Red Medicine

Hannah Zeavin and Helen Charman return to the podcast to discuss the history of technology, media and mothering throughout the 20th century. We discuss the role media and technology play in the labor process of mothering, how media often becomes a site of panic and pathology, and what this all tells us about the relationship between the state and the so-called private household.Hannah Zeavin is Assistant Professor of the History of Science in the Department of History and the Berkeley Center for New Media at UC Berkeley. In 2021, she cofounded The Psychosocial Foundation and is Founding Editor of Parapraxis magazine. She is the author of The Distance Cure and more recently Mother Media: Hot and Cool Parenting in the Twentieth Century (both published by The MIT Press.)Helen Charman is a Fellow and College Teaching Officer in English at Clare College, University of Cambridge. Her writing has been published in publications such as the Guardian, The White Review, and Another Gaze. As a poet, Charman was shortlisted for the White Review Poet's Prize in 2017 and for the 2019 Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment, and has published four poetry pamphlets, most recently In the Pleasure Dairy. Her first book Mother State: A Political History of Motherhood published last August.  FESTIVAL OF THE OPPRESSED TICKETS: https://revsoc21.uk/festival2025/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Jess Thorne returns to the podcast to discuss workers' self-management – from the Lucas Plan of the 1970s to Yugoslavian workers' councils. She explains how workers have challenged the idea that innovation only happens thanks to top-down management structures and asks what worker autonomy offers in the face of current political problems.Jess Thorne is a trade union organiser who has spent the last two years assisting health care assistants with a rebanding campaign. She is also a labour historian and has contributed to journals such as European History Quarterly, Labour History Review and History Workshop Journal.Tickets for Festival of the Oppressed 2025: https://revsoc21.uk/festival2025/Jess' report on workers' self management: https://autonomy.work/portfolio/worker-led-innovation/  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

The hosts of Ordinary Unhappiness join the podcast to discuss D. W. Winnicott; one of the most influential figures in the history of psychoanalysis in Britain. They explain how Winnicott's work was shaped by the traumatizing effects of World War 2, debates between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein, and the place of mothers in the construction of the British welfare state. We also discuss how this history relates to contemporary struggles over social reproduction and care.Abby Kluchin is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, where she coordinates the Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies program. Abby is a co-founder and Associate Director at Large of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She co-hosts the podcast Ordinary Unhappiness with Patrick.Patrick Blanchfield is a writer, an Associate Faculty Member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, and co-host of Ordinary Unhappiness, a podcast about psychoanalysis, politics, pop culture, and the ways we suffer now. He is also a contributing editor at Parapraxis magazine. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Erik Baker returns to the podcast to demystify the entrepreneurial work ethic – from depression era spiritualism to contemporary pop-psychology via struggles over the meaning of work throughout the twentieth century. Erik Baker is Lecturer on the History of Science at Harvard University. His writing has appeared in Harper's, n+1, The Baffler, Jewish Currents, and The Drift, where he is Senior Editor. His first book Make Your Own Job published with Harvard University Press in January.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Emily Callaci unpacks the history and legacy of Wages for Housework, the feminist movement that demanded payment for the unpaid work of women required to sustain capitalism. She discusses five women at the centre of this movement: Selma James, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Silvia Federici, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod. Emily Callaci is a historian and writer, currently Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Street Archives and City Life and Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Ellen Clifford contextualizes the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – often referred to as the assisted dying or assisted suicide bill – within the long history of eugenic politics and welfare reform.Ellen Clifford is a disabled activist and writer. She is on the National Steering Group for Disabled People Against Cuts and is the author of The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Peter Apps and Anna Stec discuss the Grenfell Tower fire, placing the incident in a longer political history of deregulation and privatisation as well as the ongoing dangers caused by the toxic nature of the fire. Peter Apps is a journalist who has covered the housing sector for Inside Housing and other publications for over 10 years. He has reported extensively on the Grenfell Tower fire, authoring a book on the topic titled Show Me The Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen. Anna Stec is Professor of Fire Chemistry and Toxicity at the University of Central Lancashire and has published extensively on the topic. Anna was also an expert witness the Grenfell Tower Enquiry.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Callum Cant joins the podcast to explain 'workers inquiry', a form of research that places the working class as its centre and protagonist. He explains how it differs from other forms of theoretical work and why its so essential for building a militant working class. Callum Cant is a Senior Lecturer in Management at Essex Business School, he is the author of Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Economy and the co-author of Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labour Powering AI, with James Muldoon and Mark Graham. He is an editor at the publication Notes from Below and the host of the forthcoming Notes from Below Podcast.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

