By Telos Press · Monday, November 22, 2021 Now available for pre-order: The Travails of Trumpification, by Timothy W. Luke. Pre-order today in our online store and save 30% off the list price. Release date: December 1, 2021. While supplies last, also save 30% on our other books by Timothy W. Luke, including Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society, Anthropocene Alerts: Critical Theory of the Contemporary as Ecocritique, and A Journal of No Illusions: Telos, Paul Piccone, and the Americanization of Critical Theory. Sale ends November 30, 2021.
The Travails of Trumpification
by Timothy W. Luke
Release date: December 1, 2021
 In this series of critical essays written over the course of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, from its chaotic early days to its calamitous end, Timothy W. Luke explores how the recent twists and turns in the civic life of the United States have precipitated a dangerous transformation of American political culture. Since 2016, Trump’s will to attain, and then retain, his office by whatever means necessary crossed red lines never before violated by any previous presidential administration. Even before his loss in the 2020 election, Trump sought to discredit America’s electoral process by challenging legal voting practices in key swing states on social media, in the courts, through executive agencies, and finally with violent riots, culminating in the disastrous attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Yet while Trump himself no longer remains president, the “Trumpification” of the American political system persists today, with the majority of Republican politicians as well as Trump’s millions of devoted followers still firmly in the grip of his influence. The goal of the critical probes collected in this volume is to evaluate the “travails,” or excessive tribulation, pain, hardship, anguish, and agony, that his dangerous demagoguery has inflicted—and continues to inflict—on the nation’s democratic institutions and processes.
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By Telos Press · Friday, November 19, 2021 In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Matthew Sharpe about his article “Solitaire/Solidaire: Camus, Contemplation, and the Vita Mixta” from Telos 196 (Fall 2021). An excerpt of the article appears here. In their conversation they discussed the ways Albert Camus engaged himself politically during his life; how Camus justified his aesthetic work in relation to his political activity; how he responded to critiques of his focus on contemplation rather than political engagement; and how he understood the relationship between aesthetic contemplation and philosophical contemplation. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 196 are available for purchase in our online store.
Listen to the podcast here.
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By Telos Press · Friday, November 12, 2021 In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Lillian Hingley about her article “The Feminine Character: The Allegory of Ibsen’s Women in Adorno’s Modernist Literary Theory” from Telos 196 (Fall 2021). An excerpt of the article appears here. In their conversation they talked about Adorno’s idea of the “feminine character” and how it relates to his broader critique of capitalist society; Adorno’s reasons for focusing on the women of Ibsen’s plays; the ways that Adorno uses the idea of allegory to interpret Ibsen’s work; how Adorno links individual tragedy to more general structures of alienation; and whether Adorno is trying imagine a world without tragedy or, alternatively, if tragedy for Adorno is just a part of human existence. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 196 are available for purchase in our online store.
Listen to the podcast here.
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By Russell A. Berman · Tuesday, October 12, 2021 It is probably prudent to start with a clear affirmation that the pandemic is real, that COVID-19 has taken many lives, and that public health measures have been necessary to try to limit the devastation of the disease. No denying here.
But it is also evident that the messaging by health authorities has often been confusing, and that has undermined their own credibility: for example, in the shift from initial advice against wearing masks to the current (if inconsistent) mandate to do so. If the science on a particular question is not fully settled, it might be better for the authorities to be honest about that indeterminacy rather than to lay claim to an infallibility they cannot maintain. That clarity, however, would mean a willingness to trust the public to think on its own and to act in the spirit of individual responsibility, instead of issuing orders and vilifying critics.
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By Gérard Bökenkamp · Tuesday, October 12, 2021 The following essay first appeared in Achgut.com on September 18, 2021, and appears here with the permission of the author. Translated by Russell A. Berman, with comments here.
From the very start of the pandemic, corona and climate change have always been mentioned in the same breath. Indeed, the parallels are unmistakable. In both cases it is a matter of invisible threats from natural phenomena. In both cases, the discussion is shaped by scientists with data and modelings that are difficult to follow, as they demonstrate the need to limit personal freedoms. In both cases, large parts of the population submit to these prohibitions and limitations on freedom. In both cases, we have seen radical movements emerge, like Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, and Zero-Covid, that demand even more extreme measures, reminiscent of charismatic conversion cults and chiliastic sects. In both cases, “deniers” and “skeptics” are denounced as dangers who stand in the way of preventing a catastrophe. After the COVID lockdown, a climate lockdown will take place, with the one transitioning into the other seamlessly.
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By Telos Press · Friday, September 24, 2021 Today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast features our recent panel discussion on the causes and consequences of the U.S. failure in Afghanistan. With presentations from Telos editors Mark Kelly, Adrian Pabst, Marcia Pally, David Pan, and David Westbrook, the discussion covered various aspects of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as its implications for the future of the region, the promotion of liberal democracy and human rights, and the influence of the United States and the West more generally. We were also delighted to be joined by our listeners from around the globe, who posed thoughtful and provocative questions to the panel following the presentations.
The discussion picked up on a number of arguments addressed at greater length in the “Forum on Afghanistan” featured in Telos 196 (Fall 2021), our new issue, which is now available in the Telos Press store. Links to the individual articles are also provided here. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the articles at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page.
Listen to the podcast here.
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