Academic
mέta – DiEM25’s & MeRA25’s Centre for Postcapitalist Civilisation premiers tonight, 13th May, at 19.00CET
, 12/05/2021
Imagine the world anew, together. Thursday 13 May 2021, at 19.00CET (17.00GMT, 20.00 Athens time), streaming at mέta’s YouTube channel and at facebook.com/meta.cpc. Through a sequence of intensifying crises, capitalism has already morphed into a dystopian postmodern, hi-tech version of feudalism. Postcapitalism is, thus, already here. Through art and research, argument and poetry, mέta, the […]
From an Economics without Capitalism to Markets without Capitalism – Tübingen University talk
, 28/01/2021
A lecture organised by University of Tübingen economics students, delivered on Monday February 3, 2020, on the theme “From an Economics without Capitalism to Markets without Capitalism”. Mainstream economic models lack some important features of really-existing capitalism, including money, time and space. Its models offer ideological cover for a capitalist system that has usurped competitive, […]
Utopian science fictions legitimising our current dystopia – 2019 Taylor Lecture, Oxford University
, 19/02/2019
The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford University, kindly invited me to deliver the 2019 Taylor Lecture on 12th February 2019. I chose the topic of Realistic Utopias versus Dystopic Realities – my aim being to highlight the manner in which really-existing capitalism is marketed as a utopian science fiction that has nothing to do with… really-existing capitalism. Behind this elegant utopian […]
Help separate truth from motivated error: My acceptance speech at Sussex University on the occasion of an honourary doctorate conferment
, 23/07/2017
On 20th July 2017, the University of Sussex conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of the University Honoris Causa. Professor Andrea Cornwall, who kindly presented me to the Chancellor and the Congregation, explained the rationale of the award: “[F]or his contribution to our understanding of the global economy, for his advocacy of an authentic internationalism, […]
Sleepless in Europe – in Huffington Post
, 10/05/2014
Some weeks ago I heard Arianna Huffington deliver a talk, in Austin, on sleep deprivation and the terrible decisions that it leads to. This made me recall that all the awful decisions of our European leaders (and there were so many of them) were reached at around 4.00am. I mentioned that to Arianna and she […]
Reaching For Our Revolvers: How a United Europe defused its culture and divided its people
, 31/03/2014
This is an article that appeared in Brooklyn Rail, a NYC-based art magazine. My brief was to write a piece on the effects of European unification on European culture. Click here for the BR website version. Or…
Three brief Greek summer tales
, 13/08/2013
As a child, I was fascinated by my mother’s, and her mother’s, tales from the 1940s, and in particular their stories about life under the Nazi occupation. It is perhaps not a coincidence that children’s books used to be replete with grim tales of murder, dismemberment and assorted horrors.
Farewell Mrs Thatcher: In spite of everything, you are being missed already
, 09/04/2013
For the purposes of full disclosure, I write these words as someone who, back in the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s, joined countless picket lines and demonstrations against Mrs Thatcher’s regime, shouting on top of his voice (and to the detriment of his vocal chords): “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out!”. Indeed, when I […]
And the Good Ship Greece Sails On: ‘Letter’ to an italian colleague
, 24/06/2012
A few weeks ago I was approached by Andrea Adriatico, a theatre director from Bologna’s Teatri Di Vita with an interesting request: Could I write a ‘letter’ to some fictional Italian economics professor, outlining on a colleague-to-colleague basis, the Greek ‘situation’ as it is experienced by a Greek economics professor. That letter would then be read […]
A late night discussion with Richard Holbrooke remembered
, 14/12/2010
It was summer of 2003. The setting was the island of Kos, a stone’s throw from the Turkish coast. Richard Holbrooke was participating at that year’s Symi Symposium organised by George Papandreou, then Greece’s Foreign Minister, currently Prime Minister. Though not a participant in that symposium (which also featured notables like Bill Clinton, Segolen Royal […]