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New Books in Critical Theory: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Marshall Poe
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books游戏副本 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.
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- Yesterday1h 7m
Good Vibes Only: Phenomenology and the Biopolitics of Algorithmic Legitimation with Robin James (Duke UP, 2026)
In Good Vibes Only: Phenomenology and the Biopolitics of Algorithmic Legitimation, Robin James argues that “vibes” have become a way for how we see ourselves and understand our tastes, as well as how corporations and governments see us in order to categorize and control. Vibes, according to James, are an orientation that situate beings and things in space with others, closer to some things than others, facing is certain directions, and more likely to be grouped together. Drawing from a diverse set of theoretical and methodological perspectives, including continental feminist philosophy, critical philosophy of race, phenomenology, and popular music studies, James walks the reader through how vibes are understood, the mathematical models that vibes are based on, and how vibes function as a new form of biopower and therefore as a means of categorization and control.You can find a transcript of our conversation here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- Yesterday55 min
The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History with Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm (U Chicago Press, 2026)
A daring reassessment of the critical method that reshaped the humanities and an invitation to imagine new ways of doing history.The genealogical method—a mode of historical analysis that shows that what looks timeless is in fact contingent, bound to shifting relations of meaning, knowledge, and power—has become the dominant paradigm of humanistic inquiry. In The Genealogy of Genealogy, Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm turns this influential practice back on itself, tracing its unlikely rise through Nietzsche and Foucault and uncovering its suppressed ties to eugenics and racism. He rethinks the very stakes of critical history and proposes new tools for thinking about historical continuity, change, and difference.Provocative and timely, The Genealogy of Genealogy offers both a diagnosis and a vision, challenging scholars across the humanities and social sciences to rethink how we write history and whether our most trusted methods are fit for the futures we seek to build.Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm is Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Religion and chair of science and technology studies at Williams College. He is the author of Metamodernism: The Future of Theory and The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences, both published by the University of Chicago Press.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. Twitter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 days ago1h 0m
The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World with Mike Beggs (Verso, 2026)
Neither capitalism nor central planning, this is the future for socialism.Capitalism isn’t working. But is there a plausible alternative? The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World (Verso, 2026) lays one out: a system where workers control every lever of production, and competitive markets and state planning coexist side by side. Drawing on the history of socialist experiments and the economic debate over planning and markets, The Blueprint confronts the hardest questions about what went wrong in the past—and why it can go right in the future. The result is a socialism worthy of the twenty-first century.Mike Beggs is senior lecturer in political economy at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the history of macroeconomic and monetary thinking and policy.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. Twitter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 days ago56 min
Phenomenology of Illness with Havi Carel (Oxford UP, 2016)
The experience of illness is a universal and substantial part of human existence. Like death, illness raises important philosophical issues. But unlike death, illness, and in particular the experience of being ill, has received little philosophical attention. This may be because illness is often understood as a physiological process that falls within the domain of medical science and is thus outside the purview of philosophy. In Phenomenology of Illness (Oxford UP, 2016) Havi Carel argues that the experience of illness has been wrongly neglected by philosophers and proposes to fill the lacuna. Phenomenology of Illness provides a distinctively philosophical account of illness. Using phenomenology, the philosophical method for first-person investigation, Carel explores how illness modifies the ill person's body, values, and world. The aim of Phenomenology of Illness is twofold: to contribute to the understanding of illness through the use of philosophy and to demonstrate the importance of illness for philosophy. Contra the philosophical tendency to resist thinking about illness, Carel proposes that illness is a philosophical tool. Through its pathologising effect, illness distances the ill person from taken for granted routines and habits and reveals aspects of human existence that normally go unnoticed. Phenomenology of Illness develops a phenomenological framework for illness and a systematic understanding of illness as a philosophical tool.Havi Carel is professor at the University of Bristol where she teaches in both the philosophy department and the Bristol medical School. Broadly, Havi’s research comes under the umbrella term Medical Humanities, and specifically for Havi this includes the philosophy of medicine, the phenomenology of illness, the philosophy of death, epistemic injustice, the philosophy of children’s health, and the philosophy of film.Dr. Anya Daly is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Ethics in the School of Arts and Society, University of Tasmania. Interdisciplinary collaborations are at the core of Anya’s research interests. She investigates the intersections of phenomenology with philosophy of mind, the philosophy of perception, the philosophy of psychiatry, embodied and social cognition, enactivism, ethics, aesthetics and Buddhist Philosophy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 days ago51 min
Reframing Dynamism: Indic Philosophies of Being, Time and Freedom with Sthaneshwar Timalsina
In Reframing Dynamism: Indic Philosophies of Being, Time and Freedom (Bloomsbury, 2026), the first book to explore the philosophy of dynamism from classical India, Sthaneshwar Timalsina interrogates central metaphysical questions about the nature of reality.Timalsina argues for change and time as intrinsic to being. Exploring instances from Yaska to Abhinavagupta, and reading philosophical and cultural texts in a comparative light, he reveals the absolute being as inherently dynamic. Alongside Bergson and Husserl, his study directs attention to the importance of the arguments of classical Sanskrit grammarians such as Yaska, Bhartthari, and Kauna Bhatta.By engaging with schools and other Sakta philosophies that have not received serious engagement, Timalsina reinvigorates the conversation on creativity, freedom, dynamism, temporality, and the dynamism of being. His cutting-edge view of time as a fundamental element of reality is necessary reading for scholars of classical Sanskrit traditions, consciousness and the philosophy of life.Vimarsha Foundation website Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago48 min
Marx and the Politics of Need with George Boss (Routledge, 2026)
When one hears about needs in the context of politics, one might imagine that they are dealing with facts that simply cannot be circumvented. Moving from this idea, Boss sees a tension, one in which politics, a field of negotiated agency, might find itself strangled by a closed concept. Without wanting to contend that people can actually live without having certain basic needs met, Boss wants to ensure that politics itself remains a realm of freedom, and finds in his own reading of Karl Marx a thread of thinking that slowly unwinds social and economic theories that unwittingly create situations they imagine themselves to be mirroring. Reading Marx in dialogue with economics, critical theory and contemporary political theory, Boss seeks to interrogate the ways in which our thinking about politics may not be best thought of as detached reflections on reality but active forms of participation in and creation of reality, a process that locks down what we should be trying to keep open. Marx and the Politics of Need (Routledge, 2026) is slowly but surely throughout the book turned into a need of politics, a careful and methodical reflection on what political thinking itself is.George Boss is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago53 min
Disability, Revolution with Robert McRuer (U California Press, 2026)
What revolutionary disability politics look like today, with lessons for larger liberatory movements. In recent political times, disability identity has been mobilized in ways that paradoxically compound bodily injury and disability. This single-issue approach obscures the oppression of disabled people and prevents solidarity across difference. In Disability, Revolution (U California Press, 2026), Robert McRuer introduces alternatives to "one-dimensional disability," providing an accessible overview of disability justice movements and their relevance to larger emancipatory coalitions. Exploring the most prominent examples from the past several decades, the book focuses on the convergence of queer and crip movements, mad pride, intersectional disability justice work, neurodiversity, and the globalization of disability alliances. Essential for anyone interested in disability politics, this book shows how these multivalent movements help us imagine alternative disabled worlds.Robert McRuer is a writer and speaker whose work is situated at the intersections of the interdisciplinary fields of disability studies and queer theory. His award-winning 2006 book Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability has been translated into three languages. He is a Professor of English at George Washington University, where he teaches queer theory, disability studies, and critical theory more generally.Clayton Jarrard is an interdisciplinary scholar and writer working at the nexus of queer and trans studies, disability and mad studies, and religious studies. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago58 min
Meta-Theory, with Brendan Graham Dempsey
Today I sit down with Brendan Graham Dempsey, Director of Research at the Institute of Applied Metatheory, where he thinks about human meaning-making systems. It’s rare that I have someone on the pod who doesn’t specialize in Asian traditions, but I thought a conversation with Brendan might help crystalize some of the ideas we’ve been discussing so far this season. We talk about what kind of spirituality is possible after postmodernism, the advantages of an integrative worldview, and how to decide which perspective should win out over others when they’re in conflict. In our conversation, it is apparent that Brendan and I are coming at this from different directions, but ultimately we discover some common ground. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in multidisciplinary conversations about Asian religious, medical, healing, and mystical traditions, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. If you would be willing to help support the pod so we can pay our bills, please look us up on Substack and become a member! Each month our guests share downloadable PDFs of articles, book chapters, and other materials in our members area. Check it out!One last thing: we are planning an “Ask Me Anything” episode in the future, so reach out via Substack or my website here and let me know your questions. Ok, on with the show!Resources relevant to this episode:Discussion of Pierce’s publication in Metamodern Theory and Praxis: here Brendan’s main website: hereEvolution of Meaning: hereΩ (Omega): hereSubscribe to Black Beryl Substack to unlock our members-only benefits, including a chapter from Brendan’s forthcoming book Evolution of Meaning (PDF).Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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About New Books in Critical Theory
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books游戏副本 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.
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