New Books in Critical Theory

Kira Huju, "Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order" (Oxford UP, 2023)

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth,...

Hannah Forsyth, "Virtue Capitalists: The Rise and Fall of the Professional Class in the Anglophone World, 1870–2008" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Virtue Capitalists: The Rise and Fall of the Professional Class in the Anglophone World, 1870–2008 (Cambridge UP, 2023) explores the rise of the pr...

Daniel Scott Souleles et al., "People before Markets: An Alternative Casebook" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

People before Markets:: An Alternative Casebook (Cambridge UP, 2022) presents twenty comparative case studies of important global questions, such as ...

Michael V. Singh, "Good Boys, Bad Hombres: The Racial Politics of Mentoring Latino Boys in Schools" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)

16 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The unintended consequences of youth empowerment programs for Latino boys Educational research has long documented the politics of punishment for boys...

Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, "Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America" (UNC Press, 2023)

15 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Pivoting from studies that emphasize the dominance of progressivism on American college campuses during the late sixties and early seventies, Lauren L...

Jessica Calarco, "Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net" (Portfolio, 2024)

15 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do unequal societies function? In Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net (Portfolio, 2024), Jesscia Calarco, an Associate ...

Christopher William England, "Land and Liberty: Henry George and the Crafting of Modern Liberalism" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Henry George’s Progress and Poverty was one of the best-selling books of the 19th century, and his ideas were taken up by by powerful figures as d...

Lydia Walker, "States-in-Waiting: A Counter Narrative of Global Decolonization" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

14 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Lydia Walker's deeply researched and carefully narrated debut monograph, States-in-Waiting: A Counter Narrative of Global Decolonization (Cambr...

Nivedita Menon, "Secularism As Misdirection: Critical Thought from the Global South" (Duke UP, 2024)

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we speak to Nivedita Menon about her new book, Secularism as Misdirection: Critical Thought from the Global South (Duke Universit...

Critical Muslim Studies: Decoloniality

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An interview with Salman Sayyid about decoloniality and its place in Critical Muslim Studies.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a...

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

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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

Mark Stoll, "Profit: An Environmental History" (Polity Press, 2022)

09 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Profit ― getting more out of something than you put into it ― is the original genius of homo sapiens, who learned how to unleash the energy stored...

Margaret A. Hagerman, "Children of a Troubled Time: Growing Up with Racism in Trump's America" (NYU Press, 2024)

09 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kids are at the center of today's "culture wars"--pundits, politicians, and parents alike are debating which books they should be allowed to read, whi...

Jean Petrucelli et al., "Patriarchy and Its Discontents: Psychoanalytic Perspectives" (Routledge, 2022)

08 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Patriarchy and Its Discontents: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (Routledge, 2022) joins luminaries in contemporary psychoanalysis with pioneers of femini...

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

08 Jun 2024

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...

Jason Read, "The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work" (Verso, 2024)

08 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Even as the rewards of work decline and its demands on us increase, many people double-down on their commitment to wage slavery – working harder, do...

Alan H. McGowan, "The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist" (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2024)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Alan McGowan delves into Franz Boas’s dual identity as both a scientist and a political activist, shedding light on how his work transcended academi...

Critical Muslim Studies: Post-Postivism

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An interview with Prof. Salman Sayyid on one of the theoretical constructs that underpins Critical Muslim Studies: Post-Positivism.  Interviewer: Hiz...

Amrita Ghosh, "Kashmir's Necropolis: Literary, Cultural, and Visual Texts" (Lexington Books, 2023)

04 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Amrita Ghosh's book Kashmir's Necropolis: Literary, Cultural, and Visual Texts (Lexington Books, 2023) is an interdisciplinary book that studies li...

Margot Weiss, "Unsettling Queer Anthropology: Foundations, Reorientations, and Departures" (Duke UP, 2024)

01 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This field-defining volume of queer anthropology foregrounds both the brilliance of anthropological approaches to queer and trans life and the ways qu...

Ronald R. Sundstrom, "Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction" (Oxford UP, 2024)

01 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It is widely acknowledged that the United States is in the grip of an enduring housing crisis. It is less frequently recognized that this crisis amoun...

Anthony Heath and Yaojun Li, "Social Mobility" (Polity Press, 2024)

31 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is social mobility? In Social Mobility (Polity Press, 2023), Anthony Heath, an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford an...

