I just wanted to give a shout-out to some exemplary posts this time around. I’m really impressed with your hard work and creative thinking and could have picked almost anyone’s work this time. But these stood out for various reasons, so check out:

• Lizzie’s discussion of Marx and “alienation,” which gets at Marx’s attempt to move beyond “idealism” and link the mental and material aspects of “alienation” in labor.
• Lei’s fascinating reading of the video game “What Remains of Edith Finch.” The game features a sequence in which we “play” alienated labor–with disastrous results–in ways that amount to a mode of ideological critique.
• Evelyn and Tenzin took on Benjamin: Tenzin’s post explains the workings of “aura” beautifully and Evelyn’s unpacks Benjamin’s borrowing from Freud to posit an “optical unconscious” that photography and film render available for our analysis.
• Ayesha and James glossed Althusser (and props for tackling this tough text prior to our discussion!): Ayesha emphasized the ideological force of schooling and James, taking a different tack on the same topic, wonders what Althusser would do with the phenomenon of “woke” liberals and leftists in the academy teaching students to question the dominant order, just like we’re doing right now!