Emancipations Podcast

Alexandre Kojève's influence on intellectual life has been massive. His ideas have shaped major 20th century thinkers from Leo Strauss, Jacques Lacan to Georges Bataille. Today, most of us are familiar with Kojève's thought through his widely commented upon lectures delivered in Paris, 1933 - 1937 and subsequently published as the Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. This is the text that Francis Fukuyama re-interpreted in his infamous End of History and the Last Man essay and book. But Kojève seldom published his works and this has resulted in a partial and limited understanding of what Kojève really thought. I am joined by philosopher Igor Shoikhedbrod for a discussion on a missing, albeit recently translated, text by Kojève entitled Outline of a Phenomenology of Right. This is Kojève's most sustained vision of the universal and homogenous state and in this text he addresses the question of legal right, justice and indeed, of his vision for the communist society. We discuss how Kojève defines the political in contradistinction to Carl Schmitt, what his theory of anthropogenic desire and recognition truly is, and we address Fukuyama’s misreading of Kojève. We also explore why Kojève defines communism as the era of individualism and how his legal thought differs from other Marxist philosophers. In part two, we will dive deeper into Igor's essay, "Alternative Futures of Right in Pashukanis, Kojève, and Bloch" which is included in the book Kojève and Law: A Critical Examination, edited by Igor Shoikhedbrod. Igor Shoikhedbrod is an Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University. He obtained his PhD at the University of Toronto in 2018, his M.A in Political Science from York University in 2011, and he also holds a B.A from the University of Toronto with a concentration in Ethics, Society, and Law. His doctoral dissertation was awarded the Stephen E. Bronner Dissertation award in 2019 "for an outstanding Political Science dissertation finished within the previous year of the American Political Science Association Meeting which exemplifies the commitment to use scholarship in the struggle for a better world." In 2021, Igor won the Domenico Losurdo International Prize for his essay, "From Hegel to Nietzsche: Domenico Losurdo's Complex Relationship with Liberalism." Prior to his appointment at St. Francis Xavier University, Igor taught courses in political theory, legal theory, ethics, law, and political economy at Dalhousie University, as well as at the University of Toronto, where he won two awards for teaching excellence. Igor is the author of Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality and Rights (2019) with Palgrave Macmillan. -- Thank you for your continued support of our work which allows me to bring you these discussions on seminal works in the history of Marxist thought and philosophy. If you find my work valuable, please become a Patron to gain early access to all of my interviews and videos and discounts on my public courses: https://www.patreon.com/c/emancipations

We begin a new three-part series on the history of materialism in Marxist thought by examining the 19th-century materialism controversy and the broader philosophical debates surrounding materialism at the moment Marx and Engels entered the intellectual scene. To set the social and political context to these debates, we focus on two important books on materialism from the mid to late 19th century: the neo-Kantian philosopher Friedrich Albert Lange's The History of Materialism and Critique of Its Present Importance (1865) and the founder of Russian Marxism, Georgi Plekhanov's The Development of the Monist View of History (1895). In Lange's three volume encyclopedic study we find a distinctive, if not idiosyncratic, account of materialism in the history of philosophy from the ancient Greek atomists up to Kant and beyond. Plekhanov's study focuses more on the materialist roots of historical materialism and thus looks at how issues of society and history are construed by philosophers from the time of Descartes, the early French materialists up to the 'modern materialism' of Marx and Engels. Readings: Friedrich Albert Lange's The History of Materialism and Critique of Its Present Importance (1865) - https://bit.ly/4wrAHKM Georgi Plekhanov's The Development of the Monist View of History (1895) - https://bit.ly/4tYWszL Stay tuned for episode two where we dig into Marx's dissertation on Greek atomism and how Marxists define and debate materialism up to the Second International. Episode three will look at the materialism debates in Lenin up to the modern period including recent movements in philosophy such as 'speculative realism.' --- This series was voted on by our supporters on Patreon after our first series on The Problems of Intellectuals (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE03jn2k3GYBf8pPIshZfM4wDYUTL8594&si=LgWBIRDyhFKL2Lk7) Thank you for your continued support of our work which allows us to bring you these discussions on seminal works in the history of Marxist thought and philosophy. If you find my work valuable, please become a Patron to gain early access to all of my interviews and videos and discounts on my public courses: https://www.patreon.com/c/emancipations Please support the ‪@VarnVlog‬ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/varnvlog

My guest Anton Jäger is the author of Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences, a provocative new polemic on the impasses of our political moment. In this conversation, we discuss the core thesis of the book and its implications for socialist politics. We also address the critics to the book and Jäger articulates his vision for an alternative direction for leftwing politics in a hyperpolitical age. Get a copy of Hyperpolitics: https://bit.ly/4tQMhx6 Anton Jäger is a Lecturer in Politics at Oxford and an opinion writer for the New York Times. He is the co-author (with Arthur Borriello) of The Populist Moment and (with Daniel Zamora) Welfare for Markets. -- Support my work be becoming a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/c/emancipations

I'm very pleased to welcome the philosopher Oliver Marchart to discuss the thought of Ernesto Laclau and his book Thinking Antagonism: Political Ontology After Laclau. In this work, Marchart proposes that Laclau's thought be supplemented and expanded with a robust account of political ontology. Marchart is known for his incisive studies on contemporary political philosophers and for developing the concept of "post-foundational political thought." We begin with a discussion on Laclau's thought and the philosophers that influenced him, from Derrida, Lacan, Althusser, Heidegger, Schmitt to Gramsci. Deeply shaped by the experience of the populist leader Juan Perón in Argentina, Laclau's career is marked by the development of a sophisticated system of political thought which completely re-theorized Marxism. We then turn to a discussion of Marchart's book Thinking Antagonism, which is interested in expanding Laclau's rhetorical foundation of society towards a post-foundational social and political ontology that is no longer purely grounded in language. He argues that Laclau reinvents and re-defines the concept of antagonism in the Marxist tradition and that this concept, even more than hegemony, stands as Laclau's most important contribution. We also address the limits of Laclau's thought, the legacy of post-Marxism in practice and the challenges with left-populism. Please learn more about Marchart's book Thinking Antagonism: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/thinking-antagonism/FBE1DFCBA99C8BF948AC8110730B1340 Oliver Marchart is Professor of Sociology at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He is author of Post-Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) and co-editor (with Simon Critchley) of Laclau: A Critical Reader (2004). ---- Please support the work of Emancipations be becoming a Patreon member:

I am pleased to welcome Judith Gurewich, a pioneering figure in the introduction and development of Lacanian thought in the United States for a wide-ranging conversation on her work and insights into Lacanian psychoanalysis. Trained as a sociologist at Brandeis University and a practicing Lacanian psychoanalyst, Gurewich has played a central role in shaping the landscape of psychoanalytic publishing and theoretical production in America. We discuss her intellectual and professional trajectory, from her early engagement with Lacan to her work as a publisher and analyst, and reflect on the continued relevance of Lacanian theory today. We also discuss the genocide in Gaza and Judith's early publishing of Lacanian texts in the 1980s and how in the early 2000s Judith founded Other Press, a major publishing house that releases important non-fiction and literary books: https://otherpress.com/ -- If you enjoyed this conversation please consider joining our Patreon as a paid member: https://www.patreon.com/c/emancipations