New Books in Critical Theory

20 years ago at Concordia University in Montreal pro-Palestinian protestors clashed with police over whether Benjamin Netanyahu should be allowed to speak on campus. Windows were smashed, arrests were made, the talk was cancelled.The fallout from that day defined how the school year proceeded, with heated council debates, media stunts, lawsuits, explosions, and a contentious student election.This was captured in the film Discordia (2004), and while the fight had no influence over the conflict in the middle east, it was a major moment in the lives of those involved, so we tracked them down.Henry Kissinger once said "the reason that university politics is so vicious is because the stakes are so small." Was he right? We investigate what university politics means, and how it has evolved in the two decades since Discordia.SUPPORT THE SHOWYou can support the show for free by following or subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button.If you want to do a little more we would love it if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too.ABOUT THE SHOWFor a full list of credits, contact information, and more, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

For many residents of Western nations, COVID-19 was the first time they experienced the effects of an uncontrolled epidemic. This is in part due to a series of little-known regulations that have aimed to protect the global north from epidemic threats for the last two centuries, starting with International Sanitary Conferences in 1851 and culminating in the present with the International Health Regulations, which organize epidemic responses through the World Health Organization. Unlike other equity-focused global health initiatives, their mission—to establish "the maximum protections from infectious disease with the minimum effect on trade and traffic"—has remained the same since their founding. In Epidemic Orientalism: Race, Capital, and the Governance of Infectious Disease (Stanford UP, 2023), Alexandre White reveals the Western capitalist interests, racism and xenophobia, and political power plays underpinning the regulatory efforts that came out of the project to manage the international spread of infectious disease. He examines how these regulations are formatted; how their framers conceive of epidemic spread; and the types of bodies and spaces it is suggested that these regulations map onto. Proposing a modified reinterpretation of Edward Said's concept of orientalism, White invites us to consider "epidemic orientalism" as a framework within which to explore the imperial and colonial roots of modern epidemic disease control. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

How do ideas manifest outside of their place of origin, and how do they change once they do? The Emergence of Global Maoism: China’s Red Evangelism and the Cambodian Communist Movement, 1949–1979 (Cornell University Press, 2022) by Matthew Galway examines how ideological systems become localized, both in the indigenization of Marxism-Leninism by Mao Zedong and, more significantly, the indigenization of Maoism by the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Galway carefully investigates how Maoism was received, adapted, utilized, and ultimately rejected in Cambodia, examining in particular the different ways Paris-educated CPK leaders Pol Pot, Hou Yuon, and Hu Nim approached and interpreted Mao's writings and ideas. This intellectual history is wonderfully rich, theoretically grounded in Edward Said’s "traveling theory" model and filled with close readings of little-known, complex texts. The Emergence of Global Maoism is a necessary read for those interested in the history of modern China, Cambodia, and global Maoism, as well as for anyone who has ever wondered what a historian might do with an economics dissertation (the answer: see chapter four).In addition to seeking out The Emergence of Global Maoism, interested listeners should also have a look at “Peasant Worker Communist Spy: A Chinese Intelligence Agent Looks Back at His Time in Cambodia,” a portrait of a CCP intelligence agent in Cambodia, as well as Experiments with Marxism-Leninism in Cold War Southeast Asia (ANU Press, 2022) edited by Matthew Galway and Marc H. Opper, with chapters on the adoption of Marxism in the Dutch East Indies, Maoism in the Philippines, and the Chinese Communist Party in Laos, among other fascinating case studies of experiments with Marxism-Leninism in Southeast Asia.Sarah Bramao-Ramos is a PhD candidate in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard. She works on Manchu language books and is interested in anything with a kesike. She can be reached at sbramaoramos@g.harvard.