Negative Materialism

A Hugo-based website using the Hextra theme for the Negative Materialism framework - a dialectical anti-synthesis approach to critiquing late-capitalist class struggle through practical dissection of immediate material conditions.

Contributing

How to Contribute

We encourage participation from anyone interested in the Negative Materialism framework. There are several ways to contribute:

1. Submit Content to the Documents Repository

2. Edit This Website Directly

  • Click the “Edit this page on GitHub” button (appears on every page)
  • Make your changes directly in the browser
  • Submit a pull request for review

3. Content Guidelines

When contributing content:

  • Use clear, accessible language
  • Include proper front matter with title, date, description, and tags
  • Add relevant tags for discoverability
  • Keep analysis grounded in material conditions
  • Follow the existing writing style and tone

4. Technical Contributions

  • Report bugs or suggest improvements
  • Contribute to the Hugo configuration
  • Improve accessibility or performance
  • Add new shortcodes or features

Getting Started

  1. Fork the repository on GitHub
  2. Clone your fork locally
  3. Install Hugo (extended version recommended)
  4. Run the development server: hugo server -D
  5. Make your changes and test locally
  6. Submit a pull request

Content Creation Workflow

  1. Create a new .md file in the appropriate directory
  2. Add proper front matter with metadata
  3. Write your content using Markdown
  4. Use shortcodes for special features
  5. Test locally with hugo server -D
  6. Submit via pull request

About This Site

This website is built with Hugo and the Hextra theme, providing a modern, fast, and accessible platform for publishing analysis and documentation.

Hugo Hextra System

Data Headers (Front Matter)

Every content file in Hugo uses YAML front matter (data headers) to define metadata. Here’s how they work:

Basic Structure 

---
title: "Your Article Title"
date: 2025-01-15
draft: false
description: "A brief description of your content"
tags: ["tag1", "tag2", "tag3"]
categories: ["analysis"]
- **`author`**: Name of the content's author. You can add this field to attribute posts or pages. Example:
  ```yaml
  author: "Jane Doe"

For multiple authors, use a list:

author:
  - "Jane Doe"
  - "John Smith"

#### Key Front Matter Fields

**Essential Fields:**
- **`title`**: The page title (string)
- **`date`**: The date associated with the page, typically creation date (string)
- **`draft`**: Whether to disable rendering unless `--buildDrafts` flag is used (boolean)
- **`description`**: Brief summary for search results and meta tags (string)
- **`type`**: Content type, overriding the value derived from the section (string)

**Content Organization:**
- **`tags`**: Array of topic tags for categorization (string array)
- **`categories`**: Content categories (string array)
- **`weight`**: Page weight for ordering within collections (integer)
- **`slug`**: Override the last segment of the URL path (string)
- **`url`**: Override the entire URL path (string)

**Publishing Control:**
- **`publishDate`**: Publication date - page won't render before this date (string)
- **`expiryDate`**: Expiration date - page won't render after this date (string)
- **`lastmod`**: Last modified date (string)

**Content Enhancement:**
- **`summary`**: Content summary or teaser (string)
- **`keywords`**: Array of keywords for meta tags (string array)
- **`layout`**: Template name to override default template lookup (string)
- **`linkTitle`**: Shorter version of the title (string)

**Menu Integration:**
- **`menus`**: Add page to given menu(s) (string, string array, or map)

**Custom Parameters:**
- **`params`**: Map of custom page parameters (map)
  ```yaml
  params:
    featured: true
    custom_field: "value"

Authors (Taxonomy-based):

  • authors: Array of author names for taxonomy-based author system (string array)

    authors: ["Jane Doe", "John Smith"]

    This requires setting up the author taxonomy in your hugo.yaml:

    taxonomies:
  author: authors
  tag: tags
  category: categories

    Then create author data files in /content/authors/author-name/_index.md:

    ---
name: "Jane Doe"
bio: "Jane is a political theorist specializing in dialectical materialism."
twitter: "jane_doe"
---

Advanced Features:

  • aliases: Array of relative URLs that redirect to current page (string array)
  • cascade: Map of front matter keys passed to descendants (map)
  • outputs: Output formats to render (string array)
  • resources: Metadata for page resources (map array)
  • sitemap: Sitemap options (map)

Date Formats

Hugo supports multiple date formats. Use one of these parsable formats:

Format Time Zone
2023-10-15T13:18:50-07:00 America/Los_Angeles
2023-10-15T13:18:50-0700 America/Los_Angeles
2023-10-15T13:18:50Z Etc/UTC
2023-10-15T13:18:50 Default is Etc/UTC
2023-10-15 Default is Etc/UTC
15 Oct 2023 Default is Etc/UTC

Taxonomies

Taxonomies are used to classify content. The most common are tags and categories, but you can define custom taxonomies in your site configuration:

