In episode 19, Jennifer Pap and I talk with American-French poet, novelist, and playwright, Leslie Kaplan (born in 1943), whose revolutionary writing we have been translating. As a student, Kaplan participated in the occupation of French factories in ‘68 and the May uprising and general strike that followed. Several years later she resided and worked at La Borde, a radical non-hierarchical psychiatric clinic directed by Jean Oury. Oury was a leading figure in the psychothérapie institutionnelle movement. La Borde attracted major thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze and Frantz Fanon who were forging meeting places between anti-fascism, revolutionary politics, and psychoanalysis. We read from and talk with Leslie about her first book, Excess-The Factory, about her experience working in the factories, and her third, The Criminal, set at La Borde, both of which we translated into English. Along the way we discuss Leslie’s close relationship with an Auschwitz survivor, the entwining of justice and love, the relationship between the “limit” and the “infinite,” Leslie’s interest in theater and “play,” and the multiple and necessarily unfinished revolutions demanded by our time.

We want to acknowledge the very sad passing of writer and revolutionary thinker Joshua Clover (1965-2025), whose press Commune Editions (with Juliana Spahr and Jasper Bernes) published Excess-The Factory in 2018. We remember Joshua with great respect and gratitude.

Books and other texts mentioned or discussed

Leslie Kaplan, Excess—The Factory, translated by Julie Carr and Jennifer Pap

Leslie Kaplan, The Book of Skies, translated by Julie Carr and Jennifer pap

Leslie Kaplan, Ms. Nobody Knows, translated by Jennifer Pap

Leslie Kaplan, Mathias et la Révolution

Jean Oury, “The Hospital is Ill” (interview in Radical Philosophy 143 (May /June 2007)

More on Jean Oury and La Borde

“Jean Oury and Clinique de La Borde: A Conversation with Camille Robcis”

La clinique psychiatrique de La Borde (1971) (Film)

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Music by Ben Roberts: Benjamin.Roberts447@gmail.com

Comments and ideas to Juliealicecarr@gmail.com