The Syllabus
@the-syllabus.bsky.social
Knowledge Curation Done Well. Non-Profit. Podcasts, videos, books, academic articles, and more. Subscribe: https://www.the-syllabus.com/
Google has quietly constructed an empire spanning more than 6,000 firms via acquisitions, investments, and partnerships, dwarfing its big tech peers. Our hidden gem of the week exposes Google’s unchecked digital dominance.
By Aline Blankertz et al. at @harvardkennedy.bsky.social
buff.ly/7ae479h
By Aline Blankertz et al. at @harvardkennedy.bsky.social
buff.ly/7ae479h
November 11, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Google has quietly constructed an empire spanning more than 6,000 firms via acquisitions, investments, and partnerships, dwarfing its big tech peers. Our hidden gem of the week exposes Google’s unchecked digital dominance.
By Aline Blankertz et al. at @harvardkennedy.bsky.social
buff.ly/7ae479h
By Aline Blankertz et al. at @harvardkennedy.bsky.social
buff.ly/7ae479h
Drawing on the Boggs’ cybercultural analysis, our book of the week reveals how Black radical thinkers traced automation’s roots to colonialism and slavery, seeing cyberculture as a site where labor, ecology, and race collide.
By Brian Bartell on @uminnpress.bsky.social
buff.ly/DcCEGhd
By Brian Bartell on @uminnpress.bsky.social
buff.ly/DcCEGhd
November 11, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Drawing on the Boggs’ cybercultural analysis, our book of the week reveals how Black radical thinkers traced automation’s roots to colonialism and slavery, seeing cyberculture as a site where labor, ecology, and race collide.
By Brian Bartell on @uminnpress.bsky.social
buff.ly/DcCEGhd
By Brian Bartell on @uminnpress.bsky.social
buff.ly/DcCEGhd
Fashion is a political weapon, armor, and act of personal resistance. This panel unpacks how individuals navigate power through clothing in a world marked by surveillance, gender norms, racial tensions, and shifting boundaries of self-expression.
Feat. Liz Collins et al.
Feat. Liz Collins et al.
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
buff.ly
November 10, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Fashion is a political weapon, armor, and act of personal resistance. This panel unpacks how individuals navigate power through clothing in a world marked by surveillance, gender norms, racial tensions, and shifting boundaries of self-expression.
Feat. Liz Collins et al.
Feat. Liz Collins et al.
TikTok is rewriting the rules of attention and economic power. This piece argues that its algorithm doesn’t follow you; it learns you in real time, serving addictive micro-content while collapsing aesthetic diversity into algorithmic sameness to sustain engagement.
By Anonymous
By Anonymous
The Interest Graph State
How Recommendation Engines Replaced Culture With Calibration
buff.ly
November 10, 2025 at 12:01 PM
TikTok is rewriting the rules of attention and economic power. This piece argues that its algorithm doesn’t follow you; it learns you in real time, serving addictive micro-content while collapsing aesthetic diversity into algorithmic sameness to sustain engagement.
By Anonymous
By Anonymous
Tracing an arc from Reagan-era conservatism to a nuanced leftism grounded in Marxism's enduring relevance, this interview critiques the failures of neoliberalism and the collapse of leftist political imagination post-Cold War.
With Thomas Meaney in @thenation
With Thomas Meaney in @thenation
The Future of Magazines… and the World
A conversation with Thomas Meaney, the editor of Granta, about literature and the left.
buff.ly
November 9, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Tracing an arc from Reagan-era conservatism to a nuanced leftism grounded in Marxism's enduring relevance, this interview critiques the failures of neoliberalism and the collapse of leftist political imagination post-Cold War.
With Thomas Meaney in @thenation
With Thomas Meaney in @thenation
This policy brief indicts US tech giants for enabling Israel’s assault on Gaza, arguing that their AI and cloud technologies are integral to military targeting, effectively automating and scaling violence against Palestinians.
