New Books in Critical Theory

We live in a fragile world. This much is evident as stories abound of
natural disasters that wipe out communities in an instant. How can we
survive the future on such a planet, amid intensifying climate change?
This question is particularly poignant along the Ring of Fire, a
tectonic belt in the Pacific region that routinely faces some of the
most devastating disasters in the world. Based on ethnographic research
spanning seven years, Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire
(Stanford University Press, 2026) examines the work of preparedness
training in Japan and Chile, two primary nations along the Ring of Fire
that experience frequent and intense disasters. Experts from these
countries have often collaborated to create some of the most advanced
disaster preparedness systems in the world. Dr. Chika Watanabe traces
how local city officials, NGOs, and members of neighborhood and
grassroots organizations are, counterintuitively, using fun, playful
methods to teach preparation for our darkest hours.

While there
are many important studies of post-disaster response, much less is
written about the future-orientation of disaster preparedness. This book
shows how a transnational group of preparedness experts orient people
toward potential disasters in gentle and hopeful ways, focusing on
improvisation and repair. In a time of political and environmental
destabilization globally, this book offers a unique look at how playful
preparedness can reset relationships to environments, to the future, and
to each other.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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In the Anthropocene, a question has become increasingly urgent: What
does it mean to be human? Set against the backdrop of southern Chile’s
conservation frontier, Alterhumanism: Becoming Human on a Conservation Frontier (University of Arizona Press, 2025)
invites us to recognize the centrality of the human condition in the
face of an increasingly uncertain world and imagine future forms of
coexistence.

Reflecting on more than a decade of ethnographic
fieldwork with smallholding settlers, Indigenous Mapuche farmers,
environmental activists, entrepreneurs, and conservation scientists,
Piergiorgio Di Giminiani brings to light how these diverse groups
navigate the enduring impacts of settler-caused environmental depletion
and their aspirations for new ethics of care. Di Giminiani challenges
traditional Western humanism, proposing a more relational and open-ended
understanding of humanity shaped by interactions with nonhuman others.

Rather
than seeking fixed answers, the book explores the fluid and
multifaceted nature of becoming human through the lens of conservation
politics. By highlighting the entangled, multispecies worlds of southern
Chile, Di Giminiani offers a novel approach to understanding the
political project of becoming human in the Anthropocene.

Piergiorgio
Di Giminiani is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Pontificia
Universidad Católica de Chile. His research focuses on land,
indigeneity, conservation, agriculture, and statecraft, with
ethnographic fieldwork experience in both Chile and Italy. He is the
author of Sentient Lands: Indigeneity, Property, and Political Imagination in Neoliberal Chile (2018) and Alterhumanism (2025). He has also co-edited several volumes, including The Futures of Reparations in Latin America: Imagination, Translation, and Belonging (2026), with Hélène Risør and Karine Vanthuyne, which was featured on the New Books Network; Theorizing Relations in Indigenous South America (2022), with Marcelo González and Giovanna Bacchiddu; and Ecopolíticas globales: medioambiente, bienestar y poder (2016), with Ángel Aedo and Juan Loera.

Yadong
Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of
Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his
scholarship and research interests can be found here.
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The idea of civility goes back to classical Rome and the ways in
which citizens engaged one another within the republic. The term itself
is often used in a number of different ways, reflecting expected
behavior, particularly in public spaces, and as a mechanism to manage
human interaction. But civility and the use of this idea often shape
hierarchical relationships within society and within politics and may
define who is to be included within the polis and who may be excluded.
Thus, the conversations that led to the new book, Civility Unbound: Contesting a Democratic Value,
interrogated the idea of civility in many of its facets and did not
necessarily settle on a simple definition or means of implementing
civility within contemporary society. Michael DiNiscia, Director of
Research and Strategic Initiatives at New York University’s Brademas
Center, and Ellyn Toscano, Director of the Hawthorndon Foundation,
edited this valuable exploration of the idea of civility within
democracy. In so doing, they brought together academics, politicians and
former politicians, activists, artists, and individuals from the
foundation world to discuss this controversial idea of civility,
unpacking the term, the way it is used, and how society may consider
civility within the realm of politics and public life.

