Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou is the author of Speculative Communities: Living with Uncertainty in a Financialized World (University of Chicago Press, 2022). He is Founding Director of the Centre for Capitalism Studies at University College London, and Director of UCL’s Sociology Programme. His current book project (under advance contract with MIT Press) is a history of ideas tracing the role of market distortion and financial alchemy in the emergence of ‘post-truth’ capitalism. His work has been featured in The New Yorker, London Review of Books, Bookforum, EL PAIS, and the Locarno Film Festival. In 2024/25 Aris is Research Chair of the programme Futures of Capitalism at The New Institute in Hamburg.

Speculative Communities investigates the financial world’s influence on the social imagination, unravelling its radical effects on our personal and political lives.


“A masterful critique of the financialisation of everyday life. A novel and exciting academic contribution, and a critical reference point for those seeking to organise in a world defined by the logic of speculation”.

— Grace Blakeley, author of Stolen

Read a review in Bookforum, listen to an interview in Tribune, or watch a video from the launch event at the LRB Bookshop.

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Financial markets practising money alchemy through mathematics and astrology, generated by DALL·E 2 OpenAI software.

Upcoming book —


Real Fake: An intellectual history of distortion

What is the relationship between magic and finance? How did alchemy become a defining feature of our financialized world? And how does market-driven distortion produce the elusive realities, cosmologies and conspiracies of modern capitalism?

[ Image of ‘financial alchemy’ generated by Aris K-A through Open AI ]

Featured past events

 

Monday 17 January
19:00 – 20:00

London Review Bookshop
UK book launch

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Wednesday 26 January
11:00 – 12:15 EST

The Strand Bookstore, NYC
US book launch

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Wednesday 11 May
19:00 – 21:00 CET

Ark Books, Copenhagen
Denmark book launch

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Wednesday 8 June
17:00 – 18:30 CET

Max Planck Institute, Cologne
MPIfG Public Lecture

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Tuesday 5 July
18:00 – 20:00 CET

KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Germany book launch

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Wednesday 10 August
20:00 – 21:00 CET

Locarno Film Festival
Invited Public Lecture

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