A Very Busy Couple of Weeks | The Friday Update

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Update, in which I give a little insight into what I’ve been up to for the past seven days.

What have I been up to this week?

So, it’s been a little while since I last wrote a Friday Update. I can only offer my sincerest apologies for this, it’s been a pretty hectic few weeks. While one of those weeks was a holiday (which was wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating!), I’ve also had a family bereavement and illness to contend with which has meant that, when my focus hasn’t been on working on the next video, it’s been dedicated to supporting family.

Speaking of the next video… The provisionally titled Why Elon Musk Couldn’t Save Free Speech is now all filmed and is currently being edited. As I’ve probably mentioned before, because I live near a very busy road, any filming that I do in my house has to be done in the dead of night. As such, the end of last week and the beginning of this week involved essentially working night-shifts (something I don’t think I’m naturally built to do!).

This time around, I’m working with a freelance editor to take some of the strain off myself. I’ve thus spent a few days putting together a “Production Script” which lays out what archive footage I’d like to be included and when. This has been a little bit of a change in the process from editing my own work, but I’m hoping it will be a positive one. While it’s a bit of a risk financially, I’m hoping that it will allow me to devote more of my time to researching and writing and thus ensure I can hit my bi-monthly schedule a bit more regularly. I’m also hoping that, in the long run, working with a video editor will help to bring the quality of my videos up too (as I feel as though I’ve hit a bit of a ceiling with how good I’m ever going to get at doing it myself!).

Trying to make a video that is so “topical” has not been without its challenges. Musk announced that he was pulling out of the deal just minutes before I was about to set-up to film which meant postponing that and doing some hasty rewrites! Luckily, I’d very much planned for that to be the case! What I’ve ended up with is hopefully an interesting look at “freedom of speech” and “freedom of expression” as concepts, the “public sphere” (or “marketplace of ideas”) and online content moderation.

I think it’s interesting, anyway! And I can’t wait to share it with you!

And outside of work?

As mentioned above, a couple of weeks ago I went on a lovely 5-day holiday with my partner. It was very much a lazy, non-cultural holiday in which I mostly sat by the pool and read some Foucault! My partner and I have had a couple of holidays that we’d planned and then had to cancel due to COVID over the past year (which almost happened this time around too!) so it was great to finally have a bit of time away from the computer!

In other news, I also finally graduated from my PhD! It’s been more than a year since I actually finished with the ceremony having been delayed for some time. Nevertheless, it was lovely to spend the day with the magnificent friends that I made through that process and to celebrate together!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

One thing I always love about going on holiday is having the opportunity to read books that I otherwise would get a chance to as they aren’t necessarily directly relevant to the video that I’m working on. This time around, I delved into the first volume of Foucault’s Essential Works which is titled Ethics.

This is one of those books that has a well-meaning introduction by a relevant scholar which only ends up being more confusing than the work itself. I actually found it really off-putting and was beginning to regret bringing this particular book with me. Luckily, the essays included within the volume are actually much more lively and insightful! Reading it feels like jumping-in on various snapshots from throughout Foucault’s career which may be a bit confusing for anyone with no knowledge of his work but, even if you’ve got the tiniest grasp (say from watching my video on Foucault!), it’s quite nice to be able to engage with some of his ideas without having to commit to reading the entirety of one of his monographs (which are obviously a bit more focussed on a single topic).

That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of the Friday Update. I hope you’ve found it mildly insightful.

Thanks as ever for your generous support and I’ll look forward to updating you more next week!!