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Art has a long history of engaging with conflict and violence. From the antiquities, through Goya, to Guernica, our museums are filled with depictions of battles, pogroms, uprisings, and their suppression. Not all of these stories are told from the perspective of the victors.Many contemporary creatives have continued this tradition. While the position of the official war artist seems to have gone out of fashion, conflict hasn’t. Artists are compelled to document the violence and conflict that for some is the matter of the everyday.Kaelan Wilson-Goldie's Beautiful, Gruesome, and True: Artists at Work in the Face of War (Columbia Global Reports, 2022) is an account of the lives and practices of three such artists Teresa Margolles, Amar Kanwar, and the collective Abounadorra. The documents which these practices produce have found their way into the mainstream contemporary art world, for better, or often worse.Kaelan Wilson-Goldie speaks about the implicit contracts artists enter with their communities, the art world's exploitative interest in conflict, and the role of aesthetic expression in mediating, if not ameliorating conflict.Kaelen Wilson-Goldie is a writer and critic who contributes regularly to Artforum, Aperture, and Afterall, among other publications. She is the author of Etel Adnan, a monographic study on the paintings of the Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan, and a contributor to numerous books on modern and contemporary art, including Art Cities of the Future: 21st-Century Avant-Gardes and Huguette Caland: Everything Takes the Shape of a Person. She lives in New York City and Beirut.Teresa Margolles was born in Culiacán, Mexico, and is a conceptual artist known for incorporating the physical memory of conflict and pain into her work. Documentation of Margolles' pavilion in in Venice in 2009, Her works at Mor Charpenter and Peter Kilchmann, Her Fourth Plinth proposal for London. Abounaddara is an anonymous collective known for producing more than 400 short films chronicling the uprising and civil war in Syria. Abounaddara at Documenta 14, The Right to the Image (in Arabic) The Islamic State for Dummies - Part One, 2014. Amar Kanwar was born in New Delhi, India, and has distinguished himself through films and multi‐media works which explore the politics of power, violence and justice. Amar Kanwar's The Season Outside, 1997, and Many Faces of Madness, 2000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Irish vegan studies are poised for increasing relevance as climate change threatens the legitimacy and longevity of animal agriculture and widespread health problems related to animal product consumption disrupt long held nutritional ideologies. Already a top producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, Ireland has committed to expanding animal agriculture despite impending crisis. The nexus of climate change, public health, and animal welfare present a challenge to the hegemony of the Irish state and neoliberal European governance. Efforts to resist animal rights and environmentalism highlight the struggle to sustain economic structures of inequality in a society caught between a colonialist past and a globalized future. Animals in Irish Society: Interspecies Oppression and Vegan Liberation in Britain's First Colony (SUNY Press, 2021) explores the vegan Irish epistemology, one that can be traced along its history of animism, agrarianism, ascendency, adaptation, and activism. From its zoomorphic pagan roots to its legacy of vegetarianism, Ireland has been more receptive to the interests of other animals than is currently acknowledged. More than a land of "meat" and potatoes, Ireland is a relevant, if overlooked, contributor to Western vegan thought.Corey Lee Wrenn is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent. She is the author of several books, including A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press, 2019). Kyle Johannsen is a philosophy instructor at Trent University and Wilfrid Laurier University. His most recent book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Frank Wolff's ground-breaking Yiddish Revolutionaries in Migration: The Transnational History of the Jewish Labour Bund (Haymarket Books, 2021) investigates how this social movement transformed itself from one of the most important revolutionary protagonists in early twentieth-century Russia to a socialist institution of secular Jewish life and yidishkayt for Jews in North and South America. By following thousands of activists’ paths from the shtetlekh of Eastern Europe to the working-class Yiddish neighborhoods of New York and Buenos Aires, Wolff traces the patterns of activism and networks that connected these revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic, resulting in a richly detailed social history of this seminal transnational movement.Frank Wolff is a senior researcher in Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Osnabrück and a board member of the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies with a focus on historical border regimes, Jewish history and law in social history, and on approaches to the mediation of history/public history. Starting in the summer, he will lead a research group on border studies at the Center for Interdisciplinary Study at Bielefeld University.Miriam Chorley-Schulz (neé Schulz) holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University. She is an incoming Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow in Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and currently works as the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies and the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. Miriam is the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Hell on Earth: The 30 Years War and the Violent Birth of Capitalism is a new 10-part series from the creators of Hell of Presidents — one of Entertainment Weekly’s best podcasts of 2021 — and Chapo Trap House, the political podcast that they claim has made more people angrier than any other podcast. Hell on Earth tells the story of the Thirty Years War, 1618–1648. Including the long crisis of the 17th century, the birth of Protestantism and the collapse of Catholic Christendom, and ultimately, “the gleaming T-800 Terminator skeleton of capitalism emerging from the rotting corpse of feudalism”. In addition to tales of lurid violence from a bygone age, of hot death on the battlefield, and cool palace intrigue, Christman and Wade explore climate change, financial collapse, moral panics, speculative bubbles, pandemic, crisis in institutional legitimacy, of conspiracy theories driving policy, and an information revolution that changes the way everyday people relate to their political leaders. Sound familiar? This is the birth of modernity.Chris Wade is a podcast producer who produces Chapo Trap House, Hell of Presidents, And Introducing, and Infinite Cast. He's also produced and directed short films, music festivals, and many years ago written for Slate.com.Matt Christman is the co-author of The Chapo Guide to Revolution and co-hosts the podcast series Hingepoints, about crucial turning points in history, and Hell of Presidents, about American presidents. He’s most well-known for his work with the Chapo Trap House podcast, but he’s also done a number of these history series as well as his almost daily Grillstream in which he muses about history, Marxist theory, and all sorts of fun stuff.Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Resurgence of Global Populism: A Psychoanalytic Study of Projective Identification, Blame-Shifting and the Corruption of Democracy (Routledge, 2022) provides a psychoanalytic perspective to the global implications of the populist movement in the U.S. and its relationship to other parts of the world, particularly focusing on the presidency and legacy of Donald Trump.The book explores Trump's use of psychological form of manipulation known as projective identification and how his use of this defense mechanism has influenced global institutions, political discourse, and quality of life in the long term. Messina explores the correlation between Trump's rhetoric and an increase in reported racism and prejudiced violence worldwide, disintegration of global values, and a radicalized political climate. She analyzes the dynamics between Trump and his supporters, political opponents, and successors, considers the COVID-19 pandemic as a study of Trump's views of the world, and considers the roles of social and television media. The book concludes with an explanation of antidotes to projective identification, including thoughtful debate and meaningful discussions and scripted dialogues for global healing.This insightful book will be of interest to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, academics and students of political psychology and political movements, and readers interested in a deeper analysis of populism and political dynamics.Ashis Roy is a psychoanalyst practicing in Delhi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Fatigue, disorientation, numbness, envy, rage, burnout. What good could come from thinking about trans experience and these bad feelings? In Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad (University of Minnesota Press, 2022), Hil Malatino theorizes the centrality of bad feelings in a world of quotidian and spectacular anti-trans misrecognition, hostility, and violence. He does so not only to understand how bad feelings arise and how they can be hard to survive, but also what they can make possible when they are taken up through political practices of care. Centered on trans experience as it is represented through many cultural productions, Malatino highlights the pressure on trans folks to be made happy by transition. He takes the analysis further by arguing for the power of communal care to enable survival not despite, but through these feelings.Sarah Tyson is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Denver. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Why is it so hard for left wing parties in the West to win elections? Some such as the UK Labour Party have headed to the centre. The history of Labour since 1979 tells the story – their record goes lost, lost, lost, lost, Blair, Blair, Blair, lost, lost, lost, lost. But what does heading the centre consist of? And are their alternative strategies? Listen to Owen Bennett Jones discuss leftist parties and what they need to do to win with Eunice Goes of the Richmond American International University.Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory