New Books Network
Book of the Day/ Science

A Natural History of Color

The Science Behind What We See and How We See it

Rob DeSalle

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Is color a phenomenon of science or a thing of art? Over the years, color has dazzled, enhanced, and clarified the world we see, embraced through the experimental palettes of painting, the advent of the color photograph, Technicolor pictures, color printing, on and on, a vivid and vibrant celebrated continuum. These turns to represent reality in “living color” echo our evolutionary reliance on and indeed privileging of color as a …
Food

Let's Ask Marion

What You Need to Know about the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health

Marion Nestle and Kerry Trueman

Hosted by Carrie Helms Tippen
Marion Nestle describes her new book as “a small, quick and dirty reader for the general audience” summarizing some of her biggest and most influential works. Let’s Ask Marion: What …
History

Whistleblowing Nation

The History of National Security Disclosures and the Cult of State Secrecy

Kaeten Mistry and Hannah Gurman

Hosted by Dexter Fergie
In the past decade, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden became household names. They were celebrated by many as truth-tellers who blew the whistle on governmental abuses. Yet, in the eyes …
East Asian Studies

Seeing Like a Child

Inheriting the Korean War

Clara Han

Hosted by Ann Choi
Intertwining autobiography and ethnography, Clara Han’s touching new book Seeing Like a Child: Inheriting the Korean War (Fordham University Press, 2020) asks how scholarship can be transformed from a child’s …
Critical Theory

Critique of Rights

Christoph Menke

Hosted by Dominik Finkelde
Christoph Menke, who is professor of philosophy at the Goethe University in Frankfurt Germany and considered the most important representative of the third generation of the "Frankfurt School of Critical …
African Studies

The Idea of Development in Africa

A History

Corrie Decker and Elisabeth McMahon

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
The Idea of Development in Africa: A History (Cambridge UP, 2020) challenges prevailing international development discourses about the continent, by tracing the history of ideas, practices, and 'problems' of development used …
Performing Arts

Life at Hamilton

Sometimes You Throw Away Your Shot, Only to Find Your Story

Mike Anthony

Hosted by Alexandra Salkin
When Mike Anthony moved to New York City to become an actor, he’d imagined being under the bright lights of Broadway, living a life full of fame and fortune. Instead …
History

Albert Camus

A Very Short Introduction

Oliver Gloag

Hosted by Michael Vann
Albert Camus, one of the most famous French philosophers and novelists, has a diverse fan base. British alternative rockers The Cure sang about The Stranger in their first big hit …
East Asian Studies

A Fashionable Century

Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing

Rachel Silberstein

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Rachel Silberstein’s book A Fashionable Century: Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing (University of Washington Press, 2020) reveals how Qing fashion was produced at the intersection of commerce …
Drugs, Addiction and Recovery

Intoxicating Zion

A Social History of Hashish in Mandatory Palestine and Israel

Haggai Ram

Hosted by Lucas Richert
When European powers carved political borders across the Middle East following World War I, a curious event in the international drug trade occurred: Palestine became the most important hashish waystation …
Book of the Day/ Political Science

Transforming Prejudice

Identity, Fear, and Transgender Rights

Melissa R. Michelson and Brian F. Harrison

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Melissa Michelson and Brian Harrison, co-authors of the book Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attitudes about LGBT Rights (Oxford University Press, 2017), which focused on how people came to change their minds about same-sex marriage and LGBT rights, examine their thesis from the previous research to determine if it is applicable to transgender rights as well. What they find is that they need to look at a …
European Studies

The Retreat of Liberal Democracy

Authoritarian Capitalism and the Accumulative State in Hungary

Gábor Scheiring

Hosted by Tim Jones
As Donald Trump's presidency draws to a close, his opponents give thanks that he never developed a strategy or learned to use his powers and agencies efficiently. If he had …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight

Soul Full of Coal Dust

The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice

Chris Hamby

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Chris Hamby about his book Soul Full of Coal Dust: The True Story of an Epic Battle for Justice (Little Brown, 2020). Hamby looks into why there has …
Asian Review of Books

Three Asian Divas

Women, Art and Culture In Shiraz, Delhi and Yangzhou

David Chaffetz

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The “diva” is a common trope when we talk about culture. We normally think of the diva as a Western construction: the opera singer, the Broadway actress, the movie star …
Japanese Studies

