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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
Adnan Husain on Reorienting History
In this episode, Chella Ward and Salman Sayyid talked to Adnan Husain about some of the challenges involved in reorienting history. We spoke about the…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Eugene W. Holland, "Perversions of the Market: Sadism, Masochism, and the Culture of Capitalism" (SUNY Press, 2024)
Perversions of the Market: Sadism, Masochism, and the Culture of Capitalism (SUNY Press, 2024) argues that capitalism fosters sadism and masochism--not as…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Martyn Percy, "The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism: Empire, Slavery and Revolt in the Church of England" (Hurst, 2025)
The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism: Empire, Slavery and Revolt in the Church of England (Hurst, 2025) by Dr. Martyn Percy offers a bold and unsettling truth…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Jamieson Webster, "On Breathing: Care in a Time of Catastrophe" (Catapult, 2025)
A few moments after birth we begin to use our lungs for the first time. From then on, we must continue breathing for as long as we are alive. And although this…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Violent Majorities 2.2: Subir Sinha on Hindutva as Long-Distance Ethnonationalism
Lori Allen and Ajantha Subramanian continue their second series on Violent Majorities. Their previous episode featured Peter Beinart on Zionism as…
- New Books in Critical Theory
William M. Paris, "Race, Time, and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation" (Oxford UP, 2024)
How does time figure in racial domination? What is the relationship between the capitalist organization of time and racial domination? Could utopian thinking…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Melinda Cooper, "Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance" (Zone Books, 2024)
At the close of the 1970s, government treasuries and central banks took a vow of perpetual self-restraint. To this day, fiscal authorities fret over soaring…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Yoni Appelbaum, "Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of Prosperity" (Random House, 2025)
We take it for granted that good neighborhoods—with good schools and good housing—are inaccessible to all but the very wealthy. But, in America, this wasn’t…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Briony Hannell, "Feminist Fandom: Media Fandom, Digital Feminisms, and Tumblr" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
What is the connection between fan culture and feminism? In Media Fandom, Digital Feminisms, and Tumblr (Bloomsbury, 2023), Briony Hannell, a lecturer in…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Peter Burke, "Ignorance: A Global History" (Yale UP, 2024)
Throughout history, every age has thought of itself as more knowledgeable than the last. Renaissance humanists viewed the Middle Ages as an era of darkness…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Professor Priyamvada Gopal on Anticolonial Resistance
In this episode Chella Ward and Salman Sayyid talked to Professor Priyamvada Gopal, Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the University of Cambridge. We talked…
New Books in Critical TheoryFailed Passing
Ian Fleishman develops the concept of failed passing in his new book Flamboyant Fictions, which reimagines free will in queer lives as an accidental…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Iain D. Thomson, "Rethinking Death in and after Heidegger" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
We are coming up on the centenary of Heidegger’s Being and Time, a text that radically reshaped the intellectual landscape. One of its most central themes…
New Books in Critical TheoryIn Conversation: Decolonial Activism and Islamophobia in France
In this episode, Amina Easat-Daas interviews Houria Bouteldja on decolonial activism and Islamophobia in France. Support our show by becoming a premium member!…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Tao Leigh Goffe, "Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis" (Doubleday Books, 2025)
In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived on the Caribbean Island of Guanahaní to find an Edenic scene that was soon mythologized. But behind the myth of paradise…
- New Books in Critical Theory
"Insurgent Ecologies: Between Environmental Struggles and Postcapitalist Transformations" (Fernwood Publishing, 2024)
We are living through a world-rattling ecological inflection point, with an unprecedented consensus that capitalism is leading humanity into a social and…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Richard Rorty, "What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Today I talked to Chris Voparil about What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (Princeton UP, 2023), a book of Richard Rorty's writings he co-edited with W…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Corinne Mitsuye Sugino, "Making the Human: Race, Allegory, and Asian Americans" (Rutgers UP, 2024)
In this episode, I talked to Corinne Sugino, whose book Making the Human: Race, Allegory, and Asian Americans (Rutgers UP, 2024) examines how mainstream…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Seung-hoon Jeong, "Biopolitical Ethics in Global Cinema" (Oxford UP, 2023)
If world cinema studies have mostly displayed national cinemas and their transnational mutations, Seung-hoon Jeong’s global frame highlights two conflicting…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Zahi Zalloua, "The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment (Bloomsbury 2024) argues for ressentiment's generative negativity, prompting a shift from…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Davide Panagia, "Sentimental Empiricism: Politics, Philosophy, and Criticism in Postwar France" (Fordham UP, 2024)
