brian bean, "Their End Is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition" (Haymarket, 2025)

In this episode, host J.J. Mull interviews Daniel José Gaztambide about his book, A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology (Lexington Books, 2021). The project traces a global intellectual lineage spanning from the first generation of analysts in Europe to Harlem, the Caribbean, and finally, to Latin America. Challenging a broader cultural narrative that conceives of psychoanalysis as somehow fundamentally “white” or euro-centric, Gaztambide presents a radical and politicized version of psychoanalytic thought inherited and expanded by thinkers like Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire and Ignacio Martín-Baró. J.J. Mull is a poet, training clinician, and graduate student at Smith College School for Social Work living in Northampton, MA. He can be reached at jmull@smith.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

11 Maj 20211h 9min

I spoke with Prof. Tim Jackson about his latest book: Post Growth, Life after Capitalism, published by Polity Books in 2021. The book starts with a reflection on the event of the past few months. The success in 2019 of the school strikes for climate, the attention that Greta Thunberg received even in Davos, and the arrival of the pandemic that changed our priorities. Even the 2009 crisis challenged the degrowth movement when we experienced the consequences of the recession. I have asked how do we keep the focus on sustainability? This book and his work in general are about the need for a change in our economic paradigms. But we are still tied to old ideas and institutions. Keynes that many progressive politicians and economists frequently refer to, cannot be really claimed to be offering revolutionary ideas for our times. Still, the book mentions an essay by Keynes from 1930 where he appears clearly interested in what should come after the immediate actions (growth) needed to overcome the great depression. We discussed how the shift in economic paradigm can follow different patterns in the rich nations and in the developing ones. Finally, referring to the final chapter, 'Dolphins in Venice', we talked about what could happen at the end of the pandemic to our cultural and consumption preferences. Capitalism is broken. The relentless pursuit of more has delivered climate catastrophe, social inequality and financial instability—and left us ill prepared for life in a global pandemic. Weaving together philosophical reflection, economic insight and social vision, Tim Jackson’s passionate and provocative book dares us to imagine a world beyond capitalism—a place where relationship and meaning take precedence over profits and power. Post Growth is both a manifesto for system change and an invitation to rekindle a deeper conversation about the nature of the human condition. Dr Tim Jackson holds degrees in mathematics (MA, Cambridge), philosophy (MA, Uni Western Ontario) and physics (PhD, St Andrews). He is Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity and Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey in the UK. Andrea Bernardi is Senior Lecturer in Employment and Organization Studies at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

7 Maj 202151min

How should we understand creative work? In Creative Control: The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries (Columbia UP, 2021), Michael Siciliano, an assistant professor of sociology at Queen's University, Canada, explores this question through a comparison of a recording studio and a digital content creation company. The book considers the meaning and practice of ‘creative’ labour, considering its ambivalences, the passions and commitments, as well as the compromises and alienations associated with this area of economy and society. It represents a crucial intervention to the literature on cultural production, as well as offering an important understanding of the impact of digital modes of distribution and production on creative industries. A rich and fascinating comparative ethnography, the book is essential reading across humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding contemporary culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

6 Maj 202146min

What is the impact of surveillance capitalism on our right to free speech? The Internet once promised to be a place of extraordinary freedom beyond the control of money or politics, but today corporations and platforms exercise more control over our ability to access information and share knowledge to a greater extent than any state. From the online calls to arms in the thick of the Arab Spring to the contemporary front line of misinformation, Jillian York charts the war over our digital rights. She looks at both how the big corporations have become unaccountable censors, and the devastating impact it has had on those who have been censored. In Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism (Verso Book, 2021), leading campaigner Jillian York, looks at how our rights have become increasingly undermined by the major corporations desire to harvest our personal data and turn it into profit. She also looks at how governments have used the same technology to monitor citizens and threatened our ability to communicate. As a result our daily lives, and private thoughts, are being policed in an unprecedented manner. Who decides the difference between political debate and hate speech? How does this impact on our identity, our ability to create communities and to protest? Who regulates the censors? In response to this threat to our democracy, York proposes a user-powered movement against the platforms that demands change and a new form of ownership over our own data. Marci Mazzarotto is an Assistant Professor of Digital Communication at Georgian Court University in New Jersey. Her research interests center on the interdisciplinary intersection of academic theory and artistic practice with a focus on film and television studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

