Beliso-De Jesús, Aisha M. Electric Santería: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. ISBN-10: 0231173172 Hardcover, paperback, e-book. 304 pages. Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús’ 2015 book Electric Santería: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion begins and ends with an intimate account of her relationship with Alfredo Calvo Cano, […]
Reviews
Review – Theologies of the Boss (James Cochran)
Yadin-Israel, Azzan. The Grace of God and the Grace of Man: The Theologies of Bruce Springsteen. Highland Park: Lingua Press, 2016. ISBN-10: 0692718516. 202 pages. Paperback, e-book. Azzan Yadin-Israel’s The Grace of God and the Grace of Man: The Theologies of Bruce Springsteen explores the theological development of Bruce Springsteen’s songs. Yadin-Israel’s book follows an increased […]
Review – Neoliberalsm Is Nowhere – Wendy Brown’s Undoing the Demos (Isaiah Dylan Ellis)
Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books, 2015. ISBN-10: 1935408534. Hardcover. 296 pages. Almost every day since Election Day, 2016, a flood of think-pieces, editorials, and election post-mortems have sung a cacophonous and angry dirge. They scold an inept, divided left, and fume at the masculinist, authoritarian right now empowered and validated. American […]
Review – Badiou Is Not Afraid of The Dark (Mason Davis)
Badiou, Alain. Black: The Brilliance of a Non-Color. Translated by Susan Spitzer. New Jersey: Polity, 2016. ISBN-10: 1509512071. Hardcover, paperback, e-book. 80 pages. Claire Colebrook calls Alain Badiou’s newest book Black: The Brilliance Of A Non-Color, a “singular and remarkable book.” My initial reaction was similar, though I have always been impressed by Badiou’s eloquence and prose. […]
Review – Judith Butler And The Different “Senses” Of The Subject (Matthew Waggoner)
Note: This review is also published simultaneously in the PDF special issue of JCRT 16.1. Butler, Judith. Senses of the Subject. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015. ISBN-10: 082326467X. Paperback. 228 Pages. Despite having appeared separately in journals or as chapters in other books over the last twenty years, the essays collected in Judith Butler’s Senses […]
Review – New Trends In The Theory And Methods For Studying Religion (David Kim)
Kovács, Ábrahám, and James L. Cox, Editors. New Trends and Recurring Issues in the Study of Religion: Context and Overview. Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2014. ISBN-10: 9632368509 Hardcover, e-book. 249 pages. This stimulating volume of ten articles by historians, sociologists and theologians leads readers into the field of “theory and method” for the study of religion. Kovács […]
Review – The Greatest Trick God Ever Pulled… (Benjamin Steele-Fisher)
Kotsko, Adam. The Prince of this World. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017. ISBN-10: 1503600203. Hardcover, paperback, e-book. 225 pages. Adam Kotsko’s aim in The Prince of this World might be construed as a clever modulation of the oft-quoted line from the 1995 film The Usual Suspects: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing […]
Review – François Laruelle’s General Theory of Victims (John Matthew Allison)
Laruelle, François. General Theory of Victims. Translated by Jessie Hock and Alex Dubilet. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015. ISBN-10: 0745679617. Hardcover, paperback, e-book. 161 Pages. There is a kind of “non-philosophical” eruption happening in so-called Continental philosophy. After a prodigious output for over three decades, François Laruelle is finally now garnering attention in Anglophone scholarship. Indeed, […]
Review – Eugene Thacker’s “Cosmic Pessimism” (N.N. Trakakis)
Thacker, Eugene. Cosmic Pessimism. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing, 2015. ISBN-10: 193756147X. E-book, paperback. 55 pages. It might be worth quoting from the beginning of this pocket-sized, 69-page book to give a sense of its style and subject: We’re doomed. Pessimism is the night-side of thought, a melodrama of the futility of the brain, a poetry written in the […]
Review – Caputo, The Unconditional, The Folly of God (Richard M. Allen)
Caputo, John D. The Folly of God: A Theology of the Unconditional. Salem, OR: Polebridge Press, 2016. ISBN-10: 1598151711. Paperback, e-book. 148 pages. What is the interest of theology? Traditionalists will answer that it is interested solely in God, and more specifically, to define and defend the reality of God as supreme being. Much of […]