Discussing student protests, killing of protesters, and deployment of the National Guard - Naeem Mohaiemen and I discuss his latest film, 'Through a Mirror, Darkly'. The archival footage concerns the killing of students in May 1970 at Kent State, and Jackson Mississippi, while the U.S pursues the Vietnam War whose dead are barely memorialised in the West. We consider resonances of this violence with the present moment, and what political conjunctures enable the emergence of new meanings from past events; and reflect on the imminent election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of NYC.

What are the origins and implications of hyper-transactional thinking coming out of Trump 2.0? I discuss this and other issues with the eminent critical race theorist and legal scholar Patricia J. Williams whose latest book, The Miracle of the Black Leg: Notes on Race, Human Bodies, and the Spirit of the Law (2024) examines the tension between rights in contract and constitutions. At a time when a hyper-contractarian mentality has taken over diplomacy, eroded the rules-based international order, and rolled back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement -we consider the implications through histories of racialisation and the afterlives of slavery.

Discussion with international lawyers, Alofipo So'oalo Fleur Ramsay and Watna Mori, on the impacts of climate destruction on the Village of Veraibari, Kikori Delta, Papua New Guinea. Veraibari is emblematic of wider devastation impacting small island communities and States in the Pacific and elsewhere as a result of climate change and biodiversity destruction. The International Court of Justice has been tasked with issuing an Advisory Opinion on the obligations and responsibilities of States in relation to climate change. We discuss what is at stake in the ICJ decision, and the varying positions adopted by States most responsible for GHG emissions compared with those most affected by their actions and omissions.

Discussing Marlen Haushofer's novel The Wall (1963) with Anna Richards (Birkbeck). What does it mean to survive a catastrophic event? How can we navigate the barrier between human and non-human animals?

Discussing two books by Dinesh Wadiwel on animals as food: The War Against Animals (Brill, 2015); and Animals and Capital (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Wadiwel examines animal agriculture as sovereign violence; and the structural place of animal labour in capitalist modes of value generation and reproduction. What are the political and ecological implications of treating animals as food? What are the grounds for stopping the cruelty and torture meted out to animals?

Discussing the concept of genocide with international human rights lawyer and social theorist, Vasuki Nesiah (NYU Gallatin). Is genocide event or process? How do we move from idea of genocide as apex crime in international criminal law to appreciating its role in the structural process of world-making? We discuss the implications of her analysis for thinking through the war in Gaza.

For more details visit: https://countersignisapodcast.com

Discussing Richard A. Lee's The Thought of Matter: Materialism, Conceptuality and the Transcendence of Immanence (2016). Thought and matter are distinct, separate. The explosion of new materialisms emphasise the agency of things without a critical philosophy that can sustain ethical and normative commitments. How does philosophical materialism allow the otherness of thought to emerge?

Discussing William E. Connolly's recent books on climate catastrophes; examining geological volatilities; considering pagan thinkers

Discussing human & planetary time with Prof Dipesh Chakrabarty (Uni of Chicago)

Discussion with Joel Bakan of book and film, The New Corporation (2020), which reveals a world now fully remade in the corporation's image, perilously close to losing democracy.

Discussing norms derived from nature with Margaret Davies, author of EcoLaw: Legality, Life, and the Normativity of Nature (2022).  Nomos and nature are usually viewed in opposition. Here we ask, what are the norms to be derived from nature? How do they emerge and coexist?

Discussing Daniel Matthews's book Earthbound: The Aesthetics of Sovereignty in the Anthropocene (2021). How does obligation signal a new ethics and politics for our time?

Discussing the Australian High Court's landmark ruling in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992), the failure of decolonisation; and how the case enabled the growth of extractive industries and mining.

Behrouz Boochani discusses his book No Friend but the Mountains and Australia's border mentality.

Discussing Marc Nichanian's 'Historiographic Perversion' on the denial of the extermination of Armenians in 1915. How are historians and archives complicit? What are the limits of representing genocide through memory, testimony, or art?

Discussing Tanya Serisier's 'Speaking Out: Feminism, Rape, and Narrative Politics' which considers the political value and outcome of 'breaking the silence' on rape and sexual violence. What are the conditions in which such speech is heard?

Discussing Gerry Simpson's The Sentimental Life of International Law - we explore how indirection, hesitancy, and gardening offer a 'style' of engagement that moves people to hope and action.

Discussing Renisa Mawani’s book Across Oceans of Law - concerning issues of migration, Empire, and indigenous peoples as encapsulated in the story of the 1914 voyage of the ship, Komagata Maru.

Discussion with Lisa Baraitser on her book 'Enduring Time', addressing the suspended time of mothering, care, grief, solitary confinement, and anachronistic political ideas.