Digital Commons Network^™

Neoliberal Fascism As The Endpoint Of Casino Capitalism, Henry Giroux

Fast Capitalism

This article explores neoliberal fascism as a distinctive political formation within the current historical moment. In doing so, it first analyzes neoliberalism as a project that has since the 1970s destroyed all the commanding institutions of democracy while consolidating power in the hands of a financial elite. In addition, it analyzes neoliberalism as a movement, that produces and legitimates massive economic inequality and suffering, privatizes public goods, dismantles essential government agencies, and individualizes all social problems. Under such circumstances, neoliberalism creates the conditions for right wing extremists to mobilize the anger of white disenfranchised working class populations by both appealing …

Bound To Capitalism: The Pursuit Of Profit And Pleasure In Digital Pornography, Jennifer Miller

Fast Capitalism

This paper explores digital pornography dialectically through a case study of Kink.com, an online BDSM subscription service. It considers the tension between discourses of authenticity that seek to obscure profit motive and shifts in content prompted by market considerations.

Author Biography

Jennifer Miller, University of Texas at Arlington

Jennifer Miller is an interdisciplinary scholar and cultural theorist who researches children's picture books. She has published in the Journal of Homosexuality, the edited collection Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between, and is currently working on a book length project under contract with the University Press of Mississippi.

From Bad Apples To Zombies? Walking Dead Leadership In The Contemporary University, Tara Brabazon

Fast Capitalism

Leadership remains an open sewer of assumptions, ego, platitudes and potential. When contextualized within an international university sector struggling and grasping to find a purpose, leadership becomes toxic and dangerous. This article reactivates, challenges and then transforms Ulrich Beck's zombie concept and applies it to university leadership, management and administration. I probe the renegotiation of power and identity, with particular attention to recent scandals and appointments of university ‘leaders.' This article also signals a movement from cosmopolitan sociology to claustropolitan cultural studies, repositioning leadership in universities at the end of the world.

Author Biography

Tara Brabazon, Dean of Graduate Research …

The Politics Of Curiosity, Eva-Maria Swidler

Fast Capitalism

Curiosity, a simultaneously intellectual and emotional phenomenon, is surprisingly unstudied, yet pivotal for social critics and activists to understand. While recognizing curiosity as frequently positive and necessary for creating new solidarities and political movements, it also considers the social and political roots and consequences of incuriosity, apathy, and ignorance, including such topics as willful apathy as cultural resistance and self-defense, ignorance as an ethical choice, incuriosity as arrogance, and the generalized anxiety of neoliberal society and the shrinking of curiosity.

Author Biography

Eva-Maria Swidler, Curtis Institute of Music

Eva Swidler is an environmental historian and political economist with additional interest …

Panic Learning Off (And On) The Covid Campus, Tara Brabazon, Jamie Quinton, Narelle Hunter

Fast Capitalism

Online learning has been flooded with platitudes, promises and possibilities for twenty years. Oversold and undertheorized, online learning reached its "moment' through the Covid lockdown. Underprepared staff and underfunded universities implemented online learning in a crisis. This was a zombie apocalypse of a context in which to summon innovation. This article activates Paul Virilio's University of Disaster to explore the COVID campus and classroom, entering panic learning.

Author Biographies

Tara Brabazon, Dean of Graduate Research / Professor of Cultural Studies Flinders University

Tara Brabazon is the dean of graduate research and professor of cultural studies at Flinders University, Australia, fellow …

Who Wouldn't Get The Joke?: Vile Sovereignty, Vanishing Mediators, And Trump, Simon Orpana, Evan Mauro

Fast Capitalism

This article considers Trump as an example of "vile sovereignty," a concept Michel Foucault put forward in the mid 1970s to describe "the exercise of power through the explicit disqualification of the person who wields it" (2003b: 35)—a "childish discourse" that disqualifies the speaker at the very moment that they are being appealed to as a figure of authority (36). We argue that this concept helps illuminate contemporary US politics, where Trump's carnivalesque flaunting of political decorum and morality paradoxically seem to buttress the power of his Republican Party. Building upon our theorization of the role vile sovereignty has played …

Social Crises, Political Conflicts, And Cultural Contradictions Of Nixonland: Tracing Constitutional Crisis In The Usa From Nixon To Trump, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

Many developments, like greater domestic turmoil, economic dislocation, social immobility, and political gridlock, suggest "the public" and "the private" are different domains with the US than they were decades ago in 1969 when President Nixon entered office. The constitutional state, as a theory and set of practices in the USA in the Nixon era was put under tremendous strains, and it seems clear that those pressures fractured it. After Vietnam, stagflation, Watergate, and the transitional Ford Administration, has it ever been the same? The Reagan-Bush assault on the New Deal and Great Society as well as the essentially permanent mobilization …

Introduction To "This Is Not Normal", David M. Arditi, Timothy W. Luke

Fast Capitalism

Author Biographies

David M. Arditi, University of Texas Arlington

David Arditi is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he serves as Director of the Center for Theory. He researches the impact of digital technology on society. His forthcoming book, Getting Signed: Record Contracts, Musicians and Power in Society, explores the way musicians' dreams become their source of exploitation.

