War Regimes: A Conversation with Michael Hardt and Sandro Mezzadra

Speaking Out of Place

Today, on Speaking Out of Place, we are joined by eminent political theorists Michael Hardt and Sandro Mezzadra to talk about their thesis of a global war regime and its relationship with capitalist governments, a significant challenge to dominant conceptualizations of war, and its relationship with the international order.

We discuss colonial continuities, historical transformations, and global Palestine movements against the Gaza genocide as an inspiration for non-nationalist, internationalist resistance futures.

Michael Hardt teaches political theory in the Literature Program at Duke University. He is co-author of several books with Antonio Negri, including Empire. His most recent books are The Subversive Seventies and (with Sandro Mezzadra) Bolivia Beyond the Impasse. Together Sandro and Michael host The Social Movements Lab.

Sandro Mezzadra teaches Political theory at the University of Bologna (Department of Arts). His work centers on borders, migration, global processes, and contemporary capitalism. For many years now, he has been part of autonomist movements as an activist and he participates in the further development of Italian autonomist Marxism. Among his books in English, In the Marxian Workshops. Producing Subjects, London, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. With Brett Neilson he is the author of Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor (Duke University Press, 2013), The Politics of Operations. Excavating Contemporary Capitalism (Duke University Press, 2019), and The Rest and the West. Capital and Power in a Multipolar World (forthcoming from Verso, 2024).