Author Archives: Teo Ballvé

Narco-Geographies, Part I: HSBC and Global Money Laundering

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Britain’s biggest bank, HSBC, recently agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with U.S. authorities over charges that it laundered billions of dollars tied to Latin American drug cartels, so-called “rogue states,” and foreign terrorist organizations. Although the U.S. Department … Continue reading →

Posted in Drugs, Elites, Illegality, Networks, Political Economy, Scale, Security, Violence | 2 Comments

New Journal: Critical Historical Studies

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

University of Chicago Press is launching a new journal called Critical Historical Studies. Sponsored by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory and edited by Manu Goswami, Moishe Postone, Andrew Sartori, and William H. Sewell, Jr., the journal is actively seeking submissions. Critical Historical … Continue reading →

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Interweb Motley # 12

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

“Show me a fifty-foot fence and I’ll show you a fifty-one-foot ladder.” Or maybe a ramp (#fail). The New Yorker brings us 2012’s most outlandish stories from the drug war in Mexico. Photo ops: Creepy photo montage of university Financial Aid offices … Continue reading →

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The Solitude of Latin America

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Today marks 30 years since Gabriel García Márquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel speech, “The Solitude of Latin America,” is itself a masterpiece. The closing lines (spoiler!) below. Full text English translation is online, but if you read Spanish, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Dialectics, Media | Comments Off on The Solitude of Latin America

The New Aesthetic Part III: The Network

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

This final installment on the New Aesthetic (Part I: Seeing Like a Machine; Part II: Writing Like a Drone) considers the awkward physicality of the Internet as a thing. If the New Aesthetic is that “structure of feeling” produced by … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, City, Everyday Life, Law, Media, Networks, Science & Tech., Spatiality | Comments Off on The New Aesthetic Part III: The Network

Interweb Motley # 11

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

I’m not alone in getting a kick out of how Marx incorporated vampires, werewolves, and other monsters into the narrative of Capital. In fact, David McNally’s Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires, and Global Capitalism takes the cake on this note … Continue reading →

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U.S. Elections: Latin America MIA

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Despite the oversized impact that the United States has beyond its borders, Barack Obama’s victory was won over wholly domestic issues. Even the so-called “foreign policy debate”—the last debate of the campaign—veered consistently back to domestic affairs. An op-ed I … Continue reading →

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Interweb Motley # 10

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac has been in the news lately. First, the 120-foot, type-written scroll of his 1957 classic On The Road has been put on display as part of an exhibition at the British Library (until December). The scroll was … Continue reading →

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The New Aesthetic Part II: Writing Like A Drone

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

My first post on the “New Aesthetic”—that weird, sometimes unsettling irruption of digital phenomena into real life, particularly into our visual culture—described it as a “structure of feeling,” a term coined by cultural critic Raymond Williams. For him, a structure … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, Art, City, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Raymond Williams, Security | 2 Comments

Can Colombia’s Peace Talks Succeed?

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Colombia’s fourth and hopefully definitive try at peace talks with the country’s largest rebel group begin today in Oslo, Norway. The previous three tries between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—once in the 1980s and twice … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Drugs, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Peace, Security, Terror, The State, Violence | Comments Off on Can Colombia’s Peace Talks Succeed?