Theory & Philosophy

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I finish my presentation of "The Birth of Tragedy" to expound upon Nietzsche's commentary on his contemporary German situation and the implications of tragedy for the future.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I take a stab at Nietzsche (in)famous inaugural text, "The Birth of Tragedy." It is here that he tries to trace the history of tragedy (and art more generally) to the Ancient Greeks. Specifically, as the product of the tension between the gods Apollo and Dionysus.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I continue Madness & Civilization to present the ways that the asylum operates to 'correct' those people considered mad.

https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I take a stab at one of Foucault's first texts, "Madness & Civilization." In it he tries to disturb everything we know about madness and its treatment--the positivist assumptions about its coming into realization; the treatments believed to be therapeutic; and the influences behind the construction of asylums.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I'm joined by Jeremy Smith once again to continue our excavation of Laruelle's work. In this part, we continue our exploration of "Introduction to Generic Sciences," focusing specifically on the role of the generic in relation to the One, the subject-without-subject, and Truth-without-truth. Contact for Jeremy:  jsmit747@uwo.ca...

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I'm joined by Jeremy Smith once again to continue our excavation of Laruelle's work. In this part, we take on his "Introduction to Generic Sciences," an enigmatic, yet captivating, text that attends to the potential of non-philosophy (and many of his other concepts) to radically potentiate the sciences against their appropriati...

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I take on "The Evil Demon of Images," a text whose title contributes to what I believe to be a common misunderstanding about Baudrillard's work--the antithetical relationship assumed of simulation and reality.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I finish up Butler's "Gender Trouble." It is this episode that I dissect Butler's elusive notion of "performativity" and the potential it houses to challenge the oppressive regimen of sex.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy Note: *I discuss performativity at beginning and end of next episode!* In this episode, I take on Butler's "Gender Trouble," a seminal text in the fields of feminism and post-structuralism. Butler argues that some strands of feminist thought mistakenly attribute a transcendental significance to the idea of 'woman' that fails to account for the...

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode I explore what might be the last Baudrillard text I do. It is here that Baudrillard considers what is at stake with the advent of integral reality, the apotheosis of the oppressive simulacrum.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this text, we get a peak of Baudrillard's disdain for the West's global project of expansion, consuming otherness and thereby eradicating it under the pretense "scientific rationality," "truth," and "white superiority."

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, Andrew and I dive into the second half of Firestone's text to drive towards the destination she imagines a post-sex-dialectic world might look like.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I'm joined by Andrew Woods, PhD candidate in Theory and Criticism, to discuss Shulamith's brave text that dives head first into the history of sexism in the United States and what can be done to overcome it.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this one, we turn to Baudrillard's infamous "The Spirit of Terrorism." This text gained him some notoriety because of his repudiation of Western global power and seeming exaltation of terrorism.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I turn to Virilio's open sky, a key text to understanding some of his central concepts and concerns. I'm rather hard on Virilio in this one, and I look forward to anyone disagreeing with me for that reason.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I continue my presentation of this text paying close attention to Baudrillard's consideration of destiny, artificial intelligence and radical theory.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I tackle Baudrillard's "Impossible Exchange." This text is necessary to understand some of his developed concerns regarding death, cloning and immortality, each of which has undergone a radical overhaul in the contemporary world.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this final episode we are presented with schizoanalysis as a radical alternative to psychoanalysis. They are that schizoanalysis meets the ontological parameters of existence--being comprised of machines--and compels one to think not of themselves in terms of an overarching oedipal narrative, but rather to consider themselves as a machine am...

In this episode, I take a stab at the 3rd (of 4) chapters from Anti-Oedipus. It is in this chapter that they present a historical overview of Oedipus' retroactive intervention in every epistemic paradigm. To this intervention, they charge that Oedipus is but a stranger in those fields, unable to actually present a meaningful solution to the apparent 'problems' found in those fields.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I dive into the second (of four) chapters of Anti-Oedipus. It is here that they level their strongest critique of Oedipus and Freudian psychoanalysis while proposing an alternative way by which to understand the world: through syntheses.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I begin my dissection of Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, an enigmatic book to say the least. In this chapter we're presented with their conception of desiring-machines that opposes the totalizing framework of the Oedipal complex.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy   *NOTE* I don't think I did justice to Freud's discussion of neurosis towards the end. I'll have to save that for another episode. In this episode, I turn to Freud's work and his consideration of groups and the ego. In this book, Freud takes aim at the historical understanding of groups as a regressive phenomenon that, he argues, fails to reco...

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, we ask the haunting title's question. What does it mean to disappear? Is disappearance a recourse to nihilism or to some new possibility? I try to answer these questions by contextualizing this book within Baudrillard's overarching projects.

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I turn my attention to Baudrillard's "The Agony of Power." This one clarifies Baudrillard's position on power, locating it within the domain of hegemony as opposed to domination. The former presents a much more pernicious mode of oppression for Baudrillard because of its transparency and its illusion of democratic egalitarianis...

Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/theoryandphilosophy In this episode, I turn my attention to Sara Ahmed's "Queer Phenomenology." This book can be regarded as Ahmed's attempt to perform a queering of phenomenology while simultaneously sketching what a queer phenomenology might look like. To do this, she traverses through the phenomenological tradition to craft her own version of phenomenology and...