New Books Network
Book of the Day/ Political Science

Batman Saves the Congo

How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of Development

Alexandra Cosima Budabin and Lisa Ann Richey

Hosted by Lamis Abdelaaty
Are celebrities “disruptors” who revitalize the development field, or are they just charismatic ambassadors for big business? In Batman Saves the Congo: How Celebrities Disrupt the Politics of Development (University of Minnesota Press, 2021) the authors argue that celebrities play both roles, and that understanding why and how yields insight into the realities of neoliberal development. As elite political participants, celebrities shape development practices through strategic partnerships that are both an …
Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Marshall Poe

The Founder and Editor of the New Books Network

Hosted by Richard Lucas and Kimon Fountoukidis
This interview was recorded and first published in early 2020 when the NBN had about a million downloads a month. Since then the downloads have increased more than four-fold to just below …
African Studies

Health, Healing and Illness in African History

Rebekah Lee

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
In Health, Healing and Illness in African History (Bloomsbury, 2021), Rebekah Lee makes an overall assessment of the history and historiography and health, healing and illness in the African context. This …
Jewish Studies

The Male Body in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Theology

Yakir Englander

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
How does Ultra-Orthodox Jewish literature describe the male body? What does the body represent? What is the ideal male body? In The Male Body in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Theology, published in …
Mathematics

Bits and Bugs

A Scientific and Historical Review of Software Failures in Computational Science

Thomas Huckle and Tobias Neckel

Hosted by Cory Brunson
A true understanding of the pervasive role of software in the world demands an awareness of the volume and variety of real-world software failures and their consequences. No more thorough …
Japanese Studies

Cultivating Femininity

Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan

Rebecca Corbett

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women, but there has been little discussion on their historical role in tea culture (chanoyu). In Cultivating Femininity: Women and …
Children's Literature

The Weed That Woke Christmas

The Mostly True Tale of the Toledo Christmas Weed

Alayne Kay Christian

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Alayne Kay Christian is the content and developmental editor for Blue Whale Press and an award-winning children's book author. We talked about her recent book, The Weed That Woke Christmas …
Food

Power Hungry

Women of the Black Panther Party and Freedom Summer and Their Fight to Feed a Movement

Suzanne Cope

Hosted by Carrie Helms Tippen
Today I talked to Suzanne Cope about her new book Power Hungry: Women of the Black Panther Party and Freedom Summer and Their Fight to Feed a Movement (Lawrence Hill Books, 2021)In …
Political Science

The Symbolic State

Minority Recognition, Majority Backlash, and Secession in Multinational Countries

Karlo Basta

Hosted by Christian Nielsen
In his new book, The Symbolic State: Minority Recognition, Majority Backlash, and Secession in Multinational Countries (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021), Karlo Basta argues that the nation-state is a double sleight …
Geography

Toward Camden

Mercy Romero

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
In Toward Camden (Duke UP, 2021), Mercy Romero writes about the relationships that make and sustain the largely African American and Puerto Rican Cramer Hill neighborhood in New Jersey where …
Grinnell College: Authors and Artists

The Upstairs House

A Novel

Julia Fine

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Today I had the pleasure of talking to Julia Fine about her new book The Upstairs House: A Novel (Harper Collins, 2021). We talked about a lot of things, including how Goodnight …
Burned by Books

The Trees

A Novel

Percival Everett

Hosted by Chris Holmes
If there is such a thing as the American literary canon, then Percival Everett (The Trees, 2021) is at the center of it. The author of over 30 novels, books …
The Future of Higher Education

A Conversation with Bijal Shah

Chief Experience Officer, Guild Education

Bijal Shah

Hosted by David Finegold
Bijal Shah shares story of the meteoric rise of Guild Education, the Denver-based ed tech firm that has quickly emerged as the leading marketplace for corporate education. True to its …
Book of the Day/ Middle Eastern Studies

Embattled Dreamlands

The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory

David Leupold

Hosted by Ronay Bakan
Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish Memory (Routledge, 2020) explores the complex relationship between competing national myths, imagined boundaries and local memories in the threefold-contested geography referred to as Eastern Turkey, Western Armenia or Northern Kurdistan. Spatially rooted in the shatter zone of the post-Ottoman and post-Soviet space, it sheds light on the multi-layered memory landscape of the Lake Van region in Southeastern Turkey, where collective …
Intellectual History

