New Books in Critical Theory

The world of theater performances is often thought of as being composed of wealthy persons who received elite educations at art institutions all so they could be observed by a small, wealthy elite at exclusive and expensive gatherings. Theater is seen as an insular, elitist practice, for and by a select few. However, this image of theater is deeply misleading, especially as more performances are available for download, and many smaller more open institutions invest more in theater productions. One place that might surprise a lot of people is the popularity of performances staged by incarcerated persons, and presented in behind the walls of prisons. Theater is a social, communal practice, so making it happen within an institution that is not only isolated from the outside world, but is designed to isolate those within, will naturally come with various challenges, and also raises various questions on the nature of both theater and the carceral system. These are the questions Ashley Lucas addresses in her recent book Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration (Bloomsbury, 2020). Featuring a combination of her own firsthand experience as a director of prison theater, interviews with those involved in the world prison theater and scholarly research, the book is a unique combination of genres that occupies some very interesting intersections, and is able to explore some very difficult topics, from questions of artistic expression, the nature of community and what hope in a hopeless situation looks like.Ashley Lucas is an associate professor of Theatre and Drama and the Residential College at the University of Michigan, and is also the former director of the Prison Creative Arts Project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience.The Twittering Machine (Verso, 2020) is an unflinching view into the calamities of digital life: the circus of online trolling, flourishing alt-right subcultures, pervasive corporate surveillance, and the virtual data mines of Facebook and Google where we spend considerable portions of our free time. In this polemical tour de force, Richard Seymour shows how the digital world is changing the ways we speak, write, and think.Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users, developers, security experts and others, Seymour probes the human side of the machine, asking what we’re getting out of it, and what we’re getting into. Social media held out the promise that we could make our own history–to what extent did we choose the nightmare that it has become?Marci Mazzarotto is an Assistant Professor of Digital Communication at Georgian Court University in New Jersey. Her research interests center on the interdisciplinary intersection of academic theory and artistic practice with a focus on film and television studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Why does The Empire Strikes Back matter? In BFI Classics Series's The Empire Strikes Back (Bloomsbury, 2020), Rebecca Harrison, a lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, tells the story of the film’s production and reception, and analyses the film’s on-screen representations. The book is framed through the idea of disruption, with The Empire Strikes Back discussed as a film that disrupted the industry, genre and cinematic conventions, and critical expectation. Moreover, the book disrupts conventional narratives of both the film and the Star Wars franchise more generally, for example centring the role of women in the history of Empire’s production. The book is essential reading as both a scholarly text, across and beyond humanities and media studies, and for any general reader interested in cinema and Star Wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Parrots and snakes, wild cats and monkeys---exotic pets can now be found everywhere from skyscraper apartments and fenced suburban backyards to roadside petting zoos. In Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade (Duke UP, 2020) Rosemary-Claire Collard investigates the multibillion-dollar global exotic pet trade and the largely hidden processes through which exotic pets are produced and traded as lively capital. Tracking the capture of animals in biosphere reserves in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; their exchange at exotic animal auctions in the United States; and the attempted rehabilitation of former exotic pets at a wildlife center in Guatemala, Collard shows how exotic pets are fetishized both as commodities and as objects. Their capture and sale sever their ties to complex socio-ecological networks in ways that make them appear as if they do not have lives of their own. Collard demonstrates that the enclosure of animals in the exotic pet trade is part of a bioeconomic trend in which life is increasingly commodified and objectified under capitalism. Ultimately, she calls for a “wild life” politics in which animals are no longer enclosed, retain their autonomy, and can live for the sake of themselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford University Press, 2020), Andrea Jain examines the interconnectedness between global spirituality and neoliberal capitalism through an examination of the global yoga and self-care industries. Building off her work in Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford University Press, 2014), Jain examines how spiritual industries and corporations impart neoliberal spirituality, which she contends is a central component of neoliberal capitalism. In broader terms, Jain’s examination of neoliberal spirituality, and yoga more specifically, provides a rich avenue to analyze and understand the role of religion in contemporary society.Andrea Jain is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis and the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.Lindsey Jackson is a PhD student at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Adam Kotsko discusses neoliberalism's political theology, emphasizing self-denial's role in mystifying neoliberalism. He challenges the economics-politics dichotomy and highlights how neoliberalism assigns blame to those who fail. The podcast delves into the pervasiveness of neoliberalism in society, its impact on inequality, and collaborations between neoliberals and neoconservatives. It also explores the historical ties between the religious right and capitalism, tracing the evolution of neoliberalism through phases and analyzing Trumpism's alignment with neoliberalism.

