David A. Westbrook Intermittent Signal
Politics, Economics, Culture, Ideas. Essays and Conversations. From David A. Westbrook & Friends
Politics, Economics, Culture, Ideas. Essays and Conversations. From David A. Westbrook & Friends
Episodes

May 26, 2025
E18 Getting Through Security Part VIII
May 26, 2025
May 26, 2025
37 min
"Security by Design" is Chapter 7 of Maguire and Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern (Routledge 2020). This chapter is about the inscription of our anxieties into our built environment.

May 26, 2025
E17 Getting Through Security Part VII
May 26, 2025
May 26, 2025
12 min
"Learning from Experience, or Not" is Chapter 6 of Maguire and Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern (Routledge 2020). This chapter is about the institutional difficulties of turning history into policy.

May 26, 2025
E16 Getting Through Security Part VI
May 26, 2025
May 26, 2025
18 min
This is the audio version of the sixth part of Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy and a Sense of the Modern (Routledge 2020) by Mark Maguire and David A. Westbrook.
The fundamental problem with security is epistemological: since the enterprise is oriented towards the future, what is to be done cannot be known. Thus the prevailing mood, for all the pretense toward rationality, is anxiety. Here begins an elaboration, and critique, of Weber’s idea of bureaucracy.
Here, as elsewhere, and in a sense in the German critical tradition, we are using the social as the foundation for philosophical inquiry.
My apologies for the sound quality. Rough year, and these are the raw files.

May 26, 2025
E15 Getting Through Security Part V
May 26, 2025
May 26, 2025
33 min
This is the audio version of the fifth part of Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy and a Sense of the Modern (Routledge 2020) by Mark Maguire and David A. Westbrook.
This is Chapter Four, “The Mysterious Public,” a word imbricated in complicated ways with the very notion of security, the legitimation of violence, and so the state, to say nothing of the environment we inhabit.
Vincent Parlato did a fantastic job composing and performing really interesting music for each part, which sets off the rather dark discussion. In some ways, I think the audiobook is better than the text. He also edited the audio files, so I sound better than I really do. But life has gotten in the way, and we need this book to be available to the public. I therefore will put up the rest of the book in relatively short order, as raw audiofiles.
I hope Vince has time to come back to this project in due course. Be that as it may, Mark and I thank Vince for the great work he has done.

May 26, 2025
E14 Getting Through Security Part IV
May 26, 2025
May 26, 2025
44 min
This is Chapter 3 of Maguire and Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern, "The Secret College." In it, we begin our discussion of the social structures in this world.

May 26, 2025
E13 Getting Through Security Part III
May 26, 2025
May 26, 2025
25 min
Part Three of the audiobook for Maguire & Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern. This part discusses the political character of "security," and why "security" cannot be "solved."

Jan 22, 2023
E12 Getting Through Security Part II
Jan 22, 2023
Jan 22, 2023
25 min
Part Two of the audiobook for Maguire & Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern.

Nov 23, 2022
E11 Getting Through Security Part I
Nov 23, 2022
Nov 23, 2022
20 min
This is the first part of an audiobook, Maguire & Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern. The text has been published by Routledge, and is generally available.
Other Podcasts
Here are some podcasts I have done in other podcast series.
This is the inaugural podcast/talk/workshop for the Center for Cyber-Social Dynamics at the University of Kansas. Thinking about Cyber-Social Dynamics: Intentions, Meanings, Judgments
In this Telos Press podcast, editor David Pan and I discuss The Role and the Function of the University Today.
In this Baldy Center podcast, John Henry Schlegel and I discuss legal history, especially Realism & CLS, American social and economic history, and what it all means for "the adventure of thinking."
https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-dbvj4-11235b4
In this Baldy Center podcast, Mark Maguire and I discuss our recent book, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern.
https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-xpq4g-f83814
In this Telos Press podcast, David Pan and I discuss "social capitalism," which summarizes much of my work in political economy since the GFC.
https://www.podbean.com/ew/dir-acxxk-dec7dbb

I am a writer, theorist of present dispensations, and law professor. Substantively, this podcast is about politics, economics, culture generally and what one might broadly speaking call philosophy. My preferred form, the form in which I try to move my own thinking forward, is the essay, which sometimes verges into literary not quite nonfiction. One of the things I am working with here is the translation from eye to ear, from text to sound. Sound is different. I hope you enjoy.
-- David A. Westbrook








