In this episode, we are joined by special guest Tommie Shelby to discuss the arguments presented in his most recent book, The Idea of Prison Abolition. We talk about the social functions that prisons serve, whether any of those are legitimate, and what the differences are between radical reformist and abolitionist positions. This conversation is wide-ranging, making connections between lots of left-wing debates, from how we explain the emergence of unjust institutions to how we argue for social transformation.

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition (Harvard University Press, 2022)

Tommie Shelby, Dark Ghettos: Injustice, Dissent, and Reform (Harvard University Press, 2016)

Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity (Harvard University Press, 2005)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

This is a short promo for Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation (Oxford University Press, 2025), written by WLOP’s very own Will Paris. You can find the book here: 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/race-time-and-utopia-9780197698877?cc=ca&lang=en&.

And check out Will’s interview about the book:

https://newbooksnetwork.com/race-time-and-utopia

Music:

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we tackle Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. In this book, Nietzsche diagnoses the cultural pathologies of a Europe that no longer seems able to take risks and experiment with life. We discuss his account of nihilism, his aristocratic commitment to the breeding of new philosophers, and why it is important not to domesticate Nietzsche’s critiques of morality. Along the way, we unpack what Nietzsche would think of philosophers today and why he thinks they have such a hard time finding the truth. Come learn the philosophy of the future before it’s too late!

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy
References:

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to the Philosophy of the Future, edited by Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Judith Norman, translated by Judith Norman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

You read the title! Next month, Gil is teaching a class on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason at the Goethe Institute in downtown Chicago through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Enrollments are now open for anyone interested. Check out the course description and sign up here:

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/kants-critique-of-pure-reason-chicago/

Hope to see some of you there!

leftofphilosophy.com

Music: Titanium by AlisiaBeats

In this episode, we discuss Eric Blanc’s new book about the strategies re-building U.S. labor today, as well as how they can translate across movements and borders. Though many smart philosophers have declared that the labor movement is dead, workers from Starbucks to Amazon have something else in mind. So, what’s left?

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Eric Blanc, We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big (The University of California Press, 2025).

https://www.laborpolitics.com

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the work of brilliant heterodox economist Karl Polanyi. We talk about his criticisms of neoclassical orthodoxy, his arguments against the commodification of land, labor, and money, and his critique of the dominance of markets in theory and in practice. Put markets in their place and regulate the hell out of them! We also consider his influence on recent leftist economic thought, and talk through what’s at stake in the difference between Marxist and Polanyian approaches to history and politics. We think there are limits to the Polanyi line, but it’s hard not to love an authentically humanist fellow traveler!

leftofphilosophy.com

References:

Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014).

Karl Polanyi, For a New West: Essays, 1919-1958, eds. Giorgio Resta and Mariavittoria Catanzariti (Malden: Polity Press, 2014).

Fred Block, “Karl Polanyi and the Writing of ‘The Great Transformation’”, Theory and Society 32:3 (2003), 275-306.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the work of the late, great Fredric Jameson. Basing ourselves on his Marxism and Form, The Political Unconscious, and Archaeologies of the Future, we talk about the notion that history is only accessible in narrative form, the concept of social totality, the tension between poststructuralist criticism and historical materialist thought, and the problems plaguing the increasingly specialized and alienated intellectual division of labor in our times. What do we want from cultural studies, and what do we want from the social sciences, in twenty-first century Marxist thought? It’s a spicy one.

This is just a short teaser. To hear the full episode, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form: 20th Century Dialectical Theories of Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974)

Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (New York: Cornell University Press, 1982)

Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (New York: Verso, 2005)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Black Reconstruction, and The Black Jacobins. What do these three texts have in common? They all aim to make a historical moment legible as a drama. In doing so, Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois, and C.L.R. James seem to show that history has a structure of repetition. But what could repetition mean? In this episode, we discuss an essay by the Japanese Marxist Kojin Karatani on Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire. We explore Karatani’s theory for why representative democracies seem condemned to degenerating into authoritarian crisis, what a Marxist concept of repetition could mean, and the relationships between political crises and economic crises. Come join us as we ring in a new year that has made it possible for “a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part.”

References:

Kojin Karatani, “On The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, trans. Seiji M. Lippit, in History and Repetition, ed. Seiji M. Lippit (Columbia University Press, 2012).

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil | @leftofphilosophy.bsky.social

music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN 

Another week, another German philosopher. This time, Steven Klein joins us to discuss the ideas and legacy of one Jürgen Habermas. We talk about his evolution alongside and away from the Frankfurt School, the enlightenment project at the core of his work, and why a critical theory born in crisis is a different animal than a critical theory born under conditions of relative capitalist stability. Love him or not, we can’t deny that Habermas is a giant of modern European philosophy. Shout out to the Habermaniacs.

leftofphilosophy.com | stevenmklein.com

References:

Jürgen Habermas, “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article,” trans. Sara Lennox and Frank Lennox, New German Critique  (3)(1974): 49-55. Original published in 1964.

Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Beacon Press, 1971). Original German published in 1968.

Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume Two: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, trans. Thomas McCarthy (Beacon Press, 1987).

Steven Klein, The Work of Politics: Making a Democratic Welfare State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). 

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

Here, we finally deliver on our longstanding threat to do an episode all about influential philosopher Martin Heidegger. We give him credit where it’s due: he has a compelling account of the conditions for meaningful existence along with a resonant critique of the alienation endemic to modern society, and is responsible for making important concepts like temporality, finitude, language and historicity into core themes of 20th century continental philosophy. Of course, he’s also an unrepentant Nazi, animated by fascist ideas like originary authenticity and racial destiny, an enemy of conceptual thinking in favor of obscurantist poetics, and an idealist loser who wants us to turn away from actual meaningful things here and now so we can begin to approach the fateful question of the meaning of Being as such. We don’t like him! And we're right.

This is just a short teaser, which I couldn't help but stylize as a horror movie trailer once I had the idea. To hear the full episode, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh (SUNY, 2010).

Martin Heidegger, “Letter on ‘Humanism’”, in Pathmarks, trans. William McNeill (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Martin Heidegger, “The Self-Assertion of the German University”, Review of Metaphysics 38:3 (1985): 470-480.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN