Woodbine Podcast

#47: Jeremy Gilbert on the Deleuzo-Gramscian Synthesis (Part 2)

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 [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 [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.pdf [https://jeremygilbertwriting.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/my-friend-mark40.pdf] Jeremy 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).

#46: Jeremy Gilbert on the Age of Individualism (Part 1)

For our latest episode Jeremy Gilbert joins Amogh and Matt to discuss his research on individualism and neoliberalism. We talk about both Left pessimism and Left pluralism, as well as how to evaluate the victories and defeats from the Occupy movement to the Labor Party. We end Part One of this two-part conversation revisiting Stuart Hall's call for a "Marxism without guarantees". READINGS: --"Thinking of Democratic Goals: In Conversation with Jeremy Gilbert" - Aleksander Kopka, 2025: https://olrsupplement.com/2026/01/06/thinking-of-democratic-goals-in-conversation-with-jeremy-gilbert/ [https://olrsupplement.com/2026/01/06/thinking-of-democratic-goals-in-conversation-with-jeremy-gilbert/] --"Acid Corbynism: an experimental politics for testing times" - Jeremy Gilbert, 2017: https://theconversation.com/acid-corbynism-an-experimental-politics-for-testing-times-85505 [https://theconversation.com/acid-corbynism-an-experimental-politics-for-testing-times-85505] Jeremy 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).

#45: Ziad Majed on the Aftermath of October 7th

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 [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.html [https://vendredis-arabes.blogspot.com/2026/04/ziad-majed-since-second-world-war-there.html] Dr. 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).

#44: The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington

For this week's episode Amogh and Malek return to discuss Samuel P. Huntington's 1993 essay The Clash of Civilizations? - a follow-up to our recent Fukuyama episode, as well as Trump's threat to Iran that "a whole civilization will die tonight." We revisit the aftermath of the Cold War, and the nostalgia for a history guided by ideology. We talk about the revisionism of mobilizing "the West" in opposition to an imagined coherent Islamic world. Has civilizational thinking increased in the last 30 years, and if so, where, why, and how? READINGS: --"The Clash of Civilizations?" - Samuel P. Huntington, 1993: https://archive.is/3ZmOF --"Samuel Huntington Is Getting His Revenge" - Nils Gilman, 2025: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/21/samuel-huntington-fukuyama-clash-of-civilizations/ [https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/21/samuel-huntington-fukuyama-clash-of-civilizations/] --"In Search of New Enemies" - Stephen Holmes, 1997: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n08/stephen-holmes/in-search-of-new-enemies [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v19/n08/stephen-holmes/in-search-of-new-enemies] Samuel P. Huntington (1927-2008) was the Albert J. Weatherhead III University Professor at Harvard University, where he was also the director of the John M. Olin Institute for Stategic Studies and the chairman of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He was the director of security planning for the National Security Council in the Carter administration, the founder and coeditor of Foreign Policy, and the president of the American Political Science Association.

#43: The AI Bubble and Technological Revolutions

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 [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 [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/ [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/qs8Vw Please note, this episode was recorded earlier this winter, prior to the current news cycle.