iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Oh god, I thought it was just me.

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Dr Dion Georgiou 🇨🇾❤️🇬🇾 @drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Re-upping this for the Wednesday crowd: My weekly roundup of reading and listening recommendations, taking in issues of state-building, pan-Asian thought and activism, and religion and politics, among other themes. All reposts (and subscriptions) much appreciated. x

academicbubble.substack.com

Stop, Look, and Listen #66

A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.

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Reposted by Toby Bennett

Dr Dion Georgiou 🇨🇾❤️🇬🇾 @drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Wham! 10 Days in China will make its TV debut on BBC 2 at 9pm on Saturday 28 August. As well as reading my piece on the film, you can check out the trailer for it here. #filmsky

youtu.be

WHAM! 10 Days In China - In Cinemas Worldwide July 28

YouTube video by WHAM!

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Liz McFall @allartmarkets.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I wrote this thing because i'm struggling to write things in a tidy way lizmcfall.substack.com/p/big-shed-e...

lizmcfall.substack.com

BIG SHED ECONOMIES

insurance, private credit and the hyperscaling of risk

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Granted, someone who produces paragraphs like that does not inspire confidence but his diagnosis is correct and endless variations on "lol at this guy seeking ways to help him read" is tedious at best. Maybe reading difficult books will help him write better?

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

The reply/quote discourse around this perfectly legitimate thing to do is suffocating.

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Reposted by Toby Bennett

Sarah Brouillette @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

The introduction to my book is now available online, thanks @dukepress.bsky.social 🫶 The official pub date is in October www.dukeupress.edu/content-mach....

tinyurl.com

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Hadn't seen this before, thanks. The briefing notes are great!

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

"I think it has become much, much more professional in the technique you use now. You just had echo chambers in our time but now it is much, much more professional." "So good luck to your pop groups. They do very well for us for export [...] these days, my goodness me, there are some smart ones."

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

This is interesting, both in itself, and also because it echoes Bernard Stiegler's various arguments (deindividuation, short circuits), and some of his reference points (Carr, Wolf), as well as Catherine Malabou (plasticity) - but without naming them - both of whom I thought had gone out of fashion.

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Jeremy Gilbert @jemgilbert.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Very proud to have recorded this interview with feminist cultural studies pioneer, Angela McRobbie: culturepowerpolitics.org/2026/08/07/a... (You can find it by searching for Culture, Power, Politics in any podcast app) @angelamcrobbie.bsky.social

culturepowerpolitics.org

Angela McRobbie: Feminism, Culture, Politics (part 1)

An interview with pioneer of feminist cultural studies, Angela McRobbie. For notes, info and to give us support:

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Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

In 1985, the CIA published a research paper titled “France: Defection of the Leftist Intellectuals.” Its basic thesis was that the inner logic of French Theory was the critical demolition of Marxist theory in France and the United States. It remains an interesting read: www.cia.gov/readingroom/...

cia.gov

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I suppose a lot of this is about recommendation, personalisation and how ideas circulate; but also the strategic use of (living) history to create interpersonal narrative bonds; and then the interpretive difficulty of doing justice to the thing you encounter, without reducing it to those narratives.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

What do Malcolm Bradbury, Wang Xiaobo and Bernadine Evaristo have in common? Is retromania being superseded by algorithmically-curated extended microtonal folk? Has management critique run out of steam? Is the He Man film any good? All this and plenty more: tgpbennett.wordpress.com?p=1107

tgpbennett.wordpress.com

Hypomnemata: July 2026

Hypomnemata: “a material record of things read, heard, or thought […] a kind of accumulated treasure for subsequent rereading and meditation […] a regular and deliberate practice of the disparate […

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

tgpbennett.wordpress.com

Hypomnemata: July 2026

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Yeah I went in too early on Buddy Rich I think, too much for twenty year old ears to take on.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

So you're saying you also do that - like a deliberate holding back?

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Part 1 of this is a very clear and useful historical and policy analysis of how we got here. Part 2 is more "epochal diagnosis", perhaps more open to quibble, but still very good. Hopefully part 3 is the 5-step "what is to be done" we all need.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Has anyone else taken a decades' long delayed gratification strategy to music? e.g. I've spent 20 years looking forward to getting into Jimi Hendrix and Pet Shop Boys later in life. Not sure why, but I feel like it might finally be time for me to get into my New Wave of British Heavy Metal phase.

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 17/07/2026

The problem is that there a long history of the methods of textual analysis, knowledge production, and information retrieval central to the humanities that was practiced in completely non-pedagogical contexts, like government & business, that is consistently obscured in these discussions.

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Creative PEC @creativepec.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

What might the UK Government's new 'priority pathways' measure mean for the creative industries talent pipeline? In this new blog, Policy Director Bernard Hay reflects on the need for a more nuanced approach to creative higher education, drawing on Creative PEC and wider research. 👇

pec.ac.uk

Measure what matters: Priority pathways and Creative Higher Education - Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre

Bernard Hay, Creative PEC's Policy Director, investigates the surprising absence of creative subjects from the DfE and DWP's new 'priority pathways'.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

People like to have a go at the algorithm don't they. But tiktok has introduced me to Maddie Ashman's glitchy microtonal folk, which is pretty successful niche-targeting if you ask me. open.spotify.com/album/7EJGHA...

open.spotify.com

Her Side - EP by Maddie Ashman | Spotify

Maddie Ashman · EP · 2026 · 7 songs

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Armin Beverungen @arminb.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

"If using AI to write is, at its worst, an industrialization of the mind, then AI detection, at its worst, becomes a surveillance system for thought." Great read and really useful reflections as coursework tumbles in (here in Germany anyway).

