Spectators and Witnesses | Legacy Russell & Fred Moten

This week on The Verso Podcast we’re taking a deep dive on the labour theory of value. From David Ricardo, to Adam Smith, to Karl Marx, it's a topic that economists have been fighting over for hundreds of years - and it's high time The Verso Podcast joined the fray. Our host, Eleanor Penny, sat down with Beverley Best and Aaron Benanav to discuss AI, surplus population, and the relationship between the concept of value and commodity fetishism. Grab Aaron's book "Automation and the Future of Work" here: tinyurl.com/mr8tv48u Pre-order Beverley's book "The Automatic Fetish: The Law of Value in Marx's Capital" here: tinyurl.com/4h47mh6v (release: 21/05/24)

This week on The Verso Podcast we’re taking a deep dive into the relationship between blackness and modern visual culture in the digital age. Our host, Eleanor Penny, will be joined by Legacy Russell and Fred Moten to delve into complicated relationship between philosophy, music, virality, and critical fabulation - in order to elucidate the fundamental way in which the history of modernity is inextricably bound up with images of blackness. You can find Legacy's new book "Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us" here tinyurl.com/yckcuhd2

This week on The Verso Podcast we’ll be taking a close look at the political economy of climate breakdown. Along with our host, Eleanor Penny, Ann Pettifor and Hamza Hamouchene discuss climate justice, private equity, degrowth, and the false promise of techno-fixes. Grab Ann's Verso releases here: tinyurl.com/3n3nc6jn Sign up to the Verso Book Club to get involved with our new Book Club Podcast: tinyurl.com/fda34bzb. All book club members will receive a regular email with links to submit questions to our authors which will be answered on the show.

This week’s episode of The Verso Podcast centres on the gruelling work of making change happen in an often pitiless world - and the mental toll this can take on people. Along with our host, Eleanor Penny, Hannah Proctor and Ajay Singh Chaudhary discuss how revolutionary movements have balanced the grief of political defeat and lost hope, with the imminent needs of organising and continued resistance. Grab a copy of Hannah's book "Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat" here tinyurl.com/2bb5fjma

This week on The Verso Podcast we’re putting landlordism under the microscope - how it turns peoples’ homes into poker chips, and the housing market into a casino. Nick Bano and Beth Stratford join our host, Eleanor Penny to discuss the depth and breadth of the housing crisis. Grab a copy of Nick's new book "Against Landlords: How to Solve the Housing Crisis" here tinyurl.com/yc5au7nz

On this episode of The Verso Podcast we’re going on a deep dive into the work of the psychiatrist, political theorist, and philosopher Frantz Fanon. Our wonderful host, Eleanor Penny, sat down with Matthew Beaumont and Annie Olaloku-Teriba to discuss Fanon’s expansive legacy - touching on everything from night walkers and revolutionaries, to radical humanism and afropessimism, to decolonial psychiatry and the spatial politics of urban life. Grab a copy of Matthew's new book "How We Walk: Frantz Fanon and the Politics of the Body" here tinyurl.com/43yptmm5

Welcome back to the third season of The Verso Podcast! To kick off this run of shiny new episodes we’re taking a bit of a detour into the past, to have a closer look at the protestant reformation. This was a turbulent time in history - of tyrants, merchants, popes, peasants and roving priests - when early capitalist forms of power were just beginning to unsettle the old order. Together with our host, Eleanor Penny, Andrew Drummond and Eleanor Janega paint a detailed picture of the social and political terrain from which the seeds of the German peasants’ war sprang. In particular, they’ll be considering the role played by a socially radical preacher named Thomas Müntzer - a rival to the more well known Martin Luther - and why exactly the historical record has cast him in such an unfavourable light. Grab a copy of Andrew's book, The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary, here: tinyurl.com/3373pvkh

In this bonus episode of the Verso Podcast, authors Anton Jäger and Vincent Bevins reflect on the previous decade, the mass political movements that took place, and the ultimate failure of these movements to produce meaningful political change. They consider the lessons that can be taken from the 2010s and discuss what will be required of current and future movements in order to achieve a more just and democratic world. Grab a copy of Anton's book "The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession" co-authored with Arthur Borriello here: tinyurl.com/2uvznjav

On the last episode The Verso Podcast before the new year, Eleanor Penny is joined by Lynne Segal and Loree Erickson to discuss the myth of total independence, disability as a social construct, and the politics of care. In a conversation that ranges from the gendering, racialisation, and devaluation of caring labour, to abolitionism and disability activism, Loree and Lynne unpack the deep connections between autonomy and dependence, whilst suggesting ways to reimagine care outside of institutions that want to make it all about control. You can find Lynne's book, "Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care", here tinyurl.com/mwcapmn7

This week on The Verso Podcast Eleanor Penny is joined by McKenzie Wark and Toshio Meronek to talk trans narratives, the politics of desire, and queer family. Together they take a critical look at the medical model of transition, its relationship to transmisogyny, and tactics of resistance. You can find McKenzie's book, "Love and Money, Sex and Death: A Memoir", here tinyurl.com/ycyvkam8 And Toshio's book, "Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary", here tinyurl.com/4whkpdxw