3 papers in the library · publishing 2026
Personal Demons September 7, 2026
The interlude offers a series of fragmentary reflections on “waking” as a dominant metaphor of late-liberal consciousness, tracking its circulation across conspiracy culture, psychosis, political radicalization, prestige television, videogames, and popular music. Moving between analyses of Robocop, Severance, The Leftovers, Westworld, 9/11 trutherism, Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted...
Personal Demons September 7, 2026
The introduction frames Personal Demons through the contemporary figure of “Ziz,” a trans rationalist cult leader whose fusion of artificial-intelligence paranoia, syncretic theology, and political violence crystallizes broader transformations in liberal personhood. Drawing on Michael Rogin’s account of political demonology, the book argues that the collapse of neoliberal institutional...
Personal Demons September 7, 2026
This chapter reads Twin Peaks as a sustained meditation on demonic possession, culpability, and the failure of liberal narrative forms to contain sexual violence. Focusing on Leland Palmer’s deathbed confession and its retraction across the series, the chapter argues that possession in Twin Peaks functions not to exculpate the perpetrator but to expose the incoherence of agency under conditions...