Sean Jacobs, "Media in Postapartheid South Africa: Postcolonial Politics in the Age of Globalization" (Indiana UP, 2019)
Sean Jacobs, Associate Professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York City. Jacobs is also the founder and editor of the acclaimed Africa is A Country website, a leader His new book Media in Postapartheid South Africa: Postcolonial Politics in the Age of Globalization, published by Indiana University Press in 2019. In it, Jacobs makes a potent argument about the role of the media, in its many new and old forms, as an arbiter of belonging and citizenship in our information-saturated age. Using South Africa since the 1994 “transition” from Apartheid to democracy as his case study, Jacobs analysis demonstrates the importance of not only understanding an ever-changing media landscape as part of any study of politics, but also how the media shapes how public goods as made accessible to whom and how. Media in Postapartheid South Africa is also a study of how the processes and structures of colonialism mix with the discursive tricks of political elites during Apartheid and after 1994, and how the media shapes how South Africans see themselves, in advertising, soap operas and reality shows. Susan Thomson is associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
4 Helmi 202059min
K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)
If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years working on a PhD, or if you’re a faculty member whose career has basically consisted of higher ed, switching isn’t so easy. PhD holders are mostly trained to work as professors, and making easy connections to other careers is no mean feat. Because the people you know were generally trained to do the same sorts of things, an easy source of advice might not be there for you. Thankfully, for anybody who wishes there was a guidebook that would just break all of this down, that book has now been written. Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers (Stylus Publishing, 2020) by Kathryn E. Linder, Kevin Kelly, and Thomas J. Tobin offers practical advice and step-by-step instructions on how to decide if you want to leave behind academia and how to start searching for a new career. If a lot of career advice is too vague or too ambiguous, this book corrects that by outlining not just how to figure out what you might want to do, but critically, how you might go about accomplishing that. Zeb Larson is a recent graduate of The Ohio State University with a PhD in History. His research deals with the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. To suggest a recent title or to contact him, please send an e-mail to zeb.larson@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
30 Tammi 202036min
Helen Taylor, "Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Why and how is fiction important to women? In Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives (Oxford University Press, 2020), Helen Taylor, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Exeter, explores this question to give a detailed and engaging picture of fiction in women’s lives. The book presents women’s narratives about fiction, interpretations of key texts, and perspectives on writers and the publishing industry. As the book makes clear, reading is not just another hobby for women, as it occupies a crucial role in women’s lives. Full of examples and women’s stories of how reading matters, discussions of gender and genre, the role of women as authors, along with analysis of book clubs and literary festivals, the book is essential reading across the humanities, social sciences, and for anyone interested in reading! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
27 Tammi 202032min
William Callison and Zachary Manfredi, "Mutant Neoliberalism: Market Rule and Political Rupture" (Fordham UP, 2020)
The neoliberal consensus, once thought to be undefeatable, seems to have been broken both in the wake of the fiscal crisis of 2008, as well as a series of surprise movements and elections throughout the world in the last several years. But many scholars argue that it remains alive and well, just in a changed, mutated form. This is the theme that motivates the recent anthology Mutant Neoliberalism: Market Rule and Political Rupture (Fordham University Press, 2020). The book features ten essay by a cast of writers covering the ways in which neoliberalism is mutating to stay alive in a changing environment. William Callison is a visiting assistant professor of Government and Law at Lafayette College. Zachary Manfredi is an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project. Stephen Dozeman is a freelance writer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
24 Tammi 20202h 3min
Tad DeLay, "Against: What Does the White Evangelical Want?" (Cascade Book, 2019)
What does the white evangelical want? In our moment of crisis and rage, this question is everywhere. Scholars ask from where its desires emerged, pundits divine its political future, and the public asks how we lapsed into social chaos. For their part, white evangelicals feel misunderstood while failing to see the direction of their ambitions. We must interrogate its aims not only through its past or current trends but also through the various fantasies by which it rejects and enlivens reality. Tad DeLay's new book Against: What Does the White Evangelical Want? (Cascade Book 2019) traces five zones of opposition: future, knowledge, sexuality, reality, and society. If climate change is the greatest threat civilization has ever faced, then a faith aiding collapse must face analysis. If it swims in assured forgiveness, it feels no shame for its sins against humanity. If it wants a king, it threatens democracy. If it veils xenophobia, it shall be ever more cruel. In a critical and accessible history of odd ideas, DeLay chronicles the past and sketches its troubling future. It might die, but what’s certain is that a faith built on nostalgia and supremacy won’t moderate. We live in dangerous times, so let us consider its justifications, turmoil, appetite, and catastrophe. Tad DeLay is the author of The Cynic & the Fool and God Is Unconscious. He teaches philosophy and religious studies in Denver. Stephen Dozeman is a freelance writer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
22 Tammi 20201h 6min
Ben Green, "The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future" (MIT Press, 2019)
The “smart city,” presented as the ideal, efficient, and effective for meting out services, has capture the imaginations of policymakers, scholars, and urban-dweller. But what are the possible drawbacks of living in an environment that is constantly collecting data? What important data is ignored when it is not easily translated into 1s and 0s? In his new book, The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future, critical data scientist Ben Green, an Affiliate and former Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and a PhD candidate in Applied Mathematics, critically examines what it means for a city to be smart enough to fulfill the promises of urbanism, while at the same time taking into account the very real drawbacks of constant data collection, and overreliance on digital technology. To do this, Green examines various case study examples, while offering philosophical and critical histories of the city-related technologies that have led us to this era. Jasmine McNealy is a scholar of media and technology. She teaches at the University of Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
20 Tammi 202033min
Wendy Bottero, "A Sense of Inequality" (Roman and Littlefield, 2020)
How should we understand inequality? In A Sense of Inequality (Roman and Littlefield, 2020), Wendy Bottero, a Reader in Sociology at the University of Manchester offers a detailed and challenging new approach to how we conceive of, how we study, and how we might challenge, social inequality. The book contends we need a new approach to the everyday subjective experience of inequality, appreciating people’s constrained resistance to often highly unequal social situations. Whilst never downplaying the reality of inequality, the book challenges social theories that ignore everyday practices in explanations of the persistence of inequality. Empirically detailed, with extensive global examples, as well as theoretically rich, the book is essential reading across the social sciences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
20 Tammi 202040min
Josh Reno, "Military Waste: The Unexpected Consequences of Permanent War Readiness" (U California Press, 2019)
Seven decades of military spending during the cold war and war on terror have created a vast excess of military hardware – what happens to all of this military waste when it has served its purpose and what does it tell us about militarism in American culture? Josh Reno’s Military Waste: The Unexpected Consequences of Permanent War Readiness (University of California Press, 2019), explores the myriad afterlives of military waste and the people who witness, interpret, manipulate, and reimagine them. In this episode of New Books in Anthropology, he talks to host Jacob Doherty about how engineers within the military industrial complex conceptualize waste, how artists try to demilitarize surplus air force planes, how near earth orbit has filled up with the debris, and how militarized culture shapes the way we understand mass shootings. Josh Reno is an associate professor of anthropology at Binghampton University and the author of Waste Away. Jacob Doherty is a lecturer in the anthropology of development at the University of Edinburgh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
17 Tammi 20201h 17min
