Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast What's Left of Philosophy

In this live discussion we recorded at the Radical Philosophy Association's 2026 conference at Pomona College, we talk about the post-liberal trajectory in recent political theory with Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed as our focal point. Their description of how things feel bad might seem appealing at first blush, but their culturalist orientation and ahistorical diagnosis leaves open the door for very evil stuff like, you know, fascism—which is the whole point of their project, if you're paying attention. We prefer historical materialism!

Thanks so much to the RPA and all involved organizers for making this happen!

References:  

Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the aesthetic philosophy of the so-called “Dean of the Harlem Renaissance”, Alain Locke. Locke thought art had a central role to play in the social emancipation of Black Americans. It is through art that the social consciousness of society can mature into becoming genuinely pluralist. However, not just any art will do.  We focus on why he insists there must be a strict separation between art and propaganda, how he thought poetry and drama could develop the cultural group life of black people, and why he centered the folk, or everyday people, as genuine sources of beauty and truth. Along the way we ask whether Locke’s search for a black modern aesthetic is still possible in a world where the aesthetic values around race reduce everything to moralism or didacticism. But it’s not all doom and gloom: Drake gets a positive shout out! So anything is possible.

leftofphilosophy.com

References: 

Alain Locke, The New Negro Aesthetic: Selected Writings, edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart (New York: Penguin, 2022).

Hanif Abdurraqib, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much (Button Poetry, 2016).

Tracy K. Smith, Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2018).

Justin Phillip Reed, The Malevolent Volume (Coffee House Press, 2020).

Donika Kelly, The Renunciations (Graywolf Press, 2021).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Just a quick pair of announcements for you!

We'll be doing a live episode recording at the Radical Philosophy Association's conference at Pomona College at 8pm next Thursday, October 15. 

https://www.radicalphilosophyassociation.org/rpa-biennial-conference.html

And Gil will be teaching a class on Hobbes's Leviathan in Chicago next month through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/hobbess-leviathan/

We hope that you will be able to join us for one or both! Thanks very much.

Music: "Mothership" by Blue Steel

In this episode we discuss the concept of hyperpolitics, as originally conceptualized by Anton Jäger. We contemplate the acute lack of substantive political transformation that has resulted from recent upheavals and movements, and wonder about what it would take to revive the kind of mass politics of the early to mid-twentieth century. Throughout, we wrestle with the prevailing sense of powerlessness and doom, the practical necessity of hope, and the potential paths toward meaningful social and political transformation.

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil

References: 

Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences (New York: Verso, 2026)

Lillian Cicerchia, “The Futility of Hyperpolitics”, https://catalyst-journal.com/2025/04/the-futility-of-hyperpolitics

Virgilio Urbina Lazardi, “Thomas Piketti’s Utopian Socialism”, https://jacobin.com/2026/09/thomas-pikettys-utopian-socialism 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode we discuss the work of French philosopher Alain Badiou. Ever since the 1970s, Badiou’s philosophy has been characterized by an untimely systematicity and an ambitious effort to bring together politics, art, science, and love in a unique synthesis under the aegis of a novel fundamental ontology. In Metapolitics, Badiou explains what he understands by politics as a historical site where truths can be produced, and what it means for a militant subject to remain faithful to such a truth, affirming a radical egalitarianism over against the exclusions and hierarchies of the state. Along the way he says some very funny things about what he sees as the deficiencies of more traditional ‘political philosophy’. Above all, Badiou reminds us that even when it seems like there is no alternative, no state is capable of truly foreclosing the possibility that a radically restructuring Event might take place – and he’s got the math to prove it. We think he’s neat!

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References: 

Alain Badiou, Metapolitics, trans. Jason Barker (New York: Verso, 2001).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we continue our series on modernity with a discussion of modernity, colonialism, and the future of both. We take up the claim that modernity is a justifying myth for European colonialism and wonder why we are all so enraptured by it. Are the Europeans as modern as we think they are? We also defend modernity’s promise of emancipation and then wonder what the point of all the modernity talk is anyway. There’s a lot of ambivalence here, but perhaps that’s the point!

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social

References:

Aníbal Quijano, “Paradoxes of Modernity in Latin America,” in Foundational Essays on the Coloniality of Power (Duke University Press, 2024).

Enrique Dussel, “Europe, Modernity, and Eurocentrism,” Nepantla: Views from South 1.3 (Duke University Press, 2000).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we begin our new series on modernity with a discussion of Marshall Berman’s 1982 book All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. Some of the questions we will tackle in this series will address the substance of modernity, whether modernity is singular or multiple, the relationship of art to modernization, and whether modernity is better understood as a rupture from the past or a development out of it. Berman, for his part, argues that modernity has always been about development through contradictions. We moderns bear witness to the constant dissolution of the traditions, political forms, and social mores of the past in the name of the production of the new. However, Berman thinks the 20th century has lost touch with the essentially contradictory nature of modernity by becoming either dogmatic enthusiasts of creative destruction or resolute pessimists who see nothing but degradation in modern life. He returns us to the 19th century where artists and thinkers such as Goethe, Marx, and Baudelaire had a more vivid and sensitive appreciation of the contradictory demands of modern development. We discuss Berman’s ultimately hopeful account of modern experience, its relation to urban life, and why any future politics must reckon with people’s desire for stability. Get ready to ride the wave of modernity (it’s not like you have a choice)! 

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Verso, 2010).

Perry Anderson, “Modernity and Revolution”, New Left Review I/144 (1984): 96-113.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we use Marx’s infamous “Fragment on Machines” from the Grundrisse as a starting-point for a wide ranging discussion about the emancipatory and regressive potentials of AI technologies. Marx thought that automated systems of machinery are incredible embodiments of highly developed human knowledge, which render labor increasingly unnecessary in processes of production, opening the door for unprecedented liberation. Of course, tied to the imperatives of capital accumulation, even the most amazing machines do little more than increase the rate of exploitation and expose untold millions to desperate poverty. There’s no reason in principle why machines, including AI systems, couldn’t instead free up our time for the active development of our capacities and the pursuit of our personal and collective goals. Abolish the drudgery of gruntwork! But which way we go with these technologies is a political, not a technical matter; a little historical materialism goes a long way.

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social

References:

Karl Marx, “Fragment on Machines”, in Grundrisse, trans. Martin Nicolaus (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), pgs. 690-712.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode we talk about the political philosophy of early modern jurist Johannes Althusius. For us, he represents a road not taken in political theory, since Hobbes definitively constructed political philosophy around the idea of the self-interested atomized subject and he couldn’t disagree more. Althusius is an axis between medieval and modern thinking about political life, and his federalist vision forces us all to ask odd questions about what we want. History teaches!

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social 

References:

Johannes Althusius, Politica, translated by Frederick S. Carney (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk about the relational paradigm in political philosophy. Made famous by Iris Marion Young, developed later by Elizabeth Anderson, this view of what equality is all about presents a puzzle for the class conscious. It says that the point of equality is to live in a society of equals. Its proponents skewered famous analytical Marxists for having a reductive and economistic view of justice. Was this fair? Join us to find out. 

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Elizabeth Anderson, “What’s the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109 (1999): 287-337.

Samuel Scheffler, “What is Egalitarianism?” Philosophy and Public Affairs 31(2003): 5-39.

Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press, 1990. 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu |https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we are joined by Assistant Professor of Law Lucien Ferguson  (Chicago-Kent College of Law) to discuss the ambiguities of freedom and labor in the constitutional interpretation of the Reconstruction Amendments that were passed after the US Civil War. Our discussion is guided by the landmark Slaughter-House Cases of 1873 that narrowly construed the federal rights protected by the 14th amendment and set the stage for the failure of Reconstruction at the end of the 19th century. We discuss the divergences between liberal and republican accounts of freedom, whether the constitution should remain the grammar for leftist political strategy, and how the collapse of reconstruction shapes debates around citizenship and belonging to this day.

