Episode 73: Climate Change, Violence and Teenage Activism

State of the Theory

This is Episode 73 of the State of the Theory Podcast. Politics. Power. Popular Culture. And other stuff, probably. In this series, we’re like super nerdy philosophical DJs: mashing up Serious Academic Questions with the most topical news and trends in pop culture. Each week, we’ll tackle a new topic and collide it with ‘critical theory’ (we’re pretty loose with our definitions, though, so expect the unexpected). Our aim is to destroy the stuff we know, explore the stuff we don’t and unsettle everything we think we know about the world. We take the obvious, the commonsensical, the certain, and then we rip it all to shreds. We are your theory doctors and we are always on call. In this episode, we continue our discussion about climate change and political activism from last week, and talk about teenage political activism. Focussing on Greta Thunberg, Emma Gonzalez and Malala Yousafzai, we interrogate the position occupied by these young women, and how their political activism is received and consumed by an adult world. You can watch Emma Gonzalez speak at the March for our Lives rally here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u46HzTGVQhg You can watch Greta Thunberg speak at the United Nations here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW3IQ-ke43w Our thanks to Dr Peter Mackay (@PadraigMacaoidh) for supplying some really useful ideas for this episode. Our theme music is "The Face of God" by The Agrarians (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Agrarians/The_Jovial_Shepherd/The_Face_of_God) State of the Theory is brought to you by Hannah Fitzpatrick (@drhfitz) and Anindya Raychaudhuri (@DrAnindyaR) Find us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/stateofthetheorypodcast) or Tweet us @TheoryDoctors