Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

  The evidence is overwhelming, documented in court filings, university investigations, and the massive tranches of Justice Department-released Epstein files—most recently the blockbuster drop of over three million documents, emails, photos, and videos in late January/early February 2026.  These files expose sustained, post-conviction ties between convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and the professoriate at our most elite institutions. Dismissing these revelations as conspiracy mongering or overreach protects the powerful at the expense of victims and erodes the moral foundation of higher education itself. This culture isn't abstract or historical; it's active and ongoing. Epstein didn't merely donate money—he cultivated long-term relationships with star academics who continued corresponding, meeting, flying on his private jet, and even visiting his private island years after his 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution. These interactions often blu...

  The revelations emerging from the Jeffrey Epstein files in 2026 should shock us. Peter Mandelson, architect of New Labour and embodiment of its "modernizing" project, exchanging sensitive government information with a convicted sex trafficker. Tony Blair, the humanitarian interventionist, introduced to Epstein through Mandelson's networks. Birthday notes referring to Epstein as "best pal." Payments totaling $75,000. These aren't peripheral scandals involving minor party figures—they implicate the very core of the New Labour project, the men who redefined British social democracy for a generation. Yet perhaps the most disturbing aspect isn't the revelations themselves, but how unsurprising they feel. The Epstein connections don't contradict New Labour's legacy—they crystallize it. They reveal with stark clarity what "pragmatism" actually meant in practice: the subordination of ethical principles to elite networks, the conflation of ...

I had learned my analysis of propaganda, communication and imperialism by reading Chomsky. I was then sixteen years old. But I had also learned my analysis of power and control from Adivasi activists and organizers, articulating their theories of change from everyday observations in struggles at the global margins. The Epstein files and the Chomsky linkages show the impermanence of elite critiques from spaces of privilege, distanced from the voices and embodied struggles at the margins. Such critique often falls short, itself complicit in power. The other kind of critique, that emergent from within struggles is transformative, holding the potential to undo the very games that underlie imperial power. In February 2019, Chomsky wrote to Epstein dismissing what he called the "hysteria" around abuse of women. He characterized press coverage as "horrible" treatment—not of the victims, but of Epstein himself. The women who Julie Brown's reporting had finally centered...

In the shadowy corridors of elite universities, where intellect meets ambition, the Jeffrey Epstein scandal isn't just a tale of one man's depravity—it's a damning indictment of how money corrupts the pursuit of knowledge. The recently released Epstein files, including troves of emails, documents, and correspondences from 2025-2026 drops, paint a vivid picture of systemic rot. They reveal how powerful donors—often wealthy white men—wield their fortunes to infiltrate, influence, and ultimately distort academia. This isn't mere philanthropy; it's a toxic blend of extreme neoliberalism, chronic defunding of public institutions, and a creeping donor culture that erodes academic freedom. As universities scramble for cash in an era of slashed budgets, they've become playgrounds for the ultra-rich, who buy access, set research agendas, and silence dissent. Let's dive deeper into what the files expose about this disgusting decay, expanding on the networks Epstein cu...

None of the Epstein revelations should shock anyone who has studied colonialism with open eyes. What the world calls a “scandal” is better understood as an unbroken historical through-line: the systematic sexual barbarism that has always been structural to white supremacist empire-building. The depravity on display in Epstein’s mansions, private islands, and private jets is not a modern aberration. It is the same depravity that saturated the slave quarters, the frontier forts, the colonial barracks, and the plantation big houses. It is older than the United States. It is foundational to it. White supremacy has never been only about skin color or alleged intellectual hierarchy. At its violent heart, it has always been an ideology of entitled access—the unquestioned right of the “superior” man to take, use, degrade, and discard the bodies of those he has already classified as less-than-human. When European men first stepped onto this continent, they did not limit conquest to land and gol...

In the glittering world of billionaire philanthropy, foundations wield an unparalleled power—a velvet-gloved fist that shapes global agendas, funnels billions into pet projects, and enforces a vision of the world that conveniently aligns with the donors' own interests. These institutions, often hailed as beacons of altruism, are in reality instruments of extraction, siphoning resources from the public sphere while gutting the ability of communities to organize, resist, and self-determine. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a behemoth that has positioned itself as the unelected arbiter of global health, education, and agriculture. But beneath the sheen of charitable intent lies a rotten core: corruption, abuse, and a neoliberal ideology that prioritizes profit and control over genuine empowerment. The recent release of three million pages of Jeffrey Epstein's files by the U.S. Justice Department—on January 30, 2026—lays bare the culture...

In a world where geopolitical tensions simmer just beneath the surface of diplomatic niceties, moments of rupture expose the fragile scaffolding of global institutions.  The ongoing crisis in Gaza, intertwined with the seismic shifts of the "Trumpian moment," has peeled back layers of deception in the so-called liberal international order. This revelation extends beyond politics into the realm of academia, particularly challenging bodies like the International Communication Association (ICA) to confront their embedded "I"—the illusion of true internationalism under North Atlantic, white, Western control.  For decades, ICA has peddled Canadian-European-Australian white hegemony as the international of the ICA. This definition of international has kept power intact in the hands of North Atlantic European whiteness while making claims to beyond US-centrism.  The hold of whiteness over the codes and terms of the international, very much reproducing the white supremacy o...