Thinking With... A Rhetorical Theory Podcast

Thinking With... A Rhetorical Theory Podcast

By Nate DeProspo, John Muckelbauer, and Nathaniel StreetSociety & CulturePhilosophy
Download on the App Store

Thinking With... A Rhetorical Theory Podcast episodes

  • EP 10 - The Error of Dread: Why Ethics Isn't "For" Us

    0:00-11:00

    • the Understanding vs Self-Consciousness
    • the shape of knowledge in Hegel
    • progress and teleology


      • 11:00-20:00

      • the logic of the proposition
      • essentiality vs performativity
      • the “real” as mobile rather than static


        • 20:00-29:00

        • failure and lack vs multiplicity
        • fear of error; dread

          • 22:05 - a transformer explodes on John’s street

          • the taming function of the Understanding


            • 29:00 - end

            • Hegel’s ethics
            • Hegel’s theism
            • immersion in complexity
            • the “should” claims or policy claims in Hegel
            • virtue theory
              • 51 min
            • EP 9 - Propositions and Other Delusions

              Hegel’s Authoritative Tone (start)

              Post-Human Idealism (6:00)

              Inversion of Plato’s Idealism (10:15)

              ¶56 and the Shame of Learning (20:53)

              Demand of Metareflection (25:43)

              Imperiousness of the Text (34:48)

              Textual Auto-Deconstruction (40:44)

              Hegel’s Argument about Arguments (47:00)

              Difficulty of Philosophical Writing (54:13)

              1 hr 19 min
            • EP 8 - Math and Other (Lifeless?) Repetitions

              0:00-8:16

              • john’s turning point on reading Hegel
              • Hegel as a thinker of movement
              • dialectical monism


                • 8:16-18:40

                • paragraph 46 of the preface
                • Bridging Deleuze and Hegel... both thinkers of movement, both critics of representational thinking
                • the problem with mathematical thinking


                  • 18:40-30:30

                  • math and philosophy
                  • the complex function of the Understanding


                    • 30:30-49:00

                    • “team” affirmation and “team” negation
                    • perennial and recurring debates in philosophy
                    • Hegel’s seriousness and its link to negation
                    • Nietzsche’s humor / Zizek’s humor
                    • Hegel’s arrogance


                      • 49:00-60:00

                      • the rarity of thinking in Hegel’s sense
                      • thinking happens to us
                      • creativity


                        • 60:00-end

                        • repetition in both Deleuze and Hegel
                        • repetition as a vehicle for creation
                        • repetition in nature
                        • Hegel prefigures quantum physics
                        • autopoiesis
                          • 1 hr 14 min
                        • EP 7 - One or Several Hegels?
                          Why do humans matter? (start)
                          No, seriously, why do humans matter? (8:30)
                          Theological and Anthropological Hegels (16:11)
                          Differentiation on a Flat Ontological Plan (29:24)
                          Monisms and Dualisms (37:15)
                          Living Life on the Flat Plane (43:03)
                          “New forms of fucking life man; that’s what we’re talking about”! (50:10)
                          The Necessity of Lingering (58:08)
                          1 hr 14 min
                        • EP 6 - Cutting, Blurring, and the Agony of Overcoming the Human
                          Jimmy Butler Works Out Too Hard (Start)
                          Blurring the Production/Consumption Divide (1:10)
                          On Enemies and Indistinction (11:45)
                          On (Meta)Reflection and Decision (22:50)
                          On the Supposed Superiority of the Inside (33:35)
                          Post/Humanism (41:10)
                          The Unavoidability of Invention (55:00)
                          Hey, we read some Hegel! (1:09:50)
                          1 hr 14 min
                        • EP 5 - On the Curious Desire for Conceptual Stability

                          0:00-5:00

                          • basketball talk


                            • 5:00-14:00

                            • talking around paragraph 21 of the preface
                            • totalizing impulse in Hegel
                            • maintaining distinctions, identity, branding in scholarship
                            • Barad and branding in academia
                            • external pressures, publishing industry
                            • deconstruction


                              • 14:00-23:00

                              • Deleuze and identity
                              • Deleuze and Foucault (“anti-dialectical”) vs Hegel
                              • Why do certain thinkers (such as Deleuze and Foucault) resist Hegel so fiercely?
                              • the ethics of negation vs the ethics of affirmation


                                • 23:00-30:00

                                • why are we invested, respectively in Hegel and/or Deleuze?
                                • what does each thinker offer for the rhetorical theorist?
                                • Deleuze’s emphasis on experimentation
                                • Hegel’s anti-utopianism
                                • the relentless march of negation


                                  • 30:00-44:30

                                  • how to read theorists in the field of rhet / comp
                                  • criticism vs response
                                  • inhabiting the text
                                  • endorsements / dogmatisms


                                    • 44:30-55:00

                                    • “resting” in certain concepts or ontologies
                                    • implicit moralisms in philosophy and theory
                                    • the relentless criticisms of Hegel, Adorno


