The Fictions of Finance
As the divide between finance and everyday life yawns ever wider, fiction has stepped into the gap.
Fall 2024
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Narcos Anonymous
In a twisted parallel to the country’s long tradition of masked luchadors, Mexico’s cartel leaders have carved out their own traditions of anonymity.
The Eco-Optimists
An optimistic environmentalist may sound like an oxymoron (or perhaps just a moron). Yet a growing number of greens are putting a positive spin on our planetary emergency. Should more of us start thinking like them?
China’s Dream Parks
Since 1989, thousands of theme parks have been built across China, in an uncanny reflection of the country’s economic liberalization.
The People’s Flag is Palest Pink
The popular 2014 film Pride neatly dramatizes how queer–labor solidarity during the miners’ strike pushed back against Margaret Thatcher’s combination of social conservatism and market nihilism.
Passports for Sale
Until recently, becoming a citizen of a country has largely been regarded as priceless—a rare intangible privilege that can’t be bought or sold. This perception is starting to fade.
Whose Moon Is It Anyway?
Managing the commons is fraught enough here on Earth, but decisions will be all the more complicated when dealing with the great commons of the sky.
Bad Feminists
Women may be writing their own fantasies now, but these are still fantasies of conventionality.
The Radical Ellen Willis
For Willis, rock was sex, which was Freud, which was Marx, which was labor, which was politics and therefore a reason to vote or protest.
1% Museum: The Guggenheim Goes Global
This year Gulf Labor’s newly formed direct-action wing—the Global Ultra Luxury Faction—has created a PR nightmare for the Guggenheim.
Pussy Riot in Translation
Did Pussy Riot’s protest change the course of Russian history, or merely make its members famous abroad?
The Voice of a Generation Yawns
The Another Self Portrait reissue comes as a vindication of the appropriateness of a “great artist” throwing off as much “product” as the market can bear. No longer a cynic for churning out releases, Bob Dylan is widely seen as wise and generous for sharing more.
Over Our Dead Bodies
What intellectual obituaries reveal about our times. “When the attention to intellectual production goes, so too does our ability to understand the equally fraught process of intellectual reception. And what goes missing is the story of intellectual labor as labor and how that labor has been a force in history.”
The Socialite Network 
A Small World is a self-consciously exclusive social network aimed at a certain class of internationals—referred to interchangeably as “global nomads,” “citizens of the world,” or, more frequently, the “global elite.” The site reveals that modern cosmopolitanism has been a largely market-driven phenomenon, designed for capital, not citizens, to become “of the world.”
Hollywood in Revolt?
As revolt continues to shake the globe, as images of mass protest and riot become the norm on the evening news, they become a part of the global consciousness and, as such, produce a new series of images for Hollywood to attempt to capture. But in putting a flaming White House in every subway station in America, not to mention in dozens of nations abroad, what desires could Hollywood unleash?
