New Books in Politics and Polemics

Professors Alex Khasnabish and Max Haiven are authors of a book called The Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity (Bloomsbury, 2014). Their book examines how social movements imagine (and build) radical new futures. Additionally, the book critically intervenes in broader social movement theory, and suggests new approaches for scholar-activists.As part of a recent episode of Darts and Letters, “Mutual Aid & the Anarchist Radical Imagination,” we spoke to Alex and Max about how these ideas help us make sense of autonomous and anarchist-styled movement building. However, we had a much broader conversation about the book, its legacy, and how we should understand it today. That longer conversation is here.We cover: the history of social movement theory, how it (mis)understands prefigurative politics, and how to make sense of the burgeoning far right. In a time where reactionary movements offer radical visions – space colonization, transhumanist enhancement, life extension, and more – how are we to make sense of the radical imagination? Do they have a kind of new reactionary radical imagination, or is it more of the same? We discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Histories of political religion since the 1960s often center on the rise of the powerful conservative evangelical voting bloc since the 1970s. One of the beliefs that has united these citizens is the idea that they are treated unfairly or are marginalized, despite their significant influence on public life. From the ascent of Reagan to the "Contract with America," from 9/11 to Obama to Trump--these claims have moved steadily to the center of conservative activism. Scholars of religion have approached these phenomena with great caution, generally focusing on institutional history, or relying on journalistic conveniences like "populism," or embracing the self-understandings of evangelicals themselves. None of these approaches is sufficiently calibrated to decoding the fierce convergence of online conspiracy theory, public violence, white supremacy, and religious authoritarianism. Accepting the narrative of Embattlement on its own terms, or examining it as mere turbulence on the path of American pluralism, overlooks how such deeper structural or atmospheric conditions work through this discourse to undermine the actual practice of democratic politics. Exploring the impact of these claims through case studies ranging from the Tea Party to Birthers to anti-sharia laws, Embattled America: The Rise of Anti-Politics and America's Obsession with Religion (Oxford UP, 2022) digs deeper into the debates between Martyrs (those who profess persecution) and Whistleblowers (those who sanctimoniously refute such claims). Hidden beneath each of these episodes is a series of ambivalences about democracy that require attention. Jason Bivins argues that the claims of Martyrs and Whistleblowers are symptoms of America's larger failings to strengthen the conditions for democratic life, and thus that rather than engaging their claims on the merits, concerned citizens should reassess fundamental democratic norms as part of a broader challenge to embolden American citizenship and institutions.Jason C. Bivins is Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at North Carolina State University. He is the author of three previous books including, most recently, Spirits Rejoice!: Jazz and American Religion. He has written widely for popular and academic media, has taught for The Great Courses, and has recorded multiple albums of improvised music on guitar.This episode’s host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Diana Furchtgott-Roth (Heritage Fellow and GWU Adjunct Professor) joins the podcast to discuss her career including her government service in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump administrations, along with her current work on environmental regulation and infrastructure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Note: This episode contains a discussion of suicide. A list of resources is available below. In Undoing Suicidism: A Trans, Queer, Crip Approach to Rethinking (Assisted) Suicide (Temple UP, 2023), Alexandre Baril argues that suicidal people are oppressed by what he calls structural suicidism, a hidden oppression that, until now, has been unnamed and under-theorized. Each year, suicidism and its preventionist script and strategies reproduce violence and cause additional harm and death among suicidal people through forms of criminalization, incarceration, discrimination, stigmatization, and pathologization. This is particularly true for marginalized groups experiencing multiple oppressions, including queer, trans, disabled, or Mad people.Undoing Suicidism questions the belief that the best way to help suicidal people is through the logic of prevention. Alexandre Baril presents the thought-provoking argument that supporting assisted suicide for suicidal people could better prevent unnecessary deaths. Offering a new queercrip model of (assisted) suicide, he invites us to imagine what could happen if we started thinking about (assisted) suicide from an anti-suicidist and intersectional framework. Baril provides a radical reconceptualization of (assisted) suicide and invaluable reflections for academics, activists, practitioners, and policymakers.An open access edition of Undoing Suicidism, made available by the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa, is available here.Alexandre Baril (abaril@uOttawa.ca) is Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa. His work is