Best new music 2025
The year's best music, and a personal reflection on 2025, exactly 366 days after the last one. The post Best new music 2025 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
carsten knoch – essays + ideas
A blog about technology, politics, business, anthropology and (occasionally) music written by Carsten Knoch.
Latest posts
On the ritual use of personas in design
What happens when a method meant to represent complexity becomes a performative shortcut instead? A critical look at the persona artifact in design work. The post On the ritual use of personas in design first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Best new music 2024
A brief personal reflection followed by the traditional list of the best music that caught my ear during 2024. The post Best new music 2024 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Best new music 2023
Better late than never, here is my annual blog post listing my favourite new releases from 2023. It’s been a rather trying festive season this year because the rich soup of respiratory viruses making the rounds have ensured that my various holiday writing projects, including this one, got pushed and pushed. The post Best new music 2023 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Best new music 2022
Every year, I somehow commit myself to spending a few days writing up the best new recorded music I heard in the previous 12 months. Here's the 2022 edition. The post Best new music 2022 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Gamestorming for ethnographic data analysis
On January 31, 2022, I gave a talk at the Ethnography Lab at the University of Toronto, about using "gamestorming" — a set of collaborative workshop techniques — for ethnographic data analysis. The post Gamestorming for ethnographic data analysis first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Best new music 2021
A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the afternoon, someone enthusiastically rang our doorbell and then knocked several times. Unfortunately, we were both on Zoom calls so couldn t rush to the door to see who was there. Usually ... [read more] The post Best new music 2021 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Of mixtapes and playlists (DIVERSIONS//2021.01)
This year, I've decided to occasionally make a streamed playlist "mixtape." I don't have a specific listener in mind. I do this for my own amusement primarily. There might be a series of these, or only a few ultimately. My objective is to include good music, of course, but also to sequence something that's listenable in context. The post Of mixtapes and playlists (DIVERSIONS//2021.01) first…
Best new music 2020
It’s the morning of Boxing Day, December 26, 2020, and Ontario has been back in full lock-down since midnight. At least we are avoiding the worst possible super-spreader effect of the annual shopping melee. We are ten months into the ... [read more] The post Best new music 2020 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Covid-19 and climate crisis: Writing prompts from Bruno Latour
Sometimes, an irresistible writing prompt presents itself. Bruno Latour, a French philosopher and anthropologist whose work I ve learned a great deal from, has started a new research/activist project (as he occasionally does), to collect ideas and experiences related to the ... [read more] The post Covid-19 and climate crisis: Writing prompts from Bruno Latour first appeared on carsten knoch -…
Qualitative data analysis with Microsoft Word comments & Python (updated)
About two years ago, I wrote a post here describing a simple and cheap method of coding text documents such as interviews. (I d encourage you to go and read it first before you continue. I won t repeat the original argument ... [read more] The post Qualitative data analysis with Microsoft Word comments Python (updated) first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Best new music 2019
My 2019 annual write-up of the year's best new music. I publish this post into the ether once a year to summarize what I’ve particularly liked during the last twelve months, in the hope that you might discover something new. The post Best new music 2019 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Book notes (September 2019)
Book piles accumulate in my office and on my night table all the time. Books are visual signposts of where my head is at, what's next on the thinking agenda, of the big and small topics that make up the project that is Carsten's head. The post Book notes (September 2019) first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
In memoriam Johnny Clegg
A personal reflection on the death of Johnny Clegg, giant of South African music, in July 2019. ... I met him once, very briefly. In my mid-20s, when I was living in Johannesburg, a colleague and I bumped into him holding court in a café at Rosebank Mall where we had gone during our lunch break. The post In memoriam Johnny Clegg first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Best new music 2018
2018 was another year full of outrageous distractions, the misconfigurations and abuses of the public sphere relentlessly encroaching on whatever space one tried to carve out for thinking, experiencing beauty or getting some rest. A year to test our commitments, ... [read more] The post Best new music 2018 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Qualitative data analysis using Microsoft Word comments
Update February 2020: Since writing this blog post, I have updated the method described below to using a newer, more broadly compatible approach which works with all/most versions of Microsoft Office — and also on the Mac and Linux computers. ... [read more] The post Qualitative data analysis using Microsoft Word comments first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Four books January 2018
Starting this year, I will occasionally post lightly commented lists of books I m currently reading. My tendency is to occupy myself with nonfiction, erring on the side of theory, anthropology, philosophy, politics. For those who got to know me (or ... [read more] The post Four books January 2018 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Best new music 2017
This year s best music list comes in the middle of the Great Deep Freeze of 2017, where it s apparently colder in Canada than at the North Pole. Winter has come. This time, I have no summary words of political, cultural ... [read more] The post Best new music 2017 first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
On Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow
Ai Weiwei s Human Flow, at two and a half hours, is neither light entertainment nor what most would think of as a seasonal movie. It is currently in an extended run in two of Toronto s theatres supporting more cerebral fare ... [read more] The post On Ai Weiwei s Human Flow first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .
Navigating ethics
The following is an excerpt from the introduction to a forthcoming master s thesis in anthropology which I am working on at the moment. This quasi-autoethnographic piece looks at why I am interested in ethics and ethnography in the context of ... [read more] The post Navigating ethics first appeared on carsten knoch - essays + ideas .