What the Left does not understand about workers - Blue Collar vs. PMC enjoyment - on Oliver Anthony

This is the Kansas City event from the Theory Undergroud 2023 Book and Distributed Conference TOUR event at Prosperos Book Store! Michael Downs presents on his piece in Underground Theory "Wage Labor and Jouissance: Why the Left Needs Žižek to Understand Workers" which is followed by presentations from the TU tour crew: Dave presents on Blue Collar vs. PMC Jouissance, critiquing the Left's reactions to Oliver Anthony (using Slavoj Žižek and Zac and Gavin from The Vanguard as cases in point). Nance presents on PMC enjoyment and why WORKERISM is bullshit. Finally, Ann presents on The Gifted and Talented TRAP, which is to say, how upwardly mobile and gifted kids in the schooling system have their lives ruined in an attempt to reproduce the class society.

About the keynote speaker:
Michael Downs is an independent researcher and author of the philosophy and critical theory blog The Dangerous Maybe. On his blog, he teaches, explores and expands on the ideas of Slavoj Žižek, Jacques Lacan, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, and many other philosophers, in ways that are accessible to a broad audience. Michael has guest lectured on Søren Kierkegaard at Truman State University and on Jean Baudrillard at Boise State University. He also has tutored philosophy students at Longview Community College as well as online. Michael's essay 'Differentia Ex Nihilo: The Problem of Difference in Kant’s Critical Philosophy' has been published in the online philosophy journal Triple Ampersand. He has earned a graduate certificate from The New Centre for Research and Practice and was the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Essay at the 2018 International Žižek Conference in Athens, Georgia. Michael is currently studying with Todd McGowan with a special focus on the work of Slavoj Žižek.

About the Publications:

TIMENERGY*: Why You Have No Time or Energy: We normally don’t have any time, but when we finally do, we lack energy. On those rare occasions when we have energy outside of work, it is restless and difficult to harness towards meaningful goals. Starting from the realization that meaningful time is worthless without energy, the concept of “timenergy” points to something we all lack: large energy-infused blocks of repeatable time throughout the week. TIMENERGY: Why You Have No Time or Energy is a critique of our job-centric society and the schooling system that assumes we are nothing more than workers, professionals, or managers. This book challenges all political representatives, professors, and media figures to think deeper about the daily lives and needs of working people.

Underground Theory: A collection of timely and cutting edge essays by working class nobodies who are just trying to think, plus some big-named renegade academics who see the value in McKerracher’s timenergy theory, Mikey (of The Dangerous Maybe blog)’s working class education work, or the general idea of radical grass roots experiments that have institutional support.
THEORY UNDERGROUND IS A critical media theory and alternative adult education experiment founded, organized, and run by David McKerracher. So what is TU? Theory Underground is a lecture course-centered social media and publishing site/APP with ongoing lecture courses, seminars, and research cohorts.

Get the books at https://theory-underground.com/publications (but if you are ordering international you will have to get them from Amazon!)

MUSIC CREDITS
Logo sequence music by https://olliebeanz.com/music
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode