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Can a theory be so complete, so magistral, that it is dead on arrival?

That's the charge Baudrillard levels at Foucault in 'Forget Foucault', the 1977 book review that got him blacklisted from French theory and earned him the title "shame of the profession" from Deleuze. Cooper Cherry of Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour joins us to work through reversibility, seduction, the potlatch, and what Baudrillard thinks theory should actually be doing. We get into power, seduction, enucleation, courtly love, yearning versus craving, and Baudrillard's theory of fascism.

Listen to Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour: https://www.patreon.com/c/muhh/home

twitter: @unconscioushh

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​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

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In this intellectual biography, critic and philosopher Boris Groys turns to the Arthur Rimbaud of modern bureaucracy, Alexandre Kojève, a philosopher of little-known writings and profound influence. Kojève was fascinated with Hegel’s dialectics and with communism and envisioned a universal empire as the end of history. Kojève drew on Buddhism and also proclaimed himself a Stalinist. At the same time, he was one of the creators of a nascent European Union. His concept of the human as something defined by negation and unique among animals in being separated from nature is highly political. It explains why humans can never be fully satisfied by a political system based on their allegedly ‘natural’ rights.

Groys reveals a Kojève with a unique perspective on our political capacities and human condition.

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Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

Become a patron today and listen to all of our exclusive recordings: https://www.patreon.com/c/acidhorizonpodcast

Final AHRC Summer Series Courses enrolling now: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-courses

What if fascism isn't a break from capitalism but just capitalism finally being honest about itself? Craig sits down with the podcast's very own Adam C. Jones to unpack his essay "The Promise of Cruelty: Fascism and Social Murder," tracing Engels' concept of social murder through Nietzsche, Baudrillard, and the current far right. We dig into how neoliberalism redistributes cruelty as compensation when it can't redistribute wealth. We also address why today's "simulacral fascism" mobilizes people as consumers and fans rather than as an organized political base. A wide-ranging discussion where Marxist analysis confronts the concepts of Nietzsche, Baudrillard, and Bataille.

"The Promise of Cruelty: Fascism and Social Murder": https://prometheus-mag.com/2026/03/26/the-promise-of-cruelty-fascism-and-social-murder/

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Current classes at Acid Horizon Research Commons (AHRC): acidhorizonresearchcommons.com

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Website: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/

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Boycott Watkins Media: https://xenogothic.com/2025/03/17/boycott-watkins-statement/

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LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

Emma's anti-civ class: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-courses/p/anti-civilization-recovering-from-industry-and-progress

Watch this panel discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/epvd2MT04OM

Should we all live in communes? AHRC Panel Host Emma Stamm is joined by sociocultural anthropologist Fern Thompsett and environmental humanities scholar Henry Kramer to dig into the commune form, anti-civilization thinking, the reclamation of imagination, and what radical world-building actually looks like on the ground. 

The panel pushes back on the romanticized image of communes by arguing that the real work happens in the unglamorous everyday, weeding gardens, sorting recycling, arguing about seedlings, and that these experiments are far more common and historically ingrained than the '60s hippie stereotype suggests. The panelists also take seriously the critiques around race and privilege, reframing communal organization as something that marginalized communities have always practiced under different names and often out of genuine necessity.

This panel was produced as part of Acid Horizon Research Commons' free series of public philosophy panels and lectures. Each season we endeavor to bring rigorous, accessible conversation on ideas from across the humanities and humanities-adjacent disciplines that speak to the current historical conjuncture.

Links to Fern Thompsett's work: 

https://humanities.tufts.edu/people/fern-thompsett

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u6VX69F8Cxk&pp=ygUMZWNvdG9waWEgbm93

Link to Henry's work:

https://henryrkramer.com/

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Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

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Who owns your dignity, and what does it cost to get it back? Craig, Adam, and Emma work through Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on artificial intelligence, finding beneath its alleged radicalism a familiar liberal kernel: private property, mediated class relations, and a conspicuous absence of anything resembling class struggle. The launch event, staged with cardinals, worldly scholars, and an Anthropic representative, is a mise en scène of the double pincer, simultaneously legitimating AI as an inevitable apparatus of capture while reinstalling a figure of human dignity just fragile enough to need the Church's oversight. The second half of this conversation is available exclusively to patrons at patreon.com/acidhorizon.

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LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

Latest courses at AHRC: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-courses

If you could go back in time, would you change the past, even if it meant changing who you are? Is existing in time itself traumatic? Is power over time a cinematic endeavour, and what makes a good director an even better time traveller? This week on Acid Horizon we're joined by Kwasu D. Tembo to talk about his latest book Trauma in 21st-Century Time Travel Cinema, discussing the philosophy of time travel in films such as Primer, Timecrimes, and Predestination; as well as how the experience of time transcendentally conditions the structure of the psyche.

