Heretical Thought OUP Books Short Mission Statement & Advisory Board

Heretical Thought Short Mission & Advisory Board

Thought is heretical when it threatens our idea of universality, or our notion of the self or selves. Such threats can occur in the face of advances in science, human science, governance, or media.  Regardless of purpose or intent, heretical ideas shape and determine our bodies and our consciousness and/or the ways we communicate about them.  They also embody seismic or significant breaks in sclerotic contemporary political thought.

This series is shaped by the notion that contemporary political thought that advances significant or seismic ideas, independent of purpose or intent, and also threatens our ideas of universality, is heretical. Books in the series expose contemporary ruptures in thought, or a break in a school of thought.  In doing so they will make visible, or apparent, threats that are observable, empirical, biological, chemical, or physical in the universe — suggesting not only how such threats can compel new ways of thinking, but also how they can lead to productive political action.

Advisory Board

• Joshua J. Bloch
• Alyson Cole
• Martha Fineman
• Stanley Fish
• Mark Graber
• Melissa Harris-Perry
• Michael Hardt
• Ira Katznelson
• Leonard Mlodnow
• Anne Norton
• Karen Orren
• Steven Pinker
• T. V. Raman
• Elaine Scarry