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 re...
Sep 01, 2024•2 hr 25 min•Ep. 30
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 ....
Jun 21, 2024•2 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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philologists Giorgio Colli and his former student Mazzino Montinari, and their lifelong translation of Nietzsche's unpublished material and key main works.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...
Jun 21, 2024•1 hr 42 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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...
Jun 20, 2024•1 hr 42 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 t...
May 30, 2024•2 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 r...
May 30, 2024•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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,...
May 13, 2024•2 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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...
Apr 13, 2024•1 hr 40 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 Pales...
Apr 13, 2024•2 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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/9...
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr 35 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 Marxis...
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr 48 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 Affai...
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 Di...
Feb 12, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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. W...
Jan 29, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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.
Jan 27, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 ...
Dec 29, 2023•2 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 ...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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
Dec 02, 2023•1 hr 55 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Our guest Mohammed Sulaiman was raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza strip. He has survived multiple Israeli bombings of Gaza over the last two decades, including a 2013 shelling of his home while he was conducting an interview with CNN . Currently, his entire family is in Gaza as Israel continues to unleash a brutal massacre and bombardment campaign on the people of Gaza, which has already resulted in the killing of over 10,000 Gazans, including 4,000 children. In this conversation, w...
Nov 07, 2023•2 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 1
The purpose of Marxist theory is not only to diagnose the negative forces and effects of capitalist society; emphasis must also be placed on the need for social transformation that would enhance human progress at the social and individual level. But the trends of current critical and Marxist theory have turned away from a more positive vision of critique. In his later work with the Budapest School, Lukács argued that Marxism must develop a comprehensive social ontology to understand how power re...
Oct 31, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 1
We are joined by philosopher Anita Zsurzsán and Jamil Khader, the Dean of Research at Bethlehem University in Palestine for a roundtable on the war on Gaza, otherwise known as the "2023 Hamas-Israel war". We discuss the politics of the current war, the status of Islamist politics in Palestine and the region, the role of the media, Islamophobia and Antisemitism, Arab Marxism and the meaning of Palestine liberation today. Please read Jamil's latest article on Truthout "Media’s Selective Moral Outr...
Oct 23, 2023•1 hr 45 min
We welcome Tijana Okić back to the show for a discussion on the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch's idea of the warm and cold stream in Marxism. How are we to understand this distinction and which Marxist thinkers fit into these two streams? Can the cold and the warm streams be synthesized? Tijana Okić is a philosopher, feminist and translator. She completed her Ph.D. in philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. She is one of the editors of the volume The Lost Revolution: AFŽ betw...
Sep 29, 2023•1 hr 34 min•Season 1Ep. 1
What are the best theoretical frameworks for understanding class politics? Marx offers an understanding of class as tied to relations of productive labor and property ownership in capitalist society. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu offers an understanding of class which goes beyond Marx in many ways, offering a richer and more varied idea of class as a cultural formation that generates a field of power. Can Marx and Bourdieu be reconciled? Can they be combined? We are joined by sociologis...
Sep 23, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 1
We are joined by socialist author Darren Roso to discuss his forthcoming book Daniel Bensaid: From the Actuality of Revolution to the Melancholic Wager which is the first major study of Bensaïd's thought. Daniel Bensaïd completed his Ph.D. on Lenin right as May 68 took off and his work has contributed to contemporary Marxist philosophy and practice in important ways. In this fascinating interview, Roso describes the key ideas and the thrust of Bensaïd's renewal of Marxism starting in the 1980s t...
Sep 07, 2023•2 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Slavoj Žižek is a provocative intellectual, constantly taking positions on social and political issues that upset convention and lead him to face derision from both the right and the left. Given the often erratic stances that he takes, from his support for the Ukraine war, to Donald Trump in 2016, some have wondered whether the Giant of Ljubljana has lost his way in recent times. We are joined by Žižek scholar Matthew Flisfeder for a discussion on how to understand the core of Žižek's thought, a...
Aug 25, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 1
We continue our conversation on the meaning of revolution with C. Derick Varn, by turning to the theoretical basis of "post" Marxist thinkers from the Althusserian school, Laclau and Mouffe, Hardt and Negri and Alain Badiou. We discuss some of the pitfalls of these contemporary Marxist theorists and the basis by which they revise core tenets from Marx. We also discuss new class theories on today's left and how they relate to Marx's class theory and different theories of the intellectual in socia...
Jul 10, 2023•2 hr 36 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Is revolution dead? The left is divided over how to make revolution, and many Marxist and post-Marxist theorists have developed radically new conceptions of revolution that are often highly divergent from how Marx, Engels and Second International Marxists dealt with revolution. Our age is notoriously known as post-revolutionary, and liberal realism has set in so deep that we have seemed to have lost touch with the truths of Marxist insights into revolution. We are experiencing a resurgence of po...
Jun 15, 2023•2 hr 23 min
Agnes Smedley is an American writer and socialist heroine born in 1892 in Missouri. Her family relocated all across the American west including near the Ludlow Massacre of coal mining workers. Smedley managed to escape the conditions of poverty she was born into and went on to become one of the most important personalities of revolutionary socialism in the first part of the 20th century. Smedley's notoriety has been larger in Russia and China than in the United States because her books were bann...
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Season 1Ep. 1
We welcome the brilliant poet and thinker Ali Benziane. Dr. Benziane is an autodidactic philosopher currently working closely with friend of the show, the famous French actor and philosopher Mehdi Belhaj Kacem. We discuss some philosophical and metaphysical perspectives on the post-covid world, looking at Ali's notion of a new mechanism of global power that he calls "psychopouvoir" (psycho-power) after the late french philosopher Bernard Stiegler. We discuss his intellectual influences, Phillipe...
Jun 01, 2023•1 hr 25 min
