Image: UBahn station in Essen, Germany, artwork by anonymous students at the Hochschule der bildenden Künste, 2026
We’re pleased to announce the commencement of our Research Seminar this year, which is devoted to working towards a critical philosophy of AI and which we have entitled ‘Yet Another Machine for Producing Gods.’ This year’s Seminar is convened by CPCT’s Critical AI Network. We’re holding the Seminar online this year so you can join us via Zoom. Please visit https://cpct.uk/2026-2027/ for more details, including a detailed seminar plan, links to the readings, and the Zoom registration link. Free and open to the public as per usual.
Please join us for the launch of Jordi Maiso’s book ‘From Damaged Life: The Critical Theory of Theodor W. Adorno’ with Peter Osborne (CRMEP), Svenja Bromberg (Goldsmiths) and Andrés Saenz de Sicilia (Northeastern). It is organised by the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Theory (CPCT) at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Friday, 9 Oct 2026, 17:00 – 19:00
Central Saint Martins, Granary Building
1 Granary Square, Kings Cross, London, N1C 4AA
Room: D115
*NB – this event will take place at Central Saint Martins Granary Square building due to ongoing industrial action at Goldsmiths. Room information will be added shortly. Registration is essential*
‘From Damaged Life: The Critical Theory of Theodor W. Adorno’ is a timely intervention in contemporary debates on critical theory, the critique of capitalism, authoritarianism, and social regression. Moving beyond interpretations that confine Adorno primarily to aesthetics or negative dialectics, the book reconstructs his thought as a historically grounded critical theory of advanced capitalism, rooted in the catastrophic experiences of fascism, Auschwitz, and the consolidation of new forms of domination.
At the centre of Maiso’s interpretation lies Adorno’s concept of “damaged life,” understood as a framework for analysing the social production of suffering, the anthropological transformation of subjectivity, and the persistence of unfreedom under conditions of total socialization. Rearticulating Adorno in close relation to Marx’s critique of political economy, the book foregrounds his relevance for analysing fetishism, culture industry, ideological transformation, authoritarian potential, and the blocked horizons of emancipation in contemporary capitalist societies.
About the author:
Jordi Maiso is Associate Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. His work focuses on Frankfurt School Critical Theory and its contemporary relevance, particularly the thought of Theodor W. Adorno. Bringing together Critical Theory and the critique of political economy, his research examines the social constitution of subjectivity and the transformations of social experience under advanced capitalism. He has published extensively on Critical Theory, aesthetics, social philosophy, the mutations of the culture industry, and authoritarianism. Maiso is Editor-in-Chief of Constelaciones. Revista de Teoría Crítica, Chair of the Spanish Society for Critical Theory Studies (SETC), and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Adorno Studies.
– THIS EVENT WILL BE RESCHEDULED DUE TO TUBE STRIKE AND ILLNESS –
Book panel on ‘The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy – Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West’ by A.J.A. Woods with Larne Abse Gogarty , Annie Kelly and Georgios Samaras
Tuesday, 2 June 2026 6-8pm Goldsmiths, Room RHB 137
Free and open to all.
Panelists:
A.J.A. Woods is an intellectual historian who lives in Brighton, England. Their first book, The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West, was released by Verso Books in April 2026. Their previous writings on the Frankfurt School and the far right have been translated into four languages and published in Open Democracy, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books, Public Seminar, & Patterns of Prejudice. They are a member of the ecosocialist group Anti*Capitalist Resistance.
Larne Abse Gogarty is a writer and art historian from London. She is an associate professor at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Larne is the author of two books: What We Do Is Secret: Contemporary Art and theAntinomies of Conspiracy (Sternberg Press, 2023) and Usable Pasts: Social Practice and State Formation in American Art (Brill, 2022) Currently, she is working on a new project about recent sculpture and commodity culture through the lens of salvage and scavenging. Larne has written catalogue essays for artists including Sam Gilliam, Alice Neel, and Gray Wielebinski and regularly writes criticism, mainly for Art Monthly. In 2026, she curated an exhibition entitled Conspiracies at the Warburg Institute, London. She is in the editorial group for Selva journal and Oxford Art Journal.
Annie Kelly is a journalist and researcher specialising in digital antifeminism, conspiracy theories and the far right. She completed her PhD about digital antifeminist networks at the University of East Anglia in 2020 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC-funded “Everything is Connected: Conspiracy Theories in the Age of the Internet” project at King’s College London. She is the UK correspondent for the QAA Podcast (formerly QAnon Anonymous).
Dr Georgios Samaras is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at King’s College London. His research focuses on European and American politics, with particular attention to how far-right ideas move from the margins into the mainstream and what that shift means for democratic governance. He is a Research Associate at the LSE Hellenic Observatory and at ENA Institute, an advisory board member at ETERON, and a member of the Reactionary Politics Research Network. He has written for The Guardian, POLITICO, The Independent, the New Statesman and Jacobin. His debut book, The Long Shadow of Golden Dawn, is forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature in 2026.
About the book:
“Cultural Marxism” is one of the far right’s favorite buzzwords. But despite its currency, the meaning and origins of the term are rarely investigated. This book uncovers the bizarre story of the cult leaders, right-wing intellectuals, and White House officials who believe a coterie of left-wing scholars and students is plotting to undermine Western civilization. Drawing on years of archival research and using the tools of critical theory, A.J.A. Woods reveals how a group of German thinkers known as the Frankfurt School was recast as the sinister orchestra-tors of a global conspiracy. Instead of simply debunking this conspiracy theory, Woods offers a sharp analysis and critique of the political movements that have declared war on all that passes for Cultural Marxism in the US, the UK, and Brazil. Only when we understand the practices and weaknesses of those reactionaries committed to fighting this illusory threat—a conflict causing real-world damage—can we effectively resist. This is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand the ideological currents shaping politics in the twenty-first century.
Book launch – with Anthony Iles, Mattin, Rob Lucas, Andrés Saenz de Sicilia, Svenja Bromberg
Abolishing Capitalist Totality: What is to be Done under Real Subsumption? Edited by Anthony Iles & Mattin (published by Minor Compositions, 2026)
Thursday, 9 April 2026 15:00 – 17:00 Goldsmiths, RHB room 137 (in person only) Organised by the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought Free and open to all
About the book The concept of subsumption informs an account of how capital seizes hold of social forms and shapes them to its ends. Subsumption can also help us describe what is shaped by capital and what is used as found, therefore how we might meaningfully begin to distinguish between thought processes and social processes, between capital as a seemingly self-perfecting system and the contradictory realities and inequalities of capitalist society. This anthology combines new translations of seminal communist theory from the archives, poetic interventions and recent critical exchanges which each contribute to a radical reconstruction of the concepts of subsumption, self-abolition, communisation and capitalist totality. What has been perceived in recent years as an enclosed capitalist totality is, in fact, composed of concrete processes that we can act upon: how we understand capitalism determines how we abolish capital.
With Contributions by: Sean Bonney, Nadia Bou Ali, Anne Boyer, Ray Brassier, Federico Corriente, Andrei Chitu, Loss Choi, Luisa Lorenza Corna, Bolívar Echeverría, Endnotes, Neil Gray, Danny Hayward, Em Hedditch, Anthony Iles, Lisa Jeschke, Sacha Kahir, Jessika Khazrik, Dimitra Kotouza, Rob Lucas, Mattin, Négation, Andrés Saenz de Sicilia, Roland Simon, Théorie Communiste, Marina Vishmidt.
About the editors Anthony Iles is a book editor and writer based in London. He is a founding member of Full Unemployment Cinema and a Contributing Editor with Mute since 2005. He is the author, with Josephine Berry, of the book No Room to Move: Art and the Regenerate City (2011), co-author, with Tom Roberts, of All Knees and Elbows (2012).
Mattin is an artist, musician, and theorist working conceptually with noise and improvisation. Through his practice and pedagogy, he explores performative forms of estrangement as a way of engaging with structural alienation. He is the author of Social Dissonance (2022) and, together with Anthony Iles, co-edited Noise & Capitalism (2009). He runs the podcast Social Discipline with Miguel Prado, and both are members of Noise Research Union (NRU).
