My condensation of the 2016 book, No More Work (UNC Press), for Aeon, the online magazine, reverted to the original title, “Fuck Work.” That piece went totally viral. To date it has received over a million reads (not hits, actual reads that last 14 minutes) and roughly 90,000 Facebook shares. WTF?
Paul Jorion, a French sociologist andf all-around intellectual, noticed the traffic, and enjoyed the argument, so he commissioned a translation and a comment for his blog. Then he went further and pitched a translation of the book to Flammarion, the esteemed French publishing house. That translation is now in print, with his introduction up front
I asked Matthew Barlow, our ace from Politics/Letters Live, to translate the introduction, so that we might then argue over the content and the reception of my argument. Bruce Robbins, one of our associate editors, elaborated on Barlow’s translation. Here’s the result.
We’ll follow up with responses by Jon Levy of the University of Chicago, Liz Fouksman of Oxford University, our very own Bruce Robbins, and Karen Foster of the University of Nova Scotia. I’ll try to summarize the state of the debate, and then Paul Jorion will get the last word.
With any luck, we’ll have some fun.
