https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-eb5j2-123600d [Patreon Tier II & III Exclusive] On neoliberalism and biopolitics. In the fifth session of the "Emergency Politics & Control" theme of the 2022 Reading Club, we take on The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault's 1978-9 lectures…
Read More Excerpt: /266/ Reading Club: Foucault & Biopolitics
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-wzs9c-12137f8 [Patreon Tier 2 Exclusive] On Frank Furedi's How Fear Works. Following on from last month's discussion of Corey Robin's Fear, we examine a differing attempt to demystify the politics and culture of fear. To join a local Reading Club where you…
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-wgbss-120e7ad On Marxism & the Left. We talk to Elena & Joshua about their new edited collection, The Conformist Rebellion: Marxist Critiques of the Contemporary Left. Who or what is "the Left" today – merely the left wing of Capital?…
Read More /258/ Conformist Rebellion ft. Elena Lange & Joshua Pickett-Depaolis
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-7xn2m-11fd5b1 [Patreon Tier 2 Exclusive] On Corey Robin's Fear: The History of a Political Idea. This is March's Reading Club, the third in the Emergency Politics section of the 2022 Syllabus.
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-jvx2i-11c5896 On class & material self-interest. We talk to Vivek Chibber about his new book, The Class Matrix: Social Theory After the Cultural Turn, which seeks to answer why capitalism has proven remarkably stable. Vivek explains why classical Marxism does…
Read More /246/ Why Isn’t There Revolution? ft. Vivek Chibber
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-mrumt-11c5623 On Giorgio Agamben's State of Exception (2005). How did a darling of the left during the War on Terror become a resource for the right during Covid? Is Agamben right to blur the boundary between fascism and liberal democracy?…
Read More Excerpt: /245/ Reading Club: Emergency Politics II – Agamben
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-wn7a6-118fea0 On Carl Schmitt's Political Theology (1922). We ask why people are scared of sovereignty – as opposed to state power per se, and analyse what is significant about the way in which Schmitt defines sovereignty. And what is the…
Read More /238/ Reading Club: Emergency Politics I (Extended Excerpt)
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-d9n5i-115d579 On Eva Illouz's Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism How has the cold and hard world of bureaucratic, instrumental rationalism penetrated the intimate sphere of love and relationships? And how has open communication and emotional understanding been used…
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-2yuve-1142f48 On modernity's contradictions. In this month's Reading Club, we discuss the introduction to Marshall Berman's marvellous All That Is Solid Melts Into Air. This is an excerpt. For the full episode, subscribe for $10/mo at patreon.com/bungacast …
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ya68a-1115025 This month we discuss GM Tamas' essay "Telling the Truth About Class" published in the Socialist Register. Is Tamas' division between Marxist and Rousseauian socialism useful? Does it help us to understand the Left today? And is Tamas right…
