New Books Network
Literary Studies
Folklore January 18, 2022

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 …

Literary Studies

Subscribe:

Interviews with scholars of literature about their new books.

Grinnell College: Authors and Artists January 17, 2022

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 …
The Common Magazine January 14, 2022

Who Writes the Arabian Gulf?

Noor Naga

Hosted by Emily Everett
Noor Naga speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about co-editing The Common’s first-of-its-kind portfolio of writing from the Arabian Gulf, which appeared in Issue 22. Noor penned an introduction to …
Literary Studies January 13, 2022

Küchlya, Decembrist Poet

Translated by Anna Kurkina Rush, Peter France, and Christopher Rush

Yuri Tynianov

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Küchlya (1925), the first novel of the great Russian formalist Yury Tynyanov gives us a vividly written and moving recreation of the childhood, youth, beliefs and adventures of an eccentric …
Literary Studies January 13, 2022

Places of Mind

A Life of Edward Said

Timothy Brennan

Hosted by Bryant Scott
Timothy Brennan is Professor of Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, and English at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of several seminal books in literary studies, including Borrowed Light …
Jewish Studies January 13, 2022

Yiddish Writers in Weimar Berlin

A Fugitive Modernism

Marc Caplan

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
In Yiddish Writers in Weimar Berlin: A Fugitive Modernism (Indiana UP, 2021), Marc Caplan explores the reciprocal encounter between Eastern European Jews and German culture in the days following World War …
LGBTQ+ Studies January 12, 2022

The Life and Comics of Howard Cruse

Taking Risks in the Service of Truth

Andrew J. Kunka

Hosted by Morris Ardoin
In this episode of QUEER VOICES OF THE SOUTH, I talk with ANDREW J. KUNKA, who is a professor of English and division chair at the University of South Carolina …
Think About It January 11, 2022

John Waters on James Joyce's "Dubliners"

John Waters

Hosted by Uli Baer
James Joyce’s 1914 collection of fifteen short stories, Dubliners, is righty considered one of the greatest literary achievements of Western modernity. But what is so original about these stories that …
Burned by Books January 10, 2022

You Never Get It Back

Cara Blue Adams

Hosted by Chris Holmes
An interview with Cara Blue Adams, author of You Never Get It Back (University of Iowa Press, 2021). Cara and I discuss the joys of linked short story collections, the lack …
Language January 7, 2022

The Babel Message

A Love Letter to Language

Keith Kahn-Harris

Hosted by Nathan Abrams
A thrilling journey deep into the heart of language, from a rather unexpected starting point. Keith Kahn-Harris is a man obsessed with something seemingly trivial – the warning message found …
Recall This Book January 6, 2022

Jennifer Egan with Ivan Kreilkamp

Fiction as Streaming, Genre as Portal (Novel Dialogue crossover, JP)

Jennifer Egan and Ivan Kreilkamp

Hosted by Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz
This week on Recall this Book, another delightful crossover episode from our sister podcast Novel Dialogue, which puts scholars and writers together to discuss the making of novels and what …
Literary Studies January 4, 2022

Strategic Occidentalism

On Mexican Fiction, the Neoliberal Book Market, and the Question of World Literature

Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado

Hosted by Bryant Scott
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado is Professor of Spanish, Latin American Studies, and Film and Media Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His areas of research include Latin American intellectual …
Latin American Studies January 4, 2022

Philosophy and Criticism in Latin America

From Mariátegui to Sloterdijk

Mabel Moraña

Hosted by Daniela Gutierrez Flores
Mabel Moraña's book Philosophy and Criticism in Latin America: From Mariátegui to Sloterdijk (Cambria Press, 2020) explores the complex relationships between the fields of philosophy and criticism, focusing on methodological, ideological …
General History January 4, 2022

The Transcendentalists and Their World

Robert A. Gross

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
In The Transcendentalists and Their World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), Robert A. Gross offers a fresh view of the thinkers whose outsize impact on philosophy and literature would spread from tiny Concord …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast December 29, 2021

From Linear A to Linear B

Suggestive Continuity

Ester Salgarella

Hosted by Howard Burton
In this episode, Howard Burton talks with Ester Salgarella, Junior Research Fellow at St John's College, University of Cambridge, about her groundbreaking work on the intriguing relationship between Linear A …
Japanese Studies December 28, 2021

Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya Kaidan

Takashi Saitō

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Ghastly Tales from the Yotsuya Kaidan (Chisokudo, 2020) is a newly revised and corrected translation of what is perhaps the most famous and oft told tales of horror in Japan. The …
Literary Studies December 27, 2021

World Literature Decentered

Beyond the 'West' Through Turkey, Mexico and Bengal

Ian Almond

Hosted by Bryant Scott
Ian Almond is Professor of World Literature at Georgetown University in Qatar, and author of six books, including Two Faiths, One Banner: When Muslims Marched with Christians across Europe’s Battlegrounds …
Biblical Studies December 23, 2021

The Reception of Exodus Motifs in Jewish and Christian Literature

"Let My People Go!"

Beate Kowalski and Susan E. Docherty

Hosted by Michael Morales
The account of the exodus of Israel out of Egypt led by Moses has shaped the theology and community identity of both Jewish people and Christians across the centuries, blossoming …
Digital Humanities December 22, 2021

Living Books

Experiments in the Posthumanities

Janneke Adema

Hosted by Sarah Kearns
In Living Books: Experiments in the Posthumanities (MIT Press, 2021), Janneke Adema proposes that we reimagine the scholarly book as a living and collaborative project -- not as linear, bound …
Japanese Studies December 22, 2021

A Fictional Commons

Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature

Michael K. Bourdaghs

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Modernity arrived in Japan, as elsewhere, through new forms of ownership. In A Fictional Commons: Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature (Duke UP, 2021), Michael K. Bourdaghs explores …