Matthew Sitman Podcasts

Featuring Kojo Koram on his brilliant book Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire. How neoliberalism reorganized colonial capitalist plunder to survive the Third Worldist challenge, and then boomeranged back into the British metropole—a history obscured by rendering “decolonization” into a symbolic culture war battle. Check out How to…

Christopher Lasch, the late historian and social critic, can be difficult to pin down. Despite writing with startling clarity and verve, Lasch frustrates his readers' longing for clean partisan taxonomies and explicit programmatic statements. Taken up in recent years by Steve Bannon and post-liberal populists, he was, in life, a man of the left who…

We turn our attention to the ur myth of civilizational collapse... and accidentally find political philosophy. Ah well. Get the other half of our episodes and support our continued efforts at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpillsBy PlasticPills

Matt is joined by John Huntington, author of Far-Right Vanguard, which chronicles the history of what he calls the "ultraconservative" movement, its national network, its influence on Republican Party politics, and its centrality to America's rightward turn during the second half of the twentieth century. John is a history professor at Houston Comm…

Featuring Matt Christman on how American history brought us to this awful present. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDigBy Daniel Denvir, Jacobin

It's more answers without questions, in part IV of our "Idea of Communism" series. We're getting the hot takes from Diego Ruzzarin (@DiegoRuzzarin) on what he thinks the Idea of Communism means for Latin America particularly, what's up with psychoanalysis, and the other stuff he's working on.Find our content mill over at https://www.patreon.com/pla…

Featuring Nancy Fraser on why a total analysis of capitalism requires taking Marxism beyond a narrowly economistic view: what everyday labor exploitation requires from politics, care work, war-making, borders, appropriation of nature, sexism, racism, and more. Dan’s 2018 interview from the archives. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig…

Here's something fun and a little different: your beloved cohost Matt Sitman was recently interviewed by Victor Bruzzone and Matt McManus on their podcast, Plastic Pills, and the ensuing conversation — about Matt's own history, the right-wing intellectual pipeline, and the enduring and contested influence of Leo Strauss on the conservative movement…

It's a political theory day, speaking with the Know Your Enemy podcast's Matthew Sitman, a former young conservative. Starting with some Roe v. Wade, we then dive deep into the intellectual right's endless fascination with Straussian philosophy (that's Leo Strauss), its underlying esotericism, and its connection to the American right's current poli…

Featuring Evgeny Morozov on his essay “Critique of Techno-Feudal Reason.” Thinkers from the Marxist left all the way to the neoliberal and even neo-reactionary right are convinced that we’ve exited capitalism entirely and entered neo-feudalism. Morozov argues that our bleak moment is in fact still a thoroughly capitalist one. Evgeny’s essay: newlef…

Managing editor of Religion News Service and co-host of the award-winning podcast Saved By the City, Roxanne Stone joins the VCW to talk about her Evangelical story, how the last 5 years have affected her faith, the urban/rural divide in America including on faith issues, how she broke the news about Hillsong NYC Pastor Carl Lentz's resignation bec…

Featuring Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò on his essay “Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference,” an interview first posted in December 2020. This pairs well with last week’s Jared Clemons interview on In This House We Believe antiracism. Since 2020, Táíwò has published a book expanding on these ideas: Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took…

We have another heated discussion on the sense and meaning of the word "communism," this time from a Heideggerian communist.Get all the goods at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpillsBy PlasticPills

In the third and final episode in their series on the overturning of Roe v. Wade—recorded on the day it happened—Matt and Sam pick up with 1990s, the George W. Bush administration, and eventually take listeners up to the present. They focus especially on way conservative, mostly Christian intellectuals, many of them connected to the religious journ…

Author George Azar joins the VCW hall to talk about "My Gay Church Days", his self-published memoir of converting to evangelicalism as a teenager, becoming a pastor and thinking of himself as "struggling with same-sex attraction", his experience at Exodus International (the most notorious gay conversion organization in the world before it disbanded…

This week we read the article by Susan Buck-Morss "The Second Time as Farce... Historical Pragmatics and the Untimely Present" from, again, The Idea of Communism https://amzn.to/3xZJjMw All of our episodes and extra content are available for an inconsequential contribution to our group project at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills…

Political scientist Jared Clemons on feckless liberal anti-racism: how In This House We Believe racial liberalism leaves racial capitalism’s inequalities in place and why, drawing on Martin Luther King and A. Philip Randolph, the Black Freedom Movement instead needs solidarity with the multi-racial working class. Read Jared’s article: jaredkclemons…

Today we're sharing a special "Dig Your Enemy" crossover event, as Daniel Denvir of Jacobin magazine's The Dig podcast puts Matt and Sam in the hot seat. We answer all of Dan's excellent questions about the state of the American right, including: the return of isolationism, the New Right, Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, Blake Masters, Doug Mastriano, t…

Our first international interview with guest Dr. Marcia Pally as we talk about her book "White Evangelicalism and Right Wing Populism: How Did We Get Here?". We discuss the duresses that white Evangelicals perceive themselves to be under, a history of how those perceived stressors and "us vs them" thinking inflames right wing populism. We also disc…

Know Your Enemy hosts Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell on terrifyingly protean right-wing American politics. Check out our newsletter: thedigradio.com/newsletter Read James Pogue on the New Right: vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right-where-peter-thiel-is-placing-his-biggest-bets Read Mie Inouye’s Boston Review article on union salts: b…

