Simone Pellegrino

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I first fell in love with the idea of applying philosophy to mediated cultural processes during my undergraduate studies at Goldsmiths.

Studying at Goldsmiths

I am a PhD researcher in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies, where I investigate the contemporary engagement with notions of fate and fortune across a range of what I call oracular cultural practices, and the tension these reveal between capitalist-hegemonic and emancipatory opportunities.

PhD Research

From the connotations of luck, fate and (mis)fortune in both mainstream and online media texts, to the perception of the peculiarly entropic, non-deterministic functioning of large language models (LLMs) in generative and agentic agential artificial intelligence (AI) that turns the machine into an oracle-like medium, I draw on critical theory to examine the ordinary experience of affective discourses of fate and fortune as socio-cultural meanings of the 21st century. 

The equal horizons of novelty and possibility they project, and the magical explanation they provide for past unpredictable occurrences, are closely inspected vis-à-vis their condensed surrogation of linearity, which facilitates control in the current age of contingency and uncertainty, where historicity is in fact weakened. Therefore, a new critique of late capitalism is proposed, which focuses on both risks and opportunities of fate and fortune in post-postmodern, or meta-modern, individuals. Core themes include temporality, space, consciousness, affectivity and desire.

I presented my research at academic conferences in Europe and the United States. At 23, I am also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Undergraduate studies at Goldsmiths

Finding a passion

I first fell in love with the idea of applying philosophy to mediated cultural processes during my undergraduate studies at Goldsmiths, completed in 2023.

I assisted with the ‘21st Century Magic and Spirituality in Media and Culture’, a symposium hosted by the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, which fostered a cross-disciplinary interchange on spiritual practices with scholars from other internationally leading institutions, such as MIT (USA), Rutgers University (USA), Concordia University (Canada), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland).

Skill specialism

I also specialised in mobile and print journalism with a training in news and feature writing, sub-editing and fact-checking. I collaborated with fellow students to create Blurr, an online magazine that explored the concept of the other. I was picked as the co-editor of Tablecloth, a cultural magazine whose first printed issue was published in March 2023.

Work experience

I did a work placement with the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service partner, Epsom and Ewell Times, a not-for-profit publication in Surrey, England. My journalistic work also appeared on The Tab and EastLondonLines.

Advice for future students

Come prepared to question everything, yourself included - it is the biggest opportunity Goldsmiths offers to its creative and engaged students.

Favourite spots around campus

Our campus is in New Cross, where contamination thrives in a transcultural production of smells, tastes and ideas.

My go-to pub is The Rose.

My favourite reading spot on campus is the last bench on College Green, just next to the tennis courts and the Professor Stuart Hall building.