Discussing Kant in an era of attempted criticisms of capital/ism is pressing, be it a discussion in terms of Marxian critique and communist commitment or one in defense of capital. Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” of de-ontologizing time—i.e., rendering it “the stuff” subjectivity is made of—corresponds with capitalism’s subjectivity-centered reasoning and Time as a measure of value. Pricing waged and unwaged labor dictates surplus or, ideally, just pure value (M-M’ instead of M-C-M). At a time when AI development is driven precisely by the idea of removing the cost of human labor, we are being convinced that labor and wages are irrelevant to contemporary value theory. Yet again, removing these costs seems to be an immense incentive, and it only makes sense because, over the past year, labor time has been increasing on a global scale, not the other way around. Kojin Karatani recognizes the method of critique (inherited from Kant) in the execution of Marx’s analysis of capital, whereas we are focusing on the centrality of time as the “stuff” capitalism is made of (just like the Kantian subject). On the occasion of this public lecture at SMR ICP Fall 2026-27, we are inviting Carl Olsson to contribute to our curriculum with a short presentation of his latest publication with Becoming Press, The Mouth That Eats Itself: Geography & the Problem of Space (2026).

Carl Olsson is a geographer and writer interested in how geographical thought impacts the human body. His work tells stories about geographers and other animals that get lost in space, extracting philosophical implications from scenarios that span the mundane and the otherworldly. His latest publication is The Mouth That Eats Itself: Geography & the Problem of Space (Berlin, Becoming Press: 2026)