Woodbine Podcast

For Part Two of our conversation with Jeremy Gilbert, we discuss his research on hegemony and the evolution of acid communism. We talk about the turn towards consciousness raising and the need for a Deleuzo-Gramscian synthesis. READINGS:--"Why is Keir Starmer so unpopular?" - Jeremy Gilbert, 2025: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2025/12/why-is-keir-starmer-so-unpopular--"Techno-feudalism or Platform Capitalism? Conceptualising the Digital Society" - Jeremy Gilbert, 2024: https://uel-repository.worktribe.com/OutputFile/450392--"My Friend Mark" - Jeremy Gilbert, 2017: https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/my-friend-mark40.pdfJeremy Gilbert is an academic, writer, podcaster, activist and DJ based in London, and the current editor of the journal New Formations. His books include Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism (Pluto, 2014), Twenty-First Century Socialism (Polity, 2020) and (with Alex Williams) Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (Verso, 2022).

For this week's episode Ziad Majed joins Malek and Matt to discuss the aftermath of October 7th in the Middle East. Ziad offers an analysis of the current ceasefires between Israel, Lebanon, Iran, and Gaza, and provides a long historical overview on the regional dynamics and ruptures that got us to this point. We end with a discussion about the gap between grassroots popular mobilization and geopolitical statecraft. READINGS:--"When war in the Middle East is told in the language of those who wage it" - Ziad Majed, 2026: https://vendredis-arabes.blogspot.com/2026/04/when-war-in-middle-east-is-told-in.html--"Since the Second World War, there has never been such a concentration of ruins in one region of the world" - Ziad Majed, 2026: https://vendredis-arabes.blogspot.com/2026/04/ziad-majed-since-second-world-war-there.htmlDr. Ziad Majed is a university professor and researcher. After working with the Lebanese Red Cross, the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut, and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Stockholm, he joined the American University of Paris in 2010, where he has since taught Middle Eastern Studies and International Relations. Over the past three decades, Dr. Majed has published extensively on democratic transitions, political systems, elections, civil society, reform, and citizenship in Lebanon, Syria, and the wider Arab region, as well as on the Palestinian question. His recent books include Syrie, la révolution orpheline (Actes Sud, Paris, 2014); Iran and its Four Arab Fronts (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, 2017); Dans la tête de Bachar Al-Assad (with Subhi Hadidi and Farouk Mardam-Bey, Actes Sud, Paris, 2018; 2nd ed., 2025); and Le Proche-Orient, miroir du monde (La Découverte, Paris, 2025).

For this week's episode, inspired by the much-discussed AI bubble in the American economy, we read Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages, written by Carlota Perez in 2002.Anton, Eric, Matt, and Max discuss Perez's historical schema of technological revolutions, first published in the immediate aftermath of the dot-com bubble, and consider its insights for our contemporary tech economy. We talk about the infrastructures required to power this new technology, the policy changes to facilitate the paradigm shift, and the new common sense being produced. British-Venezuelan researcher, lecturer and international consultant, Carlota Perez studies the mutual shaping of technical change and society and the lessons provided by the history of technological revolutions for economic growth and development. In Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital (Elgar 2002), she put forward her theory of the emergence and diffusion of technological revolutions and of the role of finance in the process. Her work has contributed to the present understanding of the relationship between technology, innovation and economic development; between technical and institutional change; and between finance and technological diffusion.READINGS:--"On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?" - Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, Schmitchell, 2021: https://s10251.pcdn.co/pdf/2021-bender-parrots.pdf--The GenAI Divide - MIT NANDA, 2025: https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Business_2025_Report.pdf--"How AI Destroys Institutions" - Woodrow Hartzog & Jessica M. Silbey, 2025: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5870623--"Data Centers Are Military Targets Now" - Sam Biddle, 2026: https://theintercept.com/2026/03/20/ai-data-centers-military-targets-iran-war/--"AI Is a Threat to Everything the American People Hold Dear" - Bernie Sanders, 2026: https://archive.ph/qs8VwPlease note, this episode was recorded earlier this winter, prior to the current news cycle.

For this week's episode we're joined by Adam Greenfield and Maria Herron in advance of the gathering Woodbine will host this May May, "Lifehouses, Resilience Hubs, and Dual Power". We discuss our evolving understandings and relationships to radical spaces, the meaning and importance of in-person encounters and relationship-building, and our expectations around crisis and emergency management. We end with a pitch for why you should join us in NYC this May.LINKS:Lifehouses, Resilience Hubs, and Dual Power: https://www.woodbine.nyc/lifehousesLifepod: https://lifepod.transistor.fm/Mil Mundos Books: https://www.milmundosbooks.com/Mil Mundos En Común: https://milmundosencomun.org/Bushwick Ayuda Mutua: https://bushwickayudamutua.com/Adam Greenfield is a London-based writer and urbanist, who’s been involved with autonomous, self-organized movements from ACT UP to Occupy Sandy. He is the author of Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World On Fire (2024), as well as Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life (2017), and is currently Visiting Professor at the Sociology department of the London School of Economics. He’s the host of Lifepod, a podcast based on the book. Maria Herron is the founder & co-director of Mil Mundos Books, a bilingual bookstore that curates to celebrate Black, Latinx, and Indigenous heritage. In 2021 Maria co-founded Mil Mundos en Común, a nonprofit working to provide essential goods, digital connectivity, and literacy access to neighbors in Bushwick and beyond. Preceding en Común, Maria worked with other organizers in April 2020 to form Bushwick Ayuda Mutua, a mutual aid coalition providing framework for our community to access food, essential goods, and social services via individual & organization partner participation. Maria has been with Woodbine since 2017, using it as a coworking hub to launch many of her projects, and currently support with Operations at the new location. For her day job, Maria works as a camera technician.READINGS:--Beyond Hope - Adam Greenfield, 2024: https://illwill.com/beyond-hope--This Spanglish Bookstore In New York Is Reclaiming Bushwick’s Sense Of Latinidad - Victoria Mortimer, 2025: https://nacla.org/spanglish-bookstore-new-york-reclaiming-bushwicks-sense-latinidad/--The Tetrad: Value in a More-than-Human World [excerpt] - Adam Greenfield, 2026: https://www.patreon.com/posts/dispatch-for-14-153024519--From Churches to Lifehouses - Adam Greenfield, 2023: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/from-churches-to-lifehouses

The Woodbine Podcast returns with a new episode featuring John Clark, author of The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism (2013) and Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community (2019).We discuss why anarchist movements have trailed religious communities, or have relied on disasters, to build deep communal forms of life. We talk about some neglected thinkers and histories, from Élisée Reclus (1830-1905) and Gustav Landauer (1870-1919) to the Sarvodaya movement. We hear about John's long-term research project on a "dialectical social ecology", as well as his experiences as a teacher in both university and autonomous settings. John P. Clark is a philosopher, activist, writer, and educator. He lives in New Orleans, where his family has been for thirteen generations. He is Director of La Terre Institute for Community and Ecology, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Loyola University, where he taught for 44 years. His books include Max Stirner’s Egoism (1976), The Philosophical Anarchism of William Godwin (1977), The Anarchist Moment (1984), The Tragedy of Common Sense (2016), and he is at work on Awakening Earth Community, a dialectical social ecology. In recent years he has worked with such activist groups as No Bayou Bridge, No New Leases, 350 NOLA, and Earth First. He does educational and organizational work with La Terre Institute, both in New Orleans and at Bayou La Terre Woodland Center, an 88-acre site on Bayou La Terre, near Dedeaux, MS in the coastal forest on the Gulf of Mexico. For many years he was active in the alternative education and cooperative movements, and he is a member of the Education and Research Workers’ Industrial Union 620 of the Industrial Workers of the World.LINKS:John Clark's Writings: https://loyno.academia.edu/JohnClarkDialectical Social Ecology: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1298373847207629/La Terre Institute for Community and Ecology: https://www.laterreinstitute.org/READINGS:--"Élisée Reclus: The Making of a Communard" - John P. Clark, 2021: https://web.archive.org/web/20220222160826/https://roarmag.org/essays/elisee-reclus-paris-commune/--"Living Our Lives: The Communal Basis of Social Transformation" - John Clark, 2020: https://www.academia.edu/50699717/Living_Our_Lives_The_Communal_Basis_of_Social_Transformation--"What is eco-anarchism?" - John Clark, 2020: https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/v03sc-02.pdf