                                      • 55:00-67:00

                                      • the potential dangers of Enlightenment thinking
                                      • styles of appropriation
                                      • eating / taste / vulgar “appropriation”
                                      • John doesn’t like beer


                                        • 67:00-end

                                        • habits, desires
                                        • theory’s discomforts
                                        • the difficulty of “embracing” difference
                                        • facilitating self-consciousness or self-awareness
                                        • various shapes of self-awareness
                                        • “glom on” or “latch on” ?
                                          • 1 hr 25 min
                                        • EP 4 - Grading and Other Essences

                                          0:00-5:30

                                          • framework of the podcast
                                          • NBA references
                                          • commentary on academic culture


                                            • 5:30–18:10

                                            • politics of grading
                                            • grading and teaching styles


                                              • 18:10-24:30

                                              • institutional ethics
                                              • various institutional contexts and their effects on pedagogy


                                                • 24:30-29:00

                                                • paragraph 19
                                                • God, divine cognition
                                                • Hegel’s seriousness; his emphasis on suffering, labor, the tragic dimension of life


                                                  • 29:00-36:00

                                                  • (lost Nathaniel for a short chunk here)
                                                  • Hegel’s ostensible essentialism
                                                  • Zizek’s reading style; his reading of Hegel; Catherine Malabou’s reading of Hegel
                                                  • John’s suspicions of Zizek’s reading


                                                    • 36:00-45:40

                                                    • different valences of negation
                                                    • fascism as a component of the dialectic
                                                    • Hegel’s anti-humanism


                                                      • 45:40-end

                                                      • Hegel’s formalism
                                                      • Hegel’s philosophy of immanence
                                                      • engine of the dialectic
                                                        • 57 min
                                                      • EP 3 - In/Distinction

                                                        0:00-5:00 

                                                        • our particular investments in the text 
                                                        • affirmation and negation 
                                                        • Hegel and Deleuze 

                                                          • 5:00-22:20 

                                                          • abyss or multiplicity? void or response? 
                                                          • self-consciousness as thought through these terms 
                                                          • meta-reflection 
                                                          • subjectivity

                                                            • 22:20-34:30 

                                                            • Hegel and Nietzsche 
                                                            • will to power 
                                                            • active and reactive force 
                                                            • the appeals of their various approaches or dispositions 

                                                              • 34:30-51:00 

                                                              • paragraph 17 of the Preface 
                                                              • the basic movement of the dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) 
                                                              • Hegel’s simultaneous critique of empiricism and subjectivism
                                                              • immediacy as mediation 

                                                                • 51:00-1:01:00 

                                                                • paragraph 18 
                                                                • self-alienation 
                                                                • teleology and development in the Hegelian system
                                                                • positing your own presuppositions 

                                                                  • 1:01:00-end 

                                                                  • Why does Hegel so forcefully distinguish himself from other philosophers, other systems? 
                                                                  • distinctiveness vs. indistinction 
                                                                  • thinking as the thing-in-itself
                                                                    • 1 hr 16 min
                                                                  • EP 2 - How to Read Theory (and Complications)

                                                                    The entire episode is engaged in the question of how to read theory, using Hegel as a jumping off point. We discuss philosophy as a matter of "taste" (beginning around minute 5), the "both/and" responses to binaries (around minute 12), as well as the function of critique (what we term "generous reading" vs. "adversarial reading" - around 32). In addition to Hegel, and beginning around 30 minutes in, we use Karen Barad's work and her reception in the field of rhetoric as a recurring example (that concludes around minute 65). We conclude by looking closely at a passage of Hegel that illustrates some of the dynamics we have been discussing throughout (70-end). 

                                                                    1 hr 22 min
                                                                  • EP 1 - Styles of Reading / Academic Dispositions / Hegel's "Appropriation Machine"

                                                                    0:00-5:00

                                                                    • shooting the shit


                                                                      • 5:00 - 13:00

                                                                      • styles of reading, styles of teaching


                                                                        • 13:00-20:00

                                                                        • pedagogy, authority, academic types/dispositions


                                                                          • 20:30-30:00

                                                                          • we get into Hegel and start with paragraph 13 of the preface


                                                                            • forms of knowledge: Hegel’s Understanding vs. Self-Consciousness


                                                                              • the condition of possibility for scientific knowledge


                                                                                • 30:00-36:00

                                                                                • in the shift between theoretical paradigms, are there historical ruptures or stylistic breaks?


                                                                                  • 36:00-40:00

                                                                                  • the democratic impulse of the text


                                                                                    • 40:00-49:00

                                                                                    • Hegel’s problems with romanticism, intuitionism


                                                                                      • 49:00-56:00

                                                                                      • the totalitarian tone of the text; the “appropriation machine”


                                                                                        • 56:00-1:00

                                                                                        • Hegel’s symptomatology
                                                                                          • 1 hr 2 min

                                                                                        About Thinking With... A Rhetorical Theory Podcast

                                                                                        From the publisher's feed

                                                                                        “Thinking With..." is a pedagogical experiment that serves as an invitation to think along with the text, with us, and with each other. We are three academics who specialize in Rhetorical Theory: Nate…