Anne Kim, "Poverty for Profit: How Corporations Get Rich off America’s Poor" (The New Press, 2024)

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Poverty is big business in America. The federal government spends about $900 billion a year on programs that directly or disproportionately impact poo...

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

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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

The Social Acceptance of Inequality

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of International Horizons, Francesco Duina, Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology at Bates College and Luca Storti, Associate Profess...

Lamia Karim, "Castoffs of Capital: Work and Love among Garment Workers in Bangladesh" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

26 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Castoffs of Capital: Work and Love among Garment Workers in Bangladesh (U Minnesota Press, 2022) examines how female garment workers experience thei...

Tad Delay, "Future of Denial: The Ideologies of Climate Change" (Verso, 2024)

26 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The age of denial is over, we are told. Yet emissions continue to rise while gimmicks, graft, and green-washing distract the public from the climate v...

Premilla Nadasen, "Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism" (Haymarket Books, 2023)

25 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the COVID pandemic, billions of dollars in relief aid was sent out to help us ride out the storm, although many people who struggled through it...

Netta Avineri and Patricia Baquedano-López, "An Introduction to Language and Social Justice: What Is, What Has Been, and What Could Be" (Routledge, 2023)

25 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An Introduction to Language and Social Justice: What Is, What Has Been, and What Could Be (Routledge, 2023) is designed to provide the who, what, whe...

Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton, "The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison" (Routledge, 2023)

24 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For 40 years, this classic text has taken the issue of economic inequality seriously and asked: Why are our prisons filled with the poor? Why aren't t...

Sunaura Taylor, "Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert" (U California Press, 2024)

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A powerful analysis and call to action that reveals disability as one of the defining features of environmental devastation and resistance. Deep below...

Anjali Arondekar, "Abundance: Sexuality’s History" (Duke UP, 2023)

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Abundance: Sexuality’s History (Duke UP, 2023), Anjali Arondekar refuses the historical common sense that archival loss is foundational to a su...

Joseph E. Stiglitz, "The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society" (Norton, 2024)

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his latest book, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society (W. W. Norton, 2024), Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz rethinks the natur...

Raven Simone Maragh-Lloyd, "Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age" (U California Press, 2024)

19 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age (U California Press, 2024)​ explores the creative range of Black digital u...

Mona Simion, "Resistance to Evidence" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

19 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We have increasingly sophisticated ways of acquiring and communicating knowledge, but efforts to spread this knowledge often encounter resistance to e...

Todd Mcgowan, "Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try to Find Ourselves" (Repeater, 2024)

18 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The left views alienation as something to be resisted or overcome, but could it actually form the basis of our emancipation? We often think of our exi...

Ban Wang, "At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China" (Duke UP, 2022)

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his latest book At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China (Duke UP, 2022), Ban Wang uses an ecocritical lens to ...

Sony Coráñez Bolton, "Crip Colony: Mestizaje, US Imperialism, and the Queer Politics of Disability in the Philippines" (Duke UP, 2023)

14 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Crip Colony: Mestizaje, US Imperialism, and the Queer Politics of Disability in the Philippines (Duke UP, 2023), Sony Coráñez Bolton examines t...

Amy Schiller, "The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong—And How to Fix It" (Melville House, 2023)

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Amy Schiller's The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong—And How to Fix It (Melville House, 2023) makes an attempt to rescue philanthrop...

Kevin Woodson, "The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

America's elite law firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms are known for grueling hours, low odds of promotion, and personnel practi...

Pamela Aronson and Matthew R. Fleming, "Gender Revolution: How Electoral Politics and #MeToo are Reshaping Everyday Life" (Routledge, 2023)

12 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Gender Revolution: How Electoral Politics and #MeToo are Reshaping Everyday Life (Routledge, 2023) by Dr. Pamela Aronson and Matthew R. Fleming caref...

Kate Maclean, "Cash, Clothes, and Construction: Rethinking Value in Bolivia's Pluri-economy" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

11 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do alternative economic ideas and practices develop? In Cash, Clothes, and Construction: Rethinking Value in Bolivia’s Pluri-economy (U Minnes...

Alissa Quart, "Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream" (Ecco Press, 2023)

11 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The promise that you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is central to the story of the American Dream. It's the belief that if you work hard an...

Tiziano Bonini and Emiliano Trere, "Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power" (MIT Press, 2024)

10 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What are the tactics needed for a world of platforms and algorithms? In Algorithms of Resistance: The Everyday Fight against Platform Power (MIT Pre...

Julia Havas, "Woman Up: Invoking Feminism in Quality Television" (Wayne State UP, 2022)

08 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

While American television has long relied on a strategic foregrounding of feminist politics to promote certain programming's cultural value, Woman Up...

Salar Mameni, "Terracene: A Crude Aesthetics" (Duke UP, 2023)

05 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Terracene: A Crude Aesthetics (Duke UP, 2023), Salar Mameni historicizes the popularization of the scientific notion of the Anthropocene alongsid...

Céline Bessière and Sibylle Gollac, "The Gender of Capital: How Families Perpetuate Wealth Inequality" (Harvard UP, 2023)

03 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In many countries, property law grants equal rights to men and women. Why, then, do women still accumulate less wealth than men? Combining quantitativ...

Nietzsche Now! with Glenn Wallis

01 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What would Nietzsche say… about today’s divisive issues and debates? I spoke with Glenn Wallis, author of the new book, Nietzsche Now!, on how th...

Justin O’Connor, "Culture is Not an Industry: Reclaiming Art and Culture for the Common" (Manchester UP, 2024)

01 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

According to Dr. Justin O’Connor, culture is at the heart of what it means to be human. But twenty-five years ago, the British government rebranded...

Adia Harvey Wingfield, "Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It" (Amistad Press, 2023)

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work—from getting a job to workplace norms to a...

Andil Gosine, "Nature's Wild: Love, Sex, and Law in the Caribbean" (Duke UP, 2021)

29 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Nature's Wild: Love, Sex, and Law in the Caribbean (Duke UP, 2021), Andil Gosine engages with questions of humanism, queer theory, and animality ...

Ariella Aisha Azoulay, "Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism" (Verso, 2019)

28 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ariella Aisha Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history ...

Karyne Messina, "Barbie and the Great American Identity Crisis: The Unfortunate Reality of a Nation Plagued by Racism, Patriarchy, and Stark Hypocrisy" (Pi Press, 2024)

28 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Barbie and the Great American Identity Crisis (Pi Press, 2024) is not merely a book but a call to action-a rallying cry for societal introspection a...

Natalia Grincheva and Elizabeth Stainforth, "Geopolitics of Digital Heritage" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

27 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How are digital platforms transforming heritage? In Geopolitics of Digital Heritage (Cambridge UP, 2023), Dr Natalia Grincheva, Program Leader of...

Kathryn Telling, "The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education: Negotiating Inclusion and Prestige" (Policy Press, 2023)

27 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of higher education? In The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education: Negotiating Inclusion and Prestige (Policy Press, 2023), D...

Andrea Wenzel, "Antiracist Journalism: The Challenge of Creating Equitable Local News" (Columbia UP, 2023)

26 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Journalists have a long history of covering race and racism in the United States, telling stories that shed light on protest, activism, institutional ...

Danielle Taschereau Mamers, "Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing: Documentation, Administration, and the Interventions of Indigenous Art" (Fordham UP, 2023)

23 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do bureaucratic documents create and reproduce a state’s capacity to see? What kinds of worlds do documents help create? Further, how might such...

Vaia Touna and Richard Newton, "Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

21 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists (Bloomsbury, 2023) introduces students to the so-called classics of the...

Emily S. Lee, "A Phenomenology for Women of Color: Merleau-Ponty and Identity-In-Difference" (Lexington Books, 2024)

20 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can we understand the changing power of race and gender to shape our reality? How shared is reality? Can narratives of experience help us develop ...

Heather Parry, "Electric Dreams: Sex Robots and Failed Promises of Capitalism" (404 Ink, 2024)

20 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the future, we’ll all be having sex with robots… won’t we? Roboticists say they’re a distracting science fiction, yet endless books, films ...

Charis Enns and Brock Bersaglio, "Settler Ecologies: The Enduring Nature of Settler Colonialism in Kenya" (U Toronto Press, 2024)

20 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Settler Ecologies: The Enduring Nature of Settler Colonialism in Kenya (University of Toronto Press, 2024) tells the story of how settler colonialis...

Guido Alfani, "As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West" (Princeton UP, 2023)

19 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This provocative and interesting book has received considerable attention. Roaring reviews and interviews include  The Financial Times (UK), The...

Sharrona Pearl, "Mask" (Bloombury, 2024)

14 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the theatre mask and masquerade to the masked criminal and the rise of facial recognition software, masks have long performed as an instrument fo...

