Sign in

Ben Stemper

@benst.bsky.social
486 followers 926 following 48 posts

PhD candidate in History of Ideas and Science at Uppsala University, looking at 19th century socialist eco-utopias/dystopias. Interested in history of anarchism and u/dystopianism more broadly, and specifically Joseph Déjacque. (He/Him)

PostsRepliesMedia
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Very excited to see my article for the most recent edition of the Cahiers Charles Fourier out in print! I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity and the support provided by the Cahiers, including but not limited to translating the article, and Patrick Samzun in particular.
Picture of a print article in a journal.
Title: La Mise en Scene de l'Utopie: Theatre et Imaginaire Utopique chez  Joseph DéjacqueAbstract for the article:
The Staging of Utopia: Theatre and Utopian Imagination in Joseph Déjacque
This article examines Joseph Déjacque's only known piece of dramatical writing, Les Civilisés de la Décadence ou les Martyrs du Socialisme. Drawing on the work of Bertolt Brecht as well as contemporary socialist musings on theatre and opera, particularly by Étienne Cabet and Charles Fourier, this article analyzes Déjacque's play as a distillation of his utopian ideas for the stage. It argues that the characters in the play consistently oscillate between their individual identity and their existence as synecdoche. This introduces a critical force to the play, as it forces the audience to interrogate the actions on stage in relation to their own life and political convictions.
160
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
I wrote on the Parisian lawyer and dystopian theorist Eugène Huzar (1820-1890) as a degrowth theorist at the dawn of the Capitalocene for @nichecanada.bsky.social, grappling with whether adaptation to ecocide can ever meaningfully happen within a system geared towards infinite growth at every level.
0104
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 22/06/2024
Very grateful for the opportunity to present a paper on Eugène Huzar's environmental dystopianism at the 15th London Graduate Conference in HPT
A picture of a talk at a conference.
060
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 18/03/2024
Today's newsletter: I believe we're reaching peak AI, and that the industry is going to crash to Earth as enterprises and consumers realize the limits and lack of utility of ChatGPT and co. And it's all thanks to Sam Altman's empty hype cycle.  tinyurl.com/wyea31824
tinyurl.com
Have We Reached Peak AI?
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a 10-minute-long interview with OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, with journalist Joanna Stern asking a series of thoughtful yet straightforward questions that Murat...
691100325
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 21/03/2024
The worst thing about reading Les Misérables cover to cover is that it still only counts as one book in my Goodreads challenge
030
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Patrick McCray @patrickmccray.bsky.social · 12/03/2024
TIL James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis's research on the "Gaia hypothesis" was funded in part by Big Oil. @n.b. @ccmmody.bsky.social
163
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Venus Bivar @vbivar.bsky.social · 21/02/2024
Literature recommendations on thinking about linear vs. exponential growth in the nineteenth century?
054
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Doc Sarah Lonsdale @sarahjlonsdale.bsky.social · 05/02/2024
The University of Kent, self-styled Britain's 'European University ' is phasing out language teaching. Mais tu blagues!
96442
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Brian Connolly @brianconnolly.bsky.social · 05/02/2024
We are going to publish a special issue of History of the Present on "The Future of History in the Ruins of the University" - here is the CFP - get in touch with interest/questions
03427
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 02/02/2024
I am horrified that the University of Kent is planning the closure of many excellent programmes, including Anthropology, and is proposing up to 58 redundancies among academic staff! This further destruction of UK centres of academic excellence is heartbreaking.
97158
Reposted by Ben Stemper
David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 23/01/2024
I would really very much like you to click on this then click subscribe. It will always have a free option.
14123
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 28/01/2024
Eugène Huzar walked so Graham Hancock could run
He should haved added "and these four ages repeat themselves forever." The ancient Egyptians understood this so well they worshipped the Phoenix, of the old Phoenix's ashes, who burned himself, arose the new one. Further, who can prove that these four ages have not already been repeating themselves since time immemorial, who can prove to us that before the world's last embrace [by the serpent destroyer] humanity did not already [...]exist for thousands of years, then disappeared in this universal glassing of the planet, before reappearing today after the Earth had cooled down and the vapors had liquified, this opinion is all the more truthful as it does in no way contradict science and is entirely confirmed by Hinudism and the belief system of ancient Egypt.
050
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 21/12/2023
PhD application season (ouch) means I'm going down an Eugène Huzar rabbit hole, and did he know how to end a book.
You closed this book without understanding it. Did I not tell you from the outset? [...] Civilization is not yet advanced enough, we are merely at the dawn of things, I say it again, this book is not written for this century, nor for you. Other times will come when humans, terrorized by the prodigies happening under its eyes, will understand it, and become terrified.
110
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Ornikkar @ornikkar.bsky.social · 09/12/2023
Vivement la COP 29 ! (Par Gros)
Un paquet de voitures, avions, hélicoptères quittent la COP 28 traversant le désert
35322
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Kathleen E. Kennedy @themedievaldrk.bsky.social · 04/12/2023
To clarify for those not in UK academia: this means no foreigners qualify to even apply for museum jobs, anything in heritage or libraries, junior fac jobs, UK postdocs, all are entirely out of the question. And do that math outside academia- no foreign nurses, teachers, and on and on.
16423265
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Emily Wood @ebwood.bsky.social · 04/12/2023
“The minimum salary needed to get a skilled worker visa will rise from £26,200 to £38,700 next year.” Some current salaries for open museum positions: Curator: Hoards (BM): £33,803 Senior Art Handling Technician (Tate): £30,848 National Programmes Manager (National History Museum): £37,230
bbc.co.uk
Salary threshold for migrant worker visa set to rise under legal migration curbs
The hike is expected as part of plans to curb legal migration, which has hit record levels.
24533
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 04/12/2023
Considering the news from COP28, I sometimes wish I had the optimism of a c19 catastrophist writer....
I am not saying that the world council can be formed today, as at present nobody can see the need for it. But I tell you that a few centuries from now, afterwitnessing disasters caused in some parts of the world by the unbridled ravages of industrial science, we will be able to justify such an institution.
100
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Alicia Spencer-Hall @aspencerhall.bsky.social · 04/12/2023
Aberdeen plans to remove all degrees and research in modern languages. Utterly disgraceful. Please consider signing this petition www.change.org/p/save-langu...
change.org
Sign the Petition
On 30 November of this year, all staff in the Modern Languages, Translation and Interpreting section of the University of Aberdeen were told that they are at risk of redundancy, opening a false choice...
12328
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 30/11/2023
The Royal Historical Society, of which I am a Fellow, has today issued a strongly-worded statement about the huge cuts to History at Oxford Brookes. While I cannot of course comment on the specifics, I would ask you to consider the implications and spread the word. royalhistsoc.org/history-at-o...
royalhistsoc.org
History at Oxford Brookes University – a statement from the Royal Historical Society | RHS
15136107
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Bob Eaglestone @bobeaglestone.bsky.social · 25/11/2023
Please consider signing this petition to prevent catastrophic job cuts at Oxford Brookes. Arts & humanities are besieged as a consequence of policy changes, among other things. Brookes won't be the last to go through this. Solidarity is essential. t.co/mNbElDKP5k
t.co
Defend jobs and education at Oxford Brookes University
Oxford Brookes University has announced plans to reduce academic staff numbers in Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Maths, leaving 48 jobs at risk of compulsory redundancy. Please read and share ...
02220
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 25/11/2023
In 1903, the gendarmerie in Esch reported on a speech by anarchist poet and playwright Pietro Gori, held in the People's House in the same city, and attended by 50-60 Italian workers. The visit is fascinating for a whole number of reasons beyond the person of Gori himself. /thread
A black and white portrait of Gori.
130
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 16/11/2023
Please read and circulate this editorial by editors of the journal History and Technology, Amy Slaton and and Tiago Saraiva, which fully vindicates my STS (UCL) colleague Jenny Bulstrode and her paper 'Black metallurgists and the making of the industrial revolution' doi.org/10.1080/0734...
doi.org
23739
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Aurelien Mondon @aurelmondon.com · 18/11/2023
I cannot imagine this will shock anyone who has been paying attention If the mainstream media, like the Guardian, hadn't lapped up the moral panic about free speech, it would have been obvious to them too that this was always a bad faith argument www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Quote from article: The revelations will be hugely embarrassing for a Conservative party that regularly claims to champion free speech and has slammed universities for allowing students to “no platform” experts with whom they disagree.
0157
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Andrew D Wilson @adw.bsky.social · 05/11/2023
The greatest story ever told
631094420
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Alex Goody @alex-goody.bsky.social · 15/11/2023
Rather sadly - my first post on here is to let anyone who will listen know that English/Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes is facing massive redundancies - 40% of staff to be culled by January including my own role. Please share and support, we are trying to save our livelihoods #SaveBrookesEnglish
36348368
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 09/11/2023
More anarchists in the Grand-Duchy? In 1902, police in the Southern Luxembourgish mining town of Esch compose a report on an "anonymous Italian, apparently from Geneva" who had given a radical talk in a local pub. They learn his identity soon after from an informant: the speaker was Luigi Bertoni.
A grainy black and white portrait of Bertoni
250
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Ryan Mealiffe @rmealiffe.bsky.social · 08/11/2023
I am excited to extend a CfP to graduate students for the 2024 Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference (8/9th April). We are looking for submissions relating to the theme 'Signs and Scripts.' Whether that means inn signs, theatre, spiritual signs... is up to interpretation! lnkd.in/eMjihfjc #Medievalsky
The Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference committee is excited to announce that the theme for the 2024 conference is:
‘Signs and Scripts’

The conference will be held in person on the 8th and 9th of April, 2024. We invite proposals relating to all aspects of the topic ‘signs and scripts’ in the medieval world. Submissions are welcome from all disciplinary perspectives, whether historical, literary, archaeological, linguistic, interdisciplinary, or anything else. There are no limitations on geographical focus or time period, so long as the topic pertains to the medieval period.

We ask that all presenters attend in person with hybrid participation available for attendees who cannot travel to the event.

Submission Guidelines
Papers should be a maximum of 20 minutes. A limited number of bursaries are available to help with travel costs, and we welcome applications from graduate students at any university.
Please send abstracts of 250 words to oxgradconf@gmail.com by the 17th of December.
045
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 06/11/2023
Everyone go read this! It's an excellent piece on human-animal relationships from a global perspective! Also it's got piggy banks and puns so what more do you want?
010
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 05/11/2023
There is something incredibly eerie about people in the mid-nineteenth century sounding the warning bells on deforestation and dangers of CO2-concentration in the atmosphere....
An extract from Eugène Huzar's Tree of Science (1857) discussing the dangers of deforestation and the release of CO2 into the atmosphere.Follow-up discussion by Huzar on how this would ip the "globe's harmony"
230
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 26/10/2023
In today's episode of odd 19c guys, meet J. Tacon, a Francophone inhabitant of New Orleans in the 1850s, a mustard seller with a side-hustle as a full-time bookshop owner
An ad by Tacon advertising the sales of prize-winning Dijon mustardAn ad in the same paper for Tacon's bookshop.
032
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 25/10/2023
Captain Haddock from Tintin looking dejected and saying "What a week, huh?" with Tintin next to him saying "Captain, it's Wednesday"
040
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 24/10/2023
When a boring-but-necessary research task turns out to be, well, necessary....
A drawing of Captain Haddock from Tintin looking dejected
130
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Andrew D Thaler @drandrewthaler.bsky.social · 21/10/2023
Well, that's a hell of a damning ad.
The company that will become Exxon bragging about supplying enough energy to melt 7 million tons of glacier every day. Circa 1970s.
9400133
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 17/10/2023
Anarchists in the Grand-Duchy? This photo shows a group of Italian anarchists gathered around a beer keg upon which they wrote "Evviva l'Anarchia," Dudelange, Luxembourg, early March 1900. One of them, Annibale Gasparinotto, was soon after expelled for having sung anarchist songs while drunk [1/5]🗃
A group of eight men gathered around a beer keg which is inscribed with the words "Evviva l'Anarchia" [Long live Anarchy]
130
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Zirkusdoktorin 🇪🇺🇺🇦🌻💚 @lucretialivieri.bsky.social · 01/10/2023
Hier, bei der DKMS registrieren tut nicht weh und vielleicht kann man ein Leben retten. #notallheroeswearcapes www.dkms.de/aktiv-werden...
714264
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 12/10/2023
Meet Pierre François Désiré Debuchy, perhaps the most French man to have ever lived. A French radical, in exile since the 1851 coup, he emigrated to New York around 1855 and lived with Joseph Déjacque at 17, White Street in the late 1850s.
An extract from the New York Sun from 2nd February 1874, reporting on hand grenades found in Debuchy's house, and which he proudly acknowledged were his.
120
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 10/10/2023
I quite like this brief speculation on the possibilities of alien life in an otherwise quite dry review of Humboldt's 3rd Volume of Cosmos in Le Républicain (11/01/1854), a French republican exile paper based in NYC.
Extract from Le Republicain (11th January 1854) on the possibilities of alien life
110
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 10/10/2023
Irony is dead and we have killed it.
Email offering a course to deal with stress in academia and learning how to say no. Requires: 20£ deposit.
010
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Metal Gear Summer '27 ☀️🥀☠️ @mgearsolidarity.bsky.social · 10/10/2023
"Please sir, I am hungry." "That's a grievance narrative, and it is deeply unpleasant of you to bring it up."
0114
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 05/10/2023
God gives his toughest battles (picking up the suspiciously sticky copy of Being and Time from the library) to his toughest soldiers (Me, I chose this paper voluntarily)
020
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 04/10/2023
030
Reposted by Ben Stemper
More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 03/10/2023
BREAKING: Disney VFX workers have voted unanimously to unionize with IATSE. They become the second ever VFX team to form a union. Marvel workers won their union just last month.
323345910
Reposted by Ben Stemper
Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 02/10/2023
When I die, I do not want my body donated to science. They have enough funding already. Donate my body to the humanities.
25121
Ben Stemper @benst.bsky.social · 03/10/2023
I think the really cool thing about studying environmental history is when you come across someone writing about the severe dangers of deforestation to the human race and how it might already be too late to reverse the damage and then the publication date is 1847...
0112