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New Books in Critical Theory

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

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68:45

Prakash Kashwan, "Decolonizing Environmentalism:...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/30

Brought to you by the BISA Environment and Climate Politics Working Group. Decolonizing Environmentalism:Alternative Visions and Practices of EnvironmentalAction (Bloomsbury, 2024)helps us reimagine our approach to environmental stewardship critically interrogating the problems associated with existing legacies of environmentalism and how we imagine other ways to addressing the multiple planetary crises. The authors cast a critical eye on wealthy and influential environmental groups that

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75:35

Stefan Collini, "Literature and Learning: A History...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/29

Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain(Oxford University Press, 2025)by Stefan Collini The study and teaching of English literature is generally regarded as one of the central disciplines in the modern university, yet for much of its history it struggled to gain academic legitimacy and was frequently derided as 'a soft option'. Its early professors responded by emphasizing its scholarly character, foregrounding philology and literary history in ways that marked the

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50:51

Paul Johnson, "Challenging Inequalities: How We Got...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/26

There is a widespread sense throughout the developed world that progress towards a better society has stalled. Many countries, including the UK, have experienced persistent economic stagnation accompanied by declining trust in institutions. Governments are struggling to respond not only to traditional economic problems but also to newer challenges posed by climate change, migration and technological change. Challenging Inequalities: How We Got Stuck and Where We Go Next(Princeton University

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57:28

Niharika Pandit, "Occupying the Everyday:...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/25

Our recent conversation aboutOccupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir(Oxford UP, 2026), with author Niharika Pandit, covers the journey of how critical methodology meets the weight of lived experience. This book examines the everyday politics of militarized control in Kashmir following the Indian government’s August 5, 2019, decision to de-operationalize Jammu and Kashmir’s nominal autonomy. The core of our reflection centered on how one theorizes through

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53:40

A.J.A. Woods, "The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/24

The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West (Verso Books, 2026)is thedefinitive history of a dangerous right-wing conspiracy theory.“Cultural Marxism” is one of the far right’s favorite buzzwords. But despite its currency, the meaning and origins of the term are rarely investigated. This book uncovers the bizarre story of the cult leaders, right-wing intellectuals, and White House officials who believe a coterie of left-wing scholars

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83:59

Ryan Engley, "Seriality: Media and the Psychic Form...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/23

This material and theoretical history of seriality shows it to be the dominant form of culture since its inception within 19th-century print culture, as both a media structure and a psychic one. The serial is everywhere. Commonly identified by the segmented release structure of an ongoing narrative—from installments of Victorian novels to TV episodes to comic books—seriality names the spread of installment-based storytelling across a range of media. However, Ryan Engley argues that seriality

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53:36

Beth Weinstein, "Architecture and Choreography:...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/22

Architecture and Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space and Time(Routledge, 2024) examines the field ofarchi-choreographicexperiments: unique interdisciplinary encounters and performed events generated through collaborations between architects and choreographers. Forty case studies spanning four decades give evidence of the range of motivations for embarking on these creative endeavors and diverse conceptual underpinnings, generative methods, objects of inquiry, and outcomes.Architecture and

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43:44

Joseph Acquisto, "Baudelaire's Objects" (Bloomsbury,...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/22

Baudelaire's Objects(Bloomsbury,2026) examines Baudelaire's multifaceted use of natural, domestic, urban, and esthetic objects in his verse and prose poetry, as well as the ways his poems reshape our understanding of objects and how those objects destabilize, yet preserve, the subject-object relation.Charles Baudelaire's representation of objects in the natural world establishes a relation that is neither one of identity between human subject and nature nor a relation of domination; he

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93:50

Emile Chabal, "The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/21

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) was one of the foremost European intellectuals of the twentieth century. He published hundreds of articles on modern history and culture, and his books became canonical works and bestsellers on both sides of the Atlantic. His crystal-clear writing, vast erudition, and ability to make his Marxist analysis digestible to a wide audience brought him worldwide renown. Yet Hobsbawm was no academic hermit. Through his globetrotting journalism, he was embedded in an

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56:31

A Cure for Loneliness: On Homecoming with Ian Marcus...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/19

Americans are more isolated, polarized, and depressed than ever in recent memory, and yet many citizens share a deep desire for community and friendship across political lines and in new creative ways. How may we bridge that gap? To help answer that most pressing question, in Episode 2 of Season 6, I have as our guest the philosopher, essayist, and author,Ian Marcus Corbin. A graduate of Yale Divinity School and Boston College, Mr. Corbin is a senior fellow at Capita, the program director of

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59:50

Utathya Chattopadhyaya, "Ganja Matters: Empire and...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/19

Ganjais the popular name in Hindustani, Bengali, and other South Asian languages for intoxicating substances produced from the plant species Cannabis sativa L. Starting in the eighteenth century, British India's colonial administrators sought ways to systematically tax and govern how ganja circulated from the farms of peasant families in rural Bengal to pipes, plates, and cups elsewhere in the subcontinent. Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India (University of

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64:43

Roderick Beaton, "Europe: A New History" (Allen Lane,...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/19

What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe: A New History(Allen Lane, 2026), award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before—as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly

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63:50

Ting Hui Lau, "Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/17

A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism(Stanford University Press, 2026)explores these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu subsistence farmers in China’s Eastern Himalayas, bordering Myanmar and Tibet. Like many of China’s Indigenous borderlands,

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47:14

Gregorio Astengo and Davide Spina eds.,"Real Estate:...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/16

Real Estate: Histories of Architecture and Capital(gta Verlag, 2026)challengesthe conventional assumption that architects and planners are the principal authors of urban form. It instead foregrounds the developers, builders, financiers, and media strategists whose pursuit of profit has shaped cities, particularly under global capitalism. Bringing together studies spanning the eighteenth century to the present, the editors,Gregorio Astengo andDavide Spina, and thecontributorsestablish real

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62:14

Sophie Chao, "Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/15

InLand of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger(Duke UP, 2025),Sophie Chao examines how Indigenous Marind communities understand and theorize hunger in lowland West Papua, a place where industrial plantation expansion and settler-colonial violence are radically reconfiguring ecologies, socialities, and identities. Instead of seeing hunger as an individual, biophysical state defined purely in nutritional, quantitative, or human terms, Chao investigates how hunger traverses variably

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36:09

Nathaniel Gray Sutanto, "God and Knowledge: Herman...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/15

N. Gray Sutanto offers a fresh reading of Herman Bavinck's theological epistemology and argues that his Trinitarian and organic worldview utilizes an extensive range of sources. Sutanto unfolds Bavinck's understanding of what he considered to be the two most important aspects of epistemology: the character of the sciences and the correspondence between subjects and objects. Writing at the heels of the European debates in the 19th and 20th centuries concerning theology's place in the academy,

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45:14

The New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/13

Jonathan Fuller’sThe New Modern Medicine: Disease, Evidence, and Epidemiological Medicine(Oxford UP, 2025) takes the reader on a philosophical tour through scientific medicine, visiting its distinctive problems, particularly problems brought about by the twentieth century fusion of medicine with epidemiology. Drawing on the author’s training in philosophy of medicine, history and philosophy of science, and clinical medicine, the book examines the contours of the ‘epidemiological medicine’ that

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51:24

Michael R. Griffiths, "The Death of the Author and...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/12

The Death of the Author and Anticolonial Thought(Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)promisesto transform a decades old debate in literary studies about the relation between structure and agency, form and intention by giving a detailed account—previously unstudied—of the way colonized writers have responded to, learned from, and critiqued the death of the author postulate declared by Roland Barthes in 1967. The book is a cultural history of these debates—with a particular focus on two crucial two key

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40:14

Oli Mould, "Postcapitalist cities: Towards a common...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/09

What is the future for cities? In Postcapitalist Cities: Towards a common urban future (Manchester University Press, 2026) Oli Mould, a Professor of Cultural and Historical Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, looks at the past, present and future of the city to consider alternatives to the current capitalist urban model that dominates the world. Re-examining key concepts such as gentrification and care, introducing new ideas like solarpunk, and packed with a huge range of global

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51:48

Deborah Barer, "Going Off Script: Improvisational...

New Books in Critical Theory ·

2026/08/08

What does it really mean to go "beyond the letter of the law"? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with scholar Deborah Barer to discuss her book Going Off Script: Improvisational Judgment in the Talmud, which offers a surprising new interpretation of one of the Talmud's most enduring ethical concepts: lifnim mi-shurat ha-din. For generations, lifnim mi-shurat ha-din has been understood to mean acting "beyond the letter of the law"—choosing generosity or compassion over strict legal

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