• Neo-Fascism and the Ideology of Desire: On Michel Clouscard’s Critique of Freudo-Marxism
    Neo-Fascism and the Ideology of Desire: On Michel Clouscard’s Critique of Freudo-Marxism

    When Nietzsche discovered Stendhal it was rather late in his life, but he remarked that reading Stendhal was “one of the most beautiful strokes of fortune of my life.” This is exactly how it felt for me to discover Michel Clouscard. It was Marx who woke me from a dogmatic slumber out of left-Nietzscheanism; Clouscard […]

    What Do Vice Presidents Do?
    What Do Vice Presidents Do?

    I was reflecting on the wisdom I acquired in one of my early college classes, “Introduction to American Government,” and subsequent historical readings. First, the conventional wisdom of American political life was that Vice Presidents are rarely of any administrative or political consequence. Generally, sitting Vice Presidents represent the United States at funerals of foreign […]

    “Techno-Feudalism” Is a Myth: John Bellamy Foster on Capitalism, MAGA, and China
    “Techno-Feudalism” Is a Myth: John Bellamy Foster on Capitalism, MAGA, and China

    What defines global capitalism today?

    The Activist Humanist w/ Caroline Levine
    The Activist Humanist w/ Caroline Levine

    We speak with Caroline Levine, Ryan Professor of the Humanities in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell University, about her important book The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (Princeton University Press, 2023). Building on the theory developed in her award-winning book, Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network, Levine’s The Activist Humanist redirects the critical capacities of formalist literary study to discover and mobilize the democratic potential of political forms thought by many on the left to be irredeemably exclusive, violent, and anti-democratic.

    Nikolai Gogol’s Department of Government Efficiency
    Nikolai Gogol’s Department of Government Efficiency

    Almost two centuries after its opening night, Gogol’s five-act satirical play The Government Inspector continues to create a stir with every performance, seemingly no matter where. Maybe because corruption and self-serving double-talk aren’t just familiar features of 19th-century Russia, but have become ingrained facets of all systems of government and officialdom, making them recognizable to […]

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