Political Theorist Davide Panagia (UCLA) has two new books out focusing on the broader themes and ideas of film, aesthetics, and political theory. Sentimental…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Violent Majorities 2.1: Peter Beinart on Long-Distance Israeli Ethnonationalism (LA, AS)
Political anthropologists Ajantha Subramanian and Lori Allen are back to continue RTB's Violent Majorities series with a set of three episodes on long-distance…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Silvia Vong, "Critical Management Studies and Librarianship" (Library Juice Press, 2024)
Critical Management Studies and Librarianship: Critical Perspectives on Library Management Education and Practice (Library Juice Press, November 2024)…
- New Books in Critical Theory
James Fenwick, "Archive Histories: An Archaeology of the Stanley Kubrick Archive" (Liverpool UP, 2024)
What can archives tell us about the film industry? In Archive Histories: An Archaeology of the Stanley Kubrick Archive (Liverpool UP, 2024), James Fenwick, a…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Mirca Madianou, "Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful" (Polity, 2024)
With over 300 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and with emergencies and climate disasters becoming more common, AI and big data are being…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Wilton S. Wright, "Rewriting Resistance to Social Justice Pedagogies" (Lexington Books, 2024)
Resistance to feminist, queer, and antiracist pedagogies can take many forms in the composition class: silence during class discussion; tepid, bland writing…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Peter Brian Barry, "George Orwell: The Ethics of Equality" (Oxford UP, 2023)
George Orwell is sometimes read as disinterested in (if not outright hostile) to philosophy. Yet a fair reading of Orwell's work reveals an author whose work…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Philip Rathgeb, "How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism and Welfare in Europe and the USA" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Radical right parties are no longer political challengers on the fringes of party systems; they have become part of the political mainstream across the Western…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Michael Sonenscher, "After Kant: The Romans, the Germans, and the Moderns in the History of Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2023)
In this wide-ranging work, Michael Sonenscher traces the origins of modern political thought and ideologies to a question, raised by Immanuel Kant, about what…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Richard Bourke, "Hegel’s World Revolutions" (Princeton UP, 2023)
G.W.F. Hegel was widely seen as the greatest philosopher of his age. Ever since, his work has shaped debates about issues as varied as religion, aesthetics and…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Andrew Smith, "Class and the Uses of Poetry: Symbolic Enclosures" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
Sociologists have had surprisingly little to say about poetry as a topic while sometimes also making grandiose claims that sociology is/should be like poetry…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Michael Tondre, "Oil" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Black gold. Liquid sunlight. Texas tea. Oil remains the ur-commodity of our global era, having been distilled from ancient algae and marine life to turn…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Ryan Tan Wander, "Settler Tenses: Queer Time and Literatures of the American West" (Texas Tech UP, 2024)
In today’s cultural and political climate of relative LGBTQ+ inclusion, Settler Tenses: Queer Time and Literatures of the American West (Texas Tech University…
- New Books in Critical Theory
August H. Nimtz and Kyle A. Edwards, "The Communist and the Revolutionary Liberal in the Second American Revolution" (Brill, 2024)
The last decade has seen a resurgence of interest and urgency to questions of racial oppression and emancipation. We’ve now had about a decade of activists…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Alva Gotby, "Feeling at Home: Transforming the Politics of Housing" (Verso, 2025)
Housing is more than bricks and mortar. The home is where our hopes and dreams play out, and it lies at the heart of our lives. This is where we rest, eat, and…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Arthur Bradley, "Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theater, Thaumaturgy" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theater, Thaumaturgy (Columbia University Press, 2024) explores the relationship between theater and sovereignty in modern…
- New Books in Critical Theory
James Malazita, "Enacting Platforms: Feminist Technoscience and the Unreal Engine" (MIT Press, 2024)
An analysis of the game engine Unreal through feminist, race, and queer theories of technology and media, as well as a critique of the platform studies…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Cordelia Fine, "Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society" (Norton, 2018)
Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in human development. According to this overly familiar story…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Jennifer Greenburg, "At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War" (Cornell UP, 2023)