Sherry Millner and Ernie Larsen join Giulia and Matt to discuss their shared nomadic journey as artists, anarchists, parents, curators, teachers, partners, writers, thinkers, friends, and so much more. In 70 minutes, we discuss their last 50 years of collaboration. Meeting amidst the utopian movements of the 60s, they were influenced by their encounter and friendship with anarchist groups such as Anarchos, the Judson Dance Theater, and Situationism in America. Believing in the power of collectivity and the potentials of oppositional culture, their work has dealt equally with the spectacle of disaster and the invisibility of daily life. With a practice simultaneously reflecting on authorship and ownership, audience and autonomy, independence and institutions, they have been editors of the radical film journal Jump Cut, and curators and archivists of forgotten revolutionary cinema.--"Escape Routes" - Ernie Larsen, 2021: https://herri.org.za/5/ernie-larsen/--"Flying under the radar: notes on a decade of media agitation" - Ernest Larsen, 2014: https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc56.2014-2015/LarsenAnarchistActivists/index.html--"The Dialectics of Making Movies: Sherry Millner and Ernest Larsen interviewed by Lia Yoka" - 2009: http://womenfilmeditors.princeton.edu/assets/pdfs/MILLNER_Dialectics_of_Making_Movies_Yoka.pdf--"The Last Word: To unite filmmakers and film critics" - Ernest Larsen and Sherry Millner, 1979: http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC20folder/LarsenMillnerEdl.htmlSherry Millner & Ernie Larsen collaborate on film, video, photo-text, book, curatorial and other research projects. Together they have produced more than a dozen films exhibited in festivals, museums, cultural centers, squats, windows, and storefronts. Millner creates installations such as The Domestic Boobytrap, which detournes U.S. army manuals to manifest the vulnerability of domestic space, with blueprints and models of boobytraps placed in everyday life situations within the nuclear family. Larsen's feminist detective novel Not a Through Street was nominated for an Edgar Award. His nonfiction novel The Trial Before The Trial, describing his “disruptive” service on a grand jury in New York, was published by Autonomedia. He is currently writing a novel about the French anarchist Ravachol.As co-creators of the collaborative video project State of Emergency, they involved 15 artists in protesting U.S. invasions of the Middle East. In 2008 at the Oberhausen Film Festival they co-curated “Border-Crossers and Trouble-Makers,” 10 programs that aimed to rewrite the conventional history of experimental political media. They co-curated the Fall Flaherty Foundation series in 2013 at Anthology Film Archives, under the title “Global Revolt: Cinematic Ammunition.” They are co-curators of Disruptive Film, a two volume DVD set of experimental short-form non-fiction films and videos, for Facets Media. They organized and contributed to the collaborative book Capital’s Greek Cage (Autonomedia), an exploration of Greece’s near-collapse in the aftermath of the debt crisis. Their most recent video How Do Animals and Plants Live? is an inquiry into the forcible eviction and immediate demolition of the self-organized anarchist-supported migrant squat Orfanotrofeio in Thessaloniki on July 27, 2016.Video Data Bank: https://www.vdb.org/artists/sherry-millnerAutonomedia: https://autonomedia.org/?s=larsenFacets DVD: https://www.facetsdvd.com/searchresults.asp?Search=millner&Submit=

We’re joined by Jose Rosales, Carla Bottiglieri, Luhuna Carvalho, and Giulia Gabrielli for a roundtable on Marcello Tari’s book, There is No Unhappy Revolution: The Communism of Destitution, published in English this spring by Common Notions.We discuss a genealogy of the concept “destituent power”, alongside the historical movements it’s been a response to: Italy in the 70s, Argentina in 2001, and the aftermaths of both the Arab Spring and Occupy movement. We think with Tarì alongside Benjamin, Foucault, Deleuze & Guattari, Tronti, and Agamben on the existential and methodological questions of use and inoperativity, strike and gesture, de/subjectivation and conversion, territory and exodus, civil war and political theology, and infrastructures of reproduction.-- “Xeniteia: Contemplation and Combat” - Mario Tronti & Marcello Tarì, 2020: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4757-xeniteia-contemplation-and-combat-- “Destituent Power: An Incomplete Timeline” - Hostis, 2020: https://destituencies.com/2020/destituent-power-an-incomplete-timeline/--“How Does One Shoot a Frozen Clock?” - Luhuna Carvalho, 2020: https://illwill.com/how-does-one-shoot-a-frozen-clock-- “Spirituality and Combat: A Conversation with Marcello Tarì” - Matt Peterson, 2021: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/118/391829/there-is-no-unhappy-love-the-communism-of-destitution/Carla Bottiglieri studied Classics and Aesthetics at the University of Salerno, Italy and Performing Arts/Dance at the University of Paris 8, France, while working in the field of contemporary dance and theatre. An independent researcher, she deals with an unidentified territory on the margins of aesthetics, clinics and politics. She has been studying different methods in the field called somatics, which she understands as practices related to the “use of bodies”.Luhuna Carvalho has just finished writing a thesis on Operaismo and Autonomia, and is a part of the RDA69 social center in Lisbon.Giulia Gabrielli is an artist and researcher interrogating, in solitude and company, the question of how to live.Jose Rosales is a researcher based in Queens, currently co-editing a series of conversations entitled 'Diversity of Aesthetics' alongside Andreas Petrossiants and Vicky Osterweil.

