New Books in Critical Theory
Episodes
John Bellamy Foster, "The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology" (Monthly Review Press, 2021)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It is slowly becoming clear that we are heading towards a deep ecological catastrophe. Our societies carbon footprint and its impact have been known f...
Jonathan M. Katz, "Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Katz’s Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire (St. Martin’s Press, 202...
Martin Shuster, "How to Measure a World?: A Philosophy of Judaism" (Indiana UP, 2021)
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What can the history of Jewish philosophy teach us about modern life? In How to Measure a World?: A Philosophy of Judaism (Indiana UP, 2021), Marti...
Natasha Iskander, "Does Skill Make Us Human?: Migrant Workers in 21st-Century Qatar and Beyond" (Princeton UP, 2021)
21 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Skill—specifically the distinction between the “skilled” and “unskilled”—is generally defined as a measure of ability and training, but D...
Annie Berke, "Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television" (U California Press, 2022)
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is the hidden history of women in the television industry? In Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television (U California Press...
Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza, "A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism" (Oxford UP, 2021)
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism (Oxford UP, 2021), Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza exam...
Peter S. Goodman, "Davos Man: How the Billionaire Class Devoured Democracy" (Custom House, 2022)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, New York Times' journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative Davos Men-memb...
Asef Bayat, "Revolutionary Life: The Everyday of the Arab Spring" (Harvard UP, 2021)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Seamlessly blending field research, on-the-ground interviews, and social theory, Asef Bayat shows how the practice of everyday life in Egypt and Tunis...
Poulomi Saha, "An Empire of Touch: Women's Political Labor and the Fabrication of East Bengal" (Columbia UP, 2019)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can subalterns speak? Now an iconic question from a prominent postcolonial studies scholar Gayatri Spivak, the question interrogates the in-built assu...
Joshua Myers, "Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition" (Polity, 2021)
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work...
Julie Froud and Karel Williams, "Foundational Economy: The Infrastructure of Everyday Life" (Manchester UP, 2022)
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I spoke with Prof Julie Froud and Prof Karel Williams about Foundational Economy: The Infrastructure of Everyday Life (Manchester University Press...
Tina Sikka, "Sex, Consent and Justice: A New Feminist Framework" (Edinburgh UP, 2021)
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Increasingly fraught debates about sex, consent, feminism, justice, law, and gender relations have taken centre stage in academic, journalistic and so...
Mark Christian Thompson, "Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Christian Thompson's book, Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2022) examines the changin...
John Zerzan, "When We Are Human: Notes from the Age of Pandemics" (Feral House, 2021)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
These are dark and darkening times, challenging us to look deeper to grasp the roots and dynamics of the looming civilizational crisis. Chronic illnes...
Julian Stallabrass, "Killing for Show: Photography, War, and the Media in Vietnam and Iraq" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the autumn of 2014, the Royal Air Force released blurry video of a missile blowing up a pick-up truck that may have had a weapon attached to its fl...
Susan Oman, "Understanding Well-being Data: Improving Social and Cultural Policy, Practice and Research" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
04 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How can we understand well-being? In Understanding Well-being Data: Improving Social and Cultural Policy, Practice and Research (Palgrave Macmillan,...
Myisha Cherry, "The Case for Rage: Why Anger Is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle" (Oxford UP, 2021)
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
According to a broad consensus among philosophers across the ages, anger is regrettable, counterproductive, and bad. It is something to be overcome or...
Carl Rhodes, "Woke Capitalism: How Corporate Morality is Sabotaging Democracy" (Policy Press, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Carl Rhodes about his book Woke Capitalism: How Corporate Morality is Sabotaging Democracy (Policy Press, 2021). When Milton Frie...
Nicole M. Guidotti-Hernández, "Archiving Mexican Masculinities in Diaspora" (Duke UP, 2021)
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nicole M. Guidotti-Hernández once again engages in the fearless work of challenging structures of domination. In her most recent book, Archiving Mex...
Teresa Kulawik and Zhanna Kravchenko, "Borderlands in European Gender Studies: Beyond the East-West Frontier" (Routledge, 2020)
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Challenging persistent geopolitical asymmetries in feminist knowledge production, this collection depicts collisions between concepts and lived experi...
David Boarder Giles, "A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People: Food Not Bombs and the World-Class Waste of Global Cities" (Duke UP, 2021)
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People: Food Not Bombs and the World-Class Waste of Global Cities (Duke UP, 2021), David Boarder Giles explores the way...
The Future of the Apocalyptic Right in the U.S.: A Discussion with Benjamin R. Teitelbaum
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How did Steve Bannon come to believe the strange things he believes? The influential, former Trump aid, began as a Democrat-supporting Naval officer ...