At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Jennifer Greenburg reveals how…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Matthew McManus, "The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism" (Routledge, 2024)
In The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism (Routledge, 2024), McManus presents a comprehensive guide to the liberal socialist tradition, stretching from Mary…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti, "Politicizing Political Liberalism: On the Containment of Illiberal and Antidemocratic Views" (Oxford UP, 2024)
How should broadly liberal democratic societies stop illiberal and antidemocratic views from gaining influence while honouring liberal democratic values? This…
New Books in Critical TheoryIn Conversation: Epistemology, Critical Race Theory and Critical Muslim Studies
In this episode, Uzma Jamil is speaking to Stephen Sheehi on epistemology, critical race theory and critical Muslim studies. Support our show by becoming a…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Negative Life
Steven Swarbrick and Jean-Thomas Tremblay talk about negative life, which names the misalignment of individual and species survival, as a condition of thought…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Adam Elliott-Cooper, "Black Resistance to British Policing" (Manchester UP, 2021)
As police racism unsettles Britain's tolerant self-image, Black Resistance to British Policing (Manchester UP, 2021) details the activism that made movements…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Christopher Phelps and Robin Vandome, "Marxism and America: New Appraisals" (Manchester UP, 2021)
If the United States has been so hostile to Marxism, what accounts for Marxism's recurrent attractiveness to certain Americans? Marxism and America: New…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Joel Whitebook, "Freud: An Intellectual Biography" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
We interview Dr. Joel Whitebook, philosopher and psychoanalyst about his book Freud: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge UP, 2017). Dr. Whitebook works in…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Peter Mandler, "The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain's Transition to Mass Education Since the Second World War" (Oxford UP, 2020)
How did public demand shape education in the 20th century? In The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain’s Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Todd McGowan, "Universality and Identity Politics" (Columbia UP, 2020)
The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Left has…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Stuart Elden, "The Early Foucault" (Polity Press, 2021)
What were the key ideas and influences on Michel Foucault’s early career? In The Early Foucault (Polity Press, 2021), Stuart Elden, Professor of Political…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Camille Robcis, "Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews scholar and historian Camille Robcis. In her most recent book, Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical…
- New Books in Critical Theory
I. Augustus Durham, "Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius" (Duke UP, 2023)
In Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius (Duke UP, 2023), I. Augustus Durham examines melancholy and genius in black culture, letters, and media from…
New Books in Critical TheoryIn Conversation: The Antinomies of Afropessimism
In this episode, S. Sayyid talks with Barnor Hesse (Northwestern University) on the Antimonies of Afropessimism. Professor Barnor Hesse teaches in the…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Frederick Crews, "Freud: The Making of an Illusion" (Picador, 2018)
The figure of Sigmund Freud has captivated the Western imagination like few others. One hundred and twenty-five years after the publication of Studies on…
New Books in Critical TheoryLoneliness
Loneliness is what results when a person is cut off from the living world. Ecological loneliness, in particular, is reciprocal - what we mete out always comes…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Emily Herring, "Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People" (Basic Books, 2024)
Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People (Basic Books, 2024) is the first English-language biography of Henri Bergson…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Harvey J. Kaye, "The British Marxist Historians" (Zero Book, 2022)
The British Marxist Historians, originally published in 1995, remains the first and most complete study of the founders of one of the most influential…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Peter Salmon, "An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida" (Verso, 2020)
Who is Jacques Derrida? For some, he is the originator of a relativist philosophy responsible for the contemporary crisis of truth. For the far right, he is…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Ben Highmore, "Playgrounds: The Experimental Years" (Reaktion, 2024)
After World War II, a new kind of playground emerged in Northern Europe and North America. Rather than slides, swings, and roundabouts, these new playgrounds…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Peter Singer, "Consider the Turkey" (Princeton UP, 2024)
A turkey is the centerpiece of countless Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Yet most of us know almost nothing about today’s specially bred, commercially…
- New Books in Critical Theory
Rebecca Ball, "A Hundred English Working-Class Lives, 1900-1945" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024)
How do ordinary people write the stories of their lives? In A Hundred English Working-Class Lives, 1900-1945 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024), Rebecca Ball, a…