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Archives
Author Archives: Laleh Khalili
On the high seas
I am really looking forward to my trip aboard a container ship… The ship above is a liquid natural gas carrier, so it will have a different feel, but the feeling of being on the seas… It seems to be … Continue reading
Posted in shipping conditions, ships, the arts, the sea, transport
Tagged LNG carriers
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Regimes of land tenure
Regimes of land tenure and ownership must form significant elements in the development of ports. How quickly do these regimes change? What are the processes by which title deeds are issued, exchanged, bought, and sold? Are there demonstrable differences … Continue reading
Posted in capital accumulation, Middle East, political economy, ports
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Value in motion
“The more developed the capital, therefore, the more extensive the market over which it circulates, which forms the spatial orbit of its circulation, the more does it strive simultaneously for an even greater extension of the market and for greater … Continue reading
Posted in capital accumulation, logistics, political economy, transport
Tagged Grundrisse, Karl Marx
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“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges…”
From Melville’s Billy Budd: …war contractors, whose gains, honest or otherwise, are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest of death…. And he is the inventor of “fog of war” too: Forty years after a battle it is … Continue reading
Posted in literature, logistics, Melville, militaries, quotations, readings, ships, the sublime, war
Tagged Billy Budd, Contractors
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The prose and poetry of toiling in/on the seas
I am ashamed to admit that I was a latecomer to the magic of Allan Sekula. Far too much of a latecomer. I discovered his stunning work on shipping and transport, last year; he died in August last year. His amazing … Continue reading
Posted in Allan Sekula, capital accumulation, labour, ports, readings, ships, the arts, the sea, the sublime, transport
Tagged Fish Story, Forgotten Spaces
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On the interweaving of fiction and reality
I hate to use the formally inventive and affectively brilliant Cities of Salt (by Abdulrahman Munif) as a sociological text or a total mirror of reality, which is what so many people do probably because until America’s Kingdom came along very few texts … Continue reading
The Grey Man
On second thought, it is not just the atmosphere of terror in the ship that makes Jahnn’s book so interesting – it is also George Lauffer. He is what Jahnn fabulously calls “the supercargo” alongside his sealed coffin-shaped secret cargo … Continue reading
“Terror is stronger in us than delight”
When I started my maritime-and-ports novel-reading adventure, three people suggested Hans Henny Jahnn’s The Ship to me. One of the three is an author I hold in awe, so I ordered the book (printed on demand by Amazon) – surprised that … Continue reading
Mysteries
My sleep last night was bookended by two sublime mysteries – the shipping forecast with its peculiar poetry which maps a kind of mysterious geography with gale warnings and low visibility Viking Forties Cromarty Forth Tyne Dogger Fisher German Bight … Continue reading
Posted in shipping conditions, the sea, the sublime
Tagged space, Stephen Hawking, the mysterious, the shipping forecast
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The sea in the Qur’an
And it is He who tamed the Sea, that from it you might feed on flesh tender and fresh, and pull fineries to costume yourselves with, and see the ships plying its waters. That you might desire His bounty. Perchance … Continue reading
The Gamming 