New Books in Critical Theory

Betty Rojtman, "The Fascination with Death in Contemporary French Thought" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)

09 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Fascination with Death in Contemporary French Thought: A Longing for the Abyss (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) analyses a cultural phenomenon that goes...

Lisa Adkins, et al., "The Asset Economy" (Polity, 2020)

09 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“The key element shaping inequality is no longer the employment relationship but rather whether one is able to buy assets that appreciate at a faste...

K. Yazdani and D. M. Menon, "Capitalisms: Towards a Global History" (Oxford UP, 2020)

06 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Capitalisms: Towards a Global History (Oxford University Press, 2020), edited by Kaveh Yazdani and Dilip M. Menon, aims to decenter work on the histo...

Zakkiyah Imam Jackson, "Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World" (NYU Press, 2020)

03 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In a world where black(ened) flesh, particularly feminine flesh, is considered the ontological zero of humanness, what interventions and complications...

Silvie Jacobi, "Art Schools and Place: Geographies of Emerging Artists and Art Scenes" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)

03 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is an art school? In Art Schools and Place: Geographies of Emerging Artists and Art Scenes (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020), Dr Silvie Jacobi, a r...

M. Sobolewska and R. Ford, "Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

28 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What are the identity conflicts that define contemporary society? In Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics (Cambridge ...

Francesca Sobande, "The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain" (Palgrave, 2020)

21 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What are the possibilities and what are the inequalities of the digital world? In The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave, 2020), Franc...

Sianne Ngai, "Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form" (Harvard UP, 2020)

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form (Harvard University Press, 2020), Sianne Ngai continues her theoretical work of demys...

Elisabeth Paquette, "Universal Emancipation: Race Beyond Badiou" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is Badiou’s theory of emancipation? For whom is this emancipation possible? Does emancipation entail an indifference to difference? In Universa...

Tamura Lomax, “Jezebel Unhinged: Loosing the Black Female Body in Religion and Culture” (Duke UP, 2018)

19 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

One of the central threads in the public discourse on Black womanhood is the idea of the “Jezebel.” This trope deems Black women and girls as dish...

Adam Knowles, "Heidegger’s Fascist Affinities: A Politics of Silence" (Stanford UP, 2019)

19 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s influence over the last several decades of philosophy is undeniable, but his place in the canon has been c...

Dave O’Brien, "Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries" (Manchester UP, 2020)

12 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It would be hard to overstate the importance of culture. It teaches us, heals us, rips us apart and puts us back together in new and surprising ways. ...

Elleni Centime Zeleke, "Ethiopia in Theory: Revolution and Knowledge Production, 1964-2016" (Haymarket Books, 2020)

12 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Between the years 1964 and 1974, Ethiopian post-secondary students studying at home, in Europe, and in North America produced a number of journals whe...

Kristin J. Jacobson, "The American Adrenaline Narrative" (U Georgia Press, 2020)

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Kristin J. Jacobson In her new book, The American Adrenaline Narrative (University of Georgia Press), Kristin Jacobson considers the nature of perilou...

Sophie Richter-Devroe, "Women’s Political Activism in Palestine: Peacebuilding, Resistance, and Survival" (U Illinois Press, 2018)

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Sophie Richter-Devroe’s book, Women’s Political Activism in Palestine: Peacebuilding, Resistance, and Survival (University of Illinois Press, ...

Joshua Chambers-Letson, "After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life" (NYU Press, 2018)

02 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life (NYU Press, 2018) Joshua Chambers-Letson invites you to a party featuring Eiko, Nina Simone, J...

Michele Goodwin, "Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

30 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood (Cambridge University Press, 2020) a brilliant but shocking account of the cr...

Laura Briggs, "Taking Children: A History of American Terror" (U California Press 2020)

29 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Laura Briggs’s Taking Children: A History of American Terror (University of California Press 2020) is a forceful and captivating book that readers w...

Yves Citton, "Mediarchy" (Polity Press, 2019)

28 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We think that we live in democracies: in fact, we live in mediarchies. Our political regimes are based less on nations or citizens than on audiences s...

Karl Gerth, "Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

25 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Karl Gerth’s new book, Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020) details how the...

Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin, "Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet" (Verso Books, 2020)

24 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (Verso Books, 2020), Noam Chomsky, the world’s leading p...

Bethany Klein, "Selling Out: Culture, Commerce and Popular Music" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

21 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How does the music industry work in the modern world? In Selling Out: Culture, Commerce and Popular Music (Bloomsbury, 2020), Bethany Klein, a Profess...

