New Books in Critical Theory

Laleh Khalili, a Professor at the University of Exeter, dives deep into the darker side of our global economy in her new book, 'Extractive Capitalism.' She explores how the extraction of resources fuels inequality, from the plight of seafarers abandoned on ships to the cronyism that drives corporate profits. Khalili contrasts luxury yacht labor with commercial shipping, revealing stark wealth disparities. She also critiques modern projects like NEOM and China's Belt and Road, discussing their implications for marginalized workers and global capital.

In this fascinating discussion, Karen L. Cox, Professor Emerita of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, dives deep into the contentious issue of Confederate monuments. She unpacks their historical significance and the intense debates surrounding their removal. Listeners will explore the surprising influence of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the complex legacy of white supremacy, and how community engagement is crucial for addressing these polarizing symbols. Cox's insights provide a thought-provoking examination of race, history, and identity.

In Somatic States: On Cartography, Geobodies, Bodily Integrity (Duke UP, 2025), Franck Billé examines the conceptual link between the nation-state and the body, particularly the visceral and affective attachment to the state and the symbolic significance of its borders. Billé argues that corporeal analogies to the nation-state are not simply poetic or allegorical but reflect a genuine association of the individual body with the national outline—an identification greatly facilitated by the emergence of the national map. Billé charts the evolution of cartographic practices and the role that political maps have played in transforming notions of territorial sovereignty. He shows how states routinely and effectively mobilize corporeal narratives, such as framing territorial loss through metaphors of dismemberment and mutilation. Despite the current complexity of geopolitics and neoliberalism, Billé demonstrates that corporeality and bodily metaphors remain viscerally powerful because they offer a seemingly simple way to apprehend the abstract nature of the nation-state. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Nat Dyer, a writer and researcher in global political economy and a fellow of the Schumacher Institute, explores the evolution of economic thought. He delves into David Ricardo’s pivotal role in shaping economic theories that often detach from reality, emphasizing the influence of power and empire. Dyer critiques mainstream economic models, linking them to modern issues like trade dynamics and environmental crises. By challenging traditional views, he advocates for a more grounded approach to economics that addresses inequality and climate change.

Philip V. McHarris, an assistant professor and author, reimagines a world without policing in his compelling insights. He explores the deep-rooted issues of American policing, arguing that safety can thrive through community support rather than law enforcement. McHarris discusses innovative models like community mediators and non-police crisis teams, emphasizing that responses to conflict should focus on care over control. He challenges us to envision a society free from inequality where justice is a collaborative effort.

How has the rise of digital platforms changed domestic labour? In The Return of the Housewife: Why Women Are Still Cleaning Up (Manchester UP, 2025), Emma Casey, a Reader in Sociology at the University of York, explores the rise of the ‘cleanfluencer’. Situating the way specific online discourses now valorise and glamourise housework, the book gets under the false promise of happiness that hides the reality of gendered labour inequalities. Linking housework, digital and platform society, self-help, and feminist theory, the book is a wide-ranging critical blueprint for a new domestic revolution. It is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding the gendered and racialised division of labour in contemporary society.Let's face it, most of the popular podcasts out there are dumb. NBN features scholars (like you!), providing an enriching alternative to students. We partner with presses like Oxford, Princeton, and Cambridge to make academic research accessible to all. Please consider sharing the New Books Network with your students. Download this poster here to spread the word.Please share this interview on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Bluesky. Don't forget to subscribe to our Substack here to receive our weekly newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Russell Blackford, a philosopher and legal scholar from Australia, discusses his book on the decline of liberalism and toleration. He examines how liberal values are often misused or dismissed in today’s political landscape. Blackford traces liberalism’s historical roots, including its ties to Christianity, and analyzes contemporary challenges like the balance between free speech and respect for religious beliefs. He highlights key events, such as the Charlie Hebdo attack, to illustrate the urgent need for open discourse amidst rising authoritarianism and polarization.

Steven Hahn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and professor at New York University, unpacks the deep-seated illiberalism in American history in his new book. He challenges the belief that recent political upheavals are anomalies, revealing that exclusionary practices have long been woven into the fabric of American democracy. Hahn explores the tension between liberal ideals and illiberal traditions, examining historical movements for civil rights and the complicated intersections of race and gender. His insights urge listeners to reconsider the true narratives of American democratic evolution.

Enemy Feminisms: Terfs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2025) is a provocative compendium of the feminisms we love to dismiss and making the case for the bold, liberatory feminist politics we'll need to stand against fascism, nationalism, femmephobia, and cisness. In recent years, "white feminism" and girlboss feminism have taken a justified beating. We know that leaning in won't make our jobs any more tolerable and that white women have proven to be, at best, unreliable allies. But in a time of rising fascism, ceaseless attacks on reproductive justice, and violent transphobia, we need to reckon with what Western feminism has wrought if we have any hope of building the feminist world we need. Sophie Lewis offers an unflinching tour of enemy feminisms, from 19th century imperial feminists and police officers to 20th century KKK feminists and pornophobes to today's anti-abortion and TERF feminists. Enemy feminisms exist. Feminism is not an inherent political good. Only when we acknowledge that can we finally reckon with the ways these feminisms have pushed us toward counterproductive and even violent ends. And only then can we finally engage in feminist strategizing that is truly antifascist. At once a left transfeminist battlecry against cisness, a decolonial takedown of nationalist womanhoods, and a sex-radical retort to femmephobia in all its guises, Enemy Feminisms is above all a fierce, brilliant love letter to feminism.About the AuthorSophie Lewis is a writer. Her books, Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, and Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, have been translated into nine languages.Sophie grew up in France, half-British, half-German, but now lives in Philadelphia and teaches online courses on utopian theory at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She also has a visiting affiliation with the Center for Research on Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.About the Host Stuti Roy has recently graduated with an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford. She holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Gangnam is an exclusive zone of privilege and wealth that has lured South Korean pop culture industries since the 1980s and fueled the aspirations of Seoul’s middle class, producing in its wake the “dialectical images” of the modern city described by Walter Benjamin: sweet dreams and nightmares, visions of heaven and hell, scenes of spectacular rises and great falls. In Polarizing Dreams: Gangnam and Popular Culture in Globalizing Korea (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2024), Pil Ho Kim weaves together dissident poetry and protest songs from the 1980s, B-rated adult films, tour bus disco music, obscure early works by famous authors and filmmakers, interviews with sex workers and urban entrepreneurs, and other sources to show how Gangnam is at the heart of Korea’s global-polarization.Dr. Pil Ho Kim is Associate Professor of Korean in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at The Ohio State University. A sociologist by training, he has been studying and teaching a wide range of topics related to modern Korea, including popular music, cinema, literature, urban culture, and social polarization.Leslie Hickman is a translator and writer. She has an MA in Korean Studies from Yonsei University and lives in Seoul, South Korea. You can follow her activities at https://twitter.com/AJuseyo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory