New Books in Critical Theory8 Heinä 2013

Stacy Alaimo, “Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self” (Indiana UP, 2010)

In her book, Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self (Indiana University Press, 2010), Stacy Alaimo approaches the concepts of “science, environment, and self” in an extremely novel and inventive way. The central concept in Alaimo’s work is that of “trans-corporeality” which she describes as a way of theorizing the relationship between humanity and the world at large as not being clearly delineated and separate, but as fluid. As this relates specifically to nature and the environment, Alaimo’s intention is for the reader to reimagine questions of environmental ethics and environmental practices as not isolated issues but rather deeply personal as the environment and our material selves are bound up with one another in a deeply intimate manner. I found Alaimo’s central approach with “trans-corporeality,” theorizing the human as being “already in the world,” extremely refreshing when compared to the idea of human agency in postmodern studies. In this way, Alaimo provides an alternate framework for conceiving of human agency, and thus an “out” of sorts, a release, from the bounds of postmodernism’s isolated and castrated human agent. Alaimo calls this novel direction, “New Materialisms.” With this concept, Alaimo offers new insights into feminist thought and theory. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self is sure to appeal to many students and scholars of literary studies and critical theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

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Stephen Collier, “Post-Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, Biopolitics” (Princeton UP, 2011)

Pipes matter. That’s right: pipes. Anyone who has spent time in Russia knows that the hulkish cylinders that snake throughout its cities are the lifeblood of urban space, linking apartment block after...

20 Kesä 20121h 17min

Scott Morgensen, “Spaces Between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)

Here’s a study-guide prepared to accompany the interview. For as much as recent decades have witnessed a patriarchal backlash against the growing visibility of LGBTQ people in North American society,...

14 Helmi 20121h 19min

Jodi A. Byrd, “The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism” (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)

In a world of painfully narrow academic monographs, rare is the work that teams with ideas, engagements, and interventions across a wide terrain of social life. In The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Cr...

26 Tammi 201255min

Brian Christian, “The Most Human Human: A Defense of Humanity in the Age of the Computer” (Penguin, 2011)

Can computers think? That was the question which provoked English mathematician Alan Turing to come up with what we call the Turing Test, in which a computer engages a human in conversation while a ju...

23 Touko 201149min

Thomas Wheatland, “The Frankfurt School in Exile” (University of Minnesota Press, 2009)

I have a friend who, as a young child, happened to meet Herbert Marcuse, by that time a rock-star intellectual and darling of the American student movement. Upon seeing the man, he exclaimed “Marcuse!...

12 Kesä 20091h 14min

John H. Summers, “Every Fury on Earth” (Davies Group, 2008)

The vast majority of historians write history. Perhaps that’s good, as one should stick to what one knows. But there are historians who braves the waters of social and political criticism. One thinks ...

16 Joulu 20081h 10min