Critique of the Podcast Form

Critical Theory Working Group
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Philosophy

Critique of the Podcast Form is a bi-weekly podcast by the Critical Theory Working Group about Critical Theory, socialism, philosophy, Marxism, social theory, and everything in between. New episodes featuring the rotating cast of hosts and guests are posted every other Thursday. Visit https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/ for writing and updates.

  1. Oct 16

    Episode 29: Ibn Sina and Materialism

    In this episode, our islamogauchist subset discusses Ernst Bloch's gripping work Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left. On Bloch's account, the history of materialism inherits a problem from Aristotle out of which two opposing lineages emerge: a clerical right-wing that weaponizes the afterlife against feudal European class-society, and a left-wing inaugurated by Islamic Enlightenment figures Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd. Why should Marxists care? Does naturalism make us better communists? How can historical materialism account for hope? Let us leave you with a Maoist proverb: There's chaos under the heavens, the situation is excellent! Episode reading: Ernst Bloch. Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left. Translated by Loren Goldman and Peter Thompson. Columbia University Press, 2019. Recommend readings: Cat Moir. Ernst Bloch’s Speculative Materialism: Ontology, Epistemology, Politics. Historical Materialism Book Series 202. Brill, 2019. Charles T Wolfe., and John Symons. The History and Philosophy of Materialism. Rewriting the History of Philosophy. Routledge, 2025. Henk de Berg and Cat Moir, eds. Rethinking Ernst Bloch. Historical Materialism Book Series, volume 300. Brill, 2024. Karam AbuSehly. “Avicenna on Matter: Implications for Ernst Bloch’s Marxist Aesthetics.” ReOrient 3, no. 1 (2017): 4–22. Tapji Garba. 2020. “Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left, by Ernest Bloch, Trans. Loren Goldman and Peter Thompson”. Arc: The Journal of the School of Religious Studies 48 (December):149–152 If you want to support the show, donate to our Patreon, and visit our website for writing and updates Follow our socials: Twitter | @crit_theory_grp Bluesky | @crittheoryworkgrp.bsky.social Instagram | @criticaltheoryworkinggroup Patreon | https://www.patreon.com/crittheoryworkgroup

    Episode 29: Ibn Sina and Materialism

  2. Oct 2

    Bonus: Debrief Margin Notes 2, Excavations

    Critics & theorists, this is a bonus episode containing a recording of the presentation and discussion of “Excavations,” the second volume of our E-Journal Margin Notes: A Journal of Critical Theory, which took place on zoom on the 19th of September, 2026. The link to the journal: https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/projects/3_project/ If you want to support the show, donate to our Patreon, and visit our website for writing and updates Follow our socials: Twitter | @crit_theory_grp Bluesky | @crittheoryworkgrp.bsky.social Instagram | @criticaltheoryworkinggroup

    Bonus: Debrief Margin Notes 2, Excavations

  3. Sep 20

    Episode 28: On meta-meta science

    The CTWG Marxist science subcommittee returns! In this episode, we discuss Pietro Daniel Omodeo’s Political Epistemology, which develops the Berlin school of historical epistemology (discussed in episode 19!). We examine Omodeo’s enlarged conception of ideology as the dialectic of identity and position as applied to science studies broadly construed, what political epistemology even is, and how action, understood as the unity of praxis and poiesis, mediates history, the middle term between the polis and episteme. Episode reading: Pietro Daniel Omodeo. Political Epistemology: The Problem of Ideology in Science Studies. Springer, 2019.Recommend readings: Lukas Meisner and Pietro Daniel Omodeo. “Beyond Facticity and Post-Truth: Towards a Marxist Political Epistemology.” Historical Materialism 33, no. 1 (2025): 88–118.Helen Eleonora. “On the Falsity of Prevailing Ideas: The Concept of Ideology in Early Critical Theory.” Margin Notes 1 (2024), 84–126.Wolfgang Lefèvre. Theory of Nature and Mode of Production: The Genesis of Modern Science in Materialist Perspective. Political Epistemology. Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025.Jürgen Renn. The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene. Princeton University Press, 2020.Peter Osborne. “The Planet as Political Subject?” New Left Review, no. 145 (March 2024): 103–16.For a good constructive critique of Boris Hessen, see: Ioannis Trisokkas. “Boris Hessen and Newton’s God.” Society and Politics 13, no. 1 (2019): 64–86.If you want to support the show, donate to our Patreon, and visit our website for writing and updates Follow our socials: Twitter | @crit_theory_grp Bluesky | @crittheoryworkgrp.bsky.social Instagram | @criticaltheoryworkinggroup

    Episode 28: On meta-meta science

  4. Sep 3

    Episode 27: A History of Marx's Charaktermaske feat. Billie Cashmore

    Nora and Imogen are joined by Billie to discuss her forthcoming essay 'Charaktermasken: Value, Relation and Performance in Marx's Critique of Political Economy' in which she traces the history of Marx's concept of the Charaktermasken.. With excursions into Goethe's Faust, the critique of Marx brought to bear by Black radical thinkers (namely Sylvia Wynter and Fred Moten), the antinomies of the structuralist reading of Capital and the comedy of the Rosean recovery of speculative thought, the three consider the Charaktermaske first as tragedy and again as farce. Donate to Billie's FFS fund! https://gofund.me/0a72791c1 Billie's Acid Horizon Course on the Commodity, starting September 8: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-courses/p/the-commodity-appearance-reification-and-practice-from-karl-marx-to-sylvia-wynter Texts mentioned: • Louis Althusser (1963) 'The ‘Piccolo Teatro’: Bertolazzi and Brecht - Notes on a Materialist Theatre' in: For Marx •Theodor S. Adorno (1966) 'Negative Dialectics' •Gillian Rose (1978) 'The Melancholy Science: An Introduction to the Thought of Theodor W. Adorno' • Fred Moten (2003) 'The Resistance of the Object' I&II in: 'In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition' •Sylvia Wynter (unpublished) 'Black Metamorphosis: New Natives in a New World'

    Episode 27: A History of Marx's Charaktermaske feat. Billie Cashmore

  5. Aug 20

    Episode 26: MUG Moment (ft. Ben L)

    Resident CTWG Infantiles Morrain and Cam meet CTWGs resident Marxist Unity Group member Mac, with backup from NYCDSA MUG member Ben, to get to the bottom of what the heck this renegade Kautsky guy is all about and why today's hot TV stars such as Bill Maher can't get enough of him. In play is Lars Lih's book Lenin Rediscovered, as well as Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire (1882-1917) by Eric BlancRevolutionary Strategy: Marxism and the challenge of left unity by Mike Macnairhttps://prometheus-mag.com/2026/07/29/a-short-course-on-the-history-of-the-marxist-unity-group-part-one-background-and-foundation/https://prometheus-mag.com/2026/07/30/a-short-course-on-the-history-of-the-marxist-unity-group-part-two-partyism-in-practice/https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/nov/13.htm

    Episode 26: MUG Moment (ft. Ben L)

  6. Aug 6

    Episode 25: Cisification of the Bourgeoisie (ft. Ashley)

    Nora, Imogen, and Helen are joined by friend of the pod Ashley to discuss two articles from the new volume of Mediations: Emma Heaney's "On the Cisness of the Bourgeoisie" and Amy De'Ath's "Two Substantialisms: On Value and Sexual Difference." Together, they answer a burning question of our movement: are trans women bourgeois?

    Episode 25: Cisification of the Bourgeoisie (ft. Ashley)

  7. Jul 23

    Episode 24: Schelling’s Clara: Conversations on the Absolute.

    For episode 24 and part 2 in our Schelling series, James is joined by Imogen and Nora to discuss one of Schelling's unfinished works: Clara, or On Nature's Connection to the Spirit World. After situating the text within Schelling's wider oeuvre and patiently clearing the author from accusations of dark magic, we ruminate on its themes of resurrection, transmigration, the singularity of the soul and the magnificence of beavers. Putting Schelling in discussion with Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Freud, Mao, Bordiga and Kazuo Ishiguro we ask the ultimate question: can Naturphilosophie mourn?

    Episode 24: Schelling’s Clara: Conversations on the Absolute.

  8. Jul 9

    Episode 23: Schelling's Early Philosophy of Nature

    In this episode, Anatarah, Bile, and Crane discuss the introduction to Schelling’s 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature and the introduction to Schelling’s 1799 First Outline. Working up to Schelling’s ambitious declaration that philosophy is a “natural history of our mind,” the hosts discuss some of the fundamental concepts—like force, equilibrium, and organism—in Schelling’s philosophy of nature, the difference between Schelling’s earlier philosophy of nature and his “identity system,” and the relationship between Schelling’s project and those of his contemporaries in philosophy and natural science. In conclusion, we debate whether and, if so, how Schelling’s early philosophy of nature might provide us with a basis for a critical theory of nature and natural science. Recommend readings: Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature as Introduction to the Study of This Science, 1797. Cambridge University Press, 2001.First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature. State University of New York Press, 2004.The Schelling Reader. 1st ed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.The Palgrave Schelling Handbook. Palgrave Handbooks in German Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2026.

    Episode 23: Schelling's Early Philosophy of Nature
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5
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About

Critique of the Podcast Form is a bi-weekly podcast by the Critical Theory Working Group about Critical Theory, socialism, philosophy, Marxism, social theory, and everything in between. New episodes featuring the rotating cast of hosts and guests are posted every other Thursday. Visit https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/ for writing and updates.

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