Economist, essayist and founder in 2000 of the French journal Multitudes, Yann Moulier-Boutang reflects on the imminent changes to the nature and organisation of work resulting from the structural crisis affecting it and laid bare by the pandemic-related lockdown, in particular due to the spotlight now focused on the massive informal sector that highlights the necessary distinction between activity, labour and employment.

Jason Read, a Spinozian and professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine (USA), writes a blog (Unemployed Negativity) in which he analyses how work is depicted in films and books. In this article, the subject of analysis is the famous TV series Breaking Bad, in which the plot, focused on the character of the chemistry teacher-turned-drug lord Walter White, emphasises the role of work as a central issue.

Immaterial labour – activities of a cognitive nature enhanced by the new digital technologies that have given rise to so-called ‘platform capitalism’ – has implied a huge transformation in the world of work and the expansion of precariousness, to the point that the traditional idea of employment is beginning to be seen as a thing of the past. These are the issues discussed in this article by José Nuno Matos, an expert in the sociology of work and a researcher at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais in Lisbon.

Nick Srnicek, a Canadian professor at King’s College in London, is one of the authors of the Accelerate Manifesto and a book which imagines a post-capitalist world without work. Helen Hester is a founding member of a collective responsible for the book Xenofeminism. Written by both, this article focuses on a type of work that is generally neglected in political calculations and sociological research: the unpaid labour of social reproduction that consists of such activities as cleaning, caring and cooking.

Examining some of the defining stages in the thought and representation of work by certain philosophers, from Antiquity to the present day, the essayist André Barata, a professor of philosophy, analyses Béla Tarr’s film The Turin Horse to show how work engenders the humanising factors of habit and repetition.

The Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences on our lives drag on, becoming a ‘normal abnormal’, with their tragic melancholy and despairing monotony. In his novel The Plague, a classic of existentialist literature written as a chronicle of daily life during an epidemic, the writer Albert Camus uses the topics of illness, contagion and fear to create a powerful philosophical meditation on human behaviour. An essayist and chronicler, Sebastian Dieguez is a neuroscientist at the University of Freiburg who, in his research, has focused on the relationship between psychology, cognitive sciences and literature. In this issue, he reviews a passage from Camus’ book.

The sociologist Alessandro Dal Lago, a northern Italian who moved to Palermo several years ago, provides a portrait of this Baroque city where so many other historical eras overlap, revealing that its reality lies far beyond the clichés and prejudices it arouses. Palermo is revealed here as the very essence of Sicily, and Sicily as the radiant centre of Italian literature.

Alec Soth is currently one of the biggest names in American photography, with a world-renowned oeuvre. The portfolio created for this issue of Electra, which he has entitled ‘Unseen Teen’, presents photos of various series, in particular those belonging to his project USA. Postcards from America V, taken in 2014. In these images of America’s ‘invisible’ youth, what is seen (faces, bodies, hair, gestures, attitudes) corresponds to and re-presents what is not seen (feelings, sensations, states of mind, dismay, emptiness), the one side representing signs of the other. There are also symptoms of a latent disease ready to release an approaching and threatening howl. This howl stems from violence, vulgarity, antagonism, precariousness, doubt, mistrust and adolescent kitsch. The photographer and his work are presented here by the critic and curator Sérgio Mah.

On 7 December 1970, fifty years ago this year, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Willy Brandt, visited the Warsaw Ghetto during an official visit to Poland. There, he lay a wreath of flowers in memory of the Jews murdered during the Second World War and, unpredictably, kneeled before the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes. Tragically stark, this picture, which associates political action with historical memory, became an iconic and ground-breaking image in photographic history, with a universal moral and political resonance. In 1971, Willy Brandt received the Nobel Peace Prize. In this Register section, the art historian Nicola Hille interprets the impact of this extraordinary precedent with great originality, questioning the relevance and validity in the present day of an act which at the time divided German public opinion.

An interview with Carlo Ginzburg in which the Italian historian speaks about his intellectual journey and the ‘situations’ and coincidences that have defined all his research and made him one of the world’s most important names in contemporary historiography. The conversation also touches on the circumstances in which he lived from childhood – at the heart of the flourishing literary and cultural scene of post-war Italy.