By @marwasf.bsky.social at @alshabaka.bsky.social
buff.ly/Aa4D7h6
By @marwasf.bsky.social at @alshabaka.bsky.social
buff.ly/Aa4D7h6
AI for War: Big Tech Empowering Israel’s Crimes and Occupation | Al-Shabaka
This brief traces how corporate complicity with Israel now extends to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide
buff.ly
November 9, 2025 at 12:00 PM
This policy brief indicts US tech giants for enabling Israel’s assault on Gaza, arguing that their AI and cloud technologies are integral to military targeting, effectively automating and scaling violence against Palestinians.
By @marwasf.bsky.social at @alshabaka.bsky.social
buff.ly/Aa4D7h6
By @marwasf.bsky.social at @alshabaka.bsky.social
buff.ly/Aa4D7h6
From mothers of police brutality victims to rural activists and urban students, this working paper shows how these movements expose the militarization of daily life—criminalizing Black motherhood and militarizing schools to enforce patriarchal discipline.
By Izadora X. do Monte
buff.ly/QII7kTm
By Izadora X. do Monte
buff.ly/QII7kTm
mecila.net
November 8, 2025 at 2:01 PM
From mothers of police brutality victims to rural activists and urban students, this working paper shows how these movements expose the militarization of daily life—criminalizing Black motherhood and militarizing schools to enforce patriarchal discipline.
By Izadora X. do Monte
buff.ly/QII7kTm
By Izadora X. do Monte
buff.ly/QII7kTm
As voters went to the polls in Argentina last month, the legislative elections made the US dollar a referendum on authority versus social rights. Our open-access article of the week traces the long history behind Milei's dollarization.
By Ariel Wilkis & Mariana Luzzi
buff.ly/KCNg117
By Ariel Wilkis & Mariana Luzzi
buff.ly/KCNg117
November 8, 2025 at 12:00 PM
As voters went to the polls in Argentina last month, the legislative elections made the US dollar a referendum on authority versus social rights. Our open-access article of the week traces the long history behind Milei's dollarization.
By Ariel Wilkis & Mariana Luzzi
buff.ly/KCNg117
By Ariel Wilkis & Mariana Luzzi
buff.ly/KCNg117
By centering Latino voices, fostering cultural pride, and holding local leaders to account, this episode examines how grassroots journalism can preserve democracy and bridge gaps in representation for marginalized communities.
With Liliana L. Ruelas
buff.ly/NmVCyVH
With Liliana L. Ruelas
buff.ly/NmVCyVH
Liliana López Ruelas: Building Community in Tucson´s News Desert
On April 25, 2023, a phone call from an out-of-state number ended La Estrella de Tucsón, leaving the city without a Spanish-language newspaper. For Liliana López Ruelas, who had spent years as an edit
buff.ly
November 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
By centering Latino voices, fostering cultural pride, and holding local leaders to account, this episode examines how grassroots journalism can preserve democracy and bridge gaps in representation for marginalized communities.
With Liliana L. Ruelas
buff.ly/NmVCyVH
With Liliana L. Ruelas
buff.ly/NmVCyVH
Though often dismissed as rigid, mathematics acts as a bridge, sharing creativity with the arts while underpinning scientific understanding. Drawing on music, our video of the week highlights the aesthetic potential of mathematical structures.
Feat. @marcusdusautoy.bsky.social
buff.ly/D2YZQFp
Feat. @marcusdusautoy.bsky.social
buff.ly/D2YZQFp
November 7, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Though often dismissed as rigid, mathematics acts as a bridge, sharing creativity with the arts while underpinning scientific understanding. Drawing on music, our video of the week highlights the aesthetic potential of mathematical structures.
Feat. @marcusdusautoy.bsky.social
buff.ly/D2YZQFp
Feat. @marcusdusautoy.bsky.social
buff.ly/D2YZQFp
This piece argues that Israel's dependency, rooted in a long history of imperial patronage, underpins its genocidal campaigns. The path to ending Israel's violence lies in targeting the enablers who sustain its brutality.
By Rhys Machold in @jewishcurrents.bsky.social
buff.ly/uBWoZvS
By Rhys Machold in @jewishcurrents.bsky.social
buff.ly/uBWoZvS
The Myth of Israeli Innovation
Israel has long relied on Western patrons for arms and backing—even as it has cast itself as a security “innovator” the West can’t afford to do without.
buff.ly
November 6, 2025 at 2:01 PM
This piece argues that Israel's dependency, rooted in a long history of imperial patronage, underpins its genocidal campaigns. The path to ending Israel's violence lies in targeting the enablers who sustain its brutality.
By Rhys Machold in @jewishcurrents.bsky.social
buff.ly/uBWoZvS
By Rhys Machold in @jewishcurrents.bsky.social
buff.ly/uBWoZvS
The reduction of collective life by both capitalist and state-socialist economies to a single criterion excludes the possibility of addressing human needs. Our podcast of the week instead theorizes a "multicriterial economy."
W/ @abenanav.bsky.social on @futurehistories.bsky.social
buff.ly/uiwiVoa
W/ @abenanav.bsky.social on @futurehistories.bsky.social
buff.ly/uiwiVoa
November 6, 2025 at 12:01 PM
The reduction of collective life by both capitalist and state-socialist economies to a single criterion excludes the possibility of addressing human needs. Our podcast of the week instead theorizes a "multicriterial economy."
W/ @abenanav.bsky.social on @futurehistories.bsky.social
buff.ly/uiwiVoa
W/ @abenanav.bsky.social on @futurehistories.bsky.social
buff.ly/uiwiVoa
Marking 50 years since the killing of Pier Paolo Pasolini, our Italian pick of the week revisits Pasolini's Rome, its subproletarian circuits and literary milieu, then sketches his Marxist, anti-consumerist work across his novels, poetry, and films.
By Francesca Torrani
buff.ly/oT0iX3w
By Francesca Torrani
buff.ly/oT0iX3w
November 5, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Marking 50 years since the killing of Pier Paolo Pasolini, our Italian pick of the week revisits Pasolini's Rome, its subproletarian circuits and literary milieu, then sketches his Marxist, anti-consumerist work across his novels, poetry, and films.
By Francesca Torrani
buff.ly/oT0iX3w
By Francesca Torrani
buff.ly/oT0iX3w
The 1990s “Californian Ideology” has soured, producing the very inequality its barons now flee. Our essay of the week charts the rise of a "Texan Ideology" that connects digital plunder with oil, Christian nationalism, and racial hierarchy.
By Fred Turner in @thebaffler.com
buff.ly/aSoRbKP
By Fred Turner in @thebaffler.com
buff.ly/aSoRbKP
November 5, 2025 at 12:01 PM
The 1990s “Californian Ideology” has soured, producing the very inequality its barons now flee. Our essay of the week charts the rise of a "Texan Ideology" that connects digital plunder with oil, Christian nationalism, and racial hierarchy.
By Fred Turner in @thebaffler.com
buff.ly/aSoRbKP
By Fred Turner in @thebaffler.com
buff.ly/aSoRbKP
Rejecting the argument that reducing inequality constrains growth, our hidden gem of the week finds that equality rose because of "social-democratic" institutions like universal public services, labor rights, and democracy.
By @marie-andreescu.bsky.social et al. at @wid.world
buff.ly/raA6ABY
By @marie-andreescu.bsky.social et al. at @wid.world
buff.ly/raA6ABY
November 4, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Rejecting the argument that reducing inequality constrains growth, our hidden gem of the week finds that equality rose because of "social-democratic" institutions like universal public services, labor rights, and democracy.
By @marie-andreescu.bsky.social et al. at @wid.world
buff.ly/raA6ABY
By @marie-andreescu.bsky.social et al. at @wid.world
buff.ly/raA6ABY
In rejecting liberalism’s core values and the Reagan-Buckley legacy, the New Right provides the ideological fuel to Trumpism. Our book of the week maps the internal contradictions of the figures reshaping US politics.
