Red Medicine

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.substack.com/

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.substack.com/

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.substack.com/

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 SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/

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 SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicineSoundtrack by Mark PilkingtonTwitter: @red_medicine__www.redmedicine.substack.com/