Ep. 62 – Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital Part III

In this episode we (finally!) get to the third section of Rosa Luxemburg‘s The Accumulation of Capital, “The Historical Conditions of Accumulation.” This juicy–and oft-quoted section–addresses the ongoing nature of primitive accumulation and the violences of capitalism, the non-capitalist markets required for the expanded reproduction, and the ways this reproduction necessitates imperialism and militarism. The team mulls over what, precisely, Luxemburg means by external, non-capitalist markets (can they be internal to capitalist states? Does she necessarily mean colonized states “abroad”?) We parse the difference between Luxemburg’s “political geography” and “social economy”, the implications of her critique for neo-Marxist framings of neoliberalism, and the ways she enlivens, expands, and reinvigorates Marxist thought. And, most importantly, we raise the eternal question of whether Crate & Barrel is part of Marx and Luxemburg’s schematic Department I or Department II of the capitalist economy. Join us for the final episode of the trilogy!

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.

Additional Links:

• Red Rosa
• Nancy Fraser on Luxemburg
• Letters of Luxemburg

 

 

 

A Verso book: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2079-the-complete-works-of-rosa-luxemburg-volume-ii

Interview with Izzy Broomfield on Public Service in Appalachia – Epistemic Unruliness 3

John talks with Izzy Broomfield – currently serving with Americorps VISTA in Eastern Kentucky – about place and about putting the ‘community’ in community service. Having met in Las Vegas this past spring (listen to the episode to hear how), Izzy and John talk through Izzy’s Kentucky background and current work in Hazard, Kentucky. In the course of doing so, the discussion engages the importance of place and lived experience, bell hooks, the need for inventiveness and listening in public service, and more. They end by addressing and trying to deconstruct the pesky theory/practice divide.

Be sure to check out Izzy’s vlog about their work!

 

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Ideas for interview? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us onTwitter. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. This episode’s music by Ricky Perry and by B.

 

Izzy Broomfield

 

Mountains, mist, and community in Hazard, Kentucky (photo by Izzy)

Interview with The Illuminator on collective political art and the commons – Epistemic Unruliness 1

We inaugurate our Epistemic Unruliness series in this episode with a conversation with Kyle DePew and Rachel Brown (not our Rachel!) of the collective political art project known as The Illuminator. James, Kyle, and Rachel discuss the group’s genesis during Occupy Wall Street, their light projection activism around NYC, run-ins with the NYPD, and ways of reclaiming the commons in physical and digital space. And, James explains the genealogy of our name and why we think it’s important to be unruly.

Follow The Illuminator on Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, and Flickr 

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 onTwitter. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. This episode’s music by Rocco & Lizzie and by B.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ep. 23 – Butler and Žižek on Universality and Radical Democracy

In this episode of Always Already, Rachel, B, and Emily attempt to de-jargonizify the concepts universal and particular as they circulate in Contingency, Hegemony, Universality by Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, and Ernesto Laclau.  In this discussion of Butler’s chapter “Competing Universalities” and Žižek’s chapter “Class Struggle or Postmodernism? Yes please!” the team tries to unpack what the terms of radical democracy are as they emerge from these pages. Is their form of radical democracy a project only for the intellectual? Can a contemporary articulation of radical democracy make sense when the main intellectual resources are primarily drawn from dead white men? Is it really possible to explain what a universal is without using jargon-laden tautology? Can we really conduct a successful podcast on a summer afternoon!? We also discuss a teaching related advice question that we’ve been asking of ourselves of late, and analyze a dream about life transitions!

Thank you to Amogh of the Symptomatic Redness Podcast for suggesting we talk about this book. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer on the show? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. This episode’s music by B (intro) and Rachel and B (between segments and outtakes!).

Links:

• Contingency, Hegemony, Universality on Google Books
• Review of the book by Paul Bowman at Culture Machine
• Butler’s 3 minute overview of gender performativity at Big Think
• Žižek on democracy and capitalism at Big Think
• Butler, explained through cats

 

 

Interview: Joanna Tice on Evangelicalism and Political Thought

Coming to you from Las Vegas (!), John interviews Joanna Tice, a PhD Candidate in Political Science at The Graduate Center, CUNY on her dissertation project, “Power of the Spirit: The Political Thought of Contemporary Evangelicalism.” They talk about secularism and the academy, shifts in the political and theoretical orientation of US evangelicalism over the past decade-plus, evangelical temporality, the importance of “creative tensions” in evangelical thought, the production of the ambivalent evangelical subject, the concept of “the political” at work in her project, and more.

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Advice questions for the show? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Like our Facebook page. Get the mp3 of the episode here. RSS feed here. This episode’s music by B.

Links:

• Always Already episode on Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety, with Joanna Tice guest co-hosting
• Tanya Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back: Understanding the Evangelical Relationship with God
• Talal Asad’s Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam
• Public Religion Research Institute’s 2015 survey, “How Race and Religion Shape Millennial Attitudes on Sexuality and Reproductive Health”