About Carla Nappi

NBN Episodes hosted by Carla:

Denise Y. Ho, "Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao's China" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

December 30, 2023

Curating Revolution

Denise Y. Ho
Hosted by Carla Nappi

“In Mao’s China, to curate revolution was to make it material.” Denise Y. Ho’s new book explores this premise in a masterful account of exhibitionary…

Joseph Rouse, "Articulating the World: Conceptual Understanding and the Scientific Image" (U Chicago Press, 2015)

May 21, 2021

Articulating the World

Joseph Rouse
Hosted by Carla Nappi

In the words of Joseph Rouse’s new book, “The most pressing challenge for naturalism today is to show how to account for our own capacities for scient…

Deborah R. Coen, "The Earthquake Observers: Disaster Science from Lisbon to Richter" (U Chicago Press, 2013)

May 21, 2021

The Earthquake Observers

Deborah R. Coen
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Earthquakes have taught us much about our planet's hidden structure and the forces that have shaped it. This knowledge rests not only on the recording…

Howard Chiang, "After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China" (Columbia UP, 2018)

December 17, 2018

After Eunuchs

Howard Chiang
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Howard Chiang’s new book is a masterful study of the relationship between sexual knowledge and Chinese modernity. After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, an…

McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017)

December 6, 2018

General Intellects

McKenzie Wark
Hosted by Carla Nappi

McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General…

Steven Shaviro, "Discognition" (Repeater Books, 2016)

November 20, 2018

Discognition

Steven Shaviro
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Steven Shaviro’s book Discognition (Repeater Books, 2016) opens with a series of questions: What is consciousness? How does subjective experience occu…

Yulia Frumer, "Making Time: Astronomical Time Measurement in Tokugawa Japan" (U Chicago Press, 2018)

October 17, 2018

Making Time

Yulia Frumer
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Yulia Frumer’s new book follows roughly three hundred years of transformations in how time was conceptualized, measured, and materialized in Japan. Ma…

Dániel Margócsy, et al., "The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions" (Brill, 2018)

October 11, 2018

The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius

Dániel Margócsy, Mark Somos, and Stephen N. Joffe
Hosted by Carla Nappi

The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions (Brill, 2018) is a masterful…

Hilary A. Smith, "Forgotten Disease: Illnesses Transformed in Chinese Medicine" (Stanford UP, 2017)

September 25, 2018

Forgotten Disease

Hilary A. Smith
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Hilary A. Smith’s new book examines the evolution of a Chinese disease concept, foot qi (jiao qi) from its documented origins in the fourth century to…

Michael Szonyi, "The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China" (Princeton UP, 2017)

September 13, 2018

The Art of Being Governed

Michael Szonyi
Hosted by Carla Nappi

At the heart of Michael Szonyi’s new book are two questions: 1) How did ordinary people in the Ming deal with their obligations to provide manpower to…

Fabio Lanza, "The End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies" (Duke UP, 2017)

August 31, 2018

The End of Concern

Fabio Lanza
Hosted by Carla Nappi

If you work in Asian studies as a scholarly field, you should read Fabio Lanza’s new book. The End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian St…

Yves Citton, "The Ecology of Attention" (Polity, 2017)

August 13, 2018

The Ecology of Attention

Yves Citton
Hosted by Carla Nappi

We are arguably living in the midst of a form of economy where attention has become a key resource and value, labor, class, and currency are being rec…

Zhang Tianyi (tr. David Hull), "The Pidgin Warrior" (Balestier Press, 2017)

August 10, 2018

The Pidgin Warrior

Zhang Tianyi (tr. David Hull)
Hosted by Carla Nappi

“Big boys, the story in this little book is told for you.” Thus begins the preface to Zhang Tianyi’s The Pidgin Warrior (Balestier Press, 2017), as…

Reginald Jackson, "Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Mortality, and The Tale of Genji Scrolls" (U Michigan Press, 2018)

August 2, 2018

Textures of Mourning

Reginald Jackson
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Reginald Jackson’s inspiring new book takes a transdisciplinary approach to rethinking how we read, how we pay attention, and why that matters deeply …

Sharrona Pearl, "Face/On: Face Transplants and the Ethics of the Other" (U Chicago Press, 2017)

May 18, 2017

Face/On

Sharrona Pearl
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Sharrona Pearl's new book is an absolute pleasure to read. Face/On: Face Transplants and the Ethics of the Other (The University of Chicago Press, 201…

Dorothy Ko, "The Social Life of Inkstones: Artisans and Scholars in Early Qing China" (U Washington Press, 2017)

May 18, 2017

The Social Life of Inkstones

Dorothy Ko
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Dorothy Ko's new book is a must-read. Troubling the hierarchy of head over hands and the propensity to denigrate craftsmen in Chinese history, The Soc…

Sophia Roosth, "Synthetic: How Life Got Made" (U Chicago Press, 2017)

May 13, 2017

Synthetic

Sophia Roosth
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Sophia Roosth's wonderful new book follows researchers clustered around MIT beginning in 2003 who named themselves synthetic biologists. A historicall…

Jonathan Schlesinger, "A World Trimmed with Fur: Wild Things, Pristine Places, and the Natural Fringes of Qing Rule" (Stanford UP, 2017)

May 13, 2017

A World Trimmed with Fur

Jonathan Schlesinger
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Jonathan Schlesinger's new book makes a compelling case for the significance of Manchu and Mongolian sources and archival sources in particular in tel…

Roy Bing Chan, "The Edge of Knowing: Dreams, History, and Realism in Modern Chinese Literature" (U Washington Press, 2017)

May 4, 2017

The Edge of Knowing

Roy Bing Chan
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Roy Bing Chan's new book explores twentieth-century Chinese literature that emphasizes sleeping and dreaming as a way to reckon with the trauma of mod…

Lisa Messeri, "Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds" (Duke UP, 2016)

May 4, 2017

Placing Outer Space

Lisa Messeri
Hosted by Carla Nappi

What kind of object is a planet? Lisa Messeri's new book asks and addressed this question in a fascinating ethnography that explores how scientific pr…

Timothy Cheek, "The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History" (Cambridge UP, 2015)

May 2, 2017

The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History

Timothy Cheek
Hosted by Carla Nappi

In the preface to his new book, Timothy Cheek calls out a widespread tendency to focus on dissidents when engaging with Chinese intellectuals. (This i…

Marcia Yonemoto, "The Problem of Women in Early Modern Japan" (U California Press, 2016)

April 25, 2017

The Problem of Women in Early Modern Japan

Marcia Yonemoto
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Were women a problem in early modern Japan? If they were, what was the nature of the problem they posed? For whom, and why? Marcia Yonemoto's new book…

Carrie Jenkins, "What Love is: And What it Could Be" (Basic Books, 2017)

April 25, 2017

What Love Is

Carrie Jenkins
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Carrie Jenkins' new book is a model for what public philosophy can be. Beautifully written, thoughtful, and compellingly and carefully argued, What Lo…

Tania Munz, "The Dancing Bees: Karl von Frisch and the Discovery of the Honeybee Language" (U Chicago Press, 2016)

April 25, 2017

The Dancing Bees

Tania Munz
Hosted by Carla Nappi

Tania Munz's new book is a dual biography: both of Austrian-born experimental physiologist Karl von Frisch, and of the honeybees he worked with as exp…