New Books in Critical Theory

Rob Eschmann,, "When the Hood Comes Off: Racism and Resistance in the Digital Age" (U California Press, 2023)

29 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From cell phone footage of police killing unarmed Black people to leaked racist messages and even comments from friends and family on social media, on...

Marzia Milazzo, "Colorblind Tools: Global Technologies of Racial Power" (Northwestern UP, 2022)

29 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Colorblind Tools: Global Technologies of Racial Power (Northwestern UP, 2022), Marzia Milazzo offers a transnational account of anti-Blackness an...

Benjamin Studebaker, "The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way Is Shut" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

28 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Benjamin Studebaker about his new book The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way Is Shut (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) Ameri...

Penelope Ingram, "Imperiled Whiteness: How Hollywood and Media Make Race in 'Postracial' America" (UP of Mississippi, 2023)

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Imperiled Whiteness: How Hollywood and Media Make Race in "Postracial" America (University Press of Mississippi, 2023), Penelope Ingram examines ...

Melissa Shew and Kimberly Garchar, "Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought" (Oxford UP, 2020)

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Melissa Shew and Kimberly Garchar's book Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought (Oxford UP, 2020) empowers its readers by explor...

Ismay Milford, "African Activists in a Decolonising World: The Making of an Anticolonial Culture, 1952-1966" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As wars of liberation in Africa and Asia shook the post-war world, a cohort of activists from East and Central Africa, specifically the region encompa...

50 Years after Martin Jay's "The Dialectical Imagination"

24 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After 50 years of the publication of The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950, ...

Tarek Younis, "The Muslim, State, and Mind: Psychology in Times of Islamophobia" (Sage, 2022)

23 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Mental health is positioned as the cure-all for society’s discontents, from pandemics to terrorism. But psychology and psychiatry are not apolitical...

Cathy-Mae Karelse, "Disrupting White Mindfulness: Race and Racism in the Wellbeing Industry" (Manchester UP, 2023)

23 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Disrupting White Mindfulness: Race and Racism in the Wellbeing Industry (Manchester UP, 2023) offers a timely commentary on the dominant narratives t...

Thomas Piketty on Capitalism and Inequality (Adaner Usmani, JP)

20 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Is Thomas Piketty the world’s most famous economic historian ? A superstar enemy of plutocratic capitalism who wrote a pathbreaking bestseller, C...

Penny M. Von Eschen, "Paradoxes of Nostalgia: Cold War Triumphalism and Global Disorder Since 1989" (Duke UP, 2022)

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Paradoxes of Nostalgia: Cold War Triumphalism and Global Disorder since 1989 (Duke University Press, 2022) Dr. Penny M. Von Eschen offers a sweep...

Anne Phillips, "Unconditional Equals" (Princeton UP, 2021)

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, ringing declarations about all men being created equal appealed to a shared human nature as the reason to consider ourselves equals. Bu...

Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius, "Awkward Archives: Ethnographic Drafts for a Modular Curriculum" (Archive Books, 2022)

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Awkward Archives: Ethnographic Drafts for a Modular Curriculum (Archive Books, 2022) proposes a manual for academic teaching and learning contexts. A...

Jessica D. Klanderud, "Struggle for the Street: Social Networks and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Pittsburgh" (UNC Press, 2023)

17 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Cities are nothing without the streets—the arteries through which goods, people, and ideas flow. Neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, the c...

Samuel Issacharoff, "Democracy Unmoored: Populism and the Corruption of Popular Sovereignty" (Oxford UP, 2023)

15 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The 2016 election of Donald Trump focused people's minds on populism, and most of the attention paid to the subject since has been on the threat it po...

Stephen Bright and James Kwak, "The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts" (The New Press, 2023)

15 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Glenn Ford, a Black man, spent thirty years on Louisiana’s death row for a crime he did not commit. He was released in 2014—and given twenty dolla...

Nour Halabi, "Radical Hospitality: American Policy, Media, and Immigration" (Rutgers UP, 2022)

13 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How should we understand contemporary migration policy? In Radical Hospitality: American Policy, Media, and Immigration (Rutgers UP, 2022), Nour Ha...

J. Logan Smilges, "Crip Negativity" (U of Minnesota Press, 2023)

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the thirty years since the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law, the lives of disabled people have not improved nearly as much as ac...

Emily Flitter, "The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America" (Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2022)

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2018, Emily Flitter received a tip that Morgan Stanley had fired a Black employee without cause. Flitter had been searching for a way to investigat...

