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We are joined by philosopher Stuart Blaney to discuss the thought of Jacques Rancière, his work on 19th century worker autodidacts and his theories of emancipation, aesthetics and equality. This conversation is based around a forthcoming book by Stuart Blaney that is entitled, Equality and Freedom in Rancière and Foucault with Bloomsbury Books.
Please join our Patreon community to get early access to our interviews and seminars (https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups).
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We explore the big philosophical questions at the heart of Marxism. Does Marxism require a supplementary philosophy such as Nietzscheanism or Freudianism to properly ground its practice? How have the changing material conditions post-2008 shaped Marxist thought and practice? What is the best Marxist response to speculative realism, a major movement in contemporary philosophy? To explore these questions we are joined by Marxist scholar and writer Conrad Hamilton who is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at East China Normal University.
Hamilton is the author of the forthcoming book, Marxism Contra Subjectivity (forthcoming from Brill) which looks at the philosophical impasses facing Marxism in a post-2008 conjuncture, with a particular focus on speculative realism, Althusserianism and different strains of French Marxism. We begin our discussion with Hamilton's analysis of Nietzsche's place in Marxism after World War II. We focus on Hamilton's recent essay on Nietzsche and French thought and his review of my book How to Read Like a Parasite. We then discuss some of the ideas in his forthcoming book on Marxism, philosophy and epistemology. Stay tuned for a symposium on Hamilton's book hosted by our study collective when it comes out.
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Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction to Conrad Hamilton
4:11 - Recurrent Reaction: Nietzsche and the Thought of the French Middle Strata
21:10 - Nietzschean Appropriations and Marxism after World War II
30:17 - The Problems with the Nietzschean "extra class" left
48:30 - Does Marxism require a comprehensive philosophy?
1:12:10 - Speculative Realism, Real Abstraction and Marxism post-2008
1:22:20 - Where is the subject of the proletariat today?
1:43:50 - Why does philosophy matter to political Marxism?
Show Notes:
"The Monsters We Become" by Conrad Hamilton (https://cosmonautmag.com/2024/05/the-monsters-we-become-on-how-to-read-like-a-parasite)
"Recurrent Reaction: Nietzsche and the Thought of the French Middle Strata" by Conrad Hamilton (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-13635-1)
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We welcome Marxist philosopher John McClendon to the show for an in-depth conversation on his philosophical outlook, his work on African American philosophy, and the role of philosophy in Marxist thought and practice. We then discuss McClendon's important book on C.L.R. James's Notes on Dialectics and its implications for Marxist philosophy in our time. If you found this conversation valuable please consider supporting us on a monthly basis at our Patreon.
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The postwar period witnessed a renaissance in Nietzschean thought and interpretation, most notably with the French postmodernist readings generated by Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. But what drove the French Nietzschean renaissance was in many ways supported by the work of two Italian philologists Giorgio Colli and his former student Mazzino Montinari, and their lifelong translation of Nietzsche's unpublished material and key main works. To tell this story, we are joined by German Cultural Historian Philipp Felsch to discuss his newly translated book How Nietzsche Came in from the Cold: Tale of a Redemption, published by Polity Press in June 2024.
In this newly translated book, Felsch retraces the journey of two Italian editors, Giorgio Colli and his former student Mazzino Montinari and their efforts to translate the unpublished material of Nietzsche. Felsch tells a gripping and unlikely story of how one of Europe’s most controversial philosophers was resurrected from the baleful clutch of the and transformed into an icon of postmodern thought. Order How Nietzsche Came in from the Cold.
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We are joined by scholar and socialist thinker Tony, creator of @1Dimee, an important YouTube channel that offers educational videos for a mass popular audience. In this discussion, Tony and host Daniel Tutt discuss his research, writing and video work around The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 - 67. We examine what gave rise to the Cultural Revolution, what it tells us about class struggle and class as a political category vs. an economic category. We also broach how the Cultural Revolution has seeped into Europe, America and beyond.
For background, watch Tony's documentary on "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" and the second video "Why the Cultural Revolution Failed: Lessons for Leftists."
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We welcome the poet laureate of Vermont, Bianca Stone to the show for a conversation on poetry and psychoanalysis. In recent years, Bianca has turned to psychoanalysis as a way to teach poetry and as a method to better understand the process of writing poetry. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss how poetry relates to philosophy and politics, how to interpret poems, what the process of writing a poem is for Bianca, and much more!
John Ashbery has said that Bianca Stone is "a brilliant transcriber of her generation’s emerging pathology and sensibility" and her work has been featured in numerous publications, from the New Yorker to Poetry Magazine, and her poems have been featured in numerous literary magazines. She is the Director of the Ruth Stone House up in Vermont, check it out: https://ruthstonehouse.org.
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We are joined by political theorist Benjamin Studebaker to discuss his book, The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way Is Shut, a sharp and accessible work on the political deadlocks of our present. The American economic system is slowly subjecting Americans to enormous amounts of stress, and the United States lacks the state capacity required to alleviate this stress. The elites and oligarchs have created a system that encourages citizens to blame each other. The crisis cannot be solved, the economy cannot be set right, and democracy cannot be saved. But American democracy cannot be killed, either.
In this conversation, we discuss how professionals can incorporate political rhetoric that does not alienate workers or pander to them as they seek to develop practical strategies for political change. We discuss the idea of the revolutionary subject and its viability today; why economic egalitarianism is seemingly impossible to advocate in the current system; the meaning of the subaltern (in Gramsci's sense) and how we can understand the disempowering effects of our system as one in which more and more people are made into subalterns and deprived of full citizenship. We also debate the role of the Gaza conflict and the student protests.
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We are joined by writer and literary scholar Tyler Austin Harper, whose writing in The Atlantic and New York Times has raised debates on class, race and the meaning of the left in ideologically turbulent times.
In this conversation, we discuss the meaning of the left, how Marxism is to be interpreted in terms of class analysis, the merits of different interpretive models of class power and ideology, the professional or "New Class" problem which arose after the Second World War, and what is now referred to as the "PMC problem." We also discuss psychoanalysis and the theme of subjective limits and why Freud and Lacan are important for politics. To learn more about Tyler's work, please visit (https://www.bates.edu/faculty-expertise/profile/tyler-a-harper/).
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We are joined by historian Gabriel Raeburn to discuss the thought of Eugene Genovese, a firebrand Marxist historian who fundamentally transformed the academic study of slavery in the United States and who, with Christopher Lasch, attempted to launch Marxist Perspectives, a serious Marxist-centered journal that brought together the entirety of the global intellectual literati and leading Marxist scholars of the time.
With the backing of the most prominent Marxists of the time, from E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, Frederic Jameson and with support from young scholars such as Barbara Fields, the journal promised to usher in a new era of Marxist intellectual output that aimed to crossover to the public. But the journal soon dissolved after only two years.
With C. Derick Varn of @VarnVlog we discuss the dynamics of what led to the dissolution of this journal and what these lessons can teach us today as we aim to infuse Marxist thinking and scholarship beyond the academy. We also discuss the thought of Eugene Genovese and Christopher Lasch, the two primary scholars behind Marxist Perspectives. To learn more about Gabriel Raeburn and to be in touch with him should you have access to any letters of Genovese for his ongoing research, please find his bio here.
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We are pleased to welcome longtime friend of the show Scribe Wolf, aka A. H. Ra. In this discussion we focus on the book Noise: The Political Economy of Music by theorist Jacques Attali, a highly influential work that crosses disciplinary borders from history, music, to critical theory and Marxism. This is a wide-ranging and improvisational conversation. Definitely not to be missed. Includes a surprise new song!
Scribe Wolf is an Appalachia-based alt-country musician who describes his project as a "folk-form residing in the punctuated stitching-through of classical technique in avant-garde substrates." Along with his musical work—which additionally spans industrial roles as a classically trained composer and an audio engineer—Ra comes to the program with a background in Marxist, psychoanalytic, and medievalist scholarship, as well as a history of Leninist organizing.
His new avant-metal band Lunafaction is a collaboration with Portland-based Jacob Schulte of black metal project Yfelsian; their debut single The Augury will be out on Bandcamp Friday, April 5, 2024: https://lunafaction.bandcamp.com/
Music video for "Possible Steps through a Moribund Arbor": https://youtu.be/i81XBcJJrpE?si=zYwi7-Qc3llELIQk
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We welcome Dr. Mohammed Sulaiman for a follow-up interview on the situation in Gaza where as of the time of recording (March 13, 2024) Israel has killed over 30,000 Palestinians. Building off our first discussion, this interview explores a number of questions listeners have wanted to raise with Mohammed about the war on Gaza. We discuss the legacy of Mohammed's teacher, Dr. Refaat Alareer who was murdered on December 6, 2023, what the future may hold for Hamas and the role of secularism in Palestinian struggle for freedom. Please join our Patreon if you enjoyed this conversation to help support us https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups
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We welcome Marxist scholars Sara Nadal-Melsió & Eduardo Cadava for a discussion on their new book "Politically Red". If as Brecht said "reading is class struggle" what does that mean for us as Marxists? How are we to orient ourselves in reading groups? How is reading political? Politically Red focuses on the work of Walter Benjamin, Frederic Jameson, Rosa Luxembourg, W.E.B. DuBois and we discuss some of the key ideas of this new book. Check it Politically Red here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047807/politically-red
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We welcome philosopher Carlos Garrido for a conversation on the theoretical and practical challenges facing the left in America. Garrido is the author of The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism and he specializes in Marxist theory, the history of socialism in America and pragmatist philosophy. He is a director and philosopher at the @MidwesternMarx think tank and media organization.
In this conversation we discuss the concept of the purity fetish, the variations within Western Marxism and we move to discuss the practical challenges facing the American left. We also analyze the best accounts of why socialism has never happened in America. Please check out Carlos's work https://www.midwesternmarx.com
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I'm joined by Sudip Bhattacharya for a discussion on how to navigate debates on identity politics and class on the left. What are the best ways for socialists to engage in these debates without risking they end up in unproductive division and hostility? This is a productive conversation full of helpful social and political analysis. Sudip Bhattacharya is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at Rutgers University. You can find his work at outlets like Protean magazine, Jacobin, Current Affairs, Black Agenda Report, among others.
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We are joined by scholar Benjamin Fong to discuss his excellent new book Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge. We discuss the history of drug policy, the role of the state in enforcing and distributing drugs, and we focus on the history of alcohol, opioids, psychedelics and marijuana. We conclude with a conversation on how psychoanalytic theory can help explain drug use.
Benjamin Y. Fong is Honors Faculty Fellow at Barrett, the Honors College and Associate Director of the Center for Work & Democracy at Arizona State University. He is the author of Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge (Verso 2023). He is also the co-editor (with Craig Calhoun) of The Green New Deal and the Future of Work (Columbia, 2022) and the author of Death and Mastery: Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism (Columbia, 2016).
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Jacques Lacan frequently discusses religious themes in his work, from rethinking the concept of belief, to the meaning of the return to religion in modern life. In this episode, we are joined by scholar Mark Gerard Murphy to discuss his work on Lacan and theology and to introduce some salient ideas that Lacan introduces in the field of theology and religion. Mark brings both a humility and a love for spirituality to his scholarship on Lacan and I think this conversation really brings that out. We also discuss Dr. Murphy's new book on Lacan and Spiritual Direction. Hope you enjoy it!
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Is liberal socialism a contradiction in terms? An oxymoron? Or are liberalism and socialism necessary for the realization of the political objectives that each share and profess? We are joined by Matt McManus, author of the forthcoming book, The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism to make the case for his vision of a renewed liberal socialism for our time.
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What is the legacy of the Enlightenment in political struggles today and how are socialists and Marxists to relate to the Enlightenment? Must we rely on first principles and an a priori theory of knowledge in our understanding of capitalism and exploitation? Or must we proceed on the basis of an appeal to empiricism and experience primarily in our understanding of social struggles? What is the role of philosophy in our political practice? How do we know that the political causes we champion are just or right?
We welcome Marxist thinkers Landon Frim and Max Tomba for a debate on Marxism and the Radical Enlightenment to help us get at the heart of these questions, and much more! For background reading, please see Max Tomba's Introduction to his book Insurgent Universality (download here) and Landon Frim's "Reason is Red" essay (download here).
Max Tomba is Chair and Professor of at the History of Consciousness in the Politics Department at UC Santa Cruz. His research examines time and temporalities, Marxism, critical theory (especially the first generation of the Frankfurt School), and modern and contemporary political thought. He is the author of several books, and most recently Insurgent Universality. An Alternative Legacy of Modernity, with Oxford University Press, published in 2019, which was the co-winner of the 2021 David and Elaine Spitz Prize for the best book in liberal and/or democratic theory published in 2019.
Landon Frim is Associate Professor in Philosophy at Florida Gulf Coast University and he is a specialist in Spinoza, enlightenment rationalism and he has written in popular outlets including Jacobin Magazine, The New Republic, Salvage Magazine, and Inside Higher Ed. With Harrison Fluss, Landon wrote Prometheus and Gaia: Technology, Ecology and Anti-Humanism which is an examination of the ideological positions of Futurism and Eco-Pessimism. You can catch a great interview I conducted with Landon and Harrison Fluss on the Zer0 Books YouTube channel and on the Emancipations podcast.
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We are joined by philosopher Terry Pinkard to discuss Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason, his second major philosophical work next to Being and Nothingness. Dr. Pinkard is one of the foremost Hegel scholars in the world and he has recently written a book on Sartre's Critique entitled Practice, Power, and Forms of Life: Sartre’s Appropriation of Hegel and Marx. In this discussion, we review the main concepts developed in the Critique and we ask what this work offers to contemporary politics on the left and how Sartre understands Marx and Hegel. As a special gift to supporters of our program, you can download an unauthorized translation provided by Prof. Pinkard of Sartre's lecture on "The Roots of Ethics" from 1964 at the Gramsci Institute by going here https://www.patreon.com/posts/sartres-marxist-93945414.
The thumbnail image incorporates Alexander Calder's famous painting of Sartre from 1947.
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Palestine and the Actuality of Struggle: A Forum with the Beirut Institute for Critical Analysis & Research (BICAR)
Featuring presentations from Nadia Bou Ali, Ray Brassier, Sami Khatib and Maya Andrea Gonzalez. Panel moderated by Daniel Tutt
Read the BICAR statement on Palestine: https://bicarlebanon.org
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