In this episode, I expound on Lukács's later work and the meaning of irrationalism. I analyze Marxist reason in contradistinction to neo-Kantian thought and touch on what is most distinctive about philosophy for Marx and Engels and how Marx breaks with both Kant and Hegel. From a Marxist point of view, the practical aim of philosophy is to bring about human freedom and human freedom in capitalist society requires the activation and the organization of the proletariat to realize and overcome...

We sit down with Doug Greene to discuss his latest work on Stalinism. In this interview, Greene describes who Stalin was, what his role in the Bolshevik movement was and how he came to power. Greene then provides a compelling analysis of different paradigms of how Stalinism has been conceptualized by intellectuals from Arthur Koestler, Jean-Paul Sartre, Antonio Gramsci, to heads of states such as Winston Churchill and writers such as George Orwell. Doug Greene is a Marxist historian based in...

We are back! And we changed our podcast name to Emancipations Podcast! In this episode, we are pleased to welcome Marxist thinker John Bellamy Foster to discuss his recent article The New Irrationalism in the Monthly Review (https://monthlyreview.org/2023/02/01/...). This article started a conversation on the legacy of Lukács's Destruction of Reason and the role of philosophy in times of imperialism and war. You can listen to the video version of this interview where I elaborate on the theme...

We are joined by literary critic and actor Christian Lorentzen to discuss the legacy and thought of Christopher Lasch. In this wide-ranging conversation, Lorentzen and host Daniel Tutt discuss Lasch's socialist politics, why he's so often misunderstood by the contemporary left and how he read literature. We assess the reasons why Lasch remains so popular and we touch on the politics of American novelists, the new Dimes Square scene in Manhattan, for which Christian is a central figure and...

In 1954 Adorno wrote, "if one were to condense what the ideology of mass culture comes down to into a single sentence, one would have to represent it with the parodic statement: “become what you are.” Adorno offered a series of important lectures on the concept of ideology with Max Horkheimer in the wake of the Second World War. They argued against the liberal sociologists such as Mannheim and Weber's conceptions of ideology, and they also called for a new Marxist understanding of ideology. ...

We sit down with philosopher Jensen Suther for a conversation on Lacanian Marxism on today's left.  Jensen Suther earned his PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale University and was recently elected as a Junior Fellow to the Harvard Society of Fellows. His forthcoming book, Spirit Disfigured: The Persistence of Freedom in the Modernist Novel, argues against the “lacanian turn” in Marxist theory and provides a new reading of Hegel’s encyclopedia as the philosophical foundation of...

Our final episode for the year! Thank you all for your support this year. In this episode, we sit down with the philosopher Sjoerd van Tuinen to discuss the concept of ressentiment and the politics of resentment. Dr. van Tuinen has many essays on ressentiment and a forthcoming book on the topic. Please pitch in to support us at https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups 

Kojin Karatani is one of the most interesting and important Marxist philosophers working today. Listen to our conversation about his main ideas...featuring Daniel Tutt and Gabriel Tupinambá. The workshop we held on Karatani's The Structure of World History can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE03jn2k3GYDWu4I9kdRXvq-FXy1vPVkO Support us by joining our Patreon https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups 

What is the Marxist theory of class? Did Marx have a mature class theory in Capital or is Marx's theory of class unfinished and ultimately unclear? Many scholars contend that Marx does not have a clear class theory. But too often Marxists do not offer any alternative to the theory of class, so Marxism ends up with very little to say about class. Our guest in this episode, Raju Das, disagrees with many contemporary Marxists who tend to sideline Marx's theory of class. In this conversation, we...

We are joined by writer and Marxist thinker Bruno Bosteels to discuss Léon Rozitchner’s Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism, which Bosteels has recently translated. In this conversation, we discuss Rozitchner's biography, his place within South American Marxism, the key concepts and approach of the text and we end with a consideration of Alain Badiou's thought. Bosteels is the translator of Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism, Alain Badiou's Theory of the Subject and...

We continue our investigation into the philosophy of Nietzsche, this time with philosopher Jan Rehmann who teaches critical theories and social analysis at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and philosophy at the Free University in Berlin. We discuss the Marxist reading of Nietzsche and Rehmann's recently translated work Deconstructing Postmodernist Nietzscheanism: Deleuze and Foucault. To learn more about what we are doing and support us please become a Patron...

Fredric Jameson is one of the most important Marxist literary critics. We are joined by Anna Kornbluh to discuss his theory of postmodernism and particularly his work on psychoanalysis and Marxism. We analyze Jameson's incredible essay "Pleasure: A Political Issue" which looks at the relationship between psychoanalysis and Marxism. This conversation gets at the heart of the Marxism-psychoanalysis relationship, what the stakes are, what psychoanalysis offers to Marxist analysis and more. Anna...

We are joined by Catherine Liu to discuss how French Theory grew to such prominence in American culture and academia, and how it has shaped not only the left but many aspects of our everyday life, from how we conceive of power, sex, the figure of the intellectual to the literary canon. French Theory was not merely a fad, it has had deep and long-lasting effects on our culture.  After discussing this history, we discuss Deleuzian theory and socialism, whether the libertine &...

We welcome Duane Rousselle to the show for a dialogue with host Daniel Tutt on Lacanian theory and politics. We discuss Duane's latest book Real Love and his work on the later Lacan and politics, as well as the thought of Jacques-Alain Miller. Rousselle is a practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst and Canadian sociological theorist. Support us at https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups

Mike comes back on the show after a year long hiatus (!) to discuss the "vibe shift" in the New York literary scene.  We analyze the political implications of the "vibe shift" and where things might be headed. Be sure to check out Mike's substack where he investigates these new scenes. 

Lillian Cicerchia, co-host of What's Left of Philosophy wrote an essay "Why Does Class Matter" which was the first article about class (specifically) in academic philosophy in several decades. Why in the hell would academic philosophy sideline analysis of class? The answer to that question may be quite obvious, or there may be more to it. Listen to find out! Lillian is interested in finding ways to bring an analysis of class back into the conversation that does so in a way that pays...

We sit down with filmmaker Richard Ledes to discuss the process of making his film Adieu Lacan, which depicts a successful psychoanalytic intervention by Lacan. Ledes is a fascinating filmmaker who has been compared to David Lynch and his most well-known film is Fred Won't Move Out. Adieu Lacan is available on VOD and is definitely a must-watch! 

We are pleased to welcome writer and thinker Jordan Osserman to the show to discuss circumcision and his new book Circumcision on the Couch: The Cultural, Psychological, and Gendered Dimensions of the World's Oldest Surgery which has recently been published by Bloomsbury. Join us at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups to get access to our seminars, writing and early release of our shows. 

We sit down with the prolific writer and thinker Richard Seymour, Co-Founder of Salvage Magazine and author of The Meaning of David Cameron (2010), Unhitched (2013), Against Austerity (2014) and Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics (2016). Since 2013, Seymour has turned to Lacanian theory in his writing and analysis of contemporary politics. We discuss what he finds valuable in psychoanalytic theory, the recent fractures over the trans movement in the Lacanian field, the...

We are very pleased to sit down with American historian and cultural critic Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn to discuss her work on the history of race relations in America and the legacy of her father, the historian and critic Christopher Lasch. Christopher Lasch's thought has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years and one of the big questions that surrounds his work is how we understand his political vision and what the core of his critique of liberalism and American elites really amounts to. In...

We are joined by artist, writer and educator Robert Beshara to discuss his work in critical psychology, Islamophobia, Freud and Said and how to understand racial capitalism, solidarity and comradeship. This is an oft-inspiring conversation that touches on a lot of very important debates and concepts in contemporary politics. One of the many highlights include Robert's discussion of the highly misunderstood the thinker Edward Said had with psychoanalysis. This is a great conversation and I...

We welcome philosophers Landon Frim and Harrison Fluss to the show for a discussion on how to navigate the ecological crisis in philosophy. This episode originally appeared on the Zer0 Books YouTube channel. Support our work for $3 - $10 a month at Patreon https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups Fluss and Frim argue the two dominant strains of thinking ecology today, Accelerationism and Gaian philosophies are ultimately inadequate frameworks because they reject the human frame as grounding...

Please go to our Patreon to listen to the final 30 minutes of this conversation https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups and get access to our other interviews, seminars and more. Our guest for today's episode is Hannah Proctor, writer, historian and thinker of the history of psychoanalysis. Hannah has written extensively on early Soviet era psychoanalysis and psychology and her Substack Unconsciousness Raising focuses on lesser known psychoanalytic thinkers.  In this conversation, we discuss...

Listen to the full interview with cultural theorist Marc James Léger, author of The Neoliberal Undead at https://www.patreon.com/posts/63587198

We are joined by philosopher Tijana Okić for a spirited conversation on what it means to be a Marxist today. What are the common problems we face when it comes to holding a Marxist position today? Is Marxism reducible to the correct philological and textual analysis of Marx's thought? What are we to make of the epistemological break between the early Marx's work on alienation to his later notions of exploitation? Does Marxism become irrelevant when we abandon a theory of alienation? We also...