New Books in Global Ethics and Politics

New Books in Global Ethics and Politics


Latest Episodes

Patrick Wolfe, “Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race” (Verso, 2016)
November 07, 2016

Widely known for his pioneering work in the field of settler colonial studies, Patrick Wolfe advanced the theory that settler colonialism was, “a structure, not an event.” In early 2016, Wolfe deepened this analysis through his most recent book,

Sally Engle Merry, “The Seduction of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking” (U. of Chicago Press, 2016)
November 07, 2016

Quantification is not usually the first thing that comes to mind when hearing or reading about the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights (OHCHR). Yet in the 21st century, a wide range of policy and advocacy agendas begin with…

Jonathan Todres and Sarah Higinbotham, “Human Rights in Children’s Literature: Imagination and the Narrative of the Law” (Oxford UP, 2016)
October 18, 2016

How can children grow to realize their inherent rights and respect the rights of others? In Human Rights in Children’s Literature: Imagination and the Narrative of Law (Oxford University Press, 2016), authors Jonathan Todres and Sarah Higinbotham exp...

Noah Shenker, “Reframing Holocaust Testimony” (Indiana UP, 2016)
October 07, 2016

I serve on a planning committee for the annual Holocaust Commemoration in Wichita, where I live and teach. Every year when we convene, we remind ourselves that we need to invite survivors to speak. With survivors aging, the time is…

Dale S. Wright, “What is Buddhist Enlightenment?” (Oxford UP, 2016)
October 04, 2016

The words “Buddhism” and “enlightenment” are, at least in the West, tightly connected. “Everyone” knows that the goal–or at least one of the goals–of Buddhist practice is “enlightenment.” But what the heck is “enlightenment,

James Waller, “Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide” (Oxford UP, 2016)
September 21, 2016

Today is the third of our occasional series on the question of how to respond to mass atrocities. Earlier this summer I talked with Scott Straus and Bridget Conley-Zilkic. Later in September I’ll talk with Carrie Booth Walling. I’m teaching…

Mary Hawkesworth, “Embodied Power: Demystifying Disembodied Politics” (Routledge, 2016)
September 16, 2016

How can we explain the “occlusion of embodied power” and “lack of attention to race, gender, and sexuality” in the discipline of political science, a field “that claims power as a central analytical concept” (17)? In her new book, Embodied …

Sandra Harding, “Objectivity and Diversity: A New Logic of Scientific Inquiry” (U. of Chicago Press, 2015)
September 07, 2016

Is the scientific value of objectivity in conflict with the social justice commitment to diversity? In her latest book, Objectivity and Diversity: A New Logic of Scientific Inquiry (University of Chicago Press, 2015),

Miki Kratsman with Ariella Azoulay, “The Resolution of the Suspect” (Radius Books, 2016)
August 30, 2016

The Resolution of the Suspect by Israeli photographer Miki Kratsman, with text by Ariella Azoulay, is co-published by the Peabody Museum Press at Harvard and Radius Books of Santa Fe, NM (2016). Mr. Kratsman was the 2011 recipient…

Bridget Conley-Zilkic, ed. “How Mass Atrocities End: Studies from Guatemala, Burundi, Indonesia, the Sudans, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
August 26, 2016

If you want to know how to bring future mass atrocities to an end, the best place to start is to examine how past mass atrocities have ended. This simple piece of logic is at the heart of Bridget Conley-Zilkic’s…