Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
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My guest this week is David Guignion.
David Guignion is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Occidental College's Critical Theory and Social Justice Department. He completed his PhD at The University of Western Ontario where he studied conspiracy theories, media studies and continental philosophy. He is creator and host of Theory & Philosophy, a YouTube channel and podcast dedicated to making the history of ideas accessible to everyone. His published work covers myriad topics from conspiracy theories to French post-structuralism to Feminism and beyond. His most recent publication can be found in The University of Wisconsin Press' recently published Whispers in the Echo Chamber.
I spent the immediate years after grad school stretching the limits of my background in writing as far as they would go—working variously as a copywriter, media & tech journalist, adjunct professor, and startup founder. It was a fun ride, one I’m grateful for. But toward the end of the 2010s I found myself craving deeper engagement with life’s big questions: what is reality, consciousness, the meaning of life? I’m sure many of you have been there. The thing is, outside academic institutions, it’s much more difficult to get your bearings in theory and philosophy. Not only do you not have folks to work through the ideas with, you’re also never sure what the history of certain words are—is this a word freighted with meaning and debate or is it just a word being used in the normative sense?
Which is why David Guignion’s Theory and Philosophy channel has proven to be such an incredible resource in my life. He is a natural educator—not in the stuffy sense, but in really fostering invitations into subject matter. His passion for the ideas is palpable, as is his commitment to making them accessible for non-specialist audiences. So when I saw that he’d taken an visiting professorship in Los Angeles, I was thrilled. I’m happy that I’ve had the chance to bridge the parasocial chasm and become pals with him in “real” life.
Much of his output on Theory and Philosophy is focused on the type of texts and language you encounter while studying philosophy or critical theory in college, but through conversations with him I’ve come to learn about his own extensive research into conspiracy theories—what they are, how they form, how we talk about them, who is susceptible to their appeal, and much more.
This has always been a fascinating subject to me, but given that I live in American in the year 2025, this is a subject of great material importance, as unelected co-President Elon Musk pushes ever more dangerous conspiracy theories on the platform formerly known as Twitter. We now have the unfortunate experience of witnessing how conspiracy theories can radicalize people at all levels of society.
I’ve also witnessed how David has reacted to the genocide in Gaza, building from his origins in critical theory to real-world activism. This is especially illuminating coming from him because Anti-Semitism plays a powerful role in dangerous conspiracy theories—it’s arguably the most common trope of conspiracy theories, whether directly or indirectly. He is keenly aware of the dangers of Anti-Semitism, and simultaneously committed to advocating for Palestinian liberation. If you think those things can’t fit together, this episode will have a lot for you to contend with. And that’s just one piece; this conversation went so wide and deep that, in the video version, you’ll notice the light shifting on our faces. So, strap in, it’s a big one!
Some other episodes you might like:
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Guests on Urgent Futures are experts across art, science, media, technology, philosophy, economics, mathematics, anthropology, and more. We live in complex times; these are the voices who will help you orient to emerging futures.
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CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Lisa Messeri, Legacy Russell, William E. Rees, Renée DiResta, and more. Here is another recent episode on AI and transformative justice with computational social scientist Avriel Epps:
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