2025: Get based in philosophy and theory! - The TU "Base Braid" We Are Weaving For The Year
The Core Concepts @ TU, Fault-Line Theory 101, Political Theory 101, and Philosophy of Nature - they go together and weave with the ongoing seminars, The TURN and The AGORA!
A metaphor came up during our last “EMSTU” (Epic Marathon Stream at Theory Underground). It’s the metaphor of “the braid.” To get straight to the point, skip down to the next header.
If you only watch ONE of the 13 “EMSTUs” that I hosted with
in 2024, then you should watch the 2nd Anniversary Pt. II. Of all the “Epic Marathon Streams at TU” this was something very special.It was “important” for a lot of reasons.
Whereas previous EMSTUs tended to mix famous people “from the online theory scene” with lesser known but no less important fellow travelers, this stream did not cast a broad net, but kept it to the teaching team at TU for the year of 2025:
The chances are that you are no stranger to the teaching team for this year, but just in case you are wondering what we are doing and how it all fits together, what follows are some short descriptions.
The Base Braid at TU
“Getting based” in philosophy means having a secure foundation. However, if you are too postmodern for “absolute grounds” and instead realize we have to make due with “groundless grounds,” then we might need to mix our metaphor of “base” with something else (not superstructure!).
The “braid” is a rope getting woven from different threads. The “base braid” at TU weaves together courses taught by myself, Michael Downs, Benjamin Studebaker, and Nina Power. The courses can be taken as stand-alone, but they “go together” and are woven via the ongoing research seminars at TU. The only way to enroll for one is to enroll in them all, i.e. become a subscriber to TU.
I am teaching a 12 part once-per-month course on The Core Concepts and Basic Problems at Theory Underground. I will function as a kind of tour guide of the guiding questions and most important concepts, thinkers, and themes that have emerged over the last two years. Once I have given an introductory overview of a past course, TU members will be able to dive into that past course content if they wish to, though doing so won’t be necessary to be “on the wavelength.” I will also be unveiling a lot of fresh and cutting edge work we have kept under wraps for this special year, such as The AGORA and other “bildungmech” TBA. TU members get access, subscribe here.
I am also leading a monthly seminar that will tackle thorny issues and problems that must be worked through if we are to move beyond individual consumerism of the scene and into a more robust milieu with a serious potential for intervening positively on the situation. TU members get access, subscribe here.
Michael Downs AKA Mikey of
, the man, the myth, the underground legend and my friend is here to teach the fault-line theory. Mikey’s first official book, Capital VS Timenergy: A Žižekian Critique of Nick Land, is coming soon!Over the last two years Mikey taught Intro to Nick Land and Intro to Slavoj Žižek. These two 4-part lecture courses are the entry points to “the fault-line theory” of the internet theory scene. TU members get access, subscribe here.
Mikey’s seminar, which takes place monthly throughout 2025, expands on this, focusing in on questions related to the essential contradictions between the Ljubljana School and CRRU (such as the session he did on Deleuze vs. Lacan on Libido, which I’ll discuss further down below). TU members get access, subscribe here.
Mikey will also be teaching short and concentrated weekly courses on Žižek’s Sublime Object of Ideology (starts late February) and a long-anticipated Intro to Baudrillard. These are the only two courses we are announcing so far that do not come with the subscription but must be signed up for individually. TU Members will get a discount though, so still, subscribe here!
At Theory Underground for the year 2025, Benjamin is teaching a 12 part once-per-month course on Political Theory 101. TU members get access, subscribe here.
You might remember me reflecting on how serendipitous our meeting was in this post I just found out that Benjamin Studebaker was the co-founder of What's Left podcast (and now we're starting our own called "Why Left?") or the time I had some fun with this one: In the Voting Booth Today - Feeling Torn Between Chad's Roommate and Benjamin Studebaker's Quests. I have much more serious engagements with his work currently in development in the ongoing seminars, courses, and podcasts.
Last, but furthest from least:
, author of What Do Men Want?, Benjamin Studebaker’s co-host on The LACK podcast, and Doug Lain’s new co-host for a monthly show run by Sublation Media.At Theory Underground for the year 2025, Nina is teaching a 12 part once-per-month course on The Philosophy of Nature. TU members get access, subscribe here..
You might remember the controversy from last July, where I came out heavily in defense of thinking the unthinkable and tarrying with those ideas deemed unacceptable. Well, not only do I still stand behind Nina, but TU does as well. The people, including famous podcasters in the theory scene, who have tried to silence her, or trash us for collaborating, have only proven themselves impotent and increasingly illegitimate.
What’s the point of all this? This is the teaching team for 2025.
The cost of any one of these courses anywhere else would be $2,000. Instead, you can access 5 courses and 3 seminars that each function like a thread being braided into a rope over the course of the year—we’ve set this up to be accessible to busy people who can only attend one or two events per week.
It’s a rope attached to a little tug boat named TU, and we aim to pull America, and consequentially everyone else, out of our current quagmire.
The goal is to open a future by laying the conditions of possibility for real people doing real thinking, not in the consumerist manner of mere opinion formation, but through bildungmech, the cultivation of human potential that strikes a balance between necessity and the virtual, between pragma and schole, between working through the old and new, and bringing it all together into our rich milieu, from which shall emerge more than just a school of thought, more than just timenergy theory, more than just #FreeMikey, more than “just” anything everyone else wants to “level” us to.
Let’s not spend too much time over-defining it. Let go of the preconceptions and lean in for a year—see what happens! It’s our moment. It’s something beautiful. And nobody will ever forget what we do this year. There are two kinds of people: Those who get it and are here for it, and those who are going to pretend they were here for it once what we are doing proves indisputable.
Let’s get after it.
DM