Mark Fisher (theorist)
| Mark Fisher | |
|---|---|
Fisher at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art in 2011.
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| Born | 1968 United Kingdom |
| Education | University of Hull (B.A.), University of Warwick (Ph.D.) |
| Known for | Cultural theory, philosophy, music criticism, blogging |
| Notable work | Capitalist Realism (2009) k-punk blog (2003–present) |
| Awards | Visiting fellow at Goldsmiths College |
| Website | k-punk |
Mark Fisher (born 1968) is a British writer, cultural theorist, and noted blogger currently based in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. He initially achieved recognition for his blogging as k-punk in the early twenty-first century, and is known for his writing on radical politics, music, and popular culture.[1][2] Over the course of his career, he has contributed to publications such as The Wire, The Guardian, Fact, New Statesman, and Sight & Sound.[2] In recent years, he has published several books, most prominently 2009's Capitalist Realism.
Career
Fisher earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Philosophy at the University of Hull (1989) and later completed a Ph.D. at the University of Warwick in 1999 entitled Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction.[3] During this time, Fisher was a founding member of the interdisciplinary research collective known as the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit.[4] He spent a period in the early twentieth century teaching in a further education college[5] and began his blog k-punk in 2003. It has received acclaim and has been called "one of the most successful weblogs on cultural theory."[2] Music critic Simon Reynolds described it in 2009 as the center of a "constellation of blogs ... some of which are written by practicing philosophers or others involved in lumpen academia" in which popular culture and abstract theory were discussed in tandem.[6]
More recently, he has been a visiting fellow and a lecturer on Aural & Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, a commissioning editor at Zer0 books, an editorial board member of Interference: a journal of audio culture and Edinburgh University Press's Speculative Realism series, and an acting deputy editor at The Wire.[7] He is currently employed as a lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths. In 2009, Fisher edited the critical collection The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson, and published Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative?, an analysis of the ideological effects of neoliberalism on contemporary culture. In 2014, Fisher published Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, a collection of essays on similar themes viewed through the prisms of music, film, and hauntology. He also contributes intermittently to a number of publications, including Fact and The Wire.
Capitalist realism
Fisher's Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? (2009) popularized the critical concept of capitalist realism as a mode of cultural analysis in relation to neoliberalism.[8] As a philosophical concept, capitalist realism is indebted to an Althusserian conception of ideology, as well as to the work of Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Žižek.[9] Fisher proposes that within a capitalist framework there is no space to conceive of alternative forms of social structures. He proposes that the 2008 financial crisis compounded this position; rather than seeking alternatives to the existing model we look for modifications within the system. He defines the term as pertaining to:
a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action.[10]
In Jeremy Gilbert’s words, the term denotes,
both the conviction that there is no alternative to capitalism as a paradigm for social organisation, and the mechanisms which are used to disseminate and reproduce that conviction amongst large populations. As such it would seem to be both a ‘structure of feeling’ [...] and, in quite a classical sense, a hegemonic ideology, operating as all hegemonic ideologies do, to try to efface their own historicity and the contingency of the social arrangements which they legitimate.[11]
Fisher's work has inspired other scholars to adopt this frame of reference.[12]
Books
- The Resistible Demise of Michael Jackson. Ed. by Mark Fisher. Winchester: Zero Books, 2009. ISBN 978-1846943485
- Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative?. Winchester: Zero Books, 2009. ISBN 978-1846943171
- Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures. Winchester: Zero Books, 2014. ISBN 978-1780992266
See also
References
- ↑ ReadySteadyBook
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Zero Books
- ↑ http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.340547; thesis available at https://web.archive.org/web/20101224015635/http://cinestatic.com/trans-mat/Fisher/FCcontents.htm.
- ↑ Dazed and Confused
- ↑ Mark Fisher and Jeremy Gilbert, 'Capitalist Realism and Neoliberal Hegemony: A Dialogue', New Formations, 80--81 (2013), 89--101 (at p. 90); doi:10.3898/NEWF.80/81.05.2013.
- ↑ frieze
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is there no Alternative? (Winchester, UK; Washington [D.C.]: Zero, 2009), p. 9.
- ↑ Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative?. Winchester: Zero Books, 2009. ISBN 978-1846943171
- ↑ Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is there no Alternative? (Winchester, UK; Washington [D.C.]: Zero, 2009).
- ↑ Mark Fisher and Jeremy Gilbert, 'Capitalist Realism and Neoliberal Hegemony: A Dialogue', New Formations, 80--81 (2013), 89--101 (at pp. 89--90); DOI:10.3898/NEWF.80/81.05.2013.
- ↑ E.g. Reading Capitalist Realism, ed. by Alison Shonkwiler and Leigh Claire La Berge (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2014).
External links
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