Radical Cowherds

The work of Carlo Ginzburg broke into my life at a time of confusion and lack of faith. It was London and it was the summer of 2017. The city was not only swollen with heat but with feverishness over Brexit. Bylines about exiting the European Union co-opted most newspapers. The online press environment was thick with vitriolic sentiments and stories pegged to rouse outrage: the Home Office had been sending EU nationals deportation letters in error, and Jeremy Corbyn supposedly had a ‘secret plan’ to allow thousands of unskilled workers into the UK. I was particularly conscious of the online press environment because my job required me to surf it. At the time, I worked in a small team that handled media relations for a large university in central London. Part of my role was media monitoring. Every day, I scoured the internet for any references—big or small—to the organization I worked for. Although collating and summarizing this information was basic, dull work, I enjoyed plumbing the depths of the internet for stories that I otherwise would have had no reason to read.