New Books Network
NBN Book of the Day
Popular Culture June 25, 2021

Typical Girls

The Rhetoric of Womanhood in Comic Strips

Susan E. Kirtley

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In her new book Typical Girls: The Rhetoric of Womanhood in Comic Strips (Ohio State Press, 2021) Susan Kirtley examines female-created comics that were nationally syndicated starting in the late 1970s-2010. Kirtley uncovers the understudied and developing history of these strips, defining and exploring the ramifications of this expression of women’s roles at a time of great change in history and in comic art. This impressive, engaging, and timely study illustrates how these …
Philosophy June 24, 2021

Colonial Debts

The Case of Puerto Rico

Rocío Zambrana

Hosted by Sarah Tyson
What can debt reveal to us about coloniality and its undoing? In Colonial Debts: The Case of Puerto Rico (Duke University Press, 2021), Rocío Zambrana theorizes the way debt has …
History June 23, 2021

Stalin's War

A New History of World War II

Sean McMeekin

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was not in power when the …
Gender Studies June 22, 2021

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

Jane Ward

Hosted by Jana Byars
Heterosexuality is in crisis. Reports of sexual harassment, misconduct, and rape saturate the news in the era of #MeToo. Straight men and women spend thousands of dollars every day on …
Scholarly Communication June 21, 2021

Get Real

49 Challenges Confronting Higher Education

William G. Tierney

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of William Tierney, University Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. We talk about his …
Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work June 18, 2021

The People's Porn

A History of Handmade Pornography in America

Lisa Z. Sigel

Hosted by Zachary Lowell
The People's Porn: A History of Handmade Pornography in America (Reaktion Books, 2020) is a beautifully written and groundbreaking historical study of homemade, handmade and amateur pornographic artifacts. Covering everything …
Communications June 17, 2021

Rebirthing a Nation

White Women, Identity Politics, and the Internet

Wendy K. Z. Anderson

Hosted by Lee Pierce
In Rebirthing a Nation: White Women, Identity Politics, and the Internet (U Mississippi Press, 2021), author Wendy K. Z. Anderson details how white nationalist and alt-right women refine racist rhetoric …
Journalism June 15, 2021

Imagined Audiences

How Journalists Perceive and Pursue the Public

Jacob L. Nelson

Hosted by Jenna Spinelle
Many believe the solution to ongoing crises in the news industry — including profound financial instability and public distrust — is for journalists to improve connections to their audiences. Conversations about the proper …
Japanese Studies June 14, 2021

The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami

Matthew Carl Strecher

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
In an “other world” composed of language—it could be a fathomless Martian well, a labyrinthine hotel, or forest—a narrative unfolds, and with it the experiences, memories, and dreams that constitute …
Gender Studies June 11, 2021

We Are Not Born Submissive

How Patriarchy Shapes Women's Lives

Manon Garcia

Hosted by Jana Byars
We are here today with Manon Garcia, the author of We Are Not Born Submissive: How Patriarchy Shapes Women’s Lives, published this year, 2021, by Princeton University Press. The book …
Genocide Studies June 10, 2021

Drunk on Genocide

Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany

Edward B. Westermann

Hosted by Kelly McFall
The title of Edward Westermann's new book, Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany (Cornell University Press, published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2021) …
Law June 9, 2021

Why Should We Obey the Law?

George Klosko

Hosted by Ian Drake
In his new book Why Should We Obey the Law? (Polity Press, 2018), George Klosko, the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, has provided an …
Entrepreneurship and Leadership June 8, 2021

Why Startups Fail

A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success

Tom Eisenmann

Hosted by Richard Lucas and Kimon Fountoukidis
Why do many startups fail? Tom Eisenmann, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School realised that even he didn’t really know the answer, despite a lifetime teaching entrepreneurship, and decided …
History June 7, 2021

The Constitution of Knowledge

A Defense of Truth

Jonathan Rauch

Hosted by Mark Klobas
In recent years Americans have experienced a range of assaults upon the truth. In The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth (Brookings Institution Press, 2021), Jonathan Rauch describes the …
History June 4, 2021

The Ever-Changing Past

Why All History Is Revisionist History

James M. Banner, Jr.

Hosted by Mark Klobas
In recent years the phrase “revisionist history” has emerged as a label for politically-correct reexaminations of an unalterable understanding of our past. As James M. Banner, Jr. demonstrates in his …
History June 3, 2021

Socialism As a Secular Creed

A Modern Global History

Andrei Znamenski

Hosted by Mark Klobas
The predominantly secular focus of socialism can often obscure the parts of its ideology that reflect the elements it inherited from Western religious thinking. In Socialism as a Secular Creed …
Sociology June 2, 2021

The Voucher Promise

"Section 8" and the Fate of an American Neighborhood

Eva Rosen

Hosted by Richard Ocejo
Eve Rosen's The Voucher Promise: 'Section 8' and the Fate of an American Neighborhood (Princeton UP, 2020) examines the Housing Voucher Choice Program, colloquially  known as "Section 8," and the effect of …
Philosophy June 1, 2021

Rejecting Retributivism

Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice

Gregg D. Caruso

Hosted by Robert Talisse
According to an intuitive view, those who commit crimes are justifiably subject to punishment. Depending on the severity of the wrongdoing constitutive of the crime, punishment can be severe: incarceration …
Mathematics May 31, 2021

Innumeracy in the Wild

Misunderstanding and Misusing Numbers

Ellen Peters

Hosted by Cory Brunson
To many mathematicians and math enthusiasts, the word "innumeracy" brings to mind popular writing like that of John Allen Paulos. But inequities in our quantitative reasoning skills have received considerable …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel May 28, 2021

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings

Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

Randolph M. Nesse

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
Why do I feel bad? There is real power in understanding our bad feelings. With his classic Why We Get Sick, Dr. Randolph Nesse helped to establish the field of …