Keisha Ray, "Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health" (Oxford UP, 2023)

08 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why do American Black people generally have worse health than American White people? To answer this question, Keisha Ray's book Black Health: The Soc...

Marcos González Hernando and Gerry Mitchell, "Uncomfortably Off: Why Higher-Income Earners Should Care about Inequality" (Policy Press, 2023)

08 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How can we build a better social and political settlement? In Uncomfortably Off: Why the Top 10% of Earners Should Care about Inequality (Policy Pr...

Robin Steedman, "Creative Hustling: Women Making and Distributing Films from Nairobi" (MIT Press, 2023)

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of the global creative economy? In Creative Hustling: Women Making and Distributing Films from Nairobi (MIT Press, 2023), Robin ...

Maxwell Kennel, "Ontologies of Violence: Deconstruction, Pacifism, and Displacement" (Brill, 2023)

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ontologies of Violence: Deconstruction, Pacifism, and Displacement (Brill, 2023) provides a new paradigm for understanding the concept of violence th...

Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kathryn C. Higgins, "Believability: Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt" (Polity Press, 2023)

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who is believed in our mediated world? In Believability: Sexual Violence, Media and the Politics of Doubt (Polity Press, 2023),  Sarah Banet-Weise...

Jack Metzgar, "Bridging the Divide: Working-Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society" (ILR Press, 2021)

03 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Bridging the Divide: Working-Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society (ILR Press, 2021), Jack Metzgar attempts to determine the differences betwee...

Adrian Rifkin, "Future Imperfect: The Past Between My Fingers..." (2021)

02 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Then let the story really begin in 1968, though it has little to do with May. By chance it opens in January of that year, and it really concerns me ra...

Ricardo Tranjan, "The Tenant Class" (Between the Lines, 2023)

02 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Ricardo Tranjan about his book The Tenant Class (Between the Lines, 2023). It’s well known and almost taken for granted that w...

Why Do So Many Young People Think the Unabomber was Right?

30 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Darts and Letters is creating a new podcast, Academic Edgelords. This is a scholarly podcast about scholarly provocateurs. This is a leftist podcast...

Michael Muhammad Knight, "Sufi Deleuze: Secretions of Islamic Atheism" (Fordham UP, 2023)

28 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

“There is always an atheism to be extracted from a religion,” Deleuze and Guattari write in their final collaboration, What Is Philosophy? Their...

Daniel R. Smith, "The Fall and Rise of the English Upper Class: Houses, Kinship and Capital Since 1945" (Manchester UP, 2023)

28 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who are the English upper class? In The Fall and Rise of the English Upper Class: Houses, Kinship and Capital Since 1945 (Manchester UP, 2023) Dani...

Sara Salman, "The Shaming State: How the U.S. Treats Citizens in Need" (NYU Press, 2023)

27 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Shaming State: How the U.S. Treats Citizens in Need (NYU Press, 2023) argues that Americans have been abandoned by a government that has relinqui...

Marcello Musto, "The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography" (Stanford UP, 2020)

26 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the last years of his life, Karl Marx expanded his research in new directions-studying recent anthropological discoveries, analyzing communal forms...

Yvette Taylor, "Working-Class Queers: Time, Place, and Politics" (Pluto Press, 2022)

24 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the relationship between class and sexuality? In Working-Class Queers: Time, Place and Politics (Pluto Press, 2023), Yvette Taylor, Profes...

Alexandra Dane, "White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

17 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite initiatives to 'diversify' the publishing sector, there has been almost no transformation to the historic racial inequality that defines the f...

Deborah Stevenson, "Cultural Policy Beyond the Economy: Value, Work and the Social" (Edward Elgar, 2023)

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future for cultural policy? In Cultural Policy Beyond the Economy: Work, Value, and the Social (Edward Elgar, 2023),  Deborah Stevenso...

Allan E. S. Lumba, "Monetary Authorities: Capitalism and Decolonization in the American Colonial Philippines" (Duke UP, 2022)

15 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Monetary Authorities: Capitalism and Decolonization in the American Colonial Philippines (Duke UP, 2022) investigates the ways in which racial and c...

Moon-Ho Jung, "Menace to Empire: Anticolonial Solidarities and the Transpacific Origins of the US Security State" (U California Press, 2022)

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As the American imperial project in the Pacific World grew at the end of the nineteenth century, so too did the American security and intelligence sta...

