Daniel Tutt is the author of Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family and How to Read Like a Parasite. His writing has been featured in Jacobin, Current Affairs, Philosophy Now and Aeon Magazine. He is the host of the Emancipations podcast and study group collective.

C. Derick Varn is an author, poet, and educator, and host of the podcast Varn Vlog, where he publishes podcasts and series on the great thinkers, and interviews authors and academics. He is the author of Apocalyptics and Liberation and All That Bright Etc. He has been a union rep for the past six years.

This podcast is produced by Strange Exiles. Scroll to the bottom of this post to watch a video version below, or subscribe to Strange Exiles on YouTube.

Recommendations from Daniel Tutt and C. Derick Varn

Tutt and Varn mention a lot of texts and authors over the course of our conversation. More than once, they refer to James Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941. It’s one of the most useful accounts of the rise of the managerial class, and technocracy, from that era. They also refer to Burnham’s The Machiavellians, from 1943.

There is more than one reference made to Musa al-Gharbi’s We Have Never Been Woke, which analyses the increasing influence of social justice politics and bona fides in the managerial and professional classes, and unpacks the contradictions in so-called “woke” ideology.

We go on to discuss Stuart Hall, and his work on moral panics and authoritarian populism. Many of these essays and arguments can be found in his Essential Essays (two volumes), and Selected Political Writings: The Great Moving Right Show and Other Essays. As I mention, my father worked with Hall in the 1980s as an editor and collaborator — they produced the book Formations of Modernity together. Hall has a deep and lasting influence on social justice culture, and theorists including Mark Fisher.

They mention Anton Jäger, and his concept of Hyperpolitics, explored in the recently published book of the same name. Christopher Lasch is name-checked several times as a key influence and source for Tutt and Varn’s ideas in The People Are Not One — his texts The New Radicalism in America from 1965, and The Culture of Narcissism from 1979 are two of his most enduring and influential works. Varn also has a series of podcasts on Lasch’s work.

Also mentioned several times are Barbara and John Ehrenreich, whose work coined the term “professional managerial class” in 1977. Dissent Magazine has a great interview with Barbara Ehrenreich about the importance of this term, and the analysis of the class it describes.

Alain Badiou also gets a mention — of his more recent political writing, the Verso books The Communist Hypothesis from 2009, and Philosophy for Militants from 2012, are the most closely related to the topics Tutt and Varn discussed.

Structuralist Nikos Poulantzas is mentioned briefly — his books State, Power Socialism from 1978, and Political Power and Social Classes from 1973 are both important discussions of the way power can work under socialist conditions, and how different strata of class interact in political landscapes.

Alvin Ward Gouldner, the American sociologist, is also cited — again, you can look to Varn’s channel for a series of podcast episodes on his work and theories, including influential early works Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (1954) and Wildcat Strike (1954), which laid some of the foundations for a sociological analysis of workplace conditions, and worker organising.

Briefly mentioned are the sociologist Werner Sombart, who is credited with the genesis of the term “late capitalism”; Victor Serge, who participated in the Russian revolution, and wrote the 1951 book Memoirs of a Revolutionary; Jacques Rancière, contemporary and torchbearer for Louis Althusser’s theories, who also took part in the 1968 Paris uprisings; and Göran Therborn, author of the 1981 book The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology. Check out Daniel's discussion with Mike McCarthy about Therborn over on the Emancipations channel.

You can pre-order The People Are Not One from Revol Press now.

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Bram’s conversation with Gareth kicks off a new series of episodes of Strange Exiles in association with Revol Press, an independent left-wing press dedicated to reviving countercultural dreaming, publishing new socialist theory and prose, and finding new voices on the contemporary left. You can find out more about Revol here.

This post was originally published by Strange Exiles. Scroll to the bottom to view a video version, or subscribe to Strange Exiles on YouTube.

Recommendations from Gareth Stuart Farmer

This is Bram from Strange Exiles (and Revol) with a few show notes featuring texts, art and topics Gareth and I discussed.

We started by talking about some of Gareth’s academic work, a lot of which has focused on the poetry and critical theory of Veronica Forest-Thomson (more on her below). We touched on his podcasts, which you can find on Substack under the title ‘Poetic Particulars’. We also talk about his poetry — check out his latest collection What’s That: Instead of Ego II: Acrostic Aftermaths and Other Poems, published by Broken Sleep.

We actually kicked off with a brief discussion of his passion for woodworking, based on his very good-looking bookshelves, which you can see in the background on the video of this episode (see below). Also in the background throughout the episode is Gareth’s cat Veronica (named for the poet!), who strides into shot more than once.

We begin by discussing the now-defunct term for autism, once very commonly applied especially to ‘high-functioning’ autistic people, Asperger Syndrome. As Gareth points out, the term has fallen out of favour, not least because of some ties between Hans Asperger and the eugenics movement under the Nazi regime in World War Two. Gareth’s book Kerf (2022, from 87 Press) was his first poetic work exploring autism, and his woodworking practice. Gareth reads from this collection in the video below.

We go on to discuss his work at the University of Bedfordshire, in English Literature (specifically poetry), and linguistics. We discuss the work of Veronica Forrest-Thomson, who was the subject of Gareth’s PhD — he is also the executor for the estate of Forrest-Thomson’s work. Gareth examined her work, techniques and legacy in his book Poet on the Periphery. He also edited a major new edition of her seminal theory text on poetry, Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry, which was reviewed here for the London Review of Books, and discussed here in The Guardian.

Gareth mentions Raymond Williams’ work on ‘structure of feeling’ — you can read more about that here in a piece from the Raymond Williams Society. He also references some of his recent essays, including ‘Experiences of autism in higher education’ (published in the collection Social Justice in Practice Education), and another on poetry and the welfare state (published in Literature and Institutions of Welfare).

We go on to talk about Gareth’s forthcoming book for Revol, which is in the editing stages now. Gareth read from it in Twickenham at The Gathering Dark, showcasing its unique approach to language, which places the reader in the centre of an experience of neurodivergent thought processes through use of the second person. The subject is ‘You’ not ‘I’, allowing readers to identify with and see through the eyes of an autistic person when considering issues of language, communication, and identity.

Gareth and I reading our work for Revol Press at The Gathering Dark in Twickenham

Gareth mentions Louis Althusser’s notion of ‘interpellation’ — some notes here explain the term and its usage, which is to do with how ideology and identity are formed and influenced by the experiences we go through, and the ideas, thought systems or normative practices we encounter and absorb. This article from Not Even Past explores the history of interpellation in Althusser’s writing.

Gareth also mentions Julie Kristeva’s notion of ‘abjection’ as a way to understand marginalisation and exile — you can read more about this in her book-length essay ‘Powers of Horror’. Later, we also introduce the concept of the ‘subaltern’ as a way to categorise people at the margins of society, first coined by Antonio Gramsci and later explored by Guyatri Spivak and others — there’s a good introduction to the term and its history available on the website for Global Social Theory.

For more in his approach to language, and the use of the second person in Writing Autism, check out the recent article below from the Revol Press blog, where Gareth talks about the books themes and intent, and how he approaches language in the text.

Gareth discusses how all of these theories interface with his work around neurodivergence in the workplace, and I bring up the book Neuroqueer Heresies by Nick Walker. I read this last year, and it was a great introduction to the ways in which neurodivergent experiences and identities can be reimagined, reinterpreted and re-interpellated into our understanding of the world, and how people with autism and ADHD can flourish within it.

At this point we also start to talk about the links between capitalism and mental health in the work of Mark Fisher, which he explores in Capitalist Realism, Postcapitalist Desire and other books. This leads into an exploration of Revol’s aims as a publisher, particularly in engaging with these themes.

Gareth mentions my book The Darkest Timeline, and also Adam Turl’s Gothic Capitalism as interesting but distinct approaches to some of these themes. Gareth also mentions the late Sean Bonney as an example of a poet who engaged with these themes from an anarchist perspective. The Poetry Project has a nice profile of Bonney by Ted Rees, looking at his work and the topics he explored.

We go on to talk about the so-called ‘crisis of over-diagnosis’ of mental health and neurodivergent conditions, which was talked about a lot in the British media — here’s The Guardian begging the question, some analysis of the Tory party’s Jeremy Hunt’s remarks on the subject, and some critique of Labour’s Wes Streeting for jumping on the bandwagon. Gareth is quite forthright in pushing back on the notion of an over-diagnosis crisis, but has some thoughts about how this overlaps with the more identitarian premise of making oneself unique or ‘special’ through identification with diagnoses, and the communities that grow up around people with specific conditions (particularly online).

We finished by talking more about ‘hidden disabilities’ and problems around representation, and how applying Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theories on intersectionality to think about neurodivergence can unintentionally lead to a competition between people with different conditions — leading to the commodification of those conditions to make “neurodivergent clickbait”. Gareth makes the excellent point that this false sense of “competition” between identities and communities is tied to the way capitalism forms identity — and that we should try not to think of rights and accommodations for disabled or neurodivergent people in this way.

He ends the conversation with some advice for the friends and family of neurodivergent people about respecting their unique lived experience, which is well worth hearing. Gareth’s book Writing Autism: The Anti-Biography of a Liminal Resident will be available for pre-order soon from revolpress.com.

Also on Strange Exiles X Revol: Rob Faure Walker

Our next guest from Revol Press was Rob Faure Walker, an author, academic, and (more recently) ecotherapist specialising in ‘forest bathing’ — using nature to treat and manage mental and physical health conditions in a holistic way. His book Radical Jung: Emancipatory Politics and the Search for Meaning in the Ruins of Late Capitalism is available for pre-order, and will be released in Spring 2026.

Rob’s new book will explore how Carl Jung’s insights can guide us through the crises of digital era capitalism by integrating Jungian processes and archetypes with contemporary issues, offering a path towards collective healing and a reimagined relationship with radical politics, nature, and ourselves.

Scroll to the bottom to view a video version, or subscribe to Strange Exiles on YouTube. Check out our first collaboration, featuring Gareth Stuart Farmer, here.

Recommendations from Rob Faure Walker

Speaking about his choice to move to the countryside, Rob mentions the release by Sadiq Khan of suppressed data on air quality at London schools in 2016. This was a major factor in Rob and his wife’s decision to move out of the city, and change their lifestyles — a process that would eventually lead Rob to his current practice as an ecotherapist, which you can read about on his website.

Going back to his time as a teacher in inner city schools, Rob mentions the “Trojan Horse affair” — a scandal that involved false reports of the “Islamification” of schools in Birmingham in 2013, later spread by Conservative MP Michael Gove. A 2022 Guardian piece details some of the false information the conspiracy theory drew upon, and the flaws in its subsequent coverage by the popular podcast, Serial.

Rob spent time in the Birmingham schools mentioned in the conspiracy theory, and his first book The Emergence of Extremism offers some rugged critiques of successive UK governments’ attempts to counteract or pre-empt extremism in schools and other places. Eventually, the school in Tower Hamlets where Rob worked became part of an effort to identify a “Trojan Horse 2” taking place in the borough.

Rob goes on to talk about the UK’s ‘Prevent Strategy’ — designed as an early-warning system that would identify extremists, or potential extremists, in British schools. The strategy has been robustly criticised, not just for the ways it discriminates against (predominantly Muslim) children, but also for its failure to identify non-Islamic “extremists”, such as Ali Harbi Ali and Axel Rudakabana. Rob spent nearly a decade writing and organising against narratives like this — we talk about the way he and other teachers pushed back against Prevent. His activism fed into some of the work done by organisations like CAGE and PreventWatch.

