What is political theology, and where is this field of inquiry headed? Vincent Lloyd points to various connections between religion, power, and political discourse; he also considers the impact of feminist, Black, decolonial, and other perspectives on the field’s trajectory.

Alex Dubilet and Vincent Lloyd, eds., Political Theology Reimagined Duke University Press, 2025

Center for Political Theology

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In the decades leading up to the Civil War, enslaved people who traveled to freedom on foot did so mainly from Southern states that bordered free states. But those in the deep South didn’t have that option and they often made their journey north by ship from the South’s long coastline, with the help of free blacks, as well as white sailors. Historian Marcus Rediker sets the record straight, illuminating the ways that the culture of port cities and of free black communities helped the formerly enslaved make their way to freedom.

Marcus Rediker, Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea Viking, 2025

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While we’re told by politicians that the ideas of Karl Marx are foreign and have no place in this country, history proves otherwise. Andrew Hartman shows that Marx and Marxism have had an a significant influence on the United States, from Marx’s journalistic writings for the New York Daily Tribune, on the mass politics of the Socialist and Communist Parties and the Wobblies, on the most radical edge of the New Deal and the New Left, and finally with the return to Marx’s ideas since the Global Financial Crisis. (Encore presentation.)

Andrew Hartman, Karl Marx in America University of Chicago Press, 2025

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Classrooms are places where teaching happens. What if they were also places of healing and justice-seeking? Tessa Hicks Peterson describes educational approaches that foster well-being, empowerment, and critical thinking. She also emphasizes the need for trauma-informed pedagogical practices.

Tessa Hicks Peterson, Liberating the Classroom: Healing and Justice in Higher Education Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025

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For decades after World War Two, the defense industry polluted the desert near Tucson’s Southside and poisoned the aquifer from which the largely Mexican American neighborhood got its drinking water. Sunaura Taylor, who was born there, reflects on lessons from the residents’ struggle — and asks what a genuine remedy might look like. She discusses an environmentalism that recognizes that we all are or will become disabled — and fights not just for the able-bodied, but to extend care to all, including the rest of the natural world. (Encore presentation.)

Sunaura Taylor, Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert UC Press, 2024

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Film in the 20th century conjures up the glamor of the big screen, as well as the intimacy of family snapshots. According to film historian Alice Lovejoy, celluloid and its successors should also bring to mind war. She reflects on the history of film companies like Kodak in the making of the atom bomb, chemical warfare, and the legacy of radioactive fallout.

Alice Lovejoy, Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War UC Press, 2025

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Jews and the left have been closely associated with each other for well over a century, both in Europe where the Nazis genocidally linked one with the other, and in the United States. Scholar Benjamin Balthaser considers the history of American Jews and the left, including in opposition to Jewish nationalism, arguing that the recent florescence of Jewish anti-Zionism is a return to a much longer tradition.

Benjamin Balthaser, Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left Verso, 2025

Photo credit: Bruce Emmerling

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Many new and emerging smart technologies are characterized as creepy. What’s the basis for these claims, and how should we respond to them? Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin consider creepy technologies and their impact with an eye toward collective ethics, politics, and futures. They contest the notion that asserting privacy rights is the only way to address concerns associated with the proliferation of surveillance technologies.

Neda Atanasoski and Nassim Parvin, editors, Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen Duke University Press, 2025

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White working class people are frequently dismissed by liberals as intractably racist — the purported bedrock of reaction in this country. While the support of working class whites has never been sufficient to explain the rise of Donald Trump, it’s still worth asking what does it take to shift the politics of white workers brought up conservative and racist. Historian David Roediger’s life has been spent grappling with such questions; yet his life itself has also answered them, given his own trajectory from racist small-town working class life to one of the founders of critical whiteness studies.

David Roediger, An Ordinary White: My Antiracist Education Fordham University Press, 2025

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The Left has decried the privatization of services like water and electricity. Is it enough to return them to public ownership and control? According to David A. McDonald, the goal should be more equitable, democratic, and non-marketized forms of public services. He considers the role that so-called remunicipalization can play in environmental and social justice efforts.

Gregory Albo and Stephen Maher, eds. Socialist Register 2025: Openings and Closures: Socialist Strategy at a Crossroads

Municipal Services Project

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