texts & images

15/03/2026

15/03/2026

Habermas critiqued what he saw as the commodification of mass media and entertainment, arguing that a mass-produced culture destroys critical public debate.

One the most influential thinkers in post-war Germany, he linked philosophy and political action throughout his life.

11/03/2026

Featuring more than 100 artists, this landmark book charts the intricate connections between photography and the Black Arts Movement.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, 1955-1985
Edited by Philip Brookman & Deborah Willis
Preface by Angela Davis
Contributions by Makeda Best, Margo Natalie Crawford, Romi Crawford, Cheryl Finley, Sarah Lewis and Audrey Sands
Published by Yale University Press

The Black Arts Movement brought together writers, filmmakers, and visual artists who were exploring ways of using art to advance civil rights and Black self-determination. This book examines the vital role of photography in the evolution of the Black Arts Movement, revealing how photographs operated across art, community building, journalism, and political messaging to contribute to the development of a distinctly Black art and culture.

Works by Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Kwame Brathwaite, Samuel Fosso, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Gordon Parks, Juan Sánchez, Robert A. Sengstacke, Lorna Simpson, Ming Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, among dozens of other celebrated and underappreciated artists, span documentary and fashion photography, portraiture, collage, installation, performance, and video. Pictured luminaries include Miles Davis, Mahalia Jackson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, and many more.

The book’s essays by distinguished scholars focus on topics such as women and the movement, community, activism, and Black photojournalism. Taking an expansive approach, the authors consider the complex connections between American artists and the African diaspora and the dynamic interchange of pan-African ideas that propelled the movement. Authoritative and beautifully illustrated, this is the definitive volume on photography and the Black Arts Movement.

11/03/2026

An exploration of the history, role and theory of space in art from the point of view of a practicing artist.

THE TROUBLE WITH SPACE IN PAINTING' A Critical History
by James Hyde
Published by Bloomsbuey

James Hyde, a practicing painter, presents a radical and historically detailed investigation into how the concept of pictorial space in art emerged.

Using primary documents and a selection of images, Hyde exposes what many will find surprising-that space only becomes part of the descriptive apparatus of art and architecture at the turn of the 20th century, not earlier. Remarkably, this is the first critical study of pictorial space as a historical construction. In this retelling of art history, Hyde presents it as a concept bound to historical circumstance, developing -often contentiously-in philosophy, mathematics and science, to finally become common in 20th century theorizations of art.

Hyde investigates and identifies the historical moments when space first enters discussions about art and how it originally developed in religion, philosophy, mathematics and science. He shows that only after several key controversies were stabilized that space finally emerged as a topic for visual art at the turn of the 20th century. The stories of these debuts introduce Kant, Poincare and Panofsky, thinkers who provided theories of space that were taken up by artists. They reveal the creative and imaginative ideas that forged the belief that space is essential to understanding art.

The ease of applying space to almost any context makes space prevalent today. It is unexamined faith, rather than a clear-eyed understanding of its historical construction that currently anchors space within the discourse of art. Hyde's original reading of what has become a broad, catch-all concept provides a reconsideration of the foundations of the history and philosophy of visual art.

Release: March 2026

11/03/2026

This book is a feminist endeavour that seeks to retrieve what was meant to be a damning accusation—that feminists are responsible for the dissolution of the family or kutumbam kalakkal—into a source of illuminating critique.

FAMILY, WOMEN, AND ILL-BEING: A Critique of the Family in Twenty-First Century Kerala
by Anamika Ajay & J Devika
Published by Zubaan

This is attempted through initiating a conversation about the convergences and divergences in the distinctly different histories of elite and non-elite Malayali families and the material and political consequences of these for women.

Secondly, the book focuses on the social reproduction struggles of less-privileged women in present-day Kerala. Taken together, these strands of inquiry are essentially concerned with stripping off the quasi-natural, benign aura that continues to highlight and protect the idealised Malayali family.

The book draws on interview-based research with women workers in the informal sector in the present, and on different spells of fieldwork conducted by the authors during 2006-2022, to construct a fresh conceptual vocabulary to perceive and critique the mutation of brahmanical patriarchy in late-twentieth and early twenty-first century Kerala.

Release: January 2026

06/03/2026

Impressively comprehensive overview of trans issues from a global perspective.

TRANS LIVES: Social Realities Across the Globe
by Raewyn Connel
Published by Polity Press

Trans people have been thrust into the spotlight in recent years across the world as never before. Trans groups have become targets of intense online abuse and hostile political and religious campaigns. The media abound with reports on a few glamorous trans women, or anti-trans attacks, but say little about the everyday realities of trans lives or their global diversity.

In this book, Raewyn Connell, a world-leading sociologist and gender researcher, gathers the evidence and writes about the lives of trans women and men, hijra, tr****ti, and other groups around the world. She looks at the forces shaping trans lives, including medicine and its limitations, precarity and poverty, unequal gender relations, the role of s*x work, and encounters with the state and the corporate economy.

She discusses what is behind anti-trans campaigns, criticizing the simplistic idea that 'transphobia' explains these, and suggesting more potent causes. Finally, by exploring the creative ways trans groups have organized, she argues for the contribution they can and should make to solving our shared contemporary crises.

Written in clear and vivid language, this book offers illuminating new perspectives on gender transitions, and on gender itself.

Release: February 2026

06/03/2026

The rare work that is thorough, accessible, and scholarly. The neophyte and expert alike will benefit from engaging with her marvelous account of how history shapes how we vote and debate voting.

WE THE VOTERS:
The Constitutional Choices That Shape America's Elections
by Lori A Ringhand
Published by Stanford University Press

Many Americans today are frustrated, unsettled, or just plain perplexed about the rules governing our democracy and who gets make them. Concern about rigged systems, confusion about the Electoral College, and uncertainty about who's in charge of it all have shaken our faith in elections as a reliable way to peacefully transfer political power in a deeply fractured nation.

In We the Voters, Lori A. Ringhand brings a fresh perspective to these issues. In straightforward and accessible language, she explains how certain questions – who "we the people" are, how they should be represented, and who gets to make the rules governing our elections – have always lurked just beneath the surface of our nation's most contentious fights about how our elections should work.

When there are clear answers to these questions, this book explains them. But its primary purpose is to help readers understand why so many of these questions are genuinely difficult, and how decisions made by past generations both structure and empower our choices today. Using constitutional text, history, and landmark Supreme Court decisions, Ringhand shows how the Constitution often serves less as rigid rule book for our elections and more as a general framework, empowering each generation of Americans to engage for themselves the important questions underlying our electoral system by interrogating what is and isn't working for them.

We the Voters is pragmatic, but also optimistic. In the end, the Constitution leaves the defense of our democracy up to us; it equips us with the tools we need to question, debate, and ultimately change how our system of self-government works. This book urges us to take up that call with vigor.

Release: March 2026