Next, we start to talk about Carl Jung, the subject of his book for Revol. Rob first got interested in Jung’s theories by reading about his concept of “shadow work”, which looks at reconciling the darker aspects of human psychology with more positive ways of thinking and being. Here’s a 2023 Guardian piece on how shadow work has gone viral on TikTok. Rob also mentions a previous interview we did with him under the banner of Revol’s original podcast vertical, Theorize And Be Damned, which you can watch below. It was after this podcast that Radical Jung began to take shape.

Rob connects his growing interest in Jung to his years as a climate activist, a theme he draws out in Radical Jung. He mentions another big figure in the book, Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert), an early advocate of psychedelics in the 1960s, heavily influenced by Eastern religions. You can find out more about his work and legacy at the Love Serve Remember Foundation, and via the Here and Now podcast, which features recordings of his lectures. The video below gives a nice overview of his life and work.

In the context of Jung’s thought, we talk about “activist burnout” and the pressure that the need to “stay angry” brings to those trying to effect change. Some of Rob’s new writing deals directly with this, offering a Jungian approach to self-care, through reconnecting with nature, that could help those involved in protest and resistance movements.

We move on to talk about the embrace of certain aspects of Jungian thought by conservatives, and some of Jung’s own views and statements, which can seem problematic by today’s standards. I like what Rob says — we should rehabilitate the work, where it can still be useful, without rehabilitating the man. Rob feels that some of Jung’s views on topics like race are simply dated (if abhorrent), and that this does not or should not overshadow doing the work to unpack the usefulness of his writing — which is a major aim of his next book. Rob connects this to his thinking about pre- and post-Enlightenment thinking, which he explored at length in Love and The Market. He connects this to Jung’s writing about alchemy and gnosticism.

After the break, I ask Rob about his practice as an ecotherapist, and his move away from the city and back to the countryside. Recovering from long COVID, Rob discovered the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or ‘forest bathing’. The activity has provable health benefits, and is recommended by the NHS and other organisations in the UK. Forest bathing was developed in the 1980s as a strategy to help people deal with life in Japan’s densely-populated urban areas. Practitioner Dr Qing Li wrote The Art and Science of Forest Bathing in 2018.

Next, we talk about psychedelic therapy, which is a growing part of Rob’s therapeutic work. He talks about his own experiences with psilocybin, and how they helped to treat his anxiety and reconnect him with nature. Even the UK government have started to accept the potential benefit of psychedelic treatments in recent years — a massive turnaround from the derailment of studies into psychedelics in the 1960s, led by (among others) Timothy Leary and Ram Dass. Rolling Stone has a good 2024 piece about the barriers (and legal punishments) these practitioners and pioneers faced in 1960s America.

We talk a bit about our own experiences with psychedelics, and how they helped us process some difficult experiences, and Rob mentions recent studies that show how psilocybin therapy can help people feel more connected to nature. Rob mentions the influential work done by anthropologists Gregory Bateson and his wife Margaret Mead to pioneer the use of psychedelics, not just in therapy, but to transform society — explored in depth in Benjamin Breen’s recent book Tripping on Utopia.

For more on philosophical enquiries into psychedelics, check out my conversation with Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes in an early episode of Strange Exiles, and his book Philosophy and Psychedelics, which features essays by major practitioners and theorists in the field of psychedelic studies. Rob also recommends the recent book Psilocybe Pickers by his friend Robert Dickens, which offers a history of psilocybin use in Britain.

A theme Rob explores in his book is the role of “witches” in preserving ancient knowledge of natural healing, and the persecution of women accused of witchcraft in the 16th and 17th century in Britain. Another early episode of Strange Exiles offers a deep dive into this story, featuring Zoe Venditozzi of the podcast Witches of Scotland. We touch on this briefly, but if you want to know more, you’ll have to pick up a copy of Rob’s book.