The Marion Thompson Wright Reader

Edited and with a Biographical Introduction by Graham Russell Gao Hodges

Marion Thompson

Hosted by Hettie V. Williams
The Marion Thompson Wright Reader, edited by Graham Russell Gao Hodges, the George Dorland Langdon, Jr. Professor of History and Africana and Latin American Studies at Colgate University, and the author …
Architecture

Savage Mind to Savage Machine

Racial Science and Twentieth-Century Design

Ginger Nolan

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Attempting to derive aesthetic systems from natural structures of human cognition, designers looked toward the “savage mind”—a way of thinking they associated with a racialized subaltern. In Savage Mind to …
Economics

The Super Age

Decoding Our Demographic Destiny

Bradley Schurman

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Societies all over the world are getting older, the result of the fact that we are living longer and having fewer children. At some point in the near future, much …
Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Michał Borkowski

Co-founder of Brainly, Poland's First Unicorn to be?

Hosted by Richard Lucas and Kimon Fountoukidis
Michał Borkowski is the co-founder of Brainly. This Project Kazimierz interview with Michał was recorded back in 2016. Since then, Brainly has gone from strength to strength. Michal explains the …
Literature

What Storm, What Thunder

A Novel

Myriam J. A. Chancy

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning …
Eastern European Studies

Migrating Memories

Romanian Germans in Modern Europe

James Koranyi

Hosted by Roland Clark
Romanian Germans, mainly from the Banat and Transylvania, have occupied a place at the very heart of major events in Europe in the twentieth century yet their history is largely …
Popular Culture

Punk! Las Américas Edition

Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, and Shane Greene

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In PUNK! Las Americas Editions (Intellect Books, 2021), editors Olga Rodrguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, and Shane Greene have compiled a collection of academic essays and punk paraphernalia (including interviews, zines, poetry, and visual segments) …
Children's Literature

Noah Noasaurus

Elaine Kiely Kearns

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Elaine Kiely Kearns writes picture book and middle grade stories. A former elementary school teacher, she now writes books for children and co-runs the website for writers, KidLit411.com. We discussed …
Folklore

Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China

Incense Is Kept Burning

Ziying You

Hosted by Timothy Thurston
In Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning (Indiana UP, 2020), Ziying You explores the role of the "folk literati" in negotiating, defining, and …
Art

Partisan Aesthetics

Modern Art and India's Long Decolonization

Sanjukta Sunderason

Hosted by Holiday Powers
In Partisan Aesthetics: Modern Art and India's Long Decolonization (Stanford UP, 2020), Sanjukta Sunderason explores art's entanglements with histories of war, famine, mass politics and displacements that marked late-colonial and …
Critical Theory

On Living with Television

Amy Holdsworth

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
How should we understand the role of television in everyday life? In On Living with Television (Duke UP, 2021), Amy Holdsworth, a Senior Lecturer in Theatre, Film & Television Studies …
Book of the Day/ Journalism

News After Trump

Journalism's Crisis of Relevance in a Changed Media Culture

Matt Carlson, Sue Robinson, and Seth C. Lewis

Hosted by Jenna Spinelle
Political scientists have argued that Donald Trump exacerbated long-simmering changes in polarization, populism, and other aspects of politics. In their book News After Trump: Journalism's Crisis of Relevance in a Changed Media Culture (Oxford University Press, 2021), Matt Carlson, Seth C. Lewis, and Sue Robinson, argue that Trump's candidacy and presidency did the same in journalism. The question now is, how do news organizations move forward and continue to deliver informational value …
Psychoanalysis

What Happens When the Analyst Dies

Unexpected Terminations in Psychoanalysis

Claudia Heilbrunn

Hosted by Christopher Russell
What Happens When the Analyst Dies: Unexpected Terminations in Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2019) explores the stories of patients who have experienced the death of their analyst. The book prioritizes the voices …
Science

Lives of Weeds

Opportunism, Resistance, Folly

John Cardina

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Lives of Weeds: Opportunism, Resistance, Folly (Cornell UP, 2021) explores the tangled history of weeds and their relationship to humans. Through eight interwoven stories, John Cardina offers a fresh perspective …
Sociology

Up to Heaven and Down to Hell

Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town

Colin Jerolmack

Hosted by Sebastián Rojas Cabal
Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town (Princeton UP, 2021) is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one …
Irish Studies

Imagining Ireland's Pasts

Early Modern Ireland Through the Centuries

Nicholas Canny

Hosted by Aidan Beatty
Nicholas Canny is an Emeritus Professor at the National University of Ireland-Galway (NUIG). Since completing his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania he has pursued an influential publishing career spanning …
American West

The Settler Sea

California's Salton Sea and the Consequences of Colonialism

Traci Brynne Voyles

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
The Salton Sea is a kaleidoscope. To some people, it's a waste land, a place of death only suitable for a dumping ground. For others, it's a clarion call, a …
General History

Quagmire in Civil War

Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In Quagmire in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Dr. Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl provides the first treatment of quagmire in civil war, moving beyond the notion that quagmire is intrinsic to …
Children's Literature

Atara Ofek on What Makes a Good Children's Book

Atara Ofek

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Atara Ofek is a leading editor and translator of children's books in Israel. We talked about "what makes a good children's book good?"Mel Rosenberg is a professor of microbiology (Tel Aviv …
Australian and New Zealand Studies

Stepping Up

COVID-19 Checkpoints and Rangatiratanga

Luke Fitzmaurice and Maria Bargh

Hosted by Ed Amon
Stepping Up: COVID-19 Checkpoints and Rangatiratanga (Huia Publishers, 2021) discusses the roadside checkpoints that were set up by Māori to protect communities during the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Case …
American Studies

Radical Empathy

Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides

Givens, Terri

Hosted by Jill Massino
Structural racism has impacted the lives of African Americans in the United States since before the country’s founding. Although the country has made some progress towards a more equal society …
Book of the Day/ Technology

In AI We Trust

Power, Illusion and Control of Predictive Algorithms

Helga Nowotny

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Today I talked to Helga Nowotny about her new book In AI We Trust: Power, Illusion and Control of Predictive Algorithms (Polity, 2021).One of the most persistent concerns about the future is whether it will be dominated by the predictive algorithms of AI - and, if so, what this will mean for our behaviour, for our institutions and for what it means to be human. AI changes our experience of time and …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight

Equity

How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives

Minal Bopaiah

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Minal Bopaiah about her new book Equity: How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives (Berrett-Koehler, 2021). Remember the Marlboro Man? Of course you do, as he symbolizes …
South Asian Studies

Gentlemanly Terrorists

Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919–1947

Durba Ghosh

Hosted by Shatrunjay Mall
Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919-1947 (Cambridge University Press, 2017) by Durba Ghosh uncovers the critical place of revolutionary terrorism in the colonial and postcolonial …
Academic Life

Navigating the Two-Body Problem

A Discussion with Kelly J. Baker and Chris Baker

Kelly J. Baker and Chris Baker

Hosted by Dana Malone
Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: What the two-body problem isDr. Kelly Baker’s experience on the academic job market as a wife and mother How …
Catholic Studies

Kindred Spirits

Friendship and Resistance at the Edges of Modern Catholicism

Brenna Moore

Hosted by Piotr Kosicki
In Kindred Spirits: Friendship and Resistance at the Edges of Modern Catholicism (University of Chicago Press, 2021), Brenna Moore takes us inside a global network of Catholic historians, theologians, poets …
General History

Degrees of Difficulty

How Women's Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell from Grace

Georgia Cervin

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Electrifying athletes like Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci helped make women’s artistic gymnastics one of the most popular events in the Olympic Games. But the transition of gymnastics from a …
Recall This Book

Caryl Phillips Speaks with Corina Stan

Caryl Phillips and Corina Stan

Hosted by Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz
Our second January Novel Dialogue conversation is with Caryl Phillips, professor of English at Yale and world-renowned for novels ranging from The Final Passage to 2018’s A View of the …
Political Science

Toxic Masculinity

Mapping the Monstrous in Our Heroes

Esther De Dauw and Daniel J. Connell

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Scholars Esther De Dauw and Daniel J. Connell have assembled an array of chapters that explore the idea of masculinity in the realm of contemporary heroes and superheroes. Toxic Masculinity: Mapping …
Asian Review of Books

On the Edge

Life Along the Russia-China Border

Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The border between Russia and China is one of the world’s longest, spanning thousands of miles. It’s one of the few extended land borders between two great powers, subject to …
Science, Technology, and Society

What The Living Know

A Novel of Suicide and Philosophy

Matthew C. Kruger

Hosted by Sarah Kearns
Now that science has granted eternal life and youth to all, the world is a place of endless opportunity to live out one's dreams and fulfill one's desires. With death unnecessary …
Philosophy

The Analects: A Guide

Erin M. Cline

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
Probably the most well-known Chinese philosopher around the world is Kongzi, typically called by his Latinized name, “Confucius.” And yet he did not write a single book. Rather, his students …
Children's Literature

Let Liberty Rise!

How America’s Schoolchildren Helped Save the Statue of Liberty

Chana Stiefel Chana

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Chana Stiefel Chana and I talked about her new book Let Liberty Rise!: How America’s Schoolchildren Helped Save the Statue of Liberty (Scholastic Press, 2021).  On America's 100th birthday, the …
Indian Religions

Swami Vivekananda

His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics

Rita D. Sherma

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Rita D. Sherma's book Swami Vivekananda: His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics (Lexington Books, 2021) re-assesses the life and legacy of Swami Vivekananda from the vantage point of socially-engaged religion in …
Book of the Day/ Film

Dreams of Flight

'The Great Escape' in American Film and Culture

Dana Polan

Hosted by Joel Tscherne
Caught on film, the iconic jump of escaped POW Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) over an imposing barbed wire fence on a stolen motorcycle has become an unforgettable symbol of a disaffected 1960s America. Dana Polan's Dreams of Flight: 'The Great Escape' in American Film and Culture (U California Press, 2021) offers the first full-length study of The Great Escape, the classic film based on a true story of American and …
German Studies

Decay and Afterlife

Form, Time, and the Textuality of Ruins, 1100 to 1900

Aleksandra Prica

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
Western ruins have long been understood as objects riddled with temporal contradictions, whether they appear in baroque poetry and drama, Romanticism’s nostalgic view of history, eighteenth-century paintings of classical subjects …
Women's History

Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought

Kristin Waters

Hosted by Jane Scimeca
Kristin Waters' book Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought (U Mississippi Press, 2021) tells a crucial, almost-forgotten story of African Americans of early nineteenth-century America. In 1833 …
Environmental Studies

Climate Chaos

Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors

Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Human-made climate change may have begun in the last two hundred years, but our species has witnessed many eras of climate instability. The results have not always been pretty. From …
SSEAC Stories

Speaking Bones

Unearthing Ancient Stories of Illness and Disease

Melandri Vlok

Hosted by Natali Pearson
From mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue to chronic bacterial infections such as yaws, Southeast Asia is home to a wide range of tropical diseases. For a long time …
Critical Theory

Confidence Culture

Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill

Hosted by Louisa Hann
In Confidence Culture (Duke UP, 2022), Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue that imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe in yourself” imply that psychological blocks rather …
Children's Literature

Over, Bear! Under, Where?

Julie Hedlund

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Julie Hedlund and I talked about the trials and tribulations of being an author and how patience and perseverance led her to her recent success, Over, Bear! Under, Wear? (Philomel …
Anthropology

Afterlives of Affect

Science, Religion, and an Edgewalker’s Spirit

Matthew C. Watson

Hosted by Adam Bobeck
In Afterlives of Affect: Science, Religion, and an Edgewalker’s Spirit (Duke UP, 2020), Matthew C. Watson considers the life and work of artist and Mayanist scholar Linda Schele (1942-1998) as …
Nordic Asia Podcast

China's Environmental Foreign Relations

Heidi Wang-Kaeding

Hosted by Nordic Asia Podcast
Environmental protection and climate actions has embedded in China’s foreign policy and the Chinese government has recently pledged to make the Belt and Road Initiative “open, green, and clean”. How …
African American Studies

Black Gathering

Art, Ecology, Ungiven Life

Sarah Jane Cervenak

Hosted by Brittney Edmonds
In Black Gathering: Art, Ecology, Ungiven Life (Duke UP, 2021), Dr. Sarah Jane Cervenak engages with Black artists and writers who create alternative spaces for Black people to gather free from …
Poetry

The Sign of the Dragon

Mary Soon Lee

Hosted by Andrea Blythe
First place winner of the 2021 Elgin Award, The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee (Jaberwocky, 2020) is an epic fantasy about a young king who must defend …