New Books Network Podcast

Russian and Eurasian Studies September 23, 2023

Monuments for Posterity

Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time

Antony Kalashnikov

Hosted by Aaron Weinacht

Antony Kalashnikov's Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time (Cornell UP, 2023) analyzes Stalinist monument-building. From the 1930's through the Great Patriotic War, architectural monuments such as …

Latin American Studies September 22, 2023

Reading the Walls of Bogota

Graffiti, Street Art, and the Urban Imaginary of Violence

Alba Griffin

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu

Listen:

A cultural imaginary is a structuring space through which collective understandings of cultural and society phenomena are formed, reproduced, and accepted as the norm. Reading the Walls of Bogota: Graffiti …

Religion September 16, 2023

An Ethology of Religion and Art

Belief as Behavior

Bryan Rennie

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

Drawing from sources including the ethology of art and the cognitive science of religion, An Ethology of Religion and Art: Belief as Behavior (Routledge, 2020) proposes an improved understanding of both art …

Library Science September 16, 2023

In Visible Archives

Queer and Feminist Visual Culture in the 1980s

Margaret Galvan

Hosted by Jen Hoyer

In In Visible Archives: Queer and Feminist Visual Culture in the 1980s (U Minnesota Press, 2023), Margaret Galvan explores a number of feminist and cultural touchstones—the feminist sex wars, the …

Art September 13, 2023

The Art of Being Dangerous

Exploring Women and Danger through Creative Expression

Jo Shaw and Ben Fletcher-Watson

Hosted by Marshall Poe

Listen:

The idea that women are dangerous - individually or collectively - runs throughout history and across cultures. Behind this label lies a significant set of questions about the dynamics, conflicts …

Game Studies September 7, 2023

Open World Structures

Architecture, Urban and Natural Landscape in the Computer Game

Marc Bonner

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

Listen:

What role do algorithms play in the construction of images and the representation of the world and weather in computer games? How does the design of rooms, levels and topographies …

Library Science September 6, 2023

On the Digital Humanities

Essays and Provocations

Stephen Ramsay

Hosted by Hallel Yadin

Listen:

Stephen Ramsey's On the Digital Humanities: Essays and Provocations (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) is a witty and incisive exploration of the philosophical conundrums that animate the digital humanities. Since its inception …

Film September 6, 2023

Digging My Own Grave

The Films of Caveh Zahedi

Caveh Zahedi

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

Listen:

Digging My Own Grave: The Films of Caveh Zahedi (Factory 25, 2015) is the most comprehensive collection of filmmaker Caveh Zahedi possible with 36 films including: A Little Stiff, I Don’t …

Japanese Studies September 5, 2023

Gas Mask Nation

Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan

Gennifer Weisenfeld

Hosted by Ran Zwigenberg

Listen:

Airplanes, gas masks, and bombs were common images in wartime Japan. Yet amid these emblems of anxiety, tasty caramels were offered to children with paper gas masks as promotional giveaways …

Performing Arts September 3, 2023

Cosmic Scholar

The Life and Times of Harry Smith

John Szwed

Hosted by Andy Boyd

Who was Harry Smith? Was he an anthropologist, a filmmaker, a painter? Was he a charlatan? A genius? Was he a moocher, a schmuck, a bum? As John Szwed's Cosmic Scholar …

Russian and Eurasian Studies September 3, 2023

Art of Transition

The Field of Art in Post-Soviet Russia

Elise Herrala

Hosted by Iva Glisic

Art of Transition: The Field of Art in Post-Soviet Russia (Routledge, 2021) investigates contemporary art in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union. By drawing on historical and ethnographic …

Jewish Studies September 2, 2023

Jewish Women in Comics

Bodies and Borders

Heike Bauer, Andrea Greenbaum, and Sarah Lightman

Hosted by Nathan Abrams

Listen:

In Jewish Women in Comics: Bodies and Borders (Syracuse UP, 2022), contributors draw upon a rich treasure trove of Jewish women’s comics to explore the representation of Jewish women’s bodies …

Art August 30, 2023

The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary

Hamid Keshmirshekan

Hosted by Kaveh Rafie

Listen:

Hamid Keshmirshekan's book The Art of Iran in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Tracing the Modern and the Contemporary (Edinburgh UP, 2023) deals with the exploration and theorization of Modern and Contemporary …

Literary Studies August 27, 2023

Reanimating Shakespeare's Othello in Post-Racial America

Vanessa I. Corredera

Hosted by John Yargo

Vanessa I. Corredera’s book Reanimating Shakespeare's Othello in Post-Racial America (Edinburgh Univeristy Press, 2022) looks at how that seventeenth-century play and its protagonist was imagined in theatre, television, and other …

Critical Theory August 23, 2023

How to Live at the End of the World

Theory, Art, and Politics for the Anthropocene

Travis Holloway

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh

The end of the Holocene era is marked not just by melting glaciers or epic droughts, but by the near universal disappearance of shared social enterprise: the ruling class builds …

Early Modern History August 21, 2023

Praying to Portraits

Audience, Identity, and the Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World

Adam Jasienski

Hosted by Jana Byars

Listen:

Praying to Portraits: Audience, Identity, and Inquisition in the Early Modern Hispanic World (Penn State University Press, 2023), art historian Adam Jasienski examines the history, meaning, and cultural significance of …

Literary Studies August 17, 2023

The New Mutants

Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics

Ramzi Fawaz

Hosted by John Yargo

Listen:

Today’s guest is Ramzi Fawaz, the Romnes Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Published by NYU Press in 2016, The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of …

General History August 8, 2023

The Violence of Colonial Photography

Daniel Foliard

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh

Listen:

The late nineteenth century witnessed a rapid increase in colonial conflicts throughout the French and British empires. It was also the period in which the first mass-produced cameras became available …

Medieval History August 1, 2023

The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe

Taylor McCall

Hosted by Jana Byars

Listen:

Taylor McCall's The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe (Reaktion, 2023) is the first history of medieval European anatomical images. Richly illustrated, The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe explores the many ways …

Southeast Asian Studies August 1, 2023

Reconstructing God

Style, Hydraulics, Political Power and Angkor's West Mebon Visnu

Marnie Feneley

Hosted by Patrick Jory

Listen:

In December 1936, a villager was led by a dream to the ruins of the West Mebon shrine in Angkor where he uncovered remains of a bronze sculpture. This was …