The work of Ernesto Laclau develops a line of equivalences in which populism is hegemony is democracy is politics. Against this, I contend Laclau recreates rather than challenges basic tenets of modern liberalism and ultimately risks contributing to the “post political” order against his populist reason is deployed. Drawing from José Carlos Mariátegui, Antonio Gramsci, and Jodi Dean, I outline the limitations of hegemony theory and populism for thinking through the roadblocks and possibilities for social change in the present. The essay concludes with a provocation to de-center and de-fetishize democracy’s place in the radical imaginary.

In this essay I argue that Slavoj Žižek’s “A Leftist Plea for ‘Eurocentrism’” betrays, in an exceptionally telling way, the existence and persistence of dimensions of modern colonialism within contemporary continental philosophy. After offering a general characterization of the way in which the idea of the “West” is used to justify (neo)colonialist patterns of thinking, I provide a thorough criticism of each of Žižek’s central premises.

If climate change continues unabated it will create massive insecurity and displacement, particularly for people in the Global South, leading to extreme pressure to migrate to the Global North. Yet political policy in the North is overwhelmingly hostile to large-scale immigration. We are therefore on a collision course of increased pressure to migrate facing increased barriers to migration – a global structure I refer to as eco-apartheid. This paper argues that preventing eco-apartheid requires, fundamentally, a massive shift in culture – from a vision of a good life with growth and consumption at its centre, to one centered on community, free time and relationships. However, this shift in culture can only be accomplished with a corresponding shift in our economies towards real security for all; real economic security requires a new kind of robust welfare state, premised on the provision of generous public services and work sharing to maintain high employment.

In this essay I argue that what has been called “philosophical anarchism” in the academic literature bears little to no relationship with the historical anarchist tradition and, for this reason, ought not to be considered a genuine form of anarchism. As I will demonstrate, the classical anarchism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is to be distinguished from other political theories in regarding all hierarchical institutions and relationships—including, but not limited to, the state—as incorrigibly dominative or oppressive and, for this reason, immoral. Lastly, I argue that defenders of such institutions and relationships must take the challenge posed by classical anarchism seriously by engaging substantively with actual anarchist positions.

Why hasn’t the Marx-inspired Left seized upon catastrophic climate change as the basis for reconceiving historical materialism and the contradictions fueling anticapitalist struggle in the twenty-first century? Defining core participants as energy users and abusers, anchored in the opposition to fossil-fueled profit and growth rather than in traditional class conflicts, the struggle to create a postcapitalist energy commons can become the leading edge of a more broadly conceived global struggle for a sustainable and just postcapitalist society. The new global movement will be enabled by technologies of green energy microproduction, an energy internet for sharing energy on postcapitalist grids, and efforts to create more sustainable community relationships and practices. Catastrophic climate change can become the occasion for reigniting a Marx-inspired sense of transformative agency and solidarity that will enable us to confront transnational capitalism globally and locally in ways that are beyond the imaginative bounds of the current paper.

Humanities advocates focus on demonstrating the humanities’ value to encourage participation. This advocacy is largely done through institutional means, and rarely taken directly to the public. This article argues that by reframing the theory of Direct Action, humanities advocates can effectively engage the public. The article begins by exploring three different understandings of the humanities: that they develop good citizenship, that they develop understanding, and that they develop critical thought. The article then discusses what Direct Action is and how it works. The article concludes by describing how to reframe Direct Action to suit the needs of the humanities, including potential actions that will achieve those ends. Humanities Direct Action must be seen as a debate and will focus on increasing critical thinking.

I argue that while recognition is important for Middle Eastern and North African philosophers in academia and society, recognition alone should not define the anti-colonial movement. BDS provides a better model of engagement because it constructs identities in order to bring about material changes in the academy and beyond. In the first part of the essay, I catalog how MENA thought traditions have been and continue to be suppressed within the academy and philosophy in particular. I then sketch one possible path to better representation in philosophy by reading Fayez Sayegh’s analyses of Zionist colonialism and Palestinian non-being. In the second half of the essay, I argue that BDS is among the premier anti-colonial movements on American campuses today because it is a materialist anti-racist movement. Insofar as that movement is often shunned and prohibited, an anti-colonial society offers a membership in exile.

In this article, I explore the contrast between the recent George Floyd protests and the lockdowns immediately prior by situating these rebellions in the context of Foucault’s disciplinary society and subsequent scholarship on biopolitical management. I assert that the disciplinary mechanisms operative in finance/debt, policing and epidemiological management of the virus share similar epistemological assumptions stemming from liberal individualism. The revolutionary character of these uprisings therefore stems from their epistemological subversions of the predictable individual, and this figure’s spatiotemporal situatedness, a construction that helps power make claims on our collective future. The protests push us to see beyond a strict Foucauldian reading of this moment to uncover the metastatic status of identities in rebellion, which sustain resistance to disciplinary society’s epistemological foundations.

Working from the post-Workerist tradition, this essay re-specifies the phenomenon of immaterial labor. Immaterial labor is not simply a mode of work relevant to the information-based global economy. Instead, immaterial labor is inherent to the human condition: human beings materialize realities through the immaterial means of communication. This ontological approach to immaterial labor enables us to rethink the radical project: rather than trying to “change the world,” we are now called to create alternative realities that resist the subjugation of our immaterial laboring. Since we are all immaterial laborers, we all have a stake in revolutionizing our realities. This essay provides a preliminary sketch of this political philosophy.