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 …
Thanks to Sharmeen, Thania, and Kieran for the interview just now about Upping the Anti! We talked about the journal, the relevance of theory to radical struggles, and the challenges of grassroots media. Listen for it on Talking Radical Radio soon!
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 …
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. Focused on the work of radical Jamaican intellectual Sylvia Wynter. Includes a lengthy dialogue between the editor and Wynter that explores key elements of her work and thought, and then a series of essays which do a mix of laying out the basics, applying her work in specific areas, and extending it in various …
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 …
A lot of Serious People who do Serious Things when it comes to knowledge tend to treat stories and other kinds of experience-based narratives as inherently suspect and not terribly useful. Some do this from a sort of empiricist place, an unreconstructed Enlightment approach to knowledge in which our best approximation of accuracy and reliability, …
A classic work (originally published in 1990) theorizing aesthetics and politics starting from the ways in which the experiences of people in the Caribbean have historically been organized. By a renowned intellectual and poet from Martinique. Translated from French (and not just any French, but a French infused with Creole and torqued through linguistic innovation …
I really like Federici’s work, and was keen to get my hands on this new collection of essays touching in one way or another on the body, particularly the capitalist transformation of the body. I found it to be a bit peculiar – not bad, necessarily, but peculiar. Partly, that’s less about the book than …
A look at the ways in which, in Western societies, binaries organize our thinking and our lives, and at ways we can navigate and perhaps at moments move beyond them. Clever and very accessible, though not without its limitations. I’ve read two books by one of the authors (Barker) before, one focused on relationships and …