Welcome to The Theory Brief
The Theory Brief is a newsletter about politics, culture, and social theory. I write reviews of books, essays on current events, and explorations of ideas that help us understand how society works and how it might change.
The starting point is a world marked by ecological crisis, an ascendant far right, enduring social inequalities, and intensifying geopolitical conflict.
My goal is to bring critical ideas into conversation with the world around us. What can sociology tell us about the power of tech billionaires? How has the far right managed to grow in recent years? And how might books and ideas help us think our way out of multiple impasses facing humanity and help us build a world free from exploitation, domination, and violence?
Everything here is free to read, and always will be. Subscribe to receive new pieces in your inbox—or explore previous essays in the archive.
A few places to start
Elon Musk for the Not-So-Perplexed reviews Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Muskism, examining the relationship between corporate power, technology, and democracy.
In AI and the Means of Intellectual Production, I turn to Marx to examine how AI is reshaping work, knowledge, and ownership. I ask who should control the intellectual resources we have collectively created.
The Politics of Sociological “Liquidation” takes a closer look at recent calls to dismantle sociology, along with a wider right-wing campaign against the humanities, social sciences, and universities more broadly. What is at stake when a discipline devoted to studying power becomes a political target?
About the author
I’m Victor Shammas, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Bergen. I hold a PhD in Sociology from the University of Oslo and write about political economy, technology, crime and punishment, social theory, and more. I’m an editor at Humanities and Social Sciences Communications and serve on the editorial board of the Nordic Journal of Criminology. My research and other writings are freely available at victorshammas.com.
I welcome your thoughts, disagreements, and suggestions for books to review.
Publishers: I regularly review new books here, especially on technology and power, U.S. politics and the far right, political economy, and critical theory. Review copies (print or digital) are welcome. Reach me at contact@victorshammas.com.
