interview

Introduction

This is an edited transcript of a face-to-face interview that took place in London on 21^st of January 2015.

Stephen Dunne (hereafter SD): Can I ask you to recount, when you set out on the book, what you were trying to do and in relation to what body of work?

Introduction

Introduction

I’m endlessly fascinated with one particular book by Jacques Rancière, namely The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (the original French was published in 1987; the English translation appeared with a fine introduction by Kristin Ross in 1991).

Steffen Böhm (SB): Larry, you and your colleagues have been at the forefront of the critique of carbon markets for almost a decade now. You have published a great number of books, pamphlets, newspaper articles, blog entries as well as academic articles, all of which you have made available on the Corner House website.^[1] Many people from around the world, North and South, have downloaded these contributions, making it one of the key resource centres presenting critical thought on carbon markets.

When I recently asked Simon Critchley in a TV-show how he ended up as a philosopher he laconically proclaimed: ‘failure’. He claimed to have failed not only as a musician and a poet, but also as a political activist.[1]

Stephen Dunne (henceforth SD) I’d like to begin with a question that will serve to put your contribution to this interview into some sort of context. That way it will be easier for your audience to explain your comments away with recourse to your background! Ok, the first thing that is apparent, on this question of your background, is that at the time of interviewing, you all work within Universities, indeed within Business Schools.