It was a pleasure to discuss my research on the global theory industry and the U.S. national security state with Aaron Good. The episode is entitled “Operation Pomo.”
Interviewed on “American Exception”
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Interviewed on “The East Is a Podcast”
I had an opportunity to sit down with Sina for an episode of “The East Is a Podcast,” entitled “The People vs. Slavoj Žižek w/Gabriel Rockhill.” The conversation is wide ranging, so we discuss the global theory industry, the star system, intellectual opportunism, Marxism, and much more.
Turkish Translation of Frankfurt School Article
My recent article “The CIA & the Frankfurt School’s Anti-Communism,” is now available in Turkish. Click here to read it.
Interviewed about Fascism on The Real News Network
I was thrilled to talk with Jacqueline Luqman on @TheRealNews about my ongoing research on fascism, which has appeared in Liberation School, Black Agenda Report & CounterPunch (click here for the list of articles). The interview is entitled “The History of Postwar Fascism Needs to Be Retold,” and here’s the abstract (click here to listen):
“Popular understandings of what fascism is, where it came from, and how it was ‘defeated’ have hindered our collective ability to identify and fight fascist threats beyond those that existed in Western Europe a century ago. In the latest installment of her ongoing series investigating the contours of fascism in the past and present, Jacqueline Luqman speaks with philosopher, cultural critic, and political theorist Gabriel Rockhill about the need to understand how the political and economic systems that produced European fascism did not disappear after World War II. Rockhill is Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, founder and director of the Critical Theory Workshop/Atelier de Théorie Critique, former Directeur de programme at the Collège International de Philosophie, and the author/editor of numerous scholarly books in English and French.”
Article on Foucault, Anti-Communism & the Global Theory Industry
“Foucault, Anti-Communism & the Global Theory Industry” was just published in “The Philosophical Salon” in the Los Angeles Review of Books. It is a reply to critics regarding my earlier article, on the same platform, entitled “Foucault: The Faux Radical.”
Excerpt: “The widespread promotion of identity politics and French theory within the dominant apparatus of knowledge under global capitalism should serve as a clear indication to anyone who’s paying even scant attention that they are not a threat to the system. On the contrary, they are some of the primary intellectual forces driving what I’ve referred to as radical recuperation. By this I mean the tactic of producing the appearance of radicality—including symbolic systems of signification that are so inordinately intricate that many have trouble seeing how unmoored they are from actual socioeconomic struggles—in order to better recuperate insurgent forces within the extant system. ‘All symbol, no substance’ is their mantra, and they have made an enormous contribution to the intellectual world war against the very idea of communism.”
TV Interview for BIENALSUR Will Air on 12/5/20
“El imaginario dominante dentro de la coyuntura neoliberal es reductivista, determinista, teleológico y trata de convencernos de que la historia es inevitable y que lo único que podemos hacer es seguir las consecuencias… La contra-historia es un intento de transformar metodológicamente nuestras herramientas de comprensión histórica para tener una aprehensión diferente del orden mundial contemporáneo”, dice el filósofo, crítico cultural y activista Gabriel Rockhill (FRA/USA), con quien BIENALSUR inaugura un ciclo de conversaciones íntimas, de puesta en foco de ideas y pensamientos. Rockhill estudió con algunas de las voces más sobresalientes de la filosofía francesa, incluyendo a Derrida, Irigaray, Balibar y Badiou. Es profesor de filosofía en la Universidad de Villanova y director fundador del Critical Theory Workshop y conocido por sus revolucionarios trabajos sobre historia, estética y política publicados en nueve libros y numerosos artículos, una obra cuya primera compilación en español será publicada por la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero en 2021 a través de un número especial de la revista Estudios Curatoriales.
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“The dominant imaginary within the neoliberal conjuncture is reductivist, deterministic, teleological and tries to convince us that history is inevitable and that the only thing we can do is to follow the consequences… Counter-history is an attempt to methodologically transform our tools of historical understanding to have a different apprehension of the contemporary world order”, says philosopher, cultural critic and activist Gabriel Rockhill (FRA/USA), with whom BIENALSUR inaugurates a cycle of intimate conversations and focused debatesRockhill studied with some of the leading luminaries of French theory, including Derrida, Irigaray, Balibar and Badiou. He is Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University and Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop being known for his revolutionary works on history, aesthetics and politics published in nine books and numerous articles, a work whose first compilation in Spanish will be published by UNTREF in 2021 through a special issue of the journal Estudios Curatoriales.
Call for Applications: CTW Summer Program in Paris and Online
The Critical Theory Workshop / Atelier de Théorie Critique will host its 2021 Summer Program online from June 28 to July 16. Invited guests include Pierre-Antoine Chardel, Annie Lacroix-Riz, Michael Löwy, Jennifer Ponce de León, Gabriel Rockhill and Sophie Wahnich.
Click here for additional information, including how to apply.
Radio Interview: “A Counter-History of Fascism and Liberalism”
I was honored to be invited to speak on “A Public Affair” about my recent series of four articles on fascism and liberalism. Click here to listen.
Description: “Fascism seems to have risen up zombie-like from the past, but philosopher and political theorist Gabriel Rockhill argues that it’s been with us all along.
Today on the show, Allen traces a counter-history of fascism—including its relationships to liberalism, capitalism, and colonialism and how we understand/misunderstand its role in the U.S.—with Gabriel Rockhill.”
Book Review of “Insurgent Universality”
My review of Massimiliano Tomba’s latest book, Insurgent Universality: An Alternative Legacy of Modernity, is just out in Political Theory. Click here to read it online (if you have access), or here to download a pdf.
Article on Ideology with J. Ponce de León
The article I co-authored with Jennifer Ponce de León, “Toward a Compositional Model of Ideology: Materialism, Aesthetics, and Cultural Revolution,” was just published here in Philosophy Today. If you do not have access and would like to read it, a pdf is available here.
Liu Bolin
Abstract: This article sets forth a compositional model of ideology by drawing on the tradition of historical materialism and further developing its insights into the aesthetic composition of reality. It demonstrates how ideology is not simply a set of false beliefs but is rather the process by which social agents are composed over time in every dimension of their existence, including their thoughts, practices, perceptions, representations, values, affects, desires, and unconscious drives. By working through a number of diverse debates and authors—ranging from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to Louis Althusser, Eduardo Galeano, Rosaura Sánchez, and Paulo Freire—it thereby elucidates how ideology is best understood as an aesthetic process that includes every aspect of sense and sense-making, and that therefore requires a collective, cultural revolution as its antidote.
Key words: ideology, aesthetics, commodity fetishism, materialism, Marxism, ideology critique, conscientização, cultural revolution
GABRIEL ROCKHILL 