If access to care is so expensive, why are care workers so poorly paid? Historically, feminist discourses have looked at how ideology structures how we understand and value care work. However, in this discussion Alyssa Battistoni makes the argument that we need to update and develop these arguments, to provide a better answer to this question.  Alyssa Battistoni is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Barnard College. She is the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso 2019), with Kate Aronoff, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Thea Riofrancos. Her next book is called Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature, and will be published with Princeton University Press in spring 2025. Her writing has appeared in publications such as New Left Review, The Nation, Dissent, n+1, Boston Review, and Jacobin. Her most recently published article, and the topic of this discussion, is titled Ideology at Work? Rethinking Reproduction, and appeared in American Political Science Review earlier this year.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

John Pring documents the history of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), specifically how this department has inflicted 30 years of violence and austerity on sick and disabled people in Britain. John Pring is founder and editor of the news agency Disability News Service. He is co-creator of the Deaths by Welfare timeline, and co-editor and specialist advisor on the award-winning Museum of Austerity project. He has written for mainstream publications including the Guardian, Observer, Daily Mirror and Private Eye, and was associate producer on the award-winning Dispatches documentary, The Truth About Disability Benefits. He is the author of Longcare Survivors: The Biography of a Care Scandal.  Earlier this year, Pluto Press published his most recent book, The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

George Severs provides a history of HIV/AIDS in England, paying close attention to the various political and social formations that emerged to address the harms of the virus, which were compounded by institutional homophobia and state abandonment. Dr George Severs is a historian of HIV/AIDS, sexual violence and sexual health in modern Britain. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland where he is working on a history of sexual health and race. He is the author of Radical Acts: HIV/AIDS Activism in Late Twentieth-Century England.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Nihal El Aasar discusses her recent essay, titled Left-wing Melancholia, which has been published as part of Parapraxis Magazine's Palestine issue. In the essay Nihal explores the responses to the ongoing genocide in Gaza from people in other Arab countries. In her words “there have been certain weighted expectations for the Arab masses to react more strongly and urgently to this genocide. Some have heeded the call; some have tried and failed.” She draws on the work of people like Ghassan Kanafani, Nouri Gana, and friend of the podcast Hannah Proctor, to explore the relationship between counterrevolution in Egypt, US Imperialism, and Palestinian liberation through the lens of Arab political subjectivity. Nihal El Aasar is an Egyptian researcher living in London. Her writing has been published by outlets such as Protean, Africa Is A Country, ArtReview, and elsewhere. Her essay can be found here: https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/leftwing-melancholia  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Youbin Kang and John Ferretti discuss the compounding issues of austerity, policing, and propaganda on the New York City subway system. Specifically, they explore the way incidents of harm and violence are taken up as part of a cycle of media panics and carceral crackdowns. Youbin's recent essay All Aboard the Moral Panic, published in n+1 magazine, and John's experiences of workplace organising provide the basis for the discussion. Youbin Kang is a writer and Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. John Ferretti is a NYC Subway train conductor and a proud member of TWU Local 100, NYC's Subway and Bus workers' union. John is also a co-founder of the Local 100 Fightback Coalition – a rank-and-file Coalition of NYC Transit workers that is made up of both Revolutionary Socialists and Progressive Democrats in our union which was founded in September of 2018.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Helen Charman describes some of the many political and historical struggles over the meaning and status of motherhood, by way of thinkers such as Denise Riley and Jacqueline Rose, as well as figures such as Margaret Thatcher and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Helen Charman is a Fellow and College Teaching Officer in English at Clare College, University of Cambridge. Her critical writing has been published in the Guardian, The White Review, Another Gaze, and The Stinging Fly among others. As a poet, Charman was shortlisted for the White Review Poet's Prize in 2017 and for the 2019 Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment, and has published four poetry pamphlets, most recently In the Pleasure Dairy. Charman volunteers as a birth companion in Glasgow. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Richard Seymour analyses the global far-right, asking how movements across the world have managed to capitalize on the resentment produced by the capitalist system to generate a form of violent rebellion that leaves that same system fully in-tact. Richard Seymour is a writer and broadcaster from Northern Ireland and the author of numerous books about politics including Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics and The Twittering Machine. His writing appears in the The New York Times, the London Review of Books, the Guardian, Prospect, Jacobin, and innumerable other places including his own Patreon. He is an editor at Salvage magazine. His most recent book Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization,  publishes this month with Verso Books. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Sasha Warren explores the history of psychiatry in relationship to the development of capitalism. We discuss how best to frame the different movements that have emerged with the intention of transforming or abolishing psychiatry. We then spend some time talking about figures such as Foucault, Fanon, and R. D Laing that may be familiar to listeners as well as some lesser-known figures such as Sylvia Marcos, and Marie Langer.  Sasha Warren is a writer based in Minneapolis publishing work on madness, psychiatry, and the history of medicine. His first book Storming Bedlam: Madness, Utopia, Revolt published earlier this year.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

