Recommendations
As I have been writing these blogs, there have been some influences I kept drawing upon. When these are immediately relevant to the review I am writing, I will embed links into the main text, or add notes or suggestions at the end of the review. But there are also sources that have informed my thinking over the years in a more general sense, which don’t always get the spotlight in a review even though their influence is most certainly there.
To ameliorate that oversight, I have included a list here of recommended places on the web to explore. It is limited to sources that produce content on an ongoing basis. There are some individual articles, books, etc. that have made a big impact on me, but listing all of those would make this page unhelpfully long, so links to those will continue to appear in relevant blog posts instead.
The content on this page may change over time. It hopefully will change over time, because I’m not done discovering yet.
Websites
Jacobin: US socialist magazine in print and online, closely aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America. I don’t read it as much anymore these days, but found its thematic issues very useful at an earlier point in my development, given its wide range of topics covering current affairs, history and culture. Its UK branch is Tribune.
The Marginalian: Maria Popova curates an extensive collection of musings on the meaning of life, love, the universe, and our place in it. She draws from an astonishingly wide range of authors, poets, musicians, scientists and other kindred souls, weaving their insights together into new reflections on who and why we are. I find that the best approach to her prolific writing is to be a magpie: look for what appeals to you, and follow the thread if you dare.
Pluralistic: Cory Doctorow’s blog on all things tech and AI. Doctorow is an immensely prolific writer who tends to publish daily. His analysis of the tech industry is informed by a materialist understanding of business behaviour. His posts will revisit the same themes over and again as he develops his thinking, but that can be useful, and there are also very often interesting lateral moves in there that are worth exploring further. Plus, Doctorow is one of the good guys fighting for an open and democratic internet.
Podcasts
ACFM: A self-styled ‘podcast of the weird left’, it combines UK academics Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert, and is hosted by Novara Media. It discusses the intersection of culture and politics through fairly long-form discussions of topics ranging from superheroes to ecology. All episodes come with a custom soundtrack of tracks relevant to the theme.
Behind the Bastards: Robert Evans has been delving into the stories behind both the villains you knew, and the villains you’ve never heard of. There is now a large back catalogue to browse for particular bastards you’re interested in. His mini-series on the advent of policing in the United States is particularly worthwhile.
Culture, Power Politics: The solo project of Jeremy Gilbert (also of ACFM), it describes itself as an ‘open seminar’, covering a wide range of Left topics, from the relationship between Marx and Spinoza to some really in-depth explainers on factions within the UK Labour Party. The focus is distinctly British but there are plenty of episodes that are not specific to the UK. This project started with recordings of actual lectures, which means that the quality of the back catalogue is somewhat variable.
General Intellect Unit: A podcast combining cybernetics, systems analysis and Marxism. The two hosts are on a journey to explore whether cybernetics is the alternative to the failed ‘command and control’ experiments from the Soviet era, but they also frequently digress into discussing fiction, art, as well as technology more generally. The blog is currently dormant but there is a very decent back catalogue, and rumours that a reboot is in the making.
Imaginary Worlds: A podcast by Erik Molinsky exploring all things science-fiction and fantasy. Episodes will go into more detail on a particular TV show, comic book character, or theme. Molinsky started out as an animation industry insider, and the show has been going for so long now, that he manages to get interesting guests on the show.