University presses play a vital role in publishing works that deepen our understanding of current events, particularly in areas such as democracy and the challenges it faces. By publishing books that foster critical scholarship and diverse philosophical perspectives, Columbia University... The post Fourteen Books for Understanding Challenges to Freedom and Democracy first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

In 1796 the British scientist Edward Jenner had a seemingly outlandish theory: he believed that catching mild cowpox rendered one immune to deadly smallpox. Jenner did not shy away from testing his assumption. He exposed an eight-year-old boy to cowpox... The post Why Western Policy Makers Should Worry About Sanctions Inoculation Agathe Demarais first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

In Contesting the Far Right: A Psychoanalytic and Feminist Critical Theory Approach, Claudia Leeb argues that psychoanalytic and feminist critical theory illuminate how economic and psychological factors interact to produce an extreme political shift to the far right. She examines... The post Claudia Leeb on Contesting the Far Right first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

I am my mother’s child. Like every soul on earth, I have been mothered. Whence my writing on, to and from, mothers. We tell ourselves many stories, and many of them have to do with beginnings. The Mayflower, the American... The post The War on Mothers Gil Anidjar first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

Seven years after the publication of Santiago Zabala’s Why Only Art Can Save Us: Aesthetics and the Absence of Emergency, the prestigious cultural institution Círculo de Bellas Artes of Madrid will host an exhibition based on Zabala’s aesthetic theory. The... The post Santiago Zabala on The Greatest Emergency An Exhibition Based on Why Only Art Can Save Us first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

As a presidential candidate and the president of the United States, Donald Trump played a starring role in bringing hate speech, violent threats, and actual violence into the political mainstream. As a former president and once again a presidential candidate,... The post Was January 6, 2021, a Rehearsal for a Greater Threat to American Democracy? Brigitte L. Nacos, Yaeli Bloch-Elkon, and Robert Y. Shapiro first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

Kamala Harris is the first Black woman to be a major party’s nominee for president. Her candidacy raises the question of whether race and/or gender will be grounds for opposition. In my book, Campaigning While Black, I answer this question... The post Will Race and Gender Influence Opposition to Kamala Harris? Matthew Tokeshi first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

Ten years ago, on June 15, 2014, Ta-Nishi Coates published his watershed Atlantic article, “The Case for Reparations.” An immediate cultural flashpoint, Coates’s piece sought to legitimize the demand for racial reparation in the contemporary United States by documenting how... The post Beyond Repair: The Psychic Life of Reparation Carolyn Laubender first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

– An individualist anarchist? To the uninitiated, it may appear somewhat peculiar that an individualist anarchist is a part of poetry month at the Columbia University Press blog. Anarchism has a well-earned reputation for being a little cold, a little... The post André Colomer, the Action of the Arts, and the Importance of Poetry Oskar De Wolf first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more

“Using your baby to virtue signal alliance with a violent political movement is a new low for white women.” This is how a far-right woman influencer describes a photo of a woman holding her baby in a carrier at a... The post The Subtle Art of Messaging: How Far-Right Women Use Social Media to Shape Public Opinion Eviane Leidig first appeared on Columbia University Press Blog ..read more