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social 

References:

William E. Forbath, “The Ambiguities of Free Labor: Labor and the Law in the Gilded Age” Wisconsin Law Review 4 (1985): 767-817. 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Just a quick word about upcoming events you should join us for!

SPEP Webinar: Philosophy and Environmental Injustices, with Matthias Fritsch, Romy Opperman, and Michael Peterson, May 25, 5pm Eastern Standard Time

https://us.list-manage.com/1tRnwaVjgii?e=e22f097f7b&c2id=b595b31be157b5b356d9b3d96de5843f

As noted in the audio, a previous version of this announcement wrongly identified the date of the webinar as May 21. It's May 25. Sorry for the confusion!

BISR Chicago Course: Anti-Oedipus with Gil Morejón

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/deleuze-and-guattari-anti-oedipus-chicago/

Hope to see you soon!

In this episode we discuss Kathi Weeks’ 2011 book The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics and Postwork Imaginaries. The text brings together social reproduction feminism and autonomist Marxism to develop a critique of work as the organizing principle of life and dominant ethos in capitalist society. Weeks argues that the valorization of work is taken for granted even in certain strains of socialist criticism. We agree that work sucks, but we admit we have a hard time developing the postwork imaginary Weeks wants. We may just be the kind of modernists she’s calling out, but we’re very sympathetic and would love to see more idleness all around!

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Kathi Weeks, The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

This episode engages with Glen Coulthard’s 2014 book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Coulthard weaves a rich and varied tradition of radical Indigenous thought and practice with Marxism and the anti-colonial thought of Frantz Fanon into a distinctive vision of emancipation. Together, we interrogate his claims that dispossession rather than exploitation, or the expropriation of land rather than the expropriation of labour, constitutes the paradigmatic mode of domination for colonized peoples. More than anything, we contend with the notion that state ‘recognition’ is not only insufficient, but inimical to the kind of emancipatory Indigenous politics Coulthard envisions.  

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social 

References:

Glen Sean Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss Terry Eagleton’s defense of religion. We focus on his diagnoses of the Enlightenment, modernism, and post-modernism as different kinds of post-religious movements. Post-modernism is the only “truly atheist” one, which is one reason it got along with capitalism so well. We also talk a lot about social and spiritual meaning and their importance to Left wing political projects.

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Terry Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God (Yale University Press, 2014).

Terry Eagleton, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (Yale University Press, 2009). 

Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great (Atlantic Books, 2007).

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Bantam Press, 2006).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss Brandon Terry’s 2025 book Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement. There is little doubt that in US the Civil Rights Movement stands out as one of the clearest examples of Black politics in the social imagination. How we narrate the Civil Rights Movement tends to shape our expectations of politics and the future. But what happens when the resources of this tradition fall into crisis? What is the future of Black politics in a present increasingly disconnected from the past of the Civil Rights Movement? We work through the exhaustion of a certain form of Black politics in the present, the importance of judgment and historical examples for political action, and whether a tragic disposition can help us avoid naive optimism or paralyzing pessimism when faced with the ruins of our present.

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social 

References:

Brandon Terry, Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2025).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode we talk about Max Horkheimer’s essay “Traditional and Critical Theory”, which serves as a kind of manifesto for the Frankfurt School of Marxist thought. We talk about how he defines these categories, reflect on whether the distinction holds up, and ask ourselves whether we can call ourselves critical theorists in the present. It turns out grasping oneself as part of a historically unfolding social totality is difficult, if you can believe it. 

