Everyday Anarchism

Continuing my series, Batman vs. Anarchism, I'm joined on this episode by my esteemed colleague David Hill to discuss Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. David and I discuss David Graeber's theory that all of Nolan's Batman villains are anarchists - and what it means that Batman is a heroic terrorist. You can check out Graeber's original essay, Super Position, or hear my introduction to this series...

Although we lost David Graeber several years ago, we are still getting the bittersweet joy of reading new books by him. This week, Cory Doctorow joins me to discuss Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia , a short book in which Graeber convincingly melds the oral histories he learned while doing doctoral research in Madagascar with 17th century European tales of a pirate kingdom on Madagasca...

On this episode, Mark Bittman and Ricard Salvador discuss our broken food system and what we can do about it. Jumping off from Mark's fantastic book, Animal, Vegetable, Junk , we discuss the exploitative nature of the food system, why it's poisoning people and the planet, and how the corporate-captured USDA and FDA can't do anything about it. What comes next? We're not exactly sure - but it's goin...

Lawrence Rhu, my undergraduate mentor and friend of more than two decades, joins me today to discuss Stanley Cavell, one of his mentors and one of American philosophy's most idiosyncratic and humanist thinkers. Spurred by the publication of the recent posthumous publication of Cavell's Here and There: Sites of Philosophy , Larry and I talk about the affinities between Cavell, Emerson, and everyday...

Today I'm joined by the author Scott Branson to discuss their book Practical Anarchism . Scott and I discuss the similarities between our approaches, as well as some key differences related to terminology. For more from Scott, you can check out The Final Straw Radio , a podcast and radio show that they co-host.

Also known as Fully Automated Luxury Queer Space Anarchism This week, 3 of my former students - Joy Frost, Mark Muchane, and Rook Schrader - join me to discuss Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. These three students and I made a class about the concept - a class that was banned by our school! Lucky for you, the students made it happen anyway, and share what they learned in this episode. H...

Ruth Kinna joins me to discuss Anarchic Agreements: A Field Guide to Collective Organizing , from PM Press. In this very short book, Ruth and her collaborators (Alex Prichard, Thomas Swann, and Seeds for Change) lay out a series of questions and possibilities which face any attempt at anarchist organizing, dealing directly with the seeming contradiction of anarchist constitutionalizing. The book a...

This podcast finally turns its attention to the Kurdish Women's Movement in Rojava. My guest is Dilar Dirik, whose new book The Kurdish Women's Movement: History, Theory, Practice takes a sociological approach to examining and explaining the freedom struggle in Kurdistan over the past four decades. Dilar and I discuss the role of Abdullah Öcalan in the movement, connections between the movement an...

Mathematician Philip Ording joins me to discuss his book, 99 Variations on a Proof , in which he finds the solution to (or "proves" his solution to) the same cubic equation over and over and over again - each time in a different style. Philip and I discuss how this approach can be described as mathematical anarchism, how math can be understood as everything from inflexibly authoritarian to infinit...

My guest today is Brian Terrell, a member of the Catholic Worker, a goat farmer, a peace protester, and a personal friend of Dorothy Day. Brian discusses the life and philosophy of Dorothy Day, helping us make sense of a movement which is both Catholic and anarchist. You can learn more about Brian's work with the Nevada Desert Experience here: http://nevadadesertexperience.org/ My previous episode...

David Goldblatt joins me to discuss the ethics of the 2022 World Cup. This World Cup is a triumph of corporate capitalism and corruption over workers' rights, human rights, and the environment. On the other hand, it's not clear that what David calls "a World Cup for our times" is really worse than any of the world sporting events held in places like China and Russia over the past decades. In this...

This week I'm joined by friend and colleague David Hill, composer of the Everyday Anarchism theme music! Our topic is Minima Moralia , a disconcerting book of aphorisms written by Theodor Adorno in the wake of the Holocaust. David and I discuss Adorno's legendary hatred of awesome things like jazz and anarchism, his role as an enemy of left-wing student activists in the 1960s, and the everyday nat...

