Lisa Min et al. eds., "Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State" (punctum books, 2024)

When it comes to the political, acts of redaction, erasure, and blacking out sit in awkward tension with the myth of transparent governance, borderless access, and frictionless communication. But should there be more than this brute juxtaposition of truth and secrecy?

Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State (punctum books, 2024) brings together essays, poems, artwork, and memes—a bricolage of media that conveys the experience of living in state-inflected worlds in flux. Critically and poetically engaging with redaction in politically charged contexts (from the United States and Denmark to Russia, China, and North Korea), the volume closely examines and turns loose this disquieting mark of state power, aiming to trouble the liberal imaginaries that configure the political as a left-right spectrum, as populism and nationalism versus global and transnational cosmopolitanism, as east versus west, authoritarianism versus democracy, good versus evil, or the state versus the people—age-old coordinates that no longer make sense. Because we know from the upheavals of the past decade that these relations are being reconfigured in novel, recursive, and unrecognizable ways, the consequences of which are perplexing and ever evolving.

This book takes up redaction as a vital form in this new political reality. Contributors both critically engage with statist redaction practices and also explore its alluring and ambivalent forms, as experimental practices that open up new dialogic possibilities in navigating and conveying the stakes of political encounters.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(600)

Catherine A John, "Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice" (Duke UP, 2026)

In Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice (Duke University Press, 2026), Catherine A. John addresses the underbelly of spiritual resilience shaping a range of African diasporic i...

15 Sep 44min

John Charles Simon and Jennalee Donian, "Understanding Laughter and Humor: Why We Laugh, Why We Don’t, and Why It Matters" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026)

In John Charles Simon and Jennalee Donian’s Understanding Laughter and Humor: Why We Laugh, Why We Don’t, and Why It Matters (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), the authors put forward a comprehensive new the...

12 Sep 1h 6min

Robert A. Wilson, "Kin Matters: Relational Beings in the Fragile Sciences" (Oxford UP, 2026)

What is kinship? This central question in cultural anthropology is standardly answered in terms of culturally constructed relationships that are unconstrained by biological relationships. In Kin Matte...

10 Sep 1h 6min

Leonhard Emmerling, "The Idiots: The History of the Homo Nullus" (Seagull Books, 2026)

In a world obsessed with expertise and control, the figure of the idiot illuminates deeper truths about society. In this interview, Morteza Hajizadeh interviews Leonhard Emmerling about his book ...

9 Sep 1h 2min

Kevin Van Meter and Robert Ovetz eds. "Points of Departure: Refusal of Work and the Crisis of Capitalism: the Collected Writings of Harry Cleaver" (Common Notions, 2026)

“The general thrust of capitalist policy in this period aims at the intensified imposition of work in response to ongoing struggle against it.” —Harry Cleaver, “Work Is Still the Central Issue: New Wo...

7 Sep 1h 7min

Marnie Hughes-Warrington, "Artificial Historians" (Routledge, 2025)

I spoke with Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington about her 2026 book Artificial Historians, co-authored with Anne Martin and Lewis Yarlupurka O’Brien. A distinguished historian, philosopher, academic l...

5 Sep 59min

Chika Watanabe, "Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire" (Stanford UP, 2026)

We live in a fragile world. This much is evident as stories abound of natural disasters that wipe out communities in an instant. How can we survive the future on such a planet, amid intensifying cli...

4 Sep 51min

Piergiorgio Di Giminiani, "Alterhumanism: Becoming Human on a Conservation Frontier" (U Arizona Press, 2025)

In the Anthropocene, a question has become increasingly urgent: What does it mean to be human? Set against the backdrop of southern Chile’s conservation frontier, Alterhumanism: Becoming Human on a ...

4 Sep 54min