Joshua Clover

  • print Feb/Mar 2017

    Land of the Lost

    AMONG POLITICAL IMPERATIVES set forth by the election, two intertwined refusals stand out. We should refuse the risk of effacing the continuity of ongoing barbarisms, a risk that comes with exaggerating what is new and exceptional about a Trump presidency. And we must refuse to be driven back into the arms of last year's horror show by this year's horror show. This leaves me disinclined to catastrophism. In this disturbing moment I am looking for books that can tell the time, register how we arrived at this odd hour, and avoid the implication that there is anything to be gained by setting the

  • culture July 31, 2013

    Leakonomics: Edward Snowden and the Pirates

    This year, the newly formed Icelandic Pirate Party won three seats in the national parliament, the oldest parliament in the world (self-proclaimed). In early July, the Pirate Party trio introduced a bill to grant Edward Snowden citizenship. And with that, the two great metaphorical senses of “leak” purled together: the free beer of pop’s petty piracies and the freed speech of classified data. Neither the media conglomerate’s digital cargo vessels nor the ship of the security state can remain pitch-black. Information wants to leak.