Theoretical physics for the lay reader, critique of the institutional and social doing of science, and radical analysis, mixed with memoir. The author is a prof of physics and astronomy who grew up immersed in radical grassroots politics in a Black working-class family in Los Angeles. The book starts with a focus on explaining some …
Scholarly. About habit – what it is, the role it plays in lives and worlds, and how it relates to struggles for social transformation. (Not, btw, the philosophy book I alluded to feeling resistant to reading in a post last week…I had already finished this by that point!) Draws on US pragmatist philosophers, more recent …
A classic work of scholarship. About how dominant ways of knowing what came to be called “the Orient” emerged as part of the Western imperial/colonial project and how they continue to pervade and shape discourse and practices of knowing in the West today. Particularly focuses on the British, French, and US examples in relation to …
There’s a genre of scholarly left nonfiction which I think of as “capitalism and ____” which is organized around talking about capitalism as understood through some novel lens, with a specific focus, or highlighting some feature with hitherto underappreciated significance. I’ve read my share of these books, and I’m sure I’ll read more in the …
Memoir – I’d even say lyric memoir, a la Maggie Nelson. Not sure I’m using that category quite correctly, but it seems to me that there are two broad areas of writing that distinguish lyric memoir from more conventional life-writing: the artfully (if intermittently) nonlinear flow of ideas, images, events, and reflections, and the play …
Scholarly. Listed as “Indigenous studies” and “health studies”, but also contains lots of important history and at least a little attention to social struggle. Focused on the role that the medical establishment has played in genocide and colonization in Canada – that is, medical colonialism. Written by a pediatric emergency physician who practices in Montreal. …
Scholarly. Edited collection. Pieces from a range of authors examining how people in different social movements and communities-in-struggle have engaged with material and ideas from earlier movements and made use of them in political education and struggle in the present. Read it because I thought it might be useful to something I’m working on. Turns …
The last of my current work-related re-reads, so again I’ll keep my comments brief. I originally read this one quite a bit more recently than the others – only about five years ago – and not only did I do my usual review but I actually interviewed the author about this book and related things …
Scholarly. Anthropology, Indigenous studies. The book emerges from ethnographic research conducted among Mohawk people from Kahnawà:ke, and the author herself is Mohawk and from Kahnawà:ke. Unlike a lot of anthropological research, the book takes up questions of key concern to the community itself – things like membership, belonging, and borders – in the context of …
Theory. Thinks about research from an Indigenous, and specifically Maori, perspective. A classic. I first read the book about 15 years ago and wrote an extensive review at that time. I re-read it now for work purposes, and I’ll keep this brief. The work is divided into two broad parts, one providing an overview of …