In this episode, Biao Xiang interviews two extraordinary thinkers: Don Kalb, whose new book "Value and Worthlessness" has been hailed as a landmark in Marxist anthropology, and Xenia Cherkaev, a scholar whose work bridges Eastern European social history with contemporary existential questions.
Together, they reimagine ethnographic research by centering hidden histories, relational use values, and the emotional weight of being “worthless” in a world obsessed with exchange and performance. They further explore how Post-Socialism reveals the limits of the left and why the right isn’t just “Xenophobia”, but a response to abandonment.
