In this sense, the drivers perform essential forms of labor for the city...as phatic labor, workers who produce "communicative channels that can transmit not only language but also all kinds of semiotic meaning and economic value." The concept of phatic labor, proposed by @jeelyachar.bsky.social..."

Judge if you want, I meant every word of this rant: open.spotify.com/episode/48ND...

Free Football from FIFA

It Could Happen Here · Episode

open.spotify.com

“Military factories work for peace and prosperity,” an advertisement in the Egyptian magazine Akher Saa, June 14, 1961.

Last time the Knicks were NBA champions was the year the DOJ charged Fred & Donald Trump with housing discrimination based on race.

NEW @crisesnotes.bsky.social PIECE: This is my short introduction to a new series I'm very excited about (and already have pieces written for): The Hierarchy of Finance in a Capitalist Economy. www.crisesnotes.com/a-new-series...

A New Series: The Hierarchy of Finance in a Capitalist Economy

For a long time I’ve been thinking about doing a series about the concept of a “hierarchy of finance”. This phrase refers to the fact that different households and institutions have access to financin...

crisesnotes.com

"For the past two decades, the Gulf has pumped credit and equity into the US tech ecosystem. But new AI arrangements signal that these countries are beginning to onshore critical elements of tech infrastructure." Colin Powers on the Gulf's bet on US AI. phenomenalworld.org/analysis/nvi...

Nvidia in the Gulf | Colin Powers

The Arab monarchies turn to Silicon Valley

phenomenalworld.org

This month, UCLA admin circulated two white papers that are so harrowing they’ve kept me awake at night. If you’re a UCLA person and haven’t seen these, you really must. In response, the Faculty Senate has scheduled a Town Hall on June 2. senate.ucla.edu/news/june-2-...

My conversation with Aamer Ibraheem at the School of Advanced Research @sarsf.bsky.social online book talks has dropped www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBGM.... This is one of my favorite conversations so far about dukeupress.edu/on-the-semic....

On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo

dukeupress.edu

My piece on diagnosis, disability, lifespan, and music came out today in the Huffington Post! Thanks to everyone who helped me write it -- including Millie. @dukepress.bsky.social www.huffpost.com/entry/rare-g...

My Profoundly Disabled Daughter Isn’t Able To Speak, Walk Or Feed Herself. I’ve Had To Make Peace With Not Knowing Why.

“She’d had a normal birth and what looked like a normal early infancy.”

huffpost.com

I interviewed the brilliant historian and editor in chief of the Journal of Palestine studies @srseikaly.bsky.social on learning about Palestine, the intersectionality of the Palestinian cause, and how to combat a system trying to make you stupid. www.iheart.com/podcast/105-...

It Could Happen Here | iHeart

It Could Happen Here started as an exploration of the possibility of a new civil war. Now a daily show, it's evolved into a chronicle of collapse as it happens,...

iheart.com

Gorgeous must-read piece by @srseikaly.bsky.social in Public Culture.

Sherene Seikaly@srseikaly.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A piece I have worked on for nearly a decade is out. Kantousha and the PoxNotes on Accompaniment read.dukeupress.edu/public-cultu...

‘That slavery persisted in Muslim societies well into the 20th century is undeniable. More questions need to be asked about the extent of its connection with the Atlantic trade and the forms of racialisation that underpinned it.’ Youssef Ben Ismail: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Youssef Ben Ismail · His Favourite Camel: Slavery in the Islamic World

That slavery persisted in Muslim societies well into the 20th century is undeniable. More questions need to be asked...

lrb.co.uk

Thrilled to be speaking at the wonderful School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe @sarsf.bsky.social , on Tuesday May 19th @11 mt. sarweb.org/date/on-the-..., in conversation with the brilliant Aamer Ibraheem, former SAR fellow and incoming Ass't Prof. of Anthropology at @ucdavis.bsky.social

"Race and Civilizational Difference in Syria and Palestine: Franz Boas, Physical Anthropology, and the American Expedition to Syria of 1899. Just published in Public Culture. If you can't access, please contact me for a copy. read.dukeupress.edu/public-cultu...

Race and Civilizational Difference in Syria and Palestine: Franz Boas, Physical Anthropology, and the American Expedition to Syria of 1899

Abstract. Starting with items on display at the Hall of Asian Peoples in the American Museum of Natural History, this essay tells the story of an expedition to Greater Syria (including today's Israel/...

read.dukeupress.edu

A must-listen in-depth roundtable on #Lebanon featuring Lara Deeb, Susann Kassem, and Habib Battah! www.merip.org/2026/04/the-...

