Past Berkeley Book Chats

Invisible Hands traces the rise in eighteenth-century Europe of a belief in self-organization—such that large systems, whether natural or human-made, are seen as capable of creating their own order, without any need for external direction.

Sacred Founders argues that from the time of Augustus through early Byzantium, a discourse of "sacred founders” helped legitimate the authority of the emperor and his family.

Territories of the Soul draws upon queer and affect theory to explore structures of belonging experienced by the black diasporic subject.

In Hidden Hitchcock, D.A. Miller does what seems impossible: he discovers what has remained unseen in the movies of this best-known of filmmakers.

Namwali Serpell’s book Seven Modes of Uncertainty contends that literary uncertainty is crucial to ethics because it pushes us beyond the limits of our experience.

Shannon Jackson discusses her recent co-authored book on the Builders Association, a New York-based multimedia theater company that creates original productions based on stories drawn from contemporary life.

Hannah Ginsborg presents fourteen essays which establish Kant's Critique of Judgment as a central contribution to the understanding of human cognition.

Authors Stover, Peskin, and Koenig tell the story of the global effort to apprehend the world's most wanted war criminals, and attempt to understand why so many states ignore their legal obligations to arrest and try war crimes suspects.

Weihong Bao’s book traces the permutations of cinema as an affective medium in China, exploring its role in aesthetics, politics, and social institutions.

Professor of English Steven Lee’s book makes a unique contribution to interwar literary, political, and art history, drawing extensively on Russian archives, travel narratives, and artistic exchanges to establish the parameters of an undervalued "ethnic avant-garde."