Culture, Power and Politics » Podcast

https://culturepowerpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/feminism-ose.mp3 If historians of the future remember our era for anything, it is probably going to be the unprecedented revolution in the social status of women that we have lived through, and are living through.  But the movement which made that change possible is still derided and feared, often seemingly unpopular with the very generations of young women who have benefited from it. At the same time it has raised a question which cultural and social theory is still struggling to answer – what is gender? Is it a social construct or a biological fact, or both, or neither? What does it mean to be a feminist today? Where does masculinity fit into all this? What are ‘performativity’ and ‘intersectionality’ when they’re at home?

http://www.culturalstudies.org.uk/Neoliberalism%20OSE.mp3   “There’s no such thing as society: only individuals (and their families)”. This was perhaps Margaret Thatcher’s most notorious public pronouncement. It was also one of the few moments when she made explicit her commitment to the ideals and assumptions of ‘neoliberalism’: the individualistic political philosophy that has come to dominate our politics, our culture and our lives.  After the 2008 crash, and the rise of Corbynism, we’re hearing a lot of discussion these days about the problems with neoliberal economics, which basically wants to privatise everything, drive down wages and cut taxes for the rich. We don’t hear so much about neoliberalism as a cultural ideology, promoting individualism, competition and greed in every area of life, from the nursery to the hospice. But without understanding this, we can’t understand how  ruling elites have got away with imposing such an unpopular programme for so long.   Slides can be found HERE

  Computer World   March 8th 2016 ‘Computer World’ is the title of Kraftwerk’s best album (yes it is). At just around the time they recorded it, economists, philosophers and social theorists were predicting that the ‘computerisation’ of society would change everything, creating a world of infinite information, without stable values, in which the very idea of being ‘modern’ would come to seem out of date.  Were they right? The technological changes of the past few decades have radically changed how capitalism works – but is it still fundamentally the same old system? HERE ARE THE SLIDES FROM THE LECTURE HERE IS THE RECORDING OF THE LECTURE  (Unfortunately we can’t get it to upload to the podcast feed for some reason)  

https://culturepowerpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/we-are-all-migrants.mp3 This is the recording of the Feb 23rd 2016 lecture / discussion ‘We Are All Migrants’, given by Jeremy Gilbert, covering issues around the legacies of colonialism and imperialism. This lecture is part of a series ‘Introduction to Cultural Studies: Culture, Technology, Power’ hosted at Open School East, which has merged with the ‘Culture, Power, Politics’ series for the time being. For more details see https://culturepowerpolitics.org/introduction-to-cultural-studies-culture-technology-power/. The session starts a little slow because Jeremy had a heavy cold, but the discussion is very wide-ranging. The slides for this lecture can be found at https://culturepowerpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/migration-ose-slides.pdf

This was the second session of an afternoon symposium on Podemos and radical democracy,  jointly convened by the Culture, Power and Politics seminar series and by the Department of Politics Theory Lab at Queen Mary, University of London (who really did all the work). It features Sirio Canós Donnay, Dan Hancox and Jeremy Gilbert https://culturepowerpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/podemos-session-2.mp3

This was the first session of an afternoon symposium on Podemos and radical democracy,  jointly convened by the Culture, Power and Politics seminar series and by the Department of Politics Theory Lab at Queen Mary, University of London (who really did all the work). It features  Carlos Delclós, Emmy Eklundh, Paul Kennedy and Lasse Thomassen   https://culturepowerpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/podemos-session-1.mp3

The third session deals with some of the political insights than be drawn from the psychoanalytic tradition, and from some radical critiques of it. https://culturepowerpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/politics-of-the-unconscious.mp3

https://culturepowerpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/power-and-the-self.mp3 The second session deals with Althusser and Foucault with reference to the ways in which they conceptualised the relationships between power, subjectivity and ideology.

https://culturepowerpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/culture-power-politics-session-one.mp3 The first seminar in the  series covers Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, the idea of common-sense, and how we can use these ideas to understand the history and continued power of neoliberalism.