By @lkatfield.bsky.social on @princetonupress.bsky.social
buff.ly/H40twvD
By @lkatfield.bsky.social on @princetonupress.bsky.social
buff.ly/H40twvD
November 4, 2025 at 1:00 PM
In rejecting liberalism’s core values and the Reagan-Buckley legacy, the New Right provides the ideological fuel to Trumpism. Our book of the week maps the internal contradictions of the figures reshaping US politics.
By @lkatfield.bsky.social on @princetonupress.bsky.social
buff.ly/H40twvD
By @lkatfield.bsky.social on @princetonupress.bsky.social
buff.ly/H40twvD
From Evelyn Sharp’s 1925 Manchester Guardian sketch to Harriet’s 1981 letter from Joyce Green Hospital, this talk traces how smoke organizes power and space: the dim, Orientalist smoking room of male privilege; women hiding their cigarettes.
Feat. Ivan Markovic at @ihr.bsky.social
Feat. Ivan Markovic at @ihr.bsky.social
‘The unforgivable crime …’: The atmospheric politics of smoking in modern Britain
Speaker: Ivan Markovic (University of Durham)
This paper examines the atmospheric politics of smoking in Britain since the late-nineteenth century, with particular attention to the interlaced…
buff.ly
November 3, 2025 at 2:03 PM
From Evelyn Sharp’s 1925 Manchester Guardian sketch to Harriet’s 1981 letter from Joyce Green Hospital, this talk traces how smoke organizes power and space: the dim, Orientalist smoking room of male privilege; women hiding their cigarettes.
Feat. Ivan Markovic at @ihr.bsky.social
Feat. Ivan Markovic at @ihr.bsky.social
Framing his heroine’s estrangement from her daemon as a loss of embodied, rebellious selfhood, this review suggests that Pullman indicts not only religious dogma but the diffuse, depoliticizing power of capital and state.
By @constancegrady.bsky.social in @vox.com.web.brid.gy
By @constancegrady.bsky.social in @vox.com.web.brid.gy
How the new His Dark Materials spinoff series explains the book-banning wars
Philip Pullman’s new book finishes the story The Golden Compass started.
buff.ly
November 3, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Framing his heroine’s estrangement from her daemon as a loss of embodied, rebellious selfhood, this review suggests that Pullman indicts not only religious dogma but the diffuse, depoliticizing power of capital and state.
By @constancegrady.bsky.social in @vox.com.web.brid.gy
By @constancegrady.bsky.social in @vox.com.web.brid.gy
One-third of teens now bond with chatbots, some nudging users toward self-harm. Drawing on Augustine and Spaemann, this piece argues we belong when we know ourselves already known and loved—something churches can offer.
By Jonathan Teubner in @hedgehogreview.bsky.social
By Jonathan Teubner in @hedgehogreview.bsky.social
Chatbots and the Divine
We get nowhere near knowing, much less loving, another person through impersonal means.
buff.ly
November 2, 2025 at 2:00 PM
One-third of teens now bond with chatbots, some nudging users toward self-harm. Drawing on Augustine and Spaemann, this piece argues we belong when we know ourselves already known and loved—something churches can offer.
By Jonathan Teubner in @hedgehogreview.bsky.social
By Jonathan Teubner in @hedgehogreview.bsky.social
As Congress accelerates funding for autonomous weapons, this piece shows how these expenditures coincide with social program cutbacks, underlining a transfer of public resources into private, largely unaccountable hands.
By @freddy-brewster.bsky.social in @jacobinmag.bsky.social
buff.ly/ELOmnoC
By @freddy-brewster.bsky.social in @jacobinmag.bsky.social
buff.ly/ELOmnoC
Silicon Valley’s War Profiteers
After years of pushing sensationalized claims about foreign threats, Silicon Valley’s military start-ups are set to score billions in funding for drones and AI-powered weapons in the nearly $1…
jacobin.com
November 2, 2025 at 12:00 PM
As Congress accelerates funding for autonomous weapons, this piece shows how these expenditures coincide with social program cutbacks, underlining a transfer of public resources into private, largely unaccountable hands.
