Critical Theory: The Podcast Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought

Recording of automated telephone message from the Montgomery County Courthouse, Montgomery, Alabama, on Monday, June 6, 1994, recorded by Bernard E. Harcourt:

"Thank you for calling! The courthouse is closed in memory of our great president, Jefferson Davis. We will open at 8 o'clock Tuesday, June 7th. For weekend and nighttime calls, please consult the directory for direct dial numbers. Have a great and happy holiday!"

Courte présentation par Prof. Bernard E. Harcourt (Columbia University/EHESS) pour le lancement de la nouvelle édition du livre, *Nietzsche. Cours, conférences et travaux* (Gallimard/Seuil/EHESS, 2024) de Michel Foucault, paru aujourd'hui, le 31 mai 2024.

Lecture (in French) of Professor Bernard E. Harcourt at the Collège de France in Paris, France, on the topic of "Abolition and Cooperation," on May 21, 2024. The lecture develops chapter 6 of Harcourt's book *Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory* (Columbia University Press, 2023)

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 a union vote, the vote failed 5-6.

This conversation is part of the Utopia 13/13 seminars at the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought. Chuquillanqui joined us for Utopia 3/13 at the Jerome Greene Annex on October 26, 2022. You can find the full recording from the seminar and additional resources on the Utopia 3/13 page here: blogs.law.columbia.edu/utopia1313/3-13/

You can learn more about Chuquillanqui's organizing work here: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62426940

More on Starbucks unionizing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBGwcCZK6Ok

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 seminar and additional resources on the Utopia 3/13 page here: https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/utopia1313/3-13/

We discussed Professor Battistoni's essay "Spadework" at Utopia 3/13. You can read her essay here: https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-34/politics/spadework/

She reflects further on her essay in her blog post here: https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/utopia1313/alyssa-battistoni-on-spadework/

At the seminar, Professors Battistoni and Harcourt discussed “Spadework” and “Labor Without Love” by Alyssa Battistoni and “Debt and Study” in The Undercommons by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney.

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 from the seminar and additional resources on the Utopia 1/13 page here: https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/utopia1313/1-13/

At the seminar, Professor Balibar presented a new paper, “Uncovering lines of escape: towards a concept of concrete utopia in the age of catastrophes." You can read the full paper in English here: https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/utopia1313/etienne-balibar-uncovering-lines-of-escape-towards-a-concept-of-concrete-utopia-in-the-age-of-catastrophes/

In his lecture, “Uncovering lines of escape: towards a concept of concrete utopia in the age of catastrophes,” the philosopher Étienne Balibar develops three dimensions of the urgency of rethinking concrete utopias in these times of crises: first, Balibar discusses the dilemmas surrounding the concept of utopia and utopian thinking, without which there could be no “radical” politics, but at a time and in an age of at least three major catastrophes (the climate, the nuclear, and the digital); second, Balibar explores “real” or “concrete” utopias in light of the Foucauldian distinction between “utopias” and “heterotopias,” which could also be interpreted as a conversion of utopia into heterotopias; third, Balibar concludes on the transcendental problems of the different modalities of the “possible,” the “impossible,” the “necessary,” the “inevitable,” in their relationship to a concept of time (e.g. Bloch’s time of “not-yet”), as displaced by the questioning of “utopia” in today’s catastrophic circumstances.

At the seminar, Professors Balibar and Harcourt discussed Ernst Bloch, The Spirit of Utopia (1918); Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias” (1967/1984); Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future (2005); Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1847; Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek, Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics (2013; Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias (Verso 2010); and Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandonia (2005).