iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Jewish Currents @jewishcurrents.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

On this episode of On the Nose, Arielle Angel speaks to Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing) and Rami Younis (Lyd) about NAZA and the function of cinema focused on the perpetrators of genocide. jewishcurrents.org/naza-and-the...

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Mad Men was apparently a documentary.

Image of a young woman with elaborate hair and heavy makeup above a slogan reading: "My man likes something unexpected now and then. That's why I serve him rice."

Advert in Life magazine, January 1970, by Rice Council of America.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Not the worst book I've ever read, but perhaps the most astonishingly overhyped. The lesson, I think, is that if the elevator pitch of your book basically flatters the common sense of the liberal commentariat, you can fill it with as much leftish verbiage as you like and they will lap it up.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Wrote a short weird little book about far-right death threats against me + my fam, fleeing our home, Trumpism, + my experience as a Jew amidst the resurgence of fascism + genocide in Gaza Coming January 2027 from @melvillehouse.bsky.social mhpbooks.com/books/unpunc... #NoPasarán #FreePalestine

“Unpunctuated Death threats: Notes from a fascist present. Author of Antifa Mark Bray.” Text on a black and white image of the author from the chin down.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Philosophers often bring up the "principle of charity": a willingness to assume good faith in an interlocutor and treat them accordingly. It's good to do in many circumstances. But it is worth formulating a principle of not being a fucking mark. If not during the rise of fascism, then when? 12/

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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 31/07/2026

"Details, in their singularity and idiosyncrasy, point to the capaciousness of human experience." New today in the Society's journal 'Transactions': Joe Moran 'On Detail in Historical Writing': bit.ly/44UMi8C Now available OA @joemoransblog.bsky.social @massobsarchive.bsky.social #Skystorians 1/2

Opening page of the Transactions article 'On Detail in Historical Writing' by Joe Moran.

Full abstract: "This Comment considers the role of detail in historical writing, inflected through my own experience of writing ‘trade’ books for a general rather than specialist readership. I argue for the value of the detail that is slightly recalcitrant, that is more than just flesh on the bones of an argument or evidence marshalled to make a point. Detail is itself a kind of argument and thus, since beauty and elegance in writing derive from economy, a way of making a point without belabouring it. The gratuitous fact can be seductive, suggesting that the world has a randomness and overabundance that can't easily be rounded up into a dataset. Details, in their singularity and idiosyncrasy, point to the capaciousness of human experience. They correct our tendency to fixate on one story, to focus on the eventful at the expense of the marginal, and to invent a false unity of experience that erases social differences. With their obdurate specificity, they can shatter our presumptions about the past. I explore these ideas with reference to modern literature (Flaubert, Chekhov), the Mass-Observation archive and examples from my own work in contemporary cultural history and family history."

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I decided I never wanted to use Word again in late 2018, as I was trying to generate the final version of my PhD thesis. It had a *lot* of references and, when I came to put all the chapters together, the Word+Zotero combination ground to a halt.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 07/06/2026

#OtD 7 Jun 2020 Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol, UK, pulled down a statue of enslaver Edward Colston and threw it into Bristol Harbour. Colston's Royal African Company transported more than 100,000 enslaved Africans in the 17th century stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1072...

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Seems that I re-skeet this earlier and earlier each year …

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Universities: Britain’s secret border guards.

This is the stealth in action. The Home Office does not have to say “stop recruiting from Pakistan”. It sets a threshold, and risk-averse institutions retreat from high-refusal markets pre-emptively to protect their rating, pausing recruitment, raising deposits, and bringing forward deadlines. The state designs the incentive, universities perform the cut, applicants in Lahore or Lagos never learn that a door closed, because formally it never did.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

To be fair, if there is a formula for academic success, as I have observed it, it is basically this: Do decent quality research. Parcel that research into as many strategically positioned papers as possible. Never put in more effort (or expend more material) than is necessary for any given paper.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

I mean… it's wrong, but it's not irrational. If your decision making process is basically a risk/reward calculation designed to maximise your chances of professional success, then cutting corners (actually reading your sources/actually writing your manuscript) is probably beneficial, up to a point.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

These people must just waft through life, surrounded by peers and sycophants, their self-assurance matched only by their ignorance.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Their party is losing, but their side is winning.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

I was in Budapest four years ago, on the day of the previous election. I saw Viktor Orbán leaving a fancy restaurant at lunchtime, looking very pleased with himself. It seemed unthinkable at that time that he could be out, but here we are. Congratulations Hungary.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Thought of a funny bit. DuckDuckGoed it. Already exists: em-dash-appreciation.org

em-dash-appreciation.org

Em Dash Appreciation Society

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

It would be so easy to tell a university-based story that is both dramatically interesting and realistic: Dishevelled twenty-something wakes up in stealthily parked car; gingerly exits. Sneaks in back door of public gym; showers and brushes teeth. Walks out onto campus. “Oh, hi Dr Smith!” Etc.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

The Polycrisis @thepolycrisis.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Our podcast has landed! Electric World Order: ep 1 - looks at the second wave of the energy transition, and why & how China is making it happen

pod.link

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Abolition is the floor. The minimum. A reasonable compromise.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I wrote about being unemployed, middle-aged, and trying to find a creative voice in a world ever more dominated by self-satisfied mediocrity polycritical.substack.com/p/letter-to-...

polycritical.substack.com

Letter to a friend (who definitely isn’t just me in a trench coat)

On being unemployed and middle-aged, with aspirations of creativity

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

The “good enough” attitude —valuing productivity for its own sake, pursuing quantity over quality, and generally having low intellectual standards — has long been a path to academic success. AI merely supercharges this. Amazing to see people so openly proud of their own mediocrity though.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

POLITICO Europe @politico.eu · 17/02/2026

World powers are deep in a fight over critical minerals. But for a clutch of lawmakers in Britain's quiet Cornwall, they mean something else: Votes.

politico.eu

Trump wants critical minerals. So do Cornwall’s MPs.

Global leaders are going head to head over critical minerals and national security. For some U.K. lawmakers, it is chance to grab both investment and votes.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Ilias Alami @iliasalami.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

New piece for @phenomenalworld.bsky.social, written with @jacktaggart.bsky.social and @tomchodor.bsky.social! It's an attempt at grasping the dismantling of multilateral global governance, in light of intensifying geopolitical rivalries, resurgent state capitalism, and hegemonic crisis. Link below:

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

There’s this big yellow thing in the sky that’s making everything hot. What the hell is it?

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

“Lynn, idea for Farage meeting. Jim Davidson hosts the 9 o’clock news. Stop migrants taking taxis.”

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

It’s difficult to express in words the contempt with which the McSweeney cabal deserve to be regarded, but Ian does a good job in approximating.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Why is every scandal existential for Starmer? Because he has actively worked to eradicate his own support base. And that, along with the Mandelson decision, can be laid at McSweeney's door iandunt.substack.com/p/starmers-m...

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

He's finally done. They'll hang him out to save themselves, now. But I think it's important to emphasise that Mandelson had and kept power *because* of being a creepy, corrupt spittle-licker. That was his job, and he excelled at it. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

‘Where r u? I miss you’: how vivid new Epstein emails sealed Mandelson’s fate

The latest revelations and reaction to them may mean he has finally encountered a scandal he is unable to outrun

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Have to say, I’m getting such Hackers (1995) vibes from our political class these days. They haven’t got the faintest idea what’s actually going on, but they’ll believe whatever some billionaire in a leather jacket tells them. So desperate to be seen to be on the cutting edge. The perfect mark.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

The great political contradiction of Trump: he gets a knee-shaking ego-thrill from posing as a callous, imperturbable tough guy, but he also deeply, viscerally needs his people to like him.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Every day it becomes clearer and clearer that the actual political convictions behind what became demonised as “woke,” from 2020 onwards, were pretty much spot on, and those Very Serious People who participated in its demonisation owe us all a series of grovelling apologies.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Caught up with the last season of The Righteous Gemstones: Utterly bonkers (indeed, Bible Bonkers). Large parts make absolutely no sense. The satirical edge is dulled with sentimentality. And, I repeat, it’s bonkers. But when you’ve got John Goodman doing John Goodman things, anything seems possible

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

I guess Nature publishes Yelp reviews now.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Laurie Penny @pennyred.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

open.substack.com/pub/lauriepe... My new writing seminar is really picking up. And current events are making an appearance. Because creative work isn’t about shutting out what’s awful and overwhelming in the world. It’s about taking charge of your reaction to those things.

open.substack.com

Write Like A Person: prompt post #3

Everything happens so much

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

One day, perhaps in the not so distant future, this man’s heart will give out, under the weight of McDonald’s hamburgers and narcissistic malice. There will be dancing in the streets, people will hug their children, and his name will go down in history as a byword for all that is pathetic and base.

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Neil Stenhouse @nstenhouse.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

How many op-Ed’s will be written on “here’s the solution to the male loneliness epidemic: protecting neighbors from ICE”

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Tooze knows that you don’t have to be a dogmatic Marxist to be a Marxist. This is a journalist’s paraphrase of some offhand comments. He isn’t a Marxist because he’s a left-liberal economic historian turned public intellectual, obsessed with “conjuncture.” He’s really a Hallian. Post-post-Marxist.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Just did that thing where I accidentally knocked a jar out of the cupboard and managed to catch it before even realising what was happening 💪

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Reposted by Philip R. Conway

Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 14/01/2026

Debates continue to circulate—as they should—about the utility of neoliberalism as a category of analysis and political practice. Myself + three other historians wrote a brief overview of how it works in our field for the Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

The danger of a Harris-type is that they won’t do anything to reverse the fascistic developments, once they have a chance. But that doesn’t mean they would—or could!—ever have intensified state violence like this in the first place. That’s kind of their whole thing: all talk, no gumption.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Very Serious political scientists who ignore feminist and critical race scholarship are just taking L after L these days.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

This piece fits my impression of the road that anti-“Woke” has taken: It may have started for some as a semi-self-conscious ruse by which reactionaries can imagine themselves as brave truth-tellers. However, it has since become their entire reality. In extreme cases, the result is clinical paranoia.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

It’s not that he’s become more racist in himself so much as that racism itself has intensified, and he reflects that. He’s a narcissist. A fragile ego in the shape of a human. He does whatever makes him feel superior. Racism makes him feel superior. So, as racism becomes more extreme, so does he.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

“It big. Big good. Me want.” He genuinely is this simple. With all the Discourse in recent days over Venezuela and Greenland, it’s really striking how commentators of every political persuasion *still* try to make rational sense out of this guy’s fascistic whims. It’s ego *all the way down*.

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Philip R. Conway @prconway.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Amateur hour. I download all the articles I won’t read and load them into DEVONthink Pro. That way I can tell myself I’m creating a database.

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