Mini-Series: The Radical Imagination

October 6, 2023

EP85: Mutual Aid & the Anarchist Radical Imagination (ft. Elif Genc, Payton McDonald, Max Haiven, & Alex Khasnabish)

There's a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics. However, this misses strong autonomous and anarchist-inflected social movements. In this episode, we examine the theory and practice of anti-statist organizing, including the Kurds within the area formerly known as Rojava.
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July 24, 2023

EP83: The WEF is Actually Bad, But Not Like That (ft. Raj Patel, Joel Bakan, and more)

The WEF is yet another example of the scrambled ideologues of our moment. Conservatives condemn the WEF, and news organizations like Rebel cover it doggedly; at the same time, left-leaning NGOs speak there, and progressive news organizations say little. On this episode, we examine the shifting politics around our global financial elites.
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April 12, 2023

EP77: The Hearts of Men (ft. Vaush, Annie Kelly, & Nicholas Lemann)

Online masculinity is getting weirder and weirder. Now, we’ve got bro science, ball tanning, ball eatin,’ piss drinkin,’ and who knows what's next. We ask: what's broken in the hearts of men, and how might the left fix it?
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This episode was part of a mini-series we produced on the the radical imagination, which you can find in full here.

Who are the radicals these days? It’s hard to tell. For us lefties, we would certainly say that we are the true radicals. Yet, sometimes it seems like our radical imagination has nothing on far-right populists and techno-utopians. They promise transhumanist enhancement, life extension, an end to ‘globalist’ financial elites, and so much more. So long as you can pay up, and you find yourself in a decent spot on their racial and gender hierarchies. In the face of this reactionary threat, the political centre (and unfortunately, much of the academic left) often take a technocratic tone, defending the institutions and admonishing right-wing misinformation and hate.

However, there may be a more radical answer. Perhaps this time of political instability and theoretical confusion – when the neoliberal consensus has lost its legitimacy, and weird new ideas emerge – presents an opportunity for the left to offer a different vision. To do that, we will need a little radical imagination. On this series, we examine the radical imagination – of the left, and the right – and explore the tensions, confusions, and opportunities presented by these strange times.

These episodes had support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The scholarly leads were Professors Alex Khasnabish at Mount Saint Vincent University and Max Haiven at Lakehead University. They both providing research support and consulting.

Mini-Series: The Radical Imagination

EP85: Mutual Aid & the Anarchist Radical Imagination (ft. Elif Genc, Payton McDonald, Max Haiven, & Alex Khasnabish)

EP83: The WEF is Actually Bad, But Not Like That (ft. Raj Patel, Joel Bakan, and more)

EP77: The Hearts of Men (ft. Vaush, Annie Kelly, & Nicholas Lemann)