I'm joined by game designer David Thompson to discuss his game Resist!, a solitaire card game about the Spanish Maquis's battle against Franco in the 1940s. David and I discuss the game design process, the little known history of the Spanish Maquis, and the way that the board game industry runs on mutual aid Here are links to David's description of designing the game and an account of the Spanish...

Although I'm a little late, I finally get around to honoring the 150th anniversary of the 1871 Paris Commune. My guest is Carolyn Eichner, author of The Paris Commune: A Brief History . We do an even briefer history of the Commune on this episode, as well as a discussion of the Commune's legacy and the sites in Paris you can visit to honor the Communards.

I'm joined today by Anthony Kaldellis, author of The Byzantine Republic and host of the podcast Byzantium and Friends . Anthony and I discuss how Byzantium, popularly associated with with bureaucracy and authoritarianism, depended on mass protests for political legitimacy.

What if Batman's biggest enemy isn't crime? What if his deepest fear isn't bats? What if the secret villain Batman faces in every Batman story is anarchism? I keep trying to go on hiatus, but I keep making new episodes. I guess this is Season/Phase 2. Enjoy!

In this episode, I sit down with Revolutions podcaster Mike Duncan to discuss Kropotkin's influence on the Russian Revolution, protesting in Macron's France, mutual aid during the worst of the pandemic, and whether our current political system can avoid another revolution. Many thanks to the people of Flyleaf Books, a wonderful Chapel Hill bookstore, who provided the venue for our interview. You c...

The authors behind the award-winning novel and TV series The Expanse join me to discuss the politics and sociology of the science fiction future they've created. The Expanse is not a dystopia or a utopia, just a regular ole topia, in which corporations and governments continue to compete and cooperate both with each other and with resistance movements and labor unions. But in space! Daniel, Ty, an...

This week's episode is an edition of my new podcast, AIdeas . Oscar Wilde imagined an anarchist utopia without drudgery and without slavery. How did he propose to accomplish this? Automation. Here's the article about American slavery that I mentioned by Nell Irvin Painter: How We Think About the Term "Enlsaved" Matters Subscribe to AIdeas for more!

This week's guest is J. Bradford DeLong, author of the new economic history of the 20th century, Slouching Towards Utopia . Brad and I discuss William Morris, pre-industrial civilization, jobs versus occupations, and how much blame anarchists deserve for ruining the world. Brad and I had a bit of trouble with our setup, so the audio on his end is a bit rough.

One year later, Everyday Anarchism continues! In this episode, Ruth Kinna and I discuss William Morris, the brilliant craftsman/poet/artist who set out to defeat capitalism when he realized that the forces of commerce wouldn't let craftspeople make a living unless they sold their wares to wealthy. Just don't call him an anarchist. You can also hear Ruth's previous appearances on Everyday Anarchism...

My guest this week is Jon Raymond, novelist and screenwriter, whose most recent book, Denial , imagines a world in 2052 in which climate justice has been delivered via Nuremberg-style trials, climate catastrophe has been avoided, and climate change denial has nevertheless continued. Jon and I discuss Denial , as well as Night Moves , the film he wrote about a group of activists planning a bombing...

This week we will survey nihilism in Russian literature with Maya Slater and Nicolas Pasternak Slater, translators of a new edition of Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Children . Turgenev's novel introduced nihilism as an idea to an entire generation of Russian dissidents - including Kropotkin. Join me as the Slaters show how nihilism is portrayed in this epoch-making novel, as well as famous depiction...

This week's episode is an edition of my new podcast, AIdeas . How should we teach AI about human ethics? Simple: anarchism! Subscribe to AIdeas for more!

In this episode of Anarchism 101: An Anarchist Syllabus , I'm joined by Jacqueline Jones, author of Goddess of Anarchy, to discuss Lucy Parsons and her legacy.