Many mythological figures from ancient Greece depict erotic encounters between humans and non-humans. Our French pick of the week interrogates how love, in the Greek imaginary, was a cosmic force that crossed boundaries. Ft. @williampillot.bsky.social at @univangers.bsky.social buff.ly/dQAOpnU

Canadian PM Carney’s speech at Davos acknowledged what elites have long denied: that U.S. hegemony’s “pleasant fiction” now no longer functions. Our essay of the week dissects the downfall of the liberal international order. By @nilsgilman.bsky.social in @dissentmag.bsky.social buff.ly/ZYhMQEd

Over fifteen years, BlackRock and Vanguard expanded their share of Brazil’s public equity market from 2% to nearly 10%. Our hidden gem of the week raises urgent questions about how peripheral economies can respond to asset-manager hegemony. By André E. Schwartz at @harvard.edu buff.ly/uGNZNJk

Walmart's entry into China in 1996 signalled the rise of a new form of “merchant capitalism." Our book of the week details how Walmart’s market dominance reshapes both American supply chains and Chinese shop floors. By Eileen M. Otis on @stanfordpress.bsky.social buff.ly/12Tqc7X

The unchecked growth of AI and information retrieval systems is leading to their misuse. This lecture contrasts liberal frameworks' focus on fairness and accountability with the critical lens that centers liberation, anti-oppression, and justice. Ft. @bmitra.bsky.social

Argentina’s Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo turned the tools of genetics into weapons for justice. Today, as this piece examines, the movement faces existential threats from Argentina’s far-right government and U.S.-backed neoliberalism, jeopardizing progress. By Víctor B. Penchaszadeh

Nepal's "Gen Z Revolution" erupted in 2025, fueled by frustration over systemic corruption. This piece examines how the movement, marked by shocking brutality — 22 protesters killed — toppled the prime minister and pushed the country toward reform. By Tiffany Lai

Global institutions like the IMF and World Bank are structured to amplify the power of richer nations. This paper argues that this design makes influence cheaper for wealthy countries, which dominate decision-making and resource allocation. By Paula Druschke et al. at @wid.world buff.ly/RDDDLfm

Focusing on how debt, monetary policy, and financial systems dictate economic health, this conversation examines how dominant players tilt the scales in their favor, with the guest critiquing the forces behind economic instability. With Jan Toporowski buff.ly/vCmYu9c

The language of politicization and depoliticization saturates public discourse but remains conceptually fraught, obscuring real structures of power. Our article of the week offers a critical genealogy of (de)politicization. By Dimitrios Halikias in @ajpseditor.bsky.social buff.ly/p0lVeMh

The notion of “ethical” capitalism, this piece contends, is an illusion used to obscure capitalism’s allegiance to profit over the planet, highlighting the moments that lay bare the fiction of corporate social responsibility. By @bradswanson.bsky.social in @mitpress.bsky.social buff.ly/K80fFjo

Conceived as the transmission of force between bodies, "sympathy" enabled Greek thinkers to understand the relations between human and nonhuman life. Yet as our video of the week shows, the concept soon became entwined with imperial and naturalized hierarchies. Feat. Brooke Holmes buff.ly/R0NFlDi

Framing pedagogy and political economy as intertwined projects, this dialogue dives into the guest's method, honed teaching Marx's Capital, of clarifying theory for audiences whose lived experience makes exploitation intuitive. With @davidharvey.org on @cosmonautmag.bsky.social buff.ly/RsGwEvB

What if British neoliberalism has been chasing the ghost of Soviet central planning all along? As our podcast of the week argues, both systems attempt to banish uncertainty with “totalizing” logics that elide history and politics. With @abbyinnes.bsky.social buff.ly/979IG1g

From Simón Rodríguez’s radical call to “invent or err” to waves of European migration chasing communal utopias, Latin America became a testing ground for social and urban experimentation. Our Spanish pick of the week traces the region's utopian heritage. By Alberto Sato buff.ly/acmZcRq

Frank Gehry's career was marked by the tension between art and architecture. But as our essay of the week contends, Gehry's own practice was as a process-oriented collaborator amid the shifts in postwar capitalism. By Julian Rose in @artforum.com buff.ly/YVHibQ2

Hunger is no accident of war. It is used by colonialism and deployed in the service of dispossession. Our hidden gem of the week examines how international legal and financial regimes turn subsistence into a political weapon. By Tanja Tabbara at @rosaluxstiftung.bsky.social buff.ly/7lhzP1j

Capitalism was above all a historically contingent creation. Tracing capitalism’s planetary conquest from imperial adventure to fossil-fuel extraction, our book of the week details how land, labor, and even survival itself became commodities. By Trevor Jackson on @wwnorton.com buff.ly/AFDcSPG

Elon Musk isn’t just a billionaire with big ideas but, argues this conversation, the embodiment of a new phase of capitalism. Musk’s growing control of infrastructure transforms public systems into private fiefdoms. Ft. @bentarnoff.com & @quinnslobodian.com at @debalie.bsky.social

Jeff Donaldson’s legacy stretches far beyond his vibrant, defiant paintings. A pivotal yet underacknowledged architect of the Black Arts Movement, he didn’t just make art; he built the cultural infrastructure necessary for Black artists to thrive on their own terms.

Slavoj Žižek, once a radical voice cutting through the haze of neoliberal complacency, has veered into contradictions that betray his early emancipatory promises. His post-2015 pivot embraces a Eurocentric stance on migration. By Raphael F. Alvarenga in @cosmonautmag.bsky.social

A crucifix in urine, a vulva-shaped dinner plate—this dialogue reframes the late twentieth-century culture wars not as a binary clash between religious conservatives and secular radicals, but as a protracted contest over who decides what is sacred. With @apetro.bsky.social buff.ly/KtFAWkh

As queer culture is commodified by Western media and corporate interests, this dialogue suggests the voices of marginalized communities, particularly in Central Asia, are forced into silence or invisibility. With @levitanus.bsky.social et al. on @sperishefuni.bsky.social buff.ly/2p5tX8v

The Cold War era’s promise of prosperity and rational progress masked new forms of political and cultural conformity. Reading Adorno alongside the Beats, our article of the week shows how both staked out a “logic of subtraction” with a reality deemed false. By Vangelis Giannakakis buff.ly/CF9pDCW

In the 1960s, a CIA mission to spy on China turned into a high-stakes disaster when a plutonium generator was left on India’s Nanda Devi during a covert operation. This dialogue uncovers this Cold War debacle. With @sashaingber.bsky.social buff.ly/jfFhQg2

India’s mathematical and astronomical traditions reveal a foundational, but under-acknowledged, global history of science. Our video of the week unpacks the distinctive social and epistemic worlds in which these mathematical forms were shaped. Featuring Clemency Montelle buff.ly/FJgslgc

In this sprawling interview, the guest makes the case for science fiction as the “realism of our time,” capable of mapping capitalist crises and utopian alternatives more nimbly than traditional realism. With Kim Stanley Robinson buff.ly/Af92KzV

Through buying out hundreds of hospitals and thousands of doctor practices, private equity firms are turning healthcare into one of Wall Street’s fastest-growing investments. Our podcast of the week unveils how patients are paying the price. With Renee Hsia buff.ly/RAIRahZ

In 1979, Iran became both the first Muslim country to enact a constitution inspired by the Enlightenment and the first to establish a theocratic dictatorship. Our French pick of the week analyzes this confrontation. By Amirpasha Tavakkoli on @editions-puf.bsky.social buff.ly/zOgmC1o

Chronicling the ambitions of Chen Liang and the rise of startups like Galbot and Unitree, our essay of the week tracks China's race to industrial automation, and how it is quietly enabled by a vast network of invisible data workers. By @changche.bsky.social in @theguardian.com buff.ly/shbcmNq

Habermas’s theory of the public sphere was rooted in spaces like cafés and salons where critical debate generated new forms of legitimacy and collective action. Our hidden gem of the week surveys Habermas’s work on the city. By @tommasovitale.bsky.social at @scpo-research.bsky.social osf.io/9b3tj

Resistance against machines is shaped by class and the violence of the archive itself. Our book of the week traces arcs from Luddite loom-burners to French arsonists, viewing techno-negativity as both revolt and refusal. By @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social on @uminnpress.bsky.social buff.ly/MLjXabq

The Brooklyn DIY music scene of 2004-2014 thrived as a fertile counterculture shaped by post-9/11 disillusionment, Bush-era politics, cheap rents, and the open flow of the pre-algorithm internet. This interview centers the grassroots ethos of this era. With Ronen Givony

