Shows / New Books in Critical Theory
New Books in Critical Theory
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in Critical Theory
Emile Chabal, "The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian" (Harvard UP, 2026)
Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) was one of the foremost European intellectuals of the twentieth century. He published hundreds of articles on modern history and…
- New Books in Critical Theory
A Cure for Loneliness: On Homecoming with Ian Marcus Corbin
Americans are more isolated, polarized, and depressed than ever in recent memory, and yet many citizens share a deep desire for community and friendship across…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Roderick Beaton, "Europe: A New History" (Allen Lane, 2026)
What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe: A New History (Allen Lane…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Utathya Chattopadhyaya, "Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India" (U California Press, 2026)
Ganja is the popular name in Hindustani, Bengali, and other South Asian languages for intoxicating substances produced from the plant species Cannabis sativa…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Ting Hui Lau, "Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism" (Stanford UP, 2026)
A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Gregorio Astengo and Davide Spina eds.,"Real Estate: Histories of Architecture and Capital" (gta Verlag, 2026)
Real Estate: Histories of Architecture and Capital (gta Verlag, 2026)challenges the conventional assumption that architects and planners are the principal…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, "God and Knowledge: Herman Bavinck's Theological Epistemology" (T&T Clark, 2021)
N. Gray Sutanto offers a fresh reading of Herman Bavinck's theological epistemology and argues that his Trinitarian and organic worldview utilizes an extensive…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Sophie Chao, "Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger" (Duke UP, 2025)
In Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger (Duke UP, 2025), Sophie Chao examines how Indigenous Marind communities understand and theorize…
- New Books in Critical Theory
The New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and Epidemiological Medicine with Jonathan Fuller
Jonathan Fuller’s The New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and Epidemiological Medicine (Oxford UP, 2025) takes the reader on a philosophical tour through…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Michael R. Griffiths, "The Death of the Author and Anticolonial Thought" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
The Death of the Author and Anticolonial Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) promises to transform a decades old debate in literary studies about the relation…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Oli Mould, "Postcapitalist cities: Towards a common urban future" (Manchester UP, 2026)
What is the future for cities? In Postcapitalist Cities: Towards a common urban future (Manchester University Press, 2026) Oli Mould, a Professor of Cultural…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Deborah Barer, "Going Off Script: Improvisational Judgment in the Talmud" (Oxford UP, 2026)
What does it really mean to go "beyond the letter of the law"? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with scholar Deborah Barer to discuss her book Going…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Leopoldina Fortunati, "The Arcana of Reproduction: Housewives, Prostitutes, Workers and Capital" (Verso, 2025)
The definitive feminist analysis of reproductive and ‘caring’ labor to emerge from Italian feminism of the 1970s. Emerging from the great social upheavals that…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Andres Saenz de Sicilia, "Subsumption in Kant, Hegel and Marx: From the Critique of Reason to the Critique of Society" (Brill, 2024)
Subsumption in Kant, Hegel and Marx: From the Critique of Reason to the Critique of Society is the latest book from Dr Andres Saenz De Sicilia, an Assistant…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Giulio Boccaletti, "The Environmental Republic: Why Citizens Will Save the World" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Republicanism is arguably the most powerful political idea in history, an extraordinary feat of human imagination that balances individual liberty with…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Katharina Stevens, "The Ethics of Argumentation" (Routledge, 2025)
The Ethics of Argumentation (Routledge, 2025) offers a new approach to the theory of argumentation that conceptualizes argumentation as a fundamentally ethical…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Valena Beety, "Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity" (New Press, 2026)
A woman miscarries—and is charged with murder. A new mother tests positive for a drug her hospital administered—and loses custody of her newborn. Four women…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Lisa Blaydes and Samuel Helfont eds., "Ba‘thist Iraq Through Archives: Reflections, Explorations, and Opportunities" (Stanford UP, 2026)
The opening of Iraq's Ba'th Party archives revolutionized the study of Iraqi politics and history, offering scholars unprecedented access to the inner workings…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Paul Langley and Andrew Leyshon, "Fintech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance" (Princeton UP, 2026)
How is finance changing in the contemporary world? In FinTech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance (Princeton University Press…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Toby Miller and Joan Pedro Carañana, "Global Sports Go Green—Or Do They?" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026)
Just how much damage is sport doing to the planet? In Global Sports Go Green—Or Do They? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) Toby Miller, Profesor Distinguido at the…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Todd McGowan, "Self-Sabotage: How We Try Not to Flourish" (Polity Press, 2026)
Self-Sabotage: How We Try Not to Flourish (Polity Press, 2026) contends that an unconscious impulse to undermine our own interests plays a dominant role in our…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Lily Kelting, "Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods" (UNC Press, 2026)
The rise of “heritage” foods—that is, the reinvention of traditional foods—has enjoyed a high profile thanks to the oft-praised efforts of chefs such as Sean…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Elad Lapidot, "State of Others: Levinas and Decolonial Israel" (Indiana UP, 2025)
Elad Lapidot is Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Lille, France. His work is guided by questions concerning the relation between knowledge and…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Kurt Warner, "False Idols: How Diversion is Destroying Democracy" (Vernon Press, 2024)
False Idols: How Diversion is Destroying Democracy (Vernon Press, 2024) examines how modern forms of diversion shape civic life and weaken democratic…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Timothy Mitchell, "The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow" (Verso, 2026)
Stealing the future and concealing the theft—capitalism’s method, as examined by the author of the acclaimed Carbon Democracy Today, extraordinary wealth seems…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Caste as a Material Question with Rahul Sonpimple
This episode featured a conversation with Rahul Sonpimple, founder of the All-India Independent Scheduled Castes Association. Our conversation began with…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Martin Fitzgerald, "The Umbrella Man and Other Stories: What We Talk about When We Talk about the JFK Assassination" (Biteback Publishing, 2026)
What does the JKF assassination mean to us now? In The Umbrella Man and Other Stories: What We Talk About When We Talk About the JFK Assassination, (Biteback…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Luna Sabastian, "Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Fascism swept the world in the 1920s and 1930s, but not only because of the seductive rhetoric of Mussolini, Hitler, and their collaborators. In India as…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Recall This Book x The Caste Pod: a Crossover episode with Ajantha Subramanian
In the spirit of Hannah Arendt's natality principle (that new things are always and should always be being born, each one unique and endowed with limitless…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Heidegger in Ruins
Martin Heidegger’s sympathies for the conservative revolution and National Socialism have long been well known. As the rector of the University of Freiburg in…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, "Freedom to Know: Creating Community with Ambedkar, Du Bois, Iqbal, Ramabai and Tagore" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
Freedom to Know: Creating Community with Ambedkar, Du Bois, Iqbal, Ramabai and Tagore (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) asks how a (world) community can be…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Alexandre Frenette, "Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking Into the Creative Economy" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Who gets to be a creative worker? In Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking Into the Creative Economy, (Princeton University Press, 2026) Alexandre Frenette, an…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Gajendran Ayyathurai, "Tamil Buddhism and Brahminism in Modern India: Deep Resistance Against Caste" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Tamil Buddhism and Brahminism in Modern India: Deep Resistance Against Caste (Oxford University Press, 2026) explores Tamil Buddhism in modern India, focusing…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Joseph Turow, "The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
A respected voice on technology shows how seemingly simple ads help dismantle democracy and public discourse. Whether you’re intentionally shopping or casually…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Kate Bayliss, "Privatising Humanity: How Our Essential Human Needs Became Financial Assets" (Manchester UP, 2026)
Privatising Humanity: How Our Essential Human Needs Became Financial Assets (Manchester UP, 2026) is the latest book from Dr Kate Bayliss, a Senior Research…
- New Books in Critical Theory
The Once and Future Republic: On Cicero, Locke, and the Making of America with Michael C. Hawley
In preparation for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, it would be wise to look back at the ancient thinkers and writers who helped inspire its early…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Charles J. Stivale, "Unfolding the Deleuze Seminars, 1970–1987: Summaries and Commentary" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
From the inside flap: “A rich resource of Deleuze’s research that is unavailable in his published writing Includes summaries of 216 seminar sessions available…
- New Books in Critical Theory
The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest
Research shows that honesty is the single most important characteristic a person can possess when it comes to liking them, respecting them, and understanding…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Hilary R. Buxton, "Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain (U Chicago Press, 2026) examines how imperial precedents and racial ideologies shaped the…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Valerie Tiberius, "What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters" (Princeton UP, 2024)
What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money―or work for justice? To have children―or travel the world? The things we care about in life―family…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Jean-Philippe Deranty, "The Case for Work" (Oxford UP, 2024)
