Dan Taylor

Displace

‘How do we even begin to have a conversation about the gargantuan problems of finite resources, personal ethics and social change in a framework that renders an individual life seemingly powerless?’ Laura Sillars raises this question in her foreword to A Sick Logic, a collection of writings, photos and field guides that raise questions and…
Audio essay

“A tale of two countries” is the title of an audio essay I’ve put together for an exhibition opening today Up North in an abandoned boozer. It’s a rough attempt to try to put across some feelings and ideas about the political and social mood at the moment. The exhibition, “Will the last person to…
State of the nation

‘The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.’ – Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks. There are signs that the interregnum may soon be over. An election result few of us dared hope for, a new collective…
OECD Forum 2017

This week I spoke at the OECD Forum 2017 in Paris about the geographies of discontent, and about my book Island Story. It was such an unexpected honour to be invited, and the conversations I had over those two days were inspiring, difficult, revelatory and valuable. Find out more about the event and the other…
Island Story Short-listed

Remarkably, Island Story: Journeys Through Unfamiliar Britain has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for best political writing, 2017. There has obviously been some confusion or administrative error with my inclusion, but it is an honour to be in the company of some truly excellent titles. I am grateful for all the support of my…
Dr Taylor

I am now a fully-fledged doctor, after I passed my PhD viva exam without corrections last week. I was examined by Étienne Balibar and Beth Lord who both put forward rigorous and stimulating questions. The title of my PhD is ‘Freedom, Power and Collective Desire in Spinoza’. Its overarching claim is that freedom in Spinoza…
Orwell Prize Long-list

Island Story has been long-listed for the Orwell Prize for political writing. It has sneakily gatecrashed into an impressive party. Many thanks to everyone who has enjoyed the book and supported it. Read more about the long-list here. In tandem, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is being read aloud in its entirety at the Ministry of Truth…
Brexit on a bicycle

My article on cycling around the North of England in the aftermath of Brexit has been published this week in the New Statesman. Based on conversations during my book tour of Island Story, I set out to explain why many working class people voted Brexit. The horizons of political possibility have been hemmed in by…
“A Brief History of Sacrifice” out now with Fold Press

Fold Press have published a long essay of mine, with a new accompanying essay by Steve Hanson. “A brief history of sacrifice” fuses Bataille with Burial, austerity cuts with public executions, Mauss with Facebook, signing on with the politics of self-immolation. It brings together observations on mental health, debt, wage slavery and alcohol’s consolations into…
Island Story tour

The United Kingdom appears less politically or socially stable than at any point in living memory. The confusion caused by a seemingly impossible Brexit vote has left the island with no obvious political direction or gravity. Incoherence is the watchword of the moment. The feeling of defeat that was so palpable in people’s…