New Books Network Podcast

African American Studies October 1, 2023

Black Female Intellectuals in 19th Century America

Born to Bloom Unseen?

Rebecca J. Fraser

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

Drawing on letters, personal testimony, works of art, novels, and historic Black newspapers, this book is an interdisciplinary exploration of Black women’s contributions to the intellectual life of nineteenth-century America …

General History September 30, 2023

Political Disappointment

A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis

Sara Marcus

Hosted by Deidre Tyler

Moving from the aftermath of Reconstruction through the AIDS crisis, a new cultural history of the United States shows how artists, intellectuals, and activists turned political disappointment--the unfulfilled desire for …

African American Studies September 30, 2023

Ode to Hip-Hop

50 Albums That Define 50 Years of Trailblazing Music

Kiana Fitzgerald

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

From underground roots to mainstream popularity, hip-hop's influence on music and entertainment around the world has been nothing short of extraordinary. Ode to Hip-Hop chronicles the journey with profiles of …

African American Studies September 28, 2023

Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America

Revolution, Race and Popular Performance

Peter Reed

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

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American culture maintained a complicated relationship with Haiti from its revolutionary beginnings onward. In Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America: Revolution, Race and Popular Performance (Cambridge UP, 2022), Peter P. Reed …

African American Studies September 27, 2023

An Abolitionist Abroad

Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe

Sirpa Salenius

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

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Sarah Parker Remond (1826–1894) left the free black community of Salem, Massachusetts, where she was born, to become one of the first women to travel on extensive lecture tours across …

Music September 26, 2023

Harlem World

How Hip Hop's Super Showdown Changed Music Forever

Jonathan Mael

Hosted by Alex Kuchma

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July 3, 1981, was a pivotal night for the future of America's newest art form: hip hop. In New York's Harlem World Club, the Fantastic Romantic Five and the Cold …

African American Studies September 26, 2023

Before the Movement

The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights

Dylan C. Penningroth

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

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A prize-winning scholar draws on astonishing new research to demonstrate how Black people used the law to their advantage long before the Civil Rights Movement. The familiar story of civil …

Political Science September 25, 2023

The People and Their Peace

Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-revolutionary South

Laura F. Edwards

Hosted by Susan Liebell

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Do individuals have the right to “keep and bear” arms? Do “the people” have any collective rights to public safety? Now that the United States Supreme Court requires each side …

African American Studies September 22, 2023

Before Busing

A History of Boston's Long Black Freedom Struggle

Zebulon Vance Miletsky

Hosted by Adam McNeil

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In many histories of Boston, African Americans have remained almost invisible. Partly as a result, when the 1972 crisis over school desegregation and busing erupted, many observers professed shock at …

Recall This Book September 21, 2023

January 6th and Asymmetrical Policing (JP, EF)

A Discussion with David Cunningham

David Cunningham

Hosted by Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz

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Recall This Book first heard from the sociologist of American racism David Cunningham in Episode 36 Policing and White Power. Less than a week after the horrors of January 6th …

African American Studies September 20, 2023

Passing

An Alternative History of Identity

Lipika Pelham

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

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A slave woman in 1840s America dresses as a white, disabled man to escape to freedom, while a twenty-first-century black rights activist is 'cancelled' for denying her whiteness. A Victorian …

African American Studies September 19, 2023

The Black Angels

The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis

Maria Smilios

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

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New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nursing shortage. In the pre-antibiotic days when tuberculosis stirred people’s darkest fears, killing one in seven, white nurses …

Music September 19, 2023

Living Colour's Time's Up

Kimberly Mack

Hosted by Bradley Morgan

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The iconic Black rock band Living Colour's Time's Up, released in 1990, was recorded in the aftermath of the spectacular critical and commercial success of their debut record Vivid. Time's …

Urban Studies September 19, 2023

Before Gentrification

The Creation of DC's Racial Wealth Gap

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza

Hosted by Deidre Tyler

This book shows how a century of redlining, disinvestment, and the War on Drugs wreaked devastation on Black people and paved the way for gentrification in Washington, DC. In Before …

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast September 15, 2023

To Build a Black Future

The Radical Politics of Joy, Pain, and Care

Christopher Paul Harris

Hosted by Mark Klobas

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When #BlackLivesMatter emerged in 2013, it animated the most consequential Black-led mobilization since the civil rights and Black power era. Today, the hashtag turned rallying cry is but one expression …

Popular Culture September 15, 2023

Old Town Road

Chris Molanphy

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan

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In Old Town Road (Duke University Press, 2023), Chris Molanphy considers Lil Nas X’s debut single as pop artifact, chart phenomenon, and cultural watershed. “Old Town Road” was more than a …

African American Studies September 14, 2023

The Kidnapping Club

Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War

Jonathan Daniel Wells

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

In a rapidly changing New York, two forces battled for the city's soul: the pro-slavery New Yorkers who kept the illegal slave trade alive and well, and the abolitionists fighting …

Music September 14, 2023

Dreams in Double Time

On Race, Freedom, and Bebop

Jonathan Leal

Hosted by Nathan Smith

In Dreams in Double Time: On Race, Freedom, and Bebop (Duke UP, 2023), Jonathan Leal examines how the musical revolution of bebop opened up new futures for racialized and minoritized …

Food September 12, 2023

The Lost Southern Chefs

A History of Commercial Dining in the Nineteenth-Century South

Robert F. Moss

Hosted by Kelly Spivey

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In recent years, food writers and historians have begun to retell the story of southern food. Heirloom ingredients and traditional recipes have been rediscovered, the foundational role that African Americans …

African American Studies September 12, 2023

The Black Reparations Project

A Handbook for Racial Justice

William Darity, A. Kirsten Mullen, and Lucas Hubbard

Hosted by Deidre Tyler

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A surge in interest in black reparations is taking place in America on a scale not seen since the Reconstruction Era. The Black Reparations Project: A Handbook for Racial Justice …