Ep. 47 – Jürgen Habermas on Secularism and Democracy; Review of Get Out

In this episode of the Always Already Podcast we discuss two distinct, overlapping, and not-so-overlapping essays by Jürgen Habermas: “Three Normative Models of Democracy,” written in 1994, and “Notes on Post-Secular Society,” written in 2008. We begin by asking whether Habermas’ conception of deliberative democracy changes from the first to the second piece, taking into consideration his critiques of liberal democracy and liberalism across both pieces. We ask whether his model of deliberative democracy attempts to decenter the state or society as a whole; the extent to which his model accounts for workers, anti-work, the workplace and labor politics; and the gems of wisdom that he could gain from Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” (Full disclosure: this episode is grounded in the efforts of Emily, John and Rachel to talk out the paper they are co-writing on anti-work politics and democratic theory).

Stick around for a special review/Frantz-Fanon-driven analysis of the new film Get Out by friend of the podcast/Always Already Fanon Correspondent M. Shadee Malaklou. Shadee also helps John answer listener questions about attending a conference and about glee over a frenemy’s failed Kickstarter campaign.

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. Special thanks to NEW musical feature aster for between-segment music off of their album a l w a y s a l r e a d y (check it out on bandcamp!). Get the mp3 of the episode here.

Links:

Jürgen on His Stuff

Jürgen on the Public Sphere

Kathi Weeks, “Life Within and Against Work”

Weeks, “Beyond the Wage System”

Marxist/Materialist Feminism

wikipedia; CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Ep. 41 – Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony

On this week’s episode we read Achille Mbembe’s On the Postcolony, focusing in particular on the Introduction and Chapters 5 and 6. We begin by discussing Mbembe’s analysis of the historical trajectory of Christian conversion and the divine libido in Chapter Six, “God’s Phallus” and its connection to Mbembe’s broader critique of rationality as constructed through eurocentric Enlightenment philosophy. We then attempt to discern Mbembe’s proposed methodology for thinking Africa after the colony without negating–but rather moving beyond mere relationality to–Western colonial depictions of Africa as hollow, devoid of reason, chaotic. We also discuss Mbembe’s use of the word ‘colony’ as it relates to violence, death, materiality and time. During everyone’s favorite segment, My Tumblr Friend from Canada, we offer our thoughts on how to address a delicate conversation with an academic advisor. Listen in as we dig into this rich and important text!

Remember to support us on Patreon to help offset/reimburse the cost of our fancy new microphone, which we have named Lacan.

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 and to B for the music.

 

Links!

• mp3 file of the episode
• Mbembe’s page at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa
• Mbembe: “Discussing African Futures”
• Mbembe: “Frantz Fanon and the Politics of Viscerality”
• Mbembe: Revolts and Resistance: A Pan African Perspective

 

 

 

 

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”

Ep.5 B-Sides: Mahmood, continued

Join us for the rest of our discussion of The Politics of Piety by Saba Mahmood. B, John, and guest co-host Joanna Tice talk about Mahmood’s engagement with Judith Butler in her text, the ethics and epistemology of researching, whether intersectionality has left out religion, and the question of ethical agency.

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

Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety; Carol Gould on Interactive Democracy (Part I of Interview)

In this episode B, John, and guest-host Joanna Tice talk about Politics of Piety by Saba Mahmood (Chapters 1 and 5). Everyone was enthralled with this complex work, and we discuss why in terms of Mahmood’s account of agency as it relates to embodiment, religion, and social conditions, her deep engagement from and learning from the practices of the women in the Egyptian mosque movement she studied, and her engagement and critique of Western feminism for its overemphasis on resistance at the expense of understanding actors and their agential practices.

We also interview Carol Gould (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at The Graduate Center and Hunter College, CUNY) on her forthcoming book, Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice. Our conversation covers contemporary democracy’s failed promises, social ontology, how to justify human rights, Gould’s new “interactive” conceptualization of democracy, and democratizing education.

Finally, we give advice on dissertation anxiety/writer’s block and on what to do if one’s dissertation distances them from their romantic partner.

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

Links!

• Saba Mahmood’s page at Berkeley
• Politics of Piety on Google Books
• Interview with Mahmood on the piety movement
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on poststructural feminist perspective on power
• Review and critique of the book in Jadaliyya
• Carol Gould’s homepage
• Cambridge Univ. Press page for Interactive Democracy