Telos 198 · Spring 2022
Challenging State Sovereignty: Mutual Aid or Civil War?

Though it seems to be fraying at the edges, the American project still remains the most viable one for combining freedom with security. In this issue of Telos, we look at recent attempts to think through the U.S. balancing act in maintaining the goal of e pluribus unum through state sovereignty.

Read David Pan's introduction to the issue.
The Travails of Trumpification
by Timothy W. Luke

In this new collection of critical essays, Timothy W. Luke explores how the recent twists and turns in the civic life of the United States have precipitated a dangerous transformation: the “Trumpification” of the American political system.

Now available in the Telos Press store!
Screens of Power
Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society
by Timothy W. Luke
With a Foreword by Ronald J. Deibert

This new edition of Screens of Power reintroduces the innovative critique of informational culture, politics, and society outlined by Timothy W. Luke in Telos and other publications during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The Perils of Nonviolent Islamism
by Elham Manea
With a Foreword by Russell A. Berman

Elham Manea's critical investigation of nonviolent forms of Islamist fundamentalism sounds the alarm on a crisis that can no longer be ignored.
The Crisis of Liberalism
Prelude to Trump
by Fred Siegel
With a Foreword by Joel Kotkin

In this wide-ranging collection of essays, Fred Siegel leverages New York City to uncover the key political conflicts and social contradictions in American liberalism over the last century.
Anthropocene Alerts
Critical Theory of the Contemporary as Ecocritique
by Timothy W. Luke

Timothy W. Luke’s “ecocritiques,” many of which first appeared in the pages of Telos, advance a critical theory of the contemporary that takes aim at our ongoing ecological crisis, a period marked by rapid climate change, extensive biodiversity loss, and deep ecospheric damage.
Mastering the Past
Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe
and the Rise of Illiberalism
by Ellen Hinsey

Through a series of eyewitness reports, Ellen Hinsey's Mastering the Past documents a critical shift in the Central and Eastern European political landscape: the dangerous rise of illiberalism.
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One of the surprising aspects of the Ukraine War is that it came as a surprise. After the devastation that Russia wreaked in Chechnya, after the invasion of Georgia, after the occupation of Crimea—and the list goes on: after Russia's complicity in the destruction of Aleppo and the violence of the Wagner Group deployments especially in Africa, and, most obviously, . . . (continue reading)

Report from the Telos Student Seminar in Israel

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The Telos Student Seminars provide a forum for students around the world to engage with critical theory by discussing a common set of paired texts from Telos—one current essay and one pertinent essay from our archives. In our second cycle of seminars, we are discussing Huimin Jin's "Cultural Self-Confidence and Constellated Community: An Extended Discussion of Some Speeches by Xi . . . (continue reading)

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By Gabriel Noah Brahm and Orian Morris

Is Putin the madman they say? Or is he, to the contrary, somebody who coldly calculates his rational self-interest, in the manner of Thomas Hobbes's legendary sovereign power or Niccolò Machiavelli's eponymous prince? In short, is it surrealism, rooted in deranged psychological fantasy, or Realism, grounded in hardcore political science, that we are up against? Or could there be an . . . (continue reading)

Telos 198 (Spring 2022): Challenging State Sovereignty: Mutual Aid or Civil War?

By David Pan

Telos 198 (Spring 2022): Challenging State Sovereignty: Mutual Aid or Civil War? is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats. State sovereignty has a complicated relationship to individual rights. They are clearly in opposition, and both left-wing anarchist and right-wing libertarian critiques of the state have attempted to . . . (continue reading)

From the Publisher's Desk

Telos has always celebrated rejuvenation and renewal, and in recent years we’ve embraced that change in a variety of ways. We’ve taken Telos online and digitized our complete archive, allowing institutional subscribers from around the world to access the journal over the Internet. We’ve created a regular conference series in New York City and another more recently in Europe, which have brought together an increasing number of scholars to discuss today’s critical issues in politics and philosophy . . . (continue reading)

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