Red Medicine

Lynne Tillman discusses her recent book Mothercare. In one of the few examples of Lynne writing about her own life, Mothercare documents the period when her mother develops and then sadly passes from a rare health condition. Lynne Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, cultural critic and author of various books including Haunted Houses, Weird Fucks, American Genius and Men and Apparitions. Sh...

In this episode Malcolm Harris describes  the interconnected histories of eugenics and American capitalism in California throughout the 19th and 20th Century as well as how this history shapes tech and politics today. Malcolm Harris is an American journalist, critic and editor. He is the author of three books, the most recent of which is titled Palo Alto: A History of California Capitalism and the...

In this episode Natasha Lennard reports on the story of two reproductive rights activists who are being charged under a law intended to protect abortion clinics, as well as the broader implications this may have on the struggle for reproductive care and bodily autonomy more generally. Natasha Lennard is a columnist for The Intercept. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Bookforum and the New York...

Mark Spencer updates us on the struggle to stop the Atlanta Police Foundation building the largest police training facility in the US in Weelaunee Forest, Atlanta. He also explains why ‘health’ is a useful lens by which to understand the overlapping processes of racial capitalism, ecological destruction and the expanding carceral state in Atlanta and elsewhere. Mark Spencer has a MD from Georgetow...

Nadia Abu El Haj describes the history of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and what it reveals about psychiatry, American imperialism and anti-war politics. She tracks PTSD’s shifting status in medical discourse from Vietnam war veteran 'rap groups' through to its depoliticized iteration in the 21st century. Nadia Abu El-Haj is Ann Whitney Olin Professor in the Departments of Anthropology at Barnard...

In this episode James Wilt explains how alcohol corporations have caused and profited from a health crisis relating to drinking. He explains how capitalist accumulation and expansion has caused a health crisis that disproportionally effects working class, racialized and colonized communities internationally.  We also discuss how the left need to balance the complex harms caused by the corporate al...

Founded by friend of the show, Hannah Zeavin, Parapraxis is a new magazine about psychoanalysis with a commitment to uncovering the psychosocial dimensions of life. In this conversation Alex Colston and M.E. O'Brien discuss what it means to think psychoanalytically about politics and politically about psychoanalysis. As well as their experiences of putting together the magazine.   M. E. O’Brien wr...

Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi discuss what it means to practice psychoanalysis in Palestine under constant attack from the settler colonial project of the Israeli state. They explain how Palestinian clinicians see their role in the liberation struggle and what their work teach us about the relationship between the psychic and the political.  Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington  www.redmedicine.xyz SUPP...

In the second in a two-part interview with Beatrice Adler-Bolton, she discusses the work and legacy of the Socialist Patients Collective. Beatrice is a writer, artist & co-host of Death Panel, a podcast about the political economy of health. She is a co-author, (along with Artie Vierkant) of the recently published Health Communism from Verso Books. www.redmedicine.xyz Twitter: @Red_Medicine__ Soun...

In this, the first of a two-part interview, Beatrice Adler-Bolton explains how capitalism shapes what we think of as health. Beatrice explains how health communism provides us with the tools to critique the National Health Service from the left. Specifically, we discuss the the long history of healthcare being used as a way to discipline and punish the working class and why we shouldn’t be afraid...

Chelsea A Jackson is an academic, activist and member of Cradle Community which is a collective of organizers committed to radical education and building understanding of prison abolition and transformative justice. Last year the collective published their first book with Hajar Press. Titled Brick by Brick , the book provides an introduction to abolitionist theory and a manifesto for those of us w...

In this episode Dr Rita Issa discusses the forthcoming strikes in the NHS. She explains the ongoing pressures faced by healthcare workers including austerity, privatization and poor working conditions and pay. Rita also explains how the COVID-19 pandemic has made all of these things worse and how workers are organizing ahead of unprecedented strike action in an attempt to turn things around for th...

Sophie Lewis explains how the family shapes care in capitalist societies and what health might look like in a society that is no longer structured around the institution of the family. Drawing on the works of Marx, Alexandra Kollontai, Charles Fourier and the gay liberationists, she presents us with a radically different approach to healing and care. Sophie is a freelance writer living in Philadel...

Joe Glenton reflects on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu’s complex and intimate relationship with various currents of right-wing politics. He explores the dominant cultures within BJJ including the prevalence of reactionary conspiracy theories and how Brazilian fascism continues to shape the upper echelons of the sport. We also discuss Comunidade Jiu Jitsu , an invitation only gym founded to create a welcoming...

In this episode James Schneider outlines a strategy for the left in Britain drawing on his new book OUR BLOC: How We Win . He argues that the left must organize an alliance of socialists in Parliament, the Labour grassroots, the trade unions and social movements. Specifically, Schneider reflects on the severity of our current crisis, the tentative confidence of the British left and why demands aro...

Lewis R Gordon discusses the philosopher, psychiatry and revolutionary Frantz Fanon as well as his own work on Black consciousness. Gordon is a philosopher, educator, public intellectual and the author of numerous books on topics including existentialism, phenomenology and postcolonial theory. His most recent book The Fear of Black Consciousness was published earlier this year by Penguin and Macmi...

Writer Hannah Zeavin discusses the politics of the psychoanalytic encounter. Specifically she explores the supposed neutrality of the psychotherapist, the relationship between analysis and political organizing, and The Psycho-Social Foundation, the nonprofit educational organization for which she is the founding editor. Hannah Zeavin is a scholar, writer, and editor whose work centers on the histo...

Historian John Foot discusses the movement in 1960s Italy to reform and eventually abolish the psychiatric asylum system. Specifically, he’ll be focusing on the work of Franco Basaglia, whose antifascist politics drove him to radically alter the way in which mental health treatment is managed in Italy.  John Foot is a historian and author based at the University of Bristol. He is the author of num...

Object Relations is a series of discussions about the relationship between politics and the psyche produced in collaboration with The Polyphony. Taking its name from the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s theory of how psyches develop in relationship to one another, this series will explore some questions about the politics of psychotherapy, psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Episodes will be published eve...

In this episode Boris Groys discusses his new book Philosophy of Care which has recently published with Verso Books. In Philosophy of Care Groys engages with figures such as Plato, Nietzsche, Bataille in the hopes of revealing the nature of care and its role in society.  @red_medicine__  www.redmedicine.xyz Soundtrack by Matt Browne Artwork by Ava Gardner  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine...

Mark Neocleous is Professor of the Critique of Political Economy at Brunel University London and the author of numerous books including Critique of Security , The Fabrication Of Social Order , and War Power, Police Power . His most recent book, which has just published with Verso, is called The Politics of Immunity: Security and the Policing of Bodies and in it he explores the obsession with immun...

The Young Lords were a revolutionary group active throughout the 60s and 70s who organized around Puerto Rican liberation, international socialism and the radical expansion of public health. Writer, academic, educator, activist and author Johanna Fernadez, explores their contribution to the politics of health, their critique of the carceral state and why their analysis is still relevant and import...

In this conversation San Francisco based writer and academic Erik Davis explores whether or not the distinction between ‘alternative’ and ‘mainstream’ medicine still exists and if it doesn’t, what the implications might be for public health, political organizing, and our own relationships to healing.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington Twitter: @red_medicine__...

Gabriel Winant, author of The Next Shift, discusses how deindustrialization made way for an economy built on a foundation of health care, a sector which currently employs more Americans than any other industry.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington Twitter: @red_medicine__ www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Samples taken from "Crisis In A Crowd" documentary about the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic - https://bit.ly/3ukxhtI Graphics by Ava Gardner  Soundtrack by Matthew Browne  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington Twitter: @red_medicine__ www.redmedicine.substack.com/