Coming soon to Asian Provocation: On Occupation and Psychoanalysis

Dr. Lara Sheehi and Dr. Stephen Sheehi on Practicing Resistance in Palestine

On October 6, I interviewed Dr. Lara Sheehi and Dr. Stephen Sheehi about their book Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2022), which won the 2022 Middle East Monitor's Palestine Book Award for Best Academic Book.

I write with a heavy heart that this is the most exigent conversation I have had yet to date. While you wait for the editing for this episode of Asian Provocation, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the book. The book is academically stringent, emotionally available, and speaks their Truth if you have the ears to hear.

For additional reading, I have found these four books to be worthy of your consideration:

White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race—Gloria Wekker

Duke University Press

Wekker explains the paradox of Dutch culture, which is a model that can be understood as the larger liberal democracy model in which much of the modern imperialist mindset operates. Interacting frequently in liberal circles, I often find it frustratingly difficult to express the hypocrisy and blindness due to the construction of modern imperialism. Wekker cuts through with a sharp analysis focusing on Dutch culture but displaying the same hypocrisy across Western Imperialist nations.

The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror—Arun Kundnani

Verso Books

Adam Curtis has spoken frequently about understanding power and has recommended a book that views the history of the world through the lens of the Islamic world. Despite philosophy having gone through the Copernican Turn, the West seems to have doubled down on a Ptolemaic view of ideology. This book is a very accessible book that can help you see the creation of a Phantasy Other from a Western lens. 

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color—Ruby Hamad

Catapult

One of the most urgent books I have read in 2023, as it hits precisely on the issues of White Feminism, which has allowed modern atrocities to be hidden in plain sight. Hamad provides a historical analysis of the actions and consequences we have conveniently repressed to assist in neoliberalism. The book discusses the Hunger Games, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the BBQ Becky video, to 19th-century lynchings of Mexicans.

'A MUST read for any white women who consider themselves "feminist"' - Scarlett Curtis.

The Racist Fantasy—Unconscious Roots of Hatred—Todd McGowan

Bloomsbury

Psychoanalysis is needed more than ever, as we see the trappings of analytical philosophy and the limitations of a materialist analysis of the world. McGowan analyses the racist fantasy through enjoyment, or a Lacanian Jouissance, and ways one would rather fight than have this fantasy taken away from them. McGowan also reveals why so much of the projects of anti-racism and other well-intentioned strategies of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion have failed us and will continue to fail, and why we can’t seem to kick the habit.