Special thanks to our friends at the Critical Theory Working Group, who you should check out:

https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/

https://jamescrane.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social 

References:

Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell and others (New York: Continuum, 2002).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode we discuss Georges Sorel’s 1908 Reflections on Violence. We focus on his central claim that all of socialism is concentrated in the idea or ‘picture’ of the general strike, scrutinizing his claim that the ‘myth’ of the general strike is even more important than its precise concretion. His emphasis on political myth gives rise to questions about his potential irrationalism and the consequent (mis)appropriation of his ideas by fascists. Finally, we address his distinction between the ‘proletarian general strike’ – which is violent and revolutionary – and the ‘political general strike’ which aims to win minor concessions instead of a transformed society.

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, ed. Jeremy Jennings (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we introduce our new series on “Marxism and Religion.” At political, social, and spiritual levels, the series explores this complicated relationship for a transitioning age. We start with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who is a political and spiritual beacon for many of us and a democratic socialist by another name. Our discussion explores how MLK Jr. continues to shine light on the righteous path to liberation. 

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social

References:

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Pilgrimage to Non-Violence”: 

https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-articles/pilgrimage-to-nonviolence.php

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”: 

https://nul.org/news/letter-birmingham-jail

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies”:

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

Martin Luther King, Jr., “All Labor Has Dignity”:

https://truthout.org/articles/martin-luther-king-jr-all-labor-has-dignity/

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?”:

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/where-do-we-go-here

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the work of historian Hayden White. His provocative claim is that the practice is inescapably the practice of narrative forms to give sense and significance to events of the past. It is this form that often supplements, or even outright makes, historical arguments. Is history a tragedy, a comedy, a satire, or a romance? Why did Marx describe history as tragedy and then farce? What could entitle him to that? The historian always prefigures their history with these choices. We get into whether history has a meaning on its own, what it contributes to politics, and whether there are literary styles more commensurate to Marxist history than others.  

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973).

Hayden White, The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk about Marx’s critique of the Gotha Program, but you knew that from the title. We discuss Marxian critiques of redistributive left politics, why dogmatic Marxists are wrong about this, and much more. We connect it to the present and disagree. It’s very good. Listen.

References:

Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme” https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk about Elias Canetti’s 1960 book Crowds and Power. Equal parts political theory, poetic sociology, and speculative anthropology, this staggering work explores human social life through an increasingly elaborate series of reflections on the nature of crowds. The result is a fascinating typology of different kinds of crowds in which human beings cast off their individuality for the sake of equality and directed collective action: there are baiting crowds, feast crowds, prohibition crowds… Does a lynch mob follow a logic analogous to that of the viewing public in a world of mass media, a gathering of dancers attuned to the rhythms of the others, or those brought before the host of the invisible dead? What does it mean for the general strike that we fear the touch of others, until it’s the thing we desire most? It’s pretty wild stuff, and we find plenty of insights to pull out and play with.

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power, trans. Carol Stewart (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk with James Chamberlain about his new book, Living Through Capitalism, in which he argues that capitalism is hostile to biological life processes and our ability to know them well enough to lead flourishing lives. Capitalism mutilates all life, and not just human life, in its harnessing of life for its own ends. Only in communities that resist this “strange teleology” that capitalism imposes on life can we truly be free. 

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

James Chamberlain, Living Through Capitalism: Resisting Devastation Through Communities of Life (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we take on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Although he is now more well known as an economist because of his later book The Wealth of Nations, Smith shows himself to be a philosopher in his own right in Moral Sentiments. Smith, contrary to popular characterizations, wanted to show that our conduct is not solely motivated by egoism or selfishness, but that we are also motivated by the fortunes of others. For Smith it is only through sympathy that society can achieve stability and harmony. What follows is a comprehensive examination of how we develop virtue, expound rules for justice, and cultivate emotional maturity through our sympathy for others. This episode is all of you who feel society has become more emotionally dysfunctional, lost its sense of shame, and want to understand why it is so frustrating when our so-called ‘friends’ refuse to hate what we hate. Join the pod as we learn about propriety and justice!

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, intro Amartya Sen (New York: Penguin, 2009).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk about Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s audacious and influential text Intellectual and Manual Labor. A fellow traveler of the Frankfurt School, Sohn-Rethel argued that the social activity of commodity exchange involves a set of real abstractions that actually precede and give rise to the structure of human consciousness and its capacity for mental abstraction. This really puts Kant in his place: the supposedly pure reason of the transcendental subject is historically conditioned by the fact that at some point people started trading stuff with each other. It also means that after the communist revolution succeeds we’ll have a totally new set of a priori categories with which to synthesize experience. That’s worth looking forward to!

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Alfred Sohn-Rethel, Intellectual and Manual Labor: A Critique of Epistemology, trans. Martin Sohn-Rethel (Chicago: Haymarket, 2021).

Jacob McNulty, “Frankfurt School Critical Theory as Transcendental Philosophy: Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s Synthesis of Kant and Marx,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 60:3 (2022): 475-501.

Mladen Dolar, “‘Who baptized Marx, Hegel or Kant?’ On Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Beyond,” Problemi International 5 (2022): 109-133.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode we discuss the essays of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton compiled as the Federalist Papers. We talk about the philosophical justifications of the recently signed US Constitution, focusing especially on the tension between, on one hand, their passionate defense of republicanism against tyranny and despotism, and on the other, their hostility toward democratic forces. We place the problem of the durability of the republic at the core of their thought, and while noting the successes of their constitutional arrangement, ask about the costs of these successes.

leftofphilosophy.com

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the literary and cultural theories of Raymond Williams. Famous for classic works of literary analysis like The City and the Country and concepts like ‘structures of feeling’, we join Williams in analyzing how our emotions, impulses, and tone in poetry and novels evolve in relation to economic development. Many structures of feeling today are built on exploitation, but maybe that’s not the end of the story. 

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford University Press, 1977). 

Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (Penguin Random House Vintage Classics, 2016). 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we welcome Nicholas Vrousalis onto the show to discuss his recent book Exploitation as Domination: What Makes Capitalism Unjust. The basic thesis of the book is that capitalist exploitation should be understood as a problem of domination, and thus freedom, rather than a problem of fairness or vulnerability. For Vrousalis where there is exploitation there is domination, but there can be domination without exploitation. Throughout our conversation Nicholas takes us through his defense of normativity in Marxist theory, how normativity relates to social theory more broadly, and what makes domination under capitalist social relations structural rather than interpersonal. We conclude with an outline of what an emancipated economy would look like.

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Nicholas Vrousalis, Exploitation as Domination: What Makes Capitalism Unjust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).

Get a free copy of the book here: https://academic.oup.com/book/44885?login=true 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Our live show at the Epiphany Center for the Arts is right around the corner! Doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 8. It’s a one-night only event, so don’t miss it! Get your tickets here:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

Also on August 7 here in Chicago: Pelle Dragsted will be discussing his book Nordic Socialism with William Banks and Matt McManus at Pilsen Community Books at 6pm! Details can be found here:

https://pilsencommunitybooks.com/events/46798

See you soon!

leftofphilosophy.com

Music: “Deny” by dreem

In this episode we discuss Axel Honneth’s Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life. As one of the most prominent representatives of the so-called ‘3rd generation’ of Frankfurt School critical theory, we ask whether Honneth’s notions of ‘normative reconstruction’ and ‘social freedom’ build constructively upon the legacies of critical theory or depart from them in a more liberal direction. Lillian reminds us that he has good answers to some of our more acerbic criticisms of his work, but we ultimately wonder about what critical theory has lost in its most recent iteration—one that, we think it’s clear, is far less antagonistic to capitalist society than its predecessors.

GET YOUR TICKETS FOR THE LIVE SHOW HERE:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Axel Honneth, Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life, trans. Joseph Ganahl (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). 

Music:

"Sorriso" by Monument Music | https://youtu.be/YR4AD4Qim3w?si=UNthWq28mZf9Wbcv

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu |https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire. First published in 2000, this seminal post-Marxist text analyzed changes to power, sovereignty, and class structure in the age of globalization. Twenty-five years ago, it was the Left who was anti-globalization. Today, it’s the Right. So, we might ask, are we still in the Age of Empire?

GET YOUR TICKETS FOR THE LIVE SHOW HERE:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Harvard University Press, 2000). 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss Alasdair MacIntyre’s landmark book After Virtue. MacIntyre, an ex-Marxist and committed anti-liberal, offers a defense of the Aristotelian tradition and its search for the truly common good against the dominant tendency of liberal societies to reduce morality to individual preferences. Modern society, MacIntyre believes, is one where we live fragmented lives, unable to narrate a coherent story of the relationship between morality and politics. Our invocations of morality ring increasingly hollow as we cannot even imagine what it would mean to convince others of what is good. We explore how the loss of morality coincides with all of us becoming moralists, why it seems we have to choose between Nietzsche and Aristotle, the costs of teaching morality like a choose-your-own-adventure buffet, and whether MacIntyre offers a compelling solution to our nihilistic times. The least we can say is that living without virtue is a real bummer!

GET YOUR TICKETS FOR THE LIVE SHOW HERE:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Alasadair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd Edition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).

Émile Perreau-Saussine, Alasdair MacIntyre: An Intellectual Biography. trans. Nathan J. Pinkski (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022).

Michael Lazarus, Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2025). 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Hi everyone! We are thrilled to announce that we will be performing live on August 7 at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago.

This is a one-time only event and tickets are limited! Get yours here:

https://link.dice.fm/J7acfdeb77d4

Among other things, we’re planning to talk about the Communist Manifesto. The event will be filmed and released as a special episode.

We’re really excited about this – it’s going to be a fantastic time, and we hope to see you there! Thanks for all your support.

leftofphilosophy.com

Music: 

“Bubble” by Sun Cuts | https://get.slip.stream/3wxjrv/

That's right, folks! Next month, Gil is teaching a class on Spinoza's Ethics at Twelve Ten Gallery in Chicago through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Enrollments are now open for anyone interested. Check out the course description and sign up here:

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/spinozas-ethics/

Hope to see some of you there!

leftofphilosophy.com

Music: AMALGAM by Rockot

In this episode, we talk about Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. In it, he argues that modern culture is basically continuous with that of predatory barbarism, except that it is drunk on the extreme surplus produced by capitalism. Under these conditions, much of human activity becomes performative: consumption, leisure, and perhaps paradoxically enough even hustle culture are all forms of demonstrating one’s superiority in a petty game of social esteem. We explore some of these paradoxes and discuss whether Veblen’s analysis still rings fully true in the 21st century, but to be honest we mostly just pour vitriol and scorn upon the extremely embarrassing members of our own ruling class. We can be petty, too!

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

Bernard Rosenberg, “Veblen and Marx”, Social Research 15:1 (1948): 99-117.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the centrality of ‘representation’ in politics and political theory, guided by Hanna Pitkin’s 1967 treatise The Concept of Representation. Much of the focus is on her notion of ‘substantive representation’ – the activity of advancing the welfare and interests of others – in comparison to the empty husk of formal representation we’ve all become accustomed to in our putatively representative democracies. We explore the Anglo-American efforts to constitutionally immunize representation against advocacy and agitation by the represented, and heed Pitkin’s implicit warning that where representation is insubstantial and inadequate, hyper-investment in pale substitutes like flag and figurehead inevitably follows.

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss “political marxism” as a paradigm shift in Marxist thinking about historical development, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and why that should matter to philosophers with an interest in challenging easy conceptual binaries that remain entrenched even in radical circles, like between economics and politics. We take a look at the two leading figures of this kind of Marxism – Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood – to put the conflict back into class conflict.

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy 

References:

Robert Brenner, “The Social Basis of Economic Development,” in Analytical Marxism, ed. John Roemer (Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 23-53.

Ellen Meiksins Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism (Verso Books, 2016 [1995]).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss WLOP co-host William Paris’s recently published book Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation. In his book, Will examines the utopian elements in the theories of W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Delany, Marcus Garvey, Frantz Fanon, and James Boggs and their critique of racial domination as the domination of social time. The crew talks about the relationship between utopia and realism, the centrality of time for our social practices, and how history can provide critical principles for an emancipated society. We even find out whether Gil, Lillian, and Owen think the book is any good!  

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

William Paris, Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2025)

Thomas Blanchet, Lucas Chancel, and Amory Gethin, "Why Is Europe More Equal than the United States?" American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 14 (4): 480–518 (2022)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the 2007 text The Coming Insurrection, written by the pseudonymous collective The Invisible Committee. We talk about the book’s scathing condemnation of the present, its critique of everyday life in the dying late capitalist empires of the 21st century, and the kind of insurrectionary anarchism it advocates. Maybe we’re just grumpy old people who have failed to kill the cops in our heads, but we think the project dead-ends in presentist adventurism and doesn’t take seriously enough the importance of social stability and political organization. That said, we try to take a sympathetic look at the moment of negativity it expresses, and think about how it speaks to real frustrations and genuine revolutionary desires. We’re diversity of tactics people who want to build a better future together, after all!

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

The Invisible Committee, The Coming Insurrection (Los Angeles: semiotext(e), 2009).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, the boys talk about C.B. Macpherson’s insightful text The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Macpherson holds that liberal political theory from Hobbes to Locke is correct in its premises, since like it or not we basically all are defined by our properties, living in a society almost exclusively defined by market relations—but that those same market relations engender class antagonisms that progressively undermine the possibility of durable social cohesion. He wants to save liberal theory and liberal democracies from themselves, but is there a viable way forward? You know what we think: it’s socialism or barbarism, baby! Too bad it’s looking like barbarism!!

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we are joined by special guest Tommie Shelby to discuss the arguments presented in his most recent book, The Idea of Prison Abolition. We talk about the social functions that prisons serve, whether any of those are legitimate, and what the differences are between radical reformist and abolitionist positions. This conversation is wide-ranging, making connections between lots of left-wing debates, from how we explain the emergence of unjust institutions to how we argue for social transformation.

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition (Harvard University Press, 2022)

Tommie Shelby, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform (Harvard University Press, 2016)

Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (Harvard University Press, 2005)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

This is a short promo for Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation (Oxford University Press, 2025), written by WLOP’s very own Will Paris. You can find the book here: 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/race-time-and-utopia-9780197698877?cc=ca&lang=en&.

And check out Will’s interview about the book:

https://newbooksnetwork.com/race-time-and-utopia

Music:

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we tackle Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. In this book, Nietzsche diagnoses the cultural pathologies of a Europe that no longer seems able to take risks and experiment with life. We discuss his account of nihilism, his aristocratic commitment to the breeding of new philosophers, and why it is important not to domesticate Nietzsche’s critiques of morality. Along the way, we unpack what Nietzsche would think of philosophers today and why he thinks they have such a hard time finding the truth. Come learn the philosophy of the future before it’s too late!

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy
References:

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to the Philosophy of the Future, edited by Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman, translated by Judith Norman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

You read the title! Next month, Gil is teaching a class on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason at the Goethe Institute in downtown Chicago through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Enrollments are now open for anyone interested. Check out the course description and sign up here:

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/kants-critique-of-pure-reason-chicago/

Hope to see some of you there!

leftofphilosophy.com

Music: Titanium by AlisiaBeats

In this episode, we discuss Eric Blanc’s new book about the strategies re-building U.S. labor today, as well as how they can translate across movements and borders. Though many smart philosophers have declared that the labor movement is dead, workers from Starbucks to Amazon have something else in mind. So, what’s left?

