Bob Dylan could have been writing about these times when he composed the lyrics ‘the times they are a changing’. This was never so apparent than on a recent trip to the US to meet  with social and economic justice organisations.
Most striking was the shift in the parameters of the public debate about wealth, income [...]

Book Review: Prison Notebooks: Volume II, Antonio Gramsci

“The concepts of revolutionary and internationalist, in the modern sense, are correlated to the precise concept of state and class: a poor understanding of the state means a poor consciousness of class (understanding of the state exists not only when one defends it but also when one attacks [...]

Book Review: Hilary Wainwright, Reclaim the state: experiments in popular democracy. London / New York / Calcutta: Seagull (2nd edition - 2009).
A new book by Hilary Wainwright is usually a significant event: Beyond the Fragments (with Sheila Rowbotham and Lynne Segal, 1979), Arguments for a New Left (1994) and the first edition of Reclaim the [...]

A review of Ghost Estate by William Wall, Published by Salmon Poetry 2011

‘…& are we supposed to sympathise
when the gentry find themselves
in the same boat
or plane
as everyone else?’

From ‘Job in Heathrow’
William Wall is a novelist, poet and blogger. I better ‘fess up straight away that ever since I read William’s Booker Prize long- listed [...]

The progressive political parties represented in the Dáil, Assembly and Council chambers around the country have been slow to understand the potential opened up by the Occupy movement.
During the recent Presidential election, with all the coverage it was bound to receive, none of the candidates representing progressive politics in Ireland - Higgins, McGuinness and I [...]

The following was first published in Spanish by Madrilonia, a Madrid-based blog that writes about and participates in social movements. Madrilonia has been involved in the 15-M movement, which began with the mass protest organized by Real Democracy Now on the 15th of May 2011 and inspired Europe with the occupation of plazas across Spain. This text [...]

“New agendas in social movement studies”

Social Movements Conference
NUI MAYNOOTH,
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 26TH, 9.30 - 6.15

About the conference
This conference brings together 21 researchers from Ireland, Britain, Italy,Belgium and the US working on movements ranging from alternative food movements to the World Social Forum, from Shell to Sea to SlutWalks and from Irish Ship to Gaza to children’s rights advocacy. It showcases some of the best [...]

This is the first of a three part analysis of Owen Jones’ book Chavs. The second part will be published tomorrow, with the concluding part appearing on Thursday. All three can be read here.
Book Review: Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. London: Verso, 2011. 298 pages. £14.99

To get rid of class-distinctions you [...]

Book Review: Embassytown, China Miéville (Pan MacMillan) and Wittgenstein’s Antiphilosophy, Alain Badiou (Verso)
Words are a funny old kettle of fish and good sci fi has always been alert to this. In Heinlein’s novel The Whipping Star, what engages the reader’s attention throughout is the difficulty the central character has in communicating with Fannie [...]