Patrick Ffrench, "Roland Barthes and Film: Myth, Eroticism and Poetics" (Bloomsbury, 2019)

16 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Roland Barthes and Film: Myth, Eroticism and Poetics (Bloomsbury) is a book by Patrick Ffrench, Professor of French at Kings College. It is a comprehe...

Kathryn Sikkink, "The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilities" (Yale UP, 2020)

16 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In her latest book, The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilities (Yale University Press), Kathryn Sikkink puts forward a framework...

Ben Burgis, "Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left" (Zero Books, 2019)

16 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Logic, the study of how certain arguments either succeed or fail to support their conclusions, is one of the most important topics in philosophy, its ...

Filippo Menozzi, "World Literature, Non-Synchronism, and the Politics of Time" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)

16 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In World Literature, Non-Synchronism, and the Politics of Time (Palgrave Macmillan) Filippo Menozzi offers to look at literature and literary processe...

Angèle Christin, "Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms" (Princeton UP, 2020)

14 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How are algorithms changing journalism? In Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms (Princeton University Press), Angèle ...

Albena Azmanova, "Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Utopia or Crisis" (Columbia UP, 2020)

10 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Capitalism seems to many to be in a sort of constant crisis, leaving many struggling to make ends meet. This desperation was intensified in 2008, and ...

Jessica Whyte, "Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism" (Verso, 2019)

08 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on detailed archival research on the parallel histories of human rights and neoliberalism, in Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise ...

C. De Beukelaer and K. M. Spence, "Global Cultural Economy" (Routledge, 2018)

04 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How should we understand the role of cultural industries in contemporary society? In Global Cultural Economy (Routledge) Christiaan De Beukelaer, a se...

Ronak K. Kapadia, "Insurgent Aesthetics: Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War"(Duke UP, 2019)

03 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Insurgent Aesthetics: Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War (Duke University Press), Ronak K. Kapadia theorizes the world-making power of ...

João Costa Vargas, "The Denial of Antiblackness: Multiracial Redemption and Black Suffering" (U of Minnesota Press, 2018)

28 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

An incisive new look at the black diaspora, examining the true roots of antiblackness and its destructive effects on all of society. Thanks to movemen...

Waleed Mahdi, "Arab Americans in Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representation" (Syracuse UP, 2020)

20 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Waleed Mahdi’s book, Arab Americans in Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representation (Syracuse University Press) offers a...

Lauren Michele Jackson, "White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue ... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation" (Beacon, 2019)

19 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue ... and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation (Beacon, 2019), Lauren Michele Jackson analyzes Christi...

Danielle Knafo, "The New Sexual Landscape and Contemporary Psychoanalysis" (Confer Books, 2020)

17 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The sexual landscape has changed dramatically in the past few decades, with the meaning of gender and sexuality now being parsed within the realms of ...

Laura Gómez, "Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism" (The New Press, 2020)

17 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Latinos have long influenced everything from electoral politics to popular culture, yet many people instinctively regard them as recent immigrants rat...

S. Daulatzai and J. Rana, “With Stones in Our Hands: Reflections on Racism, Muslims and US Empire” (U Minnesota Press, 2018)

14 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this current moment it has become increasingly clear that US society is deeply entangled in racist policies and logics of white supremacy. While th...

Madina Tlostanova, "What Does it Mean to be Post-Soviet? Decolonial Art from the Ruins of the Soviet Empire" (Duke UP, 2018)

14 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In What Does it Mean to be Post-Soviet? Decolonial Art from the Ruins of the Soviet Empire (Duke University Press, 2018), Madina Tlostanova traces how...

Mack Hagood, "Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control" (Duke UP, 2019)

12 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How have we used twentieth- and twenty-first-century sound technologies to carve out sonic space out of the hustle and bustle of contemporary life? In...

Karen Patel, "The Politics of Expertise in Cultural Labour: Arts, Work and Inequalities" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)

12 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How has social media changed inequality in the cultural industries? In The Politics of Expertise in Cultural Labour: Arts, Work and Inequalities (Rowm...

Caron Gentry, "Disordered Violence: How Gender, Race and Heteronormativity Structure Terrorism" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)

12 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Disordered Violence: How Gender, Race and Heteronormativity Structure Terrorism (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), Caron Gentry looks at how gende...

