Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Malcolm Quinn

@malrog.bsky.social

1.3K followers 890 following 5.5K posts

Professor of Cultural and Political History UAL, Honorary Professor Bentham Project UCL. Thinks about anti-aesthetics. Read a chapter of my academic work for free: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10096746/1/Bentham-and-the-Arts.pdf

discovery.ucl.ac.uk

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · Aug 31

'If Bentham unsettles our faith in aesthetics while appropriating aesthetic forms, if he uses his knowledge of visual culture to compare Treasury officials to automata and has his portrait built in an anatomy theatre, which aspects of utilitarian thought are being developed?'

UCL Laws 24 July 2025

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 3h

It makes me glad that Le Gavroche waved bye-bye when it did.

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 4h

Definitely.

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 4h

Well I do have to thank you for my manifestation on @bsky.app

1 1

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 4h

The only sane way to look at my royalties is as a decent lunch for two.

1 2

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 5h

I always like taking the stairs in our house.

A staircase carpeted in grey and brown stripes, with cream wallpaper in large black, brown and grey dots.

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · Sep 12

A comment I just made on how issues of bias and power over others can arise in PhD vivas reminded me of this rather quirky contribution:

Wittgenstein's Ph.D Viva—A Re-Creation | Philosophy | Cambridge Core

Wittgenstein's Ph.D Viva—A Re-Creation - Volume 74 Issue 4

www.cambridge.org

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · Apr 29

I delivered some PhD viva training today. My takeaway is that PhDs are social, and if you can’t name four or five people who really matter to you right now in your field of inquiry, tell me why they are relevant and what new things they will learn from your research, you are not ready for a viva.

1 4

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 6h

In @ftweekend.com, @simonkuper.bsky.social asks what happened to the future. The best parable atm is Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's story 'Memories of the Future', about a man who builds a time machine in an authoritarian state, while running out of the time, money and resources to construct it.

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 6h

The Question Concerning Technology

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 1d

‘Don’t Blame the Tools’ - an extract from my discussion of Babbage, De Prony, Marx and Heidegger in Blueprint 43, February 2003.

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 9h

'One does not wish to dignify this kind of vandalism with a response and you have to wonder whether the Tories will give Badenoch even one election before booting her out.'

In praise of “rip-off” degrees | The Observer

Kemi Badenoch’s attack on the arts and humanities isn’t just culturally short-sighted, it’s economically illiterate

observer.co.uk

10 29

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 9h

‘Thinking you’re Escoffier in Vivienne Westwood tartan pants’ @gracedent.bsky.social on ‘Punk Royale’ @theguardian.com

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 22h

‘Derek Jacobi plays Freud as if he were a kindly uncle in one of those old Christmas films they show at lunchtimes.’

Ben Lewis @theuniversalben.bsky.social · 22h

Kate Moss and Lucian Freud — the supermodel reveals her side of the story. Hilarious piece by Waldemar

www.thetimes.com/article/0893...

Kate Moss and Lucian Freud — the supermodel reveals her side of the story

An intimate portrait and their unlikely friendship made them the talk of the town — two decades on, the supermodel is the executive producer of a new film, Moss & Freud

www.thetimes.com

1 1

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 1d

Don’t be shy Nigel. Reform is the first UK political party that has been converted to run on bad apples.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 1d

Farage insists ex-Reform UK Wales leader convicted of bribery is ‘bad apple’

Farage said he was shocked by Nathan Gill’s admissions relating to pro-Russia statements Nigel Farage has insisted his party’s former leader in Wales who was convicted of taking pro-Russian bribes was a “bad apple” who betrayed him. The Reform UK leader was in Caerphilly campaigning for his candidate in a forthcoming Senedd byelection when he was asked about his links to Nathan Gill. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

1 1

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 18h

I watched the first episode of ‘House of Guinness’. Paddywhackery of the worst kind. I’ll probably watch the rest of it.

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 13d

Haven’t seen anyone offer a stout defence of it so far.

1 1 4

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 20h

‘You look like Sebastien Lecornu’. ‘I am Sebastien Lecornu’. ‘Well no wonder you look like him.’

Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 21h

UPDATE: The new Prime Minister that Macron just named is... Sebastien Lecornu.

Lecornu is the Prime Minister who Macron appointed in September, and who resigned on Monday because he couldn't form a government.

I don't know what to tell you—situation has been risible for a year.

1 1

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 20h

Like an actor who knows that he will never play Hamlet, I read this and realised that I am too old to be the Antichrist.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 1d

Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist

The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’

www.theguardian.com

1 2

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 18h

No mention of the poll tax, a tax on being alive. She was a disaster.

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 18h

I watched the first episode of ‘House of Guinness’. Paddywhackery of the worst kind. I’ll probably watch the rest of it.

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 13d

Haven’t seen anyone offer a stout defence of it so far.

1 1 4

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 20h

I suppose anyone who is not left will do. So recycle.

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 20h

‘You look like Sebastien Lecornu’. ‘I am Sebastien Lecornu’. ‘Well no wonder you look like him.’

Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 21h

1 1

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 20h

Like an actor who knows that he will never play Hamlet, I read this and realised that I am too old to be the Antichrist.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 1d

Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist

The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’

www.theguardian.com

1 2

Malcolm Quinn @malrog.bsky.social · 21h

If Carl Schmitt had read Tolkien.

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 23h

the final boss of "imagine if obama did it"

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Hegseth: "I'm also proud that today we're signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emeri air force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho."

81 430 2.2K

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 22h

France still doesn't have a prime minster, as Emmanuel Macron promised a new name today — but it's now 9pm local time.

What we know: The center-left parties said today Macron made it clear he would once again *not* call them to lead a government — for now the fourth time since July 2024.

7 29 160

Reposted by Malcolm Quinn

James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 1d

the full series of seven discussions Horkheimer & Adorno had in January, 1939—focusing on the concept of the individual in Marx, Hegel, Freud, Kant, Hume, Heidegger, Caillois, the Oedipus myth, & more—that would lead to Dialectic of Enlightenment!

James Crane @jamescrane.bsky.social · 1d

here it is!

open.substack.com/pub/jamescra...

1 8 28