Critical Theory Working Group
@crittheoryworkgrp
Resources & open reading groups for collective study of early Critical Theory. Website: Podcast feed:
EP23: Schelling’s Early Philosophy of Nature. Crane, Anatarah, & J.E. tackle Schelling’s programmatic intros to the 1790s Naturphilosophie, concepts like force & organism, & ask: what does the project have to offer critical theory of nature & natural science today? www.patreon.com/crittheorywo...
in volume two of our journal Margin Notes, estimated to release some time next month. In this fragmentary essay, Krahl ironically analyzes the relationship between sexuality and metaphysics in classical Greek philosophy and its legacy 2/2. The link to our website is in our bio!
Happy Pride Month! Today we remember Hans-Jürgen Krahl, the openly gay critical theorist and leader of the New Left student movement in Germany who tragically died in 1970 at just 27 by a car accident. A translation of his text "Ontology and Eros" will appear [...] 1/2
EP20: Inside the Manesar Labor Movement Mac & Re are joined by Shreya from the Center for Struggling Trade Unions (CSTU) to discuss the recent wave of workers strikes & history of mobilization in North India, raising questions for labor organizing today! www.patreon.com/posts/episod...
ANNOUNCEMENT: On WEDNESDAY (5/20) at 7:30 PM Eastern US Time we will be hosting a meeting in our Discord server to present and discuss a newly translated text by Georg Lukács. Please visit our Patreon for the (free) invite link to the Discord and additional info www.patreon.com/posts/158506...
By popular demand, J. E. and Crane unite in a two-part episode to, uh... review? critique? lampoon? Gabriel Rockhill's book *Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism* www.patreon.com/posts/156140...
EP15: Wokeness Must Be Defended JE, Cam and Re interrogate Foucault's mid 1970s lectures at the Collège de France, Society Must be Defended. They discuss Foucault's method, his genealogy from Race Wars to Racism, modern conspiratorial thinking, & more! www.patreon.com/posts/154711...
POD EP 15: THEORETICAL PLAYERS’ BALL. J.E. & Anatarah talk play, games, and more via Johan Huizinga’s “Homo Ludens,” a touchstone for game studies, & take the work to task by posing the problem of games as ideology! Listen here to gain elite ball knowledge! www.patreon.com/posts/153570...
NEW: Critique of the Podcast Form, Episode 14: Discussing the Discorsi www.patreon.com/posts/152308...
NEW FROM CRITIQUE OF THE PODCAST FORM: The culture industry is at it again! Their new weapon: anime. Their strategy? The media mix.
NEW: Pt 2 of "Reflections on the Right and its Violence" by J. E. Morain The second half of this essay gets into more detail about Trump, ICE, so-called accelerationism, religion, and youth terrorism. ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Re...
NEW: Part I of "Reflections on the Right and its Violence" by J. E. Morain This essay on reactionary violence seeks to show the basic unity behind conservative acts of social murder, neo-nazi terror attacks, and everything in between. ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Re...
NEW: “Racketology and the Development of Competition.” In this reply to Mac Parker’s “Economic Limits of Racketology,” Jack Barrett argues Horkheimer offers an expanded concept of competition + a preemptive critique of Baran & Sweezy’s theory of monopoly! ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Co...
it’s not too late to sign up for the last meeting of the session (eventbrite.com/e/views-from...), & thanks to everyone who’s already contributed to the PCRF fundraiser—as of today we’re 87% of the way to meeting our goal! Help us to 100% if you can! pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/p...
Thanks to everyone who came out for the conclusion to Rabea Eghbariah’s “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept”—join us next Sat., 9/20 @ noon EST as Anatarah bin AlKaf opens our discussion of “Resisting Erasure” (2025) by Adam Hanieh, Robert Knox, & Rafeef Ziadah!
Thanks to everyone who came out for the discussion of Sections I-II of “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept” by Rabea Eghbariah—see you this Saturday, 9/13, @ noon EST for our discussion of section III & the conclusion with J.E. Morain. See you there!
Thanks to everyone who came out for the second study of Kanafani’s “On Zionist Literature”! Next up: two meetings on “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept” by Rabea Eghbariah—Sections I & II presented by Esther Planas Balduz & Morgan Lily this Saturday, 9/6, @ noon EST. See you there!
CTWG Fall 25: Views from Palestine Saturdays @ noon EST, 8/23-9/27 Palestinian Critical Theory past & present: - Kanafani’s On Zionist Literature (1967) - Eghbariah’s Nakba as a Legal Concept (2024) - Resisting Erasure by Hanieh, Knox, & Ziadah (2025) schedule & sign up 🔗 ⬇️
NEW: Re Tejus works toward synthesizing a critical theory of class in "Class and Rackets, Part I - Conditions." Part II is soon to follow! ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Ra...
Thanks for joining our discussion with Esther Planas Balduz on ego-formation & bourgeois revolution, & the early Frankfurt critique of late Freud! Join us next Sat, 5/3, for the last of CTWG Spring ‘25—on the “Egoism”-essay as critical model with James/Crane!
thanks for joining our discussion with J.E. Morain on the scope & limits of Wittfogel’s histomat geography of production! no meeting next week—join us 4/26 for Horkheimer’s (Frommian!) social psychology of revolutionaries & rebels with Esther!
Thanks all who made it out for our discussion of the Hessen-Grossmann thesis & prospects for critical-theoretical history of science with Anatarah Bin AlKaf! Join us next week (4/12) for Wittfogel’s early writings (~1929-32) on historical materialism & nature with J.E. Morain!
Thanks everyone for coming out to our convo with Mac Parker on the problem of the monopoly-capital paradigm grounding racket theory! Join us next week for a convo with Anatarah Bin AlKaf on the Hessen-Grossmann thesis & critical-theoretical historiography of science!
Critics & theorists! We're excited to announce open & free registration for the post-release meeting for the first volume of the CTWG's E-Journal, "Margin Notes: Volume 1, Kernels of Early Critical Theory" - Friday, January 31st from 2PM-4PM EST! (Eventbrite link in comments)
NEW ON THE CTWG SITE MARGIN NOTES: A JOURNAL OF CRITICAL THEORY V1: KERNELS OF EARLY CRITICAL THEORY Critical Theory is only right in a wrong world. Link: ctwgwebsite.github.io/projects/1_p...