Listen to Owen Bennett-Jones discuss the future of opinion polls with Mark Pack

New Books Network
Film
African American Studies May 13, 2022

Black Dragon

Afro Asian Performance and the Martial Arts Imagination

Zachary F. Price

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In Black Dragon: Afro Asian Performance and the Martial Arts Imagination (Ohio State UP, 2022), Zachary F. Price illuminates martial arts as a site of knowledge exchange between Black, Asian …

Film

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Interviews with film makers and scholars of film about their new books.

Latin American Studies May 10, 2022

Fictions of Migration

Narratives of Displacement in Peru and Bolivia

Lorena Cuya Gavilano

Hosted by Kenneth Sanchez
In this episode of the New Books in Latin America podcast, Kenneth Sánchez spoke with Lorena Cuya Gavilano about her interesting new book Fictions of Migration: Narratives of Displacement in …
Gender Studies May 4, 2022

Vulgar Beauty

Acting Chinese in the Global Sensorium

Mila Zuo

Hosted by Ann Choi
Yi’s eyes soften as he watches Jiazhi sing a Chinese folk song with subtle, feminine movements in the film, Lust, Caution. The room fills with laughter when Ali Wong unabashedly enacts …
Biblical Studies April 27, 2022

Nightmares with the Bible

The Good Book and Cinematic Demons

Steve A. Wiggins

Hosted by David Kunsman
Demons! Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons (2021) published by Fortress Academic views demons through two lenses: that of western religion and that of cinema. Sketching out …
Media April 27, 2022

Media Disrupted

Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars

Amanda D. Lotz

Hosted by Gummo Clare
Has the internet really been the main culprit behind the upheaval of the contemporary media industries? In Media Disrupted: Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars (MIT Press, 2021), Professor Amanda Lotz …
Art April 20, 2022

Media Primitivism

Technological Art in Africa

Delinda Collier

Hosted by Holiday Powers
In Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa (Duke University Press, 2020) Delinda Collier provides a sweeping new understanding of technological media in African art, rethinking the assumptions that have conceptualized African …
Film April 8, 2022

Hollywood and Israel

A History

Tony Shaw and Giora Goodman

Hosted by Nathan Abrams
From Frank Sinatra’s early pro-Zionist rallying to Steven Spielberg’s present-day peacemaking, Hollywood has long enjoyed a “special relationship” with Israel. This book offers a groundbreaking account of this relationship, both …
Film April 6, 2022

Citizen Spielberg

Lester D. Friedman

Hosted by Nathan Abrams
Steven Spielberg's extraordinary career redefined Hollywood, but his achievement goes far beyond shattered box office records. Rejecting the view of Spielberg as a Barnumesque purveyor of spectacle, Lester D. Friedman …
Science, Technology, and Society April 4, 2022

Science Fiction

Sherryl Vint

Hosted by Frances Sacks
The world today seems to be slipping into a science fiction future. We have phones that speak to us, cars that drive themselves, and connected devices that communicate with each …
Film March 30, 2022

Sketch Comedy

Identity, Reflexivity, and American Television

Nick Marx

Hosted by Annie Berke
“Sketch comedy – more than any other television genre – lays bare the process of identity formation, pokes fun at its contradictions, and invites us to debate its terms.” In …
Film March 25, 2022

Triumph Over Containment

American Film in the 1950s

Robert P. Kolker

Hosted by Nathan Abrams
The long 1950s, which extend back to the early postwar period and forward into the early 1960s, were a period of “containment culture” in America, as the media worked to …
Women's History March 23, 2022

The American Girl Goes to War

Women and National Identity in US Silent Film

Liz Clarke

Hosted by Jane Scimeca
During the 1910s, films about war often featured a female protagonist. The films portrayed women as spies, cross-dressing soldiers, and athletic defenders of their homes--roles typically reserved for men and …
Critical Theory March 16, 2022

Their Own Best Creations

Women Writers in Postwar Television

Annie Berke

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What is the hidden history of women in the television industry? In Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television (U California Press, 2022), Annie Berke, film editor at …
Film March 16, 2022

Wim Wenders's Road Movie Philosophy

Education Without Learning

René V. Arcilla

Hosted by Gustavo Gutiérrez Suárez
What is education? Most of the time, we have little patience for this question because we take the answer to be obvious: we identify education with school learning. This book …
Jewish Studies March 11, 2022

Movie-Made Jews

An American Tradition

Helene Meyers

Hosted by Nathan Abrams
Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition (Rutgers University Press, 2021) focuses on a rich, usable American Jewish cinematic tradition. This tradition includes fiction and documentary films that make Jews through antisemitism …
Architecture March 11, 2022

Architecture, Philosophy, and the Pedagogy of Cinema

From Benjamin to Badiou

Nadir Lahiji

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Philosophers on the art of cinema mainly remain silent about architecture. Discussing cinema as ‘mass art’, they tend to forget that architecture, before cinema, was the only existing ‘mass art’ …
Popular Culture March 10, 2022

Haunted Homes

Dahlia Schweitzer

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In her new book, Haunted Homes (Rutgers University Press, 2022), Dahlia Schweitzer explores the ways in which the trope of the haunted house in horror signifies the anxieties, traumas, and terrors of suburban …
Film March 9, 2022

Camera Man

Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century

Dana Stevens

Hosted by Annie Berke
“Not a whisper. / Never laughter. / Buster, thank you / for disaster.” So wrote graduate student Dana Stevens, who would go on to become Slate’s resident film critic and …
Chinese Studies March 8, 2022

Internationalist Aesthetics

China and Early Soviet Culture

Edward Tyerman

Hosted by Julia Keblinska
I am joined for my interview with Edward Tyerman by Ed Pulford, another host on our channel. Together, we discuss Edward’s new book, Internationalist Aesthetics: China and Early Soviet Culture …
Novel Dialogue March 3, 2022

In the Editing Room with Ruth Ozeki and Rebecca Evans (EH)

Ruth Ozeki and Rebecca Evans

Hosted by Aarthi Vadde and John Plotz
Ruth Ozeki, whose most recent novel is The Book of Form and Emptiness, speaks with critic Rebecca Evans and guest host Emily Hyde. This is a conversation about talking books …