We talk about the state of UK and US politics and the rise of the far right, which relates back to the advocacy and activism Rob’s been involved in around extremism and domestic terrorism. He describes the actions of the Trump regime, particularly in relation to the recent ICE purges and the murders of Rene Good and Alex Pretti, as “Nazi cosplay theatre” — I like his conclusion, that we should try not to be too “triggered” by this behaviour, so that we don’t become too disheartened to act. The same lessons will no doubt be useful should we see a rise to meaningful power by the UK’s own far right figures. We mention Mike Watson’s recent Revol post about the reluctance of sections of the academic left to robustly criticise the politics and rhetoric of the far right.

Finally, we share our concerns about “filter bubbles“ and the decline of trust in objective reporting, which links back to some of the work Rob did at SOAS on how to source and share accurate reporting. We end on quite a gloomy note here, reflecting on the voxpops at far right rallies, where people speak of their distrust of the “mainstream media” and increasing reliance for news on partisan channels and creators. Rob recommends sites like The Canary, who aim to report on current events in an unbiased and rigorous way, and operate on a subscription model. We both hope that this is a challenge the media, and political figures, can meet… although neither of us have a clear idea of how this might be achieved.

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Sudip has written articles for Jacobin, Protean Magazine and Black Agenda Report, among other outlets. He holds a BA in Political Science from Rutgers University and MA in journalism from Georgetown University.

On this episode, we discuss his new essay for The Hampton Institute, part of a new collection titled From The Academy to the Streets: Notes from a Working Class Think Tank, published by Iskra Books.

The institute describe the book as follows:

Penned by revolutionary organizers, educators, artists, and other cultural workers… Covering a wide terrain of topics — from anti-ableist photography, multinational unity, and the class struggle of trans youth to the united front, language, and architectural utopias-from a variety of perspectives — each chapter speaks to everyday people without sacrificing any intellectual depth or novelty.

In our wide-ranging chat with Sudip, hosted by Revol’s Bram E. Gieben, we cover a range of subjects — from the challenges and opportunities for working class organising in communities of colour, to the horrorshow of the Trump administration, to the politics of the critically-acclaimed breakout hit Star Wars show, Andor.

Find out more about us:

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Our guests this month are Flowers For Marx contributor Matthew McManus and editor and contributor Conrad Hamilton. They join Revol’s Bram E. Gieben to discuss the book, its themes, and its relevance for today’s divided left.

Matthew McManus is a lecturer in political science at the University of Michigan. He is the author or co-author of several books including The Political Right and Equality and Against Post-Liberal Courts and Justice. His latest book is The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism.

Conrad Hamilton is a postdoctoral research fellow at East China Normal University. He has published in Jacobin, Cosmonaut Magazine, The Morning Star, Areo, The Philosophical Salon, &&& and Merion West. He is co-author of Myth and Mayhem: A Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson.

Find out more about us:

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We got together to discuss Adam’s new book, Vladan’s involvement with recent street protests in Serbia, the dire situation facing artists and activists in America and across the world, and what hope art can offer in a divided and increasingly authoritarian world.

We’ll bring all episodes of Theorize And Be Damned so far over to Substack soon. For now, you can find them on YouTube, along with some classic episodes of Mike’s previous podcast The Acid Left.

Find out more about us:

Revol Press is a reader-supported publisher and blog. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Adam Turl has a new book coming from Revol in May 2025. Find out more about Gothic Capitalism: Art Evicted From Heaven at our site.

We discuss Trump’s return to office, the wrecking ball policies and actions of Elon Musk’s DOGE, what role art can play in resistance to rising fascism, and the shocking fallout in reaction to these trends and events among the online and offline left.

We’ll bring all episodes of Theorize And Be Damned so far over to Substack soon. For now, you can find them on YouTube, along with some classic episodes of Mike’s previous podcast The Acid Left.

Find out more about us:

Revol Press is a reader-supported publisher and blog. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.