The Rhetoric of Decline
In this episode of High Theory, Jed Esty talks about the Rhetoric of Decline. Declinism names the contradictory political narrative that America will always be the greatest country in the world, yet i...
13 Jun 202319min
Samuel J. Redman, "The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience" (NYU Press, 2022)
On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum’s castle. Rare objects...
13 Jun 20231h 1min
Malini Ranganathan et al., "Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City (Cornell UP, 2023) illuminates how corruption is fundamental to global storytelling about how states and elites abuse entrust...
13 Jun 20231h 20min
Arturo Rodríguez Morató and Alvaro Santana-Acuña, "Sociology of the Arts in Action: New Perspectives on Creation, Production, and Reception" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)
What are the latest developments in the sociology of the arts? In Sociology of the Arts in Action: New Perspectives on Creation, Production, and Reception (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023), Arturo Rodríguez ...
11 Jun 20231h 3min
Maitrayee Chaudhuri and Manish Thakur, "Doing Theory: Locations, Hierarchies and Disjunctions" (Orient Blackswan, 2018)
We live in times where theory is often understood as irrelevant in the real world. It appears to have no practical results. This has been further complicated in a post-fact world, where our ‘identitie...
11 Jun 202342min
Graham Harman and Christopher Witmore, "Objects Untimely: Object-Oriented Philosophy and Archaeology" (Polity Press, 2023)
Objects generate time; time does not generate or change objects. That is the central thesis of this book by the philosopher Graham Harman and the archaeologist Christopher Witmore, who defend radical ...
10 Jun 20231h 4min
Doug Enaa Greene, "Stalinism and the Dialectics of Saturn: Anticommunism, Marxism, and the Fate of the Soviet Union" (Lexington, 2023)
As capitalism’s popularity wanes and socialism’s popularity increases, there remains a massive shadow cast by the history of actually existing socialism, Stalin being the primary pillar. His violent r...
9 Jun 202356min
Joshua St. Pierre, "Cheap Talk: Disability and the Politics of Communication" (U MIchigan Press, 2022)
In Cheap Talk: Disability and the Politics of Communication (U Michigan Press, 2022), Joshua St. Pierre flips the script on communication disability, positioning the unruly, disabled speaker at the ce...
9 Jun 202340min
