On this week’s episode we read Achille Mbembe’s On the Postcolony, focusing in particular on the Introduction and Chapters 5 and 6. We begin by discussing Mbembe’s analysis of the historical trajectory of Christian conversion and the divine libido in Chapter Six, “God’s Phallus” and its connection to Mbembe’s broader critique of rationality as constructed through eurocentric […]

Ep. 41 – Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony

Tune in to the Always Already Podcast for indulgent conversations about critical theory (in the broadest read of the term!). Our podcast consists of two episode streams. The first is a discussion of texts spanning critical theory, political theory, social theory, and philosophy. We work through and analyze main ideas, underlying assumptions, connections with other texts and theories, and occasionally delve into the great abyss of free association, ad hoc theory jokes, and makeshift puns. The second stream, entitled Epistemic Unruliness, consists of interviews and discussions with activists, artists, and academics whose “disobedient” work builds upon the themes of that arise in the texts we discuss and in our ongoing podcast conversations.  

In the first stream we also entertain the questions of friends and strangers and dole out slapdash advice about everything from massaging a head of Brooklyn kale to sweet talking a nebechy philosopher and dealing with the vagaries of academic life. We also put on our Freud-Klein-Lacan-Irigaray hats as we provide dream analysis to (always already anonymized) listener dreams.

Be a part by sending us text suggestions, interview ideas, advice questions to answer, and dreams to analyze. 

The Always Already Podcast is created by B Aultman, Rachel Brown, Emily Crandall, John McMahon, and James Padilioni, Jr. 
The text discussion episodes also entertain the questions of friends and strangers as we dole out slapdash advice to audience queries on everything from how to massage a head of Brooklyn kale to how to sweet talk a nebechy philosopher to how to deal with the vagaries of academic life. We also put on our Freud-Klein-Lacan hats as we provide dream analysis to (always already anonymized) listener dreams.

Tune in, and send us text suggestions, interview ideas, advice questions to answer, and dreams to analyze. 

The Always Already Podcast is created by B Aultman, Rachel Brown, Emily Crandall, John McMahon, and James Padilioni, Jr.

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We’re back! After a not-so-brief hiatus, we’re excited to bring you a very special and energizing episode. James and Sid talk with Dr. Vincent Lloyd about his latest book, Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination. In this lively conversation, your hosts and Vincent explore the new moral and political vocabulary of contemporary Black racial justice. […]

Interview: Dr. Vincent Lloyd on Black Dignity and the Struggle Against Domination — Epistemic Unruliness 38

Interview: Vincent Lloyd on Black Dignity — Epistemic Unruliness 38

In this episode, John is joined by his colleague, Dr. Breea Willingham, to discuss her multiple forms of work on higher education in prisons, both within and without academia. Their conversation about the new Journal of Higher Education in Prison, the Jamii Sisterhood, the States of Incarceration Project, and being a Black woman abolitionist in […]

Interview: Breea Willingham on Incarceration, Higher Ed, and Abolition – Epistemic Unruliness 37

Back from a hiatus in western Massachusetts, B joins John and special guest co-host Alyssa Ruth Mazer to discuss Miguel de Beistegui’s book The Government of Desire: A Genealogy of the Liberal Subject. What is a liberal subject and how does desire open up its discourses and genealogy and governmentalities? Did Beistegui try to out-Foucault…Foucault, […]

Ep. 72 – Miguel de Beistegui, The Government of Desire

In this episode, Emily and John welcome John’s colleague Gary Kroll for a discussion of Jedediah Purdy‘s After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. We map the contours of the book, asking questions about the scope of the argument and both the promises and limits of its framework. Throughout we interrogate the concepts of the Anthropocene, […]

Ep. 41 – Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony

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