Critical Theory: The Podcast

Joselyn Chuquillanqui joins Charles Smith and Giselle Williams of Columbia's WKCR for a conversation on union organizing at Starbucks. Joselyn Chuquillanqui, 28, of Elmont, was fired on July 27 after what she describes as months of being targeted by managers, who she also claims caused the Great Neck store’s April union vote to fail. While all 11 store employees initially signed petition cards for...

Professor Alyssa Battistoni joins Charles Smith and Giselle Williams of Columbia's WKCR for a conversation on union organizing and the future of work. This conversation is part of the Utopia 13/13 seminars at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought. Professor Battistoni joined us for Utopia 3/13 at the Jerome Greene Annex on October 26, 2022. You can find the full recording from the...

Professor Étienne Balibar joins Charles Smith and Giselle Williams of Columbia's WKCR for a conversation on the critical theoretic foundations for concrete utopias. This conversation is part of the Utopia 13/13 seminars at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought. Professor Balibar joined us for Utopia 1/13 at the Maison Française on September 28, 2022. You can find the full recording...

In episode 5 of Critical Theory: Bernard E. Harcourt explores the utility of genealogical critique for revolutionary praxis. This presentation serves as a conclusion to this year’s 13/13 seminar that has interrogated the relationship between critical theory and revolutionary practice by examining the written works of worldly, revolutionary philosophers. This episode focuses precisely on the place...

Episode 4: George Jackson and Revolutionary Prison Writings with Paul Redd former member of the Short Corridor Collective, Pelican Bay State Prison, California. In episode 4 of Critical Theory: The Podcast, Bernard E. Harcourt sits down with Paul Redd, who was incarcerated for 46 years in California, 35 of them in solitary confinement, and was released on May 21, 2020, to discuss the influence of...

Episode 3: The Counterrevolution in Brazil, with Augusto Jobim do Amaral, Fernanda Martins, Antonio Pele, and Jesús Sabariego. Taped in Brazil. In episode 3 of Critical Theory: The Podcast, Columbia University Professor Bernard E. Harcourt investigates the shockingly high rates of police violence in Brazil, in an effort to understand, in conversation with four brilliant critical theorists in Brazi...

In Episode 2 of Critical Theory: The Podcast, Bernard E. Harcourt sits down with Banu Bargu (UC Santa Cruz) to discuss her book Starve and Immolate: The Politics of Human Weapons (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014) and the weaponization of life in relation to praxis.

Episode 1: The New Age of Riots, with Joshua Clover. In the first episode of Critical Theory: The Podcast, Professor Bernard E. Harcourt (Columbia University) and Professor Joshua Clover (UC Davis) discuss Clover's new book Riot. Strike. Riot. (Verso, 2016), its implications for a critical practice of revolt, and the frontiers of contemporary critical thought. Clover provocatively opens his book:...