Labors of Love
Dear reader,
I am writing with some exciting announcements concerning forthcoming books, upcoming courses, and ongoing projects, the fruits of which I look forward to sharing with you.
First, I am pleased to announce that the long-awaited anthology of my late father’s unpublished works (which I co-edited) has landed a book deal from Bloomsbury. Titled Historical Epistemology, the book features never-before-seen writing on a variety of themes: pictures, models, and representations; science, theory, and history; aesthetics, politics, and practice; psychology and the philosophy of medicine; and technology and the philosophy of the future. It also includes my father’s famous philosophical cartoons.
I am confident that this book will find a strong readership among both scholars and members of the broader reading public, especially those concerned with the historical origins of our knowledge, along with its evolving relations to the economy, ecological, culture, and social life more generally.
Second, I've been hard at work on another book proposal of my own, while making slow, yet steady progress towards something approximating a first draft. Resistance: Field Notes from the Frontlines follows the origins and evolution of America’s anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, and anti-fascist movements in the age of Trumpism, tracing their strategies and their tactics, their coalitions and their contradictions, their triumphs and their many defeats.
Written from the standpoint of a participant observer, and based on nearly ten years of ethnographic inquiry, the book endeavors to deliver a more honest and a more realistic rendering of American resistance movements than the ones we have received to date. In so doing, this project aims to recast the history of the present in a whole new light.
I am also happy to report that I will be returning to the classroom this spring semester to teach two new courses of my own design. For one, I have been appointed Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University, where I will be teaching an introductory course on Comparative Immigration Studies.
For another, I have been invited by the American Council on Judaism to teach a class on the topic of Judaism in Times of Fascism (see below). This is an eight-week course in theory and practice, and is open to people of all backgrounds, regardless of identity or ability to pay. You can support this work, if you are so inclined, by spreading the word.
Finally, I am striving to play my own little part in the struggles of our time: organizing with friends, neighbors, and fellow knowledge workers; confronting the ongoing offensive against the foreign-born, the Black and brown, and the poor and working classes; and building parallel structures whereby ordinary people can freely access public goods, including popular education, care, and community. I trust you, too, are doing your part.
In times such as these, amid the rumors of war in the Caribbean, the wretched realities of techno-fascism in the West, and the crisis tendencies of late capitalism the world over, I find myself returning to the dual imperatives articulated by Antonio Gramsci in an Italian prison during Mussolini's reign of terror: pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.
Wishing the happiest of holidays, in spite of everything, to you and yours – and, to the people of the world, a season of joy, solidarity, and solace, built on a just and lasting peace.
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PS: The basic version of this newsletter is free for all to access. Additionally, for those who wish to support my writing and research in a material way, you can:
a) become a supporter for $5/month,
b) become a sustainer for $18/month, or
c) kick in a few dollars for a one-time tip.
Any and all contributions will go towards sustaining the production, circulation, and liberation of knowledge, which has been, and continues to be, my life’s work.
