New Books Network
Language
Sociology March 1, 2021

What the Signs Say

Language, Gentrification, and Place-Making in Brooklyn

Shonna Trinch and Edward Snajdr

Hosted by Richard Ocejo
Two stores sit side-by-side. One with signage overflowing with text: a full list of business services (income tax returns, notary public, a variety of insurance) on the storefront, twenty-two words …

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Scholarly Communication February 24, 2021

Writing in Disciplines

A Discussion with Shyam Sharma

Shyam Sharma

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of Shyam Sharma, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University. We talk about how mutually appreciative …
Jewish Studies February 23, 2021

How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish

Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Is it possible to conceive of the American diet without bagels? Or Star Trek without Mr. Spock? Are the creatures in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are based on …
Psychoanalysis February 17, 2021

The Autistic Subject

On the Threshold of Language

Leon S. Brenner

Hosted by Jordan Osserman
Leon Brenner's The Autistic Subject: On the Threshold of Language (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) makes a forceful case for the relevance of Lacanian psychoanalysis in the understanding and treatment of autism …
Japanese Studies January 29, 2021

Scripting Japan

Orthography, Variation, and the Creation of Meaning in Written Japanese

Wesley C. Robertson

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Imagine this book was written in Comic Sans. Would this choice impact your image of me as an author, despite causing no literal change to the content within? Generally, discussions …
Language January 6, 2021

Extraterrestrial Languages

Daniel Oberhaus

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
In Extraterrestrial Languages (MIT Press 2020), Daniel Oberhaus tells the history of human efforts to talk to aliens, but in doing so, the book reflects on the relationship between communication …
Language January 5, 2021

Changing Minds

How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging

Roger Kreuz and Richard Roberts

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
Everyone ages, and just about everyone uses language, making Changing Minds: How Aging Affects Language and How Language Affects Aging (MIT Press, 2019) a book with practically universal relevance. The …
Philosophy January 4, 2021

The Ethics of Microaggression

Regina Rini

Hosted by Robert Talisse
Seemingly fleeting and barely legible insults, slights, and derogations might seem morally insignificant. They’re the byproducts of ordinary thoughtlessness and insensitivity; moreover, insofar as they inflict harm at all, the …
Language December 4, 2020

Fiction

A Philosophical Analysis

Catharine Abell

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
In Fiction: A Philosophical Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2020), Catharine Abell draws our attention to the character of Emma Woodhouse. She is handsome, clever, and rich. Or, at least, that's what …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight December 3, 2020

Negotiating the Sweet Spot

The Art of Leaving Nothing on the Table

Leigh Thompson

Hosted by Dan Hill
Leigh Thompson is a Professor of Dispute Resolution and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. An acclaimed researcher, author, and speaker, she has developed several online and in-person …
Language November 24, 2020

A Revolution in Tropes

Alloiostrophic Rhetoric

Jane S. Sutton and Mari Lee Mifsud

Hosted by Lee Pierce
Aristotle, the co-called father of rhetoric, supposedly conceptualized his theory of persuasion as a means of bringing meaning to rest. But what if there’s another story, one in which forgotten …
Language November 24, 2020

Indian Perspectives on Consciousness, Language and Self

The School of Recognition on Linguistics and Philosophy of Mind

Marco Ferrante

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
For many Indian philosophers, language is inextricably tied up with conceptualization. In Indian Perspectives on Consciousness, Language and Self (Routledge, 2020), Marco Ferrante shows how a set of tenth century …
Literary Studies October 29, 2020

Transforming Ethos

Place and the Material in Rhetoric and Writing

Rosanne Carlo

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Transforming Ethos: Place and the Material in Rhetoric and Writing (Utah State UP, 2020) approaches writing studies from the rhetorical flank, the flank which, for many, is the only flank …
Literary Studies October 28, 2020

How Dead Languages Work

Coulter George

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
After reading How Dead Languages Work (Oxford University Press 2020), Coulter George hopes you might decide to learn a bit of ancient Greek or Sanskrit, or maybe dabble in a …
Animal Studies October 23, 2020

A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path

Animal Metaphors in an Eastern Indonesian Society

Gregory Forth

Hosted by Akash Ondaatje
Gregory Forth, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Alberta and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has studied the Nage people of the eastern Indonesian island of …
Communications October 8, 2020

All Bullshit and Lies?

Insincerity, Irresponsibility, and the Judgment of Untruthfulness

Chris Heffer

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
The implied answer to the titular question of All Bullshit and Lies? (Oxford University Press, 2020) is no, it’s not. In this book, subtitled Insincerity, Irresponsibility, and the Judgment of …
American Studies October 2, 2020

EQ Spotlight Special

Roundtable on the 2020 Presidential Race

John R. Hibbing and Jonathan Weiler

Hosted by Dan Hill
What are we to make of the year’s first presidential debate? Listen in as John R. Hibbing, Jonathan Weiler and I discuss this question and others surrounding the 2020 presidential …
Latin American Studies September 22, 2020

Transforming Indigenity

Urbanization and Language Revitalization in the Brazilian Amazon

Sarah Shulist

Hosted by Carrie Gillon
Transforming Indigenity: Urbanization and Language Revitalization in the Brazilian Amazon (University of Toronto Press) examines the role that language revitalization efforts play in cultural politics in the small city of …
Language September 11, 2020

How You Say It

Why You Talk the Way You Do - And What It Says About You

Katherine Kinzler

Hosted by Matthew Jordan
We gravitate toward people like us; it's human nature. Race, class, and gender shape our social identities, and thus who we perceive as "like us" or "not like us". But …
Language September 9, 2020

Making Sense

Reference, Agency, and Structure in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning

B. Cope and M. Kalantzis

Hosted by Daniel Shea
What do all these have in common: Disneyland and the Dreamtime, the shopping mall and the planned economy, Chomsky's Syntactic Structures and Halliday's Functional Grammar, Unicode and door handles? All …