Tahrir Hamdi is a Professor of Resistance Literature at the Arab Open University in Jordan. She is the author of the award-winning Imagining Palestine and serves as an assistant editor of Arab Studies Quarterly.National identities are inherently fluid, shaped as much by collective beliefs and cultural practices as by official borders and territory. For Palestinians, whose national status remains contested, the articulation and imagination of national identity take on particular urgency. Imagining Palestine: Cultures of Exile and National Identity (Bloomsbury, 2022) examines how Palestinian intellectuals, artists, activists, and ordinary citizens envision their homeland, engaging with the works of key figures such as Edward Said, Ghassan Kanafani, Naji al-Ali, Mahmoud Darwish, Mourid Barghouti, Radwa Ashour, Suheir Hammad, and Susan Abulhawa.Drawing on decolonial and resistance concepts—particularly Palestinian sumud—Hamdi argues that the imaginative construction of Palestine is central to the Palestinian struggle. This interdisciplinary study, rooted in critical theory, postcolonial and decolonial studies, and literary analysis, offers valuable insights for students and scholars of Palestine, Middle East studies, and Arabic literature.Imagining Palestine received the Counter Current Award at the 2023 Palestine Book Awards.Bryant Scott is a professor of English and film studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University and Texas A&M University at Qatar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

What is the future of reading? In Reading Audio Readers: Book Consumption in the Digital Age (Bloombury, 2024), Karl Berglund, Assistant Professor in Literature at Department of Literature and Rhetoric at Upsala University, examines the rise of audiobooks as a new mode of reading books. The analysis draws on digital humanities methods and a detailed industry case study to show who are the readers of audiobooks, how those readers engage and consume books, what sort of genres are most popular, and crucially how all of this us impacting on the publishing industry. The research also picks up on important themes of continuity and change represented by audiobooks, from ongoing issues of inequalities through to the new forms of writing practice and AI generated narrators. A richly detailed but easily accessible text, the book is essential reading for scholars across academia, as well as anyone interested in reading! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Nima Bassiri, an Assistant Professor of Literature at Duke University and co-director of the Institute for Critical Theory, dives into the provocative relationship between mental illness and economic productivity. He discusses how historically, psychiatry intertwined with capitalist values, measuring mental health against economic utility. The conversation explores concepts like pathological value, the 'mad genius' and how perceptions of madness have shaped societal norms, revealing the complexities of mental health in a capitalist context.

Why has the United Kingdom, historically one of the strongest democracies in the world, become so unstable? What changed? Late Soviet Britain: Why Materialist Utopias Fail (Cambridge UP, 2023) demonstrates that a major part of the answer lies in the transformation of its state. It shows how Britain championed radical economic liberalisation only to weaken and ultimately break its own governing institutions. The crisis of democracy in rich countries has brought forward many urgent analyses of neoliberal capitalism. This book explores for the first time how the 'governing science' in Leninist and neoliberal revolutions fails for many of the same reasons. These systems may have been utterly opposed in their political values, but Abby Innes argues that when we grasp the kinship in their closed-system forms of economic reasoning and their strategies for government, we may better understand the causes of state failure in what remains an inescapably open-system reality.Abby Innes is Associate Professor of Political Economy in the European Institute at the LSE.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Class Meets Land: The Embodied History of Land Financialization (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Maria Kaika & Dr. Luca Ruggiero reveals something seemingly counterintuitive: that nineteenth-century class struggles over land are deeply implicated in the transition to twenty-first-century financial capitalism. Challenging our understanding of land financialization as a recent phenomenon propelled by high finance, Dr. Kaika and Dr. Ruggiero foreground 150 years of class struggle over land as a catalyst for assembling the global financial constellation. Narrating the close-knit histories of industrial land, industrial elites, and the working class, the authors offer a novel understanding of land financialization as a “lived” process: the outcome of a relentless, socially embodied historical unfolding, in which shifts in land’s material, economic, and symbolic roles impact both local everyday lives and global capital flows.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Not so long ago, comedy and laughter were a shared experience of relief, as Freud famously argued. At their best, ribbing, roasting, piss-taking and insulting were the foundation of a kind of universal culture from which friendship, camaraderie and solidarity could emerge.Now, comedy is characterized by edgy humour and misplaced jokes that provoke personal and social anxiety, causing divisive cultural warfare in the media and among people. Our comedy is fraught with tension like never before, and so too is our social life. We often hear the claim that no one can take a joke anymore. But what if we really can’t take jokes anymore?Post-Comedy (Polity, 2025) argues that the spirit of comedy is the first step in the building of society, but that it has been lost in the era of divisive identity politics. Comedy flares up debates about censorship and cancellation, keeping us divided from one other. This goes against the true universalist spirit of comedy, which is becoming a thing of the past and must be recovered.Alfie Bown is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at Kings College London. His research focuses on psychoanalysis, digital media and popular culture.He has also worked as a journalist, writing for The Guardian, Paris Review, New Statesman, Tribune, and others. His books include The Playstation Dreamworld, Post-Memes, and Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships.He is the founder of Everyday Analysis which publishes pamphlets and essay collections with contemporary social and political issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In this discussion, Sam Srauy, an Associate Professor at Oakland University and expert in race and video games, delves into the systemic racism embedded in the video game industry. She examines how notions of the 'imagined gamer' shaped exclusive practices from the 1970s to the 2010s. Topics include the industry's historical evolution, the impact of Japanese gaming companies, and the contrasting worlds of AAA versus indie games. Srauy advocates for inclusivity and structural changes to empower marginalized developers, shedding light on the complexities of gaming culture today.

Dr. Wan-Chuan Kao, a medievalist focused on late Middle Ages literature, delves into the nuanced concept of premodern whiteness in their upcoming book. They explore how whiteness reflects fragility and precarity, challenging the notion that it solely pertains to skin tone. The conversation unpacks the socio-economic symbolism of pearls and their commentary on class distinctions, alongside a critical view of identity and mourning in medieval texts. Kao also examines how historical contexts shape modern perceptions of race and the significance of embodiment beyond mere humanity.

Linh Thuy Nguyen, an Associate Professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, dives into the layers of intergenerational trauma in Vietnamese American culture. She explores how artistic expressions serve as coping mechanisms for the legacies of the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism. Nguyen critiques the portrayal of Vietnamese families while advocating for understanding the collective histories behind personal narratives, emphasizing themes of identity, resilience, and the impact of structural inequalities.

In this discussion, Giampaolo Conte, an Assistant Professor in Economic History at the University of Roma Tre, critiques liberal-capitalist reforms post-financial crises. He examines how these reforms often favor capitalist elites at the expense of the working and middle classes. Conte explores the historical roots of these reforms, the interplay between capitalism and liberalism, and their role in worsening inequality and fueling nationalism. His insights reveal how financial crises have been exploited to enforce policies that deepen economic divides.