Outsider Theory

Illustrator and designer Sterling Bartlett joins Outsider Theory to discuss his comic book "How Did We Get Here?" We explore why recycling is the master metaphor for our cultural predicament, the rise of post-hipster aesthetic of aneasthetized minimalism, why Jordan Peterson and Marie Kondo are two sides of the same coin, and more. Buy "How Did We Get Here?": https://firsttoknock.com/products/how-did-we-get-here Follow Sterling on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sterlingbartlett/?hl=en Sterling's website: https://www.sterlingbartlett.com/ My postmodernism seminar: https://www.speakeasy.com/e/what-is-postmodernism

Emmet Penney, writer and co-host of ex.haust podcast, joins Outsider Theory to discuss Fredric Jameson's canonical essay "Postmodernism, or the Culltural Logic of Late Capitalism" and its continued relevance, as well as cultural fragmentation, nostalgia, the return of affect, LA architecture, and other themes. More info on my June 10/17 seminar on Jameson's Postmodernism and Lyotard's Postmodern Condition: https://www.speakeasy.com/e/what-is-postmodernism Exhaust podcast: http://exhaust.fireside.fm/ Emmet's essay on "Lectureporn": https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/liberals/lectureporn-the-vulgar-art-of-liberal-narcissism/

Oliver Traldi (@olivertraldi) joins Outsider Theory to answer an important question: is he now or has he ever been a member of the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW)? We discuss the latter formation's place within the online culture war dynamics of the past decade, its relation to the more recent controversies around Substack, what its members got right about the coalescence of "successor ideology" orthodoxies and what their analyses lacked. Finally, I apologize profusely for the poor audio quality of this episode on my end. I made some errors with a new mic setup that I wasn't yet used to when I recorded. I promise dramatically improved sound quality in all future episodes. Oliver's personal website: https://olivertraldi.weebly.com/

Tom Syverson (@syvology on Twitter), author of the new book Reality Squared, makes the case for why reality TV is the essential cultural form for grasping our bewildering contemporary panorama. More broadly, we discuss the problem of how to undertake a materialist analysis of culture in the face of an increasingly dematerialized and abstract economic reality, and the related problems confronting materialist politics in the present. Buy Tom's book: https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/reality-squared-reality-tv-left-politics Read Tom's recent essay on the limitations of materialist politics: https://www.thebellows.org/culture-politics-and-the-unreal-economy/ Read Tom's other work: https://linktr.ee/tomsyverson

Fiction writer and cultural critic Alex Perez joins Outsider Theory to discuss a mutual favorite writer, Roberto Bolaño, and in particular his short story "Labyrinth." We also cover the contemporary literary prestige economy, the professionalization of literature, the propagandification of culture in the Trump era, and the prospects for literary outsiders today. Read Bolaño's "Labyrinth" here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/23/labyrinth-roberto-bolano https://im1776.com/2021/04/27/the-new-literary-bad-boys/ https://twitter.com/Perez_Writes https://alexperez.substack.com/p/coming-soon

Documentary filmmaker Alex Lee Moyer joins Outsider Theory to discuss her 2020 film TFW No GF and its reception during the year after its release, as well as the film she edited prior to that, The New Radical. We also discuss the broader project of documenting countercultures, the ambivalent role of technology in channeling and enabling the control of oppositional cultural energy, and the prospects for creative work outside of the mainstream today. TFW No GF is now available on Amazon, iTunes, and YouTube: https://www.tfwnogfthemovie.com/ The New Radical is also available on Amazon, etc: https://www.amazon.com/New-Radical-Cody-Wilson/dp/B077W1PTJH

The writer Michael Sacasas joins Outsider Theory to discuss what the tech critics pre-Internet generations – especially Jacques Ellul, Marshall McLuhan, Ivan Illich, and Neil Postman – have to say to us today as well as what contemporary tech criticism tends to miss, and how he understands his own critical and philosophical project. We also explore two of his essays from the past year, "Narrative Collapse" and "The Paradox of Control." Michael is one of my favorite contemporary writers on tech, and I hope you find this as rich and stimulating a conversation as I did. Subscribe to his substack here – you won't regret it: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/

Justin Murphy joins Outsider Theory to discuss leaving academia, his book Based Deleuze, why political correctness is only ones symptom of the real ailments afflicting the contemporary university, what conservatives get wrong about critical theory, and the current prospects of independent intellectual life, especially on the internet. Justin's projects: https://otherlife.co/ https://www.indiethinkers.org/ Geoff's course on Foucault: https://www.speakeasy.com/e/biopolitics-covid

Historian and writer Blake Smith joins Outsider Theory to discuss the teaching theory and the formation of elites; the surprising affinities between Strauss and Foucault; the parallel grooming practices of Straussians and Derrideans; the perverse economy of enjoyment in the Trump era; Obama’s failed use of theory as seduction prop; and why Foucault was the original Bronze Age Pervert. Blake on "Foucault Through Strauss": https://im1776.com/2021/02/19/foucault-through-strauss/ Blake's writing at Tablet: https://www.tabletmag.com/contributors/blake-smith Geoff's seminar on Foucault and Covid: https://www.speakeasy.com/e/biopolitics-covid

Jesse Walker, author of the excellent United States of Paranoia (2013) and books editor at Reason, joins Outsider Theory to revisit his book's arguments in light of Trump era politics. We discuss the Capitol riot and why it reveals not a unified front but a highly fractured right-wing fringe, and the continuities between liberal establishment paranoia of recent years and the militia panic of the 90s. Jesse also makes the case that playful internet conspiracy theorizing is a continuation of the much older "ironic style" of paranoia that originated with figures like Kerry Thornley and Robert Anton Wilson in the 1960s. Finally, we critique Adam Curtis's treatment of all these themes in his new film "Can't Get You Out of My Head." https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-united-states-of-paranoia-jesse-walker https://reason.com/people/jesse-walker/