POD EP 5: A Conversation About Dialectical Biology, with Mac Parker and Anatarah Bin AlKaf—on Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins' "Dialectical Biologist"! patreon.com/posts/episod...

NEW: Part I of "Reflections on the Right and its Violence" by J. E. Morain This essay on reactionary violence seeks to show the basic unity behind conservative acts of social murder, neo-nazi terror attacks, and everything in between. ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Re...

TAP IN FREAKS THIS BORDIGA EPISODE IS DEDICATED TO YOU WITH LOVE www.patreon.com/posts/episod...

New Recording—Pod EP 4: Amadeo Bordiga and the Murder of the Dead, with Samuel J. Thomas, J.E. Morain, & James Crane. On Bordiga’s incredible 50s/60s run of eco-communist polemics against the so-called “civil engineering” of capitalist civilization! www.patreon.com/posts/episod...

NEW: “Racketology and the Development of Competition.” In this reply to Mac Parker’s “Economic Limits of Racketology,” Jack Barrett argues Horkheimer offers an expanded concept of competition + a preemptive critique of Baran & Sweezy’s theory of monopoly! ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Co...

Adorno & Horkheimer taught me it was okay to be annoying

rereading Bordiga’s stuff on how communism liberates human beings, animals, rivers, solar radiation, electrons, etc from the stupid & stupefying compulsions of capital accumulation & making the airhorn noise by myself at 3AM

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU: You find yourself wondering: why can’t I find any two hour long podcast episode about Kanafani’s literary works as condition/consequence of his conception of resistance culture? YOUR SEARCH IS OVER

New Recording—Pod EP 3: Ghassan Kanafani: Realism Against Reality, with Sebastian Kokesch & yours truly. On the necessary connection between aesthetic autonomy & revolutionary political commitment in some of Ghassan Kanafani's best-known literary works! www.patreon.com/posts/episod...

On this day in 1940, Walter Benjamin took his own life in the town of Portbou, after being denied entry by Spanish officials. “If the killing of Lorca was Fascism’s first crime against literature, Benjamin’s death was undoubtedly the second.” - The Listener

it’s not too late to sign up for the last meeting of the session (eventbrite.com/e/views-from...), & thanks to everyone who’s already contributed to the PCRF fundraiser—as of today we’re 87% of the way to meeting our goal! Help us to 100% if you can! pcrf1.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/p...

We'll be starting up in 20 minutes

New CTWG Fall '25 Recording: Ghassan Kanafani's On Zionist Literature II (8/30), presented by Sebastian Kokesch. Reading Ch. 5-8 in the context of Kanafani's trajectory as author/critic & that of the Palestinian liberation struggle around the '67 Naksa www.patreon.com/posts/138830...

Thanks to everyone who came out for the conclusion to Rabea Eghbariah’s “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept”—join us next Sat., 9/20 @ noon EST as Anatarah bin AlKaf opens our discussion of “Resisting Erasure” (2025) by Adam Hanieh, Robert Knox, & Rafeef Ziadah!

Theodor Adorno 🤝 Felix Dzerzhinsky Sharing a birthday

happy 9/11—Theodor W. Adorno’s Birthday—to those who celebrate, here’s my translation from a while back of Horkheimer’s 1938 birthday letter to Adorno on dialogue and dialectics! open.substack.com/pub/jamescra...

We’re going to finish Eghbariah’s article by reading g the history of settler colonialism through the concept of the Nakba & the concept of the Nakba through the history of settler colonialism, within & beyond the framework of international law! Better see your ass there!

Thanks to everyone who came out for the discussion of Sections I-II of “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept” by Rabea Eghbariah—see you this Saturday, 9/13, @ noon EST for our discussion of section III & the conclusion with J.E. Morain. See you there!

see you all in just over 20 minutes! Discussing, alongside Eghbariah, Darwish’s “In Jerusalem,” as we work through the role of law & language in the occupation of Palestine.

Our podcast of the week reframes the Frankfurt School’s later turn toward abstract cultural critique not as a depoliticized retreat, but as a strategic pivot born from concrete political defeat. With @jamescrane.bsky.social et al. on @crittheoryworkgrp.bsky.social buff.ly/vymFkap

don’t remember if i posted here or not but here’s a snippet from Adorno’s letter to Horkheimer in the middle of their worst fight (1935) where A goes “By the way I LOVED Dämmerung if you even still care…” lol

Thanks to everyone who came out for the second study of Kanafani’s “On Zionist Literature”! Next up: two meetings on “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept” by Rabea Eghbariah—Sections I & II presented by Esther Planas Balduz & Morgan Lily this Saturday, 9/6, @ noon EST. See you there!

