New Books in Critical Theory

Agustín Santella, Argentine sociologist and UBA professor specializing in Marxist theory and social movements. He explores how diverse collective struggles—strikes, protests, uprisings—might be united into a coherent theory. He discusses class formation, limits of classical Marxism, neoliberal individualization, and rethinking labor and social reproduction.

Shana Sippy, religion professor studying Hindutva and diasporic politics. Sailaja Krishnamurti, gender studies scholar exploring Hindutva in comics and pop culture. Harshita Kamath, historian of Telugu culture focused on caste and performance. They trace personal paths into Hindu studies. They probe caste as embodied knowledge, links between Hinduism and Hindutva, diaspora politics, and debates over anti-caste law and Hinduphobia.

Carl Death, Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy researching African environmental politics and author of African Climate Futures. He discusses why centering African climate fiction matters and how fiction and policy share imaginaries. He examines net zero strategies, non-human agency, reparative futures, Afrofuturist influences, and the political power of storytelling to reimagine space and time.

Sourit Bhattacharya, a lecturer in global anglophone literatures and author of Postcolonialism Now, explores decolonial reading and comparative close readings. He traces how migration, ecology, trauma, minorities and futurity reshape literary interpretation. Conversation ties classroom practice to social movements and rethinking how we read across forms and geographies.

Laura K. Field, political theorist and author of Furious Minds, maps the intellectual currents behind the MAGA New Right. She traces three rival camps, their roots in conservative thought, and how academics moved from theory into power. The conversation highlights institutional takeovers, nationalist models like Orbán, and the cultural appeal that propelled these ideas into policy.

If you asked a passerby on the street what anarchism is, they may answer that it is an ideology based on chaos, disorder, and violence. But is this true? What exactly is anarchism?Anarchism: a Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2022) provides a new point of departure for our understanding of anarchism. Prichard describes anarchism as a lived set of practices, with a rich historical legacy, and shows how anarchists have inspired and criticised some of our most cherished values and concepts, from the ideals of freedom, participatory education, federalism, to important topics like climate change, and wider popular culture in science fiction. By locating the emergence and globalization of anarchist ideas in a history of colonialism and imperialism, the book links anarchism into struggles for freedom across the world and demonstrates that anarchism has much to offer anyone trying to envision a better future.Alex Prichard is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter. His research on anarchism has shed new light on old problems of constitutional politics, order and anarchy in world order, and the history of international thought. He is the co-founder of the Political Studies Association specialist group for the study of anarchism, the Manchester University Press monograph series, Contemporary Anarchist Studies, and a trained chef.Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Olivier Esteves, political scientist researching race, immigration, and Islamophobia, discusses the silent flight of French Muslims abroad. He explores discrimination on the job market, hijab-related career barriers, and why anglophone and Gulf destinations attract migrants. He also examines mixed feelings of belonging, surprising profiles like converts and long-term émigrés, and the research methods behind the study.

Ian Klinke, political geographer at Oxford focused on geopolitical thought and infrastructure. Patricia Daley, Oxford professor of African human geography studying migration, violence, and decolonizing pedagogy. They map human geography through spaces like colonies, pipelines, borders, high‑rises, workplaces, conservation zones, and even outer space. Conversations dwell on empire’s imprint, energy and urban politics, labor, migration control, and space as a contested frontier.

Kevin Hart, Jo Rae Wright University Distinguished Professor at Duke Divinity School and author of Lands of Likeness, explores a hermeneutic of contemplation rooted in theology, poetry, and philosophy. He traces contemplative reading from Augustine and the Romantics to Husserl and modern poets. The conversation highlights contemplation versus suspicion, phenomenology, poetic attention, and the discipline of slow, attentive reading.

Sam Holley-Kline, author and scholar of anthropology and archaeology, centers Totonac perspectives and labor histories. He traces how El Tajín became an archaeological site through land tenure shifts, extractive industries like oil and vanilla, and the everyday work of custodios and administrativos. The conversation highlights regional livelihoods, infrastructure, and who actually maintains heritage sites today.