Ep. 39 – Marcuse and Radiohead: A Special Episode with Theory for Turntables podcast

Explicit content warning

05/17/16 • -1 min

Always Already Podcast, a critical theory podcast

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 about Marcuse’s prescience of 21st century capitalism — what still resonates, and what would Marcuse make of the freelance economy? We also attempt to situate OK Computer alongside Marcuse’s critical social theory — is the auteur of the album the one-dimensional man? is he the philosopher? We close our discussion with several juicy cliff-hangers. Stay tuned for the second part of the crossover event, available over in the Theory for Turntables stream!

Also in this episode, your favorite segments My Tumblr Friend From Canada and a very special edition of One or Several Wolves. We discuss our own neoliberal subjectivities (one dimensionality, perhaps?) in relationship to our new Patreon account, and our guests engage in an excellent dream analysis, replete with veganism and father figures.

Remember to support us on Patreon to help offset/reimburse the cost of our fancy new microphone, which we have named Lacan.

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. Thanks to Jordan Cass for the music.

https://alwaysalreadypodcast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ep39.mp3

Links!

Marcuse entry at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
“Marcuse Today” by Ronald Aronson at Boston Review
Website dedicated to Marcuse and his works
Transcribed Marcuse lecture on “Marxism and Feminism”
Radiohead and Philosophy: Fitter Happier More Deductive, edited by Brandon W. Forbes and George A. Reisch
“Radiohead, or the Philosophy of Pop“, by Mark Greif at n+1

Remember to support us on Patreon to help offset/reimburse the cost of our fancy new microphone, which we have named Lacan.

https://alwaysalreadypodcast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ep39.mp3

Links!

Marcuse entry at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
“Marcuse Today” by Ronald Aronson at Boston Review
Website dedicated to Marcuse and his works
Transcribed Marcuse lecture on “Marxism and Feminism”
Radiohead and Philosophy: Fitter Happier More Deductive, edited by Brandon W. Forbes and George A. Reisch
“Radiohead, or the Philosophy of Pop“, by Mark Greif at n+1

Previous Episode

Ep. 38 – Annemarie Mol on Ontology, Science, and Politics

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 both create and obscure her? What does Actor Network Theory (ANT) make of such terms as “coordination” and “order,” and can ANT make good on the promise of “theory” more generally? How are the “real” and “political” implicated in and through one another, and what is the ontological turn in Science and Technology Studies?

Our conversation asks about the relationship between epistemology and ontology, about the consequences of these views for democratic theory and democracy more broadly, and we even try our hand at engaging in a little Rawlsian thought experiment! We’ll leave it up to you to decide how well it plays out. The episode closes with a My Tumblr Friend from Canada question regarding some recents comments made by Bill Nye the Science Guy about the relevance of philosophy to science and in general.

We would also like to announce the launch of our new Patreon account. The first few minutes of the episode are replete with details regarding donating to the podcast, and rewards for our patrons. Please give it a listen, check out the site here, and consider sponsoring us if you are a fan! We are greatly appreciative and (we hope) appropriately humbled and reflexive by/about our neoliberal subjectivity. Thank you for your support!

Thanks to listener dmf of Synthetic Zero for suggesting we read these texts. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. Thanks to Leah Dion and to B for the music.

https://alwaysalreadypodcast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ep38.mp3

Links!

Mol’s homepage
Essays we read: “Ontological Politics“; “Actor-Network Theory“; “A reader’s guide to the ‘ontological turn’“; “Who knows what a woman is...“
Mol’s book The Body Multiple
Mol lectures on YouTube: “Feeling, wording, eating” (2013) and “What methods do” (2009)
Bill Nye’s BigThink video on philosophy; “Why are so many smart people such idiots about philosophy” by Olivia Goldhill on qz.com

Next Episode

Ep. 40 – J.K. Gibson-Graham, The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It)

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 thousand pieces in order to understand its multi-faceted connections. How has Marxism contributed to capitalism’s hold on the theoretical mind as something total, singular, unified? How can we understand multiple economies instead of “the economy”? Should, or can we, save Marx from Marxism? In what ways can Gibson-Graham’s work coincide with the complexities of daily life in gendered, sexed, and racialized modes of existence? Join the team as they work to undo the connective tissues holding capitalism, as we know it–and their foibles along the way. Plus, in My Tumblr Friend from Canada, we answer a question about “critical theory.”

Remember to support us on Patreon to help offset/reimburse the cost of our fancy new microphone, which we have named Lacan.

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Thanks to Leah Dion, Rocco & Lizzie, and B for the music.

https://alwaysalreadypodcast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ep40.mp3

Links!

J.K. Gibson-Graham profile and papers at Community Economies, a website related to the activist work of Gibson, Graham, Gibson-Graham, and their network of scholars, activists, and communities
The End of Capitalism and A Postcapitalist Politics, from University of Minnesota Press
Review of both books by Richard Schmitt, at Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
Relevant Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries: markets and capitalism; Marxist feminism
An interview with Gibson on Gibson-Graham’s book Take Back the Economy; Gibson talk on “Capitalism, Feminism, and the Politics of the Possible,” in honor of Graham; Gibson’s 2011 talk on “An Economic Ethics for the Anthropocene”