Natasha Lennard and Matthew Whitley discuss some themes and questions from the updated paperback edition of Natasha’s book, Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life, published last month by Verso.We talk about acting and thinking in the absence of Trump’s dominance of the mediasphere, and how we relate to debates around the “crisis of liberalism” and “collapse of the center” in a now-Democratic Party controlled government. We reflect on 10 years after Occupy, with indigenous and abolitionist movements now centered in any imagination of liberation, and the many crises that won’t be solved legislatively. We ask how to not let emphasis on prefigurative mutual aid practices--which create interdependency and care, intimacy and community--cede the ground of “policy”, which reimagines the structural conditions within which we live. And how do we find and use alternative, authentic, strategic voices in our present media ecology to articulate and build legibility for utopian horizons of flourishing and autonomy?Natasha Lennard is a columnist for The Intercept. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Bookforum and the New York Times, among others. She teaches critical journalism at the New School for Social Research and is the author of “Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life" (Verso).Matthew Whitley is a writer and organizer affiliated with the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council - MACC NYC. He is currently a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center, with a research focus on alternative economies in Catholic social teaching. He also serves on the steering committee of the Emergency Committee for Rojava and co-edits the radical artists' imprint Cicada Press. His poetry chapbook, "Do You Like the Word Crisis?", was published by Commune Editions in 2019.--"Anti-fascist Practice and Impossible Non-Violence" - Natasha Lennard, 2018: https://evergreenreview.com/read/anti-fascist-practice-and-impossible-non-violence/--“Why 'Mutual Aid'? – social solidarity, not charity” - Matthew Whitley, 2020: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/why-mutual-aid-social-solidarity-not-charity/

Kazembe Balagun joins Malek and Matt to discuss Raoul Peck’s new 4-part film on HBO, Exterminate All the Brutes. We discuss recent Hollywood dramatization and the visualization of abstract political concepts, as well as decolonial thought, media, and art in the 21st century. How do we confront the ghosts of the past, and where do we find hope and meaning when politics has failed us? How can we face the unimaginable and unspeakable horrors of European violence of the last 500 years without mystifying this reality? How do we divorce the archaeology of humanism from techniques of dehumanization, and how are we to understand the global adoption of these techniques in the 21st century? Where do we locate our own hearts of darkness, and what excavations are we called to do while living within the everydayness of American capitalism? How do you contribute a revolutionary analysis when there’s not a revolutionary organizational form to make sense of it? How can we decenter whiteness as we reconstitute what it means to be a human being, looking to friendship and solidarity for the development of a new common language?--"Set It Off: The Current Uprising is a Chance to Reset American History" - Kazembe Balagun, 2020: https://rosalux.nyc/the-current-uprising/--"What We Learned in the Trump Era" - Kazembe Balagun, 2020: https://indypendent.org/2020/12/what-we-learned-in-the-trump-era/--“Towards a Syrian ‘Politics of Life’” - Malek Rasamny, 2020:https://www.aljumhuriya.net/en/content/towards-syrian-“politics-life”--"The Revolution Post-Explosion" - Malek Rasamny, 2020: https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/the-revolution-post-explosion/--Essential Reading & Viewing - Raoul Peck, 2021: https://www.hbo.com/exterminate-all-the-brutes/raoul-peck-essential-reading-films--“Exterminate All the Brutes” Syllabus: https://www.hbo.com/content/dam/hbodata/documentaries/exterminate-all-brutes/resources/eatb-syllabus-210412.pdfKazembe Balagun is a writer/cultural historian/activist, and former program director of the Brecht Forum and member of the Red Channels Collective.

