Nick Turnbull, ‘Michel Meyer’s Problematology: Questioning and Society” (Bloomsbury, 2014)
To be human is to question. This act of questioning is the essence of philosophy, as it allows ontology and epistemology to exist. For example, to understand what it is to be we must first ask the question of what it is to be. This insight, of the primacy of questioning, is at the heart of problematology, a philosophical approach explored in Nick Turnbull‘s new book Michel Meyer’s Problematology: Questioning and Society (Bloomsbury, 2014). The book has two core aims, to introduce problematology to the Anglophone world and to show how this approach can be useful for the social sciences. In particular the book mounts a defence of social science, grounded in the way problematology carves out a specific role for philosophy. The book ranges across Meyer’s work, including aesthetics, rhetoric, philosophies of science and language and political philosophy. The text engages with several key authors in post structuralism, including Derrida, showing the usefulness of Meyer’s thought for contemporary philosophy. However it goes beyond just the philosophical, illustrating how the neglect of Mayer in the English speaking world has missed the chance to found a new research programme in social science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
7 Mar 201552min
Victoria Hesford, “Feeling Women’s Liberation” (Duke University Press, 2013).
Victoria Hesford is an associated professor of Women and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University in New York. Her book Feeling Women’s Liberation (Duke University Press, 2013) examines the pivotal year of 1970 as defining the meaning of “women’s liberation.” Applying a theory of emotions to the rhetoric of mass media and the response of movement participants, Hesford demonstrates how our memory of the movement has been formed by either feelings of attachment, or dis-identification that hide its complexity and heterogeneity. The movement came to represent a radical form of feminism standing against the more staid liberal feminism of Betty Friedan. Instead of ideologically driven, Hesford argues that women’s liberation engaged in the “politics of emotion.” She demonstrates how the visceral media coverage and participant’s experience were mutual constituted in the “feminist-as-lesbian.” The language and multiple images of the feminist as a guerilla fighter, subversive and pathological, evoked the lavender menace and the “woman-identified-woman” within the movement. The lesbian became a defining figure used as a psychic weapon against women, or to denote sexual autonomy and political defiance. Central to her provocative analysis is the often-neglected figure of Kate Millet and her 1970 book Sexual Politics. The media’s outing of Millet, hounding by movement insiders to declare her lesbianism, and the spectacle of a self-fashioning response in the autobiography Flying offers a window into the feelings of betrayal, anger and depression that propelled the movement and evidence of its attachment to definitions of socially acceptable femininity. Instead of focusing on “what really happened,” the political triumphs and failures, Hesford looks to how emotions, both personal and social, shaped the movement and our memories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
6 Mar 20151h 10min
Jen Harvie, “Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism” (Palgrave, 2013)
Arts and culture are under threat in the age of austerity. This threat is underpinned by the misuse of the idea of participation in contemporary performance. This is one of the central arguments of Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism (Palgrave, 2013) by Professor Jen Harvie. The book considers how arts and culture are changing in the era of neoliberalism, seeking to pinpoint the way that ideologies of individualisation, participation and creativity have, at best, ambivalent effects. The book sets out its argument by exploring the rise of working practices such as delegating and prosumption. The rise of the precarious labourer is linked with the rise of audience and spectator participation. Whilst this can have positive impacts, it is also part of shifting the basis for aesthetic work to the participant. A similar process occurs with the demand that the cultural practitioner become entrepreneurial- whilst this might make the practitioner more attentive to her audience it may also create an individualised, market driven cultural practice. These issues play out in place and space too, as the narrative of the creative city is contrasted with the forms of exclusion associated with contemporary issues of housing in the city. The book concludes by asking a fundamental question, as to how best to fund the arts, discussing the rise and risks of philanthropy and market modes of support. The book uses a host of examples, from contemporary art, theatre pop ups and cultural institutions. It will be vital reading for anyone interested in the state of culture today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
9 Feb 201540min
Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, “The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire” (Verso, 2013)
Two Canadian socialist thinkers have published a new book on the successes and failures, the crises, contradictions and conflicts in present-day capitalism. In The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire (Verso, 2013), Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin trace the evolution of the international capitalist system over the last century. (Panitch is a professor of political science at Toronto’s York University while Gindin holds the Packer Chair in Social Justice at York.) They argue that today’s global capitalism would not have been possible without American leadership especially after the two World Wars and that the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve were more crucial in extending and maintaining American power than the Pentagon or the CIA. The U.S. capitalist empire is an “informal” one, they write, in which Americans set the terms for international trade and investment in partnership with other sovereign, but less powerful states. Panitch and Gindin also disagree with those who contend that China is set to replace the U.S. as the world’s economic superpower. They write that China does not have the institutional capacity to manage the crisis-prone, global capitalist system — a burden that, for the foreseeable future, will continue to be carried by the American empire. The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire won the 2013 Deutscher Prize awarded for books which exemplify “the best and most innovative new writing in or about the Marxist tradition.” The New Books Network spoke with co-author Leo Panitch during his recent visit to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
9 Feb 20151h 7min
Martin Shuster, “Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism and Modernity” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
