Always Already Podcast, A Critical Theory Podcast

Over at New Books in Global Ethics and Politics, John interviewed Mary Hawkesworth on her recent book. Thanks to the NBN, we are cross-posting the episode here. Enjoy! How can we explain the “occlusion of embodied power” and “lack of attention to race, gender, and sexuality” in the discipline of political science, a field “that […]

Emily debuts on the New Books in Global Ethics and Politics podcast by interviewing Sandra Harding. Thanks to the New Books Network for letting us cross-post here!: Is the scientific value of objectivity in conflict with the social justice commitment to diversity? In her latest book, Objectivity and Diversity: A New Logic of Scientific Inquiry […]

In this special round-table discussion on Black Lives Matter, James is joined by Travis Harris, Shana Haines, and Tyrell Cooper, activist-scholars from the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. This robust conversation details the wider Movement for Black Lives and covers issues related to the many forms of state-instantiated violence against Black bodies beyond police brutality, the representation of […]

In this week’s episode, Emily, B and Rachel dig into GLQ‘s special issue, “Queer Inhumanisms,” edited by Mel Y. Chen and Dana Luciano. We begin by discussing the editors’ introduction to the issue, entitled “Has the Queer Ever Been Human?” followed by Jeanne Vaccaro‘s piece, “Feelings and Fractals: Woolly Ecologies of Transgender Matter,” and conclude […]

In this rhizomatic episode, James is joined by Joanna Steinhardt, PhD candidate in sociocultural anthropology at UC Santa Barbara and today’s resident expert on all things mushroom! Joanna studies radical mycological subcultures, or practices relating to the appreciation of and strategic application of fungi. James and Joanna discuss the mycelial web that exists just beneath […]

In this episode, James is joined by Simone Kolysh, PhD candidate in Sociology from The Graduate Center, CUNY. Their conversation focuses upon pedagogy as radical praxis, and ranges from ways to check privilege in the classroom, how to strive towards “safe zone” moments, trigger warnings, and navigating the neoliberal academy as a scholar-activist. If you […]

On this week’s episode we read Achille Mbembe’s On the Postcolony, focusing in particular on the Introduction and Chapters 5 and 6. We begin by discussing Mbembe’s analysis of the historical trajectory of Christian conversion and the divine libido in Chapter Six, “God’s Phallus” and its connection to Mbembe’s broader critique of rationality as constructed through eurocentric […]

In this special episode of EU, James takes the role of guest as he joins a panel on the YouTube show Akil’s Ruminations to pay tribute to the legacy of Muhammad Ali by discussing the intersection of sports, race, and politics. The panel tackles the question of whether Ali “transcended race,” and why such transcendence seems to be a necessary precondition in […]

In this special anniversary episode, your founding co-hosts John, Rachel, and B tackle the deconstruction of capitalism in J. K. Gibson-Graham’s classic The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Challenging the (constructed) essential wholeness of capitalism’s presence in modern theoretical (and everyday) discourses, Gibson-Graham breaks capitalism in a […]

Tune in to this week’s very exceptional episode of the Always Already Podcast! John, B, and Emily are joined by special guests Matt and Ryan from the Theory for Turntables Podcast for a spectacular crossover brand synergy event featuring a discussion of Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man, and Radiohead’s OK Computer. In this episode, we ask […]

Join John, Emily, and the lamp specter of B for this week’s discussion of some of the work of Dutch anthropologist and philosopher of medicine, Annemarie Mol. In this episode, we read several essays of Mol’s spanning three decades, and grappling with such questions as: who know what a woman is and how do the sciences […]

Join James as he interviews Richael Faithful, folk healer from Washington, DC, who views their work in shamanism as a love practice and love politic. The conversation places Richael within hoodoo/rootwork/conjure traditions – Black folk occultism – that emerged during the 19th century as a psycho-spiritual and material technology that helped enslaved African Americans conjure […]

In this week’s episode, James joins Rachel and John in NYC to discuss Daniel Colucciello Barber’s Deleuze and the Naming of God: Post-Secularism and the Future of Immanence. The discussion focuses on the introduction, and chapters 2, 4, and the conclusion. They begin by discussing Barber’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of God, […]

Thanks to our friends over at the New Books Network, we bring you John’s interview for New Books in Global Ethics and Politics with Amy Allen on her 2016 book, The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. Enjoy! How can we de-colonize critical theory from within, and reimagine the way it grounds […]

Join James as he talks with Dr. Lester Spence (Political Science and Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins), about his book Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. Dr. Spence makes a critical intervention to analyzing how the neoliberal turn in American politics since the 1970s has created a crisis of shrinking material resources […]

On this week’s episode Emily, Rachel, and B attempt to crack Max Horkheimer’s Eclipse of Reason, written in 1947 in the aftermath of World War II. We focus in particular on chapter 2, “Conflicting Panaceas,” and chapter 3, “The Revolt of Nature.” We begin by discussing his somewhat surprising Freudian turn in chapter 3, his critique […]

In this episode, James interviews Kaif Syed, aka Bad Infinity, an EDM artist based out of Detroit. The conversation covers Bad Infinity’s Deleuze-Spinoza-Leibniz-inspired notions of musical creation, the affective limits of language vs. musical communication, and closes with a rallying cry for democratic musical production. Do you dare let the musical flood overtake your human […]

This week Emily, Rachel, and John read Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak‘s collection of essays In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. We focus on three essays in particular: “Feminism and Critical Theory,” “The Politics of Interpretations,” and “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography,” discussing Spivak’s methodological approach to literary theory, the politics of textuality, her use of the word […]

In this episode, James talks with Dr. Alfie Bown about his book Enjoying It: Candy Crush and Capitalism. The conversation delves into the sticky relationship between enjoyment and 21st century global capitalism, and ranges from touching on your favorite mobile phone games to “Gangnam Style,” what a Department of Enjoyment Studies might look like, and […]

Join James, John, and Emily for an extra special episode of Always Already “After Dark,” a potentially new series. This episode is “after dark” in two senses: 1) we recorded it dangerously near bedtime, and 2) we deviated from our usual format and content! The conversation takes up two broad topics, both of which are […]