I had the pleasure of discussing Civility Unbound
with Michael DiNiscia and Hussein Rashid, one of the contributing
authors. Our conversation covered the content of the book, tracing the
sections that include philosophy and political theory, democratic
institutions and politics, social justice and protest, media engagement,
and lessons from arts and culture. The chapters are fascinating and
accessible. As a reader, you feel as though you are part of the ongoing
conversation with the various authors, since the chapters are in
dialogue with each other and with the reader, without coming to a
consensus on the role and capacity of civility within democratic society
but with many paths to consider. The impetus for this book, and for
focusing on the idea of civility, grew out of the events of January 6,
2021, and an overarching question about whether the United States could
return to a state of civility in our politics, after we had witnessed
the violent insurrection that attempted to stymie the constitutional
process of tallying Electoral College votes. Civility Unbound: Contesting a Democratic Value brings many voices together to, in a way, respond to this violence, this incivility that had been demonstrated by a group of American
citizens.

The various contributing authors to Civility Unbound
take up the theory and practice of civility, trying to determine what it
actually means and the rules around civility and political engagement.
Across the chapters we find that there is a paradox around civility,
around who is asked to “remain civil” and who gets to define what
civility means. Civility may well reside within power relationships and
dynamics, with rules applied to some groups or individuals and not to
others. Invoking civility may well surface inequalities and the unequal
places and footing of those engaging in politics and society. This is
particularly important to consider in context of American democracy, and
the unequal distribution of power and state violence inherent in the
American state. Civility Unbound: Contesting a Democratic Value prompts the reader to consider how democratic engagement works and how we are to participate in attempts at self-rule.

We discussed the First America podcast during the conversation. Here is a link to the podcast website: First America Podcast

Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume I: The Infinity Saga (University Press of Kansas, 2022), and of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume II: Into the Multiverse (University Press of Kansas, 2025) as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics
(University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social
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Can laws be unjust and yet remain, in some sense, morally legitimate? In Political Philosophy: The Puzzle of Legitimate Injustice (Princeton UP, 2026), Jonathan Quong considers central issues in political philosophy through the lens of this single question. He explores and evaluates recent influential work on this topic and then proposes a novel approach of his own. The puzzle at the heart of his account is the phenomenon of legitimate injustice—laws and policies that are substantively unjust yet may be legitimately imposed by government officials. How can such laws be legitimate if, as some have argued, justice is the first virtue of social institutions?

Quong analyzes the work of those who deny that injustice committed by states can be legitimate simply by virtue of its democratic or procedural pedigree; the Kantian account of legitimate institutions and justice; instrumental approaches to political legitimacy; and the recent wave of work in democratic theory focused on its egalitarian character. Arguing that these analyses do not offer an adequate solution to the puzzle and that there are compelling reasons to revise or reject them, Quong lays out his view and explains the implications for more general theories of political morality. He argues that we can explain legitimate injustice by appeal to distributive justice. If political disagreement is inevitable, then unjust legislation is largely unavoidable; it constitutes a burden that must be distributed according to just principles. Quong’s novel and illuminating framework offers a unique introduction to crucial questions in political philosophy.
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In this episode Pat speaks with Dr Alex Cain.

Dr Alex Cain researches in the fields of political theory and ethical theory, with a particular focus on the work of Hannah Arendt, among other figures in the history of philosophy. Her work in this field has so far mostly focussed on the topics of friendship, political action, judgement and the role of experience in philosophical inquiry.

They discuss Sidney Nolan’s duty to paint the concentration camps, the hopefulness of Hannah Arendt, and the importance of the banality of evil.

A transcript of this episode will be available on the Concept : Art website here.

Concept : Art is produced on muwinina Country, lutruwita Tasmania. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
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