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Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

While public tastes are moving away from tighter regulation and audit culture in the information sphere, higher education moves inexorably towards it substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

The Rest is Academic Research

What happens when Gary Lineker comes for the universities?

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Sarah Cowan @sarahcowan1.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

You can access the analysis here - three briefings on the key findings, an explanation of the policy context, and of course, a map for you to explore. www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

thebritishacademy.ac.uk

Mapping SHAPE academic staff

This project examines how the landscape of SHAPE academic staff has changed over time

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Oh are you? All the interesting people are anthros by origin. I did some ethnomusicology (or "music from oral cultures") during my undergraduate so I like to claim it sometimes.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Yes likewise. The ones I was highlighting (cultural techniques etc) I find more interesting as they come more from the other direction: there is no primary orality without underlying memory supports etc. But (from hazy memory!) this is already in Ong so maybe more an extension than a critique...

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

"I don't like maths. They always ask us: blipblop buys 25 bananas & bloopy buys 32 bananas; what's the difference between blipblop & bloopy? But why should I get all up in their business? They can buy as many bananas as they like. Not my business." When did you realise YOUR 8yo was a libertarian?

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Hmm, unsure, context needed? Instinctively I'd turn to people like Kittler or Stiegler, if you can bear to wade through. Seem to recall Ruth Finnegan (maybe Strathern?) having a critique; I imagine anthro'd have the major pushback. Feels like a @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social or @nickseaver.website Q?

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Louise Amoore @amoorelouise.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

It’s incomprehensible to me that universities imagine their decimation of humanities follows “market forces” when they are so manifestly behind the curve of even the most corporate decisions. Universities are stuck in spent logic of “we must embrace AI” when frontier labs are hiring philosophers 1/

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Dr Dion Georgiou 🇨🇾❤️🇬🇾 @drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

My latest weekly roundup of reading and listening recommendations, taking in Britain's political economy, Northeast African politics, and Latin American politics, among other themes. 🧵

academicbubble.substack.com

Stop, Look, and Listen #61

A round-up of what I have been reading and listening to this past week.

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Reposted by Toby Bennett

Giles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

"The AI build-out... is increasingly financed not by selling overpriced equity but by contracting future cash flows and borrowing against hardware.... That is not the architecture of 2000. That is the architecture of 2008." www.groundbrkr.com/p/the-second...

groundbrkr.com

The Second Derivative: Why No One Understands the AI Boom

The market misremembers 2008. That same blind spot sits at the center of the AI boom.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I do agree - there are many shitty humanities grads in powerful positions - but also think that the Karps and the PPE neolibs are just the most visible part of the iceberg and that it's maybe worth trying to take the rest of it seriously. I'm not 100% sure how but had a go: bsky.app/profile/tgpb...

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This skeet will self destruct @pardoguerra.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I really don’t understand some people’s assumption that if you do a degree in the humanities you will suddenly become an enlightened, civic individual. How many Philosophy, Politics & Economics graduates do we need to dispel that myth?

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

A very lovely and apt tribute to he much missed Caspar Melville at SOAS this evening. Someone who showed how important it is to use a university as a tool to make things happen for people, and to be generous and open and human while you're at it.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Thanks! I'm glad it resonated.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I think that's right and it's more of an identity statement than anything (things are still being made* so who is the we that's not making things?) But it also betrays a misunderstanding of how things get made. Or lack of ambition, or anxiety over value capture... Not sure. [*sent from my Android]

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I agree - and isn't it OK if it's insoluble? bsky.app/profile/tgpb...

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Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I totally understand the temptation to read tea leaves here. But I am still withholding judgment. Some things may simply be insoluble. And I think the situation, which this exchange both illuminates and complicates, is vexed enough to show why “ridicule as practice” is a bad way to go.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I quite liked to wind Caspar up sometimes - "Bill Withers' version of Use Me is OK but of course it was Liza Minnelli who really inhabited it" etc. - and to do so in ways that were not always in jest. But anyway. This is the last song we both shared joy over. youtu.be/6Z2xClustQo?...

youtu.be

Earth, Wind & Fire - In the Stone (Audio)

YouTube video by EarthWindandFireVEVO

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Thanks Dion! Your writing an inspiration, as you know. Not sure about unified... Feels messy to try and make these connections - but the world is a mess of connections I guess. I'm glad it seems to make sense anyway!

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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Interregnum still ongoing, symptoms still morbid

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Saddened to hear this. An influential writer for me. And the post is a useful reminder - for those who would want to make grander claims about the way of the world - of the difference between (i) the world of work and management, and (ii) what management thinkers want us to think about that world.

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Toby Bennett @tgpb.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

This sounds great - is it open? Keen to know more!

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