Creativity in Tokyo

Revitalizing a Mature City

Matjaz Ursic and Heide Imai

Hosted by Jingyi Li
In Creativity in Tokyo: Revitalizing a Mature City (Palgrave, 2020), Heide Imai and Matjaz Ursic focues on overlooked contextual factors that constitute the urban creative climate or innovative urban milieu in …
East Asian Studies

Staging Personhood

Costuming in Early Qing Drama

Guojun Wang

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Much is known about the Qing sartorial regulations and how the Qing conquerors forced Han Chinese males to adopt Manchu hairstyle and clothing. But what happened on the stage? What …
Genocide Studies

Advancing Holocaust Studies

Carol Rittner and John K. Roth

Hosted by Kelly McFall
I think this is the fifth time I've interviewed John K. Roth for the podcast (and the second for Carol Rittner).  He has always been relentlessly realistic about the challenges, intellectual …
Science Fiction

Black Sun

Rebecca Roanhorse

Hosted by Rob Wolf
The first chapter of Rebecca Roanhorse’s new novel, Black Sun (Gallery/Saga Press, 2020), features a mother and child sharing a tender moment that takes an unexpected turn, ending in violence. It’s …
Academic Life

How to Leave Academia and Find a Good Job

A Discussion with Christopher Caterine

Christopher Caterine

Hosted by Christina Gessler
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts …
Book of the Day/ Critical Theory

A Critical Legal Examination of Liberalism and Liberal Rights

Matthew McManus

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The tradition of political liberalism has a long and complicated history, filled with twists, turns, critiques and responses that have filled books, essays and lectures for several centuries now. Questions of the importance and limitations of individual rights and how to balance different interests have produced no shortage of theoretical conflict as different figures have attempted to make sense of the importance and limits of individuals and their rights.  Diving …
Art

The Life and Art of Felrath Hines

From Dark to Light

Rachel Berenson Perry

Hosted by Kirstin Ellsworth
Today I talked to Rachel Berenson Perry about her book The Life and Art of Felrath Hines: From Dark to Light (Indiana University Press, 2019). Felrath Hines (1913–1993), the first African American man to …
Islamic Studies

The Bruce B. Lawrence Reader

Islam Beyond Borders

Bruce B. Lawrence and Ali Altaf Mian

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
For more than four decades, Bruce Lawrence’s multivalent and fulsomely prolific scholarship has influenced and imprinted the Western study of Islam and Religious Studies more broadly in singularly profound ways …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

Goya

A Portrait of the Artist

Janis Tomlinson

Hosted by Marshall Poe
The life of Francisco Goya (1746–1828) coincided with an age of transformation in Spanish history that brought upheavals in the country’s politics and at the court which Goya served, changes …
Biblical Studies

The Holy Spirit

Gregg Allison and Andreas J. Köstenberger

Hosted by Ashley Morales
The Holy Spirit: Theology for the People of God (B&H Academic, 2020) analyzes the Holy Spirit through the lens of both biblical and systematic theology. Dr. Gregg Allison and Dr. Andreas Köstenberger provide a comprehensive …
Literary Studies

Strange Likeness

Description and the Modernist Novel

Dora Zhang

Hosted by Britton Edelen
In this interview, I talk with Dora Zhang, associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, about her book Strange Likeness: Description in the Modernist …
Literary Studies

Teaching in Times of Crisis

Applying Comparative Literature in the Classroom

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu
Teaching in Times of Crisis: Applying Comparative Literature in the Classroom (Routledge, 2021) explores how comparative methods, which are instrumental in reading and teaching works of literature from around the …
History

Down the Up Staircase

Three Generations of a Harlem Family

Bruce Haynes and Syma Solovitch

Hosted by Tyesha Maddox
Down the Up Staircase: Three Generations of a Harlem Family (Columbia UP, 2019) tells the story of one Harlem family across three generations, connecting its journey to the historical and …
Architecture

Practiceopolis: Stories from the Architectural Profession

Yasser Megahed

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Practiceopolis: Stories from the Architectural Profession (Routledge, 2020) is a graphic novel about the contemporary architectural profession, in which it acts as the protagonist in the form of an imaginary …
Southeast Asian Studies

