Violence ― Humans in Dark Times

Through a series of penetrating conversations originally published in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books, Brad Evans and Natasha Lennard talk with a wide range of cutting edge thinkers--including Oliver Stone, Simon Critchley, and David Theo Goldberg--to explore the problem of violence in everyday life, politics, culture, media, language, memory, and the environment. "To bring out the best of us," writes Evans, "we have to confront the worst of what humans are capable of doing to one another. In short, there is a need to confront the intolerable realities of violence in this world." These lively, in-depth exchanges among historians, theorists, and artists offer a timely and bracing look at how the increasing expression and acceptance of violence--in all strata of society--has become a defining feature of our times.

Brad Evans is a political philosopher, critical theorist and writer, whose work specializes on the problem of violence. The author of some ten books and edited volumes, along with over fifty academic and media articles, he serves as a Reader in Political Violence at the School of Sociology, Politics & International Studies, the University of Bristol, UK. He is the founder & director of the Histories of Violence Project.

Throughout 2015-17, Brad was invited to lead a dedicated series for The New York Times ("The Stone") on violence. He is currently the lead editor for a dedicated section on violence and the arts/critical theory with The Los Angeles Review of Books. He regularly writes for the Guardian, Independent, World Financial Review, Al Jazeera, TruthOut, Counter-Punch and Social Europe. He is a regular guest on the comedian Russell Brand's "True News" series "The Trews," and the podcast show "Under the Skin."

?Brad’s latest books include Histories of Violence: Post-War Critical Thought (with Terrell Carver, Zed Books, 2017); Portraits of Violence: An Illustrated History of Radical Thinking (with Sean Michael Wilson, New Internationalist, 2016); Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of the Spectacle (with Henry Giroux, City Lights: 2015), Resilient Life: The Art of Living Dangerously (with Julian Reid, Polity Press, 2014), Liberal Terror (Polity Press, 2013), and Deleuze & Fascism: Security–War –Aesthetics (with Julian Reid, Routledge, 2013).

Natasha Lennard is a British-born, Brooklyn-based independent journalist and columnist covering politics and the operations of power for publications including Esquire, The Nation, The Intercept, The New Inquiry and The New York Times Opinion Section.