By @freddy-brewster.bsky.social in @jacobinmag.bsky.social
buff.ly/ELOmnoC
By @freddy-brewster.bsky.social in @jacobinmag.bsky.social
buff.ly/ELOmnoC
AI-powered moderation promises safety but delivers injustice. This article diagnoses inequities: tech monopolies hoard data and models privilege English, all reinforcing the digital marginalization rooted in colonialism.
By @farhana-shahid.bsky.social at @aaai.org.web.brid.gy
buff.ly/bA5dNik
By @farhana-shahid.bsky.social at @aaai.org.web.brid.gy
buff.ly/bA5dNik
ojs.aaai.org
November 1, 2025 at 2:01 PM
AI-powered moderation promises safety but delivers injustice. This article diagnoses inequities: tech monopolies hoard data and models privilege English, all reinforcing the digital marginalization rooted in colonialism.
By @farhana-shahid.bsky.social at @aaai.org.web.brid.gy
buff.ly/bA5dNik
By @farhana-shahid.bsky.social at @aaai.org.web.brid.gy
buff.ly/bA5dNik
While the failures of Soviet-style planning have led left critics to aim for “market socialism” via cooperative ownership, our article of the week argues that the formal structure of cooperatives offers fewer truly transformative incentives than often believed.
By Joseph Heath
buff.ly/yOdyStL
By Joseph Heath
buff.ly/yOdyStL
November 1, 2025 at 12:01 PM
While the failures of Soviet-style planning have led left critics to aim for “market socialism” via cooperative ownership, our article of the week argues that the formal structure of cooperatives offers fewer truly transformative incentives than often believed.
By Joseph Heath
buff.ly/yOdyStL
By Joseph Heath
buff.ly/yOdyStL
This conference traces a historic turn in the internet’s evolution—from a veneer of endless facilitation to a machinery of control and abstraction, marked by endemic violence, loneliness, and algorithmic gatekeeping.
Feat. Geert Lovink et al. at @disruptionlab.bsky.social
buff.ly/iciIZh9
Feat. Geert Lovink et al. at @disruptionlab.bsky.social
buff.ly/iciIZh9
buff.ly
October 31, 2025 at 2:02 PM
This conference traces a historic turn in the internet’s evolution—from a veneer of endless facilitation to a machinery of control and abstraction, marked by endemic violence, loneliness, and algorithmic gatekeeping.
Feat. Geert Lovink et al. at @disruptionlab.bsky.social
buff.ly/iciIZh9
Feat. Geert Lovink et al. at @disruptionlab.bsky.social
buff.ly/iciIZh9
How and why did police in liberal democracies become militarized? Drawing on colonial history, our video of the week shows how methods honed during empire were imported into domestic policing through an “imperial boomerang.”
Feat. @juliango.bsky.social at @aissr.bsky.social
buff.ly/pFAv0pr
Feat. @juliango.bsky.social at @aissr.bsky.social
buff.ly/pFAv0pr
October 31, 2025 at 12:01 PM
How and why did police in liberal democracies become militarized? Drawing on colonial history, our video of the week shows how methods honed during empire were imported into domestic policing through an “imperial boomerang.”
Feat. @juliango.bsky.social at @aissr.bsky.social
buff.ly/pFAv0pr
Feat. @juliango.bsky.social at @aissr.bsky.social
buff.ly/pFAv0pr
Tracing David Claerbout’s artistic evolution from animated archival photographs to resource-intensive CGI works interrogating the line between perception, technology, and memory, this piece examines how he compels viewers to experience images bodily.
By Finn Blythe in @ocula.com
buff.ly/3N7Xb9v
By Finn Blythe in @ocula.com
buff.ly/3N7Xb9v
‘Dark Optics’: David Claerbout’s Unstable Images
The Belgian artist combines the virtual and the real in technically precise works that question the limits of perception.
buff.ly
October 30, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Tracing David Claerbout’s artistic evolution from animated archival photographs to resource-intensive CGI works interrogating the line between perception, technology, and memory, this piece examines how he compels viewers to experience images bodily.
By Finn Blythe in @ocula.com
buff.ly/3N7Xb9v
By Finn Blythe in @ocula.com
buff.ly/3N7Xb9v