Mark Fisher Meets James Hillman: Melancholy, Manic Culture & the End of Capitalist Realism (with Emma Stamm)
What if depression isn’t an illness to cure but a collective mood that reveals the soul of a broken world? In this episode, Mark Fisher meets James Hillman in a conversation that bridges depth psychology and cultural theory, asking how melancholy and mania shape life under late capitalism. Joined by Emma Stamm, we explore the intersections of acid communism and archetypal psychology—from Fisher’s politics of despair to Hillman’s vision of a polytheistic psyche. Together we ask what happens wh...
23 Okt 1h 5min
Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide: Wasim Said’s Testament from Gaza
In this episode, we present the work of Wasim Said, a comrade from Gaza who has documented the atrocities they and their people have experienced during the ongoing intensification of Israel's genocidal war on Palestine in his first book "Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide". The logistics and safety of an interview being made near impossible amidst the horrors, we instead read out a text sent to us by Wasim, and talk to Louis Allday from Liberated Texts who helped bring the book to publicatio...
17 Okt 49min
Deleuze vs Hegel: Beyond Kant and Representation with Henry Somers-Hall
What happens when Deleuze and Hegel are set in violent philosophical encounter over the ruins of Kantian representation? In this episode, we explore how both thinkers attempt to move beyond the categories of judgment and identity to recover the genesis of sense itself. Henry Somers-Hall joins us to trace Deleuze’s path through Kant, Sartre, and Bergson toward a field of pre-individual difference and immanent synthesis. What emerges is a portrait of thought that no longer begins with the subje...
11 Okt 53min
The Politics of Ghosting: Dominic Pettman on Absence, Intimacy, and Digital Life
What does it mean to live in a world where relationships can vanish overnight, without explanation or closure? In this episode, Acid Horizon speaks with cultural theorist Dominic Pettman about his new book Ghosting: On Disappearance (Polity Press). Together we explore how ghosting unsettles intimacy, accountability, and narrative finality, reaching beyond dating apps into friendships, families, workplaces, and politics. Along the way we trace ghosting as both a form of psychic violence and a ...
28 Sep 1h 7min
Western Marxism vs. Stalinism: Domenico Losurdo’s Controversial Legacy with Ross Wolfe
What if the very idea of Western Marxism has less to do with geography than with defeat? In this episode of Acid Horizon, we dive into Domenico Losurdo’s controversial use of the term and ask what’s at stake in his defense of actually existing socialism against its critics. With our guest Ross Wolfe, we explore the tangled afterlives of Western Marxism—from the Frankfurt School to structuralism, from Stalinism to contemporary China. Along the way we confront the uncomfortable question: do tod...
19 Sep 57min
Wilhelm Reich, Fascism & Work Democracy: Philip Bennett & David Silver at Orgonon
Video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/sbwVioWlhS0 What happens when we revisit Wilhelm Reich’s journey from Freud’s student to radical theorist of desire, politics, and repression? In this episode, we sit down with Professor Philip Bennett and David Silver, executive director of the Wilhelm Reich Museum, to explore Reich’s groundbreaking ideas on therapy, character armor, and the enduring relevance of The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Together we trace his path from psychoanalysis to Marxism to w...
9 Sep 53min
From Blake to Bataille: Romanticism, Communism, and the Commons with Joseph Albernaz
What does Romanticism have to do with communism, enclosure, and the commons today? In this episode we speak with Joseph Albernaz, author of Common Measures: Romanticism and the Groundlessness of Community, about the radical lineage running from Blake and Hölderlin to Marx and Bataille. We explore how Romantic literature conceived “groundless community”—a poetic and ecological alternative to enclosure and collective identity—and how those ideas reverberate through scene-shaping thinkers like B...
31 Aug 1h 1min
LEPHT HAND - Myth, Nostalgia, and Liberation: Federico Campagna’s 'Otherworlds: Mediterranean Lessons On Escaping History'
Can myth itself serve as a material force in struggles for liberation? Federico Campagna joins me to discuss how myth—too often dismissed as escapism or co-opted by reaction—can instead become a practice of imagination, solidarity, and survival. We look at myth’s place in anti-capitalist politics, its tension with materialism, and its role in resisting despair. What emerges is a vision of myth as a politics of possibility against history’s catastrophes. Acid Horizon Research Commons is now li...
23 Aug 1h 8min