This episode features a recording of live discussion with Richard Seymour and Helen Charman about the medical imaginaries of the far right. This recording is from illness (3), the third in the event series that runs alongside the podcast. We discuss why the far-right has so many paranoid fantasies about medicine, from race science and eugenics, to attacks on trans and reproductive healthcare. Helen Charman is a Fellow and College Teaching Officer in English at Clare College, University of Cambridge. Her critical writing has been published in the Guardian, The White Review, Another Gaze, and The Stinging Fly among others. As a poet, Charman was shortlisted for the White Review Poet's Prize in 2017 and for the 2019 Ivan Juritz Prize for Creative Experiment, and has published four poetry pamphlets, most recently In the Pleasure Dairy. Charman volunteers as a birth companion in Glasgow. Her first book Mother State: A Political History of Motherhood is now available. Richard Seymour is a writer and broadcaster from Northern Ireland and the author of numerous books about politics including Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics and The Twittering Machine. His writing appears in the The New York Times, the London Review of Books, the Guardian, Prospect, Jacobin, and innumerable other places including his own Patreon. He is an editor at Salvage magazine. His most recent book Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization is now available.   SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Dayna Tortorici and Lisa Borst discuss The Intellectual Situation, a new anthology of writing from the literary magazine n+1. The anthology brings together writing from the period of 20014-2024, including contributions from people such as Gabriel Winant, Alyssa Battistoni, Tabi Haslet, Nikil Saval, and many others. In this conversation Lisa and Dayna discuss putting the collection together, how it feels to read back essays written during different political struggles from the last decade, and how they think about the relationship between writing and organising. EVENT: bit.ly/3ShrqCi  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Melinda Cooper describes the combination of austerity and extravagance that characterizes neoliberal monetary policy and how these ideas emerged from the crises of the 1970s. Melinda Cooper is Professor in the School of Sociology at the Australian National University. She is the author of Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism and Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance.  EVENT: bit.ly/3ShrqCi  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Leah Cowan explains the long and complex relationship between British feminism and British policing. From women's suffrage, through the Women's Liberation movement of the 1970s, to recent conflicts over the murder of Sarah Everard by a London Metropolitan Police officer.   Leah Cowan is a writer, editor and previously the political editor of Gal-dem magazine. She is the author of two books Border Nation: A Story of Migration (Pluto Books, 2021) and Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? (Verso Books, 2024) Some of My Best Enemies are Feminists: On Zionist Feminism by Sophie Lewis (https://salvage.zone/some-of-my-best-enemies-are-feminists-on-zionist-feminism/) SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Ruth Pearce explains the many problems surrounding the recently published Cass Review into trans healthcare for young people. Ruth Pearce is a Lecturer in Community Development at the University of Glasgow and a researcher specializing in trans healthcare. She has edited two books (The Emergence of Trans and TERF Wars) as well as special issues of the International Journal of Transgender Health (Fertility, reproduction and body autonomy) and Sexualities (Trans Genealogies). She is also the author of Understanding Trans Health. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Michael Hardt analyses the revolutionary political movements of the 1970s and what they might teach us about political struggle, social transformation, and liberation. Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Literature Program at Duke University. He is co-author, with Antonio Negri, of the Empire trilogy and, most recently, Assembly. He is co-director with Sandro Mezzadra of The Social Movements Lab. His most recent book is The Subversive Seventies (Oxford University Press.)  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Hannah Proctor explains why it's important to understand the messy, emotional, and interpersonal aspects of political struggle.Hannah Proctor is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, interested in histories and theories of radical psychiatry. She is a member of the editorial collective behind Radical Philosophy, and has been published in Jacobin, Tribune, The New Inquiry and elsewhere. Her most recent book is Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat (Verso Books) EVENT INFORMATION: https://bit.ly/3yu9zBl SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Nick Bano explains how landlords and the state collaborate to produce the housing crisis, generating harm and violence in the process of wealth accumulation. Nick Bano is an author and Barrister who specializes in representing homeless people, residential occupiers, and destitute and migrant households. He has written for Tribune, the New Socialist, and Jacobin. He is the author of Against Landlords: How to Solve the Housing Crisis.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

In today's episode I'm speaking to Adam Elliott-Cooper about histories of Black resistance to British policing, specifically how figures such as Claudia Jones, Darcus Howe, and Stuart Hall have theorized and resisted Policing's role in upholding British Imperialism, racial capitalism, and neoliberalism. Adam Elliott-Cooper is Lecturer in Public and Social Policy at Queen Mary and the author of Black Resistance to British Policing and co-author of Empire's Endgame: Racism and the British State. Adam also sits on the board of The Monitoring Group, an anti-racist organization, challenging state racisms and racial violence. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineICA EVENT: www.ica.art/nervous-systemsSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Gabriel Winant and Taj Ali discuss the surge of labor organising that has taken place in British and American healthcare over the last few years.Gabriel Winant is an assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago and the author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. His writing has been published in Dissent, n+1, Jacobin, The New York Review of Books.Taj Ali is the co-editor of Tribune Magazine and has been writing about trade unions and workers rights for a number of years. He has a forthcoming book about the history of political activism in the British South Asian Community. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Julian Go explains the 200 year history of police militarization in Britain and the U.S. He highlights the relationships between race, moral panics, and criminalization before describing how these connections shed light on the struggles against colonialism, imperialism, and policing. Julian Go is Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture and the Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory (Oxford, 2016). He is the winner of Lewis A. Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda Setting in Sociology given by the American Sociological Association and former President of the Social Science History Association. His new book Policing Empires: Militarization, Race, and the Imperial Boomerang in Britain and the US is now available from Oxford University Press.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

Jules Gill-Peterson explains what trans misogyny is, why the state cultivates and enlists it, and how this shapes our current political moment.Jules Gill-Peterson is writer, academic, and author based in the US. She is a tenured associate professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and a General Editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Her writing has appeared in publications such as New Inquiry, Jewish Currents, The Baffler, Parapraxis, and many others. She is the author of Histories of the Transgender Child and A Short History of Trans Misogyny.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.xyz

