New Books in Critical Theory

Jason Read discusses the intersection of Marx and Spinoza in relation to the politics of work, critiquing capitalism and societal perceptions of labor. Topics include workplace dynamics, labor politics, societal norms, and the impact of work relations on politics.

Michele Goodwin discusses the criminalization of motherhood in the US, highlighting shocking cases like women giving birth in prison toilets and facing coerced sterilization. She explores the historical context of oppression, racial disparities in legal treatment, and the impact on marginalized communities. The discussion extends to the over-policing of pregnancy behaviors, unjust detentions, and the need for explicit protections in reproductive rights

Alan H. McGowan discusses Franz Boas's impactful dual identity as a scientist and political activist, highlighting his work in cultural relativism and social justice. The podcast explores Boas's commitment to antiracism, cultural relativism, and social change, revealing the enduring relevance of his ideas in contemporary discussions on race and inequality. McGowan's insightful analysis makes this podcast a valuable resource for understanding the intersection of science and politics.

An interview with Prof. Salman Sayyid on one of the theoretical constructs that underpins Critical Muslim Studies: Post-Positivism. Interviewer: Hizer Mir. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Amrita Ghosh's book Kashmir's Necropolis: Literary, Cultural, and Visual Texts (Lexington Books, 2023) is an interdisciplinary book that studies literary texts, film, photography, and art to understand the different forms of violence represented in the cultural productions from and on Kashmir. The author argues that selected texts present how the long conflict in the postcolonial nation-state transforms the Kashmiri body, the space, setting, the relationship between the subject and its natural world under different forms of violence. Each chapter showcases a form of representational and textual violence that emphasizes the shifts from biopolitical to necropolitical violence and also includes specific forms of violence such as epicolonialism, horrorism, and hauntings in Kashmir’s landscape. The book also delves into how the concepts of agency, resistance, and resilience in these different texts necessitate new poetics of looking at Kashmir. The conflicted space of Kashmir has always been located within the politics of representation and this book investigates a problem in taxonomy within postcolonial discourses to articulate unique forms of violence in such a conflicted space.Arnab Dutta Roy is Assistant Professor of World Literature and Postcolonial Theory at Florida Gulf Coast University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

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 amounts to more than there being an insufficient supply of adequate shelter. It rather is tied to a range of other forms of social and economic vulnerability – and many of these forms of vulnerability impede a citizen’s capacity to function as a full member of society. What’s more, the familiar terms we deploy in discussing the housing crisis – gentrification, integration, segregation, and so on – stand in need of philosophical clarification.In Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction (Oxford UP, 2024), Ronald R. Sundstrom draws upon tools derived from moral philosophy, political theory, and urban studies to provide the beginning of a comprehensive analysis of justice in “social-spatial arrangements.” He proposes a liberal-egalitarian and reconstructive, yet pragmatic, approach to addressing the challenges posed by our country’s legacy of unjust housing policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

This field-defining volume of queer anthropology foregrounds both the brilliance of anthropological approaches to queer and trans life and the ways queer critique can reorient and transform anthropology. Consisting of fourteen original essays by both distinguished and new voices, Unsettling Queer Anthropology: Foundations, Reorientations, and Departures (Duke UP, 2024) advances a vision of queer anthropology grounded in decolonial, abolitionist, Black feminist, transnational, postcolonial, Indigenous, and queer of color approaches. Critically assessing both anthropology’s queer innovations and its colonialist legacies, contributors highlight decades of work in queer anthropology; challenge the boundaries of anthropology’s traditional methodologies, forms, and objects of study; and forge a critical, queer of color, decolonizing queer anthropology that unsettles anthropology’s normative epistemologies. At a moment of revitalized calls to reckon with the white supremacist and settler colonial logics that continue to shape anthropology, this volume advances an anthropology accountable to the vitality of queer and trans life.Contributors. Jafari Sinclair Allen, Tom Boellstorff, Erin L. Durban, Elijah Adiv Edelman, Lyndon K. Gill, K. Marshall Green, Brian A. Horton, Nikki Lane, Martin F. Manalansan IV, Shaka McGlotten, Scott L. Morgensen, Kwame Otu, Juno Salazar Parreñas, Lucinda Ramberg, Sima Shakhsari, Savannah Shange, Anne Spice, Margot Weiss, Ara WilsonMargot Weiss is Associate Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she directs the cluster in Queer Studies. Her research, teaching, and writing move between queer theory and anthropology. She is the author of the award-winning Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality and editor of Queer Then and Now and Unsettling Queer Anthropology: Foundations, Reorientations, and Departures. Past president of the Association for Queer Anthropology (AQA), she serves on the board of CLAGS: The Center for LGBT/Queer Studies and the Society for Cultural Anthropology (SCA). She is a founding member of the Wesleyan University Chapter of the AAUP.Clayton Jarrard is an incoming graduate student at NYU's XE: Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement program and a Research Project Coordinator at the University of Kansas Center for Research. His scholarly engagement spans the subject areas of Cultural Anthropology, Queer Studies, Disability Studies, Mad Studies, and Religious Studies. Clayton is also a host for the Un/Livable Cultures podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Anthony Heath and Yaojun Li, experts in sociology from Oxford and Manchester, discuss the concept of social mobility in their book. They explore historical trends, international comparisons, gender and ethnicity influences, and the role of social class in shaping mobility. The podcast delves into the correlation between economic inequality and mobility, gender's evolving impact, and the complexities of ethnicity in social mobility.

Poverty is big business in America. The federal government spends about $900 billion a year on programs that directly or disproportionately impact poor Americans, including antipoverty programs such as the earned income tax credit, Medicaid, and affordable housing vouchers and subsidies. States and local governments spend tens of billions more. Ironically, these enormous sums fuel the “corporate poverty complex,” a vast web of hidden industries and entrenched private-sector interests that profit from the bureaucracies regulating the lives of the poor. From bail bondsmen to dialysis providers to towing companies, their business models depend on exploiting low-income Americans, and their political influence ensures a thriving set of industries where everyone profits except the poor, while U.S. taxpayers foot the bill.In Poverty for Profit: How Corporations Get Rich off America’s Poor (The New Press, 2024), veteran journalist Anne Kim investigates the multiple industries that infiltrate almost every aspect of the lives of the poor—health care, housing, criminal justice, and nutrition. She explains how these businesses are aided by public policies such as the wholesale privatization of government services and the political influence these industries wield over lawmakers and regulators. Supported by original investigative reporting on the lesser-known players profiting from the antipoverty industry, Poverty for Profit adds a crucial dimension to our understanding of how structural inequality and structural racism function today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Sa’ed Atshan, an anthropologist and activist, discusses the struggles of the Palestinian LGBTQ movement against homophobia, patriarchal nationalism, and the Israeli occupation. He highlights the impact of ideological critiques on the movement and emphasizes the resilience and agency of queer Palestinians. Atshan explores the complexities of intersectional activism and envisions a future where diverse voices within the queer Palestinian community can shape new possibilities.