The CIA bungled its response to “Havana Syndrome." This piece contends that the scandal reveals a staggering betrayal of frontline operatives and a deliberate downplaying of Russian aggression. By @michaeldweiss.bsky.social in @theins.press

Louis Vuitton thrives as a cultural and commercial powerhouse. In today’s luxury system, this piece argues that fashion is no longer just art; it’s strategy, with designers navigating corporate demands to shape culture while fueling billion-dollar markets. By Carolina Benjumea

1960s-70s liberation struggles, like the Palestinian fight for freedom, were pivotal engines of globalization. This paper uncovers how these movements reshaped global politics from below, forging solidarity across borders and challenging imperial power. By Oday Uraiqat buff.ly/tpgzJZZ

In confronting the myths surrounding Africa's crises, this interview exposes how foreign actions have fueled regional instability under the guise of humanitarian aid and counterterrorism. Western interventions often deepen poverty, oppression, and conflict. Ft. Elizabeth Schmidt buff.ly/f2SAnAZ

Political theorists and liberal states have reified “democracy” into a platitude, even as it breeds cynicism in the face of deepening inequality and ecological crisis. Our article of the week explores whether democracy can be saved. By John Dunn in @global-ih.bsky.social buff.ly/kfEwHCP

From the ashes of shock-and-awe, this conversation traces the brutal logic and spiraling consequences of the US-Israeli assault on Iran—an intervention he describes as a sharp break from even the worst past US-Iranian relations. With Afshin Matin-Asgari on @jacobinmag.bsky.social buff.ly/YI8C8MO

Today, the Arctic emerges as a crucible of geopolitical, economic, and environmental contestation. Our video of the week traces how US fantasies of buying Greenland are not just imperial nostalgia but a symptom of Western anxieties. Featuring @ggricius.bsky.social at @umich.edu buff.ly/x4pjWDr

The so-called ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel is little more than a façade masking a brutal high-tech occupation in the South. This piece highlights how, for the people who remain, survival means adapting to omnipresent violence. By Lylla Younes in @readlux.bsky.social buff.ly/Rdc4MCc

Submarine cables are the invisible backbone of modern capitalism and digital life, yet their governance is still shaped by 19th-century colonial law. Our podcast of the week unpacks the ownership, jurisdiction, and protection of this critical infrastructure. With Tara Davenport buff.ly/M6ru1JL

Drawing on activity theory and Marxian debates, our German pick of the week reframes AI not as a productive force but as a regulation technology—one that lets Big Tech orchestrate capitalism's vertical hierarchies in real time. By @sevensevignani.bsky.social in @prokla.bsky.social buff.ly/t2M8iJs

AI models eating their own statistical tails have inaugurated a crisis of recursive resemblance. But as our essay of the week contends, AI slop isn't a break from Western representation — it's the endpoint of a 2,500-year-old feedback loop. By Patrick R. Crowley in @artforum.com buff.ly/ZCSTBix

Trump's governing template, Project 2025, has unleashed a coordinated assault on democracy, rights, and pluralism both at home and abroad. Our hidden gem of the week maps the export of this Heritage Foundation–led playbook worldwide. By @globalextremism.bsky.social buff.ly/ymZeuo5

Western imaginaries have long shaped Africa through the lens of their own disquiet, erasing specificity and agency. Our book of the week spotlights both African and European figures who challenged the colonial order on their own terms. By Jeremy Harding on @versobooks.bsky.social buff.ly/xhuqUjh

Europe is witnessing a surge of financial and political power among anti-gender movements, with over $1.2 billion fueling 275 organizations. This talk exposes how these groups target reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ protections, and gender equality. Ft. Neil Datta at @renner-institut.at

From the scars of displacement to the trenches of counter-movements, this conversation maps the contested terrain of gentrification as lived, theorized, and resisted, tracing the political roots of spatial injustice. With @lellyk.bsky.social & Samuel Stein

From the tsar’s shadow to Stalin’s typewriter, this talk exposes Soviet readings of Black American literature as less rupture than repetition, arguing that both Imperial and Soviet authorities instrumentalized tales of American racism to polish their own image. With Jesse Kruschke

The killing of CJNG leader “El Mencho” unleashed chaos across Mexico—but not all of it was real. This piece details how the cartel used a mix of real violence and AI-fueled disinformation to amplify terror nationwide. By @evodzoni.bsky.social & @liliasaul.bsky.social in @occrp.org buff.ly/PnynJIs