cynicism
The cynical university: Gamified subjectivity in Norwegian academia
An Act of Resistance that Recognizes its Own Impotence
Let me begin with a vignette. On the occasion of a colleague’s birthday, a celebration at a university department was organized, with the usual polite offerings of cake, wine, and speeches. In a breach of the usual etiquette, the first speaker, instead of emphasizing the academic merits and personality of the celebrated, used his speech to deliver an incisive critique of the marketization and ‘governance by numbers’ (Supiot, 2017) of Norwegian universities.
Serving coffee with Žižek: On decaf, half-caf and real resistance at Starbucks
Introduction
The following paper takes a Žižekian perspective, refined by Alessia Contu, as its theoretical point of departure, as it critically engages with the idea of ‘decaf’ resistance. This term signifies a resistance, which has been deprived of its potentially dangerous main-ingredient, but is still experienced as the original ‘dangerous’ resistance, where both the resister and the resisted have something at stake (Žižek, 2003, 2004, 2010b; Contu, 2008).
Education of and for the ‘post-apocalyptic’: How Britain discarded women technologists and lost its edge in computing
[…] our problem is not that we are fools in need of enlightenment. Rather our problem is that we lack the power not to be fooled. (Allen, 2017: 103)
‘Work hard, play hard’: Fantasies of nihilism and hedonism between work and consumption
Introduction
Vice is known for its raw, unsparingly honest editorial voice… Vice’s editors are either totally tuned-in geniuses or prankster revisionists. Or maybe both. (The Wall Street Journal)
The first-movers of culture have embraced a continuum that includes the hip, subversive aesthetic of Vice Magazine. (New York Times Magazine)
