Ep. 60 – Eugene Thacker, In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy

Always Already Podcast, a critical theory podcast

In what could be their first trio podcast, co-hosts James, Emily, and B tarry with the Preface and a Chapter titled “Occult Philosophy” from Eugene Thacker’s In the Dust of this Planet: Horror of Philosophy, vol. 1. Before launching in, James shares some good news, and B befriends a finger monster. The team was at first hesitant about the text. But why? Perhaps they were a bit bewildered by Thacker’s arguments concerning the history of the philosophical “in-itself”? Or the world-for-us? Or their overall relationship to the horror genre? Was this Thacker’s critique of the Western canon? Or is Thacker’s archive unknowingly neo-colonial? Does the archive show us the limits of knowledge (as the promise of horror as the fear of the unknown forebodes) or does it reproduce “the ruse of [Western] reason” by another name and through another’s pen? But why the Hell is post-colonial and anti-racist critique the “easy” critique anyway? Join and listen as all three of our co-hosts discuss one of the many purposes and pitfalls of academic publishing, the perils of public anti-intellectualism, and the dynamism of genres.

Support us on Patreon to help us upgrade our recording equipment, potentially provide episode transcripts, and more – plus, you may have the chance to jump your request to the top of the request queue. Thanks to Bağlan for requesting Thacker. Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Thanks to Bad Infinity for the intro music, “Post Digital,” from their new album FutureCommons; always already thanks to B for the outro music. For the mp3 of the episode click here.

https://alwaysalreadypodcast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Thacker.mp3

Links:

• In the Dust…, at Zero Books
• A video analysis of Twin Peaks from the perspective of Thacker’s work, produced by Zero Books
• Thacker on WNYC’s Radiolab podcast
• Thacker’s Horror of Philosophy series at Zero Books