situated at the crossroads of gender, queer, trans, disability/crip/Mad studies, critical gerontology and critical suicidology. His commitment to equity has earned him awards for his involvement in queer, trans and disabled communities, including the Canadian Disability Studies Association Tanis Doe Francophone Award, and the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion President’s Award at the University of Ottawa. A prolific author who won the Young Researcher Award from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa (2023), he has given over 200 presentations at the international level and has over 80 publications.Resources:SAFE HOTLINES and ONLINE SUPPORT GROUPS: Trans LifeLine (trans/non-binary): 1-877-330-6366 (Canada) and 1-877-565-8860 (USA) Autisme Soutien: Online support for autistic people (French Canada) BlackLine (BIPOC): 1-800-604-5841 (USA) REGULAR HOTLINES (might trace your call and contact emergency services): Talk Suicide Canada: 1-833-456-4566 Suicide.ca (Québec): 1-866-APPELLE The Hope for Wellness Helpline (Indigenous people in Canada): 1-855-242-3310 The Samaritains (USA): 1-212-673-3000 A full transcript of the interview is available for accessibility.Clayton Jarrard is a Research Project Coordinator at the University of Kansas Center for Research, contributing to initiatives at the nexus of research, policy implementation, and community efforts. His scholarly engagement spans the subject areas of Cultural Anthropology, Queer Studies, Disability Studies, Mad Studies, and Religious Studies. Clayton is also a host for the Un/Livable Cultures podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Kevin Hassett (Former CEA Chairman and Hoover Institution Distinguished Fellow) joins the podcast to discuss his career, the legacy of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), including corporate tax reform and opportunity zones, the Trump administration's response to COVID-19 in the CARES Act, inflation, and the ongoing debt limit standoff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt (University of California Press, 2023) boldly and compellingly argues that prisons are a domain of hidden warfare within US borders. With this book, Orisanmi Burton explores what he terms the Long Attica Revolt, a criminalized tradition of Black radicalism that propelled rebellions in New York prisons during the 1970s. The reaction to this revolt illuminates what Burton calls prison pacification: the coordinated tactics of violence, isolation, sexual terror, propaganda, reform, and white supremacist science and technology that state actors use to eliminate Black resistance within and beyond prison walls.Burton goes beyond the state records that other histories have relied on for the story of Attica and expands that archive, drawing on oral history and applying Black radical theory in ways that center the intellectual and political goals of the incarcerated people who led the struggle. Packed with little-known insights from the prison movement, the Black Panther Party, and the Black Liberation Army, Tip of the Spear promises to transform our understanding of prisons—not only as sites of race war and class war, of counterinsurgency and genocide, but also as sources of defiant Black life, revolutionary consciousness, and abolitionist possibility.This interview was conducted by Dr. Jesi Faust whose research focuses on the gendered and racialized structures of Spanish colonialism in Morocco and the Philippines, their connections to contemporary imperialism and counterinsurgency, and indigenous resistance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Today I talked to Tom Gallagher about his new book Europe's Leadership Famine: Portraits of Defiance and Decay 1950-2022 (Scotview, 2023).Representative democracy endured in Europe because its political leaders’ deviousness and self-advancement were balanced by altruism, fortitude and civic virtue. However, in this century, the reputation and calibre of politicians has slumped in country after country, as fads, image, process, triviality and spin are promoted over experience, prudence and long-term outcomes. National leadership roles are increasingly filled by inexperienced careerists, who are disconnected from the people on whose behalf they are supposed to rule. How can Europe remain mostly free and adequately governed, if this leadership famine drags on? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

In the heyday of American labor, the influence of local unions extended far beyond the workplace. Unions fostered tight-knit communities, touching nearly every aspect of the lives of members--mostly men--and their families and neighbors. They conveyed fundamental worldviews, making blue-collar unionists into loyal Democrats who saw the party as on the side of the working man. Today, unions play a much less significant role in American life. In industrial and formerly industrial Rust Belt towns, Republican-leaning groups and outlooks have burgeoned among the kinds of voters who once would have been part of union communities. In Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working-Class Voters Are Turning Away from the Democratic Party (Columbia UP, 2023), Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol provide timely insight into the relationship between the decline of unions and the shift of working-class voters away from Democrats. Drawing on interviews, union newsletters, and ethnographic analysis, they pinpoint the significance of eroding local community ties and identities. Using western Pennsylvania as a case study, Newman and Skocpol argue that union members' loyalty to Democratic candidates was as much a product of the group identity that unions fostered as it was a response to the Democratic Party's economic policies. As the social world around organized labor dissipated, conservative institutions like gun clubs, megachurches, and other Republican-leaning groups took its place. Rust Belt Union Blues sheds new light on why so many union members have dramatically changed their party politics. It makes a compelling case that Democrats are unlikely to rebuild credibility in places like western Pennsylvania unless they find new ways to weave themselves into the daily lives of workers and their families.Stephen Pimpare is a Senior Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