Tana Jean Welch, "Advancing Medical Posthumanism Through Twenty-First Century American Poetry" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024)

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Advancing Medical Posthumanism Through Twenty-First Century American Poetry (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024) places contemporary poetics in dialogue with p...

Charles William Johns, "Hegel and Speculative Realism" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hegel and Speculative Realism (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) has two main objectives. Firstly, to assess the speculative realist formulations of the rea...

Bishnupriya Ghosh, "The Virus Touch: Theorizing Epidemic Media" (Duke UP, 2023)

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Virus Touch: Theorizing Epidemic Media (Duke UP. 2023), Bishnupriya Ghosh argues that media are central to understanding emergent relations ...

Rupa Marya and Raj Patel, "Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice" (FSG, 2021)

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Raj Patel, the renowned political economist and New York Times bestselling author of The Value of Nothing, teams up with the physician Rupa Marya t...

Shardé M. Davis, "Being Black in the Ivory: Truth-Telling about Racism in Higher Education" (UNC Press, 2024)

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When Sharde M. Davis turned to social media during the summer of racial reckoning in 2020, she meant only to share how racism against Black people aff...

Adele Oliver, "Deeping It: Colonialism, Culture & Criminalisation of UK Drill" (404 Ink, 2023)

07 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Deeping It: Colonialism, Culture & Criminalisation of UK Drill (404 Ink, 2023) by Adèle Oliver shines a critical light on UK drill and its fraught r...

Ellie Tomsett, "Stand-up Comedy and Contemporary Feminisms: Sexism, Stereotypes and Structural Inequalities" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

06 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How is comedy hostile to women? In Stand-up Comedy and Contemporary Feminisms: Sexism, Stereotypes and Structural Inequalities (Bloomsbury, 2023), ...

Tina Sikka, "Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Health Apps, Genetic Diets and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury, 2023) critically examines contemporary health and wellne...

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, "The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market" (Bloomsbury. 2023)

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In their bestselling book Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway revealed the origins of climate change denial. Now, in The Big Myth: ...

Stefan Aune, "Indian Wars Everywhere: Colonial Violence and the Shadow Doctrines of Empire" (U California Press, 2023)

04 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From Black Hawk helicopters to the exclamation "Geronimo" used by paratroopers jumping from airplanes, words and images referring to Indians have been...

Naomi Cahn, et al., "Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy" (Simon & Schuster, 2023)

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A stirring, comprehensive look at the state of women in the workforce--why women's progress has stalled, how our economy fosters unproductive competit...

Dominic Boyer, "No More Fossils" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Our hosts, Devin Griffiths and Deanna Kreisel, sat down with Dominic Boyer to talk about his new book, No More Fossils, which appeared just last yea...

Erin L. Durban, "The Sexual Politics of Empire: Postcolonial Homophobia in Haiti" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

02 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Evangelical Christians and members of the global LGBTQI human rights movement have vied for influence in Haiti since the 2010 earthquake. Each side ac...

Huaping Lu-Adler, "Kant, Race, and Racism: Views from Somewhere" (Oxford UP, 2023)

01 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kant scholars have paid relatively little attention to his raciology. They assume that his racism, as personal prejudice, can be disentangled from his...

Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen, "The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back from Anti-Lynching to Abolition" (Haymarket Books, 2024)

29 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The story of the fight against fascism across the African diaspora, revealing that Black antifascism has always been vital to global freedom struggles...

Michael Ortiz, "Anti-Colonialism and the Crises of Interwar Fascism" (Bloombury, 2023)

27 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is fascism? Is it an anomaly in the history of modern Europe? Or its culmination? In Anti-Colonialism and the Crises of Interwar Fascism (Bloom...

Jeffrey R. Di Leo, "Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: An Overview" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

27 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The most exhaustive mapping of contemporary literary theory to date, Jeffrey R. Di Leo's book Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: An Overview ...

Anita R. Gohdes, "Repression in the Digital Age: Surveillance, Censorship, and the Dynamics of State Violence" (Oxford UP, 2023)

26 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Global adoption of the Internet has exploded, yet we are only beginning to understand the Internet's profound political consequences. Authoritarian st...

Colette Cann and Eric Demeulenaere, "The Activist Academic: Engaged Scholarship for Resistance, Hope and Social Change" (Myers Education Press, 2020)

24 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can traditional academic scholarship be disrupted by activist academics? How can we make space for those who are underrepresented and historically...

