New Books in Critical Theory
Episodes
Nicholas Freudenberg, "At What Cost: Modern Capitalism and the Future of Health" (Oxford UP, 2021)
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Freedom of choice lies at the heart of American society. Every day, individuals decide what to eat, which doctors to see, who to connect with online, ...
Heba Y. Amin, "The General's Stork" (Sternberg Press, 2020)
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013, Egyptian authorities detained a migratory stork for espionage. This incident is the focus of Heba Y. Amin’s The General’s Stork, an ongo...
Robin Celikates, "Critique as Social Practice: Critical Theory and Social Self-Understanding" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018)
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I spoke with Robin Celikates about his book Critique as Social Practice: Critical Theory and Social Self-Understanding (Rowman and Littlefie...
Ellen Helsper, "The Digital Disconnect: The Social Causes and Consequences of Digital Inequalities" (Sage, 2021)
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What are digital inequalities? In The Digital Disconnect: The Social Causes and Consequences of Digital Inequalities (Sage, 2021), Ellen Helsper, a...
Toby Miller, "Violence" (Routledge, 2020)
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is violence? In Violence Toby Miller, Stuart Hall Professor of Cultural Studies, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana–Cuajimalpa, Mexico off...
L. Ayu Saraswati, "Pain Generation: Social Media, Feminist Activism, and the Neoliberal Selfie" (NYU Press, 2021)
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Social media has become the front-and-center arena for feminist activism. Responding to and enacting the political potential of pain inflicted in acts...
Zoetanya Sujon, "The Social Media Age" (Sage, 2021)
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How has social media shaped contemporary society? In The Social Media Age (Sage, 2021), Zoetanya Sujon, a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director i...
Matthew Clair, "Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court" (Princeton UP, 2020)
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court (Princeton UP, 2020) by Matthew Clair is a powerful ethnographic study of the ...
Moya Bailey, "Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance" (NYU Press, 2021)
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Where racism and sexism meet—an understanding of anti-Black misogyny. When Moya Bailey first coined the term misogynoir, she defined it as the ways ...
Doron Taussig, "What We Mean by the American Dream: Stories We Tell about Meritocracy" (Cornell UP, 2021)
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Doron Taussig invites us to question the American Dream. Did you earn what you have? Did everyone else? The American Dream is built on the idea that A...
Cristina Beltrán, "Cruelty As Citizenship: How Migrant Suffering Sustains White Democracy" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cristina Beltrán has written a thoughtful and interrogating analysis of the concept of citizenship, particularly in the United States, and how the hi...
Daniel Jose Gaztambide, "A People's History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology" (Lexington Books, 2021)
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, host J.J. Mull interviews Daniel José Gaztambide about his book, A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation P...
Tim Jackson, "Post Growth: Life after Capitalism" (Polity, 2021)
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I spoke with Prof. Tim Jackson about his latest book: Post Growth, Life after Capitalism, published by Polity Books in 2021. The book starts with a r...
Michael L. Siciliano, "Creative Control: The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries" (Columbia UP, 2021)
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How should we understand creative work? In Creative Control: The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries (Columbia UP, 2021), Michael Sicilia...
Jillian C. York, "Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism" (Verso Book, 2021)
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the impact of surveillance capitalism on our right to free speech? The Internet once promised to be a place of extraordinary freedom beyond th...
Domenico Losurdo, "Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel: Intellectual Biography and Critical Balance-Sheet" (Haymarket Books, 2021)
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche stands among the canon’s most-cited figures, with aphorisms dotting texts on a variety of to...
Danielle Child, "Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) is the story of art and work under contemporary capitalism. Whilst labour...
Alfred L. Martin, Jr., "The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom" (Indiana UP, 2021)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do race and sexuality intersect in the American sitcom? In The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom (Indiana University Press...
Itay Snir, "Education and Thinking in Continental Philosophy" (Springer, 2020)
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Itay Snir's book Education and Thinking in Continental Philosophy (Springer, 2020) draws on five philosophers from the continental tradition – The...
Prathama Banerjee, "Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South" (Duke UP, 2020)
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in...
Ola Innset, "Reinventing Liberalism: The Politics, Philosophy and Economics of Early Neoliberalism (1920-1947)" (Springer, 2021)
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This year, more than 40 books will be published in English with 'Neoliberal' or 'Neoliberalism' in the title. For many in the academy, these words ha...
Candace Fujikane, "Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartography in Hawai'i" (Duke UP, 2021)
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai'i (Duke University Press, 2021), Candace Fuj...
Kas Saghafi, "The World after the End of the World: A Spectro-Poetics" (SUNY Press, 2020)
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview Kas Saghafi, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis, about his book The World After the End of t...
Perry Zurn, "Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry" (U of Minnesota Press, 2021)
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is curiosity political? Does it have a philosophical lineage? In Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry (University of Minnesota Press, 2021),...
Richard Jean So, "Redlining Culture: A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction" (Columbia UP, 2020)
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the story of race in American fiction? In Redlining Culture: A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction (Columbia University Pr...
Michael D. Snediker, "Contingent Figure: Chronic Pain and Queer Embodiment" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview Michael Snediker, professor of English at the University of Houston, about his book, Contingent Figure: Chronic Pain and...
Dana Mills, "Rosa Luxemburg" (Reaktion Books, 2020)
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Political Theorist and activist Dana Mill’s latest new book, Rosa Luxemburg (Reaktion Books, 2020), is part of an extensive series of books publis...
David Wills, "Prosthesis" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview David Wills, professor of French Studies at Brown University, about his book, Prosthesis, recently republished for its 2...
Morten T. Korsgaard, "Bearing with Strangers: Arendt, Education and the Politics of Inclusion" (Routledge, 2018)
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bearing with Strangers: Arendt, Education and the Politics of Inclusion (Routledge, 2018) looks at inclusion in education in a new way. By introduc...
Frank Ruda, "Abolishing Freedom: A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism" (U Nebraska Press, 2016)
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Ruda's book Abolishing Freedom. A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism (University of Nebraska Press 2016) presents a compelling reading of...
Emile Bojesen, "Forms of Education: Rethinking Educational Experience Against and Outside the Humanist Legacy" (Routledge, 2019)
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Emile Bojesen's book Forms of Education: Rethinking Educational Experience Against and Outside the Humanist Legacy (Routledge, 2019) analyses the te...
Shannan Clark, "The Making of the American Creative Class: New York's Culture Workers and 20th-Century Consumer Capitalism" (Oxford UP, 2020)
06 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During the middle decades of the twentieth century, the production of America’s consumer culture was centralized in New York to an extent unparallel...
Peter Drucker, "Warped: Gay Normality and Queer Anti-Capitalism" (Brill, 2015)
05 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The last several decades have seen tremendous political and cultural strides forward for the LGBTQ+ community with both the legislative and cultural r...
Matt Brim, "Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University" (Duke UP, 2020)
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University (Duke UP, 2020), Matt Brim shifts queer studies away from its familiar sites of elite e...
Caroline Ritter, "Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire" (UC Press, 2021)
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What role did culture play in the British Empire? In Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire Caroline Ritter, an Assistant ...
Victoria Shmidt and Bernadette N. Jaworsky, "Historicizing Roma in Central Europe: Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice" (Routledge 2021).
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Central Europe, limited success in revisiting the role of science in the segregation of Roma reverberates with the yet-unmet call for contextualizi...
Robert Beshara, "Freud and Said: Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021)
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Beshara’s Freud and Said: Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis (Palgrave, 2021) is a guide through the textual relationship be...
Banu Gökarıksel, et al., "Feminist Geography Unbound: Discount, Bodies, and Prefigured Futures" (West Virginia UP, 2021)
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Feminist Geography Unbound: Discomfort, Bodies, and Prefigured Futures, edited by Banu Gökarıksel, Michael Hawkins, Christopher Neubert, and Sara...
Saher Selod, "Forever Suspect: Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on Terror" (Rutgers UP, 2018)
29 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How does a specific American religious identity acquire racial meaning? What happens when we move beyond phenotypes and include clothing, names, and ...
Robbie Shilliam, "Decolonizing Politics: An Introduction" (Polity Press, 2021)
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Robbie Shilliam’s new book for the Polity Press’s “Decolonizing the Curriculum” series explores how the discipline of political science was bo...
Justin O'Connor and Xin Gu, "Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China" (Intellect Books, 2020)
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China (Intellect Books, 2020) is an exploration of China’s cultural economy over the last twenty years, part...
Aaron G. Jakes, "Egypt's Occupation: Colonial Economism and the Crises of Capitalism" (Stanford UP, 2020)
23 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The story is a familiar one. In 1882, the British invaded Egypt to secure payment on the country’s crippling foreign debts and quash the movement fo...
Carol J. Adams, "The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory" (Bloomsbury, 2015)
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Carol J. Adams about two of her classic texts that have recently been republished. The first book we discuss, first published in 199...
Gert-Jan van der Heiden, "The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony" (SUNY Press, 2020)
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview Gert-Jan van der Heiden, Professor of Metaphysics and Philosophical Anthropology at Radboud University in Amsterdam, abou...
Benjamin L. McKean, "Disorienting Neoliberalism: Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2020)
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Disorienting Neoliberalism: Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom (Oxford UP, 2020) takes on a number of different dimensions of neoliberali...
M. Fakhry Davids, "Internal Racism: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Race and Difference" (Red Globe, 2011)
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What makes racist feelings and ideas objectionable? In his book Internal Racism: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Race and Difference (Red Globe, 2011),...
R. A. Judy, "Sentient Flesh: Thinking in Disorder, Poiesis in Black" (Duke UP, 2020)
16 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview R.A. Judy, professor of Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, about his book Sentient Flesh: Th...
Cas Mudde, "The Far Right Today" (Polity, 2019)
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the difference between Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president? Why should we understand Trump as...
Katie Hindmarch-Watson, "Serving a Wired World: London's Telecommunications Workers and the Making of an Information Capital" (U California Press, 2020)
15 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How did telecommunications shape Victorian London? In Serving a Wired World London's Telecommunications Workers and the Making of an Information Capi...
Liat Ben-Moshe, "Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Prison abolition and decarceration are increasingly debated, but it is often without taking into account the largest exodus of people from carceral fa...
Peter Hudis, ed., "The Letters Of Rosa Luxemburg" (Verso, 2013)
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rosa Luxemburg occupies a complex place in our history partly because there are several different Rosa's one can find scattered across the world; the ...
Frances Galt, "Women’s Activism Behind the Screens: Trade Unions and Gender Inequality in the British Film and Television Industries" (Bristol UP, 2020)
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How can the history of women’s work in film and TV help address inequality today? In Women’s Activism Behind the Screens: Trade Unions and Gender...
Morton Schoolman, "A Democratic Enlightenment: The Reconciliation Image, Aesthetic Education, Possible Politics" (Duke UP, 2020)
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Morton Schoolman, Professor in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the State University of New York at Albany, has published a new...
C. L. Estes and N. B. DiCarlo, "Aging A-Z: Concepts Toward Emancipatory Gerontology" (Routledge, 2019)
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s often said that the time in our lives can often pass without us noticing. Old age can come before we realize it, and it brings with it new elem...
J. Lahti and R. Weaver-Hightower, "Cinematic Settlers: The Settler Colonial World in Film" (Routledge, 2020)
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The medium of cinema emerged during the height of Victorian-era European empires, and as a result, settler colonial imperialism has thematically suffu...
Dean Blackburn, "Penguin Books and Political Change: Britain's Meritocratic Moment, 1937–1988" (Manchester UP, 2020)
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why do books and publishing matter to the contemporary history of Britain? In Penguin Books and Political Change: Britain's Meritocratic Moment, 1...
Patricia Hill Collins, "Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory" (Duke UP, 2019)
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is intersectionality a critical social theory? What must intersectionality do to be both critical and a social theory? Must social justice be a guid...
Studying LBGT Organizing in China: A Conversation with Caterina Fugazzola
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode of Ethnographic Marginalia, Sneha Annavarapu talks with Dr. Caterina Fugazzola, Earl S Johnson Instructor in Sociology at the Un...
Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, "Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature" (Northwestern UP, 2020)
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez pens towards decolonial freedom. Her recently published book, Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic ...
How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracy: A Discussion with Michael Hanchard
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As right-wing nationalism and authoritarian populism gain momentum across the world, liberals, and even some conservatives, worry that democratic prin...
Cassandra Falke, "The Phenomenology of Love and Reading" (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016)
15 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview Cassandra Falke, professor of English Literature ad UiT, The Arctic University of Norway, about her book The Phenomenol...