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Eric Blanc, We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big (The University of California Press, 2025).

https://www.laborpolitics.com

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the work of brilliant heterodox economist Karl Polanyi. We talk about his criticisms of neoclassical orthodoxy, his arguments against the commodification of land, labor, and money, and his critique of the dominance of markets in theory and in practice. Put markets in their place and regulate the hell out of them! We also consider his influence on recent leftist economic thought, and talk through what’s at stake in the difference between Marxist and Polanyian approaches to history and politics. We think there are limits to the Polanyi line, but it’s hard not to love an authentically humanist fellow traveler!

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014).

Karl Polanyi, For a New West: Essays, 1919-1958, eds. Giorgio Resta and Mariavittoria Catanzariti (Malden: Polity Press, 2014).

Fred Block, “Karl Polanyi and the Writing of ‘The Great Transformation’”, Theory and Society 32:3 (2003), 275-306.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the work of the late, great Fredric Jameson. Basing ourselves on his Marxism and Form, The Political Unconscious, and Archaeologies of the Future, we talk about the notion that history is only accessible in narrative form, the concept of social totality, the tension between poststructuralist criticism and historical materialist thought, and the problems plaguing the increasingly specialized and alienated intellectual division of labor in our times. What do we want from cultural studies, and what do we want from the social sciences, in twenty-first century Marxist thought? It’s a spicy one.

This is just a short teaser. To hear the full episode, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form: 20th Century Dialectical Theories of Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)

Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (New York: Cornell University Press, 1982)

Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (New York: Verso, 2005)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Black Reconstruction, and The Black Jacobins. What do these three texts have in common? They all aim to make a historical moment legible as a drama. In doing so, Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois, and C.L.R. James seem to show that history has a structure of repetition. But what could repetition mean? In this episode, we discuss an essay by the Japanese Marxist Kojin Karatani on Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire. We explore Karatani’s theory for why representative democracies seem condemned to degenerating into authoritarian crisis, what a Marxist concept of repetition could mean, and the relationships between political crises and economic crises. Come join us as we ring in a new year that has made it possible for “a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part.”

References:

Kojin Karatani, “On The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, trans. Seiji M. Lippit, in History and Repetition, ed. Seiji M. Lippit (Columbia University Press, 2012).

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social

music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN 

Another week, another German philosopher. This time, Steven Klein joins us to discuss the ideas and legacy of one Jürgen Habermas. We talk about his evolution alongside and away from the Frankfurt School, the enlightenment project at the core of his work, and why a critical theory born in crisis is a different animal than a critical theory born under conditions of relative capitalist stability. Love him or not, we can’t deny that Habermas is a giant of modern European philosophy. Shout out to the Habermaniacs.

leftofphilosophy.com | stevenmklein.com

References:

Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article,” trans. Sara Lennox and Frank Lennox, New German Critique  (3)(1974): 49-55. Original published in 1964.

Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Beacon Press, 1971). Original German published in 1968.

Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume Two: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Beacon Press, 1987).

Steven Klein, The Work of Politics: Making a Democratic Welfare State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Here, we finally deliver on our longstanding threat to do an episode all about influential philosopher Martin Heidegger. We give him credit where it’s due: he has a compelling account of the conditions for meaningful existence along with a resonant critique of the alienation endemic to modern society, and is responsible for making important concepts like temporality, finitude, language and historicity into core themes of 20th century continental philosophy. Of course, he’s also an unrepentant Nazi, animated by fascist ideas like originary authenticity and racial destiny, an enemy of conceptual thinking in favor of obscurantist poetics, and an idealist loser who wants us to turn away from actual meaningful things here and now so we can begin to approach the fateful question of the meaning of Being as such. We don’t like him! And we're right.

This is just a short teaser, which I couldn't help but stylize as a horror movie trailer once I had the idea. To hear the full episode, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (SUNY, 2010).

Martin Heidegger, “Letter on ‘Humanism’”, in Pathmarks, trans. William McNeill (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Martin Heidegger, “The Self-Assertion of the German University”, Review of Metaphysics 38:3 (1985): 470-480.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN