Tag: Digesting theory

A review of Melissa Gregg’s “Counterproductive”

I’ve been sitting on a new version of my ‘The Book I’m Writing’ post for a few weeks because I’m not super happy with how it’s turned out. The guts of the post is that, having read Foucault, I’d like to have each chapter talk about the ‘birth’ (read: contingent construction) of an idea that … Continue reading A review of Melissa Gregg’s “Counterproductive” →

Foucault, Arendt, Human Capital, and Consumption.

I want to pick up where last week’s post left off, because there were a few more titbits from Birth of Biopolitics that will have bearing on what I’m trying to do. After he makes the claim that Marx’s theory of labour power rendered the worker inert, Foucault moves on to talk about the idea … Continue reading Foucault, Arendt, Human Capital, and Consumption. →

Hannah Arendt, Labour, and the Maintenance of the Self

Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition is a fecund text. What it lacks in internal consistency and clarity of citation it makes up for by providing an easily problematised taxonomy of human activity and the realms in which it takes place. It’s impossible to read it without thinking; even the things it ‘gets wrong’ provides the … Continue reading Hannah Arendt, Labour, and the Maintenance of the Self →