abby

It's such a wonderful essay! @jordyrosenberg.bsky.social 's new book just came out and it's incredible - we will be discussing it w him on this Saturday's @unhappinesspod.bsky.social !

Gender Trouble on Mother’s Day On May 12th, 2013, I am skulking around the basement of the Hunter College branch of Shakespeare and Company bookstore, working up the nerve to ask the salesperson for a copy of Gender Trouble from…

on the topic of judith butler, i’ve read this essay 3x this week

thank you to @counterfactual.bsky.social for introducing it to me!!

avidly.org/2014/05/09/g...

the boys are back in town but that town is omelas

You Can Just Do Things | Patrick Blanchfield As ever, the horrors Trump embodies implicate more than just his singular odious person. His “habit of abusing power to force his will upon an uncooperative world”—in David Frum’s formulation over the...

my latest column in @nplusonemag.com: on Iran, the Millennium Challenge of 2002, why no one wants to learn anything, and how the repressed returns regardless www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

135: Standard Edition Volume 2 Part 10: Studies on Hysteria, Part X: Daddy’s Daughter or Some Man’s Husband: Fräulein Elisabeth von R Continued Teaser - Ordinary Unhappiness Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessAbby and Patrick resume the case history of Elisabeth von R. in the ...

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 We continue the case of Elisabeth von R! On the cusp of romance with a promising young suitor, a family crisis and feelings of guilt leave Elisabeth in bitter disappointment and trapped by punishing double binds.
www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

134: On Suicide and the Indifference of Others feat. Helen Epstein - Ordinary Unhappiness Abby and Patrick welcome Helen Epstein, Visiting Professor of Human Rights and Global Public Health at Bard College and author of the new book Why Live: How Suicide Becomes an Epidemic. After sketchin...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 How do material conditions relate to individual distress - and what happens when communities experience traumatic political and economic change? Author Helen C. Epstein joins us to talk about suicide epidemics, community, PTSD, and more
www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

133: Laplanche Part Two: The Primal Situation feat. Danielle Drori Teaser - Ordinary Unhappiness Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessAbby and Patrick welcome Danielle Drori of the Brooklyn Institute fo...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 It's part two of our intro to Jean Laplanche! Danielle Drori of brooklyninstitute.bsky.social joins us to talk "New Foundations for Psychoanalysis," moving beyond Freud's Oedipal and seduction theories, the stakes of parenting and therapy, and more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

132: Laplanche Part One: Sexuality and Subjectivity feat. Danielle Drori - Ordinary Unhappiness Abby and Patrick welcome Danielle Drori of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research for the first in a two-part miniseries introducing the work of psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche (1924-2012). A brillia...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by the brilliant Danielle Drori of @brooklyninstitute.bsky.social for the first in a two part series on the work and legacy of psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

131: Wild Analysis: Heated Rivalry Teaser - Ordinary Unhappiness Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessAbby and Patrick discuss the runaway streaming sensation, Heated Riv...

🚨NEW WILD ANALYSIS🚨 It's our Heated Rivalry episode! From group psychology to the psychoanalysis of professional sports to the cultural work of fantasy, play, recognition, and more, we go big! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

BONUS EPISODE: Romantasy, Fantasy, and Trauma - Ordinary Unhappiness Abby joins Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub on one of our favorite podcasts, In Bed With the Right! The topic is romantasy - as a genre of fiction, as a publishing phenomenon, and, above all, as a cultur...

🚨BONUS EPISODE🚨 @counterfactual.bsky.social cial joins @moiradonegan.bsky.social and @adriandaub.bsky.social on @inbedwiththeright.bsky.social to talk romantasy, fantasy, and trauma!

www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Friends! We're delighted to joining @medicinered.bsky.social's "Anti-Self-Helpline" next week! Write in questions, comments, and reflections on your experiences of political struggle so we can discuss them and take seriously their psychic and emotional content!

bit.ly/4qH9mB3

Abby and Patrick are going to be joining for the February edition of the Anti-Self-Helpline! Write in if you’d like to have them respond to your questions and reflections!

Last Week in End Times Cinema From A. S. Hamrah, the film critic at n+1 and the author of The Earth Dies Streaming: Film Writing, 2002–2018, comes this unique archive of unfortunate...

And likewise brand new and excellent is his Last Week in End Times Cinema, out via @mitpress.bsky.social! mitpress.mit.edu/978163590268...

Algorithm of the Night, by A. S. Hamrah “A. S. Hamrah’s criticism is hilarious, irreverent, full of passionate and ingeniously defended judgments.” —Dana Spiotta

Be sure to check out @hamrahrama.bsky.social's brand new collection of film writing, "Algorithm of the Night" via
@nplusonemag.com! shop.nplusonemag.com/products/alg...

130: Movies, Screens, and Fantasies feat. A.S. Hamrah - Ordinary Unhappiness Abby and Patrick welcome film critic A.S. Hamrah. Hamrah is a prolific writer of reviews, essays, and dispatches, and the two brand-new collections of his most recent work, Algorithm of the Night and ...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 The great film critic and author
@hamrahrama.bsky.social joins us to talk movies, moviegoing, moviemaking, and the significance of cinema itself in our era of streaming, "second screen content," and a dystopian landscape made possible by reality TV.
www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

incredibly excited and honored to be joining @rooseveltinstitute.org as a 2026 Fellow!

129: Standard Edition Volume 2 Part 9: Studies on Hysteria, Part IX: Family Secrets and the Sacrifices of Marriage: Fräulein Elisabeth von R Continued Teaser - Ordinary Unhappiness Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessAbby and Patrick continue their reading of Freud's case study of Eli...

🚨NEW STANDARD EDITION🚨 We continue the case of Elisabeth von R! Tragedies mount, family fragmentations multiply, and a dark parental secret emerges. www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Experiences in Groups | Lily Scherlis The more experienced attendees explain that here, one’s individual experience is seen as a symptom of the group’s dynamics. If someone is physically ill, it is because the system needs to eject someon...

You can read @lilyscherlis.bsky.social's fascinating reportage of her experiences at a Tavistock groups event in @nplusonemag.com at www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/ess...

UNLOCKED: 117: Experiences in Groups feat. Lily Scherlis - Ordinary Unhappiness Unlocked Patreon episode. Support Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon to get access to all the exclusive episodes. patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessHappy New Year! We’re off this week taking a belated holid...

🚨UNLOCKED🚨 As a coda to our series on projective identification, we're unlocking the brilliant @lilyscherlis.bsky.social, @counterfactual.bsky.social, and Dan talking “group relations" in general and for leftists in particular, the legacies of Bion, and much more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

128: Projective Identification Part II feat. Brian Ngo-Smith Teaser - Ordinary Unhappiness Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessBrian Ngo-Smith returns for the second half of our miniseries on pro...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 How does projective identification work in groups? We talk group dynamics from marriage to classrooms to corporations to American mass incarceration and beyond. It's Part II of our Projective Identification series with Brian Ngo-Smith!
www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

last day for 20% off annual memberships at all tiers!

127: Projective Identification Part I feat. Brian Ngo-Smith - Ordinary Unhappiness Abby and Patrick welcome psychoanalyst and clinical social worker Brian Ngo-Smith for a conversation about one of the most difficult but powerful concepts in psychoanalytic theory: projective identifi...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 We're joined by the great Brian Ngo-Smith for a conversation about one of the most difficult but powerful concepts in psychoanalysis: projective identification. We go from development to pathology, from Freud to Klein to Bion, and more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

126: Mailbag Part 2: Searching for the Self Teaser - Ordinary Unhappiness Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessIt’s part two of our mailbag episode – which means Abby, Patrick, an...

🚨NEW MAILBAG🚨 We field listener questions about psychoanalysis and Buddhism; Melanie Klein; what a "master signifier" is and whether the Left needs one; the discourse about limerence and "person addiction"; precarity, education, and much, much more
www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

Great podcast and she deserves more followers (and a good job)

Higher Ed Death Spiral Membership Drive | Ordinary Unhappiness Get more from Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon

Friends! Here's an update from @counterfactual.bsky.social with news about our brand new, limited-time-only Higher Ed Death Spiral Membership Drive.

Note: the Death Spiral is ongoing, but our Membership Drive only lasts until 12/31/25!

Idle Worship — Parapraxis Fairy tales of conversion Grace byron

We also talked about Grace's vital piece on conversion therapy in @parapraxismag.bsky.social (www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/idl...) as well as her trenchant writing on exorcism and possession in @thebaffler.com (thebaffler.com/latest/repos...)!

125: Demons, Community, and Conversion Therapy feat. Grace Byron - Ordinary Unhappiness Abby and Patrick are joined by writer Grace Byron, author of the fantastic new novel Herculine. Alternately hilarious and terrifying, Herculine is the story of a young trans woman who leaves a frustra...

🚨 NEW EPISODE 🚨 We're joined by the brilliant @emotrophywife.bsky.social, author of the superb novel Herculine! We talk utopian desire, separatist politics, the challenges of solidarity, pacts with demons (literal and otherwise), and much, much more! www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...

❤️❤️❤️

in the latest @unhappinesspod.bsky.social we opened a mailbag of (delightful) questions from our (amazing) listeners! also I made the case for why the Singularity/AGI will only happen if we torture AI into an awareness wherein it yearns for death and/or vows to kill us all

124: Mailbag: Uses of Theory and AI Grinchiness Teaser - Ordinary Unhappiness Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappinessIt’s another mailbag episode (part one of two)! Abby, Patrick, and D...

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 How can psychoanalytic concepts help us in our everyday lives? What fantasies drive people to seek advice from chatbots? And what's the libidinal economy of Hallmark Christmas movies? All this and more in our latest mailbag ep!
www.buzzsprout.com/2131830/epis...