Episode 25: Violence and the State

This is Episode 25 of the State of the Theory Podcast. Politics. Power. Popular Culture. And other stuff, probably. In this series, we’re like super nerdy philosophical DJs: mashing up Serious Academic Questions with the most topical news and trends in pop culture. Each week, we’ll tackle a new topic and collide it with ‘critical theory’ (we’re pretty loose with our definitions, though, so expect the unexpected). Our aim is to destroy the stuff we know, explore the stuff we don’t and unsettle everything we think we know about the world. We take the obvious, the commonsensical, the certain, and then we rip it all to shreds. We are your theory doctors and we are always on call. What is the relationship between violence and the State? We look at some recent examples of State and non-State violence in Kashmir and the USA and think about the politics of violence and non-violence in relation to State power and non-State resistance. The text we refer to is: Max Weber’s “Politics as a Vocation: (http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf) You can watch the John Oliver clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A Our theme music is "The Face of God" by The Agrarians (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Agrarians/The_Jovial_Shepherd/The_Face_of_God) State of the Theory is brought to you by Hannah Fitzpatrick and Anindya Raychaudhuri Find us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/stateofthetheorypodcast) or Tweet us @drhfitz and @DrAnindyaR