UCU strike action here in the UK over pension cuts (and poor pay, job security, fairness, etc.). I am seeing our strike as an opportunity to get some reading done (when I am not on the picket line that is). A few books I picked up in the last couple of weeks look like an interesting distraction from the dark cloud of personal and collective financial doom that striking (always a last resort) inevitably entails.

Audio of the Rome conference talks:

My contributions:

Smith RG (2019) A World Beyond The Real: Jean Baudrillard’s Photographic Theory, in Extending Baudrillard: Space, Image, Representation, Volume: MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art (Rome)) Catalogue, 21-11-2018, Unpaginated

Smith RG (2019) Introduction – International Symposium on Jean Baudrillard: ‘Baudrillard Redux’, in Extending Baudrillard: Space, Image, Representation, Volume: MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art (Rome)) Catalogue, 21-11-2018, Unpaginated

By Alex Taylor
BBC Entertainment reporter

I was interviewed for this BBC article published today. Quote extracts:

“Where for Baudrillard there was no escape from the simulation, the Wachowskis offered hope in the “promise of a true natural world ‘unplugged’ and separate from the Matrix”, explains Prof Richard Smith, editor of The Baudrillard Dictionary. Baudrillard was not a fan of the change. “The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able to produce,” he said.”

For Prof Smith, the film’s Marxist narrative evokes Plato’s allegory of chained prisoners in a cave “who mistake the shadows on the wall for reality”.

As Morpheus puts it: “The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” The pill scene “urges human beings to free themselves from the world of appearances”, says Prof Smith.

DECEMBER 13, 2021 / DRRICHARDGSMITH / EDIT

Email me if you want me to supervise your PhD or mentor your Post-Doc Fellowship: r.g.smith@swan.ac.uk

Deadline for PhD applications is 12:00pm GMT on 4th February 2022.

Indications of interest in PDFs must be sent to the pathway convenor, Professor Gary Bridge at Cardiff University before February 1st, 2022.

Further Information (DTP website)

Further Information on Human Geography Pathway (DTP website)

Further Information on PDFs (DTP website)

The Department of Geography at Swansea University invites applications for PhD students and Postdoctoral Fellows (PDFs) as part of the Human Geography pathway of the ESRC Wales Doctoral Training Partnership. The deadline for PhD studentship applications is February 4^th, 2022. Indications of interest in PDFs must be sent to the pathway convenor, Professor Gary Bridge at Cardiff University before February 1st, 2022. These are both for October, 2022 entry. Enquiries can also be sent to Chris Muellerleile at Swansea University: c.m.muellerleile@swansea.ac.uk

The PhD studentships are ‘open’ awards meaning that any topic within the broad remit of the ESRC is eligible. If successful, applicants would be awarded a fully funded studentship for either 3 or 4 years depending on previous experience. Applicants should approach a potential supervisor before submitting their application. Information on the research interests of Swansea Geography staff can be found here.  A short description of the accredited Human Geography pathway is available on the ESRC Wales DTP website here. Prospective PhD students should apply here: https://apply.swansea.ac.uk/#/home.

The Postdoctoral fellowships are one year awards. Potential applicants will need an academic mentor, which would be a member of staff at either Cardiff, Aberystwyth, or Swansea University. Information on the research interests of Swansea Geography staff can be found here. The first formal step in the application process is to contact the Human Geography pathway convenor, Professor Gary Bridge at Cardiff University to discuss the suitability of the topic and potential mentors. This conversation with Professor Bridge must happen by February 1^st, 2022 at the latest. More information on eligibility for these fellowships, including application information, can be found here: https://walesdtp.ac.uk/fellowships/.

There will be an information session on applying for a PDF on Monday, January 10^th, 2022. See below.

Applying for an ESRC Wales DTP Postdoctoral Fellowship

Monday 10^th January 2022, 11:00am-12:00noon

ESRC funded Postdoctoral Fellowship opportunities are open to applicants who have completed their PhD at a research organization that is part of a DTP. Full information regarding Postdoc Fellowships and eligibility is available on the Wales DTP website .

The DTP recently opened its call for ESRC funded Postdoctoral Fellowships to commence in October 2022.  Join us for a live one-hour session aimed at helping you to decide whether a Fellowship is right for you, and how to go about applying. In the session, Wales DTP Director Professor John Harrington will outline the benefits of a Fellowship and how to apply. You will also hear from and have an opportunity to put questions to current and former Wales DTP Postdoctoral Fellows, who will share their own experience of a Fellowship and how it has helped to further their career.

Register for this free one hour session by 5th January 2022. Live talks will be recorded and made available after the event.

Very sad news this week. Quite rightly there are may obituaries and tributes to such an innovative and influential man. The first Baudrillard book I read 32 years ago was a Semiotext(e) ‘Foreign Agents’ production. Whilst I met Jean Baudrillard several times, I only ever got to speak to Sylvère on the telephone when he rang me to ask me to give a keynote talk in China. I have something like 30 Semiotex(e) books on my shelves, and that is an important part of his legacy and the great service he has done for so many of us. He kindly provided the endorsement quote for the back cover of The Baudrillard Dictionary I edited:

“The Baudrillard Dictionary challenges for the first time every received idea we may have had about Baudrillard, establishing him as one of the most substantial and visionary philosophers of our era… A revelation.”– Sylvère Lotringer, Professor Emeritus, Columbia University and founder of Semiotext(e)

Sylvère Lotringer est mort, la French Theory perd son passeur (Libération)

SYLVÈRE LOTRINGER (ARTFORUM)

Sylvère Lotringer, Semiotext(e) Founder Who Brought French Theory to New York Art World, Has Died at 83 (ART NEWS)

Obituary for Sylvère Lotringer (e-flux)

Sylvère Lotringer, intellectual who infused U.S. art circles with French theory, dies at 83 (Los Angeles Times)

On Sylvère Lotringer (n+1)

Theory Daddy (New Left Review)

Outside the Text (Jewish Currents)

Sylvère Lotringer, Shape-Shifting Force of the Avant-Garde, Dies at 83 (The New York Times)

Sylvère Lotringer Obituary (The Guardian)

Stopped by to see JB back in March 2017. A life cannot be reduced to physical processes because the symbolic world is a game of appearances and disappearances so that there are two parallel dimensions to our existence.

This is why the UK is increasingly horrified by US culture:

“The truth is that Britain doesn’t have a culture war like the US. There is no strong religious right. Gay marriage and abortion are not dividing lines. There is no “antifa” and barely any anti-vaxxers. Britain has perhaps the lowest vaccine hesitancy rate anywhere in the world. It likes socialised healthcare and climate action.”

This is why the UK voted for Brexit (to leave the EU, not Europe)

“Many voters say the government doesn’t care about their area. They resent being spoken down to. They probably resent Financial Times columnists who quote Jean Baudrillard.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/05/those-that-at-a-distance-resemble-another-review-documentary

The commodification of reality and the reality of commodification!