Mark Devenney, "Towards an Improper Politics" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)
21 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Historically, discourses of racial, civilizational, and sexual difference have inevitably been entangled with, shaped by, and constitutive of institut...
Kyle T. Mays, "An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States" (Beacon Press, 2021)
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Kyle T. Mays, an Afro-Indi...
Irmgard Emmelhainz, "Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures: Feminist Living as Resistance" (Vanderbilt UP, 2022)
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures: Feminist Living as Resistance (Vanderbilt UP, 2022) is an homage to a constellation of women writers, feminists, and...
Keller Easterling, "Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World" (Verso, 2021)
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do we formulate alternative approaches to the world’s unresponsive or intractable dilemmas, from climate change, to inequality, to concentration...
Vânia Penha-Lopes, "The Presidential Elections of Trump and Bolsonaro, Whiteness, and the Nation" (Lexington Books, 2021)
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Presidential Elections of Trump and Bolsonaro, Whiteness, and the Nation (Lexington Books, 2021) is a sociological analysis of the similarities b...
Nina Power, "What Do Men Want?: Masculinity and Its Discontents" (Penguin, 2022)
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Something is definitely up with men. From millions online who engage with the manosphere to the #metoo backlash, from Men's Rights activists and incel...
Himani Bannerji, "The Ideological Condition: Selected Essays on History, Race and Gender" (Brill, 2020)
14 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How should we understand identity? What sort of politics are needed to address various forms of oppression and marginalization? Are knowledge and prac...
Mimi Sheller, "Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene" (Duke UP, 2020)
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene (Duke UP, 2020), Mimi Sheller delves into the ecological crises and reconstruction challe...
Corinne Fowler, "Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England's Colonial Connections" (Peepal Tree Press, 2021)
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England's Colonial Connections (PeePal Tree Press, 2021), Dr. Corinne Fowler explores the repr...
Katie Rios, "This Is America: Race, Gender, and Politics in America's Musical Landscape" (Lexington Books, 2021)
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“This is America”: Race Gender and Politics in America’s Musical Landscape by Katie Rios (Lexington Books, 2021) examines an eclectic mix of di...
Elizabeth Anderson, "Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It) (Princeton UP, 2019)
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One in four American workers says their workplace is a "dictatorship." Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for...
3.1 On Being Unmoored: Chang-rae Lee Charts Fiction with Anne Anlin Cheng
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Season three of Novel Dialogue launches in partnership with Public Books and introduces some fresh new voices into the mix. John and Aarthi welcome ...
Simon Critchley, "Bald: 35 Philosophical Short Cuts" (Yale UP, 2021)
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Bald: 35 Philosophical Short Cuts (Yale UP, 2021) brings together thirty-five essays, originally published in the Times, on a wide range of topics, ...
Paul Gowder, "The Rule of Law in the United States: An Unfinished Project of Black Liberation" (Hart Publishing, 2021)
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Rule of Law in the United States: An Unfinished Project of Black Liberation (Hart, 2021), Dr. Paul Gowder focuses on examining the ideals of ...
Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius, "Across Anthropology: Troubling Colonial Legacies, Museums, and the Curatorial" (Leuven UP, 2020)
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How can we rethink anthropology beyond itself? In this book, twenty-one artists, anthropologists, and curators grapple with how anthropology has been ...
Kerry L. Haynie et al., "Race, Gender, and Political Representation: Toward a More Intersectional Approach" (Oxford UP, 2020)
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do gender and race interact to affect the election, behavior, and impact of all individuals – raced women and gendered minorities alike? Accordi...
Oishik Sircar, "Violent Modernities: Cultural Lives of Law in the New India" (Oxford UP, 2021)
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Law and violence are thought to share an antithetical relationship in postcolonial modernity. Violence is considered the other of law, lawlessness is ...
Grant Tavinor, "The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality" (Routledge, 2021)
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When philosophers have approached virtual reality, they have almost always done so through the lens of metaphysics, asking questions about the reality...
Neil Vallelly, "Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness" (MIT Press, 2021)
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If maximizing utility leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, as utilitarianism has always proposed, then why is it that as ...
Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill, "Confidence Culture" (Duke UP, 2022)
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue that imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe...
Sarah Jane Cervenak, "Black Gathering: Art, Ecology, Ungiven Life" (Duke UP, 2021)
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Gathering: Art, Ecology, Ungiven Life (Duke UP, 2021), Dr. Sarah Jane Cervenak engages with Black artists and writers who create alternati...
