New Books Network
Book of the Day/ African American Studies

Women's War

Fighting and Surviving the Civil War

Stephanie Mccurry

Hosted by Jerrad Pacatte
In Women's War: Fighting and Surviving the Civil War (Harvard UP, 2019), the award-winning author of Confederate Reckoning challenges the idea that women are outside of war, through a trio of dramatic stories revealing women's transformative role in the American Civil War. We think of war as a man's world, but women have always played active roles in times of violence and been left to pick up the pieces in societies decimated …
German Studies

Diagnosing Dissent

Hysterics, Deserters, and Conscientious Objectors in Germany During World War One

Rebecca Ayako Bennette

Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Although physicians during World War I, and scholars since, have addressed the idea of disorders such as shell shock as inchoate flights into sickness by men unwilling to cope with …
Popular Culture

Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus!

Photographs from the Sacred Steel Community

Robert L. Stone

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
Folklorist Robert L. Stone presents a rare collection of high-quality documentary photos of the sacred steel guitar musical tradition and the community that supports it. The introductory text and extended …
African American Studies

Liner Notes for the Revolution

The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound

Daphne A. Brooks

Hosted by Amanda Joyce Hall
Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound (Harvard University Press, 2021) by Dr. Daphne Brooks is a lyrical masterpiece that takes readers on an exhilarating …
Christian Studies

Yours, Till Heaven

The Untold Love Story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon

Ray Rhodes Jr.

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Enter the remarkable untold love story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon.  Charles Spurgeon is esteemed for his writing, preaching, and passion for the Lord. But behind the great man was …
Eastern European Studies

Empire of Friends

Soviet Power and Socialist Internationalism in Cold War Czechoslovakia

Rachel Applebaum

Hosted by Jill Massino
The familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends: Soviet Power and Socialist Internationalism in Cold …
National Security

Strategic Instincts

The Adaptive Advantages of Cognitive Biases in International Politics

Dominic D. P. Johnson

Hosted by Kyle Beadle
In Strategic Instincts: The Adaptive Advantages of Cognitive Biases in International Politics (Princeton University Press, 2020), Dominic Johnson challenges the assumption that cognitive biases led to policy failures, disasters …
Jewish Studies

How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish

Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Is it possible to conceive of the American diet without bagels? Or Star Trek without Mr. Spock? Are the creatures in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are based on …
Literature

The Good Luck Stone

A Novel

Heather Bell Adams

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Heather Bell Adams’ first novel, Maranatha Road (West Virginia University Press 2017), won the gold medal for the Southeast region in the Independent Publisher Book Awards and was selected for …
American West

This Land Is My Land

Rebellion in the West

James R. Skillen

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
On January 6th, 2021, when right wing supporters of Donald Trump staged an insurrection at the US Capitol building, they were participating in a long tradition of conservative rebellion with …
Literary Studies

Fictions of America

The Book of Firsts

Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal

Hosted by Miranda Corcoran
In this episode of New Books in Literary Studies, Miranda Corcoran speaks to Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal about their unique anthology, Fictions of America: The Book of Firsts (Warbler Press …
Book of the Day/ Christian Studies

God's Cold Warrior

The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles

John D. Wilsey

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
When John Foster Dulles died in 1959, he was given the largest American state funeral since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in 1945. President Eisenhower called Dulles—his longtime secretary of state—“one of the truly great men of our time,” and a few years later the new commercial airport outside Washington, DC, was christened the Dulles International Airport in his honor. His star has fallen significantly since that time, but his influence remains …
East Asian Studies

A Roundtable on the History of the Japanese Student Movement

A Discussion with Naoko Koda and Chelsea Szendi Schieder

Naoko Koda and Chelsea Szendi Schieder

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Chelsea Szendi Schieder’s Co-Ed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left and Naoko Koda’s The United States and the Japanese Student Movement, 1948-1973: Managing a Free World provide new …
Science, Technology, and Society

The Innovation Delusion

How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most

Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russell

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
It’s hard to avoid innovation these days. Nearly every product gets marketed as being disruptive, whether it’s genuinely a new invention or just a new toothbrush. But in this manifesto …
East Asian Studies

Buddhism after Mao

Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions

Zhe Ji, Gareth Fisher, André Laliberté

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
With over 100 million followers, Buddhism in the People's Republic of China now fosters the largest community in the world of individuals who self-identify as Buddhists. Although Buddhism was harshly persecuted …
Neuroscience

The Puzzle Solver

A Scientist's Desperate Hunt to Cure the Illness That Stole His Son

Tracie White and Ronald W. Davis

Hosted by Victoria Reedman
Based on a viral article, the gripping medical mystery story of Ron Davis, a world-class Stanford geneticist who has put his career on the line to find the cure for …
Chinese Studies

Writing for Print

Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China

Suyoung Son

Hosted by Aliki Semertzi
Suyoung Son’s book Writing for Print: Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China (Harvard UP, 2018) examines the widespread practice of self-publishing by writers in late imperial …
Japanese Studies

African Samurai

The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan

Geoffrey Girard and Thomas Lockley

Hosted by Jingyi Li
The remarkable life of history's first foreign-born samurai and his astonishing journey from Northern Africa to the heights of Japanese society. When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s …
American West

Cinematic Settlers

The Settler Colonial World in Film

Janne Lahti and Rebecca Weaver-Hightower

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
The medium of cinema emerged during the height of Victorian-era European empires, and as a result, settler colonial imperialism has thematically suffused film for well over a century. In Cinematic …
Critical Theory

Penguin Books and Political Change

Britain's Meritocratic Moment, 1937–1988

Dean Blackburn

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
Why do books and publishing matter to the contemporary history of Britain? In Penguin Books and Political Change: Britain's Meritocratic Moment, 1937–1988 (Manchester UP, 2020), Dean Blackburn, a Lecturer in Modern …
Scholarly Communication

Writing in Disciplines

A Discussion with Shyam Sharma

Shyam Sharma

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of Shyam Sharma, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University. We talk about how mutually appreciative …
Indian Religions

Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab

Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of Knowledge, 1880-1947

Michale P. Brunner

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Michael P. Brunner's Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab: Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of Knowledge, 1880-1947 (Palgrave, 2020) explores the localisation of modernity in late colonial India.  As a …
Book of the Day/ Political Science

Madam President?

Gender and Politics on the Road to the White House

Lori Cox Han and Caroline Heldman

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Lori Cox Han and Caroline Heldman, both scholars of gender and politics as well as scholars of the American Presidency, have assembled a wide array of essays[*] to revisit the question about whether “we” are ready for the first female president of the United States, and what the path might look like to arrive at that glass-ceiling shattering event. Cox Han and Heldman had edited a previous version of this …
Law

Protecting Art in the Street

A Guide to Copyright in Street Art and Graffiti

Enrico Bonadio

Hosted by Nick Pozek
There has recently been a sharp increase in cases where corporations have been sued by street and graffiti artists because their artworks had been used and exploited without the artists’ …
Science

Gory Details

Adventures from the Dark Side of Science

Erika Engelhaupt

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Would your dog eat you if you died? What are face mites? Why do clowns creep us out? In this illuminating collection of grisly true science stories, journalist Erika Engelhaupt …
Science Fiction

The Phlebotomist

Chris Panatier

Hosted by Rob Wolf
Humans have found many ways to divide and stratify—by skin color, ancestry, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, health status, body type or size, and so on. The list is …
Performing Arts

Maybe the People Would Be the Times

Luc Sante

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Maybe the People Would Be the Times (Verse Chorus Press, 2020) could be described as a memoir in essay form. Collecting pieces from the past two decades, this book covers Luc Sante's …
Academic Life

Exploring STEM, Insulin Research, and Why We Get Sick

A Discussion with Benjamin Bikman

Benjamin Bikman

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 …
Asian Review of Books

Bombay Hustle

Making Movies in a Colonial City

Debashree Mukherjee

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
In 1935, the writer Baburao Patel writes the following about Bombay’s film industry: “In India, with financing conditions still precarious, the professional film distributor thrives. . . . He comes …
Indian Religions

The Mahabharata

Bibek Debroy

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins the Pandavas and the Kouravas but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight

Overground Railroad

The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America

Candacy Taylor

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Candacy Taylor about her book Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America (Abrams Press, 2020) Taylor is an award-winning author …
SSEAC Stories

A Thai Contemporary Artist on Identity, Power, and the Space In-Between

A Discussion with Phaptawan Suwannakudt

Phaptawan Suwannakudt

Hosted by Natali Pearson
As a Thai-Australian woman artist, Phaptawan Suwannakudt has long battled prejudice and discrimination relating to her gender. This disappointment with society’s dictates features at the heart of Phaptawan’s artistic practice …
Book of the Day/ History

Pirating and Publishing

The Book Trade in the Age of Enlightenment

Robert Darnton

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
In the late-18th century, a group of publishers in what historian Robert Darnton calls the "Fertile Crescent" — countries located along the French border, stretching from Holland to Switzerland — pirated the works of prominent (and often banned) French writers and distributed them in France, where laws governing piracy were in flux and any notion of "copyright" very much in its infancy. Piracy was entirely legal and everyone acknowledged — …
History

Ruling Culture

Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy

Fiona Greenland

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today we are joined by Fiona Greenland, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, to talk about her new book, Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Raiders, and the …
Christian Studies

@ Worship

Liturgical Practices in Digital Worlds

Teresa Berger

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
Digital dualism, or a sharp division between online and offline activity as "virtual" or "real" has long been a feature of liturgical studies and discussions around worship gatherings for theorists and …
National Security

Reset

Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society

Ronald J. Deibert

Hosted by John Sakellariadis
Ronald Deibert is a professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and the Director of The Citizen Lab, a public interest research organization that uncovers privacy and human …
Ethnographic Marginalia

Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation

Sovereignty, Witnessing, Repair

Deborah A. Thomas

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
How can ethnographers use multimedia presentations of their work to reach new audiences, build different relationships with their participants, and promote new practices of witnessing and representation? On today’s episode …
Islamic Studies

Terror Epidemics

Islamophobia and the Disease Poetics of Empire

Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Terrorism is a cancer, an infection, an epidemic, a plague. For more than a century, this metaphor has figured insurgent violence as contagion in order to contain its political energies …
East Asian Studies

The Sea and the Sacred in Japan

Aspects of Maritime Religion

Fabio Rambelli

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
In The Sea and the Sacred in Japan: Aspects of Maritime Religion (Bloomsbury 2018), Fabio Rambelli invites various fifteen scholars of Japanese religions to reflect on a well taken-for-granted fact: although the sea …
Australian and New Zealand Studies

Eating with My Mouth Open

Sam van Zweden

Hosted by Bede Haines
Wow! Food, family, memory, insight, body, mind - worth the effort this one. Eating with My Mouth Open (NewSouth, 2021) is food writing like you’ve never seen before: honest, brave, and …
South Asian Studies

Rethinking Markets in Modern India

Embedded Exchange and Contested Jurisdiction

A. Gandhi, B. Harriss-White, D. E. Haynes and S. Schwecke

Hosted by Saronik Bosu
Modern markets and exchange, compared with other social and political spheres, are seen through technical abstractions. This intellectual compartmentalization has political consequences: if capitalism operates through arcane, objective, and rational …
Religion

Dangerous Religious Ideas

The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Rachel S. Mikva

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Beacon, 2020) reveals how faith traditions have always passed down tools for self-examination and debate, because …
The Common Magazine

Weeds and Flowers

Bina Shah

Hosted by Emily Everett
Bina Shah speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her short story “Weeds and Flowers,” which appears in Issue 19 of The Common magazine. In this conversation, Shah talks about …
Book of the Day/ Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer

A Discussion with Marion Turner

Marion Turner

Hosted by Marshall Poe
More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life—yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment, she reconstructs in unprecedented …
Sociology

What the Signs Say

Language, Gentrification, and Place-Making in Brooklyn

Shonna Trinch and Edward Snajdr

Hosted by Richard Ocejo
Two stores sit side-by-side. One with signage overflowing with text: a full list of business services (income tax returns, notary public, a variety of insurance) on the storefront, twenty-two words …
East Asian Studies

Eating Wild Japan

Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes

Winifred Bird

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Winifred Bird’s Eating Wild Japan: Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes (Stone Bridge Press, 2021) is more than just a look at the culture and …
Popular Culture

Damaged

Musicality and Race in Early American Punk

Evan Rapport

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
Damaged: Musicality and Race in Early American Punk (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) is the first book-length portrait of punk as a musical style with an emphasis on how punk developed …
Biography

The Afterlife of Anne Boleyn

Representations of Anne Boleyn in Fiction and on the Screen

Stephanie Russo

Hosted by Mark Klobas
In the centuries since her execution in 1536, Anne Boleyn’s presence in Western culture has grown to extraordinary proportions. In The Afterlife of Anne Boleyn: Representations of Anne Boleyn in …
Southeast Asian Studies

Fighting for Virtue

Justice and Politics in Thailand

Duncan McCargo

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
Anyone who has taken any interest in the politics of Thailand at all in the last two decades could not help but have noticed the part that the country’s judiciary …
Academic Life

Pandemic Perspectives

Three Students Share

Will Sumerfield, Branislav Petrovic, Olivia Sumerfield

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 …
Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Entrepreneurship and Leadership

A New Podcast from the NBN

Kimon Fountoukidis and Richard Lucas

Hosted by Richard Lucas
In this episode Kimon and Richard explain why they are launching the NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast, the topics they are going to delve into with their guests and what …
Political Science

The Eagles of Heart Mountain

A True Story of Football, Incarceration and Resistance in World War II America

Bradford Pearson

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Many scholars have interrogated the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII – with an eye to understanding the particular type of racism that allowed the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel

Heirlooms

Memory and Cherished Objects

J. Jay Garfinkel

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
Everyone will lose someone they love at some point in their life; a spouse, a parent, or a child. Having to deal with the clothes or personal effects that remain …
Journal of Asian American Studies Podcast

#WeToo Reader

Journal of Asian American Studies 24:1 (February 2021)

erin Khuê Ninh and Shireen Roshanravan

Hosted by Christopher Patterson
In this inaugural episode, we discuss a unique special issue of The Journal of Asian American Studies: #WeToo, a reader of Art, Poetry, Fiction, and Memoir, that seeks to answer …
Book of the Day/ History

Calhoun

American Heretic

Robert Elder

Hosted by Lane Davis
In Calhoun: American Heretic (Basic Books, 2021), historian Robert Elder documents the life and thought of one of America's most controversial statesman, John C. Calhoun. A congressman, a vice president, and a senator, Calhoun represented Jeffersonian republicanism during a time of national expansion and imperialism. He became the nation's most ardent defender of slavery and one of its most complex thinkers on the issue of state sovereignty. Elder's book reconsiders the legacy …
History

Strategic Imaginations

Women and the Gender of Sovereignty in European Culture

Anke Gilleir and Aude Defurne

Hosted by Jana Byars
This episode of New Books in History features an interview with Anke Gilleir, professor of Modern German Literature at KU Leuven, about her new edited volume, Strategic Imaginations: Women and the …
Literature

Purple Lotus

A Novel

Veena Rao

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Already in her late twenties, Tara is relieved when her parents arrange a marriage with a man who lives across the world in Atlanta. But she understands quickly that her …
Military History

Robert E. Lee and Me

A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause

Ty Seidule

Hosted by Bob Wintermute
Almost right after the guns fell silent, a counter-factual and ultimately pernicious narrative of the Civil War took shape that proved to be one of the longest lasting and most …
History

The Dutch in the Early Modern World

A History of a Global Power

David Onnekink and Gijs Rommelse

Hosted by Jana Byars
David Onnekink, professor of early modern history at the University of Utrecht discusses his latest book, the delightful, The Dutch in the Early Modern World: History of a Global Power …
Central Asian Studies

The Russian Conquest of Central Asia

A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814–1914

Alexander Morrison

Hosted by Nicholas Seay
Alexander Morrison’s study of the conquest of Central Asia offers new perspectives on a topic long obscured by misleading grand narratives. Based on years of research in several countries, The Russian …
American West

The Port of Missing Men

Billy Gohl, Labor, and Brutal Times in the Pacific Northwest

Aaron Goings

Hosted by Ryan Tate
In the early twentieth century so many dead bodies surfaced in the rivers around Aberdeen, Washington, that they were nicknamed the "floater fleet." When Billy Gohl (1873-1927), a powerful union …
Christian Studies

Duty and Destiny

The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill

Gary Scott Smith

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Though Churchill harbored intellectual doubts about Christianity throughout his life, he nevertheless valued it greatly and drew on its resources, especially in the crucible of war. In Duty and Destiny …
Indian Religions

Yoga in Jainism

Christopher Chapple

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Jaina Studies is a relatively new and rapidly expanding field of inquiry for scholars of Indian religion and philosophy. In Jainism, "yoga" carries many meanings, and this book explores the …
Israel Studies

Zion

The Israeli Diaspora in Europe

David Stavrou

Hosted by Yakir Englander
The meaning of being an immigrant has changed significantly in the 21st century. The internet, social media and networks, cost of travels, homeland products of food that one can find …
Book of the Day/ Neuroscience

Mind Thief

The Story of Alzheimer's

Han Yu

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Alzheimer’s disease, a haunting and harrowing ailment, is one of the world’s most common causes of death. Alzheimer’s lingers for years, with patients’ outward appearance unaffected while their cognitive functions fade away. Patients lose the ability to work and live independently, to remember and recognize. There is still no proven way to treat Alzheimer’s because its causes remain unknown. Mind Thief: The Story of Alzheimer's (Columbia UP, 2021) is a …
Medicine

The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine

Exposing the Crisis of Credibility in Clinical Research

Jon Jureidini and Leemon B. McHenry

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
An exposé of the corruption of medicine by the pharmaceutical industry at every level, from exploiting the vulnerable destitute for drug testing, through manipulation of research data, to disease mongering …
South Asian Studies

Slave in a Palanquin

Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka

Nira Wickramasinghe

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
For hundreds of years, the island of Sri Lanka was a crucial stopover for people and goods in the Indian Ocean. For the Dutch East India Company, it was also …
Military History

Forging the Trident

Theodore Roosevelt and the United States Navy

John B. Hattendorf and William P. Leeman

Hosted by Scott Lipkowitz
Theodore Roosevelt was a titan of American politics, society, and culture. Rarely soft spoken, always eager to brandish a big stick, and animated by an inexhaustible energy, Roosevelt used his …
Critical Theory

Aging A-Z

Concepts Toward Emancipatory Gerontology

Carroll L. Estes and Nicholas B. DiCarlo

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
It’s often said that the time in our lives can often pass without us noticing. Old age can come before we realize it, and it brings with it new elements …
National Security

A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy

James R. Holmes

Hosted by Jeffrey Bristol
A Brief Guide to Maritime Strategy (US Naval Institute Press, 2019), is a readable introduction to the world of maritime strategy. While Prof Holmes bases his narrative on the writings …
History

King of the World

The Life of Louis XIV

Philip Mansel

Hosted by Ian Drake
Philip Mansel, a trustee of the Society for Court Studies and President of the Research Center of the Chateau de Versailles, has written a one-volume biography of the life and …
Middle Eastern Studies

Islam, réforme et colonisation

une histoire de l'ibadisme en Algérie (1882-1962)

Hosted by Julian Weideman
Islam, réforme et colonisation: une histoire de l'ibadisme en Algérie (1882-1962) by Augustin Jomier is an important study of colonial North Africa, Islamic reform, and Ibadi Islam. Jomier, a professor …
Christian Studies

Uncommon Ground

Living Faithfully in a World of Difference

Timothy Keller and John Inazu

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Bestselling author Timothy Keller and legal scholar John Inazu bring together a thrilling range of artists, thinkers, and leaders to provide a guide to faithful living in a pluralistic, fractured …
Anthropology

Ethnography #9

Alan Klima

Hosted by Lachlan Summers
Alan Klima’s Ethnography #9 (Duke University Press, 2019) was co-written by a ghost. And that’s just the start of what’s going on in this eerie, singular book. It’s a discussion …