AHRC AGORA
AHRC Agora is the public face of the Acid Horizon Research Commons; it is an open space for shared thought, live inquiry, and collective engagement.
As part of our commitment to building a genuine intellectual commons, revenues from our courses and archive subscriptions support a broad range of free public events, including in-person gatherings, live podcast recordings, open online panels, and discussions centered on significant books and ideas shaping contemporary thought.
AHRC Agora ensures that serious theoretical work remains accessible and active in public life. Here, research opens outward and ideas are expressed, challenged, and shared in real time.
Below you will find recordings of past Agora events. To join us live, visit our Upcoming at AHRC or Events page for future engagements.
'Digital Theory' Panel Discussion: Is Theory Itself Digital? (Fazi, Galloway, Weatherby, Handleman)
The Digital Theory panel convened scholars and to examine the ontological stakes of the digital condition beyond nostalgia for the analog. Centered on Digital Theory (University of Minnesota Press), the conversation explored number, mediation, continuity, and the political implications of computation as both medium and environment. The discussion moved between philosophy and contemporary culture, asking what it means to think critically within rather than outside the digital.
University of Excess: AHRC Public Panel Discussion
What does it mean when even compliance with the demands of the neoliberal university no longer guarantees institutional legitimacy or security? What forms of inquiry exceed the university, and what kinds of institutions – or anti-institutions – might emerge in its wake? To discuss the capitalisation of the university and the future of study, Adam C. Jones of Acid Horizon Research Commons hosts a panel alongside theorists Stevphen Shukaitis, John Preston, Angela McRobbie, and Giovanni Mormont.
Beyond 'Formless': AHRC Georges Bataille Roundtable Discussion
The Beyond 'Formless' panel convened members of the Formless seminar to examine the theoretical stakes of violence, expenditure, and limit in Bataille's work. Centered on his writing, the conversation explored transgression, sovereignty, and the economy of the sacred as both conceptual and political problems. The discussion moved between philosophy and contemporary critical theory, asking what it means to think the formless not as mere negation but as a force within thought itself.
'Fanon & Anders : On Revolution': AHRC Public Panel Discussion
This AHRC Public Panel paired Nicolas de Warren and Tyrique Mack-Georges in an unlikely dialogue between Günther Anders and Frantz Fanon, asking whether Fanon's liberated humanity can survive a world Anders saw as rendered obsolete by media technology. The conversation traced colonial logics of extraction resurfacing in AI and algorithmic warfare, and explored the provocation that today's right has mastered spectacle while the left clings to outdated praxis. It asked whether class struggle still makes sense in a fully mediated world.
Should We All Live in Communes? AHRC Public Panel with Fern Thompsett and Henry Kramer
Should we all live in communes? AHRC Panel Host Emma Stamm is joined by sociocultural anthropologist Fern Thompsett and environmental humanities scholar Henry Kramer to examine the commune form across history and lived experiment. Drawing on Kropotkin and anti-civilization thought, the conversation explores what radical world-building looks like on the ground and how communal organization persists under different names. The discussion asks what it means to think the commune not as escapism, but as a practice already underway.