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African Studies
Middle Eastern Studies August 3, 2022

Second-Generation Liberation Wars

Yaniv Voller

Hosted by Dilan Okcuoglu
The formation of post-colonial states in Africa, and the Middle East gave birth to prolonged separatist wars. Exploring the evolution of these separatist wars, In Second-Generation Liberation Wars Cambridge UP, 2022),Yaniv …

African Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Africa about their new books.

Middle Eastern Studies August 1, 2022

The Italian Empire and the Great War

Vanda Wilcox

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
The Italian Empire and the Great War (Oxford UP, 2021) by Vanda Wilcox brings an imperial and colonial perspective to the Italian experience of the First World War. Italy's decision for …
British Studies July 25, 2022

Humanitarian Governance and the British Antislavery World System

Maeve Ryan

Hosted by Joseph Krulder
Maeve Ryan’s new book Humanitarian Governance and the British Antislavery World System (Yale UP, 2022) highlights Britain’s early-nineteenth-century, Royal Navy seizures of slave ships and the processes involved in the “liberation” of …
Catholic Studies July 19, 2022

The Genocide Against the Tutsi, and the Rwandan Churches

Between Grief and Denial

Philippe Denis

Hosted by Allison Isidore
Why did some sectors of the Rwandan churches adopt an ambiguous attitude towards the genocide against the Tutsi which claimed the lives of around 800,000 people in three months between …
Grinnell College: Authors and Artists July 15, 2022

Signs of the Spirit

Music and the Experience of Meaning in Ndau Ceremonial Life

Tony Perman

Hosted by Marshall Poe
In 2005, Tony Perman attended a ceremony alongside the living and the dead. His visit to a Zimbabwe farm brought him into contact with the madhlozi, outsider spirits that Ndau people …
On Religion July 15, 2022

Visions of Zion

Ethiopians and Rastafari in the Search for the Promised Land

Erin C. MacLeod

Hosted by Gregory Soden
In reggae song after reggae song Bob Marley and other reggae singers speak of the Promised Land of Ethiopia. "Repatriation is a must!" they cry. The Rastafari have been travelling to Ethiopia since …
General History July 7, 2022

Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982

Florian Wagner

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
Today I talked to Florian Wagner about his new book Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982 (Cambridge UP, 2022). From its founding in 1893, to its decline in the …
Jewish Studies July 4, 2022

Recording History

Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth-Century North Africa

Christopher Silver

Hosted by Avery Weinman
Recording History: Jews, Muslims, and Music Across Twentieth-Century North Africa (Stanford UP, 2022) offers a new history of twentieth-century North Africa, one that gives voice to the musicians who defined …
American West July 4, 2022

The Chinese Question

The Gold Rushes, Chinese Migration, and Global Politics

Mae Ngai

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Between 1848 and 1899, miners extracted more gold from the earth than in the previous 3,000 years of human history combined. Each gold rush in this period, from the Sierra …
Medicine June 29, 2022

Partial Stories

Maternal Death from Six Angles

Claire L. Wendland

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
A close look at stories of maternal death in Malawi that considers their implications in the broader arena of medical knowledge. By the early twenty-first century, about one woman in …
African Studies June 21, 2022

Shari'a, Inshallah

Finding God in Somali Legal Politics

Mark Fathi Massoud

Hosted by Sara Katz
Western analysts have long denigrated Islamic states as antagonistic, even antithetical, to the rule of law. Mark Fathi Massoud tells a different story: for nearly 150 years, the Somali people …
African Studies June 21, 2022

Emirs in London

Subalteran Travel and Nigeria's Modernity

Moses E. Ochonu

Hosted by Sara Katz
Emirs in London: Subalteran Travel and Nigeria's Modernity (Indiana UP, 2022) recounts how Northern Nigerian Muslim aristocrats who traveled to Britain between 1920 and Nigerian independence in 1960 relayed that experience …
African Studies June 17, 2022

Fashioning Postfeminism

Spectacular Femininity and Transnational Culture

Simidele Dosekun

Hosted by Gummo Clare
Women in Lagos, Nigeria, practice a spectacularly feminine form of black beauty. From cascading hair extensions to immaculate makeup to high heels, their style permeates both day-to-day life and media …
Biology and Evolution June 14, 2022

Sloth Lemur's Song

Madagascar from the Deep Past to the Uncertain Present

Alison F. Richard

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Madagascar is a place of change. A biodiversity hotspot and the fourth largest island on the planet, it has been home to a spectacular parade of animals, from giant flightless …
Environmental Studies June 10, 2022

When the Sahara Was Green

How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be

Martin Williams

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, equal in size to China or the United States. Yet, this arid expanse was once a verdant, pleasant land, fed …
African Studies June 8, 2022

Roadblock Politics

The Origins of Violence in Central Africa

Peer Schouten

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Peer Schouten, of the Danish Institute for International Studies, has written a breathtaking book. Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa (Cambridge, 2022). Schouten mapped more than 100 …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast June 1, 2022

Until We Have Won Our Liberty

South Africa After Apartheid

Evan Lieberman

Hosted by Mark Klobas
At a time when many democracies are under strain around the world, Until We Have Won Our Liberty: South Africa After Apartheid (Princeton UP, 2022) shines new light on the …
Islamic Studies May 27, 2022

Sorcery or Science?

Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts

Ariela Marcus-Sells

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
In Sorcery or Science? Contesting Knowledge and Practice in West African Sufi Texts (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2022) Ariela Marcus-Sells examines two Sufi Muslim theologians, known as Kunta scholars …
African Studies May 26, 2022

'Dignity of Labour' for African Leaders

The Formation of Education Policy in the British Colonial Office and Achimota School

Shoko Yamada

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
The Prince of Wales College, Achimota School, opened in 1927 north of Accra in the Gold Coast (Ghana). Achimota was to be a ‘model’ school—but a model of what, exactly …
Anthropology May 18, 2022

Waste Worlds

Inhabiting Kampala's Infrastructures of Disposability

Jacob Doherty

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Uganda's capital, Kampala, is undergoing dramatic urban transformations as its new technocratic government seeks to clean and green the city. Waste Worlds: Inhabiting Kampala's Infrastructures of Disposability (U California Press …