Traci Brynne Voyles, "The Settler Sea: California's Salton Sea and the Consequences of Colonialism" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Salton Sea is a kaleidoscope. To some people, it's a waste land, a place of death only suitable for a dumping ground. For others, it's a clarion c...
Terri Givens, "Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides" (Policy Press, 2021)
19 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Structural racism has impacted the lives of African Americans in the United States since before the country’s founding. Although the country has mad...
Amy Holdsworth, "On Living with Television" (Duke UP, 2021)
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How should we understand the role of television in everyday life? In On Living with Television (Duke UP, 2021), Amy Holdsworth, a Senior Lecturer...
Sanjukta Sunderason, "Partisan Aesthetics: Modern Art and India's Long Decolonization" (Stanford UP, 2020)
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Partisan Aesthetics: Modern Art and India's Long Decolonization (Stanford UP, 2020), Sanjukta Sunderason explores art's entanglements with histor...
Timothy Brennan, "Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said" (FSG, 2021)
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Timothy Brennan is Professor of Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, and English at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of several semi...
Gil Z. Hochberg, "Becoming Palestine: Toward an Archival Imagination of the Future" (Duke UP, 2021)
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Becoming Palestine: Toward an Archival Imagination of the Future (Duke UP, 2021), Gil Z. Hochberg examines how contemporary Palestinian artists, ...
Miranda Campbell, "Reimagining the Creative Industries: Youth Creative Work, Communities of Care" (Routledge, 2021)
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How can we make creative industries fair and inclusive? In Reimagining the Creative Industries: Youth Creative Work, Communities of Care (Routledge,...
Kris Sealey, "Creolizing the Nation" (Northwestern UP, 2020)
10 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can the concept of the nation be a resource for liberatory political struggle? Are the dangers of nationalism simply too great? In Creolizing the Nat...
Alexander Etkind, "Nature′s Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources" (Polity Press, 2021)
10 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Nature′s Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources (Polity Press, 2021), Alexander Etkind views the history of humankind through the prism...
Elizabeth A. Povinelli, "Between Gaia and Ground: Four Axioms of Existence and the Ancestral Catastrophe of Late Liberalism" (Duke UP, 2021)
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Between Gaia and Ground: Four Axioms of Existence and the Ancestral Catastrophe of Late Liberalism (Duke UP, 2021), Elizabeth A. Povinelli the...
71 Jennifer Egan with Ivan Kreilkamp: Fiction as Streaming, Genre as Portal (Novel Dialogue crossover, JP)
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week on Recall this Book, another delightful crossover episode from our sister podcast Novel Dialogue, which puts scholars and writers togethe...
Laurie R. Lambert, "Comrade Sister: Caribbean Feminist Revisions of the Grenada Revolution" (U Virginia Press, 2020)
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
My conversation with Laurie Lambert, author of Comrade Sister: Caribbean Feminist Revisions of the Grenada Revolution (University of Virginia Press...
Anna Watkins Fisher, "The Play in the System: The Art of Parasitical Resistance" (Duke UP, 2020)
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does artistic resistance look like in the twenty-first century, when disruption and dissent have been co-opted and commodified in ways that reinf...
Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, "Strategic Occidentalism: On Mexican Fiction, the Neoliberal Book Market, and the Question of World Literature" (Northwestern UP, 2018)
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado is Professor of Spanish, Latin American Studies, and Film and Media Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His areas...
Mabel Moraña, "Philosophy and Criticism in Latin America: From Mariátegui to Sloterdijk" (Cambria Press, 2020)
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mabel Moraña's book Philosophy and Criticism in Latin America: From Mariátegui to Sloterdijk (Cambria Press, 2020) explores the complex relationsh...
Carol Diehl, "Banksy: Completed" (MIT Press, 2021)
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Banksy is the world's most famous living artist, yet no one knows who he is. For more than twenty years, his wryly political and darkly humorous spray...
Andrew Zitcer, "Practicing Cooperation: Mutual Aid Beyond Capitalism" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
28 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever stopped to think about your local grocery cooperative and what makes it different than, say Safeway or Giant or Whole Foods? That is, if...
Ian Almond, "World Literature Decentered: Beyond the 'West' Through Turkey, Mexico and Bengal" (Routledge, 2021)
27 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Almond is Professor of World Literature at Georgetown University in Qatar, and author of six books, including Two Faiths, One Banner: When Muslim...
Noreen Giffney, "The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic" (Routledge, 2021)
27 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis: Cultural Experiences and the Clinic (Routledge, 2021) introduces "the culture-breast," a new clinical concept, ...
