Adam Kotsko

I’m pleased to announce that I have signed a contract with Taylor & Francis to write a book entitled Political Theology: The Basics, which will be part of a series of introductory works intended for undergraduates. My goal in writing the book is to present both major strains of what is called “political theology” — politically-engaged theology as well as the genealogical political theology I usually practice — within a unified historical framework. I plan to deliver the manuscript in Fall of 2026. Thank you to Beatrice Marovich for recommending me as a possible author for this project.

I have belatedly added my Fall syllabi to my teaching history page. They are as follows:

What is Life? (syllabus): This is a Shimer seminar on the history of biology and evolutionary thought. I have been expanding my teaching competence in the history of science over the last few years, and this is the second-to-last course I needed to complete Shimer’s entire Natural Sciences curriculum.

Logic and Critical Thinking (syllabus): For reasons I have discussed elsewhere, formal logic has become a staple course for this dyed-in-the-wool continentalist. After a few years, this has become fairly routine — but I chose to switch from Copi/Cohen to Hurley this year, as the former has too many misprints and poorly designed problem sets. Hurley is proving superior in most ways.

Star Trek and Social Justice (syllabus): This is a half-semester seminar offered for students in North Central College’s Honors Program. Last year I offered one on Watchmen (both the original comic and the HBO series), and it went so well that I decided it was time to put together something in my core area of pop cultural expertise. I opted to center the course on the first season of Discovery, which is unique in being a pretty self-contained serialized narrative and rewards analysis even more than most Star Trek does.

To help promote my forthcoming book and to give me somewhere to put my many thoughts about Star Trek in general, I have started a new Substack, also entitled Late Star Trek. You can read the first post here.

Here is the cover art for my forthcoming book Late Star Trek: The Final Frontier in the Streaming Era, which will serve as the template for subsequent entries in the Mass Markets series published by University of Minnesota Press. For more details about the book, see here.

I will be publishing my keynote on “Faust in the Anthropocene” on An und für sich over the course of the next week. The first installment is available here.

ADDED: A compilation of the entire keynote, with some further reflections, is available here.

I’m very honored to have received the Distinguished Scholarship and Creative Work Award today from my colleagues at North Central College!

At the end of August, I will be taking part in this online conference. I will be presenting a keynote address entitled “Faust in the Anthropocene,” which builds on some research connected to a course on Faust that I have been offering frequently over the last several years.

Journalist Beth McMurtrie has published a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed on college students’ struggles with reading, for which she interviewed me, one of my students, and my department chair (among many others). It is the first article in a series on this important issue.

Unrelatedly, later this summer, I will be giving a keynote address at an online conference on James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and other literature with demonic themes. My talk, entitled “Faust in the Anthropocene,” will be my first attempt to consolidate some thoughts that have arisen from my “Deals With the Devil” course and that I hope will form the basis of my next major book project.