A post-work movement is gaining popularity among academics, artists, and activists, in reaction to the many harms and injustices plaguing current labour…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Robin Dembroff, "Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality" (Oxford UP, 2026)
In Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality (Oxford University Press, 2026), Robin Dembroff shows us that we don't just live in a patriarchal world…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Steven Segal, "Mandela’s Leadership Legacy: Emotional and Existential Wisdom" (Routledge, 2026)
In Mandela’s Leadership Legacy: Emotional and Existential Wisdom (Routledge, 2026) Steven Segal explores Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary ability to lead through…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Michael D. Nichols, "Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films" (McFarland, 2026)
Fans of Batman are used to seeing the Caped Crusader associate with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but what if one were to put the Dark Knight into…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Legacy of the Ancient Greeks: On Classical and Modern Democracy with Josiah Ober
American democracy is in a period of crisis, so it seems natural to look back to its origins. So here in Episode 10 of Season 5, I interview Professor Josiah…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Raissa von Doetinchem de Rande, "The Politics of Islamic Ethics: Hierarchy and Human Nature in the Philosophical Tradition (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Fundamental to Islamic thought is the idea that there is a way that human beings simply are, by nature or creation. This concept is called fiṭra. In The…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Curtis Dozier, "The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate" (Yale UP, 2026)
Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how white…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Jeffrey Hoelle, "Cultivated: Plants, Hair, and the Aesthetic of Control" (Yale UP, 2026)
An exploration of the concept of cultivation, as conducted on both the land and the body, which expands our understanding of it as practice, aesthetic, and…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Jeffrey R. Di Leo et al. eds., "Theory as World Literature" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
What does it mean for theory to be considered as a species of not just literature but world literature? Theory as World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2025), edited…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Don Thomas Deere, "The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space" (Duke UP, 2026)
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026), Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Arlene W. Saxonhouse, "Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists" (U Notre Dame Press, 2026)
Athenian Democracy provides innovative readings of ancient theorists to reveal both the complexity of democracy's achievements and its limits. In Athenian…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Natalia Rogach Alexander, "Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey" (Columbia UP, 2025)
John Dewey is among history’s most celebrated thinkers on democracy and education, yet he has often been underappreciated and misunderstood as a philosopher…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Joanna Stalnaker, "The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death" (Yale UP, 2025)
What would the Enlightenment look like if we viewed it through the eyes of the philosophers as they were facing death? Joanna Stalnaker turns our usual…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Javier Arbona-Homar, "Explosivity: Following What Remains" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
Offering a novel approach to contemporary landscape studies, Explosivity: Following What Remains (U Minnesota Press, 2025) unearths the hidden legacies of…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Christina Lord, "Reimagining the Human in Contemporary French Science Fiction" (Liverpool UP, 2023)
The study of French science fiction – even in France – remains an underexploited field. Only recently have French literary scholars been able to gain…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Michael Brownstein et al., "Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change" (MIT Press, 2025)
A novel and scientific approach to creating transformative social change—and the surprising ways that each of us can help make a real difference. Changing the…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Emmanuel Buzay, "Contemporary French and Francophone Futuristic Novels: The Longing to be Written and Its Refusal" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
Contemporary French and Francophone Futuristic Novels: The Longing to be Written and Its Refusal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) sheds a new light on the…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Lawrence Douglas, "The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice" (Princeton UP, 2026)
The Criminal State: War, Atrocity, and the Dream of International Justice (Princeton University Press, 2026) offers a gripping account of how law has…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Alex Law, "The Roots of Sociology: Scottish Enlightenment and the Civilising Process" (Routledge, 2026)
The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment have often been claimed for sociology. But, what does it mean to say these thinkers were sociologists, or at the…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, "Something We Said: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word and Me" (37 Ink, 2026)
The N-word is one of the most perplexing, controversial and misunderstood words in the American lexicon. It’s a word that Elizabeth Pryor has not only…