In the week of the UK’s AI Safety Summit, Professor Sarah Hall talks to Professor Louise Amoore about responding to the ethical challenges posed by different types of artificial intelligence, regulatory differences between the UK and the EU and the role of tech companies in ensuring the safe use of AI.
In Cloud Ethics Louise Amoore examines how machine learning algorithms are transforming the ethics and politics of contemporary society. Conceptualizing algorithms as ethicopolitical entities that are entangled with the data attributes of people, Amoore outlines how algorithms give incomplete accounts of themselves, learn through relationships with human practices, and exist in the world in ways that exceed their source code. In these ways, algorithms and their relations to people cannot be understood by simply examining their code, nor can ethics be encoded into algorithms. Instead, Amoore locates the ethical responsibility of algorithms in the conditions of partiality and opacity that haunt both human and algorithmic decisions. To this end, she proposes what she calls cloud ethics—an approach to holding algorithms accountable by engaging with the social and technical conditions under which they emerge and operate.
In The Cybernetic Border, Iván Chaar López argues that the settler US nation requires the production and targeting of a racialized enemy that threatens the empire. The cybernetic border is organized through practices of data capture, storage, processing, circulation, and communication that police bodies and constitute the nation as a bounded, territorial space. Chaar López historicizes the US government’s use of border enforcement technologies on Mexicans, Arabs, and Muslims from the mid-twentieth century to the present, showing how data systems are presented as solutions to unauthorized border crossing. Contrary to enduring fantasies of the purported neutrality of drones, smart walls, artificial intelligence, and biometric technologies, the cybernetic border represents the consolidation of calculation and automation in the exercise of racialized violence. Chaar López draws on corporate, military, and government records, promotional documents and films, technical reports, news reporting, surveillance footage, and activist and artist practices. These materials reveal how logics of enmity are embedded into information infrastructures that shape border control and modern sovereignty.
Providing a succinct overview of historical, present and future perspectives of cities and urbanism, this discerning book examines how the 21st century, regarded as the age of cities, is associated with the current crisis of democracy.
The book explores the tension between non-democratic liberalism and non-liberal democracy and the present era of cities as complex systems, in which the characteristics and dynamics of urbanism are transforming our way of life. Against the backdrop of globalization, the Anthropocene, and Industry 4.0, each chapter analyses the challenges and crises facing modern democracies from the unique perspective of cities and complexity theory. Expert contributors analyse the interplay between complexity theory, urban planning, governance and the internet, ultimately highlighting the need to rediscover the relationship between urban beauty and democracy.
Offering key insights into the complexities of urban development and the challenges that arise when democracy intersects with the needs of modern cities, this innovative book will appeal to students and scholars of urban geography, political science, public administration, and architecture. It will be an invaluable resource for those researching cities and complexity.
Increasingly, many people in democracies are turning to a strongarm politics for reassurance against globalization, uncertainty and precarity. In countries ranging from the US and the UK to Brazil, India and Turkey, support has grown for a nativist politics attacking migrants, minorities, liberals and elites as enemies of the nation. Is there a politics of belonging that progressive forces could mobilize to counteract these trends?
After Nativism takes up this question, arguing that disarming nativism will require more than improving the security and wellbeing of the ‘left-behind’. The lines drawn by nativism are of an affective nature about imagined community, with meanings of belonging and voice lying at the heart of popular perceptions of just dues. This, argues Ash Amin, is the territory that progressive forces – liberal, social democratic, socialist – need to reclaim in order to shift public sentiment away from xenophobic intolerance towards one of commonality amid difference as a basis for facing existential risk and uncertainty. The book proposes a relational politics of belonging premised on the encounter, fugitive aesthetics, public interest politics, collaboration over common existential threats, and daily collectives and infrastructures of wellbeing. There is ground for progressives to mount a counter-aesthetics of belonging that will convince the discontents of neoliberal globalization that there is a better alternative to nativism.
A groundbreaking examination of Michel Foucault’s history of truth.
Many blame Michel Foucault for our post-truth and conspiracy-laden society. In this provocative work, Daniele Lorenzini argues that such criticism fundamentally misunderstands the philosopher’s project. Foucault did not question truth itself but what Lorenzini calls “the force of truth,” or how some truth claims are given the power to govern our conduct while others are not. This interest, Lorenzini shows, drove Foucault to articulate a new ethics and politics of truth-telling precisely in order to evade the threat of relativism. The Force of Truth explores this neglected dimension of Foucault’s project by putting his writings on regimes of truth and parrhesia in conversation with early analytic philosophy and by drawing out the “possibilizing” elements of Foucault’s genealogies that remain vital for practicing critique today.
Verso have currently made the e-book free to download
Israel’s military industrial complex uses the occupied, Palestinian territories as a testing ground for weaponry and surveillance technology that they then export around the world to despots and democracies. For more than 50 years, occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has given the Israeli state invaluable experience in controlling an “enemy” population, the Palestinians. It’s here that they have perfected the architecture of control.
Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein, author of Disaster Capitalism, uncovers this largely hidden world in a global investigation with secret documents, revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting. This book shows in-depth, for the first time, how Palestine has become the perfect laboratory for the Israeli military-techno complex: surveillance, home demolitions, indefinite incarceration and brutality to the hi-tech tools that drive the ‘Start-up Nation’. From the Pegasus software that hacked Jeff Bezos’ and Jamal Khashoggi’s phones, the weapons sold to the Myanmar army that has murdered thousands of Rohingyas and drones used by the European Union to monitor refugees in the Mediterranean who are left to drown. Israel has become a global leader in spying technology and defence hardware that fuels the globe’s most brutal conflicts. As ethno-nationalism grows in the 21st century, Israel has built the ultimate model.
An accessible and engaging introduction to geographic thought from a recognized leader in the field
In the expanded and engaging Second Edition of Geographic Thought: A Critical Introduction, renowned scholar Tim Cresswell delivers a thoroughly up-to-date and accessible examination of the major thinkers and key theoretical developments in the field. Coverage of the complete range of the development of theoretical knowledge—from ancient geography to contemporary theory—appears alongside treatments of the influence of Darwin and Marx, the emergence of anarchist geographies, the impact of feminism, and myriad other central bodies of thought.
The latest edition explores new chapters on physical geography and theory, postcolonialism and decoloniality, and black geographies.
The author emphasizes the importance of geographic thought and its relevance to our understanding of what it means to be human and to the people, places, and cultures of the world in which we live. The book also includes:
New examples throughout consisting of interesting and up-to-date research from a wider range of geographical contexts and by geographers from diverse backgrounds
Comprehensive explorations of physical geography that combine updated coverage from the first edition with brand new material
Updates discussions of spatial science and quantitative methods that include considerations the role of place and specificity in quantitative work
In-depth examinations of the idea of the Anthropocene, the uses of assemblage theory, and the emergence of the GeoHumanities.
Perfect for students of undergraduate and graduate courses in geographic thought, Geographic Thought: A Critical Introduction will also earn a place in the libraries of students and scholars of the history and philosophy of geography, as well as practicing geographers.
I have now been back at work for a few weeks, initially beginning half-time and gradually increasing what I can do. The support I have had from my department for a long period off work and a phased transition has been much appreciated. However, the nature of being unwell on a research fellowship is that the amount of work does not reduce, just the time in which to do it. I can’t write 90% of the planned book, I don’t want to produce something less than I originally had in mind, and I don’t want to cut corners. So it is likely I will have to extend the period working on this project beyond the original plan. The end of the project is a good way off, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that I am a long way behind.
Especially given the shorter days I’ve been working, I tried to come up with some relatively small and sometimes discrete tasks, so that I could tackle something manageable and have a sense of progress. The plan for term 1 is to write a draft of a chapter on Émile Benveniste’s work in the 1930s and 1940s. This was initially the plan for the first half of the summer, but as well as starting later than planned, I’m also not going to be able to work so intensely. So it’s been a case of breaking down this work into smaller sections, parts and tasks, even more so than normal. One of the things that is interesting about this work is that while I know the broad contours of the themes this chapter needs to cover – Benveniste’s key works, his election to a chair at the Collège de France, his exile in the war, and fieldtrips to Iran and Afghanistan – there are going to be questions I don’t yet know which will need to discussed.
One relatively discrete task was writing about the teaching done by Benveniste. We have a good summary record from the Annuaires of both the Collège de France and the EPHE. Unfortunately his own archive only seems to have limited records of courses, a few of which have been digitised. His Last Lectures have been published, but there doesn’t seem to be a more extensive plan of publication. There are also a few notes from auditors available in archives. But for most years it looks like we simply have his own report of what he did, usually a paragraph in length. Before I became unwell, I’d done a systematic trawl through the Annuaires and had copied or downloaded the reports, and largely consolidated these into single file for each institution. It provides a really interesting trajectory of a career, as the record also does for Georges Dumézil – whose own teaching record is much better preserved – and, in the previous project, Foucault. I’ve been writing small sections on the teaching – Benveniste’s courses were disrupted by war and his health, so it breaks down into shorter periods. At some point I will go through the archival records in Paris and fill in what more detail I can, but for many of the years I think the reports are all we have.
I’ve also being making a few visits to UK archives. I made a return visit to Oxford, to look at the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL) papers I mentioned in the previous update. This was mainly to check a few things in relation to the Walter Bruno Henning story I have now drafted. I also used the visit there to request a couple of things from the library I can’t access in London.
I also visited the archives of SOAS to look at the personnel files of Henning and Harold Bailey. The Bailey files were missing from the relevant box, so a search has been started to see where they might have ended up. The Henning files were fascinating, and helped to fill in some detail in the story I’d reconstructed from the SPSL papers. I made a return visit to the Ancient India and Iran Trust in Cambridge, to look again at the Harold Bailey papers, which include his extensive correspondence with Benveniste. I also took an initial look at some of the other letters there, mainly his long correspondence with Henning.
In the previous update I said I thought I’d finished, at least for now, the discussion of Benveniste’s early work on the Sogdian language. This was work begun by Robert Gauthiot with materials brought back to Paris by Paul Pelliot. Gauthiot died from wounds in the First World War, and a very young Benveniste was asked by Antoine Meillet and Pelliot to continue this work. But I wanted to get a better sense of Gauthiot’s work, and so started reading more of his work. Following a lead there, I chanced upon the work of Ursula Sims-Williams of the British Library. She discusses the exchange between Aurel Stein and Pelliot, and through Pelliot with Gauthiot, where Gauthiot helped to decipher some of the texts brough back by Stein to London. I already knew the importance of Stein to the story because he was at the Dunhuang caves shortly before Pelliot. His haul ended up in various London museums. In parallel to the work going on in London and Paris, there was also work in Berlin with the materials from the Turfan expeditions. A young Henning was involved in that work before he moved to SOAS. Yet again I’m shown by the material how hard this is going to keep to a single-country focus.
This reading led me to look in a big more detail at Stein himself. I say more about that work here. A lot of his papers are at the Bodleian, including parts of his correspondence. Sims-Williams indicates that at least some of his letters with Pelliot were at the British Library, and they provide a very interesting account of what happened. In all the years I’ve been using the British Library this was the first time I’d consulted something from the Archives and Manuscripts collections. Much of his correspondence is part of the Oriental manuscripts collection, so needs to be read in the Asian and African Studies room; but related material was in the Western manuscripts collection so that led to the Manuscripts room. There are also some very interesting papers at the British Museum, relating to his work for that institution, which also has many of the objects brought back from his expeditions.
Quite a lot of Stein’s reports appeared in print, and he generally gave papers to the Royal Geographical Society on his return to London. These talks were published in The Geographical Journal, and some of the original papers are at the RGS itself. Reading old issues of The Geographical Journal are a real window into orientalism and imperialism, often with names that almost sound made-up. The discussion after a 1916 report by Stein on exploration in Central Asia comprises General Baron Kaulbars of the Imperial Russian army, Sir Hercules Read of the British Museum, RGS President Sir Francis Younghusband, Sir Henry Trotter (a former British Indian Army officer, and about to be president of the Central Asian Society), and the Tory MPs Colonel C.E. Yate and Austen Chamberlain (then Secretary of State for India, and future party leader and Foreign Secretary). I made a visit to RGS archives to look at what they had, and found the correspondence there especially interesting.
For knowing where to look, I found the Handbook to the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the UK very useful. There are other archives in London which I hope to visit, including at the British Academy (family correspondence) and the Royal Asiatic Society (mainly photographs). But some crucial materials are in Budapest at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. It’s clear much more could be done with all these sources, though I’ve been trying to keep a focus on his links to Pelliot, Gauthiot and Benveniste.
So most of the work this month has been at home, with a few short trips to UK archives. It’s been good to get working on the project again, even with the restrictions on time and a daunting amount of work ahead. I’m planning to get back to Paris in November. There are some things I want to consult at the Archives Nationales, some of which I’ve seen before, but most of the time will be spent continuing work at the Collège de France and the Bibliothèque Nationale.
Previous updates on this project can be found here, along with links to some research resources and forthcoming publications, including the delayed reedition of Dumézil’s Mitra-Varuna. There is a lot more about the earlier Foucault work here. The final volume of the series, The Archaeology of Foucault, is now out worldwide. The special issue of Theory, Culture & Society I co-edited on “Foucault before the Collège de France” is also now published.
Albert Camus’s lively journals from his eventful visits to the United States and South America in the 1940s, available again in a new translation.
In March 1946, the young Albert Camus crossed from Le Havre to New York. Though he was virtually unknown to American audiences at the time, all that was about to change—The Stranger, his first book translated into English, would soon make him a literary star. By 1949, when he set out on a tour of South America, Camus was an international celebrity. Camus’s journals offer an intimate glimpse into his daily life during these eventful years and showcase his thinking at its most personal—a form of observational writing that the French call choses vues (things seen).
Camus’s journals from these travels record his impressions, frustrations, joys, and longings. Here are his unguarded first impressions of his surroundings and his encounters with publishers, critics, and members of the New York intelligentsia. Long unavailable in English, the journals have now been expertly retranslated by Ryan Bloom, with a new introduction by Alice Kaplan. Bloom’s translation captures the informal, sketch-like quality of Camus’s observations—by turns ironic, bitter, cutting, and melancholy—and the quick notes he must have taken after exhausting days of travel and lecturing. Bloom and Kaplan’s notes and annotations allow readers to walk beside the existentialist thinker as he experiences changes in his own life and the world around him, all in his inimitable style.
Update: Adam Shatz and Thomas Jones discuss this at the LRB podcast here.
