Red Medicine

Sophie Lewis explains how the family shapes care in capitalist societies and what health might look like in a society that is no longer structured around the institution of the family. Drawing on the works of Marx, Alexandra Kollontai, Charles Fourier and the gay liberationists, she presents us with a radically different approach to healing and care.

Sophie is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia and the author of Full Surrogacy Now and Abolish the Family, both published by Verso Books. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, Boston Review, n+1, the London Review of Books and Salvage.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Joe Glenton reflects on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu’s complex and intimate relationship with various currents of right-wing politics.

He explores the dominant cultures within BJJ including the prevalence of reactionary conspiracy theories and how Brazilian fascism continues to shape the upper echelons of the sport. We also discuss Comunidade Jiu Jitsu, an invitation only gym founded to create a welcoming and inclusive space built on commitments to anti-racism, LGBTQ+ inclusion and gender equality.

Joe is a journalist, film-maker and award-winning writer. He is the author of Veteranhood, which was published by Repeater books in 2021, a book about the political world of veterans and militarism in Britain. Joe is a veteran turned conscientious objector and anti-war campaigner who served in Afghanistan before going AWOL and using the ensuing legal case to mount a critique of The War on Terror and British Imperialism.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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In this episode James Schneider outlines a strategy for the left in Britain drawing on his new book OUR BLOC: How We Win. He argues that the left must organize an alliance of socialists in Parliament, the Labour grassroots, the trade unions and social movements.

Specifically, Schneider reflects on the severity of our current crisis, the tentative confidence of the British left and why demands around health and care are central to a 21st century socialist project.

James Schneider co-founded Momentum in 2015 and went on to serve as Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesperson and Head of Strategic Communications. He is Communications Director for Progressive International and a regular voice in the UK media.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Lewis R Gordon discusses the philosopher, psychiatry and revolutionary Frantz Fanon as well as his own work on Black consciousness.

Gordon is a philosopher, educator, public intellectual and the author of numerous books on topics including existentialism, phenomenology and postcolonial theory. His most recent book The Fear of Black Consciousness was published earlier this year by Penguin and Macmillan.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Writer Hannah Zeavin discusses the politics of the psychoanalytic encounter. Specifically she explores the supposed neutrality of the psychotherapist, the relationship between analysis and political organizing, and The Psycho-Social Foundation, the nonprofit educational organization for which she is the founding editor.

Hannah Zeavin is a scholar, writer, and editor whose work centers on the history of human sciences (psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychiatry), the history of technology, and media theory. She is Assistant Professor at Indiana University in the Luddy School of Informatics. Additionally, she is a visiting fellow at the Columbia University Center for the Study of Social Difference and an awardee of the Courage to Dream Prize from the American Psychoanalytic Association.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Historian John Foot discusses the movement in 1960s Italy to reform and eventually abolish the psychiatric asylum system. Specifically, he’ll be focusing on the work of Franco Basaglia, whose antifascist politics drove him to radically alter the way in which mental health treatment is managed in Italy. 

John Foot is a historian and author based at the University of Bristol. He is the author of numerous books on Italian history and most relevant to the discussion today he is the author of The Man who Closed the Asylums, published by Verso books in 2015 and recently co-edited Basaglia's International Legacy: From Asylum to Community with Tom Burns. 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Object Relations is a series of discussions about the relationship between politics and the psyche produced in collaboration with The Polyphony.

Taking its name from the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s theory of how psyches develop in relationship to one another, this series will explore some questions about the politics of psychotherapy, psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

Episodes will be published every Friday for the next four weeks, beginning (on July 29) with a conversation with Camille Robcis about institutional psychotherapy in France and North Africa. Institutional psychotherapy refers to a movement within psychiatry that occurred in the aftermath of the rise of fascism in Europe. Medical practitioners such as François Tosquelles, Frantz Fanon and Jean Oury began to apply social and political critiques to the practice of psychiatry in the hopes of producing ways of living that alleviated suffering and avoided the fascistic ways of relating to one and other produced by institutions.

Camille Robcis is a professor of French and history at Columbia University and the author of Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France, which was recently published by The University of Chicago press.

In this conversation she explores the experiences of fascism and ‘concentrationism’ that produced the conditions for Institutional Psychotherapy to emerge and how it relates to a broader history of psychiatry. She also reflects on what this movement offers us in understanding questions of the political, the personal and the psychic.

Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington 

Artwork by Ava Gardner 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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In this episode Boris Groys discusses his new book Philosophy of Care which has recently published with Verso Books. In Philosophy of Care Groys engages with figures such as Plato, Nietzsche, Bataille in the hopes of revealing the nature of care and its role in society. 

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Soundtrack by Matt Browne

Artwork by Ava Gardner 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Mark Neocleous is Professor of the Critique of Political Economy at Brunel University London and the author of numerous books including Critique of Security, The Fabrication Of Social Order, and War Power, Police Power.

His most recent book, which has just published with Verso, is called The Politics of Immunity: Security and the Policing of Bodies and in it he explores the obsession with immunity that underpins the ideology of liberal capitalism.

In this discussion he explores how security shapes medicine, the importance of demanding a form of healthcare free from institutions like prisons and the police and what the politics of anti-vaxxers reveals about the contradictions within liberal thought.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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The Young Lords were a revolutionary group active throughout the 60s and 70s who organized around Puerto Rican liberation, international socialism and the radical expansion of public health. Writer, academic, educator, activist and author Johanna Fernadez, explores their contribution to the politics of health, their critique of the carceral state and why their analysis is still relevant and important today.

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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In this conversation San Francisco based writer and academic Erik Davis explores whether or not the distinction between ‘alternative’ and ‘mainstream’ medicine still exists and if it doesn’t, what the implications might be for public health, political organizing, and our own relationships to healing. 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Gabriel Winant, author of The Next Shift, discusses how deindustrialization made way for an economy built on a foundation of health care, a sector which currently employs more Americans than any other industry. 

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Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

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Samples taken from "Crisis In A Crowd" documentary about the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic - https://bit.ly/3ukxhtI

Graphics by Ava Gardner 

Soundtrack by Matthew Browne 

SUPPORT: www.buymeacoffee.com/redmedicine

Soundtrack by Mark Pilkington

Twitter: @red_medicine__

www.redmedicine.substack.com/