[csaa-forum] Sean McMorrow (U of Melbourne) on Arthur Desmond Tuesday 15th April 3pm NZST

[Rosemary Overell]

Kia ora koutou,



As part of the MFCO Seminar Series 2025, we are thrilled to be joined by Dr Sean McMorrow, Zooming in from Melbourne next Tuesday 15th April at 3pm (1pm AEST). Come join us in Burns 4 or via Zoom link to hear Sean’s fascinating talk.



Please register here<https://forms.gle/fm1Vzyj2aQv5BUMF9> for the zoom link.



Details below:



The Perplexing Life and Afterlife of Arthur Desmond

This seminar emerges from an accidental archival digression to trace the mysterious life of Arthur Desmond. Perhaps one of the few to have taken the pipeline from labour organiser, libertarian socialist, and Māori rights advocate, to anarchist, poet, and political agitator, turned Nietzschean white supremacist, racial primitivist and anarcho-individualist. At all times an ardent anticapitalist and steadfast racist. A ‘friend’ of Te Kooti, Banjo Patterson and the freethinker radicals of fin de siècle Chicago, his story is one that spans Aotearoa, the federating colony of Australia, and underbelly of the USA. He is still largely an unknown figure despite the significance of his subterranean cultural influence in the 20th Century: posthumously, he was a major influence on Anton LaVey (Church of Satan) and the US white supremacist movement. His influence has not yet been given full due owing to the fact that his major screed, ‘Might is Right’, was published under the pseudonym of ‘Ragnar Redbeard’. This seminar outlines his story through what could be considered his media and publishing history, and I will explore the significance of his appropriation now through the shifting modes of ideological and technological publishing networks.



Sean McMorrow teaches in the department of Media & Communications, University of Melbourne. He is editor of Parrhesia: A Journal of Critical Philosophy, and author of The Power to Assume Form: Cornelius Castoriadis and Regimes of Historicity (Lexington Books, 2023) and co-edited volume Marcel Gauchet and the Crisis of Democratic Politics (Routledge, 2022).


All welcome!

[University of Otago]<https://www.otago.ac.nz/>

DR RACHEL ANNA BILLINGTON
Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki
Lecturer | Pūkenga
Kaiāwhina Māori

University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
Media, Film & Communication | Pāpāho, Whitiāhua, Pārokoroko


Rosemary Overell<https://www.otago.ac.nz/mfco/staff/rosemaryoverell.html>
Pūkenga Matua | Senior Lecturer
Pāpāho, Whitiāhua, Pārokoroko | Media, Film & Communication Programme
Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka | The University of Otago
Otepoti | Dunedin
Aotearoa New Zealand
9054

Latest publications:
Overell, R. (2024). ‘Don’t Worry Darling: The anxious question of what women want after #MeToo’. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-024-00461-5
Millar, I., Nicholls, B., Overell, R., & Tutt, D. (2023). Power and politics in Adam Curtis' Can't get you out of my head: An emotional history of the modern world. In C. Owens & S. Meehan O'Callaghan (Eds.), Psychoanalysis and the small screen: The year the cinemas closed<https://www.routledge.com/Psychoanalysis-and-the-Small-Screen-The-Year-the-Cinemas-Closed/Owens-OCallaghan/p/book/9781032223223>. (pp. 163-189). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Overell, R. (2022). Methodological Masturbation<https://lackorg.com/2022/08/26/methodological-masturbation/>. LACK: punctual musings. 26th August.

Google Scholar<https://scholar.google.co.nz/citations?user=ZW7oyEAAAAAJ&hl=en>
LinkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/in/rosemary-overell-047786222>


From: mfco-staff-bounces at lists.otago.ac.nz <mfco-staff-bounces at lists.otago.ac.nz> on behalf of Rachel Billington <rachel.billington at otago.ac.nz>
Date: Tuesday, 8 April 2025 at 10:35 AM
To: MFCO Staff <mfco-staff at lists.otago.ac.nz>, mfco-postgrads at list.otago.ac.nz <mfco-postgrads at list.otago.ac.nz>, Nicola Firth <nicola.firth at otago.ac.nz>, Sean McMorrow <sean.mcmorrow at unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: MFCO Seminar Series: Sean McMorrow (Melbourne) Tuesday 15th April 3pm


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