For the third episode in our series of podcasts on Adam Curtis's Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World, Amogh and Matt joined The Antifada's Andy, Jamie, and Sean.We continued discussing historical storytelling and the contemporary development of a worldview. How can Curtis's diagnostic fragments transform into political overcoming? How do we situate ourselves while caught between liberalism and fascism, the human and AI, objective conditions and subjective formation, postmodernism and anti-communism, charisma and belief?The Antifada: https://www.patreon.com/theantifada--"'You could be a cult leader': Diane Morgan and Adam Curtis on Brexit, Trump and his new series" - Simon Usborne: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/feb/06/you-could-be-a-cult-leader-diane-morgan-and-adam-curtis-on-brexit-trump-and-his-new-series--"Adam Curtis on Our Troubled Times, TikTok and Taking Back the Internet" - Thomas Gorton: https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/13105/adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-new-documentary-series-2021--"What Does The Future Hold? An Interview With Adam Curtis" - Michael J. Brooks: https://thequietus.com/articles/29558-film-adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-interview--"A Conversation with Filmmaker Adam Curtis on Power, Technology and How Ideas Get Into People's Heads" - Billy Perrigo: https://time.com/5941744/adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/

This Thursday, February 11th, English filmmaker Adam Curtis will release a new 6-part film series, Can't Get You Out Of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World. In anticipation, Amogh, Malek, and Matt discuss the work and project of Adam Curtis, particularly his most recent film, HyperNormalisation (2016).In our conversation we touch on Adam Curtis’ stated topic area, his methodology, and its benefits and costs. We discuss Curtis’s vision of politics as ideology vs. politics as system management, and try to sketch a potential history of this division. We look at the reification of the constructed and/or consumerist individual as a political class in the age of social media, as well as both the useful and unuseful ways of framing Curtis’s theories of history and power. What does Curtis mean when he accuses contemporary radicals of ‘not having a coherent vision of the future’? Is his deep pessimism about contemporary political movements warranted? Four years later, how do we reflect on Curtis’s portrayals of Donald Trump, politics in the Middle East, and social life on cyberspace?--Can't Get You Out Of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World (2021, trailer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thd5bBUNEw8--HyperNormalisation (2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU--”And then the Strangest Thing Happened” - Owen Hatherley, 2017: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/and-then-the-strangest-thing-happened/Malek Rasamny is a documentary filmmaker and writer. He is the co-founder of the LERFE space and co-producer of “The Native and the Refugee '' project. He is currently a Master’s student in the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales in Paris where he is specializing in religion and society.Amogh Sahu is a PhD student in Philosophy at Columbia University. He works on social and political philosophy, with a special emphasis on the significance of capitalism in the work of the early Frankfurt School.This is the last week of Woodbine's fundraiser! With our community's support and generosity we have raised more than $24,000, but we still hope to reach our goal of $30k! We want to continue renovations on our new space, including rewiring our electrical system and redoing the bathrooms, as we keep up with rent and utilities during this extended pandemic. We can't wait to be able to resume our regular calendar of free events, workshops, and community dinners soon! Please contribute what you can, and help spread the word! https://www.gofundme.com/f/woodbine-moving-fundraiser

Overworked? Underpaid? And still get heat from the bosses that you should be doing more with less cause you’re serving the most vulnerable?Overworked? Underpaid? And still get heat from the bosses that you should be doing more with less cause you’re serving the most vulnerable? Even clinics and nonprofits claiming the most progressive intentions inherit some of the most exploitative practices against their workers. In this episode, we speak with a healthcare worker who linked up with her fellow docs, nurses, and administrators to resist union busting tactics by their bosses and promote fairer conditions in an LGBT clinic. We also talk with our guest about how she got involved with social justice work before entering medical school and where she is now following the dramatic unionizing effort.This episode was edited by Joe Kujawa.

Links: https://themastproject.wordpress.com/ http://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(17)30475-4/fulltext https://www.aclu.orgLinks:https://themastproject.wordpress.com/http://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(17)30475-4/fulltexthttps://www.aclu.org/other/whats-wrong-fetal-rightshttps://www.listennotes.com/e/7a66b23064f84979aafc93784e3f7152/iii-b-kvelertak-ii-fetal-protection-laws-and-the-consequences-of-health-injustice/]This episode was edited by Joe Kujawa.