New Books in Critical Theory
Episodes
Am Johal, “Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and the Anthropocene” (Atropos Press, 2015)
08 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The French philosopher Alain Badiou is not best known for his engagement with ecological matters per se. Badiou’s insights regarding being, truth, a...
Hilary Neroni, “The Subject of Torture: Psychoanalysis and Biopolitics in Television and Film” (Columbia UP, 2015)
27 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Did you notice that after 9/11, the depiction of torture on prime-time television went up nearly seven hundred percent? Hilary Neroni did. She had jus...
Aileen Moreton-Robinson, “The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty” (U of Minnesota Press, 2015)
22 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Owning property. Being property. Becoming propertyless. These are three themes of white possession that structure Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s brillian...
Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, “Performing Policy” (Palgrave, 2014)
20 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
How has American cultural and artistic policy changed over the last 25 years? Performing Policy: How Contemporary Politics and Cultural Programmes Red...
Kate Pahl, “Materializing Literacies in Communities: The Uses of Literacy Revisited” (Bloomsbury, 2014)
06 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Literary practices are often associated with specific social groups in particular social settings. Kate Pahl‘s Materializing Literacies in Communiti...
Eugene Thacker, “Horror of Philosophy” (Zero Book, 2011-2015)
28 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Eugene Thacker‘s wonderful Horror of Philosophy series includes three books – In the Dust of this Planet (Zero Books, 2011), Starry Speculative Co...
Isabelle Dussauge, Claes-Fredrik Helgesson, and Francis Lee, “Value Practices in the Life Sciences and Medicine” (Oxford UP, 2015)
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Valuation is a central question in contemporary social science. Indeed the question of value has a range of academic projects associated with it, whet...
Lois Lee, “Recognizing the Non-religious: Reimagining the Secular” (Oxford UP, 2015)
14 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What does non-religion mean? In a new book Recognizing the Non-Religious: Reimagining the Secular (Oxford University Press, 2015), Lois Lee, one of th...
Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Srila Roy, “New Subaltern Politics: Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India” (Oxford UPs 2015)
08 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
New Subaltern Politics: Reconceptualizing Hegemony and Resistance in Contemporary India (Oxford University Press, 2015), edited by Alf Gunvald Nilsen ...
Liz McFall, “Devising Consumption Cultural Economies of Insurance, Credit and Spending” (Routledge, 2014)
02 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The role of financial services in individuals’ and communities’ everyday lives is more important than ever. In Devising Consumption: Cultural Econ...
William Davies, “The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being” (Verso, 2015)
18 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Are you happy? In his new book The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being (Verso, 2015), William Davies, a senior ...
Christopher Vitale, “Networkologies: A Philosophy of Networks for a Hyperconnected Age” (Zero Books, 2014)
12 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Networks seem to be the dominant metaphor for contemporary society. In Networkologies: A Philosophy of Networks for a Hyperconnected Age (Zero Books, ...
Craig Martin, “Capitalizing Religion: Ideology and the Opiate of the Bourgeoisie” (Bloomsbury, 2014)
04 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Whether you need help being more focused at work, are having a spiritual crisis, or want to understand how you can change your inner self for the bett...
Alexander Etkind, “Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied” (Stanford UP, 2013)
26 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Theoretical and historical accounts of postcatastrophic societies often discuss melancholia and trauma at length but leave processes of mourning under...
Joe Deville, “Lived Economies of Default: Consumer Credit, Debt Collection and the Capture of Affect” (Routledge, 2015)
20 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Credit, debt and default are embedded into everyday life, whether as a constant part of people’s daily routines or as a constantly discussed topic i...
Nancy Fraser, “Transnationalizing the Public Sphere” (Polity, 2014)
08 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
How is “the public sphere” best conceptualized on a transnational scale? Nancy Fraser (The New School for Social Research) explores this pressing ...
Christian Fuchs, “Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media” (Routledge, 2015)
28 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Social media is now a pervasive element of many people’s lives. in order to best understand this phenomenon we need a comprehensive theory of the po...
Robin James, “Resistance and Melancholy: Pop Music, Feminism and Neo-Liberalism” (Zero Books, 2015)
02 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
How are contemporary pop culture ideas about resilience used by Neoliberal capitalism? Robin James addresses this question using philosophy of music (...
Nick Crossley, “Networks of Sound, Style, and Subversion” (Manchester UP, 2015)
18 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Can sociology explain punk? In a new book, Networks of Sound, Style, and Subversion: The Punk and Post-Punk Worlds of Manchester, London, Liverpool, a...
Deborah Cowen, “The Deadly Life of Logistics” (University of Minnesota Press, 2014)
09 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Our guest today tells us that the seemingly straightforward field of logistics lies at the heart of contemporary globalization, imperialism, and econo...
Timothy Jordan, “Information Politics: Liberation and Exploitation in the Digital Society” (Pluto Press, 2015)
05 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Struggles over information in the digital era are central to Tim Jordan‘s new book, Information Politics: Liberation and Exploitation in the Digital...
Zoe Thompson, ‘Urban Constellations: Spaces of Cultural Regeneration in Post-industrial Britain’ Ashgate 2015
11 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What is the fate of culture and urban regeneration in the era of austerity? In Urban Constellations: Spaces of Cultural Regeneration in Post-industria...
Amanda Rogers, “Performing Asian Transnationalisms: Theatre, Identity and the Geographies of Performance” (Routledge, 2015)
25 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Identity, performance and globalisation are at the heart of the cultural practices interrogated by Amanda Rogers in Performing Asian Transnationalisms...
Helena Gurfinkel, “Outlaw Fathers in Victorian and Modern British Literature” (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2014)
16 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What is a father? In Outlaw Fathers in Victorian and Modern British Literature: Queering Patriarchy (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2014), Helena Gurfinkel o...
Nick Turnbull, ‘Michel Meyer’s Problematology: Questioning and Society” (Bloomsbury, 2014)
07 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
To be human is to question. This act of questioning is the essence of philosophy, as it allows ontology and epistemology to exist. For example, to und...
Victoria Hesford, “Feeling Women’s Liberation” (Duke University Press, 2013).
06 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Victoria Hesford is an associated professor of Women and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University in New York. Her book Feeling Women’s Liberation (...
Jen Harvie, “Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism” (Palgrave, 2013)
09 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Arts and culture are under threat in the age of austerity. This threat is underpinned by the misuse of the idea of participation in contemporary perfo...
Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, “The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire” (Verso, 2013)
09 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Two Canadian socialist thinkers have published a new book on the successes and failures, the crises, contradictions and conflicts in present-day capit...
Martin Shuster, “Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism and Modernity” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
02 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The work of Theodore Adorno is well established as a crucial resource for understanding the complexities of contemporary capitalism, playing a foundat...
Steven Shaviro, “The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism” (University of Minnesota Press, 2014)
16 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Shaviro‘s new book is a wonderfully engaging study of speculative realism, new materialism, and the ways in which those fields can speak to a...
Robert Hewison, “Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain” (Verso, 2014)
19 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
How did a golden age of cultural funding in UK turn to lead? This is the subject of a new cultural history by Robert Hewison. Cultural Capital: The Ri...
Steven Fielding, “A State of Play” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014)
12 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
To understand contemporary politics we must understand how it is represented in fiction. This is the main argument in A State of Play: British Politi...
Beth Driscoll, “The New Literary Middlebrow: Readers and Tastemaking in the Twenty-First Century” (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014)
03 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It is a cliche to suggest we are what we read, but it is also an important insight. In The New Literary Middlebrow: Readers and Tastemaking in the Twe...
Sam Friedman, “Comedy and Distinction” (Routledge, 2014)
21 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What is funny? What makes you laugh? We think of laughter as being universal idea that applies to everyone, no matter their age, ethnicity, gender or ...
Bruce Fink, “Against Understanding. Volume 1: Commentary and Critique in a Lacanian Key” (Routledge, 2014)
17 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What can possibly be wrong with the process of understanding in psychoanalytic treatment? Everything, according to Bruce Fink. In Against Understandin...
Randal Marlin, “Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion” (Broadview Press, 2013)
17 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been 100 years since the start of the First World War, a conflict that cost millions of lives. In his recently revised book, Propaganda and the...
Bonnie J. Mann, “Sovereign Masculinity: Gender Lessons from the War on Terror” (OUP, 2014)
12 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the aftermath of 9/11, the American political landscape and its discourses took a peculiar turn. America’s national sovereignty-conceived as the ...
Marisol Sandoval, “From Corporate to Social Media” (Routledge, 2014)
05 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What would a truly ‘social’ social media look like? This is the core question of From Corporate to Social Media: Critical Perspectives on Corporat...
Kathrin Yacavone, “Benjamin, Barthes, and the Singularity of Photography” (Bloomsbury, 2013)
29 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Kathrin Yacavone‘s Benjamin, Barthes, and the Singularity of Photography (Bloomsbury, 2013) is an engaging study that explores connections between t...
William Viney, “Waste: A Philosophy of Things” (Bloomsbury, 2014)
15 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What is waste? William Viney‘s Waste: A Philosophy of Things (Bloomsbury, 2014) explores the meaning of waste across a variety of contexts, includin...
Vernadette V. Gonzalez, “Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai’i and the Philippines” (Duke UP, 2013)
22 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Vernadette Vicuna Gonzalez‘s Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai’i and the Philippines (Duke University Press, 2013), examines the ...
Karl Spracklen, “Whiteness and Leisure” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
12 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Our taken for granted assumptions are questioned in a new book by Karl Spracklen, a professor of leisure studies at Leeds Metropolitan University in E...
John Protevi, “Life, War, Earth: Deleuze and the Sciences” (University of Minnesota Press, 2013)
22 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Right now, humanists across very different disciplinary fields are trying to create the kinds of cross-disciplinary conversations that might open up n...
Helene Snee, “A Cosmopolitan Journey: Difference, Distinction and Identity Work in Gap Year Travel” (Ashgate, 2014)
12 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Helene Snee, a researcher at the University of Manchester, has written an excellent new book that should be essential reading for anyone interested in...
William E. Connolly, “The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism” (Duke UP, 2013)
30 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Bill Connolly‘s new book proposes a way to think about the world as a gathering of self-organizing systems or ecologies, and from there explores th...
David Hesmondhalgh, “Why Music Matters” (Wiley Blackwell, 2014)
19 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What is the value of music and why does it matter? These are the core questions in David Hesmondhalgh‘s new book Why Music Matters (Wiley Blackwell...
William Davies “The Limits of Neo-Liberalism: Authority, Sovereignty and the Logic of Competition” (Sage,
29 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Limits of Neo-Liberalism: Authority, Sovereignty, and the Logic of Competition (Sage, 2014), William Davies, from Goldsmiths Col...
M. Gail Hamner, “Imaging Religion in Film: The Politics of Nostalgia” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
19 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When we watch film various visual elements direct our understanding of the narrative and its meaning. The subjective position of each viewer informs t...
Brett Scott, “The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money” (Pluto Press, 2013)
19 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Brett Scott is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (Pluto Press, 2013). Scott is a journalist, urban de...
Patricia Ventura, “Neoliberal Culture: Living With American Neoliberalism” (Ashgate, 2012)
07 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Culture is inescapably linked to questions of political economy. In Neoliberal Culture: Living With American Neoliberalism (Ashgate, 2012), Patricia...
Lynne Huffer, “Are the Lips a Grave? A Queer Feminist on the Ethics of Sex” (Columbia University Press, 2013)
23 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In her fourth book, Lynne Huffer argues for a restored queer feminism to find new ways of thinking about sex and about ethics. Are the Lips a Grave? ...
Bradley Garrett, “Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City” (Verso, 2013)
15 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
More and more of the world is living in cities, yet we rarely stop to examine how our spaces are organised and controlled. In a remarkable new book, E...
Sarah Franklin, “Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship” (Duke University Press, 2013)
09 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Franklin‘s new book is an exceptionally rich, focused yet wide-ranging, insightful account of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and the worlds that...
Timothy Morton, “Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World” (University of Minnesota Press, 2013)
23 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
So much of Science Studies, of STS as a field or a point of engagement, is deeply concerned with objects. We create sociologies and networks of and wi...
Timothy Shenk, “Maurice Dobb: Political Economist” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013)
22 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The British Marxist economist Maurice Dobb is now largely forgotten. That’s too bad for a number of reasons. He was a brilliant thinker who wrote so...
Constance DeVereaux and Martin Griffin, “Narrative, Identity, and the Map of Cultural Policy” (Ashgate, 2013)
14 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Narrative, Identity, and the Map of Cultural Policy: Once Upon a Time in a Globalized World (Ashgate, 2013), a new book by Constance DeVereaux (Col...
Anastasia Karandinou, “No Matter: Theories and Practices of the Ephemeral in Architecture” (Ashgate, 2013)
30 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The intersection of empirical research and critical theory is the basis for Anastasia Karandinou‘s new book No Matter: Theories and Practices of th...
Tony Bennett, “Making Culture, Changing Society” (Routledge, 2013)
13 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Making Culture, Changing Society (Routledge, 2013), Professor Tony Bennett aims to change the way we think about culture. The book us...
Greg Hainge, “Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013)
19 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What is noise? In his new book Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), Greg Hainge, Reader in French at University o...
David Beer, “Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation” (Palgrave, 2013)
21 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Popular Culture and New Media: The Politics of Circulation (Palgrave, 2013) is written by David Beer, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at York Universit...
Sarah Banet-Weiser, “Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture” (NYU Press, 2013)
27 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (NYU Press, 2013), Sarah Banet-Weiser scrutinizes the spread of brand culture into other...
Brian Michael Goss, “Rebooting the Herman and Chomsky Propaganda Model in the Twenty-First Century” (Peter Lang, 2013)
22 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Michael Goss, professor of communication at St. Louis University in Madrid, has taken one of media’s most studied theories and given it a face...
Stacy Alaimo, “Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self” (Indiana UP, 2010)
08 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In her book, Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self (Indiana University Press, 2010), Stacy Alaimo approaches the concepts of “...
Michael Serazio, “Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing” (NYU Press, 2013)
03 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
“Power through freedom.” Michael Serazio‘s Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing (NYU Press, 2013) traces the mushrooming world of...
Dominic Pettman, “Human Error” (UMinnesota, 2011)/”Look at the Bunny” (Zero Books, 2013)
31 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
“The humans are dead.” Whether or not you recognize the epigram from Flight of the Conchords (and if not, there are worse ways to spend a few min...
Amir Eshel, “Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
22 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In his very recent work, Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past(University of Chicago Press, 2013), Amir Eshel presents us with ...
Nicholas De Villiers, “Opacity and the Closet: Queer Tactics in Foucault, Barthes, and Warhol” (University of Minnesota Press, 2012)
11 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In his book, Opacity and the Closet: Queer Tactics in Foucault, Barthes, and Warhol (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), Nicholas de Villiers takes ...
Avner Baz, “When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy” (Harvard University Press, 2012)
31 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 2012), Avner Baz sets out to make a case for the re...
Ulrich Plass, “Language and History in Theodor W. Adorno’s Notes to Literature” (Routledge, 2007)
25 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In Language and History in Theodor W. Adorno’s Notes to Literature (Routledge, 2007), Ulrich Plass makes the case for the importance and relevance...
J. Hillis Miller, “The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
23 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In his recent book, The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz (University of Chicago Press, 2011), J. Hillis Miller sets outs...
Wendy Steiner, “The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art” (University of Chicago Press, 2010)
16 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
As the last of what Wendy Steiner refers to as “a loose trilogy” with her earlier works, The Scandal of Pleasure (1995) and Venus in Exile (2001),...
Stephen Collier, “Post-Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, Biopolitics” (Princeton UP, 2011)
20 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Pipes matter. That’s right: pipes. Anyone who has spent time in Russia knows that the hulkish cylinders that snake throughout its cities are the lif...
Scott Morgensen, “Spaces Between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
14 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s a study-guide prepared to accompany the interview. For as much as recent decades have witnessed a patriarchal backlash against the growing v...
Jodi A. Byrd, “The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)
26 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In a world of painfully narrow academic monographs, rare is the work that teams with ideas, engagements, and interventions across a wide terrain of so...
Brian Christian, “The Most Human Human: A Defense of Humanity in the Age of the Computer” (Penguin, 2011)
23 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Can computers think? That was the question which provoked English mathematician Alan Turing to come up with what we call the Turing Test, in which a c...
Thomas Wheatland, “The Frankfurt School in Exile” (University of Minnesota Press, 2009)
12 Jun 2009
Contributed by Lukas
I have a friend who, as a young child, happened to meet Herbert Marcuse, by that time a rock-star intellectual and darling of the American student mov...
John H. Summers, “Every Fury on Earth” (Davies Group, 2008)
16 Dec 2008
Contributed by Lukas
The vast majority of historians write history. Perhaps that’s good, as one should stick to what one knows. But there are historians who braves the w...