New Books Network
African Studies
Communications April 29, 2021

The African Lookbook

A Visual History of 100 Years of African Womanhood

Catherine E. McKinley

Hosted by Lee Pierce
What does it mean to tie your cloth to that of another person, as in the Ghanaian tradition, or to be in full dress? How is fashion photography in a …

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History April 26, 2021

Worldmaking After Empire

The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination

Adom Getachew

Hosted by Vladislav Lilic
Adom Getachew, the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, is the author of Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton University Press …
African Studies April 19, 2021

National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa

A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO's Exile Camps

Christian A. Williams

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
In National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO’s Exile Camps (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Christian Williams tells the stories of the many exiles that lived in camps established by the …
History April 12, 2021

Mobilizing Black Germany

Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement

Tiffany N. Florvil

Hosted by Jennifer Davis Cline
In this globe-spanning work, Florvil uncovers the manifold activities Black German women undertook in the 1980s and 1990s to resist and challenge racism, sexism, and homophobia at home and abroad …
Japanese Studies April 9, 2021

Transpacific Correspondence

Dispatches from Japan's Black Studies

Yuichiro Onishi and Fumiko Sakashita

Hosted by Felicity Stone-Richards
Transpacific Correspondences: Dispatches from Japan’s Black Studies, an essay collection edited by Dr. Yuichiro Onishi and Dr Fumiko Sakashita, introduces a little-known, but critical history of Black Studies in Japan …
Ethnographic Marginalia April 8, 2021

New Ethnographies of the Global South

In Conversation with Victoria Reyes and Marco Garrido

Victoria Reyes and Marco Garrido

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
How can Sociology be nudged away from its traditional parochialism to embrace empirical work that focuses on the global south? Marco Garrido (assistant professor of sociology at the University of …
African Studies April 7, 2021

Street Archives and City Life

Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania

Emily Callaci

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
Emily Callaci's book Street Archives and City Life: Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania (Duke University Press, 2017) tells the histories of the young migrants who shaped the city of Dar es …
African Studies April 7, 2021

Heritage Formation and the Senses in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Aesthetics of Power

Duane Jethro

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Duane Jethro’s Heritage Formation and the Senses in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Aesthetics of Power (Bloomsbury, 2020) is a terrific book. In it, Jethro develops a novel analytical framework to understand …
Indian Ocean World April 2, 2021

Reimagining Indian Ocean Worlds

Smriti Srinivas, Bettina Ng'weno, and Neelima Jeychandran

Hosted by Kelvin Ng
Reimagining Indian Ocean Worlds (Routledge, 2020), coedited by Smriti Srinivas, Bettina Ng'weno, and Neelima Jeychandran, breaks new ground by bringing together multidisciplinary approaches to examine contemporary Indian Ocean worlds. It …
World Affairs March 29, 2021

Trouble of the World

Slavery and Empire in the Age of Capital

Zach Sell

Hosted by Geoffrey Gordon
The middle decades of the 19th century witnessed the expansion of slavery and white settlement and dispossession of Indigenous lands west of the Mississippi River, the abolition of slavery in …
African Studies March 26, 2021

The Brutish Museums

The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution

Dan Hicks

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Dan Hicks, Curator and Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University has written a terrific book. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto …
Political Science March 25, 2021

The Black and White Rainbow

Reconciliation, Opposition, and Nation-building in Democratic South Africa

Carolyn Holmes

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Carolyn Holmes’ new book, The Black and White Rainbow: Reconciliation, Opposition, and Nation-building in Democratic South Africa (U Michigan Press, 2020),takes its title from a cartoon that captured the complicated nature …
German Studies March 19, 2021

Heavenly Fatherland

German Missionary Culture and Globalization in the Age of Empire

Jeremy Best

Hosted by Steven Seegel
Motivated by a theology that declared missionary work was independent of secular colonial pursuits, Protestant missionaries from Germany operated in ways that contradict current and prevailing interpretations of nineteenth-century missionary …
French Studies March 17, 2021

Lethal Provocation

The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria

Joshua Cole

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Joshua Cole's Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria (Cornell University Press, 2019) appeals to a few of the different readers in my head: the one who admires …
African Studies March 16, 2021

Do Not Disturb

The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad

Michela Wrong

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Michela Wrong’s Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad (PublicAffairs, 2021) is a glorious piece of journalism. It tells the story of Rwanda’s former …
In Conversation: An OUP Podcast March 15, 2021

The Cause of Freedom

A Concise History of African Americans

Jonathan S. Holloway

Hosted by Marshall Poe
What does it mean to be an American? The story of the African American past demonstrates the difficulty of answering this seemingly simple question. If being "American" means living in …
African Studies March 8, 2021

Health in a Fragile State

Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo

John M. Janzen

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
John M. Janzen's Health in a Fragile State: Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo (Wisconsin University Press, 2019) offers a granular and insightful view of the state of healthcare services in …
Latino Studies February 18, 2021

Decolonizing Diasporas

Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature

Yomaira C Figueroa-Vásquez

Hosted by Jonathan Cortez
Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez pens towards decolonial freedom. Her recently published book, Decolonizing Diasporas: Radical Mappings of Afro-Atlantic Literature (Northwestern University Press, 2020), uses peripheralized (5) novels, visual/sonic works, poetry, essays …
Chinese Studies February 17, 2021

In China's Wake

How the Commodity Boom Transformed Development Strategies in the Global South

Nicholas Jepson

Hosted by Laurie Dickmeyer
From 2002 to 2013, China’s rapid economic growth caused a boom in the prices of commodities—particularly of metals, fuel, and soybeans. According to political economist Dr. Nick Jepson, the commodity …
African Studies February 16, 2021

Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860–1913

The Breakdown of a Moral Order

Jelmer Vos

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
Kongo in the Age of Empire, 1860-1913: The Breakdown of a Moral Order (U Wisconsin Press, 2017) traces the history that led to a violent insurrection that erupted in the …