Next month, I will teach a class for inmates in the DC jail as part of the JCI Prison Scholars Program. I'll most definitely plan to write about the class. Here is the syllabus for the course. Key Themes in Social and Political Thought JCI Prison Scholars Program, May – July 2018 In this course, …
Dissolving the I in the We: Love and the Problem of Community
I'm giving a lecture at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, NY called “Dissolving the I in the We: Love and the Problem of Community.” This lecture is a part of the annual St. Thomas More lecture series in ethics. I plan to address the theme of community and look more specifically at the function and …
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Colloquium Workshop: “Islam and Psychoanalysis”
You can attend a workshop I'm pleased to offer on the topic of "Islam and Psychoanalysis" at Georgetown University. Here are the details and a link to the suggested reading: Daniel Tutt: “Islam and Psychoanalysis” Time:Wednesday, February 28th, 12:30pm Location: Georgetown University, ICC 450 **Open to the public. Food provided The Department of Arabic and Islamic …
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Whither the critique of political economy in post-Marxism?
In my dissertation, I made an argument that the decisionism of Badiou, Zizek, Laclau and other so-called 'post-Marxist' theorists is derived from an intra-theoretical debate amongst left-Heideggerians, specifically against the pervasive authenticity politics and existentialist politics of the time. I argue that Lacan's 'ontology of lack' was the alternative formula that enabled these thinkers to …
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Embracing Fragmentation
Derrida famously opens Specters of Marx with a meditation on the motif in Hamlet that "time is out of joint." This reference provokes many implications, but the core condition of time being out of joint is inactivity and passivity in the face of time. Time being out of joint for Hamlet touched both the register …
Something Bigger: Lady Bird and the Divinity of the Name
“a something, a greater than which cannot be conceived.” St. Anselm Amidst the fanfare and excitement over Lady Bird, a lingering debate about the film is whether the family of Lady Bird really "lived in poverty." Some people want to suggest that her position was really just lower middle class striving, a more ordinary American family struggling …
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Vultures and Starlings: Class and Debt Feudalism in Ozark
The European Starling was first introduced to America by a Shakespeare enthusiast who felt that New York city, already a booming theater-going town in the early 1800's, must have every species of bird Shakespeare ever wrote about. Just last year, 1.7 million of these foreign Starlings were poisoned and put to death. It's now legal …
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Obscure Subjects: Myth and Metapolitics on the alt-Right
I have a new blog/essay up at the Critical Theory Research Network called "Obscure Subjects: Myth and Metapolitics on the alt-Right." Here is an overview: In this piece, I consider the syndicalist intellectual Georges Sorel and his influence on early 20th century fascism in France and Italy prior to the rise of the Nazis in …
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Insurrections Vol. 1 (SHORT FILM)
You can watch a new short film I directed on the theory of insurrections and resistance. This film project has been a passion of mine for some time, and I am excited to share the story in a series of installments. Below please watch and share Volume 1. Subscribe and follow us on Facebook for …
Lukács, labor and the humanization of man
The premise that the economic sphere impacts the moral sphere of society is well accepted. Marxists claim such a separation of these spheres, whether in functional or analytic analysis results in idealism. Thus, the wager that the task of critique is to isolate or show how an autonomy of these spheres is possible is deeply …
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A post clash of civilizations framework?
What if Trump's upcoming speech in Saudi Arabia signifies a shift at the level of discourse -- one that effectively propels international relations into a new, post clash of civilizations framework? A post clash framework no longer requires any allusion to the idea that the west has a moral duty to help Islam revive its lost greatness, …
The best books I read in 2016
With 2016 now entering its final days, it's time to give this brutish year a proper send off by taking inventory of some of the best books I've read over the span of the year. While not every book one reads delivers on its promise or even manages to leave an impact, some books certainly …
Jameson on Badiou: Ships Passing in the Night
The American Marxist literary theorist Fredric Jameson's latest article in the New Left Review, "Badiou and the French Tradition" (full PDF here) ends by noting the most important omissions Badiou makes throughout his oeuvre. I find Jameson's reading of Badiou highly contradictory and sloppy at times. Jameson gives us a reading of Badiou that takes …
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The Theory of the Social Bond in Gauchet
I finished a careful reading of Marcel Gauchet’s The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion. He works with a method that is quite innovative, one part genealogy, one part philosophical anthropology. Gauchet is a working class liberal in terms of his politics. However he pulls from a rich set of post WW …
Theory Without an Enemy
Enemy-creation is the enterprise of contemporary politics. Temporary enemies proliferate all around us, from the immigrant, the bureaucrat, to the Mexican, to the Muslim--we all know these figures are little false flags which hide a more confused politics. The temporary enemy is a substitute for the true enemy as they offer an object by which …
Islamophobia and the Coming Trump Era
What we know right now is that the Trump era lies ahead of us. The immediate intervallic period between now and late January when he assumes office will be a time of increasing fear met with protest and resistance against the way things turned out on 11/9 and against the sinking reality that we face four …
Help Fund My Documentary Film on Philosophy and Revolt
Dear Reader, I am writing you a more personal post to ask for your help. If you have enjoyed my writing, if it has been helpful to you in any way, I ask that you consider helping my crowdfunding campaign to bring the world of ideas to film. As you may know, I have been working …
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Is Conversion Possible?
What if we began to view leftist revolutionary thought as inextricably tied up with the problem of religious conversion? After all, a convert to revolutionary positions is far different than the merely philosophical conversionary model of Plato and St. Augustine, which is a cognitive level conversion. For Plato, conversion is when the individual develops a newfound commitment to …
Insurrections and the Role of Philosophy
Here is the abstract of my talk at the upcoming Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World conference happening July 23rd-27 at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. My talk will include a rough trailer and some clips from the film Insurrections that I am directing. I welcome your feedback on this abstract. “Insurrections and the …
The Political Appeal of Ibn Taymiyyah
Ibn Taymiyyah looms large in today's imaginary; he is an untouchable authority in the minds of many Muslims. If you watch Salafi videos on YouTube, you'll notice the hagiography around the man clouds many of his followers from engaging him on a serious or critical level. Some scholars are told to avoid him outright, while …
