Besnik Pula
@besnikpula.bsky.social
Political economist & social theorist, currently researching knowledge, phenomenology, and computation in the Cold War (not always in that order) | Author of books | Scholar of trivial topics | Personal account | besnikpula.com
The story of Schutz in American sociology is more than a history of ideas. It’s a case study in how intellectual migration and translation reshape disciplines. My new publication in JCS #sociology #phenomenology journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
November 4, 2025 at 9:42 PM
The story of Schutz in American sociology is more than a history of ideas. It’s a case study in how intellectual migration and translation reshape disciplines. My new publication in JCS #sociology #phenomenology journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
A social science that breathes: no spreadsheets, just images that sting.
My essay on how the montage of Shifty re-maps time, space & sociality → indications.substack.com/p/montage-an...
My essay on how the montage of Shifty re-maps time, space & sociality → indications.substack.com/p/montage-an...
October 17, 2025 at 8:42 PM
A social science that breathes: no spreadsheets, just images that sting.
My essay on how the montage of Shifty re-maps time, space & sociality → indications.substack.com/p/montage-an...
My essay on how the montage of Shifty re-maps time, space & sociality → indications.substack.com/p/montage-an...
Honored to see the review of my book by Eduardo Duran published in @actasociologica.bsky.social Truly appreciate the attention!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
September 15, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Honored to see the review of my book by Eduardo Duran published in @actasociologica.bsky.social Truly appreciate the attention!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
My book on phenomenology and interpretive social science is now available in (a much more reasonably priced) paperback edition!
www.routledge.com/Alfred-Schut...
www.routledge.com/Alfred-Schut...
September 2, 2025 at 8:42 PM
My book on phenomenology and interpretive social science is now available in (a much more reasonably priced) paperback edition!
www.routledge.com/Alfred-Schut...
www.routledge.com/Alfred-Schut...
Extremely honored to have a chapter included in this forthcoming Handbook of 1989 and the Great Transformation, featuring some of the top scholars working on questions of global transformation anywhere and edited by an outstanding group of researchers
www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...
www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...
August 19, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Extremely honored to have a chapter included in this forthcoming Handbook of 1989 and the Great Transformation, featuring some of the top scholars working on questions of global transformation anywhere and edited by an outstanding group of researchers
www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...
www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...
Factory robots once replaced assembly lines; now AI targets high-level tasks. Will history repeat itself, or can we steer innovation in emancipatory ways? My latest essay explores the legacy and past promises of automation in the era of Big Tech
open.substack.com/pub/indicati...
open.substack.com/pub/indicati...
August 6, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Factory robots once replaced assembly lines; now AI targets high-level tasks. Will history repeat itself, or can we steer innovation in emancipatory ways? My latest essay explores the legacy and past promises of automation in the era of Big Tech
open.substack.com/pub/indicati...
open.substack.com/pub/indicati...
I had a really enjoyable time at the Schutz Circle 2025 conference held at the University of Vienna last week. With 100+ participants from over 25 countries, it was wonderful to see the many ways the work of Alfred Schutz is explored and developed in a truly global fashion #phenomenology #sociology
April 28, 2025 at 6:07 PM
I had a really enjoyable time at the Schutz Circle 2025 conference held at the University of Vienna last week. With 100+ participants from over 25 countries, it was wonderful to see the many ways the work of Alfred Schutz is explored and developed in a truly global fashion #phenomenology #sociology
It's annoying when pundits talk about a trade war and compare the current situation to the 1930s. Back then, every major economy was raising tariffs against the other. Right now other countries are still trading. This is more like US trade self-immolation
April 7, 2025 at 5:28 PM
It's annoying when pundits talk about a trade war and compare the current situation to the 1930s. Back then, every major economy was raising tariffs against the other. Right now other countries are still trading. This is more like US trade self-immolation
I was going to make a joke about the quality of the Cyber Truck build by comparing it to the East German Trabant, but then thought how the folks building the Trabant did so under conditions of extreme shortage, built a cheap working machine, and made no extravagant claims about their product
March 14, 2025 at 3:39 PM
I was going to make a joke about the quality of the Cyber Truck build by comparing it to the East German Trabant, but then thought how the folks building the Trabant did so under conditions of extreme shortage, built a cheap working machine, and made no extravagant claims about their product
It's truly ludicrous to think that tariffs will induce some sort of employment driven manufacturing renaissance in the US. Even if tariffs reshored some production, most will be automated. Jobs created would be for more engineers than blue collar work
March 12, 2025 at 9:13 PM
It's truly ludicrous to think that tariffs will induce some sort of employment driven manufacturing renaissance in the US. Even if tariffs reshored some production, most will be automated. Jobs created would be for more engineers than blue collar work
I'd say this explains quite a bit about our present world
March 11, 2025 at 7:35 PM
I'd say this explains quite a bit about our present world
"This wasn’t always the case. The US Republicans of 20 years ago were no keener on autocracy than the average Canadian or western European — and just as supportive of international co-operation."
