Everyday Anarchism

In this episode, Deaglán Ó Donghaile and I discuss Oscar Wilde's connection to revolutionary anarchism, and in particular his idiosyncratic manifesto, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism." For more on Wilde's radicalism, you can check out Deaglán's book, Oscar Wilde and the Radical Politics of the Fin de Siècle.

Continuing my series, Batman vs. Anarchism, I'm joined on this episode by my esteemed colleague David Hill to discuss Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. David and I discuss David Graeber's theory that all of Nolan's Batman villains are anarchists - and what it means that Batman is a heroic terrorist.You can check out Graeber's original essay, Super Position, or hear my introduction to this series, Batman vs. Anarchism. And David Hill appeared earlier on this podcast to discuss Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia.

Although we lost David Graeber several years ago, we are still getting the bittersweet joy of reading new books by him. This week, Cory Doctorow joins me to discuss Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, a short book in which Graeber convincingly melds the oral histories he learned while doing doctoral research in Madagascar with 17th century European tales of a pirate kingdom on Madagascar into a swashbuckling tale of an anarchist pirate confederation.For more on pirates, check out my episode with Gabriel Kuhn on the anarchic nature of the golden age of piracy: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/cea23b51-6d3b-4f42-bf42-2f07fca51868

On this episode, Mark Bittman and Ricard Salvador discuss our broken food system and what we can do about it. Jumping off from Mark's fantastic book, Animal, Vegetable, Junk, we discuss the exploitative nature of the food system, why it's poisoning people and the planet, and how the corporate-captured USDA and FDA can't do anything about it.What comes next? We're not exactly sure - but it's going to have to be a better way of nourishing people if we want to survive.

Lawrence Rhu, my undergraduate mentor and friend of more than two decades, joins me today to discuss Stanley Cavell, one of his mentors and one of American philosophy's most idiosyncratic and humanist thinkers. Spurred by the publication of the recent posthumous publication of Cavell's Here and There: Sites of Philosophy, Larry and I talk about the affinities between Cavell, Emerson, and everyday anarchism.

Today I'm joined by the author Scott Branson to discuss their book Practical Anarchism. Scott and I discuss the similarities between our approaches, as well as some key differences related to terminology. For more from Scott, you can check out The Final Straw Radio, a podcast and radio show that they co-host.

Also known as Fully Automated Luxury Queer Space AnarchismThis week, 3 of my former students - Joy Frost, Mark Muchane, and Rook Schrader - join me to discuss Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. These three students and I made a class about the concept - a class that was banned by our school! Lucky for you, the students made it happen anyway, and share what they learned in this episode.Here are some of the things we talked about in the episode:Four Futures by Peter Frase The Neutral Zone (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - Wikipedia Electric Production and Direction William KarpCharlie Chaplin - Factory Scene - Modern Times (1936) The making of Amazon Prime

Ruth Kinna joins me to discuss Anarchic Agreements: A Field Guide to Collective Organizing, from PM Press. In this very short book, Ruth and her collaborators (Alex Prichard, Thomas Swann, and Seeds for Change) lay out a series of questions and possibilities which face any attempt at anarchist organizing, dealing directly with the seeming contradiction of anarchist constitutionalizing. The book also includes anarchist statements of principles from more than a century ago to the present dayIn this conversation, Ruth and I discuss the meaning of the Occupy movement, the complicated relationship between anarchist and democratic forms of organization, and how to fight for real change.

This podcast finally turns its attention to the Kurdish Women's Movement in Rojava. My guest is Dilar Dirik, whose new book The Kurdish Women's Movement: History, Theory, Practice takes a sociological approach to examining and explaining the freedom struggle in Kurdistan over the past four decades. Dilar and I discuss the role of Abdullah Öcalan in the movement, connections between the movement and the work of Murray Bookchin, and the institutions and practices currently sustaining the struggle.

Mathematician Philip Ording joins me to discuss his book, 99 Variations on a Proof, in which he finds the solution to (or "proves" his solution to) the same cubic equation over and over and over again - each time in a different style. Philip and I discuss how this approach can be described as mathematical anarchism, how math can be understood as everything from inflexibly authoritarian to infinitely free, and whether or not mathematical anarchism could be used to reshape math education. Plus Wittgenstein.