Diary of a Vandalized Car

It begins with a little-known postwar “field experiment in auto-shaping” by the behavioural psychologist Philip Zimbardo (more famous for the Stanford prison experiment) and connects this, through a series of linked vignettes, to the 2025 wave of vandalism targeting Tesla cars and dealerships. Part of a larger book project on the history of vandalism, the talk considers how the notion of vandalism is ultimately tied to the historical arc of the value-form of the commodity and to the broader affective economy of private property.

All welcome. No booking required.

The Marxism in Culture seminar series was conceived in 2002 to provide a forum for those committed to the continuing relevance of Marxism for cultural analysis. Both "Marxism" and "culture" are conceived here in a broad sense.  We understand Marxism as an ongoing self-critical tradition, and correspondingly the critique of Marxism's own history and premises is part of the agenda. "Culture" is intended to comprehend not only the traditional fine arts, but also aspects of popular culture such as film, popular music, and fashion.  From this perspective, conventional distinctions between the avant-garde and the popular, the elite and the mass, the critical and the commercial are very much open for scrutiny.  All historical inquiry is theoretically grounded, self-consciously or not, and theoretical work in the Marxist tradition demands empirical verification.