New Books Network
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Book of the Day/ Jewish Studies

A Time to Gather

Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture

Jason Lustig

Hosted by Steven Seegel
How do people link the past to the present, marking continuity in the face of the fundamental discontinuities of history? A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture (Oxford UP, 2021) argues that historical records took on potent value in modern Jewish life as both sources of history and anchors of memory because archives presented one way of transmitting Jewish history from one generation to another as well …
Psychoanalysis

Vitalization in Psychoanalysis

Perspectives on Being and Becoming

Amy Schwartz Cooney and Rachel Sopher

Hosted by August Baker
A book on psychoanalytic theory that you read with a lump in your throat: theory that taps into some deep currents. We interview Dr. Amy Schwartz Cooney and Rachel Sopher …
European Studies

Flexible Europe

Differentiated Integration, Democracy, and Domination

Richard Bellamy, Sandra Kröger, and Marta Lorimer

Hosted by Tim Jones
The past decade has been pivotal in the development of the European Union. The single currency has been tested to the limits by successive crises in the financial system, public-debt …
Art

A Sojourn in Paradise

Jack Robinson in 1950s New Orleans

Howard Philips Smith

Hosted by Isabel Machado
Jack Robinson made his name as a much-sought-after fashion and celebrity photographer during the 1960s and early 1970s, and his work is well documented in hundreds of pages of Vogue …
Entrepreneurship and Leadership

The Mining Royalty Opportunity with Adam Davidson

Adam Davidson

Hosted by Richard Lucas and Kimon Fountoukidis
Adam Davidson is the CEO of Trident Royalties, listed in mid 2020. He explains the history of the company, and the business case for investing in royalty based mining businesses …
General History

The Erotics of Grief

Emotions and the Construction of Privilege in the Medieval Mediterranean

Megan Moore

Hosted by Jana Byars
The Erotics of Grief: Emotions and the Construction of Privilege in the Medieval Mediterranean (Cornell UP, 2021) considers how emotions propagate power by exploring whose lives are grieved and what …
Children's Literature

Irving Berlin

The Immigrant Boy Who Made America Sing

Nancy Churnin

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Today I talked to Nancy Churnin about her book Irving Berlin: The Immigrant Boy Who Made America Sing (Creston Books, 2018).Irving Berlin came to the United States as a refugee from …
East Asian Studies

Queer Taiwanese Literature

A Reader

Howard Chiang

Hosted by Li-Ping Chen
As the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in Asia and host the first annual gay pride in the Sinophone Pacific, Taiwan is a historic center of lesbian, gay, bisexual …
Buddhist Studies

Buddhism in Five Minutes

Elizabeth J. Harris

Hosted by Olivia Porter
In Elizabeth J. Harris' Buddhism in Five Minutes (Equinox Publishing, 2021), academic specialists offer answers to 75 questions about Buddhism that people curious about Buddhism might ask. The questions cover …
Political Science

Stories from the Field

A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science

Peter Krause and Ora Szekely

Hosted by Lamis Abdelaaty
How do researchers navigate the complexities of the field?  In Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science (Columbia UP, 2020), political scientists from a diverse range of …
Islamic Studies

Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit

Bruce B. Lawrence

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
In his new book cum manifesto, Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit (Wiley-Blackwell, 2021), legendary scholar of Islam Bruce Lawrence outlines his politico-conceptual manifesto for the study and place of Islam in the …
General History

A Short History of War

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Throughout history, warfare has transformed social, political, cultural, and religious aspects of our lives. We tell tales of wars--past, present, and future--to create and reinforce a common purpose. In A …
Book of the Day/ Finance

The Revolution That Wasn't

GameStop, Reddit, and the Fleecing of Small Investors

Spencer Jakab

Hosted by Daniel Peris
In The Revolution That Wasn't: GameStop, Reddit, and the Fleecing of Small Investors (Portfolio/Penguin, 2022), WSJ columnist Spencer Jakab weaves together personal narratives, the key market institutions, and social media to tell the fascinating tale of the GameStop short squeeze of early 2021.  The surprising truth? What appeared to be a watershed moment—a revolution that stripped the ultra-powerful hedge funds of their market influence, placing power back in the hands of everyday investors—only tilted …
Economic and Business History

The Long Crisis

New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism

Benjamin Holtzman

Hosted by Ben Zdencanovic
In the 1960s and 1970s, New York City was beset by a host of fiscal and social crises wrought by white flight, federal and state disinvestment, and a declining tax …
Anthropology

Taxis Vs. Uber

Courts, Markets and Technology in Buenos Aires

Juan Manuel del Nido

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Uber's April 2016 launch in Buenos Aires plunged the Argentine capital into a frenzied hysteria that engulfed courts of law, taxi drivers, bureaucrats, the press, the general public, and Argentina's …
Literature

The Singing Forest

Judith McCormack

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Two children stumble upon a mass grave in the forest outside of Minsk in Belarus where the NKVD, Stalin’s secret police, buried tens of thousands of innocent victims of torture …
Medieval History

The Middle Ages

A Graphic History

Eleanor Janega and Neil Max Emmanuel

Hosted by Evan Zarkadas
A unique, illustrated book that aspires to bring medieval history closer to the general audience will change the way you see medieval history, The Middle Ages: A Graphic History (Icon …
General History

Saving the International Justice Regime

Beyond Backlash against International Courts

Courtney Hillebrecht

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Saving the International Justice Regime: Beyond Backlash against International Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2021) is at the forefront of a new conceptualization of backlash politics. Dr. Courtney Hillebrecht brings together …
Middle Eastern Studies

Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder

Jason Pack

Hosted by James M. Dorsey
Libya stands out as an example of a complex, internecine Middle Eastern and North African conflict in which regional and global powers as well as jihadists exploit tribal and sectarian …
Children's Literature

The Family (and Frog! ) Haggadah

Karen Rostoger-Gruber

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
I talked with Karen Rostoger-Gruber and her sidekick, Maria (Karen is a ventriloquist) on her career and writing process and celebrated her Passover hagaddah (prayer book) with an amphibian twist: The …
Psychoanalysis

The Absent Father Effect on Daughters

Father Desire, Father Wounds

Susan E. Schwartz

Hosted by Christopher Russell
The Absent Father Effect on Daughters: Father Desire, Father Wounds (Routledge, 2020) investigates the impact of absent – physically or emotionally – and inadequate fathers on the lives and psyches …
Film

The First True Hitchcock

The Making of a Filmmaker

Henry K. Miller

Hosted by Joel Tscherne
This untold origin story of the filmmaker explores its transatlantic history. Alfred Hitchcock called The Lodger "the first true Hitchcock movie," one that anticipated all the others. And yet, the …
General History

Blood and Iron

The Rise and Fall of the German Empire

Katja Hoyer

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Before 1871, Germany was not yet nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-nine individual states under …
The Imperfect Buddha Podcast

Practice Item no. 1

Matthew O'Connell

Hosted by Matthew O'Connell
Take a trip to the Great Feast in this first in a series of posts on the practising life. Non-Buddhism meets post-traditional slants on practice, whilst tackling complexity, doubt, and …
Book of the Day/ Education

Futilitarianism

Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness

Neil Vallelly

Hosted by Thomas Discenna
If maximizing utility leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, as utilitarianism has always proposed, then why is it that as many of us currently maximize our utility--by working endlessly, undertaking further education and training, relentlessly marketing and selling ourselves--we are met with the steady worsening of collective social and economic conditions? In Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness (MIT Press, 2021), social and political …
Scholarly Communication

Grammar Choices for Graduate and Professional Writers

Second Edition

Nigel A. Caplan

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of Nigel Caplan, author of Grammar Choices for Graduate and Professional Writers (U Michigan Press, 2019) and Associate Professor at the English Language Institute, University of Delaware. We …
General History

The Fairy Tellers

A Journey into the Secret History of Fairy Tales

Nicholas Jubber

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In The Fairy Tellers: A Journey into the Secret History of Fairy Tales (John Murray, 2022), Nick Jubber unearths the lives of the dreamers who made our most beloved fairy …
American South

Choctaw Confederates

The American Civil War in Indian Country

Fay A. Yarbrough

Hosted by Brandon Jett
When the Choctaw Nation was forcibly resettled in Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma in the 1830s, it was joined by enslaved Black people—the tribe had owned enslaved Blacks since the …
German Studies

Jewish Primitivism

Samuel J. Spinner

Hosted by Paul Lerner
Around the beginning of the twentieth century, Jewish writers and artists across Europe began depicting fellow Jews as savages or "primitive" tribesmen. Primitivism—the European appreciation of and fascination with so-called …
South Asian Studies

Bombay Brokers

Lisa Björkman

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
A political party worker who produces crowds for electoral rallies. A “prison specialist” who serves other people’s prison sentences in exchange for a large fee. An engineer who is able …
Jewish Studies

The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton

Andrew Porwancher

Hosted by Amber Nickell
In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton (Princeton UP, 2021), Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding father to arrive at a startling conclusion …
Children's Literature

If I Lived with Noah

Pamela Moritz

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Today I talked to Pamela Moritz about her charming rhyming story If I Lived with Noah (Apple and Honey Press, 2020). A young boy imagines being sequestered with Noah and all the …
Law

Justice on the Brink

The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months That Transformed the Supreme Court

Linda Greenhouse

Hosted by William Domnarski
At the end of the Supreme Court's 2019-20 term, the center was holding. The predictions that the court would move irrevocably to the far right hadn't come to pass, as …
General History

Eaters of the Dead

Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters

Kevin J. Wetmore

Hosted by Jana Byars
Spanning myth, history, and contemporary culture, a terrifying and illuminating excavation of the meaning of cannibalism. Every culture has monsters that eat us, and every culture repels in horror when …
General History

The Fires of Lust

Sex in the Middle Ages

Katherine Harvey

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today we are with Katherine Harvey, author of The Fires of Lust: Sex in the Middle Ages (Reaktion Books, 2021). An illuminating exploration of the surprisingly familiar sex lives of ordinary …