New Books Network
Literary Studies
Scholarly Communication May 7, 2021

Book Wars

The Digital Revolution in Publishing

John B. Thompson

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Today I talked to John Thompson, Emeritus Professor, Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, about his new book Book Wars: The Digital Revolution in Publishing (Polity, 2021). We discuss crowdfunding, audio books, distribution chains …

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Middle Eastern Studies May 7, 2021

Turkey, Egypt, and Syria

A Travelogue

Shibli Numani

Hosted by Asad Dandia
Turkey, Egypt, and Syria: A Travelogue (Syracuse UP, 2019) vividly captures the experiences of prominent Indian intellectual and scholar Shibli Nu'mani (1857-1914) as he journeyed across the Ottoman Empire and Egypt in …
American West May 7, 2021

Writing Kit Carson

Fallen Heroes in a Changing West

Susan Lee Johnson

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
The only constant in Western history is change. Susan Lee Johnson, Harry Reid Endowed Chair in the History of the Intermountain West at UNLV, knows this better than most. Author of …
Critical Theory May 6, 2021

Creative Control

The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries

Michael L. Siciliano

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
How should we understand creative work? In Creative Control: The Ambivalence of Work in the Culture Industries (Columbia UP, 2021), Michael Siciliano, an assistant professor of sociology at Queen's University …
Literary Studies May 5, 2021

Quiet Spiders of the Hidden Soul

Mykola (Nik) Bazhan's Early Experimental Poetry

Mykola Bazhan

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Quiet Spiders of the Hidden Soul: Mykola (Nik) Bazhan’s Early Experimental Poetry (Academic Studies Press, 2020) presents a collection of early works by Mykola Bazhan, one of the most enigmatic …
Jewish Studies May 5, 2021

Songs in Dark Times

Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine

Amelia M. Glaser

Hosted by Steven Seegel
Between the world wars, a generation of Jewish leftist poets reached out to other embattled peoples of the earth--Palestinian Arabs, African Americans, Spanish Republicans--in Yiddish verse. Songs in Dark Times …
Middle Eastern Studies May 5, 2021

Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life

The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World

Jörg Matthias Determann

Hosted by Asad Dandia
The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, even the …
History May 4, 2021

American Writers and World War I

David A. Rennie

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
In American Writers and World War I (Oxford University Press, 2020), David A. Rennie argues that authors' war writing continuously evolved in response to developments in their professional and personal lives. He examines …
Cover Story May 4, 2021

The Work of Editing a Magazine

A Discussion with Chris Lehmann

Chris Lehmann

Hosted by Agata Popeda
In this episode, we are talking to writer and editor Chris Lehmann, an editor of The Baffler, a former managing editor of The New Republic and a former editor of …
In Conversation: An OUP Podcast May 3, 2021

Love Lives

From Cinderella to Frozen

Carol Dyhouse

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Cinderella stories captured the imagination of girls in the 1950s, when dreams of meeting the right man could seem like a happy ending, a solution to life's problems. But over …
Christian Studies April 30, 2021

Spiritual Direction from Dante

Volume 2: Ascending Mount Purgatory

Paul Pearson

Hosted by Michael Morales
Although Dante’s Divine Comedy is a masterpiece of spiritual writing, it is seldom appreciated as such since most readers never venture beyond the first volume, Inferno, to continue the spiritual journey …
Communications April 30, 2021

Reimagining the Middle Passage

Black Resistance in Literature, Television, and Song

Tara T. Green

Hosted by Lee Pierce
From ships and novels to Mardi Gras, water, and television, how does the legacy of the Middle Passage, the leg of the Atlantic through which African people were trafficked as …
Indian Religions April 30, 2021

Land of the Golden River

The Medieval Tamil Folk Epic of Poṉṉivaḷa Nāḍu

Brenda Beck

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
This podcast features Brenda Beck’s lifelong work on the Tamil folk epic Ponnivala. In addition to her forthcoming new English translation of the epic (“Land of the Golden River”), we …
History April 29, 2021

The Committed

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Hosted by Michael Vann
What do you ask a novelist who has won a Pulitzer, a Guggenheim, and a MacArthur genius grant? Cocktail advice, of course. When I had the honor of chatting with …
Scholarly Communication April 29, 2021

Air & Light & Time & Space

How Successful Academics Write

Helen Sword

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Today I talked to Helen Sword about Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write (Harvard UP, 2017). We talk about what not enough people talk about when the subject …
Russian and Eurasian Studies April 28, 2021

The Soviet Writers' Union and Its Leaders

Identity and Authority Under Stalin

Carol Any

Hosted by Aaron Weinacht
Dr. Carol Any’s The Soviet Writer’s Union and Its Leaders: Identity and Authority Under Stalin (Northwestern University Press, 2020) covers the writer’s union’s formation and functions, from its inception in …
Literary Studies April 28, 2021

Heidegger and His Jewish Reception

Daniel M. Herskowitz

Hosted by Britton Edelen
In this episode, I interview Daniel Herskowitz, Career Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, about his first book, Heidegger and His Jewish Reception (Cambridge University Press, 2020).   In the …
Literary Studies April 26, 2021

The Orphanage

A Novel

Serhiy Zhadan

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
The Ukrainian literary scene today is particularly vibrant. The voice of Serhiy Zhadan is distinct, well-known, and easily-recognizable. In 2021, Yale University Press published his novel titled The Orphanage (Yale …
Scholarly Communication April 26, 2021

The Writing Center Today

An Interview with Gerd Bräuer

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of Gerd Bräuer, Head of the Schreibzentrum, the writing center, at Freiburg University of Education. We talk about the place of the internet in writing development …
Biblical Studies April 21, 2021

Discourse Analysis of the New Testament Writings

Todd Scacewater

Hosted by Jonathan Wright
For the first time, one volume includes a discourse analysis of every writing in the New Testament. Discourse analysis of written texts involves examining units of language higher than the …