FACT: the CTWG is run by a secretive group of canines and felines which dictate our overall policy by using our editorial boards' subjective aims for ends beyond their ken.

the council has convened to decide your fate (CTWG editorial meeting)

short entry today: translations of 4 reviews Otto Fenichel writes for the ISR’s ZfS in 33/34, with a note on the problems & commitments he shared with Adorno & Horkheimer despite all seeming to agree so rarely on what, exactly, their common Freudo-Marxist orthodoxy involved! 🔗⬇️

older kid: “who even invented money anyway?” me: “The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as ‘an immense accumulation of commodities,’ its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must thus begin with the analysis of a commodity.”

Translation of Horkheimer’s essay (ca. 1926) Ethics after Metaphysics, a crit of Hartmann’s Ethics via Kantian practical philosophy, ending with what Horkheimer considers the sole viable post-Kantianism: historical struggle for socialism w/o ultimate grounds or guarantees 🔗 ⬇️

New recording up: Kanafani’s On Zionist Literature I Intro to his 1967 genealogy of the ideological consolidation of political from literary Zionism in the late 19th century, with a focus on his critical method! www.patreon.com/posts/137400...

If you saw "critical theory" on this list of phrases and want to know what it refers to, check out our website, where we have uploaded free essays, blogs, and translations on the topic! ctwgwebsite.github.io

*1942 ISR “Needs” seminar with the other Cali Weimar refugees* Hans Reichenbach: But what will happen to bourgeois art and artists in classless society? What will happen to you and I? Adorno:

“NEW: We attempt a synoptic application and extension of the Frankfurt School’s racket theory in the form of a series of collectively authored short fragments/essays. Topics include zionism, domestic labor, caste, conspiracy theories, class, and war”

NEW FROM THE CTWG: VARIATIONS A series of theoretical fragments and aphorisms from the group as a whole ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Va...

The left gets a new publication ctwgwebsite.github.io

NEW RECORDING: Origins of Mechanical Explanation: Boris Hessen on Newton's Principia, with Anatarah bin AlKaf ( @damashummus.bsky.social )! The Hessen-Grossmann theses as a historical materialist account of the genesis of 'mechanical reason' in modernity! www.patreon.com/posts/136644...

we’ve been quiet because we’ve been working on this for a minute—see you in just over a week for the first session on Kanafani’s “On Zionist Literature”!

CTWG Fall 25: Views from Palestine Saturdays @ noon EST, 8/23-9/27 Palestinian Critical Theory past & present: - Kanafani’s On Zionist Literature (1967) - Eghbariah’s Nakba as a Legal Concept (2024) - Resisting Erasure by Hanieh, Knox, & Ziadah (2025) schedule & sign up 🔗 ⬇️

here they are 😎 🔗⬇️

NEW: EP2: Politics of Early Critical Theory. Join your hosts J.E. Morain & James Crane for an intro to the rogue's gallery of far left dissidents (communists, socialists, anarchists) at the core of the 'Frankfurt School' from the early 1920s-late 40's! www.patreon.com/posts/episod...

One of the best things about Horkheimer is that he was a Weird Little Guy

J.E Morain both translates and reconstructs a very early model of eco-Marxism in the work of Wittfogel. I urge any person who works on eco-Marxism to read this, and see how they would localize the various errors in Wittfogel!

NEW ON THE CTWG BLOG: An excerpt translation of K. A. Wittfogel's 1932 text "Natural Factors in Economic History" (trans. J. E. Morain) ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Wi...

My article on the antinomy of encore-loving and -hating is an attempt at a music-oriented critical theory inspired by Adorno. It’s been in the works for a long time + is the closest I’ve come to saying something. Thanks to @crittheoryworkgrp.bsky.social for notes. online.ucpress.edu/ncm/article-...

She's the true power behind the throne

NEW RECORDING: DISCUSSION “Rackets, Monopolies, & Imperialism” (3/29/25) with Mac Parker! We read Milios & Sotiropoulos’ critique of the monopoly capitalism paradigm to test the limits of Horkheimer & Adorno’s essays on Racket-theory patreon.com/posts/134560...

Horkheimer (& Adorno) in 1944/45: “Nazi barbarism has a long and uninterrupted prehistory. From Cortes’ rule of conquered Mexico to Leopold II’s administration of the Congo… the advocates of concentration camps… could find some support in institutions such as French Guyana.”

There are lots of important Marxist birthdays this week: Marcuse, Fanon, and Neon Genesis Evangelion immediately come to mind.

New: 3 translations of Adorno & Horkheimer’s reflections on racial classification under/after the Alien Enemies Act in 1942—Adorno’s “Dreams in America,” Horkheimer’s “Notes on the Curfew,” & their joint response to a survey about the racial classification of Jewish immigrants 🔗 ⬇️

have to admit though that my favorite of Horkheimer’s critical recoveries of Nietzsche is from Dämmerung (1934), “Nietzsche & the Proletariat”!

for when they pass you the aux cord at the function we are on spotify as well 😎 open.spotify.com/episode/7BzG...