The work of Theodore Adorno is well established as a crucial resource for understanding the complexities of contemporary capitalism, playing a foundational role in Critical Theory. Dialectic of Enlightenment, Adorno’s most well known text written with Max Horkheimer, is reassessed in a new book of philosophy by Martin Shuster. Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism and Modernity (University of Chicago Press, 2014) considers how autonomy might exist under the conditions of contemporary capitalism, following the disastrous inhumanity of events in the twentieth century. Shuster explores the nature of autonomy in four ways. The book opens with a re-reading of Dialectic of Enlightenment, as a means to engage and critique Kant’s notion of autonomy. The text then turns to consider a potential ‘response’ from Kant, in the form of Kant’s conception of a rational theology. It is here where Shuster considers the importance of God to Kantian ethics, most notably the role of God as establishing the value of humanity in the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative is juxtaposed with Adorno’s later work, which Shuster argues provides a way to think about autonomy that moves beyond and between the totalizing dialectic of enlightenment and Kant’s rational theology. The book closes with a consideration of Hegel’s relationship to this reading of Adorno, reassessing topics such as the teleology of history in Hegel through to the contemporary work of Stanley Cavell. The conclusion provides a practical call to arms based on the conception of autonomy developed in the book. The chapter on Dialectic of Enlightenment provides a stimulating reassessment of a text central to the critical theory tradition and should attract a general readership looking to add depth to their knowledge of this work. However the book itself will also be of interest to all readers of contemporary philosophy, holocaust studies and those wondering how we should live now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
2 Feb 201547min
Steven Shaviro, “The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism” (University of Minnesota Press, 2014)
Steven Shaviro‘s new book is a wonderfully engaging study of speculative realism, new materialism, and the ways in which those fields can speak to and be informed by the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. While The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) will satisfy even advanced scholars working on “object-oriented ontology” and related issues, it’s also a fantastic introduction for readers who have never heard of “correlationism” or panpsychism, don’t quite understand what all of the recent humanities-wide Whitehead-related fuss is all about, and aren’t sure where to begin. After a helpful introduction that lays out the major terms and stakes of the study, seven chapters each function as stand-alone units (and thus are very assignable in upper-level undergrad or graduate courses) while also progressively building on one another to collectively advance an argument for what Shaviro calls a “speculative aesthetics.”The Universe of Things emphasizes the importance of aesthetics and aesthetic theory to reading and engaging the work of Whitehead, Harman, Meillassoux, Kant, Levinas, Bryant, and others as an ongoing conversation about how we understand, inhabit, and exist as part of a material world. It’s a fabulous (and fabulously clearly written!) work that I will be recommending widely to colleagues and students. During the course of the interview we talked a bit about the opportunities that electronic and web-based media have brought to life and work in academia. On that note, you can find Steve’s blog here: http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
16 Jan 20151h 3min
Robert Hewison, “Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain” (Verso, 2014)
How did a golden age of cultural funding in UK turn to lead? This is the subject of a new cultural history by Robert Hewison. Cultural Capital: The Rise and Fall of Creative Britain (Verso, 2014) charts the New Labour era of cultural policy, detailing the shift from the optimism of the late 1990s to the eventual crisis of funding and policy currently confronting culture in the UK. The book identifies the faustian pact between government and cultural sector, as increased funding came at the price of delivering economic and social policy agendas and responding to bureaucratic forms of management. The book uses a range of examples to illustrate this problematic bargain, from the disasters of the Millennium Dome and The Public, through an analysis of the 2012 Olympic Games. Alongside the range of cultural policy projects discussed is an exploration of the infrastructure, in particular the government departments and public bodies, which are at the root of the failure of British cultural policy between 1997 and today. These failures, including how policy did little or nothing to broaden the base of consumers for state sponsored cultural institutions, are set against the need to renew the meaning and purpose of culture in government. Written with a sharp wit and full of intriguing commentary on the personalities of the key players, the book is essential reading for anyone keen to understand why Britain continues to struggle with the idea of cultural policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
19 Des 201454min
Steven Fielding, “A State of Play” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014)
To understand contemporary politics we must understand how it is represented in fiction. This is the main argument in A State of Play: British Politics on Screen, Stage and Page, from Anthony Trollope to The Thick of It (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014) a new book by Steven Fielding, Professor of Politics at the University of Nottingham. The book explores how British politics has been represented in fiction from the late Victorian era through to the present. The book identifies a fascinating set of core themes, including how the political class has been defended and attacked, how the idea of populism has developed over time, along with the changing role of women in British political fiction. A State of Play does not over-claim, stressing that although an understanding of fiction is essential to understanding politics, we still don’t know the exact relationship between people’s political participation and political fiction. However, it does make a convincing case that any understanding of the British political system will be insufficient without understanding how it has been imagined and depicted. Indeed, as later chapters show, the mode of depiction itself has become an important territory for explaining British political culture. The book contains a huge range of examples, from the more well known television series, such as Yes, Minister and The Thick of It, through to obscure and perhaps forgotten books such asThe Mistress of Downing Street. Overall it will be of interest to academics and the public alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
12 Des 20141h 2min
