Emancipations Podcast

We sit down with the prolific writer and thinker Richard Seymour, Co-Founder of Salvage Magazine and author of The Meaning of David Cameron (2010), Unhitched (2013), Against Austerity (2014) and Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (2016). Since 2013, Seymour has turned to Lacanian theory in his writing and analysis of contemporary politics. We discuss what he finds valuable in psychoanalytic theory, the recent fractures over the trans movement in the Lacanian field, the patriarchy question, Oedipal politics, family abolition, meritocracy and Richard's next book project The Little Red Self-Help Book. We conclude with a discussion on the future of the far right. If you like this conversation and might be willing to pitch in to support us, please become a member of our Patreon https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups 

We are very pleased to sit down with American historian and cultural critic Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn to discuss her work on the history of race relations in America and the legacy of her father, the historian and critic Christopher Lasch. Christopher Lasch's thought has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years and one of the big questions that surrounds his work is how we understand his political vision and what the core of his critique of liberalism and American elites really amounts to. In this sneak-peak of an interview, we get a bit closer to answering this elusive question and we learn more about the real Lasch.  To listen to our full interview with Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn please become a member of our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/posts/65598099). In addition to this clip on the legacy of Christopher Lasch, we also discuss her work Race Experts: How Racial Etiquette, Sensitivity Training, and New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights Revolution and her work Ars Vitae: On the Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living which talks about spirituality and new modes of living in our society.

We are joined by artist, writer and educator Robert Beshara to discuss his work in critical psychology, Islamophobia, Freud and Said and how to understand racial capitalism, solidarity and comradeship. This is an oft-inspiring conversation that touches on a lot of very important debates and concepts in contemporary politics. One of the many highlights include Robert's discussion of the highly misunderstood the thinker Edward Said had with psychoanalysis. This is a great conversation and I hope you all benefit form it! To listen to the full interview check out our Patreon https://www.patreon.com/posts/decolonial-freud-64587307  Also, be sure to check out Dr. Robert Beshara's books, films and other work at his website.

We welcome philosophers Landon Frim and Harrison Fluss to the show for a discussion on how to navigate the ecological crisis in philosophy. This episode originally appeared on the Zer0 Books YouTube channel. Support our work for $3 - $10 a month at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups Fluss and Frim argue the two dominant strains of thinking ecology today, Accelerationism and Gaian philosophies are ultimately inadequate frameworks because they reject the human frame as grounding politics; each seeks to subordinate the human in favor of a wholly alien other, either in the form of an anarchic nature or a dynamic technology. To transcend this strange coincidence of opposites, Fluss and Frim make the positive case for a Marxist humanism that is rationalist without being anthropocentric. This conversation is centered around their new book Prometheus and Gaia: Technology, Ecology and Anti-Humanism.  

Please go to our Patreon to listen to the final 30 minutes of this conversation https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups and get access to our other interviews, seminars and more. Our guest for today's episode is Hannah Proctor, writer, historian and thinker of the history of psychoanalysis. Hannah has written extensively on early Soviet era psychoanalysis and psychology and her Substack Unconsciousness Raising focuses on lesser known psychoanalytic thinkers.  In this conversation, we discuss early Soviet psychoanalysts, Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse on revolution, her work on political burnout and more. 

Listen to the full interview with cultural theorist Marc James Léger, author of The Neoliberal Undead at https://www.patreon.com/posts/63587198

We are joined by philosopher Tijana Okić for a spirited conversation on what it means to be a Marxist today. What are the common problems we face when it comes to holding a Marxist position today? Is Marxism reducible to the correct philological and textual analysis of Marx's thought? What are we to make of the epistemological break between the early Marx's work on alienation to his later notions of exploitation? Does Marxism become irrelevant when we abandon a theory of alienation? We also discuss the working class today and how to best theorize class in our wider commitment to the class struggle. We conclude with a discussion of the urgent geopolitical crisis of the war Russia has waged on Ukraine. Tijana brings a sophisticated and passionate socialist perspective. Please consider becoming a Patron for $3 per month at https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups. We post new interviews, seminars and study group opportunities frequently. Our guest Tijana Okić is a philosopher with an interest in history and historiography. Her research interests are primarily related to social and political philosophy, in their historic and systematic development. Tijana is a dedicated feminist with an interest in feminist theory both generally and specifically as well as the politics of debt and austerity.

We sit down with American philosopher Adrian Johnston, one of the most creative and interesting philosophers working today. To listen to the entire conversation where Adrian succinctly defines "transcendental materialism" in less than two minutes(!) and we discuss the new Hegel renaissance in contemporary philosophy and Adrian's philosophical differences with Zizek. You can listen to this interview for just $2 at our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/posts/63046361.

We sit down with historian Doug Greene to discuss the important history of American socialism and the over 70 years of attempts to "realign" the Democratic Party. Should socialists cooperate with the Democratic Party? To explore this important question, Doug Greene tells us about the ideas and vision of Michael Harrington, the founder of the largest socialist organization in America, the DSA. Harrington's ideas inform the "common sense" of America's contemporary left and they are at the core of why the American working class has been prevented, time and again, from independently forming a worker's party or effectively challenging the absolute dominance of capital and the ruling class.  Support Doug Greene:  Doug's Patreon: "I Read It So You Don't Have To!" https://www.patreon.com/enaa_doug_blanqui?fan_landing=  Doug's blog http://blanquist.blogspot.com  Doug's book A Failure of Vision on Michael Harrington https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/failure-vision-michael-harrington-democratic-socialism   

We are joined by Dr. Vincenzo Di Nicola to discuss modern psychiatry and his work on trauma, family therapy and the philosophical underpinnings of psychiatry. We discuss the prevalence of trauma discourse, the philosophy of Alain Badiou, why social dynamics are often ignored by modern psychiatry and psychology, and we examine the history of the "anti-psychiatry movement" with special focus on R.D. Laing, Jacques Lacan and Frantz Fanon. Vincenzo Di Nicola is an Italian-Canadian psychologist, psychiatrist and family therapist, and philosopher of mind. Di Nicola is a tenured Full Professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry & Addiction Medicine at the University of Montreal, where he founded and directs the postgraduate course on Psychiatry and the Humanities, and Clinical Professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The George Washington University, where he gave The 4th Annual Stokes Endowment Lecture in 2013.