About Mary Caputi

My research interests are in the areas of feminist and critical theories, psychoanalysis, postcolonial scholarship, and American and cultural studies. In both my writing and teaching, I take an interdisciplinary approach, since such an approach best captures the richness and relevance of theory to the larger cultural context. I recently published Slow Culture and the American Dream: A Slow and Curvy Philosophy for the 21st Century (Lexington, 2022) which analyzes the slow movement in the United States. In 2013, I published Feminism and Power: the Need for Critical Theory (Lexington, 2013), which offers a critique of the neoliberal strain within Third Wave feminism. With Vincent Del Casino, Jr., I also co-edited Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts: Professions of Faith (Continuum, 2013). This collection of essays makes a strong case for the liberal arts drawing on the philosophy of Jacques Derrida. Other books include A Kinder, Gentler America: Melancholia and the Mythical 1950s (University of Minnesota Press, 2005) and Voluptuous Yearnings: A Feminist Theory of the Obscene (Rowman and Littlefield,1994).



At California State University, Long Beach, I teach a variety of courses in political theory and critical thinking. These include Introduction to Critical Thinking, Modern Political Theory, Recent Political Theory, Women in Political Theory, and the Senior and Graduate Seminars in Political Theory. In the classroom as in my writing, I try to engage my audience by demonstrating theory’s intimate relationship to everyday life.