New Books in Critical Theory

Tad Delay, author of 'Future of Denial: The Ideologies of Climate Change,' discusses the societal denial of climate change, the influence of capitalism on action, and the challenges of addressing the climate crisis. He explores the historical context, technological solutions, media coverage, and the role of cultural production in tackling climate change. The podcast also delves into Christian Zionism's impact on climate change denial and views on Palestine.

Netta Avineri and Patricia Baquedano-López discuss language, culture, and social justice in North America. They introduce a three-step framework for social change and emphasize reflexive practices in linguistics. The podcast explores collaborative efforts, Indigenous presence, community engagement, and climate change narratives.

Premilla Nadasen, author of 'Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism,' discusses the failures of the care economy under capitalism. She explores the exploitation of care workers, the profit-driven foster care system, and the challenges of adult guardianship. Nadasen highlights the need for anti-capitalist approaches to caregiving for a more sustainable future.

Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton discuss the inequalities in the criminal justice system, questioning why the rich are not held accountable for harm. They explore the biases in crime reporting, unsafe working conditions in meatpacking plants, labor exploitation, and the need for systemic reforms to address societal injustices and inequalities.

Anjali Arondekar challenges archival loss in subaltern sexuality history, emphasizing radical abundance in Gomantak Maratha Samaj archives. The discussion delves into reclaiming marginalized histories, embracing community archives, unravelling caste-sexuality intersection, and advocating for inclusive queer narratives in Dalit history.

Sunaura Taylor, author of 'Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert,' discusses the interconnectedness of disability and environmental issues, advocating for a disability-centered approach in environmental studies. The podcast delves into personal narratives of environmental harm, the affinity between environmental justice and disability movements, and the importance of countering ableist responses to environmental crises. It emphasizes the need for inclusive and sustainable futures.

Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz rethinks the nature of freedom and its relationship to capitalism. He explores the impact of power imbalances in unfettered markets, critiques neoliberal economics, challenges the concept of the invisible hand theory, and emphasizes the importance of societal rules and political engagement in shaping freedom.

Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age (U California Press, 2024)​ explores the creative range of Black digital users and their responses to varying forms of oppression, utilizing cultural, communicative, political, and technological threads both on and offline. Raven Maragh-Lloyd demonstrates how Black users strategically rearticulate their responses to oppression in ways that highlight Black publics’ historically rich traditions and reveal the shifting nature of both dominance and resistance, particularly in the digital age. Through case studies and interviews, Maragh-Lloyd reveals the malleable ways resistance can take shape and the ways Black users artfully demonstrate such modifications of resistance through strategies of survival, reprieve, and community online. Each chapter grounds itself in a resistance strategy, such as Black humor, care, or archiving, to show the ways that Black publics reshape strategies of resistance over time and across media platforms. Linking singular digital resistance movements while arguing for Black publics as strategic content creators who connect resistance strategies from our past to suit our present needs, Black Networked Resistance encourages readers to create and cultivate lasting communities necessary for social and political change by imagining a future of joy, community, and agency through their digital media practices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Mona Simion, a philosopher, discusses resistance to evidence and epistemic obligations in her book. She explores belief justification, epistemic virtues, and interdisciplinary dialogue between epistemologists and social psychologists. The podcast delves into the influence of knowledge indicators, epistemic environments, normative conflicts, and redefining disinformation beyond falsehoods. It also explores conceptual engineering and its impact on societal categories and knowledge acquisition.

The left views alienation as something to be resisted or overcome, but could it actually form the basis of our emancipation? We often think of our existential and political projects as attempts to overcome or eradicate alienation: therapists imagine that they help patients to attain self-identity; political revolutionaries strive for a society in which they can live in harmony with others; ecological activists work toward a future form of existence in touch with the rest of the natural world. In Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try to Find Ourselves (Repeater, 2024), Todd McGowan offers a completely different take on alienation, claiming that the effort to overcome it is not a radical response to the current state of things but a failure to see the constitutive power of alienation for all of us. Instead of trying to overcome alienation and accede to an unalienated existence, it argues, we should instead redeem alienation as an existential and political program. Engaging with Shakespeare’s great tragedies, contemporary films such as Don’t Worry Darling, and even what occurs on a public bus, as well as thinkers such as Descartes, Hegel, and Marx, McGowan provides a concrete elaboration of how alienation frees people from their situation. Relying on the tradition of dialectical thought and psychoanalytic theory, Embracing Alienation reveals a new way of conceiving how we measure progress — or even if progress should be the aim at all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory