What's Left of Philosophy

141 TEASER | Badiou: Political Subjects and Infinite Truths

In this episode we discuss the work of French philosopher Alain Badiou. Ever since the 1970s, Badiou’s philosophy has been characterized by an untimely systematicity and an ambitious effort to bring t...

2026-09-04

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140 | What is Modernity? Part II: Decoloniality

In this episode, we continue our series on modernity with a discussion of modernity, colonialism, and the future of both. We take up the claim that modernity is a justifying myth for European colonial...

2026-08-20

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139 TEASER | What is Modernity? Part I: Marshall Berman and the Contradictions of Modern Experience

In this episode, we begin our new series on modernity with a discussion of Marshall Berman’s 1982 book All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. Some of the questions we will tack...

2026-07-28

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138 | Machinic Intelligence and Marxism

In this episode, we use Marx’s infamous “Fragment on Machines” from the Grundrisse as a starting-point for a wide ranging discussion about the emancipatory and regressive potentials of AI technologies...

2026-07-14

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137 | Althusius: Communitarianism Before Hobbes

In this episode we talk about the political philosophy of early modern jurist Johannes Althusius. For us, he represents a road not taken in political theory, since Hobbes definitively constructed poli...

2026-06-29

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136 TEASER | What’s the Point of Equality? Meditations on Post-Socialist Analytical Philosophy

In this episode, we talk about the relational paradigm in political philosophy. Made famous by Iris Marion Young, developed later by Elizabeth Anderson, this view of what equality is all about present...

2026-06-10

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135 | The Ambiguities of Reconstruction w/ Professor Lucien Ferguson

In this episode, we are joined by Assistant Professor of Law Lucien Ferguson (Chicago-Kent College of Law) to discuss the ambiguities of freedom and labor in the constitutional interpretation of the ...

2026-05-28

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UPCOMING STUFF! | SPEP Webinar on Environmental Philosophy | BISR Class on Anti-Oedipus

Just a quick word about upcoming events you should join us for! SPEP Webinar: Philosophy and Environmental Injustices, with Matthias Fritsch, Romy Opperman, and Michael Peterson, May 25, 5pm Eastern ...

2026-05-18

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134 TEASER | The Problem with Work

In this episode we discuss Kathi Weeks’ 2011 book The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics and Postwork Imaginaries. The text brings together social reproduction feminism and autono...

2026-05-13

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133 | Indigenous Struggles Beyond the Colonial Politics of Recognition: Glen Coulthard's Red Skin, White Masks

This episode engages with Glen Coulthard’s 2014 book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Coulthard weaves a rich and varied tradition of radical Indigenous thought a...

2026-04-25

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132 TEASER | Marxism and Religion, Part II: The Gospel According to Terry Eagleton

In this episode, we discuss Terry Eagleton’s defense of religion. We focus on his diagnoses of the Enlightenment, modernism, and post-modernism as different kinds of post-religious movements. Post-mod...

2026-04-06

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131 | What's Left of Black Politics? Brandon Terry's Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement

In this episode, we discuss Brandon Terry’s 2025 book Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement. There is little doubt that in US the Civil Rights Movement stands o...

2026-03-23

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130 | Max Horkheimer: What Makes Critical Theory Critical?

In this episode we talk about Max Horkheimer’s essay “Traditional and Critical Theory”, which serves as a kind of manifesto for the Frankfurt School of Marxist thought. We talk about how he defines th...

2026-03-06

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129 TEASER | The General Strike and Socialism: Sorel's Reflections on Violence

In this episode we discuss Georges Sorel’s 1908 Reflections on Violence. We focus on his central claim that all of socialism is concentrated in the idea or ‘picture’ of the general strike, scrutinizin...

2026-02-16

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129 | Introducing: Marxism & Religion, Part I: Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this episode, we introduce our new series on “Marxism and Religion.” At political, social, and spiritual levels, the series explores this complicated relationship for a transitioning age. We start ...

2026-01-29

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127 | Hayden White's Forms of History

In this episode, we discuss the work of historian Hayden White. His provocative claim is that the practice is inescapably the practice of narrative forms to give sense and significance to events of th...

2026-01-14

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126 | Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program

In this episode, we talk about Marx’s critique of the Gotha Program, but you knew that from the title. We discuss Marxian critiques of redistributive left politics, why dogmatic Marxists are wrong abo...

2025-12-29

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125 TEASER | Elias Canetti: Crowds and Power

In this episode, we talk about Elias Canetti’s 1960 book Crowds and Power. Equal parts political theory, poetic sociology, and speculative anthropology, this staggering work explores human social life...

2025-12-04

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124 | Living Through Capitalism w/ Dr. James Chamberlain

In this episode, we talk with James Chamberlain about his new book, Living Through Capitalism, in which he argues that capitalism is hostile to biological life processes and our ability to know them w...

2025-11-19

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123 | Adam Smith and the Lessons of Sympathy

In this episode, we take on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Although he is now more well known as an economist because of his later book The Wealth of Nations, Smith shows himself to be a...

2025-11-04

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What's Left of Philosophy

Episodes (150 episodes)

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