Daniel M. Knight, "Vertiginous Life: An Anthropology of Time and the Unforeseen" (Berghahn Books, 2021)
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Vertiginous Life: An Anthropology of Time and the Unforeseen (Berghahn Books, 2021) provides a theory of the intense temporal disorientation brought ...
Gabriel Yoran, "The Interfact: On Structure and Compatibility in Object-Oriented Ontology" (Open Humanities Press, 2021)
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Objects in object-oriented ontology (OOO) are mysterious and inexhaustible entities. But since OOO grants ontological priority to objects, it should h...
Michel Foucault, "Intolerable: Writings from Michel Foucault and the Prisons Information Group (1970-1980)" (U of Minnesota Press, 2021)
20 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Intolerable: Writings from Michel Foucault and the Prisons Information Group (1970-1980) (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), edited by Kevin Thomp...
Shelley L. Koch, "Gender and Food: A Critical Look at the Food System" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019)
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gender and Food: A Critical Look at the Food System (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019) synthesizes existing theoretical and empirical research on food, ...
Bogdan Popa, "De-Centering Queer Theory: Communist Sexuality in the Flow During and After the Cold War" (Manchester UP, 2021)
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bogdan Popa’s De-Centering Queer Theory: Communist Sexuality in the Flow During and After the Cold War (Manchester University Press, 2021) seeks t...
2.7 The Novel of Revolutionary Ideas: Viet Thanh Nguyen and Colleen Lye
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Sympathizer and its sequel The Committed, joins esteemed scholar Colleen Lye of UC-B...
Matthew H. Brown, "Indirect Subjects: Nollywood's Local Address" (Duke UP, 2021)
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Indirect Subjects: Nollywood's Local Address (Duke UP, 2021), Matthew H. Brown analyzes the content of the prolific Nigerian film industry's most...
Erin Cech, "The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality" (U California Press, 2021)
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Should we love work? In The Trouble with Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality (U California Press, 2021), Erin Cech, a...
Kate Rigby, "Reclaiming Romanticism: Towards an Ecopoetics of Decolonisation" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The earliest environmental criticism took its inspiration from the Romantic poets and their immersion in the natural world. Today the “romanticising...
Noémi Tousignant, "Edges of Exposure: Toxicology and the Problem of Capacity in Postcolonial Senegal" (Duke UP, 2018)
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is “capacity”? In science research and health interventions, it typically refers to the relative availability of equipment, infrastructure, p...
Nicole Nguyen, "Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) is a powerful reassessment of the U.S. g...
Jeffrey S. Bachman, "Cultural Genocide: Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations" (Routledge, 2019)
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jeffrey Bachman's edited volume Cultural Genocide: Law, Politics, and Global Manifestations (Routledge, 2019) asks where the boundaries between gen...
Till F. Paasche and James Derrick Sidaway, "Transecting Securityscapes: Dispatches from Cambodia, Iraq, and Mozambique" (U Georgia Press, 2021)
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this interview, I speak with Till F. Paasche and James D. Sidaway about their new book, Transecting Securityscapes: Dispatches from Cambodia, Iraq...
Nishant Shahani, "Pink Revolutions: Globalization, Hindutva, and Queer Triangles in Contemporary India" (Northwestern UP, 2021)
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Pink Revolutions: Globalization, Hindutva, and Queer Triangles in Contemporary India (Northwestern UP, 2021) describes how queer politics in India oc...
Kim Charnley, "Sociopolitical Aesthetics: Art, Crisis and Neoliberalism" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since the turn of the millennium, protests, meetings, schoolrooms, reading groups and many other social forms have been proposed as artworks or, more ...
Kevin Bruyneel, "Settler Memory: The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race in the United States" (UNC Press, 2021)
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Bruyneel confronts the chronic displacement of Indigeneity in the politics and discourse around race in American political theory and culture, a...
Margaret D. Jacobs, "After One Hundred Winters: In Search of Reconciliation on America's Stolen Lands" (Princeton UP, 2021)
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After One Hundred Winters: In Search of Reconciliation on America's Stolen Lands (Princeton UP, 2021) confronts the harsh truth that the United State...
Eva von Redecker, "Praxis and Revolution: A Theory of Social Transformation" (Columbia UP, 2021)
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The concept of revolution marks the ultimate horizon of modern politics. It is instantiated by sites of both hope and horror. Within progressive thoug...
Rana M. Jaleel, "The Work of Rape" (Duke UP, 2021)
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In The Work of Rape (Duke UP, 2021), Rana M. Jaleel argues that the redefinition of sexual violence within international law as a war crime, crime a...
Joshua Sbicca, "Food Justice Now!: Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle" (U Minnesota Press, 2018)
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Food Justice Now: Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle (University of Minnesota Press, 2018) charts a path from food activism to social justice a...
Matt Christman and Daniel Bessner, "Hinge Points: A Podcast About Historical Contingency"
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do we balance the importance of individual human agency with our understanding of larger socio-economic structures? How do we explore crucial “w...
Christos Tombras, "Discourse Ontology: Body and the Construction of a World, from Heidegger through Lacan" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We interview Dr. Christos Tombras, a supervising psychoanalyst with a Lacanian orientation, practicing in London. Dr. Tombras is a member of the Centr...
Gila Ashtor, "Homo Psyche: On Queer Theory and Erotophobia" (Fordham UP, 2021)
22 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview Gila Ashtor, a practicing psychoanalyst and critical theorist, about her new book, Homo Psyche: On Queer Theory and Erot...
James Garrison, "Reconsidering the Life of Power: Ritual, Body, and Art in Critical Theory and Chinese Philosophy" (SUNY Press, 2021)
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reconsidering the Life of Power: Ritual, Body, and Art in Critical Theory and Chinese Philosophy by James Garrison (SUNY Press 2021), argues that the...
Joel Whitebook, "Freud: An Intellectual Biography" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We interview Dr. Joel Whitebook, philosopher and psychoanalyst about his book Freud: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge UP, 2017). Dr. Whitebook w...
J. Shapiro and J-A. McNeish, "Our Extractive Age: Expressions of Violence and Resistance" (Routledge, 2021)
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Judith Shapiro and John-Andrew McNeish's book Our Extractive Age: Expressions of Violence and Resistance (Routledge, 2021) emphasizes how the spect...
Yair Wallach, "A City in Fragments: Urban Texts in Modern Jerusalem" (Stanford UP, 2020)
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-nineteenth century, Jerusalem was rich with urban texts inscribed in marble, gold, and cloth, investing holy sites with divine meaning. Ott...
Julia Bahner, "Sexual Citizenship and Disability: Understanding Sexual Support in Policy, Practice and Theory" (Routledge, 2021)
12 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What does ‘sexual citizenship’ mean in practice for people with mobility impairments who may need professional support to engage in sexual activit...
Katja Praznik, "Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism" (U Toronto Press, 2021)
11 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Art Work: Invisible Labour and the Legacy of Yugoslav Socialism (U Toronto Press, 2021), Katja Praznik counters the Western understanding of art ...
Sima Shakhsari, "Politics of Rightful Killing: Civil Society, Gender, and Sexuality in Weblogistan" (Duke UP, 2020)
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 2000s, mainstream international news outlets celebrated the growth of Weblogistan—the online and real-life transnational network of Ira...
Samuel Moyn, "Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War" (FSG, 2021)
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Geographic and temporal limits have typically contained modern wars—rulers can ask their populace to risk lives and treasure for so long before losi...
Michelle Téllez, "Border Women and the Community of Maclovio Rojas: Autonomy in the Spaces of Neoliberal Neglect" (U Arizona Press, 2021)
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Near Tijuana, Baja California, the autonomous community of Maclovio Rojas demonstrates what is possible for urban place-based political movements. Mor...
Luke Clements, "Clustered Injustice and The Level Green" (Legal Action Group, 2020)
08 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Clustered Injustice and The Level Green (Legal Action Group, 2020), Professor Luke Clements tackles the problem of the way in which "our legal...
Jovan Scott Lewis, "Scammer's Yard: The Crime of Black Repair in Jamaica" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There is romance in stealing from the rich to give to the poor, but how does that change when those perceived rich are elderly white North Americans a...
Ruby Hamad, "White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color" (Catapult, 2020)
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Called “powerful and provocative" by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of the New York Times bestselling How to be an Antiracist, Ruby Hamad's White Tear...
Habiba Ibrahim, "Black Age: Oceanic Lifespans and the Time of Black Life" (NYU Press, 2021)
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Although more than fifty years apart, the murders of Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin share a commonality: Black children are not seen as children. Time...
Hsuan L. Hsu, "The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics" (NYU Press, 2020)
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our sense of smell is a uniquely visceral—and personal—form of experience. As Hsuan L. Hsu points out, smell has long been spurned by Western aest...
Barbara Grabher, "Doing Gender in Events: Feminist Perspectives in Critical Event Studies" (Routledge, 2021)
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring the relationship between gender and events, Doing Gender in Events: Feminist Perspectives in Critical Event Studies (Routledge, 2021) deli...