

Critical Theory in Context
Centre for Social Critique in Berlin
What are the crucial conflicts of our time? What hopes and wishes for a better future are expressed within these conflicts? The podcast Critical Theory in Context combines analysis of the present with perspectives on societal transformation. We host conversations with theorists and activists about social crises and the possibilities of their emancipatory overcoming.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Feb 21, 2022 • 1h 11min
Critical Philosophy of Race
Robin Celikates im Gespräch mit Kristina Lepold und Marina Martinez Mateo
Kristina Lepold ist Juniorprofessorin für Sozialphilosophie/Kritische Theorie an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Marina Martinez Mateo ist Juniorprofessorin für Medien- und Technikphilosophie an der Akademie der bildenden Künste München.
Im Dezember 2021 ist von ihnen bei Suhrkamp erschienen Critical Philosophy of Race. Ein Reader
Weitere Publikationen:
Lepold, Kristina und Mateo, Marina Martinez. "Schwerpunkt: Critical Philosophy of Race" Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 67, no. 4, 2019, pp. 572-588. https://doi.org/10.1515/dzph-2019-0044
Lepold, Kristina, Ambivalente Anerkennung (Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie und Sozialphilosophie, 33), 2021, Frankfurt a.M., Campus.
Mateo, Marina Martinez: Politik der Repräsentation. Zwischen Formierung und Abbildung, 2018, Wiesbaden: Springer.
Weitere Veranstaltungen:
Die Konvergenz der sozialen Kämpfe (In Context) mit Amna Akbar, Silke van Dyk, Manon Garcia und Romin Khan, moderiert von Robin Celikates und Rahel Jaeggi.
Benjamin Lectures 2022 mit Nancy Fraser zum Thema: “Three Faces of Capitalist Labor: Uncovering the Hidden Ties among Gender Race and Class.”

Jan 28, 2022 • 1h 15min
Welche Gesellschaftstheorie braucht eine Kritische Theorie heute?
Mit einer Einführung von Rahel Jaeggi. Dirk Quadflieg, Kolja Möller und Titus Stahl im Gespräch mit Christian Schmidt.
Weitere Informationen zum Inhalt und Programm des Workshops finden sich in der Veranstaltungsbeschreibung auf unserer Website.
Iris Marion Young (1994) “Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective.” Signs, vol. 19, no. 3, University of Chicago Press, pp. 713–38, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3174775
In der nächsten Folge spricht Robin Celikates mit Kristina Lepold und Marina Martinez Mateo, über den von ihnen eingeleiteten und herausgegebenen Reader zu Critical Philosophy of Race, der 2021 bei Suhrkamp erschienen ist. https://www.suhrkamp.de/buch/critical-philosophy-of-race-t-9783518299449

Aug 23, 2021 • 1h 5min
On the Danger of Fossil Fascism
Andreas Malm and Lise Benoist (Zetkin-Collective) in conversation with Christian Schmidt
Guests are Andreas Malm and Lise Benoist from the Zetkin Collective.
We are talking about their recently published book “White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism”, which came out with Verso in 2021.
The history of fossil capital has been one of the central concerns of Andreas Malm’s work. In his book entitled “Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming”, which was published in 2016, Andreas Malm traces the historical rise of steam power and shows that the development of this technology can only be understood by taking into consideration the dynamics of class struggle.
One of Andreas Malm’s other most recent books is entitled: “Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century”, translated into German as: “Klima|x”. Rahel Jaeggi talked about the main theses of this book in an online event we hosted in 2020 “Corona Capitalism: Struggles over Nature”.
The ecological crisis has also been the topic of the first episode of our podcast series on "Climates of Capital", a conversation between Rahel Jaeggi and Nancy Fraser about the structural relation between ecological destruction and capitalism
We recently published two videos from our Summer School on “Foundations of Solidarity”: Our Roundtable on Foundations of Solidarity, with Hauke Brunkhorst, Stefan Gosepath, Asad Haider, Sabine Hark, Serene Khader, Stefan Lessenich, and Frederick Neuhouser; and the résumé with excellent summaries by Lillian Cicerchia, Noemí Ancí Paredes and Marianna Poyares.
We also continued our series „Conversations on Socialism“ with Christine Berry, Axel Honneth und Bhaskar Sunkara who discussed the contours of "A New Socialism for a New Century?" in another online event.
We will present the three German online panels of the Global Forum on Democratizing Work. The online panels will take place on 5-7 October 2021.
The campaign “#DemocratizingWork” was launched in May 2020 with the publication of the Manifesto: “WORK: DEMOCRATIZE, DECOMMODIFY, DECARBONIZE”. We hosted a conversation between Rahel Jaeggi, Neera Chandhoke, Isabelle Ferreras, Lisa Herzog on the initiative in November 2020.
Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast, on all the all major platforms.
And to stay up to date with all our events at the Humanities and Social Change Center in Berlin, sign up for our newsletter.
For more information: www.criticaltheoryinberlin.de
Original music composed by Anne Wellmer.
Produced by Jonathan Klein.

Jul 3, 2021 • 1h 14min
Climates of Capital
Nancy Fraser in conversation with Rahel Jaeggi
http://criticaltheoryinberlin.de/home/
Rahel Jaeggi is Professor of Practical Philosophy with an emphasis on Social and Political Philosophy and director of the Center for Humanities and Social Change Berlin at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Nancy Fraser is the Henry and Louise A. Loeb Professor of Philosophy and Politics at the New School for Social Research. She works on social and political theory, feminist theory, and contemporary French and German thought.
In her work, Nancy Fraser has developed a theoretical framework that focuses on the big questions surrounding the peculiar social form known as "capitalism," upending many of our commonly held assumptions about what capitalism is and how to subject it to critique. In her recent article “Climates of Capital” (2021) she applies this expanded conception of capitalism to the question of ecological crisis.
Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi co-authored the book (ed. by Brian Milstein): “Capitalism: A conversation in critical theory” (2018), translated into German as „Kapitalismus: Ein Gespräch über Kritische Theorie“ (2020) as well as Spanish (2019), Italian (2019), and Portuguese (2020).
The Benjamin Lectures 2021 were held by Axel Honneth on “The Working Sovereign: A Democratic Theory of the Division of Labor”.
Recordings of our events are available on our website as well as on our youtube.channel
As part of our series “conversations on socialism”, on July 1st we are holding a roundtable entitled “A new socialism for the new century?”, with three of the internationally most prominent socialist theorists: Christine Berry, Axel Honneth and Bhaskar Sunkara. The event was hosted by Rahel Jaeggi and a recording will be available on our website and youtube channel.
In the next episode of our podcast, we will be talking with Andreas Malm and Lise Besnoit from the Zetkin collective about their just published book: “White Skin, Black Fuel. On the Danger of Fossil Fascism” - the first comprehensive study of the far right’s role in the climate crisis.
To stay up to date with all our events sign up to our Newsletter!
And don’t forget to subscribe to “Critical Theory in Context” on any of the major platforms.
Original music composed by Anne Wellmer.


