J. E. is joined by Cam for an introduction to the history of left-communism, specifically the German/Dutch (councilist), Italian (Bordigist) and French (ultraleft) traditions. The books we mention are the following:

• Histoire Critique de l'Ultragauche by Roland Simon
• The Future of Revolution by Jasper Bernes
• The Science and Passion of Communism edited by Pietro Basso
• The Communist Left in Germany by Denis Authier and Gilles Dauvé
• The Italian Communist Left by Philippe Bourrinet
• Rupture dans la Théorie de la Révolution edited by François Daniel.

In this episode, Mac Parker and Anatarah Bin AlKaf have a casual chat on Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins seminal book the Dialectical Biologist. They cover why this book remains a key contribution to Marxist theory, philosophy of nature, and philosophy of technology. Along the way, the conversation tackles the influence of Friedrich Engels on Marxist science historiography and science critique from Boris Hessen to the Max Planck institute’s historical epistemology research program. Our discussion culminates in a call for an integrative approach—one that unites political philosophy and science, the local and the global—in the spirit of the dialectical biologists’ vision.

The books discussed were (or alluded to):

- The Dialectical Biologist (1985) by Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin

- Biology Under the Influence (2007) by by Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin

- The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution (2009) ed. Gideon Freudenthal and Peter McLaughlin

- Abstraction and Representation (1996) by Peter Damerow

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In this episode, join your hosts Sam Thomas (resident Italophile), J.E. Morain, and James Crane for a discussion taking the 1951 polemic, “Murder of the Dead,” as a point of departure for deeper dive into Amadeo Bordiga’s bellicose and beautiful run of essays in eco-communism throughout the 50s and 60s. Topics of discussion include: Bordiga’s critique of a version of the ‘state capitalism’ thesis, the conceptual matrix of living/dead labor and variable/constant capital, the theoretical and stylistic function of ‘invariance’ in Bordiga's writings, coal mine collapses, the flooding of symbols of national pride, and scientific-scatological reflections on the ‘how’s of abolishing the antithesis of town and country. We end with a few remarks on the conquest of the fear of death and the “natural condition of the prosperity of the species” in Bordiga's 1961 “In Janitzio Death is not Scary.”

Other Bordiga essays discussed in the episode:

“The Filling and Bursting of Bourgeois Civilisation” (1951)

“The Human Species and the Earth’s Crust” (1952)

“The Spirit of Horsepower” (1953)

“Weird and Wonderful Tales of Modern Social Decadence” (1956)

“The Legend of the Piave” (1963)

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“The motive for realism is never the confirmation of reality but protest.” —Alexander Kluge

“I want my stories to be one hundred percent realistic while at the same time presenting something unseen.” —Ghassan Kanafani

In this episode, join your hosts Sebastian Kokesch and James Crane for a discussion of the necessary connection between aesthetic autonomy and revolutionary political commitment in Ghassan Kanafani's best-known literary writings in English translation: Men in The Sun ('62), All That’s Left to You ('66), & Returning to Haifa ('69). From the perspective of the 'undivided' project of Ghassan Kanafani—as novelist, critic, and militant—we read each of these novels as a contribution to the same culture of resistance he theorized and organized.

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Join your hosts J.E. Morain and James Crane for an introduction to the rogue's gallery of far left dissidents (communists, socialists, anarchists) who formed the core of the 'Frankfurt School' from the early 1920s through late 1940s.

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Critics and theorists! Our first official episode of "Critique of the Podcast Form," a discussion with J.E. Morain, Mac Parker, Re Tejus, and James Crane on the CTWG's recent "Racketology" dossier: https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/category/racketology/

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Critics and Theorists: the CTWG is proud to present "Episode 0: Debrief on Margin Notes Vol. 1" of "Critique of the Podcast Form," a critical theory podcast! Make sure to watch this space and also bother us for more episodes.

Please support us at: https://www.patreon.com/crittheoryworkgroup

Mac and Crane discuss the essay "Legality and Illegality" by György Lukács (Georg Lukács) in the context of his broader development: after joining the Communist Party in 1918, Lukács would play an important role in the leadership of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic (March to August 1919), around which time he would write many of the essays later collected and published in Tactics and Ethics: 1919-1929, only to reverse some of his positions on core issues in his subsequent exile in Vienna, resulting in History and Class Consciousness (1923). In their discussion of the vicissitudes of fate and philosophy, Mac and Crane attempt to answer the fundamental question tragically left out of E40's classic song "Choices": Lukács - Nope or Yup?

The culture industry is at it again! Their new weapon: anime. Their strategy? The media mix. In this episode, the anime subcommittee of the CTWG tackle the anime media-form by discussing Marc Steinberg’s anime’s media mix. We talk about modern anime’s history, the emergence of the media mix, and transition from Fordism to post-Fordism.

Imogen, Sebastian, and Sam discuss Situationism as a vindication of Hegelian Marxism and a critique of reified life through its various forms of appearance: artistic production, urban planning, and student life.

Esther and Sebastian discuss the 1932 fragment Nonsychronism and the Obligation to its Dialectics from Bloch's Heritage of our Times. Our hosts talk about their personal encounters with Bloch, revolutionary traditions and the meaning of the communist dictatorship of the present over the past. Special guests include: Kanafani, Amel, and Pasolini. Bloch's essay, as Walter Benjamin commented, "takes its place inappropriately". Perhaps its time was never there, perhaps it contains a utopia waiting to be excavated.

Mac and Crane are joined by J. E. to continue the discussion about Lukács's politics and his essay "Legality and Illegality." This episode goes into depth on the historical and political context of Lukács's work, debates in the Comintern, and the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution.

By popular demand, J. E. and Crane unite in a two-part episode (of which this is the second part) to, uh... review? critique? lampoon? Gabriel Rockhill's book Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism Inter alia, they answer pressing questions like, who controls the academic world? (Probably not annoying "idealist" grad students) Did the Frankfurt School destroy the American labor movement? (No, lol) And, what does it mean to use wissenschaftlich DHM hermeneutics to dialectically situate subjective agency with the objective totality of material conditions? (Hell if we know!)

By popular demand, J. E. and Crane unite in a two-part episode to, uh... review? critique? lampoon? Gabriel Rockhill's book Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism. Inter alia, they answer pressing questions like, who controls the academic world? (Probably not annoying "idealist" grad students) Did the Frankfurt School destroy the American labor movement? (No, lol) And, what does it mean to use wissenschaftlich DHM hermeneutics to dialectically situate subjective agency with the objective totality of material conditions? (Hell if we know!)

The description: JE, Cam and Re interrogate Foucault's mid 1970s lectures at the Collège de France, Society Must be Defended. They discuss Foucault's method, his genealogy from Race Wars to Racism and modern conspiratorial thinking among other things.

J. E. and Anatarah discuss Johan Huizinga's classic book Homo Ludens, a foundational work for game studies.

Helen, Esther, and Crane tackle the first book of Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, reading Machiavelli as a precursor to historical materialism and a radical republican. In the process, they pose the question: what can the critical theory of society learn from Machiavelli today?

Crane and Helen talk about Horkheimer's 1938 essay "Montaigne and the Function of Skepticism," which sees Horkheimer both show the skeptical core of both religious dogmatism and philosophical skepticism, as well as its changing valence throughout the development of the capitalist mode of production.

Anatarah, Mac, and Re return once more to the realm of science studies. This time it is to discuss the indomitable Peter Damerow and the Max Planck history of science’s program of historical epistemology via their book Abstraction and Representation: Essays on the Cultural Evolution of Thinking. We discuss the usage and development of (reflective) abstractions, the similarities between Piaget and Hegel, and finally the genesis of the number concept. Along the way, we discuss Damerow's theory of writing and language as well as his concept of historiogenesis.

Recommend readings:

The new Damerow translation by the Marxism & Science Journal

The Creation of Numbers from Clay by McLaughlin & Schlaudt

Eye of the Master by Pasquinelli

Material Engagement Theory by Malafouris

J. E., Cam, and Mac are joined by Cam West of Negation Magazine to discuss his essay "Rupture Theory" and the possibility of politics at a distance from the state. We discuss the status of the party-form, the dialectic of spontaneity and organization, and so on, especially as they pertain to the last 10 years in the US.

Cam West's article = https://www.negationmag.com/articles/rupture-theory

In this episode, Crane is joined by Julian Assele to discuss Max Horkheimer’s long-running critical engagement with contemporary Neo-Thomism, the history of Catholic thought, and the social content of theological controversies dating back to the early Christian church. Starting from Horkheimer’s 1930s short-form polemics on the church and fascism, the hosts turn to his extensive criticism of Neo-Thomism in “Conflicting Panaceas” from Eclipse of Reason (1947)—as well as the earlier version of the text, the unpublished “The Revival of Dogmatism” (1943)—and conclude with a critical look at the late Horkheimer’s neo-conservative instrumentalization of religion in “Theism and Atheism” (1963), posing the question: what might a “critical theory of religion” look like today?

Texts:

“On the Concept of God” [or: “Thoughts on Religion”] (1935): https://jamescrane.substack.com/p/collection-horkheimers-fragments

“On Theodor Haecker’s Der Christ und die Geschichte [The Christian and History]” (1936): https://jamescrane.substack.com/p/collection-the-materialist-as-polemicist

“The Revival of Dogmatism” (1943): https://jamescrane.substack.com/p/collection-society-and-reason-1944

“Conflicting Panaceas,” in Eclipse of Reason (1947)

“Theism and Atheism” (1963), in Critique of Instrumental Reason (1974)

Follow Julian on Substack https://substack.com/@julesnotes

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Mac and Re are joined by Shreya from the Center for Struggling Trade Unions (CSTU) to discuss the recent workers strikes in various industries of North India. Since March, workers in the automobile and garment industry were joined by domestic service workers to mobilize against low wages, unpaid overtime and deteriorating labor conditions. We also discuss the history of the workers mobilization in North India and raise some questions of the problems of labor organizing today.

History of the Manesar automobile workers struggle: https://class-notes.org/2025/06/04/maruti-story-book/

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