On Wednesday next week, Søren Mau will join us to talk about his book "Mute Compulsion" - a novel theory of the forms of abstract and impersonal power set in motion by the subjection of social life to the profit imperative. More info: criticaltheoryinberlin.de/event/mute-c... @sorenmau.bsky.social

Capitalism makes the weekend vacation as meaningful as the billboards that advertise it. We reward ourselves with time just to rest; holiday resorts, short getaways, online sales… all presented as profit-making tools. /1

Mute Compulsion / Contrainte Muette with @sorenmau.bsky.social Feb 11, Wed, 18:00 Centre Marc Bloch Berlin Friedrichstraße 191, 7th Floor socializationproject.de/event/mute-c...

I wrote about the recent Lygia Clark retrospective at the Neue Nationalgalerie for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/mute...

En uzun gece olması münasebetiyle: Gece'den Gündüz doğdu, diyor Hesiodos (Theogonia: 124). Karanlıklardan aydınlığa çıkılır elbette...

According to Michel Foucault, modern power does not repress the individual; rather, it transforms them into a self-regulating subject. Power does not say “be silent”; on the contrary, it says “speak,” “explain,” “justify.” +

In our latest Centre for Democratising Work interview, Amelia Horgan spoke to @brunoleipold.com about his book, CITIZEN MARX, and Marx and republicanism. Read here: www.common-wealth.org/centre-for-d...

So easily forgotten. A 🧵 ...

Capitalism produces not only economic relations but also subjects who experience these relations as natural and inevitable. While individuals constitute themselves as free, rational agents who make choices, /1

2025’s final lecture focused on the early period of Islamic political thought (from its beginnings to al-Farabi). It was, in fact,an online guest lecture at Istanbul University. This gave me the opportunity to read some relatively recent publications on the socio-economic context. 3 wonderful reads:

A Mycenaean kylix found in Athens depicts an unknown ceremony from 3,400 years ago to invoke rain : www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/11/a...

Loneliness, contrary to common assumptions, does not emerge as a state of deprivation; rather, in many cases it is the outcome produced by an excess of social relations. (1/5)

Memory is not about remembering. It is about what we are taught to forget. What is forgotten is most often what is repeated the most.

Mein Lehrkonzept zum forschenden Lernen ist online. Ein Jahr haben wir gemeinsam zu Foucault geforscht und die Studierenden haben ihre Ergebnisse im Rahmen eines Symposiums vorgestellt. Es war eine spannendes Projekt! #forschendeslernen #forschen #foucault #disciplineandpunish #studium

Judith Butler, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Cornel West, Susan Buck-Morss, Seyla Benhabib, Bruno Bosteels, and more will be joining us for Hegel 13/13 @columbiauniversity.bsky.social in the new year 2026! Mark your calendars: hegel1313.law.columbia.edu

Not everything that becomes normalized is innocent; it has merely grown familiar. When people stop questioning the order they are exposed to, they begin to mistake adaptation for virtue. +

Society resembles a workshop where everyone is busy polishing their own chains. Over time, the shine is mistaken for freedom, and the weight becomes familiar. What binds us no longer feels like restraint, but like choice until we forget that chains, no matter how well-polished, are still chains.

Work ethic produces not only discipline, but guilt. Resting, slowing down, or stopping become behaviors that require justification. People feel indebted even when they are not working. Control is thus exercised less through time and more through emotion.

I have a new essay "Outline of a Political Theory of States of Exception" out in @paradoks.nu, where I develop a typology and analysis of the different political political forms of states of exception, their distinct dynamics and implications for democracy and the rule of law. 1/2

The future used to be something promised; today it is a postponed burden. Instead of thinking long-term, people focus on managing the present. As the idea of the future erodes, politics narrows. Politics is only possible when tomorrow is imagined as different.

Metamorphosis, Landscape, and Trauma in Greco-Roman Myth is.gd/2AX5cD #freeaccess

Today, exhaustion is discussed almost like a personality trait. Yet it doesn’t stem from poor time management or individual failure. +

A system lasting for a long time does not mean it is just. It only means people have grown accustomed to it. Normalization is often the most effective defense mechanism of injustice. People learn not to object, but to endure. And this learning process is often labeled as “maturity.”

