darkmatter Journal

Paul Gilroy carries a lot of symbolic weight. In our transnational academic milieu, Gilroy’s status as a superstar professor overdetermines his writing, forcing a peculiar disjuncture between the character of his project and the expectations of his eager audience. While Gilroy speaks of a poststructural cultural politics, he is too often forced into the position of custodian or leader that sometimes rubs up uncomfortably with his analysis…

Here in Britain, the widespread scandal of MPs fiddling their expenses looks like it’s going to play a significant role in determining voter behaviour in the European and local government elections on June 4.

Apparently we all got carried away with Barack Obama. The excitement generated about race in the American election was, we are increasingly told, overblown. Sure, this was an important symbolic moment for black America, but our exhilaration now needs to…

In September 2007, the liberal German daily newspaper Süddeutsche published an article entitled ‘Migrant kids against Gays’.^[1] The article referred to the results of a study initiated by the German Lesbian and Gay Federation (LSVD), investigating attitudes among German students…

What is it about this particular historical moment that makes discourses of gay rights such an important resource for US/Western imperial projects? How do you account for the rapidity with which gay rights have been retrospectively mobilized as emblematic of Western freedoms?

In this article I want to think not about the materiality of race, but about the material dimensions of race theory. In particular, I want to consider as material the relationship between race theory and an anti-racist politics in contemporary…

Before rehearsing those wonderfully myopic arguments about the internet as a space of unlimited freedoms beyond censorship, it’s worth bearing in mind the corporate nature of social networking sites like Facebook. Though you might not consider the ethics of corporate…

While it is a relief to us all that the British National Party failed to make significant gains in last Thursday’s local elections in England and Scotland, it’s disturbing to find a growing acceptance of the Party amongst political commentators. Often hedging…

…people are fascinated, terrified and fascinated by this indifference of the Nothing-to-see, of the Nothing-to-say…

Such was the reckoning of Big Brother propounded in a late lecture by the freshly dead Jean Baudrillard. His words are familiar, his argument quite…

This is a review of Matt Wray (2006) Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness, Duke University Press.

Coming to prominence over the last decade, the critical study of whiteness has proven a welcome addition to…