Guest books

News of recent and forthcoming publications

One of the things I like to do on the Careful Thinking podcast is promote my guests’ new books, especially if I think they make a significant contribution to our understanding of care and related issues. It’s a nice coincidence if a guest’s appearance on the podcast coincides with the recent publication of a book, as was the case, for example, with Maurice Hamington’s Revolutionary Care: Commitment and Ethos, which I spent some time discussing with him in Episode 6.

I’m also in the habit of ending my conversations with podcast guests by asking if they have any forthcoming publications they’d like to mention. They often do, but sometimes they don’t yet know the publication date, or the final title, and in some cases even the name of the publisher.

In recent weeks, I’ve noticed that publication details have emerged of some of the books mentioned as forthcoming by earlier guests on the podcast. So I thought I’d provide an update on them here, in case they’re of interest to listeners who heard those episodes and are wondering how the books are progressing.

My guest on Episode 3 of the podcast, in January, was Nigel Rapport, who despite having retired from his full-time post as a professor of anthropology, continues to be a prolific author. In the course of our conversation, Nigel mentioned that he was currently working on a number of book projects. We talked at length in the episode about the influence on Nigel’s thinking of the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (someone who was also mentioned as an influence by Ruth Groenhout, another of my guests), and Nigel’s latest book, ‘I Am Here’, Abraham said: Emmanuel Levinas and Anthropological Science, was published by Berghahn books in April.

I notice that the book’s cover image is a painting (‘Fear’) by the German Jewish artist Felix Nussbaum, who was murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz. On the podcast, Nigel cited Nussbaum as an artist whose work was especially meaningful for him: he used another of his paintings, ‘Camp Synagogue’ on the cover of his earlier book on Cosmopolitan Love and Individuality, and indeed I used it as the header image for my post about the episode here on Substack. And since recording that episode, I’ve become aware that Nussbaum’s paintings are also used on the covers of a number of books in the ‘Ethics of Care’ series, published by Peeters of Leuven, including the collection Care Ethics, Religion and Spiritual Traditions, to which I - and a number of my podcast guests - contributed.

Another of my guests to whom the adjective ‘prolific’ definitely applies is the philosopher and philosophical counsellor Susi Ferrarello, with whom I spoke on the most recent episode of the podcast. Susi seems to publish a book (sometimes two!) a year, and 2024 is no exception. Reflecting her current academic concerns around women’s reproductive care, The Phenomenology of Pregnancy and Early Motherhood provides an ethical, social, and psychological investigation of the process of becoming a mother, and will be published by Routledge in December.

Tomorrow, 3rd October, sees the publication of the collection Critical Approaches to Death, Dying and Bereavement, which is co-edited by my Open University colleague, Erica Borgstrom, who was my guest on Episode 9 of the podcast, and Renske Visser.

Finally (for now), in April, in Episode 8 of the podcast, the Dutch care ethicist Carlo Leget mentioned that he and Mai-Britt Guldin, co-founder with him of the Centre for Grief and Existential Values in Aarhus, Denmark, were writing a book together – to be published simultaneously in three languages! – setting out an integrative approach to bereavement and loss. The English language version, Loss, Grief and Existential Awareness: an Integrative Approach, will be published by Routledge in December.  On a more personal level, I can reveal that Carlo and Mai-Britt’s partnership goes beyond co-authoring: they were married this summer. Congratulations!/Gefeliciteerd!/Tillykke!

Have I missed anything, or anyone? If so, let me know…

(The header image for this post is a photo of one of the bookshelves in my study, featuring a selection of books on care theory, including many by previous guests on Careful Thinking.)