Lexi Eikelboom, "Rhythm: A Theological Category" (Oxford UP, 2018)
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Philosophers have long approached the concept of rhythm as a significant tool for understanding the human experience, metaphysics, language, and the a...
Sara Salem, "Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt: The Politics of Hegemony" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
09 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this conversation, Sara Salem, author of Anticolonial Afterlives in Egypt: The Politics of Hegemony (Cambridge University Press, 2020), talks to ...
Manfred Steger and Ravi Roy, "Neoliberalism: a Very Short Introduction" (Oxford University Press, 2021)
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
George Orwell once said that “the word ‘fascism’ has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’”. The word ...
Jonas Staal, "Propaganda Art in the 21st Century" (MIT Press, 2019)
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How to understand propaganda art in the post-truth era—and how to create a new kind of emancipatory propaganda art. Propaganda art — whether a d...
Sheldon George, "Trauma and Race: A Lacanian Study of African American Racial Identity" (Baylor UP, 2016)
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In his book, Trauma and Race: A Lacanian Study of African American Racial Identity (Baylor UP, 2016), Sheldon George treats an old idea--that Africa...
Richard Lachmann, "First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers" (Verso, 2020)
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Being a great power almost seems to invite discussion of decline: whether you are declining, what can be done to prevent or arrest it, and what the co...
Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder, "Access All Areas: The Diversity Manifesto for TV and Beyond" (Faber and Faber, 2021)
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How can we create a more equal media industry? In Access All Areas: The Diversity Manifesto for TV and Beyond, Marcus Ryder and Sir Lenny Henry, b...
Sabrina Mittermeier, "A Cultural History of the Disneyland Theme Parks: Middle Class Kingdoms" (Intellect, 2020)
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How should we understand the theme park in our globalised world? In A Cultural History of the Disneyland Theme Parks: Middle Class Kingdoms (Intelle...
Leigh Claire La Berge, "Wages Against Artwork: Decommodified Labor and the Claims of Socially Engaged Art" (Duke UP, 2019)
28 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The last twenty years have seen a rise in the production, circulation, and criticism of new forms of socially engaged art aimed at achieving social ju...
Peter E. Gordon, "Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization" (Yale UP, 2020)
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A beautifully written exploration of religion's role in a secular, modern politics, by an accomplished scholar of critical theory, Migrants in the Pr...
Matthew McManus, "A Critical Legal Examination of Liberalism and Liberal Rights" (Palgrave, 2020)
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The tradition of political liberalism has a long and complicated history, filled with twists, turns, critiques and responses that have filled books, e...
Christoph Menke, "Critique of Rights" (Polity, 2019)
13 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Christoph Menke, who is professor of philosophy at the Goethe University in Frankfurt Germany and considered the most important representative of the ...
Tom Holert, "Knowledge Beside Itself: Contemporary Art's Epistemic Politics" (Sternberg Press, 2020)
12 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the role and function of contemporary art in economic and political systems that increasingly manage data and affect? Knowledge Beside Itself...
Barbara Dennis, "Walking with Strangers: Critical Ethnography and Educational Promise" (Peter Lang, 2020)
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Barbara Dennis of Indiana University on her new ethnography, Walking with Strangers: Critical Ethnography and Educa...
Jemma Deer, "Radical Animism: Reading for the End of the World" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jemma Deer’s Radical Animism: Reading for the End of the World (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2020) invites the reader to take a moment and to ponder...
Laura Hyun Yi Kang, "Traffic in Asian Women" (Duke UP, 2020)
07 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can we ever overcome the epistemological barrier to conceptualizing Asian women not as particular cases but as theories, and can women of color aca...
Jodi Rios, "Black Lives and Spatial Matters: Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis" (Cornell UP, 2020)
05 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Lives and Spatial Matters: Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis (Cornell University Press, 2020), Dr. Jodi Rios ...
Regina Rini, "The Ethics of Microaggression" (Routledge, 2020)
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Seemingly fleeting and barely legible insults, slights, and derogations might seem morally insignificant. They’re the byproducts of ordinary thought...
K. A. Young and M. Schwartz, "Levers of Power: How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do About It" (Verso, 2020)
30 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is often assumed that American politics is dominated by financial elites and the 1%, who use their massive wealth to gain power and influence, push...
J. Daniel Elam, "World Literature for the Wretched of the Earth: Anticolonial Aesthetics, Postcolonial Politics" (Fordham UP, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
World Literature for the Wretched of the Earth: Anticolonial Aesthetics, Postcolonial Politics (Fordham University Press, 2020) recovers a genealogy ...
Adam Fabry, "The Political Economy of Hungary: From State Capitalism to Authoritarian Neoliberalism" (Palgrave, 2019)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Fabry's book The Political Economy of Hungary: From State Capitalism to Authoritarian Neoliberalism (Palgrave, 2019) explores the political ec...
Jean Casimir. "The Haitians: A Decolonial History" (UNC Press, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In The Haitians: A Decolonial History (UNC Press, 2020), leading Haitian intellectual Jean Casimir argues that the story of Haiti should not begin w...
Alyson K. Spurgas, "Diagnosing Desire: Biopolitics and Femininity Into the Twenty-First Century" (Ohio State UP, 2020)
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Diagnosing Desire: Biopolitics and Femininity into the Twenty-First Century, (The Ohio State University Press, 2020), Alyson K. Spurgas, Ph.D. e...
Matt Christman, "The Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason" (Simon & Schuster, 2019)
24 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Let’s face it, 2020 has been a hell of a year. We could all use a good laugh. But as historians and/or fans of history, we have to read something hi...
Isar P. Godreau, "Scripts of Blackness: Race, Cultural Nationalism, and U.S. Colonialism in Puerto Rico" (U Illinois Press, 2015)
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is part of our Special Series on Third World Nationalism. In the wake of a rise in nationalism around the world, and its general condemnation b...
Stuart Elden, "Shakespearean Territories" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
18 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What can Shakespeare tell us about territory, and what can territory tell us about Shakespeare? In Shakespearean Territories (University of Chicag...
L. Layton and M. Leavy-Sperounis, "Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Culture, Character, and Normative Unconscious Processes" (Routledge, 2020)
18 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, J.J. Mull interviews Lynne Layton and Marianna Leavy-Sperounis, author and editor respectively of Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Cu...
Ashley E. Lucas, "Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The world of theater performances is often thought of as being composed of wealthy persons who received elite educations at art institutions all so th...
Richard Seymour, "The Twittering Machine" (Verso, 2020)
03 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. ...
Rebecca Harrison, "The Empire Strikes Back" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why does The Empire Strikes Back matter? In BFI Classics Series's The Empire Strikes Back (Bloomsbury, 2020), Rebecca Harrison, a lecturer in Fil...
Rosemary-Claire Collard, "Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade" (Duke UP, 2020)
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Parrots and snakes, wild cats and monkeys---exotic pets can now be found everywhere from skyscraper apartments and fenced suburban backyards to roadsi...
Adam Kotsko, "Neoliberalism's Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital" (Stanford UP, 2018)
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It’s hard to avoid conversations about ‘neoliberalism’ these days. The meaning of the term—indeed its very existence—is hotly contested. Ada...
David Newheiser, "Hope in a Secular Age: Deconstruction, Negative Theology and the Future of Faith" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Hope in a Secular Age: Deconstruction, Negative Theology, and the Future of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2020), David Newheis...
Andrea Jain, "Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality" (Oxford UP, 2020)
25 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford University Press, 2020), Andrea Jain examines the interconnectedness between global ...
Ani Maitra, "Identity, Mediation, and the Cunning of Capital" (Northwestern UP, 2020)
23 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The politics of identity have played center stage in many political debates in the last few years, and is often seen somewhat pejoratively as an epiph...
Daniela Vallega-Neu, "Heidegger's Poietic Writings: From Contributions to Philosophy to the Event" (Indiana UP, 2018)
18 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Scholarship on the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has traditionally focused on his magnum opus Being and Time and related earlier work, his lat...
Eithne Quinn, "A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood" (Columbia UP, 2019)
16 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What is the history of equal rights in Hollywood? In A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood (Columbia UP, 2019), Ei...
David Vine, "The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State" (U California Press, 2020)
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Since its founding, the United States has been at peace for only eleven years. Across nearly two-and-a-half centuries, that’s a lot of war. In his...
Christine Hong, "A Violent Peace: Race, U.S. Militarism, and Cultures of Democratization in Cold War Asia and the Pacific" (Stanford UP, 2020)
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The image of the US as leading a good war to establish liberal democracy and move towards racial equality dominate the discourses of the Cold War. In ...