Category Archives: Uncategorized

Karla Mallette, Lives of the Great Languages: Arabic and Latin in the Medieval Mediterranean – University of Chicago Press, 2021 The story of how Latin and Arabic spread across the Mediterranean to create a cosmopolitan world of letters. In this … Continue reading →

Theory Talk #75: Tarak Barkawi In this Talk, Tarak Barkawi discusses the importance of the archive and real-world experiences, at a time of growing institutional constraints. He reflects on the growing rationalization and “schoolification” of the academy, a disciplinary and epistemological politics … Continue reading →

Japhy Wilson, Reality of Dreams: Post-Neoliberal Utopias in the Ecuadorian Amazon – Yale University Press, September 2021 An exploration of radical megaprojects in the Ecuadorian Amazon, considering the fate of utopian fantasies under conditions of global capitalism From 2007 to … Continue reading →

Paul Ricoeur, Politics, Economy, and Society: Writings and Lectures – translated by Kathleen Blamey, Polity, Sept 2021 The philosophy of Paul Ricoeur is rarely viewed through the lens of political philosophy, and yet questions of power, and of how to live … Continue reading →

Sudhir Chella Rajan, A Social Theory of Corruption: Notes from the Indian Subcontinent – Harvard University Press, 2020 A social theory of grand corruption from antiquity to the twenty-first century. In contemporary policy discourse, the notion of corruption is highly … Continue reading →

Matthew Fuller and Eyal Weizman, Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth – Verso, August 2021 Today, artists are engaged in investigation. They probe corruption, human rights violations, environmental crimes and technological domination. At the same time, … Continue reading →

Simon Glendinning, Europe: A Philosophical History – 2 volumes, Routledge, July 2021 Part 1: The Promise of Modernity and Part 2: Beyond Modernity Europe is inseparable from its history. That history has been extensively studied in terms of its political … Continue reading →

Territory, State and Nation: The Geopolitics of Rudolf Kjellén, edited by Ragnar Björk and Thomas Lundén – Berghahn, August 2021 Looks interesting, but a shame about the prohibitive price. Rudolf Kjellén, regularly referred to as “the father of geopolitics,” developed … Continue reading →

Martin Paul Eve, It’s Time we Dropped Agamben (personal blog) Benjamin Bratton, Agamben WTF, or How Philosophy Failed the Pandemic (Verso blog)

Barney Warf, Geographies of Cosmopolitanism – Edward Elgar, July 2021 Invigorating and timely, this book provides a thorough overview of the geographies of cosmopolitanism, an ethical and political philosophy that views humanity as one community. Barney Warf charts the origins … Continue reading →