This is our first in the reading series on the Idea of Communism conferences, covering Alain Badiou. Our readings will come from The Idea of Communism I https://amzn.to/3xZJjMw, The Idea of Communism II https://amzn.to/3OkDYVd, and The Idea of Communism III https://amzn.to/3b8e3lb Join up with us on Patreon to get all of the upcoming episodes at ht…

At long last, Matt and Sam dive into the origins of the Christian right—a complicated tale often flattened by contemporary debates. What was the history of Christian anti-abortion activism before Roe, and how soon after the landmark Supreme Court decision did conservative Christians coalesce around the abortion—and other issues—to become the politi…

Pills is graced by the presence of the eminent Deleuze scholar, editor, and translator, Daniel W. Smith. Dan explains how he came to Deleuzian philosophy, why it's important, and previews the exciting Deleuze Seminars project, which is almost finished translating 20 years of Deleuze's lectures into English. The Deleuze Seminars project can be explo…

From the popular leftist podcast "Know Your Enemy", Matt Sitman joins the VCW hall to share his story about being raised in fundamentalist Christianity and experiencing culture shock when he attended Grove City College while moving into an Evangelical culture. He discusses being a part of the historic Falls Church in Virginia in 2006 when there was…

Patrick Blanchfield analyzes the long history of US gun violence and the American death drive. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig and get our weekly newsletter by email. Check out our most recent newsletter on the Progressive Era roots of Clintonism’s conception of the “deserving poor” thedigradio.com/newsletter32 Register for Socialism 202…

Reboots and renewals, bodies and images, city and pasture. The Pill Pod takes a crack at analyzing the desire structure of 80s nostalgia in popular media. New episodes and videos not found here are up at https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills so check that out for more content.By PlasticPills

Pills, Erik and Victor tackle the boogeyman: Lyotard's Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, with reference to Wittgenstein's language-game methodology. Is postmodernism when there are too many gay characters on TV? Or is it the legitimacy crisis of state knowledge precipitated by finance capital, the computerisation of information, and the …

Seattle Pacific University, an evangelical school affiliated with the Free Methodist Church since 1891, is in a fight over LGBTQIA+ inclusion and equality. This came to a head on May 23rd when the board rejected proposed changes supported by an overwhelming majority of students and faculty, following a threat of disassociation by the Free Methodist…

Dan’s second episode with historian Lily Geismer, who he interviewed in 2019 about Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party. This interview is on Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality, which details the long history of Clintonism and the Democrats’ neoliberal turn. Read the latest new…

From the podcast "You Have Permission", Dan Koch stops by the VCW hall to share his Evangelical story and talk about the Southern Baptist (Guidepost Solutions) Abuse report that was released a few weeks ago. Also, we discuss spiritual abuse both defining the term and giving information on how to identify if this has happened to you. Connect with Da…

On May 5, Politico published a leaked draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, written by Justice Samuel Alito, that would overturn Roe v. Wade. How did we get here? In the first of three episodes dedicated to answering that question, Matt and Sam talk to Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael of the 5-4 Podcast about the conservativ…

What role does mass incarceration play in American political economy? What does that reveal about what sort of politics are required to overcome it? Ruth Wilson Gilmore with Alberto Toscano and Brenna Bhandar, who edited the new collection Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Assata Taught Me: St…

The team reassembles to talk Wittgenstein, champion of "ideas-don't-matter" philosophy, and about why he matters—even if ideas don't. The primary sources referenced throughout this ep are the Tractatus (https://amzn.to/3t0wD56) for Mr. Early Wittgenstein, and Philosophical Investigations (https://amzn.to/3wVfUkC) for Mr. Late Wittgenstein.…

A conversation with David Adler and Thea Riofrancos about the return of the Latin American left — unlocked from Patreon in advance of hugely consequential elections in Colombia this weekend!! (Originally published May 15, 2022.) Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march …

Dr. Kait Dugan returns to the VCW hall to talk about death, apocalypse and her expertise, Karl Barth. She talks about getting her doctorate, how thinking a lot about death has helped her in life and Pauline views of the apocalypse. Finally, as the managing director at the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, she discusses Kar…

Historian Margarita Fajardo on her book The World That Latin America Created: The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America in the Development Era. Fajardo discusses the Latin American economists at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) who conceptualized the division of the global economy between center and…

In this bonus episode, Matt takes Sam on a tour of his native state, Pennsylvania, where a number of key primaries were held this week. The results brought some hopeful news: Lt. Gov. John Fetterman handily defeated State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and (even better) Manchin-backed moderate Rep. Conor Lamb in the contest for the Democratic senate nominat…

Author Shannon TL Kearns returns to the VCW hall to discuss his new memoir, "In the Margins: A Transgender Man's Journey with Scripture" which is coming out August 9th, 2022. We discuss Shannon's story and how his relationship with Scripture changed over time. We chat about some of the Biblical accounts that have meant a lot to him as he transition…

Hope for the American left is at a fairly low ebb, at the moment, but our counterparts in Latin America are on the march and succeeding at beating back repressive right wing governments across the region. What can we learn from them? And given extremely volatile global conditions — and the continued role of the US in defending the interests of capi…

We venture into the weeds of ignorance, science, and anthropomorphism, and not even immuno-responses can stop us. We look at posthumanism a la Francesca Ferrando (Philosophical Posthumanism), Donna Haraway (Staying with the Trouble), and James Lovelock & Lynn Margulis (The Gaia Hypothesis). Get the full episode and many more at https://www.patreon.…