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Outputs (39)

Imagining the negentropic university: The madness of computation, the possibility of the uncomputable, and thinking otherwise (2024)
Journal Article
Featherstone, M. (2024). Imagining the negentropic university: The madness of computation, the possibility of the uncomputable, and thinking otherwise. Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2024.2391603

In this piece I outline the history of the university in terms of a shift from a place concerned with the contemplation of the unknowable and the infinite to a machine focused on instrumental rationality, calculation, and computation. Reading this hi... Read More about Imagining the negentropic university: The madness of computation, the possibility of the uncomputable, and thinking otherwise.

Utopia and Time: Conservative and Radical Utopias in the Age of the Anthropocene (2024)
Book Chapter
Featherstone, M. (2024). Utopia and Time: Conservative and Radical Utopias in the Age of the Anthropocene. In Rethinking Democracy for Post-Utopian Worlds (3-15). London: Springer Nature [academic journals on nature.com]. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53491-1_1

My objective in this chapter is to develop a Freudian-Heideggerian understanding of the concept of utopia that conceives of the impulse to imagine ideal societies in terms of a modern tendency to both think about possible futures and create new world... Read More about Utopia and Time: Conservative and Radical Utopias in the Age of the Anthropocene.

The tragedy of utopia in the age of the Anthropocene: Beyond dystopia, despair and catastrophic futures (2024)
Journal Article
Featherstone, M. (2024). The tragedy of utopia in the age of the Anthropocene: Beyond dystopia, despair and catastrophic futures. European Journal of Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310241234180

My key objective in this article is to explore the history of the concept of utopia and its application in really existing social, political, economic and cultural forms. Starting with a consideration of what I call the economy of utopia, I theorise... Read More about The tragedy of utopia in the age of the Anthropocene: Beyond dystopia, despair and catastrophic futures.

Žižek's Pandemic: On Utopian Realism and the Spirit of Communism (2021)
Journal Article
Featherstone, M. (2021). Žižek's Pandemic: On Utopian Realism and the Spirit of Communism. Cultural Politics, 17(1), 124-134. https://doi.org/10.1215/17432197-8797613

In the first part of this article on Žižek's recent book Pandemic! I show how he develops a political theology of the spirit through a discussion of social distancing. In this argument Žižek connects the idea of physical distance to the biblical stor... Read More about Žižek's Pandemic: On Utopian Realism and the Spirit of Communism.

Primal Crime: Visions of the Law and Its Transgression in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Cinema (2021)
Journal Article
Featherstone. (2021). Primal Crime: Visions of the Law and Its Transgression in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Cinema. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 49-67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-019-09632-5

In this paper I consider contemporary expressions of what Freud called the primal crime and collapse of paternal law through an exploration of the cinema of the Danish-American Director Nicolas Winding Refn. Introducing the paper I outline Freud’s th... Read More about Primal Crime: Visions of the Law and Its Transgression in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Cinema.

Towards a Bureaucracy of the Body (2020)
Journal Article
Featherstone. (2020). Towards a Bureaucracy of the Body. New Formations: A Journal of Culture, Theory, Politics, 97-113. https://doi.org/10.3898/Newf%3A100-101.07.2020

The objective of this article is to explore the evolution of what Beatrice Hibou calls the bureaucratisation of the world through a cultural history of the idea of bureaucracy in the western canon, taking in readings of Max Weber, Franz Kafka, Hannah... Read More about Towards a Bureaucracy of the Body.

Against the humiliation of thought: The university as a space of dystopic destruction and utopian potential (2020)
Book Chapter
Featherstone, M. (2020). Against the humiliation of thought: The university as a space of dystopic destruction and utopian potential. In Educational Ills and the (Im)possibility of Utopia (26-38). (1). Taylor & Francis (Routledge). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003025849-4

My objective in this paper is to write a pharmacology of the university by thinking about its relationship to systemic stupidity, intelligence, and the possibility of becoming. Starting with an exploration of the contemporary dystopia of drive-based... Read More about Against the humiliation of thought: The university as a space of dystopic destruction and utopian potential.