Malini Ranganathan et al., "Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City" (Cornell UP, 2023)

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City (Cornell UP, 2023) illuminates how corruption is fundamental to global sto...

Samuel J. Redman, "The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience" (NYU Press, 2022)

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the...

The Rhetoric of Decline

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of High Theory, Jed Esty talks about the Rhetoric of Decline. Declinism names the contradictory political narrative that America will ...

Maitrayee Chaudhuri and Manish Thakur, "Doing Theory: Locations, Hierarchies and Disjunctions" (Orient Blackswan, 2018)

11 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We live in times where theory is often understood as irrelevant in the real world. It appears to have no practical results. This has been further comp...

Arturo Rodríguez Morató and Alvaro Santana-Acuña, "Sociology of the Arts in Action: New Perspectives on Creation, Production, and Reception" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

11 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What are the latest developments in the sociology of the arts? In Sociology of the Arts in Action: New Perspectives on Creation, Production, and Rece...

Graham Harman and Christopher Witmore, "Objects Untimely: Object-Oriented Philosophy and Archaeology" (Polity Press, 2023)

10 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Objects generate time; time does not generate or change objects. That is the central thesis of this book by the philosopher Graham Harman and the arch...

Joshua St. Pierre, "Cheap Talk: Disability and the Politics of Communication" (U MIchigan Press, 2022)

09 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Cheap Talk: Disability and the Politics of Communication (U Michigan Press, 2022), Joshua St. Pierre flips the script on communication disability...

Doug Enaa Greene, "Stalinism and the Dialectics of Saturn: Anticommunism, Marxism, and the Fate of the Soviet Union" (Lexington, 2023)

09 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As capitalism’s popularity wanes and socialism’s popularity increases, there remains a massive shadow cast by the history of actually existing soc...

Mark R. Warren, "Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline" (Oxford UP, 2021)

07 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The story of how Black and Brown parents, students and members of low-income communities of color organized to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline...

Philip Kitcher, "What's the Use of Philosophy?' (Oxford UP, 2023)

05 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In What's the Use of Philosophy? (Oxford UP, 2023), Philip Kitcher here grapples with an essential philosophical question: what the point of philos...

Jen Ross, "Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies" (Routledge, 2022)

04 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of education? In Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies (Routledge, 2022), Jen Ross, a senior lecturer...

Lorenzo Costaguta, "Workers of All Colors Unite: Race and the Origins of American Socialism" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

03 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As the United States transformed into an industrial superpower, American socialists faced the vexing question of how to approach race. Lorenzo Costagu...

The Future of Big Finance: A Discussion with Anastasia Nesvetailova

03 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How common is financial malpractice in big, well known financial companies? Is it so common that it should really be seen as a business model more tha...

J. Daniel Elam, "World Literature for the Wretched of the Earth: Anticolonial Aesthetics, Postcolonial Politics" (Fordham UP, 2020)

31 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

World Literature for the Wretched of the Earth: Anticolonial Aesthetics, Postcolonial Politics (Fordham UP, 2020) recovers a genealogy of anticolonia...

Alex Prichard, "Anarchism: a Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2022)

31 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you asked a passerby on the street what anarchism is, they may answer that it is an ideology based on chaos, disorder, and violence. But is this tr...

Orly Lobel, "The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future" (PublicAffairs, 2022)

31 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The fear of algorithmic decision-making and surveillance capitalism dominate today's tech policy discussions. But instead of simply criticizing big da...

Ashok Gopal, "A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B. R. Ambedkar" (Navayana, 2023)

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) is perhaps the most iconised historical figure in India. Born into a caste deemed ‘unfit for human association’...

Learning for Liberation: The Life and Legacy of Paulo Freire

29 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Paulo Freire offers activists and academics everywhere a lesson in what it means to be a radical intellectual. He is known as the founder of critical ...

Lisa McCormick, "The Cultural Sociology of Art and Music: New Directions and New Discoveries" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

28 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How can sociology help us understand art and music? In The Cultural Sociology of Art and Music: New Directions and New Discoveries (Palgrave MacMill...

Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, "Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice" (Atria Books, 2023)

28 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the current period of social and political unrest, conversations about identity are becoming more frequent and more difficult. On subjects like cri...

Scott Timcke, "The Political Economy of Fortune and Misfortune: Prospects for Prosperity in Our Times" (Bristol UP, 2023)

25 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Luck greatly influences a person's quality of life. Yet little of our politics looks at how institutions can amplify good or bad luck that widens soci...

