Identity on Credit: Ajax, Achilles, and the Modern Self with Fredrik Westerlund
What happens when the self we imagine drifts further from the one we actually live? In this episode, philosopher Fredrik Westerlund joins Craig and Nicholas de Warren to explore his concept of “identity on credit,” where our sense of self is built on promises yet to be realized. From Sophocles’ Ajax to Nietzsche, Deleuze, and Scheler, we trace how recognition, resentment, and failure shape the modern psyche. Together we ask whether it is possible to live beyond the creditor–debtor logic of id...
17 Aug 1h 16min
From Chaos to Creation: Deleuze, Francis Bacon, 'On Painting', and 'The Logic of Sensation' with Charles J. Stivale
What happens when the painter’s hand breaks free from the eye, and chaos reorganizes the entire field of vision? In this episode of Acid Horizon, we join Charles Stivale, translator of On Painting and The Logic of Sense, to explore Gilles Deleuze’s rare 1981 seminar on painting. Together we trace how concepts like catastrophe, diagram, and modulation emerge from Deleuze’s live philosophical “laboratory” and feed into his landmark work Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Along the way, we u...
14 Aug 1h 14min
How Did Analytic Philosophy Become the Ruling Class of Thought? Christoph Schuringa Explains
What if analytic philosophy isn't as politically neutral as it claims to be? In this episode, we explore the hidden ideological scaffolding of analytic philosophy—its deference to science, retreat to common sense, and therapeutic impulse. Christoph Schuringa, author of A Social History of Analytic Philosophy (Verso), reveals how analytic thought emerged from institutional, class-based, and geopolitical forces. We also discuss its uneasy relation to continental philosophy, AI ethics, and the e...
28 Jul 1h 15min
Becoming Worthy of the Event: Deleuze, Nietzsche, and Revolutionary Ethics with Justin
What does it mean to become worthy of the event? In this episode, we’re joined by Justin, longtime collaborator and host of our current reading group on Pierre Klossowski’s Living Currency. Together, we explore Deleuze’s stoic metaphysics, Nietzsche’s ethics of affirmation, and the revolutionary stakes of releasing ourselves from resentment. Along the way, we consider how play, pedagogy, and the dissolution of the self open us to the transformative force of the event. Support the show Support...
17 Jul 58min
Fanon and Sartre: Rethinking Praxis, Race, and Revolution
What happens when the dialectic between Sartre and Fanon is not one of influence, but of mutual transformation? Today we're live at Webster’s in State College with Tyrique Mack-Georges, who returns to the podcast to discuss his research on seriality, group infusion, and the possibility of a new humanity. Together, we explore how Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason illuminates Fanon’s revolutionary project, and how Fanon, in turn, reorients Sartre’s ethics. This is a conversation about str...
6 Jul 39min
The Roots of 'Gender-Critical' Fascism: White Supremacy, Reactionary Feminism, and the Far Right
What if the history of feminism wasn’t only a story of liberation—but also one of betrayal, reaction, and complicity? In this episode of Acid Horizon, we speak with Michael Richmond and Alex Charnley, authors of Fascism and the Women's Cause, about the forgotten histories of white feminist collaboration with the far right—from the suffrage movement to the Ku Klux Klan and the British Union of Fascists. Together we explore how transphobia, liberalism, and racial capitalism converge in today’s ...
29 Jun 1h 7min
Georges Bataille’s 'On Nietzsche': War, Chance, and the Collapse of Meaning with Stuart Kendall
What does it mean to write philosophy in a time of catastrophe? In this episode, we’re joined once again by Stuart Kendall to explore Georges Bataille’s On Nietzsche, a fragmented, intimate, and disorienting text written in the final years of World War II. We examine how Nietzsche becomes not just a philosophical reference but a companion for Bataille—a figure through whom Bataille grapples with sovereignty, death, and the limits of knowledge. From Sartre’s accusations of mysticism to the wil...
21 Jun 1h 44min
Hermaphrodite Logic: A History of Intersex Liberation with Juliana Gleeson
What does it mean to politicize sex rather than assume its politics? In this episode, we're joined once again by Juliana Gleeson to discuss her new book Hermaphrodite Logic: A History of Intersex Liberation, a sharp and sardonic retelling of intersex activism from 1990 to today. We trace the expressive politics of sex through protest, medical confrontation, and wit as strategy, asking how humor, style, and clinical resistance shaped a movement. Along the way, we explore the global stakes of i...
16 Jun 1h
