How should we understand the ecological crisis accelerating around us? In a book that has sparked debate on the European left, Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen trace the origins of the Western mode of production and living, which is now spreading around the world. They connect such resource and emissions-intensive consumption to the political instability of our times, and point to alternatives beyond capitalism.

Resources:

Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen, The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism Verso, 2021

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In his groundbreaking book The Wretched of the Earth, the Martinican thinker, psychiatrist, and revolutionary Frantz Fanon made a number of claims about how colonialism operates and why anticolonial violence is necessary. An Yountae describes and interprets a number of Fanon’s claims, highlighting the theological character of colonial governance and the distinctive brand of violence advanced by Fanon.

An Yountae and Eleanor Craig, eds, Beyond Man: Race, Coloniality, and Philosophy of Religion Duke University Press, 2021

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The longest and most expensive war in U.S. history is the ongoing war in Afghanistan. What impact has the nineteen-year-old conflict had on U.S. democracy? According to Benjamin Hopkins, the Afghanistan war has fundamentally damaged the social and political fabric of the U.S. Hopkins also describes what he calls frontier governmentality, the focus of his latest book. (Encore presentation.)

Benjamin Hopkins, “The War That Destroyed America: Afghanistan’s Coming Bill” Critical Asian Studies

Benjamin Hopkins, Ruling the Savage Periphery: Frontier Governance and the Making of the Modern State Harvard University Press, 2020

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In the United States, few things seem as wholesome as camping, letting us temporarily escape the daily grind and commune with nature and each other. But Phoebe Young argues that camping has a complicated history, which tell us a lot about Americans’ notions of nature and the nation. She discusses the various forms that camping has taken in this country, from recreational camping to the encampments of those without shelter to Occupy Wall Street.

Resources:

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Michael Staudenmaier uses the case study of a small binational (Chicanx/Puerto Rican) revolutionary group in the U.S. to examine the phenomenon of internal colonialism; the scapegoating of populations; competing theorizations of fascism; state repression in the Americas; neo-Nazi and Klan activity; and panethnic Latinx identity and solidarity.

Michael Staudenmaier, “‘America’s Scapegoats’: Ideas of Fascism in the Construction of the US Latina/o/x Left, 1973–83” Radical History Review

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