Outsider Theory

Theory on the outside, theory of the outside, outside of the theory

About the show

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.

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Episodes

  • "In the Stubborn, Bright Sun of Polish Liberty": Foucault in Warsaw with Remigiusz Ryziński and Sean Bye

    August 4th, 2021  |  1 hr 29 mins
    communism, homosexuality, michel foucault, poland, police, queer theory, surveillance

    Writer and philosopher Remigiusz Ryziński and translator Sean Bye join me to discuss "Foucault in Warsaw," a fascinating new investigation of a pivotal but little-known episode in Michel Foucault's career.

  • The Death and Life of Pagan America: On Dave Hickey, with Daniel Oppenheimer

    July 16th, 2021  |  1 hr 42 mins
    aesthetics, art, beauty, criticism, dave hickey, institutions, las vegas, populism, robert mapplethorpe

    Daniel Oppenheimer joins me to discuss his new book on the legendary art critic Dave Hickey, "Far From Respectable."

  •

    Fukuyama avec Berlusconi with Philip Cunliffe

    July 2nd, 2021  |  1 hr 34 mins
    donald trump, end of the end of history, francis fukuyama, jair bolsonaro, jeremy corbyn, left populism, nigel farage, political outsiders, silvio berlusconi

    Phil Cunliffe joins me to discuss his new (co-authored) book about our topsy-turvy political moment: The End of the End of History.

  • The Department of Social Praxis with Sam Munson

    June 17th, 2021  |  1 hr 6 mins
    administrative state, argentina, biopolitics, borges, cesar aira, dog symphony, plague

    Sam Munson joins me to discuss Dog Symphony, his prescient 2018 novel of plague and biopolitics.

  • Anaesthetic Aesthetics with Sterling Bartlett

    June 9th, 2021  |  55 mins 49 secs
    accelerationism, aesthetics, capitalist realism, hipsters, minimalism, postmodernism, recycling, retromania

    Illustrator and designer Sterling Bartlett joins Outsider Theory to discuss his comic book "How Did We Get Here?"

  •

    "A Thousand Unpieced Suns": On Jameson's Postmodernism, with Emmet Penney

    June 2nd, 2021  |  1 hr 20 mins
    fredric jameson, postmodernism, postmodernity

    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."

  • Neither Intellectual, nor Dark, nor a Web? with Oliver Traldi

    May 27th, 2021  |  1 hr 32 mins
    bret weinstein, helen pluckrose, intellectual dark web, james lindsay, jordan peterson, quillette, sam harris, substack

    Oliver Traldi joins Outsider Theory to address rumors that he is a member of a shadowy organization called the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW), and to assess the IDW's position within online culture war dynamics.

  • The Non-Dupes Err with Tom Syverson

    May 13th, 2021  |  1 hr 34 mins
    donald trump, frederic jameson, georg lukacs, jacques lacan, marxism, materialist analysis, oj simpson, real housewives, reality tv, slavoj zizek, the bachelor

    Tom Syverson, author of the new book Reality Squared, makes the case for why reality TV is an essential form for grasping our bewildering contemporary panorama.

  •

    The Domestication of the Literary Outsider with Alex Perez

    May 6th, 2021  |  1 hr 30 mins
    bad boys, literature, outsiders, pascale casanova, pierre bourdieu, prestige, roberto bolaño

    Fiction writer and cultural critic Alex Perez joins Outsider Theory to discuss Bolaño, the prestige economy of literature, and the prospects for literary outsiders today.

  • Documenting Countercultures with Alex Lee Moyer

    April 29th, 2021  |  1 hr 15 mins
    amir taaki, cody wilson, countercultures, film distribution, incels, internet censorship, neets, tfw no gf

    Filmmaker Alex Lee Moyer joins Outsider Theory to discuss her 2020 documentary TFW No GF, the landscape of creative work outside of the mainstream, and why the death of the counterculture is exaggerated.

  • Technology's Non-Technological Essence with Michal Sacasas

    April 21st, 2021  |  1 hr 27 mins
    frankfurt school, ivan illich, jacques ellul, marshall mcluhan, martin heidegger, neil postman, technology, technology criticism

    Michael Sacasas joins Outsider Theory to discuss what the tech critics of earlier generations – Ellul, McLuhan, Illich, and Postman – have to say to us today.

  • The Long March Out of the Institutions with Justin Murphy

    April 7th, 2021  |  1 hr 34 mins

    Justin Murphy joins Outsider Theory to discuss leaving academia and reading theory against the grain.

  • RETVRN TO FOUCAULT with Blake Smith

    March 31st, 2021  |  1 hr 24 mins
    barack obama, biopolitics, donald trump, elites, jacques derrida, leo strauss, michel foucault, pedagogy, theory

    Blake Smith joins Outsider Theory to discuss the teaching of theory, the formation of elites, and why Foucault was the original Bronze Age Pervert.

  • Meet the New Paranoia, Same as the Old Paranoia (Mostly) with Jesse Walker

    March 24th, 2021  |  1 hr 51 mins
    adam curtis, conspiracy theory, discordianism, jesse walker, kerry thornley, militia movement, paranoia, robert anton wilson

    Jesse Walker, author of The United States of Paranoia, joins Outsider Theory to discuss why Trump era paranoid politics was not so different from earlier times and Adam Curtis's new documentary.

  • Bidencore Hauntology with Biz Sherbert

    March 16th, 2021  |  1 hr 18 mins
    cottagecore, fashion, generation z, hauntology, jean baudrillard, mark fisher, millennialcore, roland barthes

    Fashion theorist Biz Sherbert joins Outsider Theory to discuss Gen Z online subcultures, Fisherian hauntology, and the centrality of fashion to theorizing late capitalist culture.

  • The Digital Dionysian with Chris Gabriel

    March 9th, 2021  |  58 mins
    apollinian, burroughs, collective unconscious, dionysian, freud, jung, memes, myth, nietzsche, the internet

    Chris Gabriel, creator of the MemeAnalysis Youtube channel, on why memes are now the royal road to the collective unconscious.