# In hugo.yaml
taxonomies:
  tag: tags
  category: categories
  genre: genres

Then use them in front matter:

---
tags: ["capitalism", "dialectics", "labor"]
categories: ["analysis"]
genres: ["political-theory", "critique"]
---

Special Hextra Features

  • cascade: Inherit settings to child pages

    cascade:
  type: blog  # Makes all child pages blog posts
  params:
    color: red

  • Menu integration: Pages automatically appear in navigation based on weight and structure

Cascade Targeting

You can target specific pages with cascade using the target keyword:

cascade:
  params:
    color: red
  target:
    path: '{/articles,/articles/**}'  # Only articles section
    kind: page                        # Only regular pages
    environment: '{staging,production}'  # Only specific environments

For multiple targets, use an array:

cascade:
- params:
    color: red
  target:
    path: '{/books/**}'
- params:
    color: blue
  target:
    path: '{/films/**}'

Shortcodes

Shortcodes are Hugo’s way of creating reusable content components. This site includes several custom shortcodes:

Recent Posts Shortcode 







































  

    

    
    

      
      1/3

Displays the 20 most recent posts in a card layout with titles, dates, descriptions, and tags.

YouTube Shortcode 






  
  
Optional Title

Embeds YouTube videos with proper accessibility attributes.

Example:






  
  
Never Gonna Give You Up

Content Organization

Directory Structure 

content/
├── _index.md          # Homepage
├── about.md           # About page
├── analysis/          # Analysis section
│   ├── _index.md      # Analysis landing page
│   └── *.md           # Individual analysis posts
└── README.md          # This file

Content Types

  1. Blog Posts: Go in the analysis/ directory
  2. Static Pages: Use type: page in front matter
  3. Section Pages: Use _index.md for section landing pages

Theme Configuration

The site uses Hextra with custom configurations in hugo.yaml:

  • Dark theme by default with toggle
  • Search functionality enabled
  • Edit links pointing to GitHub
  • Custom menu with social links
  • Logo support with light/dark variants

Author System Implementation

This site uses a taxonomy-based author system that allows for rich author information and automatic author pages.

Setting Up Authors

  1. Configure taxonomy in hugo.yaml:

    taxonomies:
  author: authors
  tag: tags
  category: categories

  2. Create author data files in /content/authors/author-name/_index.md:

    ---
name: "Author Name"
bio: "Author biography and credentials"
twitter: "twitter_handle"
---

  3. Add authors to posts in front matter:

    ---
title: "Post Title"
authors: ["Author Name"]
---

Author Templates

Author byline in posts (add to your single post template):

{{ range .Param "authors" }}
  {{ $name := . }}
  {{ $path := printf "/%s/%s" "authors" ($name | urlize) }}
  {{ with $.Site.GetPage $path }}
    <div class="author-byline">
      <h3>{{ .Params.name }}</h3>
      <p>{{ .Params.bio }}</p>
      {{ if .Params.twitter }}
        <p><a href="https://twitter.com/{{ .Params.twitter }}">@{{ .Params.twitter }}</a></p>
      {{ end }}
    </div>
  {{ end }}
{{ end }}

Author listing page (create /layouts/_default/author.terms.html):

<h1>Authors</h1>
{{ range .Data.Pages }}
  <div class="author-card">
    <h2>{{ .Params.name }}</h2>
    <p>{{ .Params.bio }}</p>
    {{ if .Params.twitter }}
      <p><a href="https://twitter.com/{{ .Params.twitter }}">@{{ .Params.twitter }}</a></p>
    {{ end }}
  </div>
{{ end }}

Individual author pages (create /layouts/_default/author.html):

<h1>{{ .Params.name }}</h1>
<p>{{ .Params.bio }}</p>

<h2>Articles by {{ .Params.name }}</h2>
{{ range .Pages }}
  <article>
    <h3><a href="{{ .RelPermalink }}">{{ .Title }}</a></h3>
    <p>{{ .Summary }}</p>
    <time>{{ .Date.Format "January 2, 2006" }}</time>
  </article>
{{ end }}

Author Images

Store author images in /static/img/authors/ following the naming convention:

  • File: /static/img/authors/author-name.jpg
  • Use in templates: /img/authors/{{ $name | urlize }}.jpg

Technical Details

Requirements

  • Hugo Extended (latest version)
  • Node.js (for asset processing)

Development 

# Start development server
hugo server -D

# Build for production
hugo

# Build with drafts
hugo -D

Deployment

The site is configured for Netlify deployment with automatic builds from the main branch.

License

This project is open source. See the LICENSE file for details.

Join the conversation: Whether you’re contributing analysis, fixing typos, or suggesting improvements, your participation helps build a more robust framework for understanding and resisting late-capitalist exploitation.