Writer Adam Shatz discusses the life and work of the revolutionary, psychiatrist, and philosopher Frantz FanonAdam Shatz is the US editor of The London Review of Books and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and other publications. He is also a visiting professor at Bard College, and the host of the podcast “Myself with Others." He is the author of two books: Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination (Verso); and The Rebel's Clinic: the Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon (FSG) and the editor of Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel (Nation Books).  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.xyz

Jess Thorne updates us on the struggle Health Care Assistants in the Wirral face to win adequate wages. Jess Thorne is a writer, historian and trade union organiser. She works as a local organiser for UNISON in the North West region, where she has been assisting healthcare assistants on the Wirral in a re-banding dispute. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.xyz

Ramsey McGlazer discusses the work of radical psychoanalyst Elvio Fachinelli. Specifically, he traces the history of an anti-authoritarian kindergarten which Fachinelli founded, how this informed his broader engagement with psychoanalysis, and how that work might inform our own understanding of authority, adulthood and freedom. How to Touch Grass by Ramsey McGlazer: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/how-to-touch-grass/ SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.xyz

Lara Sheehi, Stephen Sheehi and James Schneider discuss events currently unfolding in Palestine and the strategies used media to stifle support for Palestinian liberation and normalize settler colonialism.   Lara Sheehi is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the George Washington University Professional Psychology program. Co-editor of Studies in Gender & Sexuality and of Counterspace in Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. Stephen Sheehi is the Sultan Qaboos Professor of Middle East Studies and Director of the Decolonizing Humanities Project at William & Mary, where he is also a Professor of Arabic Studies. Stephen is the author of a number of books including Camera Palaestina: Photography and Displaced Histories of Palestine (with Salim Tamari and Issam Nassar), Arab Imago: A Social History of Portrait Photography, 1860-1910, and Islamophobia: The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims and Foundations of Modern Arab Identity. Together Lara and Stephen are also the authors of Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine. James Schnieder is a political organizer, writer and Communications Director for Progressive International. He co-founded the left-wing grassroots movement Momentum. He is also the author of Our Bloc. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Craig, Adam and Will from Acid Horizon discuss their book Anti-Oculus: A Philosophy of Escape, including reflections on cybernetics, police, paranoia, disability, and Ocularity. Acid Horizon is a podcasting collective of artists, musicians, and philosophers formed in 2020 with a focus on Marxist, post-structuralist, and anarchist philosophy. They also run seminars on philosophers such as Deleuze, Foucault, and George Bataille and run a sub-imprint, Zer0 Horizonz, over on Zer0 Books. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Erica Borg and Amedeo Policante provide a marxist analysis of gene editing technology, CRISPR, and genetic engineering as they relate to eugenics, capital accumulation and ecology.  Erica Borg is a geographer and political ecologist based at King's College, London. Their research focuses on the relations between capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy and ecological crisis.Amedeo Policante is a Researcher at the Nova University of Lisbon. His writings interrogate the nexus of extraction, exploitation and expropriation that fuels the contemporary world market. He is the author of two books: The Pirate Myth and The New Mercenaries.Together they are the authors of Mutant Ecologies: Manufacturing Life in the Age of Genomic Capital, which published with Pluto Books later last year. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Orisanmi Burton discusses the criminalized and incarcerated Black radical tradition through the lens of a series of prison rebellions in the New York prison system throughout the 1970s. Orisanmi Burton is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at American University and the author of Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Waithera Sebatindira explores how it feels to live as an addict under capitalism and asks how addiction and recovery could remake the world. Waithera Sebatindira is a Kenyan writer based in London. Their previous writing and research interests have included food imperialism, drag kings and gender transformation. They are a co-author of A FLY Girl's Guide to University and the author of Through an Addict's Looking-Glass (Hajar Press) SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington www.redmedicine.xyz

Johnbosco Nwogbo from We Own It discusses the future of the NHS, to what degree it can still be considered publicity owned, and what we could expect from a Labour government. Johnbosco Nwogbo is Lead Campaigner at We Own It. For the three years before joining We Own It, he has been a campaigner for renters and community rights as part of ACORN the community union. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Journalist Vic Parsons discusses the reality facing trans and non-binary people navigating the British healthcare system.Vic Parsons is a journalist based in London. They have written on a number of topics relating to the lives of trans and non-binary people for a number of publications including Novara Media, Democracy Now, Vogue and others.SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Rhiannon Osborne, Araceli Camargo and Josh Artus from Centric Lab explain the work they do in supporting communities fighting for health justice. Centic Lab is an organization that provides tools for racialised and marginalised communities facing the effects of extractivism and ecological breakdown. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

The writer Amber Hussain describes a certain kind of middle-class ethical meat consumption she has dubbed as Meat Love. She explores the culture surrounding this type of meat eating and what kind of anxieties, be they class or climate, are being worked through in this mode of consumption. Amber Husain is a writer based in South London, UK. She is the author of Meat Love (Mack, 2023) and Replace Me (Peninsula Press, 2021). Her essays on politics, literature and art have been published in Granta, the LRB, New Left Review, The White Review, Baffler, The Believer, LA Review of Books and New York Times Magazine. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Nick Dearden shatters the myth that pharmaceuticals corporations (Big Pharma) play an innovative and productive role in providing people with medicines and how the realities of financialization, intellectual property law, and neocolonialism show that instead we are left with an incredibly harmful system. Nick Dearden is the director of Global Justice Now. He has been a campaigner against corporate globalisation for over 20 years, working with organizations including War on Want, Amnesty International and Jubilee Debt Campaign. He has been a leading voice in the campaign for a People's Vaccine. He regularly contributes political analysis to publications including The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and Open Democracy.  He is the author of Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health (Verso Books.) SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington www.redmedicine.xyz

Narcissism is often deemed the defining pathology of contemporary society. In this episode writer Matt Colquhoun examines these claims and asks if another narcissism is possible.Matt Colquhoun is a writer and photographer from Hull. They are the author of two books, Egress and Narcissus in Bloom, and the editor of Mark Fisher's Postcapitalist Desire. They're also a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Newcastle University, and blog at xenogothic.com  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington www.redmedicine.xyz

Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek describe the home and its function as a site of unpaid labor within capitalist economies. Specifically, they explore how modernization and technology have failed to deliver on their promise of making this labor quicker and easier – and the implications this has for how we give and receive care.Helen Hester is Professor of Gender, Technology and Cultural Politics at the University of West London. She is a member of the international working group Laboria Cuboniks. Her books include Beyond Explicit: Pornography and the Displacement of Sex (SUNY Press, 2014), Xenofeminism (Polity, 2018), and Post-Work (Bloomsbury, forthcoming, with Will Stronge).Nick Srnicek is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Economy at King's College London. He is the author of Platform Capitalism (Polity, 2016) and Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work (Verso, 2015 with Alex Williams). SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Arun Kundnani outlines the limits of liberal anti-racism and explains why we need a radical and materialist analysis of capitalism to understand racism. Arun Kundnani has been active in antiracist movements in Britain and the United States for three decades. He is a former editor of the journal Race & Class and was a scholar-in-residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. He is the author of a number of books including, The End of Tolerance: Racism in 21st Century Britain, The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror and most recently What Is Antiracism? And Why It Means Anticapitalism which published with Verso Books last month. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz 

