New Books in Critical Theory

Lorenzo Veracini, expert on settler colonialism, uncovers the political imaginaries of settler colonialism as a specific mode of domination. He explores displacement, the role of indigenous people, and the failure of escaping sideways as a durable solution. The podcast also discusses the relevance and future of settler colonial studies.

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, a Professor at Williams College and author of "Metamodernism: The Future of Theory," discusses revolutionary ideas reshaping the humanities. He critiques established categories like religion and science, arguing for a dynamic understanding of social constructs. Storm introduces a "Process Social Ontology" and explores the continuum of communication across species. He also emphasizes the importance of humble knowledge and the integration of critical theory and virtue ethics in fostering social justice and human flourishing.

This is a book about the American Dream: how to understand this central principle of American public philosophy, the ways in which it is threatened by a number of winner-take-all economic trends, and how to make it a reality for workers and their families in the 21st century. Integrating political philosophy and the history of political thought with recent work in economics, political science, and sociology, Joshua Preiss' book Just Work for All: The American Dream in the 21st Century (Taylor & Francis, 2020) calls for renewed political and policy commitment to "just work."Such a commitment is essential to combat the negative moral externalities of an economy where the fruits of growth are increasingly claimed by a relatively small portion of the population: slower growth, rising inequality, declining absolute mobility, dying communities, the erosion of social solidarity, lack of faith in political leaders and institutions, exploding debt, ethnic and nationalist backlash, widespread hopelessness, and the rapid rise in what economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case call deaths of despair.Covid-19 threatens to pour gasoline on these winner-take-all fires, further concentrating economic and political power in the hands of those best suited to withstand (and even profit from) the pandemic-driven economic crisis. In this book, the author provides a model for understanding the American Dream and making it a reality in a post-Covid-19 economy.A tour de force, this book is essential reading for scholars and researchers of political philosophy, political economy, political theory, and economics, as well as for the layperson trying to make sense of the post-pandemic world.Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

With a focus on the court diversion of disabled people, Disability, Criminal Justice and Law: Reconsidering Court Diversion (Routledge 2020) undertakes a theoretical and empirical examination of how law is complicit in debilitating disabled people. In our post-institutionalisation era, diversion of disabled people from the court process is often assumed to be humane, therapeutic and socially just. However, in this work, Dr. Linda Steele draws on Foucauldian theory of biopolitics, critical legal and political theory, and critical disability theory to show that court diversion perpetuates oppression against disabled people. She shows how criminal law and mental health systems are complicit in the coercion and control of disabled bodies, of whom may not even be convicted. The normative function of court diversion is to reinforce boundaries which are at the core of jurisdiction, legal personhood and sovereignty. Steele critiques the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to show that it does not deal with the complexities of court diversion, suggesting that the CRPD is of limited use in its abilities to challenge carceral control and legal and settler colonial violence. Dr. Linda Steele is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Technology, Sydney. She researches the intersections of disability, law and social justice. Prior to a career in academia, Dr. Steele was a solicitor with the Intellectual Disability Rights Service.Jane Richards is a doctoral student at the University of Hong Kong. You can find her on twitter where she follows all things related to human rights and Hong Kong politics @JaneRichardsHK.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Erin Y. Huang’s Urban Horror: Neoliberal Post-Socialism and the Limits of Visibility (Duke UP, 2020) is an expansive and ambitious book that explores the affective territory of “neoliberal post-socialist China” as it manifests in contemporary Chinese (language) cinema. Pushing beyond the geographic boundaries of the PRC and the confines of art cinema, Huang’s book reads the post-socialist condition as it manifests in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and across a variety of film genres. The term urban horror, derived from Engels’ writings on the industrial factory and theoretically developed in Huang’s book in conversation with Merleau-Ponty, Lefebvre, and Rancière, defines a “sociopolitical public affect that exceeds comprehension.” This affect, Huang argues, reappears in Chinese cinemas within and beyond the People’s Republic. In so doing, urban horror rehearses potential revolutionary dissent and resistance in the era of neoliberal post-socialism as it unfolds spaces beyond familiar post-socialist locales. As she works to address the changing grounds of China’s contemporary sociopolitical aesthetics, Huang considers the shifting meanings of the image as it travels between various genres and media materialities, including the intriguing “feminist blockbuster” and immersive cinema experiences. In the following interview, we discuss the questions that frame Huang’s inquiry and delve into the chapters that make up the body of her book. Readers and listeners should look forward not only to hearing about Huang’s elegant theoretical framing, but also to the compelling and lively close readings that showcase her argument across an exciting spectrum of Chinese media products.Julia Keblinska is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Center for Historical Research at the Ohio State University specializing in Chinese media history and comparative socialisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In his painstakingly researched and splendid new book Sculpting the Self: Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flourishing (U Michigan Press, 2021), Muhammad Faruque charts and examines the multiplicity of ways in which the self and its moral flourishing have been discussed, debated, and examined in the Muslim intellectual tradition. The remarkable aspect of this book though is that he does so in close and extensive conversation with understandings of the self in Western philosophy, Indic thought, and even neuroscience. Philosophically dense but yet eminently accessible, this book is a landmark publication in the fields of Islamic Studies and the study of religion more broadly.SherAli Tareen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His other academic publications are available here. He can be reached at sherali.tareen@fandm.edu. Listener feedback is most welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Unnatural Disasters: Why Most Responses to Risk and Climate Change Fail But Some Succeed (Columbia UP, 2021) offers a new perspective on our most pressing environmental and social challenges, revealing the gaps between abstract concepts like sustainability, resilience, and innovation and the real-world experiences of people living at risk. Gonzalo Lizarralde explains how the causes of disasters are not natural but all too human: inequality, segregation, marginalization, colonialism, neoliberalism, racism, and unrestrained capitalism. He tells the stories of Latin American migrants, Haitian earthquake survivors, Canadian climate activists, African slum dwellers, and other people resisting social and environmental injustices around the world. Lizarralde shows that most reconstruction and risk-reduction efforts exacerbate social inequalities. Some responses do produce meaningful changes, but they are rarely the ones powerful leaders have in mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

As we see in the news every day, climate change is already upon us. The climate crisis is no longer a bridge to be crossed in the future. It must be dealt with today.In this first episode of our new themed series Survival by Degrees, Dr. Nicolas Graham describes the influence of fossil fuels in sustaining our unending quest for economic growth and profit. He also highlights the drastic changes needed along production lines to become eco-friendly. He talks about these in the context of his book “Forces of Production, Climate Change, and Canadian Fossil Capitalism,” published by Brill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

As governments and corporations mine our “entrenched culture of sharing” to invade privacy (down to Target creating an algorithm to figure out which shoppers are in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy) what happens to democracy? Can democracy survive with no (or very little privacy)? What if the citizenry cares little about privacy and or is unwilling to protect it? If surveillance is here to stay what are the prospects for individual autonomy? citizenship? democratic discussion and deliberation? Life after Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society (Cambridge UP, 2020) argues that we should not focus on protecting individual privacy; privacy is NOT “our best hope” for ensuring a “democratic future.” Instead, we should channel Hannah Arendt and focus on the public realm and how it supports political freedom.Dr. Firmin DeBrabander is a Professor of Philosophy at Maryland Institute College of Art and the author of two previous books: Do Guns Make Us Free?: Democracy and the Armed Society (Yale University Press, 2015), and Spinoza and the Stoics: Power, Politics and the Passions (Bloomsbury Press, 2007). He writes social and political commentary for the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Salon, The Atlantic and The New Republic.Daniella Campos assisted with this podcast.Susan Liebell is Dirk Warren '50 Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Minna Salami's book Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2021) is a collection of thought provoking essays that explore questions central to how we see ourselves, our history, and our world.-What does it mean to be oppressed?-What does it mean to be liberated?-Why do women choose to follow authority even when they can be autonomous?-What is the cost of compromising one’s true self?-What narratives particularly subjugate women and people of African heritage?-What kind of narrative can heal and empower?As she considers these questions, Salami offers fresh insights on key cultural issues that impact women’s lives, including power, beauty, and knowledge. She also examines larger subjects, such as Afrofuturism, radical Black feminism, and gender politics, all with a historical outlook that is also future oriented. Combining a storyteller’s narrative playfulness and a social critic’s intellectual rigor, Salami draws upon a range of traditions and ideologies, feminist theory, popular culture—including insights from Ms. Lauryn Hill, Beyoncé, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and others—science, philosophy, African myths and origin stories, and her own bold personal narrative to establish a language for change and self-liberation.Sensuous Knowledge inspires reflection and challenge us to formulate or own views. Using ancestral knowledge to steer us toward freedom, Salami reveals the ways that women have protested over the years in large and small ways—models that inspire and empower us to define our own sense of womanhood today.In this riveting meditation, Salami ask women to break free of the prison made by ingrained male centric biases, and build a house themselves—a home that can nurture us all.Learn more about author Minna Salami at the MsAfropolitan blog. Lee M. Pierce (she/they) is an Assistant Professor at SUNY Geneseo specializing in rhetoric, race, and U.S. political culture. They also host the Media & Communications and Language channels for New Books Network and their own podcast titled RhetoricLee Speaking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory