New Books Network
Critical Theory
Geography April 21, 2021

Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future

Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartography in Hawai'i

Candace Fujikane

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
In Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai'i (Duke University Press, 2021), Candace Fujikane draws upon Hawaiian stories about the land and water and their …

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Philosophy April 20, 2021

Curiosity and Power

The Politics of Inquiry

Perry Zurn

Hosted by Sarah Tyson
Is curiosity political? Does it have a philosophical lineage? In Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), Perry Zurn shows, consequentially, yes. He further asks …
Literary Studies April 20, 2021

The World after the End of the World

A Spectro-Poetics

Kas Saghafi

Hosted by Britton Edelen
In this episode, I interview Kas Saghafi, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis, about his book The World After the End of the World, published through SUNY …
Literary Studies April 16, 2021

Contingent Figure

Chronic Pain and Queer Embodiment

Michael D. Snediker

Hosted by Britton Edelen
In this episode, I interview Michael Snediker, professor of English at the University of Houston, about his book, Contingent Figure: Chronic Pain and Queer Embodiment, recently published by University of …
Critical Theory April 16, 2021

Redlining Culture

A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction

Richard Jean So

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What is the story of race in American fiction? In Redlining Culture: A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction (Columbia University Press, 2020), Richard Jean So, an assistant professor of …
Literary Studies April 15, 2021

Prosthesis

David Wills

Hosted by Britton Edelen
In this episode, I interview David Wills, professor of French Studies at Brown University, about his book, Prosthesis, recently republished for its 25th anniversary by University of Minnesota Press. A …
Education April 13, 2021

Bearing with Strangers

Arendt, Education and the Politics of Inclusion

Morten T Korsgaard

Hosted by Kai Wortmann
Bearing with Strangers: Arendt, Education and the Politics of Inclusion (Routledge, 2018) looks at inclusion in education in a new way. By introducing the notion of the instrumental fallacy, it shows …
Critical Theory April 12, 2021

Abolishing Freedom

A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism

Frank Ruda

Hosted by Dominik Finkelde
Frank Ruda's book Abolishing Freedom. A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism (University of Nebraska Press 2016) presents a compelling reading of authors diverse as Martin Luther, Descartes, Kant …
Education April 9, 2021

Forms of Education

Rethinking Educational Experience Against and Outside the Humanist Legacy

Emile Bojesen

Hosted by Kai Wortmann
Emile Bojesen's book Forms of Education: Rethinking Educational Experience Against and Outside the Humanist Legacy (Routledge, 2019) analyses the tenets of the humanist legacy in terms of its educational ethos, examining …
Art April 6, 2021

The Making of the American Creative Class

New York's Culture Workers and Twentieth-Century Consumer Capitalism

Shannan Clark

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
During the middle decades of the twentieth century, the production of America’s consumer culture was centralized in New York to an extent unparalleled in the history of the United States …
Critical Theory April 5, 2021

Warped

Gay Normality and Queer Anti-Capitalism

Peter Drucker

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The last several decades have seen tremendous political and cultural strides forward for the LGBTQ+ community with both the legislative and cultural recognition helping many secure a more safe and …
LGBTQ+ Studies April 2, 2021

Poor Queer Studies

Confronting Elitism in the University

Matt Brim

Hosted by John Marszalek
In Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University (Duke UP, 2020), Matt Brim shifts queer studies away from its familiar sites of elite education toward poor and working-class people …
Critical Theory April 2, 2021

Imperial Encore

The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire

Caroline Ritter

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What role did culture play in the British Empire? In Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire (University of California Press, 2021), Caroline Ritter, an Assistant Professor of …
Eastern European Studies March 31, 2021

Historicizing Roma in Central Europe

Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice

Victoria R. Shmidt and Bernadette N. Jaworsky

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In Central Europe, limited success in revisiting the role of science in the segregation of Roma reverberates with the yet-unmet call for contextualizing the impact of ideas on everyday racism …
Psychoanalysis March 31, 2021

Freud and Said

Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis

Robert Beshara

Hosted by Vira Sachenko
Robert Beshara’s Freud and Said: Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis (Palgrave, 2021) is a guide through the textual relationship between the work of Sigmund Freud and Edward Said. It is also a …
Geography March 30, 2021

Feminist Geography Unbound

Discount, Bodies, and Prefigured Futures

Banu Görkariksel et al.

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
Feminist Geography Unbound: Discomfort, Bodies, and Prefigured Futures, edited by Banu Gökarıksel, Michael Hawkins, Christopher Neubert, and Sara Smith (West Virginia University Press, 2021) is a collection of papers by a diverse …
Sociology March 29, 2021

Forever Suspect

Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on Terror

Saher Selod

Hosted by Nafeesa Andrabi
How does a specific American religious identity acquire racial meaning? What happens when we move beyond phenotypes and include clothing, names, and behaviors to the characteristics that inform ethnoracial categorization? Forever Suspect, Racialized …
Critical Theory March 24, 2021

Decolonizing Politics

An Introduction

Robbie Shilliam

Hosted by Yi Ning Chang
Robbie Shilliam’s new book for the Polity Press’s “Decolonizing the Curriculum” series explores how the discipline of political science was born of colonialism, and takes us through different ways of …
Critical Theory March 24, 2021

Red Creative

Culture and Modernity in China

Justin O'Connor and Xin Gu

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
Red Creative: Culture and Modernity in China (Intellect Books, 2020) is an exploration of China’s cultural economy over the last twenty years, particularly through the lens of its creative hub of …
Middle Eastern Studies March 23, 2021

Egypt's Occupation

Colonial Economism and the Crises of Capitalism

Aaron G. Jakes

Hosted by Nancy Ko
The story is a familiar one. In 1882, the British invaded Egypt to secure payment on the country’s crippling foreign debts and quash the movement for fiscal sovereignty and constitutional …