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 …
Continue reading "Whither the critique of political economy in post-Marxism?"
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 …
“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 …
Continue reading "Something Bigger: Lady Bird and the Divinity of the Name"
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 …
Continue reading "Vultures and Starlings: Class and Debt Feudalism in Ozark"
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 …
Continue reading "Obscure Subjects: Myth and Metapolitics on the alt-Right"
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 …
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 …
Continue reading "Lukács, labor and the humanization of man"
