Our discussion with Adam Tooze about his book Shutdown continues.
In this second part: is more dislocation necessary for politics to be reborn? Do global issues require global solutions – or do we ...
On Covid and the end of the end of history.
Adam Tooze joins us to discuss his new book, Shutdown. In 2020 everything changed... so that everything might remain the same.
What were the reasons...
On net-zero, CCP nanny state, and optimised dating.
We start off discussing the HBO series "The White Lotus" before tackling three articles on middle-class anxieties: climate change and pressures on UK living standards; the Chinese state's crackdown on private tutoring; and women's attempt to avoid crappy men through 'F...
2021-08-31 07:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Out next Reading Club will be on Mike McNair's article, Intersectionalism, the highest stage of western Stalinism? (attached).
The article argues that ‘intersectionality’ is ultimately derived from the P...
On lockdowns, education, and the left.
California middle-school teacher and social critic Alex Gutentag (@galexybrane) joins us to talk about the depredations of lockdown in California and the wider world.
How has lockdown affected different segments of society, and how damaging have school closures been on educat...
2021-08-24 07:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
On the Fall of Kabul, plus responding to your questions & comments.
On this Aufhebonus Bonus, we take your critical comments on 'positive biopolitics' and authoritarian responses to Covid. Plus, whether neoliberalism is really ending, the usefulness of PMC or clerisy as terms, and much more.
We start by ...
2021-08-17 06:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
What comes after neoliberalism - the protective state?
Here is the final part of our interview with Paolo Gerbaudo, plus the After Party, where the boys debate how convincing Paolo's vision is. Is a protective state emerging - and is the left really 'sovereigntist' in any way? Is control just a means to protection? And ...
2021-08-10 10:15:01 +0000 UTC View Post
What comes after neoliberalism - the protective state?
We talk to Paolo Gerbaudo about his new book, The Great Recoil, in which Paolo argues we are now turning inwards – globalisation is no longer a sea of opportuni...
2021-08-10 10:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
On post-liberalism: loving the state, crushing the individual?
For this 3A, articles from different 'conservative' outlets - but how conservative, and of what kind?
Articles:
What country best captures 20th and 21st century history?
For our 200th episode special, we posed the question: "If you had to study the history of only one country from 1900-2020, and thereby understand the history of the whole world, which would you pick?"
On Chinese investment, Swiss democracy, and fleeing from Afghanistan.
In this Three Articles, we discuss flight or departure in various ways: China opening the gates for its huge savings to spill onto world markets; Switzerland leaving (or remaining outside) the EU; and the US's sudden departure from Afghanistan, withou...
2021-07-20 09:36:15 +0000 UTC View PostOur next Reading Club will be the essay, "Psychoanalysis and the Spirit of Capitalism" by Eli Zaretsky - to be recorded on 19 August.
The essay does two fascinating things: it provides a psychoanalytic reading of how capitalism has changed over the 20th century, while also looking at the history of psychoanalysis o...
2021-07-15 19:44:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Our Book Launch/Bunga Party will be in London on Saturday 24 July at 3pm. We've booked the upstairs room of The Marquis Cornwallis by Russell Sq.
If you'd like to join us (and we hope you do!) please regis...
2021-07-14 17:43:00 +0000 UTC View Post
On pandemic & post-pandemic politics.
We talk to Benjamin Bratton about his new book, The Revenge of the Real, and its argument for a "positive biopolitics". What does an "epidemiological view of s...
2021-07-13 06:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
In our latest 3A, we discuss "the clerisy" and how it relates to the PMC; how the EU is doing forever war just as much as the US; and the hyper-commodification of football.
Articles:
Vote for the most convincing contribution from episode 200. (Only vote once you've listened to the episode).
"If you had to study the history of only one country from 1900-2020, and there...
On world history, 1900-2020.
For our 200th episode special, we pose the question: "If you had to study the history of only one country from 1900-2020, and thereby understand the history of the whole world, which would you pick?"
We invited 10 contributors to each pitch one country, whose particularities capture th...
2021-06-29 06:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey dear patrons, as you probably already know - and are sick of hearing - the Bunga Book is out today.
Thank you to everyone who's patronised us (not like that) over the past couple of years, for your engagement and you critical questions.
If you haven't yet, you can buy the book now, from any of these bookse...
We take your questions, comments & criticisms.
On this Aufhebonus Bonus, we discuss whether unions are still capable of fighting for their members; the Arab-Israeli conflict at the End of History; a lot more on the 'PMC debate'; plus: whether Phil is "reductionist in the service of his own prejudices".
2021-06-22 06:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
On secularism, nationalism and identity politics.
India is held up as a model developing country: liberal, democratic, multicultural. Renowned Indian writer and activist Achin Vanaik joins us to examine how India has turned away from universalism and secularism.
How did Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress as a whole la...
2021-06-18 17:02:35 +0000 UTC View Post
In the lead-up to our 200th episode later this month, we're exceptionally re-releasing our 100th episode special this week.
On the 30 years since 1989.
For our 100th episode, we invited our favourite guests to reflect on the question: “What one event, personal or political, most captures for yo...
2021-06-15 06:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post
On atrocity and sovereignty.
The disasters of Iraq, Libya, Syria and beyond are there for all to see. Why hasn't an emphasis on Human Rights led to fewer atrocities? How has Western intervention made the world a less safe place?
We discuss Philip's book 2021-06-08 06:00:02 +0000 UTC
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On China, economic reform, and the future.
While the USSR famously succumbed to destructive neoliberal "shock therapy", China managed to avoid it. How and why? Isabella Weber, author of 2021-06-01 06:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
On global insurrection and identity politics.
We discuss an essay by the ultra-left collective 'Endnotes' that deals with the same political questions as we do, but comes up with different answers. Are the fragmented and ephemeral movements that have taken to the streets in France, Chile and the US, for example, the fut...
2021-05-25 06:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
On liberal idealism and imperial overreach.
Why did the winners of the Cold War turn 'revisionist', undermining their own order? How has utopianism come to dominate the discipline of IR, such that we have lost the means to critique power?
We discuss Philip's recent book, The New Twenty Years’ Crisis 1999-201...
2021-05-18 06:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
On consequences of the pandemic + important local election results in Spain & UK.
We start off by discussing the telling results of some recent local and regional elections: in the UK, Labour continues its drift to becoming a middle-class party; while in Spain, Madrid goes to the right. Podemos flops, while voters s...
2021-05-11 06:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
On class reductionism, commodity fetishism, and value theory.
To discuss Covid, the state as 'PMC leviathan', and the politics of value theory, we’re joined by philosopher Elena Louisa Lange, who also explains why class reductionism is not a theoretical position or a mere mistake, but a social reality. We also address...
2021-05-04 06:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
On Latin America's progressive wave and its discontents.
A new book on Latin America argues that 'pink tide' governments tried to treat the symptoms of neoliberal capitalism while allowing the underlying situation to worse. We talk to the author, Fabio Luis, about cases across the region, including the election in Ecuad...
2021-04-27 06:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostREMINDER:
Our next Reading Club will be on Friday 7 May at 7pm UK time. We'll be discussing the second of Perry Anderson's three new essays in the London Review of Books on European politics, this one called 2021-04-22 01:25:16 +0000 UTC View Post
On the end of the End of History and neo-feudalism.
In a continuation of our discussion on the emerging transfer state, we ask whether the end of neoliberalism entails the end of the 'End of History'. What are the determinate features of the End of History that we are leaving behind? Which are still with us?
Also,...
2021-04-20 11:30:59 +0000 UTC View Post
