Faculty Publications
This is a sample listing of current faculty's recent book publications. Please see selected faculty's CV for full list of publications.
Communists in Closets: Queering the History, 1930s-1990s - Bettina Aptheker
Beloved Distinguished FMST Professor Emerita Bettina Aptheker's newest book, Communists in Closets, explores the history of gay, lesbian, and non-heterosexual people in the U.S. Communist Party. Beginning in 1938 up until 1991, the Communist Party banned lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from membership, casting them off as "degenerates." During the 60-year ban, gays and lesbians in the Communist Party were deeply closeted both within the party, and in their public lives as both queer and Communist. Based on a decade of archival research, correspondence, and interviews, Prof. Aptheker explores this history, also pulling from her own experience as a closeted lesbian in the Communist Party in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Unsettled Borders: The Militarized Science of Surveillance on Sacred Indigenous Land - Felicity Schaeffer
In Unsettled Borders, Felicity Amaya Schaeffer examines the ongoing settler colonial war over the US-Mexico border from the perspective of Apache, Tohono O’odham, and Maya who fight to protect their sacred land. Schaeffer traces the technological development of militarized border surveillance across time and space, from Spanish colonial lookout points in Arizona and Mexico to the Indian wars, when the US cavalry hired Native scouts to track Apache fleeing into Mexico, to the occupation of the Tohono O’odham reservation and the recent launch of robotic bee swarms in Arizona's “Optics Valley.”
Stories That Bind: Political Economy and Culture in New India - Madhavi Murty
Stories that Bind examines the assertion of authoritarian nationalism and neoliberalism backed by the authority of the state, and argues that contemporary India should be understood as the intersection of the two. Through its focus on India and its complex media landscape, the book reveals that this intersection has a narrative form, which Prof. Murty labels “spectacular realism.”
Abolition. Feminism. Now. - Davis, Dent, Meiners, Richie
Abolition. Feminism. Now. is a celebration of freedom work, a movement genealogy, a call to action, and a challenge to those who think of abolition and feminism as separate political projects. In this collaborative work, scholar-activists Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie surface the often unrecognized genealogies of queer, anti-capitalist, internationalist, grassroots, and women-of-color-led feminist movements that have helped define abolition and feminism in the 21st century.
Against Muerto Rico: Lessons from the Verano Boricua - Marisol LeBron
In Against Muerto Rico, LeBrón approaches the 2019 Verano Boricua protests – the largest in Puerto’s Rico’s modern history, when the populace mobilized to force the resignation of governor Ricardo Rosselló – from a sociological standpoint, exploring what she considers the six most significant political lessons of the rebellion and the ongoing struggle against the forces of death in Puerto Rico.
Because When God Is Too Busy - Gina Athena Ulysse
Because When God Is Too Busy: Haïti, me & The World, is a poetic journey through silence, rebellious rage, love, and the sacred. Ulysse's collection is a testament to postcolonial inheritances. A lyrically vivid meditative journey that is unapologetic in its determination to name, embrace and reclaim a revolutionary Blackness that has been historically stigmatized and denied.
Intimate Politics - Bettina Aptheker
A gripping and beautifully rendered memoir, Intimate Politics is at its core the story of one woman's struggle to still the demons of her personal world while becoming a controversial public figure herself. This is the story of childhood trauma and the triumph over one's past.
The Morning Breaks - Bettina Aptheker
First published in 1975, and praised by The Nation for its "graphic narrative of [Davis'] legal and public fight," The Morning Breaks remains relevant today as the nation contends with the political fallout of the Sixties and the grim consequences of institutional racism.
For the Record - Anjali Arondekar
Anjali Arondekar considers the relationship between sexuality and the colonial archive by posing the following questions: Why does sexuality (still) seek its truth in the historical archive? What are the spacial and temporal logics that compel such a return? And conversely, what kind of "archive" does such a recuperative hermeneutics produce?
Surrogate Humanity - Neda Atanasoski and Kalindi Vora
Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures analyzes myriad technologies, from sex robots and military drones to sharing-economy platforms, to show how how liberal structrues of antiblackness, settler colonialism, and patriarchy are fundamental to human-machine interactions, as well as the very definition of human.
Humanitarian Violence - Neda Atanasoski
Humanitarian Violence considers U.S. militarism during the Vietnam War, the Soviet-Afghan War, and the 1990s wars of secession in the former Yugoslavia. Neda Atanasoski reveals a system of postsocialist imperialism based on humanitarian ethics, identifying a discourse of race that focuses on ideological and cultural differences and makes postsocialist and Islamic nations the targets of U.S. disciplining violence.
Meeting the Universe Halfway - Karen Barad
Meeting the Universe Halfway is an ambitious book with far-reaching implications for numerous field in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In this volume, Karen Barad, theoretical physicist and feminist theorist, elaborates her theory of agential realism.
Black Popular Culture - Edited by Gina Dent
The latest publication in the award-winning Discussions in Contemporary Culture series, Black Popular Culture gathers together an extraordinary array of critics, scholars, and cultural producers. 30 essays explore and debate current directions in film, television, music, writing, and other cultural forms as created by or with the participation of black artists.
Love and Empire - Felicity Amaya Schaeffer
The spread of the internet is remaking marriage markets, altering the process of courtship and the geographic trajectory of intimacy in the 21st century. For some Latin American women and U.S. men, the advent of the cybermarriage industry offers new opportunities for remaking themselves and their futures, overthrowing the common narrative of trafficking and exploitation.