This episode of Darts and Letters examines the theory and practice of anti-statist organizing.There’s a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics, exemplified by the enthusiasm around Bernie Sanders, The Squad, and others. However, this misses autonomous and anarchist-inflected (and sometimes, explicitly anarchist) social movements that have brought enormous energy, and enormous change–from the movement for black lives, to organizing for Indigenous sovereignty, and so much more. In this episode, we look at the Kurdish movement, and mutual aid experiments across North America.First, we look at the work of the late libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin broke with Marxism, and later anarchism, and eventually developed an idiosyncratic ecological and revolutionary theory that said radical democracy could be achieved at the municipal level. This Vermont-based theorist has been enormously influential, including in an area formerly known as Rojava. There, the Kurdish people are making these ideas their own, and developing a radical feminist democracy–while fighting to survive. We speak with Elif Genc about these ideas, and about how the Kurdish diaspora implements them within Canada.Next, what is mutual aid? Peter Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factory of Evolution (1902) examines how cooperation and reciprocity are core to nature. To anarchists, this should be generalized to radical political program, and a radically new way of living. Darts and Letters producer Marc Apollonio speaks to Payton McDonald about how the theory and practice of mutual aid drives many social movements across North America. Payton is co-directing a four-part documentary series called the Elements of Mutual Aid: Experiments Towards Liberation.Finally, how do social movement scholars understand (or misunderstand) autonomous social movements? There’s a tendency to dismiss movements that do not make clear tangible demands, and deliver pragmatic policy victories (see: Occupy). However, Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish say that this misses something key to radical social movements: their radical imagination. These movements do not want to just improve this system, they want to imagine, and create (or prefigure), a different system. We discuss their book the Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, the blind spots of social movement theory, and whether there might be a new style of organizing emerging that is somewhere between the the statist and the anti-statist.This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It’s part of our mini-series that we are producing which looks at the radical imagination, in all its hopeful and its sometimes troubling manifestations. The scholarly leads are Professors Alex Khasnabish at Mount Saint Vincent University and Max Haiven at Lakehead University. They are providing research support and consulting to this series. For a full list of credits of Cited Media staff, 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/politics-and-polemics

The Purple Color of Kurdish Politics: Women Politicians Write from Prison (Pluto Press, 2022) is a one-of-a-kind collection of prison writings from more than 20 Kurdish women politicians. Here they reflect on their personal and collective struggles against patriarchy and anti-Kurdish repression in Turkey; on the radical feminist principles and practices through which they transformed the political structures and state offices in which they operated. They discuss what worked and what didn't, and the ways in which Turkey's anti-capitalist and socialist movements closely informed their political stances and practices.Demonstrating Kurdish women's ceaseless political determination and refusal to be silenced - even when behind bars - the book ultimately hopes to inspire women living under even the most unjust conditions to engage in collective resistance.Gültan Kışanak is a longtime journalist, politician and anticolonial feminist activist for Kurdish liberation, who was elected to Parliament in 2007 as the MP from Diyarbakır. In 2016 she was arrested and charged with 'being a member of an armed illegal organization', for which she was sentenced to over 14 years imprisonment.Deniz Yonucu is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology at Newcastle University. Her work focuses on counterinsurgency, policing and security, surveillance, left-wing and anti-colonial resistance, memory, racism, and emerging digital control technologies. Her book, Police, Provocation, Politics Counterinsurgency in Istanbul (Cornell University Press, 2022), presents a counterintuitive analysis of policing, focusing particular attention on the incitement of counterviolence and perpetual conflict by state security apparatus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics