Outsider Theory
Outsider Theory is an interview-based podcast exploring the mutations of theories outside of the authorized spaces of intellectual life as well as theories of that ever-alluring figure, the outsider, and related subjects.
Lockdown Literature with Tim Abrahams
10 May 2023
Lockdown diaries became a literary fad in 2020, but few if any were memorable. What if the real literature of lockdown was written over a century ago? This is the hypothesis behind "The Machine Book
Disabling Medicine: Daniel Hadas with Medical Nemesis
14 Apr 2023
In this special episode, guest host Daniel Hadas interviews Medical Nemesis on covid, Illich, industrialized medicine and thought, and more. https://twitter.com/DanielHadas2
The Psychopolitics of Masturbation with Matthew Crawford
4 Mar 2023
Matthew Crawford joins me to discuss his essay, "Was the Sexual Revolution a Government Psy-Op?," the politics of masturbation, Wilhelm Reich, the Frankfurt School, masculinity, the therapeutic
The Automation of Midwittery with Brian Chau
3 Feb 2023
Brian Chau returns to Outsider Theory to discuss ChatGPT's woke catechism. https://cactus.substack.com/
Exiting the Vampires' Campus with Blaise Bayno
26 Dec 2022
Blaise Bayno (@urgurlblaise), former critical theory PhD student and co-organizer of the conference "Society Must Be Inoculated," joins me to discuss how critical theory became uncritical
Universal Basic MKUltra with Psyop Cinema
25 Oct 2022
Thomas and Brett from Psyop Cinema join me to discuss Hollywood and cultural engineering. Psyop Cinema: https://www.spreaker.com/show/psyop-cinema My Psyop Cinema episodes on Roland Emmerich:
The Rule of Midwits with Brian Chau
31 Aug 2022
Brian Chau (Cactus Chu on Substack, @psychosort on Twitter) joins me to discuss institutions and why midwits rule them, decentralization, sorting mechanisms, right-wing aesthetics, Curtis Yarvin,
RIP Reality with Jon Askonas
18 Jul 2022
Jon Askonas joins me to discuss his ongoing series of essays in The New Atlantis, "Reality: A Post-Mortem." Read the series here: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/collections/reality-a-post-mortem
The Great Debasement with Alice Gribbin
10 Jun 2022
Essayist and poet Alice Gribbin joins me to discuss her recent essay in Tablet, "The Great Debasement," on the ideological transformation of museums and other cultural institutions into propaganda
Right Critical Theory with Jacob Siegel
9 May 2022
Tablet senior writer Jacob Siegel joins me to discuss the rightward trajectory of certain insights of Frankfurt School-derived critical theory, especially in light of the history of the journal Telos
Theorizing the Culture War with Michael Cuenco
25 Apr 2022
Writer and policy researcher Michael Cuenco joins me to discuss his recent American Affairs essay "'Victory is not Possible': a Theory of the Culture War," and two related essays on post-material
Subversive Mobility vs Academic Orthodoxy with Jacob Shell
4 Apr 2022
Jacob Shell is Associate Professor of Geography at Temple University and the author of Giants of the Monsoon Forest: Living and Working with Elephants (2019) and Transportation and Revolt: Pigeons,
A Critique of "The Dawn of Everything" with Sam Biagetti
21 Mar 2022
Sam Biagetti of Historiansplaining podcast joins me to discuss what's good, what's bad, and what's ugly in David Graber and David Wengrow's "The Dawn of Everything." We begin with an appreciative
The Invention of Symbology; or, Dan Brown, Part 2 (Angels and Demons & The Da Vinci Code) with Pseud Dionysius MPH
28 Feb 2022
With the 2001 publication of Angels and Demons, Dan Brown shifted away from his early focus on the US security state and its post-Cold War identity crisis and introduced a new protagonist: Harvard
The Road to Wigan Pier with Angela Nagle
14 Feb 2022
George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" begins as a report on life in the depressed coal and industrial region of Northern England and expands into an ambivalent critique of socialism and progress.
HR-Karenism and its Enemies with Malcolm Kyeyune
6 Feb 2022
Malcolm Kyeyune (@tinkzorg) joins me to map out the contours of class conflict today. Beginning with a discussion of the Canadian trucker convoy and other recent challenges to biomedical
Romancing the Deep State; or, Dan Brown, Part 1 (Origins) with Pseud Dionysius MPH
18 Jan 2022
Dan Brown is one of the best selling authors of all time; just fifteen years ago, "The Da Vinci Code" was a ubiquitous document of global popular culture. Yet Brown, now immensely wealthy from his
Hubbard, Burroughs, Foucault with Dr Benway
7 Jan 2022
Dr Benway returns to the show to discuss his extensive research on the vast oeuvre of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, as well as William S. Burroughs's prolonged engagement with Hubbard's
Plague and Myth with @fitnessfeelingz
22 Dec 2021
@fitnessfeelingz posted a recent Twitter thread arguing that Covid is a modern myth: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1465794640481857542.html By this he means not that the pathogen SARS-COV-2 is
Monetary Long Covid with Fabio Vighi
16 Dec 2021
"[The pandemic] is a monetary event aimed at prolonging the lifespan of our finance-driven and terminally ill mode of production." This is the provocative thesis of Fabio Vighi, who joins me to
The Very Online Novel with Timothy Wilcox
8 Dec 2021
Timothy Wilcox (@PreCursorPoets) is one of my my favorite writers on contemporary literature. He joins me to discuss three very online novels published in the past year or so: Hari Kunzru's Red Pill,
Deep Internet History with Default Friend
24 Nov 2021
Default Friend is a writer investigating the deep history of the internet on her substack, Default Wisdom. She joins me to discuss one of our mutual interests: the work of the sociologist Sherry
The Paper of Record's Dismal Record
18 Nov 2021
Critics often present recent ideological convulsions at the New York Times as an embarrassing deviation from the paper's illustrious history. Ashley Rindsberg, author of The Gray Lady Winked, joins
Postmodern Medicine with Dr Benway and Pseud Dionysius, MPH
11 Nov 2021
My pseudonymous native informants from the illustrious realms of Science make the provocative case that medicine has become a quintessentially postmodern field. They attribute this development to the
Poetry, Fascism, and Madness: the Fall of the House of Panero with Aaron Shulman
2 Nov 2021
Federico García Lorca is revered as a literary martyr to the barbarity of fascism. His lesser-known friend and contemporary Leopoldo Panero narrowly escaped execution by fascist insurgents around
Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars: On Bill Cooper with Mark Jacobson
26 Oct 2021
The author and radio personality William Milton Cooper exercised a remarkably broad influence on conspiracy theory in the United States and beyond in the late 20th century. After his death in a
"In the Stubborn, Bright Sun of Polish Liberty": Foucault in Warsaw with Remigiusz Ryziński and Sean Bye
4 Aug 2021
"Foucault in Warsaw," just out in English translation from Open Letter Books, is a fascinating investigation of the time Michel Foucault spent as a cultural attaché in Warsaw in the late 1950s. The
The Death and Life of Pagan America: On Dave Hickey, with Daniel Oppenheimer
16 Jul 2021
Writer Daniel Oppenheimer joins me to discuss his new book on the legendary art critic Dave Hickey, "Far From Respectable." We explore Hickey's case for the continued vitality of beauty as a
Fukuyama avec Berlusconi with Philip Cunliffe
2 Jul 2021
Phil Cunliffe, co-host of Aufhebunga Bunga and co-author of The End of the End of History, joins Outsider Theory to discuss the shifting co-ordinates of the post-Fukuyamaite world, the rise and fall
The Department of Social Praxis with Sam Munson
17 Jun 2021
Writer Sam Munson joins Outsider Theory to discuss the uncanny relevance of Dog Symphony, his prescient 2018 novel of plague and biopolitics, in which a nebulous entity called the Department of
Anaesthetic Aesthetics with Sterling Bartlett
9 Jun 2021
Illustrator and designer Sterling Bartlett joins Outsider Theory to discuss his comic book "How Did We Get Here?" We explore why recycling is the master metaphor for our cultural predicament, the
"A Thousand Unpieced Suns": On Jameson's Postmodernism, with Emmet Penney
2 Jun 2021
Emmet Penney, writer and co-host of ex.haust podcast, joins Outsider Theory to discuss Fredric Jameson's canonical essay "Postmodernism, or the Culltural Logic of Late Capitalism" and its continued
Neither Intellectual, nor Dark, nor a Web? with Oliver Traldi
27 May 2021
Oliver Traldi (@olivertraldi) joins Outsider Theory to answer an important question: is he now or has he ever been a member of the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW)? We discuss the latter formation's place
The Non-Dupes Err with Tom Syverson
13 May 2021
Tom Syverson (@syvology on Twitter), author of the new book Reality Squared, makes the case for why reality TV is the essential cultural form for grasping our bewildering contemporary panorama. More
The Domestication of the Literary Outsider with Alex Perez
6 May 2021
Fiction writer and cultural critic Alex Perez joins Outsider Theory to discuss a mutual favorite writer, Roberto Bolaño, and in particular his short story "Labyrinth." We also cover the contemporary
Documenting Countercultures with Alex Lee Moyer
29 Apr 2021
Documentary filmmaker Alex Lee Moyer joins Outsider Theory to discuss her 2020 film TFW No GF and its reception during the year after its release, as well as the film she edited prior to that, The
Technology's Non-Technological Essence with Michal Sacasas
21 Apr 2021
The writer Michael Sacasas joins Outsider Theory to discuss what the tech critics pre-Internet generations – especially Jacques Ellul, Marshall McLuhan, Ivan Illich, and Neil Postman – have to
The Long March Out of the Institutions with Justin Murphy
7 Apr 2021
Justin Murphy joins Outsider Theory to discuss leaving academia, his book Based Deleuze, why political correctness is only ones symptom of the real ailments afflicting the contemporary university,
RETVRN TO FOUCAULT with Blake Smith
31 Mar 2021
Historian and writer Blake Smith joins Outsider Theory to discuss the teaching theory and the formation of elites; the surprising affinities between Strauss and Foucault; the parallel grooming
Meet the New Paranoia, Same as the Old Paranoia (Mostly) with Jesse Walker
24 Mar 2021
Jesse Walker, author of the excellent United States of Paranoia (2013) and books editor at Reason, joins Outsider Theory to revisit his book's arguments in light of Trump era politics. We discuss the
Bidencore Hauntology with Biz Sherbert
16 Mar 2021
Biz Sherbert, a theorist and writer focused on online fashion and Gen Z subcultures, joins Outsider Theory to discuss the current landscape of digital fashion, the shifting nature of subcultures, and
The Digital Dionysian with Chris Gabriel
9 Mar 2021
Chris Gabriel, creator of the MemeAnalysis Youtube channel, joins Outsider Theory to discuss why memes are now the royal road to the collective unconscious. We also discuss how the internet traps
Based and Marxpilled with Adam Lehrer
3 Mar 2021
Adam Lehrer is a critic and artist, the co-host of System of Systems podcast. His new substack is Safety Propaganda. He joins Outsider Theory to discuss how we got Marxpilled, how Marx got
Joker in the Labyrinth with Mónica Belevan
21 Feb 2021
Outsider art historian and hypnotist collector Mónica Belevan joins Outsider Theory to discuss her various attempts to track the structures of feeling of the present. We explore the aesthetics and
Meming Theory and Theorizing Memes with Beyond Woke and Problematic
17 Feb 2021
In recent years, memes have risen to prominence as a medium for witty, irreverent, surreal engagement with the canon of High Theory. At the speed of the internet, memes now circulate the ideas of
The Unacceptable Beauty of Erzsébet Báthory with Alex Kaschuta
14 Feb 2021
The Hungarian countess Erzsébet Báthory (1560-1610), allegedly one of the most prolific mass murderers ever, occupies the border zone between history and legend. She has become a part of the
Toward a Unified Theory of Contrarian Hunting with Oliver Bateman
10 Feb 2021
The "contrarian" is an outsider on the edge of the inside: attached to a particular group but defiant of its pieties and orthodoxies. Contrarians often seem to be one of the most despised figures in
Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God with Gio Pennachietti
7 Feb 2021
Francis E. Dec (1926-1996) was a disbarred lawyer who wrote and circulated a series of pamphlets detailing the world's subjugation by the Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God. He was largely
The Reactionary Counterculture with Angela Nagle
31 Jan 2021
For the inaugural episode of the Outsider Theory podcast, I speak to Angela Nagle, author of Kill All Normies, about the Capitol riot and what it reveals about the right-wing embrace of transgression