6 Maj 20211h 1min

The 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche stands among the canon’s most-cited figures, with aphorisms dotting texts on a variety of topics, and his name evokes strong responses from almost anyone who has ever heard of him. His aphoristic and poetic writing style have made it difficult at times to understand what he meant, although the wealth of commentaries pulling him in a variety of different directions points to the fact that he did mean something. On the political right he has been credited as an influence among many reactionary political movements, but even on the left he is cited as an emancipatory figure, suspicious of the powers that be. Aside from these, his writings on art and psychology have remained influential for many. It would seem then that there are numerous Nietzsche’s one can pull from, and due to the loose nature of his writing, one would seem to be warranted in reading Nietzsche a bit more freely. However, that freedom and flexibility misses that there may in fact be a unifying thread to Nietzsche’s thought, and it may in fact be a much darker thread than many of his apologists have realized. This is the main argument of the book we’ll be discussing today, Domenico Losurdo’s Nietzsche, The Aristocratic Rebel: Intellectual Biography and Balance Sheet. Originally published about 20 years ago in Italian, it has recently been delivered to English audiences by Gregor Benton and with an introduction by Harrison Fluss as part of the Historical Materialism book series. Clocking in at just over 1000 pages, it is both a literal and figurative bombshell, delivering a rigorous and systematic account of Nietzsche’s thought. A major part of the books length comes from the fact that Losurdo refuses to treat Nietzsche in isolation, and instead spends a large amount of time recreating Nietzsche’s various contexts, 19th century Germany and Europe more broadly, as a way of making the political orientation of Nietzsche’s thought all the more explicit. Through his investigation, Losurdo reveals a Nietzsche who is committed to fighting against the democratic movements happening all around him and being an advocate for a superior elite at the expense of everyone else, whose main purpose in life is to serve them. Domenico Losurdo was an Italian Marxist historian and philosopher.  Harrison Fluss received his PhD in philosophy at Stony Brook University. He is a professor at Manhattan College, NYC and wrote the introduction to the English edition of The Aristocratic Rebel. Daniel Tutt studied at American University and the European Graduate School. He teaches in the philosophy department at George Washington University. He reviewed The Aristocratic Rebel for Historical Materialism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

5 Maj 20211h 26min

Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) is the story of art and work under contemporary capitalism. Whilst labour used to be regarded as an unattractive subject for art, the proximity of work to everyday life has subsequently narrowed the gap between work and art. The artist is no longer considered apart from the economic but is heralded as an example of how to work in neoliberal management textbooks. With the narrowing of work and art visible in galleries and art discourse today, Working Aesthetics takes a step back to ask why labour has become a valid subject for contemporary art and explores what this means for aesthetic culture today. Danielle Child speaks with Pierre d'Alancaisez about the rise of the art fabricator embodied by the stories of Lippincott, Inc. and Mike Smith Studio, dematerialised labour of Rimini Protokoll, and the digital afterlives of etoy and the brave new world of NFTs. The opening street scene by Eyre Crowe is here. Dannielle Child is a senior lecturer at Manchester School of Art. Pierre d’Alancaisez is a contemporary art curator, cultural strategist, researcher. Sometime scientist, financial services professional. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

29 Apr 202154min

How do race and sexuality intersect in the American sitcom? In The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom (Indiana University Press, 2021),  Alfred L Martin, an assistant professor of communication studies at The University of Iowa, explores the production and reception of Black-cast sitcoms, along with a detailed analysis of the representations of gay men within this genre. At the centre of the book is a theorisation of the generic closet, both as a way to explain the absence of nuanced and complex representations of Black gay men on screen, and to account for the limited, decentred, and peripheral place offered to Black gay men in the Black-cast sitcom. Offering detailed engagement with the history and political economy of television, along with insights into writers’ rooms, production decisions, and audience responses, the book is essential reading across humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding contemporary culture. Dave O'Brien is Chancellor's Fellow, Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Edinburgh's College of Art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

27 Apr 202142min

Itay Snir's book Education and Thinking in Continental Philosophy (Springer, 2020) draws on five philosophers from the continental tradition – Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Rancière – in order to “think about thinking” and offer new and surprising answers to the question: How can we educate students to think creatively and critically? Despite their differences, all of these philosophers challenge the modern understanding of thinking, and offer original, radical perspectives on it. In very different ways, each rejects the modern approach to thinking, as well as the reduction of proper thought to rationality, situating thinking in sociohistorical reality and relating it to political action. Thinking, they argue, is not a natural, automatic activity, and the need to think has become all the more important as political reality seems to exhibit less thinking, or to even celebrate thoughtlessness. Bringing these continental conceptions of thinking to bear on the urgent need to educate young people to think against the current, this book makes a significant contribution to educational theory and political philosophy, one that is particularly relevant in today’s anti-intellectual climate. (The podcast focuses especially on Adorno's thoughts about thinking.) Kai Wortman is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Education, University of Tübingen, interested in philosophy of education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

27 Apr 20211h 6min