In his new book, Hope in a Secular Age: Deconstruction, Negative Theology, and the Future of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2020), David Newheiser argues that hope is the indispensable precondition of religious practice and secular politics. Against dogmatic complacency and despairing resignation, he argues that hope sustains commitments that remain vulnerable to disappointment. The line of thinking goes that, since the discipline of hope is shared by believers and unbelievers alike, its persistence indicates that faith has a future in a secular age.Drawing on premodern theology and postmodern theory, Newheiser shows that atheism and Christianity have more in common than they often acknowledge. Writing in a clear and engaging style, he develops a new reading of deconstruction and negative theology, arguing that (despite their differences) they share a self-critical hope. By retrieving texts and traditions that are rarely read together, this book offers a major intervention in debates over the place of religion in public life.David Newheiser is a research fellow in the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University. His research draws on Christian thought and continental philosophy to address topics such as neoliberalism, sexuality, atheism, and the arts.Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

The politics of identity have played center stage in many political debates in the last few years, and is often seen somewhat pejoratively as an epiphenomenal manifestation of the dynamics of capitalism. Some scholars, however, see this as a reductive mistake, not just for any attempt to organize against capitalism, but also as part of a mistaken understanding of what ‘identity’ is. This is one of the animating ideas of Ani Maitra in his new book Identity, Mediation and the Cunning of Capital (Northwestern University Press, 2020). Utilizing the insights of philosophy, psychoanalysis and critical theory, the book looks at radio transmissions and films dispersed through the Algerian revolution and its aftermath; it examines experimental prose and imagery around Asian-American identity produced by neoliberal academic institutions; and it looks at the orientations on display at an LGBTQ+ film festival in an India struggling to join the world market while still maintaining its own distinct identity. The book is a theoretically-informed world tour that scours the globe in search of the various contexts that mediate us, and the contradictory identities that emerge.Ani Maitra is an associate professor of film and media studies at Colgate University. He received his PhD at Brown University, and is the author of a number of book chapters and articles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Scholarship on the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has traditionally focused on his magnum opus Being and Time and related earlier work, his later essays and lectures often relegated to an ambiguous later period that many consider philosophically insubstantial, or simply too esoteric and obscure to merit any serious engagement. Luckily, that is starting to change, especially with the publication of the Black Notebooks, as well as a number of manuscripts, essays and lectures from this period. These texts are starting to give us insight into Heidegger’s philosophical development, helping us understand old texts in new light, and trace the development of various themes from throughout his life with greater detail.Joining me to discuss some of these developments is my guest today, Daniela Vellega-Neu, here with her recent book Heidegger’s Poietic Writings: From Contributions to Philosophy to the Event (Indiana University Press, 2018). Looking at Heidegger’s writing from 1936-1942, Vallega-Neu’s text is an excellent guide through this incredibly difficult period of Heidegger’s thinking. She works to unpack key terms, guiding us through difficult translations, and showing us how Heidegger was always trying to do something rather unique in attuning us to hidden philosophical and linguistic baggage. The book follows not only the explicit content of Heidegger’s texts, but also their underlying spirit, partaking in a sustained attempt to cultivate an attuned understanding to ourselves and our history, subtly shifting our attention (and what it even means to be attentive) in the hopes of pointing towards an elusive understanding of being that always remains just beyond our reach.Daniela Vallega-Neu is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon. In addition to Heidegger’s Poietic Writings, she is also the author of The Bodily Dimension in Thinking and Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy. She is also one of the co-translators of Indiana University Press’s 2012 translation of Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

What is the history of equal rights in Hollywood? In A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood (Columbia UP, 2019), Eithne Quinn, a senior lecturer in American Studies at the University of Manchester, explores the transitional years following the civil rights movement of the 1960s, in order to chart the struggle by Black film makers for rights, recognition and representation. The book combines analysis of on-screen representations, with research on both the production and political economy of Hollywood films. Attentive to questions of gender and race, alongside a critical perspective on Hollywood’s myths of equality and diversity, the book will be essential reading across arts, humanities, and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding why inequality persists in Hollywood today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory