Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Outputs (27)

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.

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.

Apocalypse Now!: From Freud, Through Lacan, to Stiegler’s Psychoanalytic ‘Survival Project (2020)
Journal Article
Featherstone. (2020). Apocalypse Now!: From Freud, Through Lacan, to Stiegler’s Psychoanalytic ‘Survival Project. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09715-8

The objective of this article is to explore the value of psychoanalysis in the early twenty-first century through reference to Freud, Lacan, and Stiegler’s work on computational madness. In the first section of the article I consider the original obj... Read More about Apocalypse Now!: From Freud, Through Lacan, to Stiegler’s Psychoanalytic ‘Survival Project.

Psychoanalysing the 21st Century: Introduction (2020)
Journal Article
Featherstone. (2020). Psychoanalysing the 21st Century: Introduction. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 403-408. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-020-09714-9

The purpose of this introduction is to sketch out the value of psychoanalysis for the twenty-first century and in particular the ways in which analysis might enable us to move beyond the crisis of the post-Cold War symbolic order.

Simmel’s (non-human) humanism: On Simmel’s ‘ethics of endings and futures’ (2020)
Journal Article
featherstone. (2020). Simmel’s (non-human) humanism: On Simmel’s ‘ethics of endings and futures’. Journal of Classical Sociology, 21(2), 203-220. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X20915667

Given the recent non-human turn in sociology and the social sciences, the popularity of theories of entanglement, and contemporary concern with the concept of the anthropocene, it is easy to forget that classical sociology was always-already aware of... Read More about Simmel’s (non-human) humanism: On Simmel’s ‘ethics of endings and futures’.

Stiegler’s ecological thought: The politics of knowledge in the anthropocene (2019)
Journal Article
Featherstone. (2019). Stiegler’s ecological thought: The politics of knowledge in the anthropocene. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1 - 11. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2019.1665025

My objective in this article is to consider the implications of Bernard Stiegler’s theory of the neganthropocene for the politics of knowledge and education. Stiegler sets out his theory of the neganthropocene in his recent books, Automatic Society a... Read More about Stiegler’s ecological thought: The politics of knowledge in the anthropocene.

Against the Humiliation of Thought: The university as a space of dystopic destruction and utopian potential (2019)
Journal Article
Featherstone. (2019). Against the Humiliation of Thought: The university as a space of dystopic destruction and utopian potential. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 51(3), 297-309. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2018.1477044

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.

The Letting Go: The Horror of Being Orphaned in Nicolas Winding Refn's Cinema (2017)
Journal Article
featherstone. (2017). The Letting Go: The Horror of Being Orphaned in Nicolas Winding Refn's Cinema. https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2017.1369686

In this article, I read the recent cinema of the Danish-American Director Nicolas Winding Refn through a contradictory complex of Freudian–Jungian psychoanalysis, Bataillean philosophy and Buddhist thought. By focusing on Winding Refn’s three most re... Read More about The Letting Go: The Horror of Being Orphaned in Nicolas Winding Refn's Cinema.

Luxus: A Thanatology of Luxury from Nero to Bataille (2016)
Journal Article
Featherstone. (2016). Luxus: A Thanatology of Luxury from Nero to Bataille. Cultural Politics, 66-82. https://doi.org/10.1215/17432197-3436391

In this article, I seek to explore the psychopolitical significance of the contemporary idea of luxury through reference to the Roman concept of luxus, which means excess, extravagance, indulgence, and debauchery. In the first section of the article,... Read More about Luxus: A Thanatology of Luxury from Nero to Bataille.

The Negative Abyss Surface, Depth, and Violence in Virilio and Stiegler (2015)
Journal Article
Featherstone. (2015). The Negative Abyss Surface, Depth, and Violence in Virilio and Stiegler. Cultural Politics, 210-221. https://doi.org/10.1215/17432197-2895771

This article explores what one might call the dystopia of contemporary screen-based culture through a discussion of the work of Paul Virilio and Bernard Stiegler. Centrally, it explains that the screen might be seen as a negative abyss, where absolut... Read More about The Negative Abyss Surface, Depth, and Violence in Virilio and Stiegler.

Utopias: An Introduction (2014)
Journal Article
Featherstone, M., & Miles, M. (2014). Utopias: An Introduction. Cultural Politics, 10(2), 125-131

La pesadilla de Einstein Sobre: la tecno-distopía en Bernard Stiegler (2014)
Journal Article
Featherstone, M. (2014). La pesadilla de Einstein Sobre: la tecno-distopía en Bernard Stiegler. CTheory,

En invierno de 2013, me hice consciente de la "pesadilla de Einstein", un meme de internet, un fragmento de información, que refleja el horror de lo que llamo en este artículo "distopía tecnológica". [1] El meme, titulado "La peor pesadilla de Einste... Read More about La pesadilla de Einstein Sobre: la tecno-distopía en Bernard Stiegler.