ontology

Interview: Zakiyyah Iman Jackson on Becoming Human — Epistemic Unruliness 30

In this episode, Emily is delighted to talk with Dr. Zakiyyah Iman Jackson about her new book Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World. Turning to African diasporic literature, Jackson theorizes the relationship between blackness and animality, bringing black critical theory and posthumanism to bear on one another. Our conversation traces Jackson’s intellectual journey to the book project and to the question of animality more broadly, examines the methodological approaches of the book and the possibilities and poetics of language, and unpacks the project’s political stakes. On the way, we discuss plasticity, Jackson’s ontology, the importance of cultural production for theorizing the human, the relationship between science/positivism and colonialism, and more.

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Thanks to Bad Infinity for the intro music, “Post Digital,” from their album FutureCommons; always already thanks to B for the outro music. For the mp3 of the episode click here.

 

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Ep. 66 – Juliet Hooker, Race and the Politics of Solidarity

In this episode, Emily, John, and Sid are joined by friend of the podcast Danielle Hanley of Rutgers University for a discussion of the first half of Juliet Hooker’s 2009 book Race and the Politics of Solidarity. We ask, what is the promise of solidarity and how is it achieved? How does this argument sit differently in liberal theory against democratic theory? What work does the ontological claim of the book do? And it wouldn’t be an episode of the Always Already Podcast without the vulgar Marx question: what about class? Tune in for racial capitalism, whiteness, solidarity in the time of social distance, and more!

Stay tuned for the dramatic return of your (our) two favorite segments: My Tumblr Friend from Canada (but actually from Europe) with an advice question on choosing thesis topics, and a new twist on dream analysis in One or Several (or zero?) Wolves!

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Thanks to Bad Infinity for the intro music, “Post Digital,” from their album FutureCommons; always already thanks to B for the outro music. For the mp3 of the episode click here.

 

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Image of book cover of Race and the Politics of Solidarity

 

Ep. 56 – Donna Haraway, When Species Meet

In this episode Emily, James, and John discuss Donna Haraway‘s When Species Meet (2008), a personal and at times intimate figuring/figuration of human-companion species relations. We plot this work within Haraway’s journey from her essay “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” (1985) to her recent book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016), as well as think through its placement within the academic discourses of posthumanism and critical animal studies. Following Haraway’s playful writing style, we eventually arrive upon the terms companion species and ethics of flourishing and we flesh out how Haraway reconfigures these points of reference and in so doing reconfigures the “Great Divide” that separates the ontology of human-animal encounters. How can one capacious reading of Haraway lend itself to banter about prison dogs, Catholicism, homo ludens and epistemologies of play, demons, etymology, Marxist value theories, and (perhaps most-irreverently), Derrida’s doubly naked body, materially nude and existentially undressed by the lingering gaze of his cat? Moreover, how does all of the preceding reside in an episode that also features an emergent drinking game that tries to distill the essence of the royal wedding? Companions, Become all of this together with us as you listen along!

Support us on Patreon to help us upgrade our recording equipment, potentially provide episode transcripts, and more – plus, you may have the chance to jump your request to the top of the request queue. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. We are part of the Critical Mediations network. Thanks to Bad Infinity for the intro music, and always already thanks to B for the outro music. For the mp3 of the episode click here.

 

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Haraway and her dog Cayenne; image via Wikimedia Commons licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

 

 

Emily’s companion, Ripley

 

Derrida, with his cat (apparently named Logos) https://twitter.com/thelitcritguy/status/840148505398247424

 

Interview: Charles Mills on Racial Liberalism

In this very special episode, John talks with Charles W. Mills (Philosophy, The Graduate Center, CUNY) about his new book, Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism (Oxford UP, 2017). Mills walks us through some of the main arguments and concepts from the book, including the terminology of racial liberalism, the importance of white supremacy as a concept, his critiques of Kant and Rawls, the prospects for a “black radical liberalism,” and much more. But, the two build out the conversation to also discuss whiteness in the academy, race and ontology, the ongoing importance of historical materialism, whether liberalism can be reconstructed, and race and pedagogy in the political philosophy/theory classroom.

We were thrilled to have the opportunity to speak with Mills – don’t miss out on the dialogue.

Support us on Patreon to help us upgrade our recording equipment. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Thanks to Leah Dion for the intro music, and to Bad Infinity for music during the break and for the outro. Get the mp3 of the episode here.

 

 

 

Ep. 50 – Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway

In this especially agentic episode, Emily, John, and B attempt to meet Karen Barad halfway–examining three chapters from her major work, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Exploring how the concepts of agency, quantum theory, feminist science studies, and “the real” might be updated through Barad’s notion of intra-action, the team tackles everything from Barad’s agential realism right down to the heart of whether “yous dudes” can be a thing. Along the way, they puzzle over the difference between a phenomena and an apparatus, ask what a Barad-influenced interpretation of liberalism would be, explore how Barad can influence our pedagogy, and quasi-heatedly debate the relationship of Barad’s work to phenomenology,  They even have time for Emily’s favorite segment, One or Several Wolves–in this installment, bears, poop, a dog iPhone, and a sense of belonging are all found in a listener’s recurring dream from childhood.

Thanks to listener Marianne in Norway for the request to read Barad!

Support us on Patreon to help us upgrade our recording equipment. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Thanks to Leah Dion for the intro music, and to B for the outro music. Get the mp3 of the episode here.

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