M. E. O'Brien discusses her work on family abolition, specifically her new book Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care. Including how the crisis of capitalist over-production changed the nature of the family in the 20th century, and how we might understand what's happening in moments of insurgent social reproduction. M. E. O'Brien writes on gender and communist theory. She co-edits two magazines Pinko and Parapraxis. She received her PhD from NYU. She is the co-author of the novel Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Sian Norris discusses the increasing attacks on reproductive care and abortion rights and the network of right-wing organizations orchestrating them. Sian Norris is a writer and investigative journalist who has covered far-right movements and their relocation to the mainstream for a range of publications, including the UK's Byline Times and openDemocracy. Norris is a leading voice in the UK feminist movement and her writing on issues ranging from men's violence against women, to migrant rights, and poverty and inequality, has been published in the Guardian, New Statesman, the i, and many more publications. Her book Bodies Under Siege: How the Far–Right Attack on Reproductive Rights Went Global published with Verso in June, 23. SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Micha Frazer Carroll explains why we need to re-politicize our understandings of mental illness, mental health and madness.Micha is a columnist at the Independent. She has previously edited for gal-dem, the Guardian and Blueprint. Micha has also written for Vogue, HuffPost, Huck and Dazed. She was nominated for the Comment Awards' Fresh New Voice of the Year Award, and the Observer/Anthony Burgess Award for Arts Criticism. Her new book Mad World is now available from Pluto Books.SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Audio from illness #1, the first Red Medicine event held at The Horse Hospital on May 25th. The evening was a night of readings from Micha Frazer-Carroll, Amber Husain and Matt Colquhoun on the political, cultural and historic significance of illness.  TIME STAMPS:05:00 - Red Medicine introductory text12:15 - Micha Frazer-Carroll (https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745346717/mad-world/)20:50 - Amber Husain (https://mackbooks.co.uk/products/meat-love-an-ideology-of-the-flesh-br-amber-husain)47:12 - Matt Colquhoun (https://repeaterbooks.com/product/narcissus-in-bloom/)  Micha Frazer-Carroll is a columnist at the Independent. She has previously edited for gal-dem, the Guardian and Blueprint, a mental health magazine that she founded. Micha has also written for Vogue, HuffPost, Huck and Dazed. She was nominated for the Comment Awards' Fresh New Voice of the Year Award, and the Observer/Anthony Burgess Award for Arts Criticism. She is invested in using journalism to challenge systems of power.Amber Husain is an essayist and academic, currently researching the relationship between psychosomatic medicine and neoliberal biopolitics. She is the author of Replace Me (Peninsula Press, 2021) and Meat Love (Mack, 2023), and is currently working on a new non-fiction book.Matt Colquhoun is a writer and photographer from Hull, UK. They are the author of Egress: On Mourning, Melancholy and Mark Fisher (2020) and the editor of Mark Fisher's Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures (2021). Their next book, Narcissus in Bloom, is forthcoming from Repeater Books in 2023. Currently based in Newcastle upon Tyne, they blog at xenogothic.com.SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington www.redmedicine.xyz

Victoria Browne discusses her work developing a feminist philosophy of miscarriages, still births and pregnancy.Victoria Browne is Reader in Political Theory at Oxford Brookes University. She is a member of the Radical Philosophy editorial collective and the author of two books Feminism, Time and Nonlinear History and Pregnancy Without Birth: A Feminist Philosophy of Miscarriage. EVENT LINK: https://bit.ly/3ZPFu7H SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington www.redmedicine.xyz

Keir Milburn analyses the 'Cosmic Right' a new wave of reactionary politics built around conspiracy theories and new age spirituality and calls for the construction of a Weird Left to counter this worrying turn. Keir Milburn is a writer, researcher, and political activist. His most recent book is Generation Left. He works on municipalism, economic democracy and political economy for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and is a research associate for the think tank Common Wealth. He co-hosts the #ACFM podcast on Novara Media and is part of the Red Plenty Games collective. EVENT LINK: https://bit.ly/3ZPFu7HSUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz

Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla explains how an internationalist politics can and should shape international health policy away from structures designed by and for capitalist countries in the Global North towards a system based on sovereignty and solidarity.   Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla is a Cabinet member of Progressive International and leads its policy pillar, Blueprint. EVENT LINK: https://bit.ly/3ZPFu7HSUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark Pilkingtonwww.redmedicine.xyz