Sep 22, 2026 · 38 min · 15 segments
In Tainted Tools: New Materialisms As a Decolonial Project (Manchester University Press, 2026), Angela Last offers a provocative intervention into the…
Angela LastGuest
Charlotte AdelinaHost
And the short answer, I guess, is that I wanted to write a critique of new materialism, a constructive critique, that is coming from within new materialism because there were a lot of critiques of new materialism either coming from historical materialists or coming from like decolonial theorists.
There were this flat out dismissing new materialism and I thought I wanted to write something because things were obviously bothering me.
And the long answer is that it was a very different book at the beginning It was supposed to be in a different series at Manchester University Press called Theory for a Global Age.
And originally, it was about the idea of the cosmic in materialist thought, especially the kind of period, 1900s to the 1940s, where not only the cosmic was interesting because of the sciences, but it was also because there are so many dimensions to the cosmic, the spiritual, the worldview and so on.
And it was used as part of anti-colonial, anti-fascist, anti-Stalinist resistance.
And so I drafted an entire... book on this, but then I noticed that how the cosmic was being used was actually much more interesting and how it also used social theory in subversive ways.
And then also for me, it was something I wanted to do because I came from the scientists, especially physics into social theory, like through the work of Karen Barad and so on.
And I've always been interested in how people include the, material world and how they mix it, how they include it in social theory and how they deal with it.
And the short answer, I guess, is that I wanted to write a critique of new materialism, a constructive critique, that is coming from within new materialism because there were a lot of critiques of new materialism either coming from historical materialists or coming from like decolonial theorists.
There were this flat out dismissing new materialism and I thought I wanted to write something because things were obviously bothering me.
And the long answer is that it was a very different book at the beginning It was supposed to be in a different series at Manchester University Press called Theory for a Global Age.
And originally, it was about the idea of the cosmic in materialist thought, especially the kind of period, 1900s to the 1940s, where not only the cosmic was interesting because of the sciences, but it was also because there are so many dimensions to the cosmic, the spiritual, the worldview and so on.
And it was used as part of anti-colonial, anti-fascist, anti-Stalinist resistance.
And so I drafted an entire... book on this, but then I noticed that how the cosmic was being used was actually much more interesting and how it also used social theory in subversive ways.
And then also for me, it was something I wanted to do because I came from the scientists, especially physics into social theory, like through the work of Karen Barad and so on.
And I've always been interested in how people include the, material world and how they mix it, how they include it in social theory and how they deal with it.
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