Category Archives: Uncategorized

Steve Mentz, Sailing without Ahab: Ecopoetic Travels – Fordham University Press, 2024; foreword by Suzanne Conklin Akbari. There is a New Books discussion with John Yargo here. Navigate the Depths of a Timeless Classic, Reimagined. Come sail with I. We’re … Continue reading →

Foucault: Genealogies for the Future – Rice University, 18-19 April 2024, with online option news story about the event, organised by Niki Kasumi Clements, here

Douglas Porch, Resistance and Liberation: France at War 1942-1945 – Cambridge University Press, January 2024 In Resistance and Liberation, Douglas Porch continues his epic history of France at war. Emerging from the debâcle of 1940, France faced the quandary of … Continue reading →

Angharad Closs Stephens, National Affects: The Everyday Atmospheres of Being Political – Bloomsbury, September 2022, now in paperback Identity is widely acknowledged to be a felt experience, yet questions of atmosphere, mood and public sentiments are rarely made central to … Continue reading →

Philippe Chevallier, Michel Foucault et le christianisme: Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée – ENS éditions, April 2024 This excellent book is updated in the light of newly available material since the pioneering 2011 first edition. Des rites antiques à la … Continue reading →

David N. Livingstone, The Empire of Climate: A History of an Idea – Princeton University Press, April 2024 (USA); June 2024 (UK) Scientists, journalists, and politicians increasingly tell us that human impacts on climate constitute the single greatest threat facing … Continue reading →

Some interesting thoughts from Dave Beer on making decisions about research plans – At a research junction A few years ago I wrote a page for this site about how, largely retrospectively, I saw the main periods of my research … Continue reading →

Gisèle Sapiro, The Sociology of Literature – trans. Madeline Bedecarré and Ben Libman, Stanford University Press, October 2023 The Sociology of Literature is a pithy primer on the history, affordances, and potential futures of this growing field of study, which finds … Continue reading →

Pramod K. Nayar, Vulnerable Earth: The Literature of Climate Crisis – Cambridge University Press, May 2024 Vulnerable Earth is a study of the literature of climate crisis. Building on the assumption that the crisis is planetary in scope even if … Continue reading →