Author: Helton Levy
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The sociology of the English ignorance
Some thoughts about Brexit and the possibilities of using the Sociology of Ignorance.
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Looking at Brazil’s favelas from a Venetian harbour
The assemblage of Brazilian landscapes during the Venice Biennale of Architecture may be more problematic than it seems.
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How the issue of poverty shapes online personalities on social media
In August 2018, I published an article on First Monday about the advent of online self-representations in the context of impoverished communities. I believe this is one of the most under-researched aspects of social media. The extent to which poverty and inequality could mirror different kinds of self-representation, either by selfies or short text posts on the […]
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Reassessing the life of Chica da Silva: A tale about Brazil
There is no doubt that Brazil’s history remains under-researched and under-theorised. Especially with regards to the country’s extensive colonial legacy, different periods can be open to negotiation and interpretation, but most of which are still stuck in a range of stereotypes that say little about the complexities of its characters. The biography of the 18th-century […]
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Between methods and “inner experience”: The challenges of studying sexuality
In “Eroticism”, Georges Bataille discusses the need for methods and even science when approaching sex and sexuality. He argues that studying such subjective phenomenon, one could quit objective resources: data, methods, and traceability. One could, instead, use as scientific research oneself’s “inner” experience. As human beings, we have all experienced some erotic situation. In this case, it […]
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Revisiting Pasolini’s “Love Meetings” (1964)
In 1964, Pasolini set out to mission impossible. He proposed a trip around Italy to document people’s views on sex. The result might sound outdated today, but it is not, by any means, irrelevant. One finds prosaic, uninformed, prejudicial opinions, but, at the same time, imaginative, inquisitive, and, somehow, liberated accounts on sex. I have […]
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Reading Stuart Hall as an immigrant: A review of Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands
Stuart Hall’s considerable influence in the UK and abroad stems from his cultural, sociological and political trajectories (Back & Moreno Figueroa, 2014; Roman, 2015; Zhang, 2017), as these areas perfectly articulated throughout his life (Solomos, 2014). Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands (Penguin, 2017) is an excellent opportunity to glance over them in both […]
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An image, a favela, and my research
I won the City University’s Images of Research award with an image that represented my PhD research. The photo shows one of the gigantic sculptures by Projeto Morrinho, an art project that started out from Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. It consists of – literally – a mountain of bricks colourfully painted to represent a favela community, with its tiny streets […]
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Reading Stuart Hall in 2017
Two new publications feature the life and work of academic and postcolonial thinker Stuart Hall: Familiar Stranger (Allen Lane) and Selected Writings (Duke University Press). Both were reviewed by Tony Jefferson for a recent edition of Theory, Culture, and Society. On Familiar Stranger we find: “Originally conceived more than 20 years ago as a short dialogue outlining Hall’s intellectual trajectory, it […]
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Documenta 14 debates immigration and democracy
It sits on a medium-size, industrial city at the heart of Germany’s Hesse State. The city of Kassel receives once again the Documenta 14. Although the art show has had an earlier edition in Athens, Greece, it is here that we better acknowledge its spread, disarticulated, and site-specific project. Without wrapping itself in only one sign, as the […]
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Book review: Activism on the web – Everyday struggles against digital capitalism by Veronica Barassi
As we witness phenomena such as Momentum, Labour’s digital assemblage that pushed for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 General Election, we might want to remove digital activism out of commonplace. Beyond the rhetorics of the “phenomenon”, “social media-led change”, scholars have challenged the actual ICTs penetration in these activist realms by contrasting their relationship with […]
Helton Levy 