Walking through the city, I’m reminded of what Marx meant by ‘produced landscapes.’ The streets are not neutral; every sidewalk carries the imprint of labor that remains unseen. Capital shapes the rhythm of our days, yet it hides behind the illusion of spontaneity. +

Sounds exciting: **** [...]How could free persons be made into slaves? John Samuel Harpham shows that English authors found answers to this question in a tradition of ideas that stretched back to the ancient world, where they were most powerfully expressed in Roman law. [...]" ****

“A person is sometimes only a whisper searching for its own echo within the crowd.”

This -> "We have deprived the youth of the joys of discovery, the thrill to feel yourself close to an answer, and the wonderful, rewarding feeling of a moment of lucidity after hard work."

Deadline for HM Istanbul extended!!! "Dear all, we are delighted by your interest in our conference. In response to requests, we are pleased to announce that we have extended the deadline by 10 days. The new deadline for paper and panel submissions is 3 December 2025." hmistanbul.org

In late capitalism, the scarcity of time is not a personal choice but the result of an imposed pace of life. We think we are the ones saying “I don’t have time,” but in fact our time has long been commodified. (1/4)

The Philosophical Stage: Drama and Dialectic in Classical Athens Joshua Billings press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Parution le 14 novembre : @sorenmau.bsky.social ⤳ CONTRAINTE MUETTE ⬿ “Par une analyse exigeante et implacable, ce livre ouvre des perspectives pour comprendre le présent, nourrir les luttes à venir – participer à l’abolition nécessaire de ce jeu dont nous ne pouvons écrire les règles.”

'Contrainte Muette' is out now from @editionssanssoleil.bsky.social. Thanks to @prada-meinhof.bsky.social and Camilla Brenni for the excellent translation, and to Léa Gallon for the beautiful design 💙

Just finished Kevin Anderson’s new book on colonialism, gender, and non-Western postcapitalism from @versobooks.bsky.social. It’s great! I used to do book summaries on Twitter, but Bluesky doesn’t seem to encourage that stuff. Would there be interest in a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the book?

Moving on to chapter 2 on temporalities and geographies of gender in my chapter-by-chapter summary of Anderson’s The Late Marx’s Revolutionary Roads. 1/7

great review by @jvroessler.bsky.social www.historicalmaterialism.org/council-comm...

Today's work soundtrack ... Intangible Cultural Heritage Scotland Conference.

Our third plenary, 'Resurgent Reaction and the Rise of New Authoritarianisms' with Wendy Brown, Cecilia Rikap, Jeffery Webber and Rafeef Ziadah, is now being live streamed! Join, comrades!

Happening now!

How fascinating that this book was published just a few days before my session on "The Specter of the Haitian Revolution: Kant and Hegel on Slave Labour and the Racial Division of Labour." ☺️ ***** Hegel and Colonialism, by Daniel James and Franz Knappik. Open Access at cup.org/3LqOwGa

Nobody seems to have noticed, but the event is actually scheduled to Tuesday, *4 November* (and not the 5th).

Freely available as a PDF on our website 💕 marxistiskestudier.com/danish-marxi...

BADA BOOM! The HM London Conference programme is now online! Online registrations close Tuesday 4 November at midnight GMT!

🚨Publication alert🚨“Sovereignty, State of Exception, and the Politics of the Pandemic: Where is Agamben Now?” is out in Thesis Eleven. It forms part of my @carlsbergfondet.dk funded research project "Repoliticizing the Exception: Towards a Political Theory of the Exception" doi.org/10.1177/0725...

Next Tuesday (5 November 2025, 17:00-18:30): A talk on "The Specificity of the Political: Georg Lukács’s Political Thought in the Post-Stalinist Ferment of Ideas (1956-1971)" @uni-konstanz.de Colloquium of Modern History.

We’re excited to announce the launch of our new website and the opening of the Call for Papers for Historical Materialism Istanbul 2026! Please visit our website here: www.hmistanbul.org

‘Lukács Day’ has begun in Heidelberg. First stop: Keplerstr. 28, one of his residences in the city during the 1910s.

The syllabus for my Winter semester course, “Work and Gender in Political Thought (18th–19th c.),” is now online: atesuslu.com/genel/syllab... For now, it includes only the main readings and will be expanded with additional materials throughout the semester.