Emancipations Podcast

I'm joined by filmmaker and theorist Helen Rollins for a discussion on her new book on psychoanalysis and cinema, Psychocinema. In this book Helen argues there is a fundamental relationship between the structure of psychoanalysis and that of cinema. Cinema acts upon the viewer like psychoanalysis upon the analysand and can expose them to the universal lack inherent in their desire. This process undermines the unconscious logic of capitalism, which relies on a promise in fulfillment.

We also discuss Helen's experiences in the film industry, her many film projects (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7184276) in addition to the theoretical topics raised in Psychocinema.

Get a copy of Psychocinema here: https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Psychocinema-p-9781509561155

How can we make sense of the logic behind Donald Trump and the spectacle of chaos that seems to follow him? What appears as disorder on the surface may in fact reveal deeper transformations within American politics and the structure of power itself.

I’m joined by American historian Paul Heideman for a critical discussion of Trump’s politics and a sober assessment of the dynamics shaping the second Trump presidency. In this episode of Emancipations, Heideman analyzes our present conjuncture by looking at the past 40 years of American bourgeois politics, with particular focus on how the Republican Party has transformed from the party of business into the party of chaos. We explore how today’s political disorder reflects the weakening of American political parties as institutions and the fracturing of the corporate elite. Along the way, we discuss the far right, the legacy of the John Birch Society, Newt Gingrich’s 1990s revolution in party politics, the consolidation of the capitalist class around the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, and the question of whether Trump should be understood as a fascist political figure.

This conversation is inspired by Paul Heideman's excellent new book, Rogue Elephant: How the Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos. Rogue Elephant traces the radicalization of the Republican Party over the past fifty years, arguing that its subordination to Donald Trump was not an anomaly, but rather the culmination of processes at work for decades. Providing a new perspective on figures from Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush to the Koch brothers and Donald Trump, it shows that the party’s lurch to the far right was the product of a volatile mix of a disorganized party structure and a divided and fractious class of American business owners.

Paul Heideman holds a PhD in American Studies from Rutgers University-Newark. His work has appeared in publications such as Jacobin, Dissent, and In These Times. He works as a history teacher in New York City.

Joining me for his second appearance, Philipp Felsch explores the life and thought of Jürgen Habermas, one of the most influential philosophers of the modern era and Germany’s foremost living public intellectual. We trace Habermas's roots in the Marxist tradition, his role in the Frankfurt School, relationship to Adorno and Horkheimer, to his influential presence during the May 68 period across West Germany.

We discuss why Habermas’s theory of the public sphere has been so influential, and why he came to be so widely revered as a philosopher, especially within American academia. We then examine how Habermas abandoned Marxism in his turn to develop a comprehensive theory of communication. Habermas is known as an admonishing voice of reason, as the moral conscience of post-Holocaust German society but in the wake of October 7th and his uncritical position on the genocide in Gaza, Habermas's intellectual supremacy seems to be coming to an end today.

Learn more about Philipp's new book, The Philosopher: Habermas and Us (translated by Tony Crawford) https://bit.ly/4qjpFTC

We discuss Pierre Bourdieu's legacy and its implications for understanding intellectuals. You can find C. Derick Varn at VarnVlog. In addition to going through some of Bourdieu's key categories, these are the primary readings we discuss:

Pascalian Meditations by Pierre Bourdieu 

Homo Academicus by Pierre Bourdieu

The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger by Pierre Bourdieu

"The Role of the Intellectual in the Modern World" by Pierre Bourdieu

Distinction by Pierre Bourdieu

My guest Yanis Iqbal is the author of The Sword and the Neck, a militant work of philosophy that insists Gaza must be approached not as a humanitarian "exception," but as a primary terrain of proletarian and anti-colonial struggle. Iqbal develops an incisive critique of contemporary leftwing philosophers Slavoj Žižek, Ètienne Balibar and the wider tradition of post-colonial thought in the wake of October 7th and the subsequent genocide in Gaza.

In this interview we discuss Iqbal's core ideas, the limits of post-colonial thought and the role of Marxist practice in the Palestinian liberation struggle. I encourage everyone to purchase Yanis Iqba's book The Sword and the Neck, published in 2025 with Iskra Books.

If you download the PDF for free, please make a contribution to Iskra as gratitude for their work. I wrote the Preface to this very fine work where I address a number of important questions that the book raises.

Yanis Iqbal is studying political science at Aligarh Muslim University, India. He is the author of the book 'Education in the Age of Neoliberal Dystopia' and 'The Sword and the Neck.'

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