New Books Network

Photography September 30, 2020

La Batea

Elizabeth Ferry and Stephen Ferry

La Batea is an unconventional book. A collaboration between anthropologist Elizabeth Ferry and her photographer brother Stephen, it combines text and images to paint a picture of the lives of …

Photography August 13, 2020

Troublemakers

Chicago Freedom Struggles Through the Lens of Art Shay

Erik Gellman

Hosted by James West

James West speaks with Erik Gellman, an associate professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about his new book Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles Through the …

Photography July 10, 2020

Flash

The Making of Weegee the Famous

Christopher Bonanos

Hosted by Robert W. Snyder

In the middle of the twentieth century, a newspaper photographer who went by the name of Weegee took memorable pictures of New York City’s street life that appeared everywhere from …

Architecture June 5, 2020

Active Landscape Photography

Theoretical Groundwork for Landscape Architecture

Anne Godfrey

Hosted by Tricia Keffer

Photographs play a hugely influential but largely unexamined role in the practice of landscape architecture and design. Through a diverse set of essays and case studies, this seminal text unpacks …

Art April 23, 2020

Performance / Media / Art / Culture

Selected Essays 1983-2018

Jacki Apple

Hosted by Andy Boyd

Performance / Media / Art / Culture: Selected Essays 1983-2018 (Intellect Books, 2019) collects more than thirty years of critical writing by artist and writer Jacki Apple. These essays trace …

Art April 2, 2020

Negative Exposures

Knowing What Not to Know in Contemporary China

Margaret Hillenbrand

Hosted by Ed Pulford

The fact that secrecy and the concealment of information is important in today’s China is hardly a secret in itself, yet the ways that this secrecy is structured and sustained …

Photography December 27, 2019

Margaret Bourke-White and the Dawn of Apartheid

Alex Lichtenstein and Rick Halpern

Hosted by Beth English

Alex Lichtenstein, Associate Professor of History at Indiana University, discusses his new book with co-author Rick Halpern, Margaret Bourke-White and the Dawn of Apartheid (Indiana University Press, 2016) photojournalism, and …

Photography December 11, 2019

Dignity

Seeking Respect in Back Row America

Chris Arnade

Hosted by Richard Davies and Jim Meigs

A lot of politicians like to say that there are “two Americas,” but do any of them know what life is really like for the marginalized poor? We speak with …

Art October 18, 2019

Paris and the Cliché of History

The City in Photographs, 1860-1970

Catherine Clark

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi

What’s the first image that comes to mind when you hear the words “Paris” and “photography”? Is it a famous photo, perhaps an Atget, Brassai, or Doisneau? In her new …

Art September 19, 2019

Splashes

Gabriel Jones

Hosted by Lorena Turner

The images featured in Splashes (RVB Press, 2018) are characteristic of Gabriel Jones’ approach to making images by capturing the “backdrop”, things behind the original subject. There is a performative …

Photography August 16, 2019

Gettysburg

The Living and the Dead

Kent Gramm

Hosted by Colin Mustful

Using a mixture of genres, Kent Gramm captures the voices of those past and present in his book, Gettysburg: The Living and the Dead (Southern Illinois University Press, 2019) Alongside …

Art June 25, 2019

Consuming Identities

Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco

Amy Lippert

Hosted by Ryan Tripp

Along with the rapid expansion of the market economy and industrial production methods, such innovations as photography, lithography, and steam printing created a pictorial revolution in nineteenth-century society. The proliferation …

Photography April 25, 2019

Exposing Slavery

Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in America

Matthew Fox-Amato

Hosted by Christine Lamberson

Shortly after its introduction, photography transformed the ways Americans made political arguments using visual images. In the mid-19th century, photographs became key tools in debates surrounding slavery. Yet, photographs were …

Art April 8, 2019

Pictures of Longing

Photography and the Norwegian-American Migration

Sigrid Lien

Hosted by Colin Mustful

In one of history’s largest migrations, hundreds of thousands of Norwegians immigrated to North American during the 1800s and early 1900s. In addition to letters sent home, Norwegian-Americans often included …

Art September 24, 2018

Portraits in the Andes

Photography and Agency, 1900-1950

Jorge Coronado

Hosted by Ryan Tripp

In Portraits in the Andes: Photography and Agency, 1900-1950 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), Jorge Coronado, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University, examines photography to further the argument …

Art May 7, 2018

The Modernist Corpse

Posthumanism and the Posthumous

Erin Edwards

Hosted by Eric LeMay

At the beginning of the 20th century, surrealists such as André Breton and Man Ray played a game called “Exquisite Corpse.” You can play it by drawing or by writing …

Architecture March 28, 2018

Singular Spaces

From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments

Jo Farb Hernandez

Hosted by Jo Farb Hernandez

Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments (Raw Vision, 2013) is an audacious tome. A comprehensive survey of 45 art environments on the Spanish mainland …

Art February 15, 2018

The Arab Imago

A Social History of Indigenous Photography 1860-1910

Stephen Sheehi

Hosted by Nadirah Mansour

In the Arab world, photography is often tied to the modernizing efforts of imperial and colonial powers. However, indigenous photography was itself a major aspect of the cultural and social …

Art November 29, 2017

Focus in Photography

Master the Advanced Techniques That Will Change Your Photography Forever

John Neel