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Back when I was dabbling in considering a humanities PhD (and coming from a very myopic/technical undergrad degree) I worked near a bookstore with a Literary Criticism section and found this book was really accessible/well-written as a crash course on humanities-style "readings" of text in general — basically it a) summarizes the main "useful" concepts from psychoanalytic theory (without getting too deep into the complexities of the full Freud oeuvre) and then b) goes through multiple famous examples of interesting literary analysis/criticism which "applies" those concepts.
Other interesting meta-literary criticism books from this brief excursion in my life included: - Shklovsky - Theory of Prose - Bakhtin - The Dialogical Imagination - Propp - Morphology of the Folktale (more as an example of formalism taken to an extreme) - Barthes - S/Z (ditto) - Todorov - The Fantastic - White - Tropics of Discourse
Other interesting meta-literary criticism books from this brief excursion in my life included: - Shklovsky - Theory of Prose - Bakhtin - The Dialogical Imagination - Propp - Morphology of the Folktale (more as an example of formalism taken to an extreme) - Barthes - S/Z (ditto) - Todorov - The Fantastic - White - Tropics of Discourse
Nov 24, 2024
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reading this one of his at the moment and really enjoying it! aside from being the most culturally relevant philosopher of our time, he’s also pretty accessible in terms of his thought. he makes a lot of apt social critique and also meta-critique of other thinkers. he provides examples based in pop culture a lot which makes his ideas easy to conceptualize. there are definitely some very jargon heavy passages where he explains his logical and dialectical frameworks by which he reaches his conclusions (which is a great way to be introduced to the philosophical process and get familiar with the techniques), but you can easily get by skimming those passages to get to the conclusions. that’s what I do mostly, but I want to come back to it eventually with a better grasp of his techniques. he has a ton of different books so pick whichever piques your interest. if you like capitalist critique, freudian and kantian philosophy, logical qualms, ethical dilemmas, and commentary on the big issues of our time, get žižek pilled.
2d ago
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I read the preface to the English Edition during my second year of college and proceeded to read the entire thing during the next years. It's quite dense, and goes into detail on a few historical and uses economy lingo that can be complicated to understand, a lot of paragraphs I had to read again and again. However, the most interesting aspect of the book is the dialogue between Marxist theory and Foucaut that the two authors are able to draw, alognside a psychoanalisys of the neoliberal subject.
It's a book I usually always have on my table to go back to and reference. I highly recommend especially to people who are interested in Foucault.
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⭐read my first little bit of theory for my sociology course and ngl this is so crazy
Top Recs from @iconicindex
May 28, 2025
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📻Because of the extensive tradition of pirate radio in the UK (from Radio Caroline on down), London probably has the most insane landscape of 24/7 internet radio in the world. I've tried to rank these in terms of approximate popularity ranging from NTS (as mentioned) on down to purely DIY weekend-only amateur collectives like LWSTD. If you don't know the stations in your city, just have a quick google and do some Instagram "Following" list exploration and it should be pretty easy to find more (e.g. in Amsterdam check out Echobox, Radio Tempo Não Pára, RRFM, etc...)
- NTS (Dalston) https://www.nts.live/ - Rinse FM (Hoxton) https://rinse.fm/ - Worldwide FM (Islington) https://worldwidefm.net/ (currently mostly on ice but great archive) - Balaami (Peckham) https://www.balamii.com/ - Soho Radio https://sohoradiolondon.com/ - Reprezent Radio (Brixton) https://www.reprezentradio.org.uk/ - Netil Radio (Hackney) https://www.netilradio.com/ - Subtle Radio (Hackney) https://www.subtleradio.com/ - Voices Radio (Kings Cross) https://www.voicesradio.co.uk/ - Aaja (Deptford) https://aajamusic.com/radio/ - Do You!! Radio (Hackney) https://doyou.world/ - LWSTD https://www.lovewillsavetheday.fm/
- NTS (Dalston) https://www.nts.live/ - Rinse FM (Hoxton) https://rinse.fm/ - Worldwide FM (Islington) https://worldwidefm.net/ (currently mostly on ice but great archive) - Balaami (Peckham) https://www.balamii.com/ - Soho Radio https://sohoradiolondon.com/ - Reprezent Radio (Brixton) https://www.reprezentradio.org.uk/ - Netil Radio (Hackney) https://www.netilradio.com/ - Subtle Radio (Hackney) https://www.subtleradio.com/ - Voices Radio (Kings Cross) https://www.voicesradio.co.uk/ - Aaja (Deptford) https://aajamusic.com/radio/ - Do You!! Radio (Hackney) https://doyou.world/ - LWSTD https://www.lovewillsavetheday.fm/
Apr 4, 2024
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Finally saw this for the first time (on 35mm thxx Prince Charles Cinema) and wow. Jonathan Glazer and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière spending all of pre-production re-writing the script without informing the studio… DP Harris Savides pushing the boundaries of underexposed film and getting the craziest deepest browns and purples out of Kodak stock… Alexandre Desplat starting with what seems like a very polite classical score and then gradually bringing in heavy synth bass… and of course Nicole Kidman throwing herself headlong into an insane role (and apparently bullying the producers for more $$$ when they finished under budget)
Nov 10, 2024