Buy Kwasu's book, Trauma in 21st-Century Time Travel Cinema
Being (a)Part: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/trauma-in-21stcentury-time-travel-cinema-9781978768734/

Phasmid Press: https://phasmidpress.org/

Public arts and philosophy events in Lancashire: https://j-e-w-e-l-l-e-r-s.net

Follow Kwasu on Substack: https://mapscrollanddagger.substack.com/

Kwasu's music: https://on.soundcloud.com/PjET6oqqQluhhGt3zw

https://on.soundcloud.com/gsh6ZRpYOwUizDOV8q

https://on.soundcloud.com/oNgo5GOz2xWetzYJrg

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Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast: https://pod.link/1512615438

Merch: http://www.crit-drip.com

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LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

Vintagia: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/vintagia-basecamp

Acid Horizon Research Commons summer courses: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-courses

Jack and Tonx on Instagram: @jack.chuter, @tonx

Craig's review in 'The Quietus': https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/boards-of-canada-inferno/

"Solidarity with Children" discussion on LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-can-we-build-159633309?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_fan&utm_content=web_share

Boards of Canada are (finally) back! Craig is joined by author and music writer Jack Chuter and Boards of Canada archivist Tonx (Tony Konecny) to review Inferno, the long-awaited new record from Scottish electronic legends Boards of Canada. Together we unpack the album's dense thematic terrain: the figure of the child, religious hierarchy, memory, trauma, and the dissolution of linear time, while sharing their firsthand experiences of the Inferno Sessions listening events held in London, Los Angeles, and New York. Whether you're a longtime devotee of the Hexagon Sun or a newcomer algorithmically deposited into our space, this conversation is an invitation to sit with one of the most ambitious and rewarding records of the past decade.

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Current classes at Acid Horizon Research Commons (AHRC): acidhorizonresearchcommons.com

AHRC Course Archive: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-course-archives

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Website: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/

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Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast: https://pod.link/1512615438

Merch: http://www.crit-drip.com

Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform: https://pod.link/1512615438

LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

How do we connect collective struggle with the search for justice? Adam is joined by historian Hazel Croft and theorist David Renton to discuss the concept of forgiveness and its strategic role in revolutionary struggles against structural and interpersonal harms. In doing so, we draw on our previous episode on the Comrade Delta scandal earlier this year, and the failure of Marxist organisations to develop new principles and procedures of justice and reparation. David's book "Revolutionary Forgiveness" out now via:

 https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2755-revolutionary-forgiveness   

For information on the secret trials of lawyers defending Palestine solidarity activists in the UK https://www.declassifieduk.org/contempt-case-against-palestine-action-barrister-creating-chilling-effect/

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Current classes at Acid Horizon Research Commons (AHRC): acidhorizonresearchcommons.com

AHRC Course Archive: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-course-archives

Submit your course proposal: [email protected]

More Links

Website: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Acid Horizon on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcast

Boycott Watkins Media: https://xenogothic.com/2025/03/17/boycott-watkins-statement/

Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast: https://pod.link/1512615438

Merch: http://www.crit-drip.com

Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform: https://pod.link/1512615438

LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

AHRC Courses: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-courses

What does Georges Bataille’s Guilty reveal about war, time, and the unstable ground of thought itself? In this episode, Craig and Adam speak with Stuart Kendall about Bataille’s confrontation with catastrophe, the “privileged instant,” and the strange oscillation between order and excess in his writing. The conversation explores how Guilty stages a meditation on war, nonknowledge, and the limits of philosophy at the edge of historical disaster. We also discuss Kendall’s essay “The Exacerbation of Instabilities,” featured in the Acéphalous Compendium, and preview his upcoming course on Bataille through the Acid Horizon Research Commons.

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Current classes at Acid Horizon Research Commons (AHRC): acidhorizonresearchcommons.com

AHRC Course Archive: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-course-archives

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More Links

Website: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Acid Horizon on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcast

Boycott Watkins Media: https://xenogothic.com/2025/03/17/boycott-watkins-statement/

Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast: https://pod.link/1512615438

Merch: http://www.crit-drip.com

Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform: https://pod.link/1512615438

LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/

Vintagia Second Run: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/vintagia-basecamp

AHRC Summer School 2026: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-courses

Buy A.J.'s book: https://www.versobooks.com/products/3239-the-cultural-marxism-conspiracy?srsltid=AfmBOopb7nUxKpzOmh6_QpxdBOvbaHwusliMo8ukxi8i1iCy29Ui1i5_

The definitive history of a dangerous right-wing conspiracy theory

“Cultural Marxism” is one of the far right’s favorite buzzwords. But despite its currency, the meaning and origins of the term are rarely investigated. This book uncovers the bizarre story of the cult leaders, right-wing intellectuals, and White House officials who believe a coterie of left-wing scholars and students is plotting to undermine Western civilization. Drawing on years of archival research and using the tools of critical theory, A.J.A. Woods reveals how a group of German thinkers known as the Frankfurt School was recast as the sinister orchestra-tors of a global conspiracy. Instead of simply debunking this conspiracy theory, Woods offers a sharp analysis and critique of the political movements that have declared war on all that passes for Cultural Marxism in the US, the UK, and Brazil.

Only when we understand the practices and weaknesses of those reactionaries committed to fighting this illusory threat—a conflict causing real-world damage—can we effectively resist. This is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand the ideological currents shaping politics in the twenty-first century.

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Current classes at Acid Horizon Research Commons (AHRC): acidhorizonresearchcommons.com

AHRC Course Archive: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-course-archives

Submit your course proposal: [email protected]

More Links

Website: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon

Acid Horizon on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcast

Boycott Watkins Media: https://xenogothic.com/2025/03/17/boycott-watkins-statement/

Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast: https://pod.link/1512615438

Merch: http://www.crit-drip.com

Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform: https://pod.link/1512615438

LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND

Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com

​Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/

​Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/