New Books in Critical Theory

Interviews with Scholars of Critical Theory about their New Books

Science
Social Sciences
1626
Joshua Clark Davis, “From Head Shops to Whole F...
In From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs (Columbia University Press, 2017), historian Joshua Clark Davis offers an unconventional history of the 1960s and 1970s by uncovering the work of activist entrepreneurs.
35 min
1627
Claudia Leeb, “Power and Feminist Agency in Cap...
Claudia Leeb’s new book, Power and Feminist Agency in Capitalism: Toward a New Theory of the Political Subject (Oxford University Press, 2017), takes up pressing issues within contemporary political and feminist theory,
50 min
1628
Daromir Rudnyckyj and Filippo Osella, eds., “Re...
Since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, there has been a widespread affirmation of economic ideologies that conceive the market as an autonomous sphere of human practice. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis,
57 min
1629
Clayton Childress, “Under the Cover: The Creati...
How does a book come into being? In Under the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel (Princeton University Press, 2017), Clayton Childress, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at The University of Toronto,
46 min
1630
Jamie Woodcock, “Working the Phones: Control an...
What are the working conditions and what are the possibilities for change in the contemporary economy? In Working the Phones: Control and Resistance in Call Centers (Pluto Press, 2017), Jamie Woodcock, a fellow at the London School of Economics,
34 min
1631
Shaun Scott, “Millennials and the Moments that ...
In Millennials and the Moments that Made Us: A Cultural History of the U.S. from 1982-Present (Zero Books, 2018), Shaun Scott critiques the America millennials inherited and using a pop culture lens to explore how they navigate it.
59 min
1632
Sarah Haley, “No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment...
Recent popular and scholarly interest has highlighted the complex and brutal system of mass incarceration in the United States. Much of this interest has focused on recent developments while other scholars have revealed the connections between the deve...
53 min
1633
Aled Davies, “The City of London and Social Dem...
In the decades following the end of the Second World War, the British economy evolved from a manufacturing-based economy to one driven by service industries, most notably finance. As Aled Davies explains in his book The City of London and Social Democr...
47 min
1634
Rosemary Lucy Hill, “Gender, Metal and the Medi...
How do women experience and participate in Metal? This question forms the core of Gender, Metal and the Media: Women Fans and the Gendered Experience of Music (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), the new book from Rosemary Lucy Hill,
46 min
1635
Brooke Erin Duffy “(Not) Getting Paid to Do Wha...
What is life like in the aspirational economy? In (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media and Aspirational Work (Yale University Press, 2017) Brooke Erin Duffy, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell U...
37 min
1636
Ivan Ascher, “Portfolio Society: A Capitalist M...
Is Marx still relevant? Any social scientist will answer with a resounding yes! In what he refers to as a thought experiment, Ivan Ascher uses Marx to understand the financial market. In Portfolio Society: A Capitalist Mode of Prediction (Zone Books,
27 min
1637
Ilana Gershon, “Down and Out in the New Economy...
Labor markets are not what they used to be, as Ilana Gershon argues in Down and Out in the New Economy: How People Find (or Don’t Find) Work Today (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Job seekers are increasingly being taught that they need to sell the...
42 min
1638
David Beer, “Metric Power” (Palgrave Macmillan,...
How do metrics rule the social world? In Metric Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) David Beer, Reader in Sociology at the University of York, outlines the rise of the metric and the role of metrics in shaping everyday life.
32 min
1639
Tommy J. Curry, “The Man-Not: Race, Class, and ...
The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood (Temple University Press, 2017) is a book-length justification for the burgeoning field of Black Male Studies. The author posits that we should conceptualize the black male as a victim,...
60 min
1640
Jacob Emery, “Alternative Kinships: Economy and...
In Alternative Kinships: Economy and Family in Russian Modernism (Northern Illinois University Press, 2017), Jacob Emery presents literary texts as intersections of aesthetic, social, and economic phenomena.
47 min
1641
Franck Cochoy, et al. eds., “Markets and the Ar...
How should we understand markets? In Markets and the Arts of Attachment (Routledge, 2017) Franck Cochoy, Liz McFall, and Joe Deville (from University Toulouse- Jean Jaures,Open University and Lancaster University respectively) bring together essays eng...
47 min
1642
Jon Dean, “Doing Reflexivity: An Introduction” ...
Doing Reflexivity: An Introduction (Policy Press, 2017) by Jon Dean, a senior lecturer in politics and sociology at Sheffield Hallam University, explores and explains reflexivity as one of the essential concepts in modern social research.
33 min
1643
Michael Youngblood, “Cultivating Community: Int...
Cultivating Community: Interest, Identity, and Ambiguity in an Indian Social Mobilization by Michael Youngblood, a cultural anthropologist based in San Francisco, was published in November, 2016 by the South Asian Studies Association Press.
35 min
1644
Michelle D. Commander, “Afro-Atlantic Flight: S...
In Afro-Atlantic Flight: Speculative Returns and the Black Fantastic (Duke University Press, 2017), Michelle D. Commander examines the (im)possibility of literal and figurative returns to Africa of African-descended peoples throughout the diaspora.
80 min
1645
Mark Banks, “Creative Justice: Cultural Industr...
How can we address inequity and injustice in cultural and creative industries? In Creative Justice: Cultural Industries, Work and Inequality (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), Mark Banks, a professor of culture and communication and director of CAMEo,
47 min
1646
Bruno Perreau, “Queer Theory: The French Respon...
At once wonderfully clear and bursting with complexity, the title of Bruno Perreau‘s book, Queer Theory: The French Response (Stanford University Press, 2016) is one of my favorites of the past several years. An interrogation of the meanings of queer,
59 min
1647
Michael J. Turner” Radicalism and Reputation: T...
From humble beginnings James Bronterre O’Brien became one of the leading figures in British radical politics in the first half of the 19th century, thanks in no small measure to his skills as a journalist and writer.
54 min
1648
Ashon T. Crawley, “Blackpentecostal Breath: The...
Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility (Fordham University Press, 2016) is innovative and lyrical, challenging and beautiful. Ashon Crawley brings together black studies, queer theory, theology,
59 min
1649
Ralph Young, “Dissent: The History of an Americ...
Ralph Young is a professor of history at Temple University. His book Dissent: The History of an American Idea (New York University Press, 2015) provides a fast-paced four hundred years people’s history of dissenters in America and the role they played ...
55 min
1650
Sharrona Pearl, “Face/On: Face Transplants and ...
Sharrona Pearl‘s new book is an absolute pleasure to read. Face/On: Face Transplants and the Ethics of the Other (The University of Chicago Press, 2017) looks closely at facial allotransplantations (FAT), commonly known as face transplants,
66 min