Critique of the Podcast Form

<p>Mac and Crane discuss the essay "Legality and Illegality" by György Lukács (Georg Lukács) in the context of his broader development: after joining the Communist Party in 1918, Lukács would play an important role in the leadership of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic (March to August 1919), around which time he would write many of the essays later collected and published in <em>Tactics and Ethics: 1919-1929</em>, only to reverse some of his positions on core issues in his subsequent exile in Vienna, resulting in <em>History and Class Consciousness</em> (1923). In their discussion of the vicissitudes of fate and philosophy, Mac and Crane attempt to answer the fundamental question tragically left out of E40's classic song "Choices": Lukács - Nope or Yup?</p>

<p>J. E. is joined by Cam for an introduction to the history of left-communism, specifically the German/Dutch (councilist), Italian (Bordigist) and French (ultraleft) traditions. The books we mention are the following: </p><ul><li>Histoire Critique de l'Ultragauche by Roland Simon </li><li>The Future of Revolution by Jasper Bernes</li><li>The Science and Passion of Communism edited by Pietro Basso</li><li>The Communist Left in Germany by Denis Authier and Gilles Dauvé </li><li>The Italian Communist Left by Philippe Bourrinet</li><li> Rupture dans la Théorie de la Révolution edited by François Daniel.</li></ul>

<p>In this episode, Mac Parker and Anatarah Bin AlKaf have a casual chat on Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins seminal book <em>the Dialectical Biologist</em>. They cover why this book remains a key contribution to Marxist theory, philosophy of nature, and philosophy of technology. Along the way, the conversation tackles the influence of Friedrich Engels on Marxist science historiography and science critique from Boris Hessen to the Max Planck institute’s historical epistemology research program. Our discussion culminates in a call for an integrative approach—one that unites political philosophy and science, the local and the global—in the spirit of the dialectical biologists’ vision.</p><p>The books discussed were (or alluded to):</p><p>- The Dialectical Biologist (1985) by Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin</p><p>- Biology Under the Influence (2007) by by Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin</p><p>- The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution (2009) ed. Gideon Freudenthal and Peter McLaughlin</p><p>- Abstraction and Representation (1996) by Peter Damerow</p><p></p><p>Please support us at: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.patreon.com/crittheoryworkgroup">https://www.patreon.com/crittheoryworkgroup</a></p>

<p>In this episode, join your hosts Sam Thomas (resident Italophile), J.E. Morain, and James Crane for a discussion taking the 1951 polemic, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/murder.htm">“Murder of the Dead,”</a> as a point of departure for deeper dive into Amadeo Bordiga’s bellicose and beautiful run of essays in eco-communism throughout the 50s and 60s. Topics of discussion include: Bordiga’s critique of a version of the ‘state capitalism’ thesis, the conceptual matrix of living/dead labor and variable/constant capital, the theoretical and stylistic function of ‘invariance’ in Bordiga's writings, coal mine collapses, the flooding of symbols of national pride, and scientific-scatological reflections on the ‘how’s of abolishing the antithesis of town and country. We end with a few remarks on the conquest of the fear of death and the “natural condition of the prosperity of the species” in Bordiga's 1961 “<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1961/janitzio.htm">In Janitzio Death is not Scary.</a>”</p><p>Other Bordiga essays discussed in the episode:</p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/civilisation.htm">“The Filling and Bursting of Bourgeois Civilisation”</a> (1951)</p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/site-contents/the-human-species-and-the-earths-crust/">“The Human Species and the Earth’s Crust”</a> (1952)</p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1953/horsepower.htm">“The Spirit of Horsepower”</a> (1953)</p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1956/weird.htm">“Weird and Wonderful Tales of Modern Social Decadence”</a> (1956)</p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1963/legend.htm">“The Legend of the Piave”</a> (1963)</p><p></p><p>Please support us at: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.patreon.com/crittheoryworkgroup">https://www.patreon.com/crittheoryworkgroup</a></p>

<p>“The motive for realism is never the confirmation of reality but protest.” —Alexander Kluge</p><p>“I want my stories to be one hundred percent realistic while at the same time presenting something unseen.” —Ghassan Kanafani</p><p>In this episode, join your hosts Sebastian Kokesch and James Crane for a discussion of the necessary connection between aesthetic autonomy and revolutionary political commitment in Ghassan Kanafani's best-known literary writings in English translation: <em>Men in The Sun</em> ('62), <em>All That’s Left to You</em> ('66), &amp; <em>Returning to Haifa</em> ('69). From the perspective of the 'undivided' project of Ghassan Kanafani—as novelist, critic, and militant—we read each of these novels as a contribution to the same culture of resistance he theorized and organized.</p><p></p><p>Please support us at: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.patreon.com/crittheoryworkgroup">https://www.patreon.com/crittheoryworkgroup</a></p>