Chronic Fatigue and the Politics of Diagnosis w/ Emily Lim Rogers and Rouzbeh Shadpey

Emily Lim Rogers and Rouzbeh Shadpey join the podcast to talk about the history of chronic fatigue under capitalism. We explore the way in which medical knowledge reflects and enacts the need for capitalist society to monitor, measure and discipline workers before situating conditions like ME/CFS within these dynamics.   Emily Lim Rogers is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, with secondary appointments in Asian American and Diaspora Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. She has a book forthcoming with Duke University Press called Sick Work: Exhaustion, Labor, and Invisible Illness Rouzbeh Shadpey is an artist, writer, and musician. Rouzbeh has exhibited and performed at TULCA (Ireland), documenta fifteen (Germany), The Mosaic Rooms (UK), Poetry Project (New York), MUTEK (Montréal), and more. His writing appears in artistic and academic journals, including Parapraxis, Decolonial Hacker, Weird Economies, Syllabus Project, and Momus. His musical practice, under the name GOLPESAR / گلپسر , combines avant-garde electronics, guitar, spoken word, and Iranian sonics. ANTI-SELF-HELPLINE SUBMISSIONS: https://forms.gle/8npHMJmsSXjEdc8s5 JULY 10th panel information: https://www.outsavvy.com/event/28215/thinking-together-for-consolation-and-towards-liberation   SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

The ANTI-SELF-HELPLINE is a place to share and make sense of our experiences of political struggle. Political struggle is hard; yet there are very few resources for thinking through the emotional and psychic dimensions of these experiences. Those of us who want to radically change the world are often exposed to the depoliticizing tendencies of mainstream therapy, the disciplining functions of self-help, and the pathologisation of political consciousness. The ANTI-SELF-HELPLINE is a space to think through these experiences collectively whilst engaging critically with psychoanalysis, therapy, and histories of struggle. Send your questions, reflections, and experiences to [email protected] submit here: https://forms.gle/2RzafrqoqLLEav7X6You can also send messages or voice-notes to any of the podcast social media accounts.  SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

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/