In Descent of the Dialectic: Phronetic Criticism in an Age of Nihilism (Routledge, 2024), Michael J. Thompson reconstructs the concept and practice of dialectics as a means of grounding a critical theory of society. At the center of this project is the thesis of phronetic criticism or a form of reason that is able to synthesize human value with objective rat ... Show More
Yesterday
Shatema Threadcraft, "Labors of Resurrection: Black Women, Necromancy, and Morrisonian Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Western democracies are haunted. Michael Hanchard suggests that the specter of race is what haunts our democracies, but it may be more accurate to suggest that they are haunted by their own racialized death machines—by racialized premature death. If this haunting is not adequatel ... Show More
58m 24s
Nov 21
Janice M. McCabe, "Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends: How Campuses Shape College Students’ Networks" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
We’re all familiar with the sentiment that “college is the best time of your life.” Along with a newfound sense of freedom, students have a unique opportunity to forge lifelong friendships at a point in life when friendship is particularly important. Why is it, then, that so many ... Show More
51m 53s
Nov 17
Thomas Piketty, "A Brief History of Equality" (Harvard UP, 2022)
It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising and powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the ... Show More
28m 56s
Apr 2023
David Baumeister, "Kant on the Human Animal: Anthropology, Ethics, Race" (Northwestern UP, 2022)
While Immanuel Kant’s account of human reason is well known and celebrated, his account of human animality (Thierheit) is virtually unknown. Animality and reason, as pillars of Kant’s vision of human nature, are original and ineradicable. And yet, the relation between them is fra ... Show More
40m 48s
Feb 2024
Andrius Gališanka, "John Rawls: The Path to a Theory of Justice" (Harvard UP, 2019)
It is hard to overestimate the influence of John Rawls on political philosophy and theory over the last half-century. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and he is one of the few philosophers whose work is known in the corridors of power as well as in the halls of a ... Show More
1h 14m
Sep 2023
Shai M. Dromi and Samuel D. Stabler, "Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
Where does morality fit into contemporary social science? In Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science (U Chicago Press, 2023), Shai Dromi, an Associate Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and Samuel Stabler Associate Teaching Profes ... Show More
50m 32s
Feb 2024
Matthew Wolf-Meyer and Denielle A. Elliott, "Naked Fieldnotes: A Rough Guide to Ethnographic Writing (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
Ethnographic research has long been cloaked in mystery around what fieldwork is really like for researchers, how they collect data, and how it is analyzed within the social sciences. Naked Fieldnotes: A Rough Guide to Ethnographic Writing (U Minnesota Press, 2024), a unique compe ... Show More
50m 43s
May 2023
J. Daniel Elam, "World Literature for the Wretched of the Earth: Anticolonial Aesthetics, Postcolonial Politics" (Fordham UP, 2020)
World Literature for the Wretched of the Earth: Anticolonial Aesthetics, Postcolonial Politics (Fordham UP, 2020) recovers a genealogy of anticolonial thought that advocated collective inexpertise, unknowing, and unrecognizability. Early-twentieth-century anticolonial thinkers en ... Show More
55m 16s
Nov 2023
Astra Taylor, "The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart" (House of Anansi Press, 2023)
These days, everyone feels insecure. We are financially stressed and emotionally overwhelmed. The status quo isn’t working for anyone, even those who appear to have it all. What is going on?
In The Age of Insecurity (House of Anansi Press, 2023), author and activist Astra Taylor ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 2023
Astra Taylor, "The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart" (House of Anansi Press, 2023)
These days, everyone feels insecure. We are financially stressed and emotionally overwhelmed. The status quo isn’t working for anyone, even those who appear to have it all. What is going on?
In The Age of Insecurity (House of Anansi Press, 2023), author and activist Astra Taylor ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 2023
Konstantinos Retsikas, "A Synthesis of Time: Zakat, Islamic Micro-finance and the Question of the Future in 21st-Century Indonesia" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
In A Synthesis of Time: Zakat, Islamic Micro-finance and the Question of the Future in 21st-Century Indonesia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Konstantinos Retsikas has anthropological investigation into the different forms the economy assumes, and the different purposes it serves, wh ... Show More
1h 4m
Jun 2024
Race, Social Reproduction, and Capitalist Totality
We live in a historical conjuncture characterized by the rise of a range of social movements that aim to challenge different forms of domination: capitalism, patriarchy, racism, settler colonialism, just to name a few. However, critical scholars remain divided about how to think ... Show More
1h 28m
Sep 2023
Daniel R. Reichman, "Progress in the Balance: Mythologies of Development in Santos, Brazil" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Progress and development have long been important issues in anthropology and social sciences. Based on extensive archives and ethnographic fieldwork, Progress in the Balance: Mythologies of Development in Santos, Brazil (Cornell UP, 2023) addresses and assesses an anthropological ... Show More
45m 1s