iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 25/04/2025

Why would I want to be my own boss? Bosses suck.

Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 17/03/2025

My first podcast interview of 2025 is available now: I spoke to Mark Neocleous about his new book Pacification: Social War and the Power of Police (Verso, 2025). Mark has been a pioneer of critical research on policing for decades, so it was an honor to interview him newbooksnetwork.com/pacification

newbooksnetwork.com

Mark Neocleous, "Pacification: Social War and the Power of Police" (Verso, 2025) - New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 07/03/2025

It's like the national Democratic Party is now the Florida Democratic Party. Half expect them to nominate Charlie Crist next time around. Or Liz Cheney. That'll show 'em.

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 16/12/2024

My inner critic's biggest theme is that I'm an underachiever. The fact that I self-sabotaged my way out of academia certainly feeds this narrative, but it goes back a lot farther, to when I struggled in school despite being the 'smart' kid. But I'm the child of two alcoholics, one of whom...

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 24/11/2024

My latest NBN interview is up: I spoke to the political theorist Begum Adalet about three recent articles that she has written about infrastructure, racialization, and the politics of development newbooksnetwork.com/infrastructu... We spoke about how the green revolution shaped racial formation...

newbooksnetwork.com

Infrastructure, Development, and Racialization: A Conversation with Begüm Adalet - New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 24/11/2024

newbooksnetwork.com

Infrastructure, Development, and Racialization: A Conversation with Begüm Adalet - New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 20/11/2024

I really enjoyed this interview, and look forward to reading the book. Gender needs to be at the center of conversations about nation-building: newbooksnetwork.com/the-states-s...

newbooksnetwork.com

Park Jeong-Mi, "The State's Sexuality: Prostitution and Postcolonial Nation Building in South Korea" (U California Press, 2024) - New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 19/11/2024

Feeling good after a solid writing session. May you all tell your inner critics to stfu!

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ASA Political Sociology @asapolisoc.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

It's LIVE: Political Sociology has its first Starter Pack! Follow us all here: go.bsky.app/QaLr2JG

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 18/11/2024

My latest NBN interview is now available: I spoke to Nick Bernards about his new book Fictions of Financialization (Pluto): newbooksnetwork.com/fictions-of-... The interview is also available on Spotify and other platforms under the New Books in Critical Theory heading

newbooksnetwork.com

Nick Bernards, "Fictions of Financialization: Rethinking Speculation, Exploitation and Twenty-First Century Capitalism" (Pluto Press, 2024) - New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 17/11/2024

I've got some new followers, and picked up some random people before this, so a quick intro *I have a PhD in polisci (comparative) and wrote a diss on Turkey *I'm interested in Marxism, state space, security, imperialism *I'm a podcast host for the New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 14/11/2024

Just had a great chat with Nick Bernards about his new book Fictions of Financialization: Rethinking Speculation, Exploitation and Twenty-First Century Capitalism (Pluto) for the New Books Network. www.plutobooks.com/978074534889... The interview should be available in a few days

plutobooks.com

Fictions of Financialization

For decades, many people on the left have decried the finance sector as the main culprit for the toxic effects of capitalism. Financialization is commonly in...

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 13/11/2024

"Are you fucking serious???" -- me at each new appointment that Trump announces

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Pluto Press @plutopress.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

❄️Our Holiday Sale is here!❄️ 50% off all books until December 5th! plutobooks.com

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 10/11/2024

Has anyone in psychology written about how attachment styles affect advisor relationships in higher ed? My relationship with my first advisor was definitely a classic case of anxious style (me) and avoidant style (them)...and it was not a good combination at all. Suspect it's a common dynamic.

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 06/11/2024

Opportunity economy was horrible messaging. That kind of shit might have worked during the 90s but felt pretty out of touch for 2024.

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 05/11/2024

Who do I vote for if I want to make all MLMs illegal? Amway and crypto, gone

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 05/11/2024

The main problem with more finance is that it makes more capitalism possible

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 05/11/2024

Writing questions for my upcoming interview with Nick Bernards about Fictions of Financialization for the New Books Network. His critique of the literature on financialization is utterly compelling. I'm looking forward to seeing the critical debate that it sparks: www.plutobooks.com/978074534889...

plutobooks.com

Fictions of Financialization

For decades, many people on the left have decried the finance sector as the main culprit for the toxic effects of capitalism. Financialization is commonly in...

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 05/11/2024

Tina Weymouth is the most important Talking Head

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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 05/11/2024

"but he did electric cars" We paid rich people to buy his cars instead of doing real environmental policy. California's ZEV credit system shuffled $10 billion more to Tesla, ~$1 billion of which was based on battery swap fraud. He got a free pass on safety and environmental regulation for a decade.

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 04/11/2024

I have to constantly remind myself that I do not need to read everything ever written in history about topics tangentially related to the focus of my article before I can write anything

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 03/11/2024

I interviewed Adam Hanieh about his new book Crude Capitalism (Verso) for the New Books Network. We talked about the entanglements between oil, geopolitics, high finance, and ecology, and about how oil came to be in absolutely everything. newbooksnetwork.com/crude-capita...

newbooksnetwork.com

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 31/10/2024

Had a great chat today with Adam Hanieh about his new book Crude Capitalism (Verso). The book is an outstanding history of the geopolitics, economics, and political ecology of oil. It's also very elegantly written. The interview should be available from the New Books Network in a few days!

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 30/10/2024

i keep seeing all these articles where people are like "finance is completely deterritorialized." nonsense. no matter how complicated, financial assets are still tied to revenue flows deriving from "real" economic activities that are not, in any sense, deterritorialized. it drives me crazy

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 15/10/2024

My latest @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast is available: I interviewed Sharad Chari about Apartheid Remains (Duke, 2024). We talked about race, capitalism, biopolitics, and resistance in Durban over the longue duree newbooksnetwork.com/apartheid-re...

newbooksnetwork.com

Sharad Chari is Associate Professor of Geography at UC Berkeley. He is also the author of Fraternal Capital: Peasant-workers, self-made men and globalization in provincial India (Stanford, 2004) and Gramsci at Sea (Minnesota, 2023).

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 03/10/2024

The Omen is a biopic about JD Vance

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 30/09/2024

#polisky Democracy and Empire is a great book that deserves a wide readership in political theory and comparative politics. Provides really interesting ideas about how to think about imperialism in historical democratization research, where it is largely an absent presence

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Laura Seay @texasinafrica.bsky.social · 30/09/2024

Absolutely heartbroken to learn of Dikembe Mutombo's untimely passing. A story: one day in 2010, I got the most random phone call to my office at Morehouse. It was Dikembe's personal assistant, asking if I'd be willing to meet at his office to talk about the D.R. Congo. Obviously I said yes. (1/n)

espn.com

'Larger than life' Mutombo dies of brain cancer

Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo, the "larger than life" center who played 18 NBA seasons, has died of brain cancer at the age of 58, the league announced Monday.

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 29/09/2024

I had a great conversation with Inés Valdez about her new book Democracy and Empire for the @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social. We spoke about how imperial social relations shape demands for popular sovereignty in the US and Europe newbooksnetwork.com/democracy-an...

newbooksnetwork.com

Inés Valdez, "Democracy and Empire: Labor, Nature, and the Reproduction of Capitalism" (Cambridge UP, 2023) - New Books Network

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 25/09/2024

This is one of the most viciously racist things I've seen a member of Congress say in years.

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 25/09/2024

Just conducted a great interview with Inés Valdez about her book Democracy and Empire (Cambridge 2023) for the New Books Network. I can't wait to share it with everyone in a couple of days!

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 10/07/2024

My latest @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social interview is up! I spoke to Laura Robson about her book Human Capital, which examines how the desire to treat refugees as disposable migrant laborers has shaped the international refugee regime: newbooksnetwork.com/human-capital

newbooksnetwork.com

Laura Robson, "Human Capital: A History of Putting Refugees to Work" (Verso, 2023) - New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 01/07/2024

All I have been able to think since the debate has been, why did anyone think that Biden was a good choice in the first place? I didn't buy any of the strategic arguments for nominating him in the first place. Ppl were like, "he'll just serve one term." And then what??? Nobody has any answers

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 30/06/2024

My latest @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social interview has posted! I spoke to William Conroy about his recent articles on the necessity/contingency debate in racial capitalism research, spatializing social reproduction theory, and whether capitalism has an outside: newbooksnetwork.com/race-social-...

newbooksnetwork.com

Race, Social Reproduction, and Capitalist Totality: A Conversation with William Conroy - New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 27/05/2024

As a grad student I grew frustrated with trying to squeeze my comparative-historical research into the quasi-experimental straightjacket. Turns out I wasn't alone. I interviewed Damon Mayrl and Nick Wilson about their new edited volume After Positivism, which rethinks why and how to do CHA

newbooksnetwork.com

Nicholas Hoover Wilson and Damon Mayrl, "After Positivism: New Approaches to Comparison in Historical Sociology" (Columbia UP, 2024) - New Books Network

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 10/05/2024

So much state capacity research is about trying to find *the indicator* that measures *what the state really is (and absolutely nothing else).* This just strikes me as kind of silly now. Like, you don't encounter *just states* in the wild, you encounter complex social formations w/ porous boundaries

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 10/05/2024

The biggest problem I have with the methods education that I received is how case and variable selection are portrayed as starting points, b/c you have to do a *ton* of research to decide on how to identify the boundaries of your cases, categorize them, and decide what you even have a case of

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 10/05/2024

Conjunctures are just critical junctures for Marxists (or, critical junctures are just conjunctures for normies)

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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 07/05/2024

Our (@derekcrim.bsky.social) book *The End of College Football*--a polemic against the exploitation and harm of the sport grounded in interviews with former players--is available to preorder on the @uncpress.bsky.social website for 30% off with code 01UNCP30. uncpress.org/book/9781469...

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 08/05/2024

One thing that I struggle with when I write (especially if it's about something that has been marinating for a long time) is the hidden expectation that I will get everything down all at once. It leads to disappointment and self-judgment when that inevitably doesn't happen.

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 08/05/2024

I want to write Agnew's "The Territorial Trap" but focusing on comparative politics

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 08/05/2024

It's so interesting to me that right-wing political ads for congressional campaigns in my area don't mention the Republican Party at all. In fact, in one ad Rand Paul (endorsing a candidate in this district) starts by saying "both parties are attacking America."

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 08/05/2024

"That guy knows how to FIRE A GUN, he should be in CONGRESS" -- People in a normal, healthy democracy

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 07/05/2024

Geographers (esp urban geographers) are having methodological conversations about how to do comparative social science that political scientists and sociologists should really be paying attention to. Lots of interesting proposals for how to do comparison without the illusion of experimental control

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Geoff Gordon @melancholyleftist.substack.com · 07/05/2024

The major fault line in comparative social science is between people who think States and Social Revolutions is bad because it tries too hard to be positivist(/quasi-experimental), and people who think it is bad because it's not positivist enough

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