Issue 196, October 2026
Including special section: Canon, Critique and Cultural Sociology
Contributors: Maeve Cooke, Matt Dawson, Eduardo de la Fuente, Gary Alan Fine, David Inglis, Anna Lund, Howard Prosser, Gaston Souroujon, Lyn Spillman, Celso M. Villegas, Galen Watts, Brad West and Frederick F. Wherry
Fredric Jameson, The Years of Theory. Postwar French Thought to the Present (Verso 2024)
Reviewed by Peter Beilharz
Who was Fredric Jameson? What were the years of Theory? Jameson died last year, leaving behind a thick and rich legacy of, well, Theory. Already in advance, the title of this book of lectures seems to anticipate the possibility that Theory may also be terminal. Has the moment of Theory then passed?
This special issue is based on papers presented at the 4th International Conference on Marxist Critical Theory in Eastern Europe: In Memory of Zygmunt Bauman, held at Sichuan University, China, in 2024. Many thanks to all contributors.
by Christopher G. Robbins and Eric Ferris
This book examines the intensification of fascist politics in contemporary America via an analysis of the fundamental shift in relationships between political fringes and institutions of power, situating the rise of contemporary fascist politics within a broader culture of pedagogy.
This year Professor Craig Calhoun (Arizona State University and Princeton University) joins us to reflect on the future of liberal democracy amid the Western world’s crises, institutional decline, and the resurgence of authoritarianism in a dialogue with Peter Beilharz.
5:30-7:30pm, 25 August, 2026
At the Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture
by John Lechte
Edgar Morin was born Edgar Nahoum, of Sephardic Jewish parents, in Salonica (now Thessaloniki), Greece, on 8 July 1921. He died, at the very grand age of 104, at Neuilly-sur-Seine on 29 May 2026.
Contributors: Dan Tout, Lorenzo Veracini, Brad West, Darren Jorgensen, Eduardo de la Fuente, Loïc Wacquant, Felix Kämper, Anna Schubertová, Giannis Ninos, Nicolás Rudas, Lachlan Ross, James William Santos, Simon Schaupp, Mathew Abbott, Marcello Spanò, Adrian Jones and Daniel Sullivan
Contributors: Thomas Furse, Lorenzo Buti, Rodrigo , Aaron Augsburger, Luyang Zhou, Udeepta Chakravarty, Bjørn Schiermer, Ioannis Rigkos-Zitthen, Nikos Kapitsinis, Domonkos Sik, Roger Burrows, Zoran Poposki, Shaun Best, Trevor Jackson and Tom Boland
This Festschrift honors the enduring legacy of George Ritzer, one of sociology’s most influential and recognizable figures. Ritzer’s scholarship has helped shape core areas of the discipline—ranging from consumption and social theory to globalization and beyond—while also generating new conceptual terrains such as McDonaldization, prosumption, and the study of “nothing” and “something.”
George’s work is both timely and timeless. He has been, and continues to be, a sort of social seer, someone who is able to both see what is seemingly most relevant in the contemporary moment, but also that which is likely to remain impactful in the future. He not only sees what is worthy of critical analysis today, but also what is likely to be critical to analyze tomorrow.