Alyson K. Spurgas and Zoe Meleo Erwin, "Decolonize Self-Care" (OR Books, 2022)

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For twentieth-century feminists, it was a rallying cry for bodily autonomy and political power. For influencers and lifestyle brands, it’s buying fa...

Party

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sheila Liming talks about the party, social gatherings that occasion joy and dread and various emotions in between. The party is both a pause and an a...

The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth

21 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The philosopher Bruno Latour (We Have Never Been Modern, Laboratory Life, Science in Action) and Eugene Richardson, physician, anthropologist, and ...

Jonathan Adeyemi, "Contemporary Art from Nigeria in the Global Markets: Trending in the Margins" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

21 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How does the art market work? In Contemporary Art from Nigeria in the Global Markets: Trending in the Margins (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), Jonathan ...

Infrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure

20 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Truscello, author of Infrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure, discusses the ways in which infrastructure deter...

Full Version: Lauren Fournier and McKenzie Wark on Autotheory

20 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

An extended conversation between Lauren Fournier, writer, independent curator, artist, and author of Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing...

Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lauren Fournier, writer, independent curator, artist, and author of Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism discusses her for...

Mark Paul, "The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America's Lost Promise of Economic Rights" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

18 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since the Founding, Americans have debated the true meaning of freedom. For some, freedom meant the provision of life's necessities, those basic condi...

Claire Provost and Matt Kennard, "Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As European empires crumbled in the 20th century, the power structures that had dominated the world for centuries were up for renegotiation. Yet inste...

Ailton Krenak, "Life Is Not Useful" (Polity Press, 2023)

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Indigenous thinker and leader, Ailton Krenak, exposes the destructive tendencies of our ‘civilization’ in Life is not Useful  (Polity, 2023), w...

Ma Vang, "History on the Run: Secrecy, Fugitivity, and Hmong Refugee Epistemologies" (Duke UP, 2021)

14 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode we discuss how secrecy structures both official knowledge and refugee epistemologies about militarism and forced migration as found in...

Sarah Atkinson and Helen W. Kennedy, "Secret Cinema and the Immersive Experience Industry" (Manchester UP, 2022)

13 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of media? In Secret Cinema and the Immersive Experience Industry (Manchester UP, 2022), Sarah Atkinson, a Professor of Screen Me...

Sharon Hecker and Raffaele Bedarida, "Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

13 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On the centenary of the fascist party's ascent to power in Italy, Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today (Bloo...

Global Asia

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Cheryl Narumi Naruse talks about the transformation of Singapore over the past decades into a site of postcolonial promise, with economic prosperity a...

Jacqueline Mondros and Joan Minieri, "Organizing for Power and Empowerment: The Fight for Democracy" (Columbia UP, 2023)

11 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jacqueline Mondros and Joan Minieri's book Organizing for Power and Empowerment: The Fight for Democracy (Columbia UP, 2023) draws on extensive rese...

Laurie Parsons, "Carbon Colonialism: How Rich Countries Export Climate Breakdown" (Manchester UP, 2023)

10 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Climate change is devastating the planet, and globalisation is hiding it. Laurie Parsons's book Carbon Colonialism: How Rich Countries Export Climate...

Carceral Capitalism

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Conor Rose reads from Jackie Wang's Carceral Capitalism. This extract, taken from the opening of the book, offers insight into the Black Lives Matte...

Elisabeth B. Armstrong, "Bury the Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949" (U California Press, 2023)

08 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1949, women from across the world traveled to Beijing for the Asian Women’s Conference to discuss how to combat the dual threats of colonial rule...

Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, "Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity" (PublicAffairs, 2023)

07 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (PublicAffairs, 2023) is a groundbreaking work by bestselling authors ...

Sarrah Kassem, "Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organization" (Bristol UP, 2023)

06 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How have platforms transforming the world of work? In Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organisation (Bristol UP,...

Sita Balani, "Deadly and Slick: Sexual Modernity and the Making of Race" (Verso, 2023)

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If race is increasingly understood to be socially constructed, why does it continue to seem like a physiological reality? In Deadly and Slick: Sexual...

Eva Haifa Giraud, "What Comes After Entanglement?: Activism, Anthropocentrism, and an Ethics of Exclusion" (Duke UP, 2019)

05 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

By foregrounding the ways that human existence is bound together with the lives of other entities, contemporary cultural theorists have sought to move...

Reece Jones, "White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall" (Beacon Press, 2021)

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recent racist anti-immigration policies, from the border wall to the Muslim ban, have left many Americans wondering: How did we get here? In White Bo...

Cedric Johnson, "After Black Lives Matter: Policing and Anti-Capitalist Struggle" (Verso, 2023)

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The historic uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd transformed the way Americans and the world think about race and policing. Why did it ...

Semiotext(e): The Theory Press

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Best known for its introduction of French theory to American readers, Semiotext(e) has been one of America's most influential independent presses sinc...

Philip Ewell, "On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone" (U Michigan Press, 2023)

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Music Theory and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone (University of Michigan Press, 2023) by Philip Ewell is an unflinching look at white su...

Jo Littler, "Left Feminisms: Conversations on the Personal and Political" (Lawrence Wishart, 2023)

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the history and future of feminism? In Left Feminisms: Conversations on the Personal and Political (Lawrence Wishart, 2023), Jo Littler, P...

K. N. Sunandan, "Caste, Knowledge, and Power: Ways of Knowing in Twentieth Century Malabar" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

30 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Caste, Knowledge, and Power: Ways of Knowing in Twentieth-Century Malabar (Cambridge UP, 2023) investigates the transformations of caste practices ...

Macs Smith, "Paris and the Parasite: Noise, Health, and Politics in the Media City" (MIT Press, 2021)

29 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The social consequences of anti-parasitic urbanism, as efforts to expunge supposedly biological parasites penalize those viewed as social parasites. A...

Craig Leonard, "Uncommon Sense: Aesthetics after Marcuse" (MIT Press, 2022)

29 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Uncommon Sense: Aesthetics after Marcuse (MIT Press, 2022), Craig Leonard argues for the contemporary relevance of the aesthetic theory of Herber...

Computer Graphics

27 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of High Theory, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan talks with us about computer graphics. Emerging from tools for sailing and warmaking, like...

Christina Dunbar-Hester, "Oil Beach: How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

27 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How can we stop infrastructure from damaging the planet? In Oil Beach: How Toxic Infrastructure Threatens Life in the Ports of Los Angeles and Beyond...

Wendy Lynne Lee, "This is Environmental Ethics: An Introduction" (John Wiley & Sons, 2022)

26 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Wendy Lynne Lee's This is Environmental Ethics: An Introduction (John Wiley & Sons, 2022) provides students and scholars with a comprehensive introd...

Brett Christophers, "Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World" (Verso, 2023)

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Banks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago. Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone ...

Susan Stryker and Dylan McCarthy Blackston, "The Transgender Studies Reader Remix" (Routledge, 2022)

24 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hello, this is Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today I interview Susan Stryker and Dylan McCarthy Blackston about The Transgender Studie...

Kerri Lynn Stone, "Panes of the Glass Ceiling: The Unspoken Beliefs Behind the Law's Failure to Help Women Achieve Professional Parity" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

More than fifty years of civil rights legislation and movements have not ended employment discrimination. Kerri Lynn Stone's Panes of the Glass Ceili...

Graham Harman, "The Graham Harman Reader" (Zero Books, 2023)

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

'Overcoming the war of religion between analytics and continentals with a brand-new metaphysical insight, Graham Harman has restored to philosophy its...

Cristina Mejia Visperas, "Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory" (NYU, 2022)

14 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

An abolitionist approach to STS and the history of the life sciences: this is the model that Cristina Mejia Visperas offers in her book, Skin Theor...

Simon(e) van Saarloos, "Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto" (Emily Carr UP, 2023)

13 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto starts with what it is not: it is not a socio-economic argument against ageism, celebrating “the elderly” as ec...

Amy Edwards, "Are We Rich Yet? The Rise of Mass Investment Culture in Contemporary Britain" (U California Press, 2022)

12 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did British society become financialised? In Are We Rich Yet? The Rise of Mass Investment Culture in Contemporary Britain (U California Press, 2...

Todd McGowan, "Enjoyment Right & Left" (Sublation Media, 2022)

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Todd McGowan about his book Enjoyment Right & Left (Sublation Media, 2022). While understanding the psychic structure of pleasure ...

Helen Small, "The Function of Cynicism at the Present Time" (Oxford UP, 2020)

07 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Cynicism is usually seen as a provocative mode of dissent from conventional moral thought, casting doubt on the motives that guide right conduct. When...