on.ft.com/4iqh3qA
on.ft.com/4iqh3qA
March 8, 2025 at 8:33 PM
"This wasn’t always the case. The US Republicans of 20 years ago were no keener on autocracy than the average Canadian or western European — and just as supportive of international co-operation."
on.ft.com/4iqh3qA
on.ft.com/4iqh3qA
Public sector, education and health hiring has kept the US economy on a growth path but with ongoing cuts to fed employment and coming austerity, tariffs, workforce removal via deportation, the question is not if or when a recession but how long and how deep
March 6, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Public sector, education and health hiring has kept the US economy on a growth path but with ongoing cuts to fed employment and coming austerity, tariffs, workforce removal via deportation, the question is not if or when a recession but how long and how deep
It's ominous enough, but sounds even more ominous when the great student of democracy and authoritarianism @adamprz.bsky.social writes this
March 6, 2025 at 1:09 AM
It's ominous enough, but sounds even more ominous when the great student of democracy and authoritarianism @adamprz.bsky.social writes this
Libertarians starting to sound a bit like the old communists: "The theory was very good, just not implemented correctly"
February 28, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Libertarians starting to sound a bit like the old communists: "The theory was very good, just not implemented correctly"
David Golumbia's book Cyberlibertarianism is an eye-opener. Anyone still believing that Musk and the tech oligarchs are in it because they want "efficiency" from government will be in for a rude awakening. They don't want efficiency from government. They want to destroy government
February 11, 2025 at 3:37 PM
David Golumbia's book Cyberlibertarianism is an eye-opener. Anyone still believing that Musk and the tech oligarchs are in it because they want "efficiency" from government will be in for a rude awakening. They don't want efficiency from government. They want to destroy government
The late Bernard Stiegler was quite correct — and prescient — in his assessment of our current predicament, writing here in The Age of Disruption (orig. 2016)
February 2, 2025 at 5:26 PM
The late Bernard Stiegler was quite correct — and prescient — in his assessment of our current predicament, writing here in The Age of Disruption (orig. 2016)
Can bet on the tech oligarchs - you know, the professed libertarians who love markets and competition as "drivers of innovation" - asking Trump to ban DeepSeek as a "Chinese national security threat"
January 27, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Can bet on the tech oligarchs - you know, the professed libertarians who love markets and competition as "drivers of innovation" - asking Trump to ban DeepSeek as a "Chinese national security threat"
This is how big this is
January 27, 2025 at 1:07 PM
This is how big this is
China's DeepSeek, which proved you don't need billions in funding and tons of energy and processing power to run an LLM model just as good as the best ones from OpenAI, is already rattling markets and once again Chinese companies undercut US big tech
January 27, 2025 at 12:36 PM
China's DeepSeek, which proved you don't need billions in funding and tons of energy and processing power to run an LLM model just as good as the best ones from OpenAI, is already rattling markets and once again Chinese companies undercut US big tech
Another area where China is blowing everyone away - robotics. Cheap embodied AI may be coming our way faster than we know it while we still debate ChatGPT
January 25, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Another area where China is blowing everyone away - robotics. Cheap embodied AI may be coming our way faster than we know it while we still debate ChatGPT
The article provides a useful reminder that the Democratic Party did not "lose" the working class but spent the last thirty years trying to destroy it
January 7, 2025 at 6:21 PM
The article provides a useful reminder that the Democratic Party did not "lose" the working class but spent the last thirty years trying to destroy it
I can relate to this sentiment, and will fully endorse it
January 7, 2025 at 4:36 PM
I can relate to this sentiment, and will fully endorse it
Fellow profs: know of any outstanding undergrads looking for a (possibly funded) MA program in political science? Please send them our way! Our department is widely specialized in pol theory, security studies, environmental politics, pol economy, and US politics
liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-...
liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-...
December 29, 2024 at 3:15 PM
Fellow profs: know of any outstanding undergrads looking for a (possibly funded) MA program in political science? Please send them our way! Our department is widely specialized in pol theory, security studies, environmental politics, pol economy, and US politics
liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-...
liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-...