M. Hennefeld and N. Sammond, "Abjection Incorporated: Mediating the Politics of Pleasure and Violence" (Duke UP, 2020)

07 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

From the films of Larry Clark to the feminist comedy of Amy Schumer to the fall of Louis C. K., comedic, graphic, and violent moments of abjection hav...

Orit Kamir, "Betraying Dignity" (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2019)

07 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What do medieval knights, suicide bombers and "victimhood culture" have in common? Betraying Dignity: The Toxic Seduction of Social Media, Shaming, an...

Tanya Kant, "Making it Personal: Algorithmic Personalization, Identity, and Everyday Life" (Oxford UP, 2020)

07 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How are algorithms shaping our experience of the internet? In Making it Personal: Algorithmic Personalization, Identity, and Everyday Life (Oxford Uni...

Michael Rectenwald, "Beyond Woke" (New English Review Press, 2020)

04 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A few short years ago, Michael Rectenwald was a Marxist professor at NYU, pursuing his career and contemplating becoming a Trotskyist, when the politi...

Khurram Hussain, "Islam as Critique: Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Challenge of Modernity" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)

31 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Delighting in Khurram Hussain’s consistently sparkling prose is reason enough to read his new book Islam as Critique: Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Chal...

Nadine El-Enany, "Bordering Britain: Law, Race and Empire" (Manchester UP, 2020)

30 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How can we understand the legacy of colonialism within contemporary society? In Bordering Britain Law, Race and Empire (Manchester University Press, 2...

Sasha Costanza-Chock, "Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need" (MIT Press, 2020)

27 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need (MIT Press, 2020), Sasha Costanza-Chock, an associate professor of Civic Media...

Andrew Kettler, "The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

27 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, The Smell of Slavery: Olfactory Racism and the Atlantic World (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Dr. Andrew Kettler charts the impac...

Marika Rose, "A Theology of Failure: Žižek Against Christian Innocence" (Fordham UP, 2019)

27 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Christian theology has a long and at times contradictory history, riddled with tensions that make it difficult (if not impossible) to develop a single...

Ari Linden, "Karl Kraus and The Discourse of Modernity" (Northwestern UP, 2020)

24 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Karl Kraus and The Discourse of Modernity (Northwestern University Press, 2020), Ari Linden analyzes Karl Kraus’s oeuvre while engaging in the co...

Justin Gomer, "White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights" (UNC Press, 2020)

24 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Justin Gomer is the author of White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights, published by the University of Nort...

Raluca Soreanu, "Working-through Collective Wounds: Trauma, Denial, Recognition in the Brazilian Uprising" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

20 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Working-through Collective Wounds: Trauma, Denial, Recognition in the Brazilian Uprising (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) formulates a theory of collective ...

Kevin Escudero, "Organizing While Undocumented: Immigrant Youth’s Political Activism Under the Law" (NYU Press, 2020)

20 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Undocumented youth activists are at the forefront of the present-day immigrant rights movement. This is especially true surrounding the activism of th...

Christina Dunbar-Hester, "Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures" (Princeton UP, 2020)

20 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Hacking Diversity: The Politics of inclusion in Open Technology Cultures (Princeton University Press, 2020), Christina-Dunbar Hester, an associate ...

Y. F. Niemann and G. Gutiérrez y Muhs, "Presumed Incompetent II: Race, Class, Power, and Resistance of Women in Academia" (Utah State UP, 2019)

16 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The courageous and inspiring personal narratives and empirical studies in Presumed Incompetent II: Race, Class, Power, and Resistance of Women in Acad...

Martin Jay, "Splinters in Your Eye: Frankfurt School Provocations" (Verso, 2020) 

15 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Although successive generations of the Frankfurt School have attempted to adapt Critical Theory to new circumstances, the work done by its founding me...

Jonathan Sklar, "Dark Times: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Politics, History and Mourning" (Phoenix, 2018)

14 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"Although small, this book goes against the grain of the current trend for brief soundbites that allow us to pass swiftly over painful information. It...

Lizzie O’Shea, "Future Histories" (Verso, 2019)

13 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

When we talk about technology we always talk about the future—which makes it hard to figure out how to get there. In Future Histories: What Ada Love...

Adrian Johnston, "Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism Volume II: A Weak Nature Alone" (Northwestern UP, 2019)

13 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Engaging with almost any Western philosopher of the last couple centuries means you are usually, whether you realize it or not, working in the shadow ...

Crystal Mun-hye Baik, "Reencounters: On the Korean War and Diasporic Memory Critique" (Temple UP, 2020)

10 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This interview coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, a war that, as Baik reminds us, has not officially ended. How are the particular...

Mia Fischer, "Terrorizing Gender: Transgender Visibility and the Surveillance Practices of the U.S. Security State" (U Nebraska Press, 2019)

08 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Terrorizing Gender: Transgender Visibility and the Surveillance Practices of the U.S. Security State, Mia Fischer traces how media and state actors...

Marianna Ritchey, "Composing Capital: Classical Music in the Neoliberal Era" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

08 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is the place of classical music in contemporary society? In Composing Capital: Classical Music in the Neoliberal Era (University of Chicago Press...

Greg Burris, "The Palestinian Idea: Film, Media, and the Radical Imagination" (Temple UP, 2019)

03 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Is there a link between the colonization of Palestinian lands and the enclosing of Palestinian minds? The Palestinian Idea: Film, Media, and the Radic...

Evan Smith, "No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech" (Routledge, 2020)

02 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech (Routledge, 2020) is the first to outline the history of the tactic...

How Neoliberalization Has Increased Social, Economic, and Political Adversities (Part 2)

01 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The current neoliberal era has seen a paradigm shift in terms of economic liberalization, such as policies on privatization, deregulation, and glo...

Ali Meghji, "Black Middle-Class Britannia: Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption" (Manchester UP, 2019)

01 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Who are the Black middle-class in Britain? In Black Middle-Class Britannia: Identities, Repertoires, Cultural Consumption (Manchester University Press...

Tsedale Melaku, "You Don’t Look Like a Lawyer: Black Women and Systemic Gendered Racism" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019)

29 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What kind of discrimination do Black women face in the legal profession? Tsedale Melaku explores this question and more in her new book: You Don’t L...

Josh Cerretti, "Abuses of the Erotic: Militarizing Sexuality in the Post-Cold War United States" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)

26 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Jana Byars talks to Josh Cerretti, Associate Professor of History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Western Washington Univ...

Mariann Hardey, "The Culture of Women in Tech: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman" (Emerald, 2019)

22 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is the culture of the tech industry? In The Culture of Women in Tech: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (Emerald, 2019), Mariann Hardey, an Associat...

George Lawson, "Anatomies of Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

19 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The success of populist politicians and the emergence of social justice movements around the world, and the recent demonstrations against police viole...

Marcia Chatelain, "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America" (Liveright, 2020)

18 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America (Liveright, 2020) by Marcia Chatelain is a fascinating examination of the relationship between the fast-...

Minou Arjomand, "Staged: Show Trials, Political Theater, and the Aesthetics of Judgment" (Columbia UP, 2020)

18 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Staged: Show Trials, Political Theater, and the Aesthetics of Judgment (Columbia University Press, 2020), Minou Arjomand provides a startling accou...

Micol Seigel, "Violence Work: State Violence and the Limits of Police" (Duke UP, 2018)

17 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Recent calls for the defunding or abolition of police raise important questions about the legitimacy of state violence and the functions that police a...

Sa’ed Atshan, "Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique" (Stanford UP, 2020)

17 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique (Stanford University Press, 2020) anthropologist and activist Sa’ed Atshan explores the Palesti...

How Neoliberalization Has Increased Social, Economic, and Political Adversities (Part 1)

17 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The current neoliberal era has seen a paradigm shift in terms of economic liberalization, such as policies on privatization, deregulation, and glo...

Joy White, "Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City" (Repeater Books, 2020)

17 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How are black lives lived in the contemporary city? In Terraformed: Young Black Lives in the Inner City, Dr Joy White, a sociologist and ethnographer ...

Aaron Kamugisha, "Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition" (Indiana UP, 2019)

16 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Aaron Kamugisha reads CLR James and Sylvia Wynter to glean from them ways to navigate the “beyond” of coloniality. In his new book Beyond Colonia...

Alberto Harambour, "Soberanías fronterizas: Estados y capital en la colonización de Patagonia" (EUAC, 2019)

15 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Alberto Harambour's new book Soberanías Fronterizas. Estados y capital en la colonización de Patagonia (Argentina y Chile, 1840s-1920s) (Universidad...

Robert Nichols, "Theft Is Property!: Dispossession and Critical Theory" (Duke UP, 2019)

15 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Robert Nichols, an associate professor of political theory at the University of Minnesota, has written an engaging and important examination of the cl...

Edgar Garcia,  "Signs of the America: A Poetics of Pictography, Hieroglyphs and Khipu" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

12 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In his sixth thesis on the philosophy of history, Walter Benjamin wrote, “The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of h...

Fadi A. Bardawil, "Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation" (Duke UP, 2020)

11 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx famously claimed that philosophers had previously only attempted to interpret the world; the point, however, was to c...

Sam Han, "(Inter)Facing Death: Life in Global Uncertainty" (Routledge, 2020)

04 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In modern times, death is understood to have undergone a transformation not unlike religion. Whereas in the past it was out in the open, it now reside...

Frank Wilderson III, "Afropessimism" (Liveright, 2020)

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How should we understand the pervasiveness – and virulence – of anti-Black violence in the United State? Why and how is anti-Black racism differen...

Shiu-Yin Sharon Yam, "Inconvenient Strangers: Transnational Subjects and the Politics of Citizenship" (Ohio State UP, 2019)

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (s/t interviews Shiu-Yin Sharon Yam of University of Kentucky on the new book, Inconvenient Stran...

Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020)

02 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for S...

Elinor Carmi, "Media Distortions: Understanding the Power Behind Spam, Noise, and Other Deviant Media" (Peter Lang, 2020)

28 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is spam? In Media Distortions: Understanding the Power Behind Spam, Noise, and Other Deviant Media, Dr Elinor Carmi, a postdoctoral research asso...

Viet Thanh Nguyen, "Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War" (Harvard UP, 2016)

28 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

According to Viet Thanh Nguyen, all wars are fought twice: first on the field of battle, and then in the struggles over memory. In Nothing Ever Dies: ...

Thomas A. Discenna, "Discourses of Denial: The Rhetoric of American Academic Labor" (Routledge, 2017)

27 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (they/she) interviews Thomas A. Discenna of Oakland University about the myriad ways that the lab...

Richard Lachmann, "First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers" (Verso, 2020)

27 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Lachmann’s First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers (Verso, 2020) is a two-for-one deal. The...

Santiago Zabala, "Being at Large: Freedom in the Ago of Alternative Facts" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2020)

25 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, questions around the nature of ​truth ​and ​facts have reentered public debate, often in discussions around journalistic bias, ...

Dana El Kurd, "Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine" (Oxford UP, 2020)

25 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What demobilizes a once mobilized society? How does international involvement amplify or suppress these dynamics? In Polarized and Demobilized: Legaci...

Yassir Morsi, “Radical Skin, Moderate Masks: De-radicalising the Muslim and Racism in Post-racial Societies” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017)

22 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Muslims living in locations like Australia, Europe, or North America exist within a context dominated by white racial norms and are forced to grapple ...

Noëlle McAfee, "Fear of Breakdown: Psychoanalysis and Politics" (Columbia UP, 2019)

22 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In his classic essay on the fear of breakdown, Donald Winnicott famously conveys to a patient that the disaster powerfully feared has, in fact, alread...

James M. Jasper, "Public Characters: The Politics of Reputation and Blame" (Oxford UP, 2020)

22 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Did Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency in 2016 because he was a master of character work – able to sum up opponents in pithy epithets that encoura...

Nancy J. Chodorow, "The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye" (Routledge 2020)

20 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Psychoanalytic Ear and the Sociological Eye: Toward an American Independent Tradition (Routledge 2020) Professor Nancy J. Chodorow gives name a...

John D. Caputo, "Hoping Against Hope" (Fortress Press, 2015)

15 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

John D. Caputo has a long career as one of the preeminent postmodern philosophers in America. The author of such books as Radical Hermeneutics, The Pr...

Paul Harkins, "Digital Sampling: The Design and Use of Music Technologies" (Routledge, 2019)

14 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How does technology shape music? In Digital Sampling: The Design and Use of Music Technologies (Routledge, 2019), Paul Harkins, a lecturer in music a...

Adrian Johnston, "Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism: The Outcome of Contemporary French Philosophy " (Northwestern UP, 2013)

11 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the contemporary philosophical landscape, a variety of materialist ontologies have appeared, all wrestling with various political and philosophical...

Richard Williams "Why Cities Look the Way They Do" (Polity, 2019)

11 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How should we understand our cities? In Why Cities Look the Way They Do (Polity, 2019), Richard Williams, Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures i...