Blog

With several exciting new presses launching, we are never (ever) short of books to read! Here's some of our non-Verso favourites this year, chosen by staff in New York and London.

The annual Verso prize for Cultural and Critical Studies is awarded to the top student graduating from Birkbeck’s MA Cultural and Critical Studies. This year, the prize goes to student Elle Aspell-Sheppard for her excellent project on “post-truth” and its effects on politics, using the specific example of Donald Trump’s electoral campaign. The external examiner described the essay as a “beautifully written piece of work, which brings Hannah Arendt’s thought successfully into the present moment…a thoughtful argument is advanced around the idea of post-truth as a contemporary keyword”. Speaking is an extract from the winning dissertation.

A poem for Jerusalem by Michael Rosen.

The University of Michigan is preparing for a visit from white supremacist Richard Spencer. If past is prologue, then the UM administration’s policy will tend toward disengagement and caution, rather than effective resistance.

Recipient of the Palestine Book Awards' 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award, Ilan Pappe discusses the development of Palestine Studies. 

FREE ebook collection of extracts from our top books of 2017!

Judith Butler asks what happens when free speech clashes with other basic values.

Four thinkers outline and debate different aspects of the contemporary importance of Hegel’s dialectical logic. 

Tear Gas author Anna Feigenbaum visits Milipol. 

Last week, on Thursday 7 December 2017, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, pledging the relocation of the US embassy to the city. Defying UN resolutions emphasizing the international status of Jerusalem, Trump’s move reverses years of American policy on the matter and has been met with widespread condemnation, sparking protests in the region. We asked Israeli historian and author, Ilan Pappe, for his views on the unfolding situation.

In one of his final statements, Nicos Poulantzas discusses the relationship between Marx and Lenin, communist parties and social movements, and the institutions of representative democracy after the Eurocommunist turn.

Lennard J. Davis explores Deafness as nationality.