Books – Page 2 – Social Text

Nonknowledge as Capacity: Randy Martin’s Knowledge LTD and the Limits of Rationality in the Age of the Derivative

John Andrews

Journalist Farhad Manjoo describes the “post-fact society” as “a parallel universe of fact: a place at once part of the mainland but profoundly distant from it, a place where another truth—a truth pocked with holes, but one just true enough … Continue reading “Nonknowledge as Capacity: Randy Martin’s Knowledge LTD and the Limits of Rationality in the Age of the Derivative”

March 20, 2017 | Features: Reviews

When the Market Goes Marching In

Salimah Hankins and Balthazar Becker

Work Reviewed: Adams, Vincanne: Markets of Sorrow, Labors of Faith: New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina. Durham, NC & London: Duke UP, 2013. Markets of Sorrow, Labor of Faith, Vincanne Adams argues, “is not about Hurricane Katrina” (1). Instead, … Continue reading “When the Market Goes Marching In”

February 15, 2014 | Features: Reviews

The Touch of Flesh with Flesh

Balthazar Becker

Work Reviewed: Holland, Sharon Patricia. The Erotic Life of Racism. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2012. xii + 168 pp. Then she touched me, and then I did stop dead. […] I do not know. I know only that my entire … Continue reading “The Touch of Flesh with Flesh”

July 28, 2013 | Features: Reviews

Untying Critical Making

Michael Mandiberg

I just untied my copy of Critical Making, edited by Garnet Hertz. When I pulled it from the hand addressed brown paper envelope I was startled by its handmade, twine-wrapped beauty. It has the spirit of an old school zine, … Continue reading “Untying Critical Making”

April 30, 2013 | Features: Reviews

On Icons and Their Critics

Nicholas Gamso

Bishnupriya Ghosh’s new book Global Icons: Apertures to the Popular is a thorough but at times confounding account of the Icon in our media-saturated global age. In her book, Ghosh treats dominant and popular representations of three women — Mother … Continue reading “On Icons and Their Critics”

January 31, 2013 | Features: Reviews

The Sixties in a Cube

Anna McCarthy

We love our little objects. Perhaps you are reading this on yours, pinching and stroking the screen to enlarge the text. These physical interactions with the things themselves, with the actual media of media, are part of the history of … Continue reading “The Sixties in a Cube”

December 19, 2012 | Features: Reviews

Occupy, Gaga

Victor P. Corona

Under review: J. Jack Halberstam. Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2012. The stardom of Lady Gaga has stimulated academic studies in ways that few celebrities typically have (aside from icons like Madonna and … Continue reading “Occupy, Gaga”

September 24, 2012 | Features

Transforming Society

David Gilbert

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex (AK Press, 2011), Nat Smith and Eric A. Stanley (eds.) Even though it was over 30 years ago, I remember well the anxiety about entering the penal system: how would I … Continue reading “Transforming Society”

September 16, 2012 | Features: Reviews

Living Autonomy Today

Malav Kanuga

Thought follows action. A new precarious generation of cognitive workers knows this all too well, for their struggles trace the crumbling edifice of both the university and the global economy that increasingly depends on knowledge, affects, and information for its operations. If we begin with these struggles, we can dare to know much more about how our present circumstances are shaped by the knowledge economy.

June 23, 2012 | Features: Reviews

A History of Debt

Maryam Monalisa Gharavi

Under Review: David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Melville House Publishing: NY, 2011 ‘Tis to be a slave in soul, And to hold no strong control Over your own wills, but be All that others make of ye. –The Mask … Continue reading “A History of Debt”

October 31, 2011 | Features: Reviews

A Trespasser's Legacy

Balthazar Becker

Work Reviewed: Miyoshi, Masao. Trespasses: Selected Writings. Ed. Eric Cazdyn. Durham: Duke UP, 2010. xxxiii + 344 pp. No obituaries appeared in the major American newspapers when Masao Miyoshi, the author of Accomplices of Silence(1974), As We Saw Them (1979), and Off Center: Power … Continue reading “A Trespasser's Legacy”

May 17, 2011 | Features: Reviews

Insecure Times

Ashley Dawson

Under Review: Marc Abélès, The Politics of Survival (Duke University Press, 2010) Kolya Abramsky, Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World(AK Press, 2010) Slavoj Zizek, Living in the End Times (Verso, 2010) Writing about Hollywood disaster … Continue reading “Insecure Times”

April 12, 2011 | Features: Reviews

The Promise of Happiness

Sean Grattan

Reviewed: Ahmed, Sara. The Promise of Happiness. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010 In her sweeping new work The Promise of Happiness, Sara Ahmed provocatively challenges the idea of happiness as a necessary social good. Ahmed delivers a compelling and engrossing argument about … Continue reading “The Promise of Happiness”

February 8, 2011 | Features: Reviews

Comrades in the Barrio

Nicholas Gamso

Reviewed: Fernandes, Sujatha. Who Can Stop the Drums?: Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela (Durham: Duke Univeristy Press, 2010) Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is known for his popularity among the urban poor: they’ve provided a major voting bloc in three victorious national … Continue reading “Comrades in the Barrio”

November 4, 2010 | Features: Reviews

Liberal Arts: Lurching towards Obsolescence?

Crystal Son Brown

Reviewed: Menand, Louis. The Marketplace of Ideas. New York: W.W. Norton & Co Ltd, 2010. Louis Menand’s The Marketplace of Ideas offers suggestions for revamping liberal education at a time when the liberal arts seem increasingly irrelevant to incoming freshmen. 1 Andrew Scull’s notorious hatchet job … Continue reading “Liberal Arts: Lurching towards Obsolescence?”

May 1, 2010 | Features: Reviews