Welcome to The Theory Brief
We are living in times of profound crisis. Today’s world faces ecological, social, financial, geopolitical, and existential crises.
We are facing impending climate catastrophe, a self-assertive far right, durable and rising social inequalities, increasingly heated confrontations between the major global powers, and existential loss of meaning amidst neoliberal individualization.
Merely disentangling the global polycrisis of capitalist late modernity is in itself a significant task, never mind mapping a way forward for humanity and helping to elude the myriad fascisms on offer in today’s confused ideological landscape. How can we ensure that Earth’s eight billion people can live together without exploitation, domination, or violence?
The Theory Brief is an attempt to distill and synthesize ongoing intellectual efforts to map a way out of our polycrisis-ridden times, bringing reviews of recent books from the fields of theory, sociology, and politics, as well as essays on current events and key concepts or ideas that help us think critically about social reality.
About
Dr. Victor L. Shammas is a sociologist based in Oslo, Norway. He is Head of Department and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Agder in southern Norway and holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Oslo. He has previously worked as Senior Researcher at Oslo Metropolitan University and has published extensively on political economy, crime and punishment, social theory, and more. His research and other writings are freely available at: www.victorshammas.com.
