Prickly Dispatches
An editorial supplement featuring commentary on our pamphlets, announcements and news from the press, and more from our editors, authors, and collaborators.
Bruno Latour and Trump's War on Iran
Latour’s War of the Worlds: What About Peace?, a Prickly Pamphlet published in 2002 and available as a free download, has diagnostic value in the current quagmire of negotiations
The Political Theology of AI
Guest contributor Nicolas Guilhot looks at the Pope’s stand against Big Tech.
Prickly Dispatches Roundup #1: May 2026
The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning, the Iran War, and what’s next from PPP.
Kayfabe, Trolling, Satire, and Cynicism
Jennifer Pitts analyzes the use of irony in The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning.
Christopher Rufo and the Right’s Hypocritical War on CRT
Nicholas Dirks responds to James Chandler’s new book, The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning.
Should We Excuse the Practices of Universities?
Richard Bourke comments on The Know-Nothing Campaign Against Higher Learning.
What Is Higher Learning?
Jerome McGann reconsiders the point of higher education in light of James Chandler’s new pamphlet.
Trump, Zelensky, and Thucydides
Colin Murphy applies James Chandler’s analysis of kayfabe in the Trump administration to the theatricality of modern geopolitics.
Spectacle and Distraction
Don Michael Randel explains how the Know-Nothing campaign against universities contradicts the administration's stated policy goals.
The Corporate Museum
On International Museum Day, Paul Werner’s 2005 Prickly Paradigm pamphlet Museum, Inc: Inside the Global Art World is more relevant than ever.
Identity v. Oligarchy: (Re)reading Rorty in 2026
We can learn a lot from history in the philosopher and social critic Richard Rorty’s 2002 PPP pamphlet, Against Bosses, Against Oligarchies.
Trump and Anti-Catholicism in America
Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking who officiated Trump’s first wedding, is a link in a long chain of American prejudice against Catholics.