The MERIP Podcast Episode 21: Susann Kassem, Lara Deeb and Habib Battah

Today on the podcast three MERIP contributors discuss Lebanon’s tenuous, one-sided ceasefire with Israel. Even as officials in the Lebanese government have entered into negotiations with Israel, an un...

merip.org

Trump is dismantling the US Park Service. www.hatchmag.com/articles/tru.... h/t Brian Tyler Cohen on x. This follows up on the Feb 2025 establishment of a US Sovereign Wealth Fund to be capitalized with US Public Lands and Parks. Here we go. www.americanprogress.org/article/trum...

My reply to the forum about "On the Semicivilized" @dukepress.bsky.social has dropped in @CSSHJournal. What, I ask, are the grounds for collective life with int'l order buried under the rubble in Gaza, Beirut, and Tehran? What are the horizons of political life and sovereignty today?

CSSH Journal@csshjournal.bsky.social · 4mo ago

As promised, we are excited to share @jeelyachar.bsky.social's response to the six CSSH authors who engaged with "the semicivilized" in last month's In Dialogue! Don't miss "More #Ottoman Heuristics – A Seventh Take on the Semicivilized." sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2026/04...

Really look forward to being in conversation with Prof. Deborah Thomas about On the Semicivilized, at the Middle East Center of U Penn on Tuesday March 31. If you are in Philly, please come by! mec.sas.upenn.edu/events/2026/...

"This article outlines the multiple and uneven ways in which delivery riders are “put to work” in the platform economy... conclude that bicycle couriers are the twenty-first century’s sandwichmen in both senses: delivering sandwiches to the wealthy and human billboards traversing urban space."

You absolutely don't ever have to hand it to Tucker Carlson.

Julia, many thanks for the kind words. I would just add that Aimee Genell’s much-anticipated monograph, Empire by Law, is coming out in July! cup.columbia.edu/book/empire-...

Empire by Law | Columbia University Press

The Ottoman Empire long used flexible administrative arrangements to govern its vast domains. Starting in the 1830s, however, European intervention in Ottoma... | CUP

cup.columbia.edu

I'll add a few to this list, works of fiction. First one is by Emil Habibi, a relative of mine: www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Se...

In Octavia Butler's 'Parable of the Sower,' set in a dystopian Los Angeles after there is no fuel left for cars or a functioning electricity grid, people are faced with a choice: live in homemade fortified gated communities, or sell themselves to corporate agro-farms.

⬇️ 🔻⬇️

Laleh Khalili@lalehkhalili.bsky.social · 5mo ago

An utterly necessary collection of essays on the US/Israeli war on Iran, and its impact not only on Iran, but the wider region: www.merip.org/2026/03/war-...

As always the brilliant @leylaamzi.bsky.social, is too generous. Neither the concept of semicivilized nor illumination of how this archaic term is intertwined with dilemmas of attenuated sovereignty, structural indebtedness, and the making of international law is mine-

Leyla Amzi-Erdoǧdular@leylaamzi.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Great to be in such good company thinking together about Julia Elyachar’s concept of the semicivilized @jeelyachar.bsky.social @csshjournal.bsky.social 🗃️

This must read book by the amazing @leylaamzi.bsky.social is now available in paperback. Can't wait to teach it

Leyla Amzi-Erdoǧdular@leylaamzi.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe is now available in paperback. Plus take advantage of @stanfordpress.bsky.social Valentine’s Day Sale for a few more days. www.sup.org/books/histor... 🗃️ #menasky #ottoman #bosniaandherzegovina #bosnia #muslims #austriahungary

no matter what your priors are, Please shift them after Day19 For "Iran is winning" camp, US & Israel now waging war against energy infra & economic life, immiseration leads to regime change For "US & Israel are winning" camp,IR retaliations->more expensive & more bodybags bsky.app/profile/70sb...

Albert Pinto@70sbachchan.bsky.social · 5mo ago

feel like 2 parallel realities have emerged among leftwing and rightwing circles. In one, Hormuz is our generations Suez crisis and end of american empire, in the other, the israelis and americans are weeks from winning and the regime crumbling

"Establishing a public bank that regularly purchases municipal debt ... would not only significantly expand a city’s fiscal capacity to support its communities and environs, but also reclaim regional public finance from a parasitical and punishing bond market."

Out of the Shadows: Public Banking for Municipal Finance

By Tyler Suksawat & Scott Ferguson In a recent essay, we advanced a proposal for sub-federal governments to sell municipal bonds to their own public banks. We took the city as our primary point…

moneyontheleft.org