "reductionism" flying from an audience member, I always have this slide handy in my deck. With enduring thanks to @kjhealy.co.

#OpenAccess - Law, time, and (in)justice after empire: Germany's objection to colonial reparations and the chronopolitics of deflection - cup.org/4fTQhFy - Sinja Graf #FirstView

Today is the day! Delighted that this is out! Co-authored with Amitav Acharya @yalepress.bsky.social 1/n yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Colleagues at Sheffield University call on the Vice Chancellor to consult staff and pause the decision to "significantly" reduce teaching and research in the East Asian Studies department, a leading national centre since 1963. 🚨Please sign & share: www.megaphone.org.uk... 3/3

Got a new essay in @dissentmag.bsky.social on secrecy havens. The culture of impunity that secrecy fosters has profoundly damaging effects on social&political fabrics especially in places that were turned into tax havens in the context of empire/decolonization www.dissentmagazine.org/article/nobl...

A brilliant article on how the German state mobilizes international law to resist colonial reparation claims. Out now in @internatltheory.bsky.social, #OpenAccess.

Ever alive to the prospect of the tired but convenient charge of "reductionism" flying from an audience member, I always have this slide handy in my deck. With enduring thanks to @kjhealy.co.

Final day at the @biapt.bsky.social political thought conference, starting with a terrific keynote by @ulasince.bsky.social on his new project 'Before the Colour Line" #BIAPT2025