Rec
The other book consistently on my table, it's a short, but time consuming read. It set up a whole new way of analysing the city, by arguing that the urban environemnet has been commodified by capitalism and the acceses to not only the space and reseources, but also the governance of the city had become innacisble to most people.
If you are interested in discussions around third spaces I would highly recommend picking this one up, it goes way beyond the idea of having spaces to interact and form community, but hihglights the city as a space of political dispute and the possibilities of the people to self determine the terms of urban life.
Jan 14, 2025
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Rec
📚Take off the training wheels that is third space theory and dive into the big leagues
Henri Levebfre The right to the City and The Production of Space - If I could keep one white french man... David Harvey Rebel Cities:From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution - This is the effort of Harvey to document and argue for urban revolution and heavily dialogues with Levebfre theory of the city being a place of social organizing and revolution. David Harvey Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason - This is a post occupy Wall-Street David Hervey, reviewing a lot of his own work and the work f leftist activism. It's much more interest in the aspects of circulation of capital rather than production, in face of an increasingly financialized economy so his dialogue is much stronger with the Third Volume of Marx's capital Sérgio Ferro Design and the Building Site - My ride or die, Ferro dives into the politics of work in the construction site and how it's tied to the control of knowledge and who can build. Ruth Gilmore Abolition Geography:Essays Towards Liberation - The one author in this list that doesn't work in a Marxist Frame work. Her work is more focused on power and control through incarceration and the racial relations present in it. I recommend reading Achille Mbembe's Necropolitics along side her. F.T.C Manning Geographies of ground rent: Periodizing ground rent theory, spatializing ground rent refusal - This is a short article by Francesca Manning arguing on the importance of the theory of Ground Rent to understand the control and power over land. I questioned this as a rec because is so theory dense, but I really like her work and simply didn't want to leave her out.
Henri Levebfre The right to the City and The Production of Space - If I could keep one white french man... David Harvey Rebel Cities:From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution - This is the effort of Harvey to document and argue for urban revolution and heavily dialogues with Levebfre theory of the city being a place of social organizing and revolution. David Harvey Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason - This is a post occupy Wall-Street David Hervey, reviewing a lot of his own work and the work f leftist activism. It's much more interest in the aspects of circulation of capital rather than production, in face of an increasingly financialized economy so his dialogue is much stronger with the Third Volume of Marx's capital Sérgio Ferro Design and the Building Site - My ride or die, Ferro dives into the politics of work in the construction site and how it's tied to the control of knowledge and who can build. Ruth Gilmore Abolition Geography:Essays Towards Liberation - The one author in this list that doesn't work in a Marxist Frame work. Her work is more focused on power and control through incarceration and the racial relations present in it. I recommend reading Achille Mbembe's Necropolitics along side her. F.T.C Manning Geographies of ground rent: Periodizing ground rent theory, spatializing ground rent refusal - This is a short article by Francesca Manning arguing on the importance of the theory of Ground Rent to understand the control and power over land. I questioned this as a rec because is so theory dense, but I really like her work and simply didn't want to leave her out.
Rec
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.
Rec
a treatise on the attention economy - checked it out on libby and got through it over the course of a work day, a lot of really interesting social and cultural explorations about how time itself is the final frontier of hypercapitalism and what decommodification of our attention and time should look like
the book starts with a story about the oldest redwood tree in oakland and how the only reason it’s still standing is bc it’s unmillable, and how being uncommercializable is essential to our survival. it ends with an exploration of alt social media platforms (mostly p2p ones) and what keeping the good parts of the social internet and rejecting the bad ones should look like
all in all a super valuable read; my only nitpick with the book is that odell isn’t just charting the attention economy but also attempting to “solve” it and relate it back to broader concepts about labor and social organizing, but her background is in the arts which leads to some really wonderful references to drive the points home while also missing some critical racial + socioeconomic analyses that one would expect (or at least really appreciate) from the book she promises to deliver in the introduction. but this does also make the book easier to read which is good because everyone should definitely engage with what she has to say
will definitely be revisiting
the book starts with a story about the oldest redwood tree in oakland and how the only reason it’s still standing is bc it’s unmillable, and how being uncommercializable is essential to our survival. it ends with an exploration of alt social media platforms (mostly p2p ones) and what keeping the good parts of the social internet and rejecting the bad ones should look like
all in all a super valuable read; my only nitpick with the book is that odell isn’t just charting the attention economy but also attempting to “solve” it and relate it back to broader concepts about labor and social organizing, but her background is in the arts which leads to some really wonderful references to drive the points home while also missing some critical racial + socioeconomic analyses that one would expect (or at least really appreciate) from the book she promises to deliver in the introduction. but this does also make the book easier to read which is good because everyone should definitely engage with what she has to say
will definitely be revisiting
Top Recs from @nanabo
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🕵One of the things I like the most about Pi.fyi and the current scale of users is that it's still noticeable when a rec was inspired by another.
Sometimes the rec directly mentions the other, but other times you can kinda assume that reading an especific thing here triggered a memory or an ideia.
It's very cute and interesting to notice the small influences interacting with other humans online can have.
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🧽I know there are days when you are so tired, or maybe you made a big meal for friends and family or you spent the afternoon meal prepping and now you have to clean like five pots and a tray, but be brave!!! (my inner monologue)
Don't force your future self to wake up to a bunch of dirty dishes. It will keep your mind full because you will be constantly reminding yourself to clean that up.
Don't force your future self to wake up to a bunch of dirty dishes. It will keep your mind full because you will be constantly reminding yourself to clean that up.
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📠UbuWeb - archive for video, text and sound, all avant gard art
Marxists.org - archive for marxist texts
CrimethInc - archive for anarchist publications and news
Aeon - magazine on philosophy and science
Eye on Design - magazine on design news
Failed Architecture - magazine on critical architecture and urbanism
LitHub - literary magazine
Anna's Archive - love of my life ♥️
A terra é redonda - magazine of art and politics
Passa palavra - news and articles on Brazillian politics
Digilabour - news and articles about gig economy and surveillance capitalism