Timothy W. Luke, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Timothy W. Luke is a University Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science. Luke's areas of research specialization include environmental and cultural studies …

Formatted Feelings: Rap As A Pedagogy Of Capitalized Emotion, Guanhua Yao

Impact: A Journal of Community and Cultural Inquiry in Education

This article examines mainstream rap as a key apparatus through which capital formats emotional life under platform capitalism. Utilizing grounded theory coding for ten Billboard No. 1 rap tracks released between 2005 and 2025, the analysis identifies durable affective templates, commodified desire, spectacularized power, and curated vulnerability, that standardize how emotion becomes legible, repeatable, and marketable. Synthesizing affect theory, media sociology, and social dramaturgy, the article argues that rap teaches listeners how to perform feeling in ways compatible with visibility regimes and datafied attention economies. Rather than treating these songs as expressive artifacts, the study reframes them as pedagogical infrastructures …

Notes On Redefining "Popular" Culture, Paul J. Ramsey

Impact: A Journal of Community and Cultural Inquiry in Education

This article critiques the classic literature on popular culture, redefines the concept for the contemporary era, and introduces the following articles in this special issue of Impact. The articles in this issue demonstrate not only the ways in which popular culture has evolved in recent decades but also reveal the deeply educational aspects of that culture by shining a light on what is learned through it. 

Keywords: popular culture, education, informal education

A Research Agenda For Social Media Surveillance, Daniel Trottier

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Slovene Without A Passport: Ljubljana, Theory, Utopia, Ben Agger

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Media Spectacle And The "Massacre At Virginia Tech", Douglas Kellner

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Homoterrorism: Definition, Application, Subversion, Angelos Bollas

Fast Capitalism

On Friday, September 21, 2018, news reports on Greek corporate media announced the death of a man who had allegedly attempted to rob a jewellery store. The media announcement was accompanied by video footage in which two civilians were shown violently attacking the alleged thief while the latter was attempting to escape the jewellery store. A little later, the alleged thief was announced dead. This is the case of Zak Kostopoulos who was lynched in his attempt to escape a jewellery shop where he had found shelter from a threat that, to this day, remains unknown. Zak was lynched literally …

The Rise Of The Robots: Technocapitalism And The Policing Of Race, Constantine Gidaris

Fast Capitalism

This article critically engages with the emergence of police robots in the United States, arguing that their inevitable foray into everyday policing will fuel existing issues of racial discrimination. Building on Luis Suarez-Villa's (2009) conceptualization of technocapitalism, I situate police robots within a framework of social domination that thrives not only on its connections to corporatism and militarism, but also on technocapitalist conditions that invariably exacerbate the oppressive dynamics of racist and discriminatory policing. Although police robots will make police work safer for officers (Sharkey 2008), I contend that they will be used by the police as weaponized machines of …

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

The Claustropolitan Society: A Critical Perspective On The Impact Of Digital Technologies And The Lockdown Imaginary, Tara Brabazon, Stefan Lawrence

Fast Capitalism

The imperative of this article is to develop the trope of the ‘lockdown imaginary.’ To enact this project, a diverse array of theories and theorist are summoned, including the tropes and trajectories from Jean Baudrillard, Benedict Anderson, and Steve Redhead. This – seemingly – odd intellectual combination is both timely and appropriate. It is necessary – as with the Matryoshka Dolls – to commence with a theorization of hyperreality, then we crack open the concept to reveal theories of the imagined and imagining, concluding with the smallest and most brutalizing theoretical Dolls: claustropolitanism and foreclosure. From here, a (post) pandemic …

Film Review Of K-Pop Demon Hunters, Emily Stier Adler, Emily Farmer

Sociology Between the Gaps: Forgotten and Neglected Topics

No abstract provided.

Beyond The City Limits: Representations Of Rurality And Lgbtqia+ Youth In Young Adult Literature, Michelle L. Page

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

Narratives of flight from rural to urban areas predominate in research related to LGBTQIA+ communities. Thus, rural LGBTQIA+ young people rarely see representations of themselves or their environments, especially positive portrayals. Such representations are important in that they are productive of identities, not just reflective of them. This study examines a collection of young adult literature with LGBTQIA characters and rural settings, analyzing the portrayals of place (rurality) and identity (LGBTQIA+). In this paper I will demonstrate how current LGBTQIA+ young adult literature reinforces dominant narratives that privilege urbanity and I assert that counternarratives to the rural flight story are …

A Trans Youth’S Encounters With Queerness In Puerto Rico, Gabriel T. Acevedo

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

This article explores the lived experiences of Pedro, a transgender youth from rural Puerto Rico, to examine how queer and trans identities are negotiated within contexts shaped by colonialism, Catholic traditions, machismo, and rural community life. Drawing on queer theory, Latinx studies, rural education research, and narrative inquiry, the study highlights Pedro’s voice through interviews, self-narratives, and reflections, positioning youth as knowledge creators rather than passive subjects. Findings reveal three interconnected themes: (1) the importance of educational relationships in fostering belonging and dialogue, (2) the disruption of normative expectations around adolescence, queerness, and urban migration, and (3) the expression of …

Review Of Thomas P. Wheatland, The Frankfurt School In America: A Transatlantic Odyssey From Exile To Acclaim. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University Of Minnesota Press, 2009, Douglas Kellner

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

The Iranian Uprisings And The Challenge Of The The New Media: Rethinking The Politics Of Representation, Henry A. Giroux

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Sign Story: Shifting Discourse On ‘Signage’ In Progressive Grocer Magazine, Or The Supermarket Under Late Capitalism, Mario Rodriguez

Fast Capitalism

The supermarket industry is an “industry in flux.”[1] Modern grocery stores face multinational opposition at the millennium paralleling the extinction of neighborhood “mom-and-pop” stores with the rise of chain stores of the late 19th century (Strasser, 1989). With this large-scale reorganization of the grocery store industry comes a concomitant restructuring of what constitutes a grocery store itself—its architecture, services, and signs. The following study analyzes the evolving discourse on signs—or ‘signage,’ as it is called in the industry—in Progressive Grocer magazine over the 12-year period from 1996 to 2008. First, signs are contextualized in terms of the history of in-store …

A Conversation Between Jackson Katz And Douglas Kellner On Guns, Masculinities, And School Shootings, Jackson Katz, Douglas Kellner

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Remembering Derrida, Robert J. Antonio

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, Fast Capitalism Editorial Team

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Independent Music After Metallica V. Napster, Inc.: Seeking Liberation In The Music Streaming Simulacrum, Lukas Szrot

Fast Capitalism

In this brief paper, I note the ways in which being a musician has changed in the aftermath of the digital downloading and file-sharing developed by Napster pioneer Shawn Fanning, through the lens of the music streaming simulacrum—my term for what has unfolded since. I contrast the present environment with the potential that emerged with this technology. I theorize the music streaming simulacrum as opaque, flat, and hegemonic—a parody of both industry and culture that incomprehensible by a single human being, militates against deeper connectivity between artist and listener, and exerts outsized power over human behavior and decision-making in a …

A Capitalist Stranglehold On “Artificial Intelligence”: A Gallop Through Piracy, Privacy Invasion, Lock-In And A Fever Dream Of Democratisation, Aidan Cornelius-Bell

Fast Capitalism

In this paper, I discuss the emergence of personal computing, the rise of platform-controlled smartphones and tablets, and the recent surge in artificial intelligence technologies. I explore how these technological advancements have often been shaped by the interests of capital, with recent trends towards increased platform lock-in, control, and exploitation of users (workers). I argue that without a strong push for open-source, democratised AI, these technologies risk being used to further the globalised colonial capitalist project. I highlight the potential for open-source hardware and software to counter the proprietary and un-hackable future of AI, offering a radical alternative that empowers …

Napster "Freedom" At Northeastern University: A Distanced Ethnography, Marcus Breen

Fast Capitalism

This article offers a critical first hand account, from an academic at Northeastern University after Napster's creator Sean Fanniong left the campus in 1999. Reflecting on the impact of Fanning on the campus, drawing on the history of community computer innovation in Boston as a means of activism, the article identifies through Marx, the way monopoly capitalism destroyed Napster's capacity for free music culture. The impact of Intellectual Property law in shutting down digital innovations such as Napster, is considered for the impact it had on the ideals of the liberal university in the United States.