New Books in Critical Theory

Marshall Poe

Episodes

Mentioned books

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Feb 4, 2026 • 46min

Samuel Holley-Kline, "In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico" (U Nebraska Press, 2025)

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.
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5 snips
Feb 3, 2026 • 1h 20min

Itohan I. Osayimwese, "Africa's Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Itohan I. Osayimwese, a professor of architectural and urban history who studies colonialism and African architecture. She traces the violent removal of African building parts and how museums recast them as ornament. She examines case studies from Dendera to Great Zimbabwe and Benin, discusses chains of removal and memory loss, and calls for proper naming, restitution, and new museum practices.
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5 snips
Feb 3, 2026 • 1h 18min

Jacqueline Couti and Anny Dominique Curtius, "Women, Theory, Praxis, and Performativities: Transoceanic Entanglements in Francophone Settings" (Liverpool UP, 2025)

Anny-Dominique Curtius, a Francophone Caribbean literatures scholar, and Jacqueline Couti, a Rice University specialist in Francophone Caribbean sexuality and nationalism, discuss a transoceanic collection. They trace connections between the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific. Topics include feminist praxes, archival refusal, ecological and health harms, embodied performance, and poetic responses to radiation.
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Feb 1, 2026 • 1h 2min

Gina Schouten, "The Anatomy of Justice" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Gina Schouten, Harvard philosopher and author of The Anatomy of Justice, offers a reorientation of liberal egalitarianism toward an evaluative 'anatomy' of justice. She discusses how mutual respect reframes egalitarian demands, navigates distributive versus relational tensions, and shows how this framework diagnoses cultural and institutional injustices without abandoning principles.
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Jan 31, 2026 • 45min

Blair Kelley, "Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class" (LIveright, 2023)

Dr. Blair L.M. Kelley, Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor and historian of African American labor, reconnects Black working-class life to US history. She discusses laundresses, Pullman porters, domestic maids, and postal workers. She explains her use of family stories, oral histories, and photographs. She traces policy exclusions and the networks that sustained Black labor and community.
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Jan 29, 2026 • 44min

Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine

Emile Suotonye DeWeaver, formerly incarcerated organizer and author, reflects on 21 years inside, prison organizing, and commuted sentence work. He discusses how white supremacy shapes reforms, parole and rehabilitation scripts, hidden forces that extend sentences, near-enemy reforms that repurpose inequality, and models centering incarcerated leadership and collective power.
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Jan 29, 2026 • 1h 46min

Justin L. Mann, "Breaking the World: Black Insecurity and the Horizons of Speculation" (Duke UP, 2026)

Justin L. Mann, assistant professor of English who studies Black speculative fiction and security, discusses how Black imaginaries reveal the politics of securitization. He traces ties between SF, Reagan-era policy, and mass incarceration. Short, sharp takes cover Octavia Butler, climate and pandemic fictions, racial tectonics, and abolitionist alternatives to technocratic safety.
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Jan 28, 2026 • 50min

Brahim El Guabli, "Desert Imaginations: A History of Saharanism and Its Radical Consequences" (U California Press, 2025)

Brahim El Guabli, Associate Professor of Comparative Thought and Literature known for work on North African history and culture, discusses his book on Saharanism. He explores how deserts are pictured as empty, exploitable, and dangerous. Conversations touch on energy extraction, borders and migrant invisibility, sacrifice zones, and storytelling as a form of desert eco-care.
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Jan 27, 2026 • 38min

Duy Lap Nguyen, "Walter Benjamin and the Critique of Political Economy: A New Historical Materialism" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

Duy Lap Nguyen, Associate Professor in World Cultures and Literatures, offers a concise reading of Walter Benjamin as a coherent historical materialist. He traces Benjamin’s move from Kantian and anarchist engagements to a heterodox Marxism. Conversations cover Benjamin’s critique of progress, his view of modernism and capitalism, and the role of desire, labor, and anonymous lives in his thought.
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7 snips
Jan 24, 2026 • 32min

Nick Romeo, "The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy" (PublicAffairs, 2024)

Nick Romeo, journalist and author who has reported for The New Yorker and taught at UC Berkeley, explores bold alternatives to current economic dogma. He spotlights real-world experiments: True Price accounting, living-wage businesses, a Viennese job guarantee, public gig platforms, perpetual-purpose trusts, and participatory budgeting. Short, concrete stories about rebuilding economies around ethics and accountability.

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