Marc-William Palen, "Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World" (Princeton UP, 2024)

23 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A new economic history which uncovers the forgotten left-wing, anti-imperial, pacifist origins of economic cosmopolitanism and free trade from the mid...

Isaac Deutscher, "Lenin's Childhood" (Verso, 2024)

20 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On January 21, 1924 and at the age of 53, Vladimir Lenin passed away. We’ve now had a century of a world without him, but also a century of a world ...

Dinesh Wadiwel, "Animals and Capital" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the 20th century, capitalist animal agriculture emerged with a twofold mission: to ruthlessly exploit animals for their labour time and enlarge hum...

Nancy Folbre, "The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems: An Intersectional Political Economy" (Verso, 2021)

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nancy Folbre’s The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems: An Intersectional Political Economy (Verso, 2021) asks the questions of why and unde...

Anna Kornbluh, "Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism" (Verso, 2024)

17 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is the status of art and culture in a world dominated by apps, algorithms, and influencers? Anna Kornbluh’s newest book Immediacy, Or the Styl...

Lisa Messeri, "In the Land of the Unreal: Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles" (Duke UP, 2024)

16 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid-2010s, a passionate community of Los Angeles-based storytellers, media artists, and tech innovators formed around virtual reality (VR), bel...

Ellen E. Jones, "Screen Deep: How Film and TV Can Solve Racism and Save the World" (Faber and Faber, 2024)

16 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why does race matter in film and TV? In Screen Deep: How Film and TV Can Solve Racism and Save the World (Faber and Faber, 2024), Ellen E. Jones, a...

Ali Bhagat, "Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism" (Cornell UP, 2024)

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Governing the Displaced: Race and Ambivalence in Global Capitalism (Cornell UP, 2024) answers a straightforward question: how are refugees governed ...

Gavin Butt, "No Machos Or Pop Stars: When the Leeds Art Experiment Went Punk" (Duke UP, 2022)

13 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do art schools influence music? In No Machos or Pop Stars: When the Leeds Art Experiment Went Punk (Duke UP, 2022), Gavin Butt, a Professor of ...

Daniel Tutt, "How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche" (Repeater, 2024)

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A how-to guide for the left on how to overcome Nietzsche's divisive and damaging influence.  How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on N...

Surya Parekh, "Black Enlightenment" (Duke UP, 2023)

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Black Enlightenment (Duke UP, 2023), Surya Parekh reimagines the Enlightenment from the position of the Black subject. Parekh examines the works...

Xin Gu, "Cultural Work and Creative Subjectivity: Recentralising the Artist Critique and Social Networks in the Cultural Industries" (Routledge, 2023)

11 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can artists survive today? In Cultural Work and Creative Subjectivity: Recentralising the Artist Critique and Social Networks in the Cultural Ind...

Laura Huttunen and Gerhild Perl, "An Anthropology of Disappearance: Politics, Intimacies and Alternative Ways of Knowing" (Berghahn Books, 2023)

10 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

All over the world, people disappear from their families, communities and the state’s bureaucratic gaze, as victims of oppressive regimes or while m...

Samantha Majic, "Lights, Camera, Feminism?: Celebrities and Anti-Trafficking Politics" (U California Press, 2023)

10 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Recent years have brought an upsurge in celebrity activism. Not a day goes by without an actor or musician taking to a stage, a podium or the internet...

Jacqueline Kennelly, "Burnt by Democracy: Youth, Inequality, and the Erosion of Civic Life" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

09 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Burnt by Democracy: Youth, Inequality, and the Erosion of Civic Life (University of Toronto Press, 2023) by Dr. Jacqueline Kennelly traces the politi...

The Reeducation of Race with Sonali Thakkar (JP)

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

NYU professor Sonali Thakkar’s brilliant first book, The Reeducation of Race: Jewishness and the Politics of Antiracism in Postcolonial Thought (...

Priyanka Basu, "The Poet’s Song: ‘Folk’ and its Cultural Politics in South Asia" (Routledge, 2023)

06 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can culture be authentic in the modern world? In The Poet's Song: Folk and its Cultural Politics in South Asia (Rouitledge, 2023), Dr Priyanka ...

Baidik Bhattacharya, "Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

05 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In a radical and ambitious reconceptualization of the field, Colonialism, World Literature, and the Making of the Modern Culture of Letters (Cambrid...