Disturbed Forests, Fragmented Memories

Jarai and Other Lives in the Cambodian Highlands

Jonathan Padwe

Hosted by Faizah Zakaria
Cambodia’s troubled history has often been depicted in terms of conflict, trauma and tussles between great powers. In Disturbed Forests, Fragmented Memories: Jarai and Other Lives in the Cambodian Highlands …
The Common Magazine

Stories from Sudan in Translation

Elisabeth Jaquette

Hosted by Emily Everett
Translator Elisabeth Jaquette speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about four stories she translated from Arabic for Issue 19 of The Common magazine. These stories appear in a special portfolio …
Book of the Day/ Systems and Cybernetics

Network Origins of the Global Economy

East vs. West in a Complex Systems Perspective

Hilton L. Root

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Twenty-eight years after Francis Fukuyama declared the “end of history” and pronounced Western-style liberalism as the culmination of a Hegelian narrative of progress, pundits and academics of all stripes find themselves struggling to explain the failed prediction that China’s increased activity in international markets would inevitably lead to increasing political and social liberalization in that country.  With his ground-breaking book, Network Origins of the Global Economy: East vs. West in …
History

Stargazing in the Atomic Age

Anne Goldman

Hosted by Grant Kleiser
During World War II, with apocalypse imminent, a group of well-known Jewish artists and scientists sidestepped despair by challenging themselves to solve some of the most difficult questions posed by …
Military History

Britain's War

A New World, 1942-1947

Daniel Todman

Hosted by Bob Wintermute
The second of Daniel Todman's two sweeping volumes on Great Britain and World War II, Britain's War: A New World, 1942-1947 (Oxford UP, 2020), begins with the event Winston Churchill called …
Intellectual History

Hubert Harrison

The Struggle for Equality, 1918–1927

Jeffrey B. Perry

Hosted by Hettie V. Williams
Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918-1927 (Columbia University 2020) by Jeffrey B. Perry, independent scholar and archivist, is an extensive intellectual history of the life and work of Black …
Eastern European Studies

Roma Rights and Civil Rights

A Transatlantic Comparison

Felix B. Chang and Sunnie T. Rucker-Chang

Hosted by Steven Seegel
F. B. Chang and S. T. Rucker-Chang's Roma Rights and Civil Rights: A Transatlantic Comparison (Cambridge UP, 2020) tackles the movements for - and expressions of - equality for Roma in …
LGBTQ+ Studies

Live At Jackson Station

Music, Community, and Tragedy in a Southern Blues Bar

Daniel M. Harrison

Hosted by Morris Ardoin
The smoke was thick, the music was loud, and the beer was flowing. In the fast-and-loose 1980s, Jackson Station Rhythm & Blues Club in Hodges, South Carolina, was a festive …
Ethnographic Marginalia

Studying LBGT Organizing in China

A Conversation with Caterina Fugazzola

Caterina Fugazzola

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In today’s episode of Ethnographic Marginalia, Sneha Annavarapu talks with Dr. Caterina Fugazzola, Earl S Johnson Instructor in Sociology at the University of Chicago, about her research on the contemporary …
East Asian Studies

Realistic Revolution

Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics after 1989

Els van Dongen

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
What is the role of the intellectual? Is violence, not to mention radical change, necessary? Can there be a revolution without them? Realistic Revolution: Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics …
Genocide Studies

Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust

Laura Hilton and Avinoam Patt

Hosted by Kelly McFall
I wish I had seen Laura Hilton and Avinoam Patt's Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) six months ago. I taught a course in the fall titled …
African American Studies

Careers

A Discussion with Charisse Burden-Stelly, Political Scientist

Charisse Burden-Stelly

Hosted by Adam McNeil
Today on New Books in African American Studies I am chatting with Carleton College Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly. Dr. Burden-Stelly is a critical Black …
Book of the Day/ Medicine

Science Under Fire

Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern America

Andrew Jewett

Hosted by Claire Clark
Americans today are often skeptical of scientific authority. Many conservatives dismiss climate change and Darwinism as liberal fictions, arguing that "tenured radicals" have coopted the sciences and other disciplines. Some progressives, especially in the universities, worry that science's celebration of objectivity and neutrality masks its attachment to Eurocentric and patriarchal values. As we grapple with the implications of climate change and revolutions in fields from biotechnology to robotics to computing …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel

The Last Million

Europe's Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War

David Nasaw

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
In May 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of global military conflict did not cease with …
Sociology

Other End of the Needle

Continuity and Change Among Tattoo Workers

David C. Lane

Hosted by Michael Johnston
In The Other End of the Needle (Rutgers University Press, 2020), David C. Lane, Ph.D. investigates the intricacies of the tattoo industry. Particularly, Lane found that tattooing is more complex …
Neuroscience

Electric Brain

How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps Us Change for the Better

R. Douglas Fields,

Hosted by John Griffiths
In Electric Brain: How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps Us Change for the Better (BenBella, 2020), eminent neuroscientist R. Douglas Fields …
Celebration Studies

City of a Million Dreams

A History of New Orleans at Year 300

Jason Berry

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
In City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300 (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), Jason Berry delivers a history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Beyond …
Christian Studies

Reformed Resurgence

The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism

Brad Vermurlen

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
Since the turn of the millennium, American Evangelical Protestantism has seen a swell of interest in Calvinist theology. Variously described as the New Calvinism or Neo-Reformed Christianity, the latter half …
Political Science

Meddling in the Ballot Box

The Causes and Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions

Dov H. Levin

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Journalists, politicians, scholars, and citizens often talk about election interference – for example, the interference of the Russians in the 2016 United States elections – as an aberration. But Dr …
American Studies

As a City on a Hill

The Story of America's Most Famous Lay Sermon

Daniel T. Rodgers

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
Since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, John Winthrop's famous phrase, "We shall be as a city upon a hill," has become political creed and rallying cry for American exceptionalism. But for …
History

Dividing the Faith

The Rise of Segregated Churches in the Early American North

Richard J. Boles

Hosted by Lane Davis
In Dividing the Faith: The Rise of Segregated Churches in the Early American North (NYU Press, 2020), Richard J. Boles argues that, contrary to traditional American religious historiography, interracial worship was …
Literature

Song of the Sisters

Songs of Steppe and Forest 3

Five Directions Press

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Everywhere young Russian noblewoman Darya Sheremeteva turns, someone in her circle of family and friends reminds her that she exists to serve a single purpose: to marry a powerful man …
Intellectual History

Forms, Formats and the Circulation of Knowledge

British Printscape’s Innovations, 1688-1832

Louisiane Ferlier and Benedicte Miyamoto

Hosted by Alexandra Ortolja-Baird
Forms, Formats and the Circulation of Knowledge: British Printscape’s Innovations, 1688-1832 (Brill, 2020) explores the printscape – the mental mapping of knowledge in all its printed shapes – to chart the …
Book of the Day/ Postscript

Postscript

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Transition in Context

Lilly J. Goren and Susan Leibell

Hosted by Susan Liebell
As Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, Dr. Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution joins the team at New Books in Political Science to discuss presidential transitions and how Biden’s cabinet picks compare with the previous six administrations. How does the transition in the United States compare to transitions in other nations? Dunn Tenpas clarifies how the U.S. moved from no exchange …
East Asian Studies

Rural Origins, City Lives

Class and Place in Contemporary China

Roberta Zavoretti

Hosted by Suvi Rautio
Many of the millions of workers streaming in from rural China to jobs at urban factories soon find themselves in new kinds of poverty and oppression. Yet, their individual experiences …
Literature

I'll Go

War, Religion, and Coming Home, From Cairo to Kansas City

Alexs Thompson

Hosted by Eric LeMay
Today I interview Alexs Thompson about his new memoir, I'll Go: War, Religion, and Coming Home, from Cairo to Kansas City (2020). Let me begin with a moment of honesty …
Eastern European Studies

Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities

Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920

Lenny A. Ureña Valerio

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In Colonial Fantasies, Imperial Realities: Race Science and the Making of Polishness on the Fringes of the German Empire, 1840-1920 (Ohio University Press, 2019), Lenny Ureña Valerio offers a transnational approach to …
Indian Religions

Anti-Christian Violence in India

Chad M. Bauman

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Does religion cause violent conflict, asks Chad M. Bauman, and if so, does it cause conflict any more than other social identities? Through an extended history of Christian-Hindu relations, and …
Performing Arts

This Is Not My Memoir

André Gregory and Todd London

Hosted by Andy Boyd
André Gregory's not-memoir This Is Not My Memoir (FSG, 2020) is a fascinating trip through theatre history as seen through the eyes of one of its greatest directors. The André we …
Caribbean Studies

Rogue Revolutionaries

The Fight for Legitimacy in the Greater Caribbean

Vanessa Mongey

Hosted by Sharika Crawford
The University of Pennsylvania describes Mongey's work as follows. "When we think of the Age of Revolutions, George Washington, Robespierre, Toussaint Louverture, or Simon Bolivar might come to mind. But Rogue Revolutionaries …
Philosophy

Revolutionary Time

On Time and Difference in Kristeva and Irigaray

Fanny Söderbäck

Hosted by Sarah Tyson
What is the relationship between time and sexual difference? Are the categories of linearity and circularity that have so dominated conceptions of time sufficient for the emancipatory aims of feminist …
Latino Studies

The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista

Mexican Mormon Evangelizer, Polygamist Dissident, and Utopian Founder, 1878-1961

Elisa Pulido

Hosted by David-James Gonzales
The Spiritual Evolution of Margarito Bautista: Mexican Mormon Evangelizer, Polygamist Dissident, and Utopian Founder, 1878-1961 (Oxford University Press, 2020) provides the first full-length biography of a celebrated Latino Mormon leader …
Psychoanalysis

Memory's Eyes

A New York Oedipus Novel

Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau

Hosted by Philip Lance
Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau's Memory’s Eyes is a contemporary New York Oedipus novel. It is written for readers who enjoy playing with concepts and storylines, here namely the classical Oedipus myth, Sophocles’ three …
Anthropology

Channeling Moroccanness

Language and the Media of Sociality

Becky L. Schulthies

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
What does it mean to connect as a people through mass media? This book approaches that question by exploring how Moroccans engage communicative failure as they seek to shape social …
Book of the Day/ Political Science

Amateur Hour

Presidential Character and the Question of Leadership

Lara M. Brown

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Political scientist Lara Brown’s new book, Amateur Hour, is a complex and important multi-method study of the presidency, starting from the original conception of the office at the constitutional convention and George Washington’s role as the first occupant of the office. The centerpiece of Amateur Hour: Presidential Character and the Question of Leadership (Routledge, 2020) is the focus on our understanding—from the time of Washington, through Lincoln, to the contemporary period—of …
Central Asian Studies

Polymaths of Islam

Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia

James Pickett

Hosted by Nicholas Seay
James Pickett's new book, Polymaths of Islam: Power and Networks of Knowledge in Central Asia (Cornell University Press, 2020) analyzes the social and intellectual power of religious leaders who created a …
East Asian Studies

Fir and Empire

The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China

Ian M. Miller

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Ian M. Miller’s book Fir and Empire: The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China (University of Washington Press, 2020) offers a transformation of our understanding of China’s early modern …
Sociology

Digital Nomads

In Search of Freedom, Community, and Meaningful Work in the New Economy

Rachael A. Woldoff and Robert C. Litchfield

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
In the space of a few weeks this spring, organizations around the world learned that many traditional, in-person jobs could, in fact, be performed remotely. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, however …
Asian Review of Books

These Violent Delights

Chloe Gong

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
“These violent delights have violent ends. And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss, consume.” These Violent Delights (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2020) is the …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight

The Saddest Words

William Faulkner's Civil War

Michael Gorra

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Michael Gorra about his new book The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War (Liveright, 2020). This episode touches on two of William Faulkner’s novels in particular: The Sound and …
East Asian Studies

Being in North Korea

Andray Abrahamian

Hosted by Ed Pulford
As well as presenting practical challenges, addressing the question ‘what is it like in North Korea?’ raises ethical concerns around who is entitled to interpret life in a place so …
Christian Studies

Trump and the Protestant Reaction to Make America Great Again

Matthew Rowley

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
The relationship between American Protestant Evangelicals and the candidacy, presidency, and legacy of Donald Trump arrests the attention of journalists and pundits alike. But few have probed the implication that the rally …