Listen to Owen Bennett-Jones discuss the future of opinion polls with Mark Pack

New Books Network
Caribbean Studies
Medicine May 13, 2022

Difference and Disease

Medicine, Race, and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire

Suman Seth

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
Before the nineteenth century, travelers who left Britain for the Americas, West Africa, India and elsewhere encountered a medical conundrum: why did they fall ill when they arrived, and why …

Caribbean Studies

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Interviews with scholars of the Caribbean about their new books.

Anthropology May 10, 2022

Suspicion

Vaccines, Hesitancy, and the Affective Politics of Protection in Barbados

Nicole Charles

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In 2014 Barbados introduced a vaccine to prevent certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) and reduce the risk of cervical cancer in young women. Despite the disproportionate burden of …
Recall This Book May 5, 2022

We are Not Digested

A Conversation with Rajiv Mohabir (Ulka Anjaria, JP)

Rajiv Mohabir

Hosted by Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz
Rajiv Mohabir is a dazzling poet of linguistics crossovers, who works in English, Bhojpuri, Hindi and more. He is as prolific as he is polyglot (three books in 2021!) and …
High Theory April 28, 2022

Hurricanes

A Discussion with Sonya Posmentier

Sonya Posmentier

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Kim talks with Sonya Posmentier about hurricanes. Sonya writes about hurricanes and diaspora in her book, Cultivation and Catastrophe: The Lyric Ecology of Modern Black Literature, Johns Hopkins University Press …
Caribbean Studies April 27, 2022

The Lettered Barriada

Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico

Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo

Hosted by Alejandra Bronfman
In The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico (Duke UP, 2021), Jorell A. Meléndez-Badillo tells the story of how a cluster of self-educated …
Caribbean Studies April 11, 2022

Haiti Fights Back

The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte

Yveline Alexis

Hosted by Alejandra Bronfman
Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte (Rutgers University Press, 2021), by Yveline Alexis is the first US study of the politician and caco leader (guerrilla fighter) who …
Anthropology April 5, 2022

Making Livable Worlds

Afro-Puerto Rican Women Building Environmental Justice

Hilda Lloréns

Hosted by Adam Bobeck
When Hurricanes Irma and María made landfall in Puerto Rico in September 2017, their destructive force further devastated an archipelago already pommeled by economic austerity, political upheaval, and environmental calamities …
Caribbean Studies March 30, 2022

Creolized Sexualities

Undoing Heteronormativity in the Literary Imagination of the Anglo-Caribbean

Alison Donnell

Hosted by Alejandra Bronfman
By showing how a wide, and surprising, range of Caribbean writers have contributed to the crafting of a supple and inclusive erotic repertoire across the second half of the twentieth …
Literary Studies March 29, 2022

Literature in Motion

Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas

Ellen Jones

Hosted by Jennifer Lee
In Literature in Motion: Translating Multilingualism Across the Americas (Columbia University Press, 2022), Ellen C. Jones centers not just translation but multilingualism as both an artistic practice and scholarly lens through which to examine …
Caribbean Studies March 16, 2022

The Creole Archipelago

Race and Borders in the Colonial Caribbean

Tessa Murphy

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In The Creole Archipelago: Race and Borders in the Colonial Caribbean (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021), Tessa Murphy traces how generations of Indigenous Kalinagos, free and enslaved Africans, and settlers from a …
Political Science February 21, 2022

Writing the New World

The Politics of Natural History in the Early Spanish Empire

Mauro José Caraccioli

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Is natural history a genre of political thought? What do we miss about the substance of political ideas when we ignore the study of nature? Writing the New World: The …
General History February 16, 2022

Slaves and Highlanders

Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean

David Alston

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), Dr. David Alston shows how Scots were involved in every stage of the slave trade …
Caribbean Studies February 10, 2022

Island Futures

Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene

Mimi Sheller

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene (Duke UP, 2020), Mimi Sheller delves into the ecological crises and reconstruction challenges affecting the entire Caribbean region during a time of …
British Studies February 7, 2022

Friends of Freedom

The Rise of Social Movements in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions

Micah Alpaugh

Hosted by Joseph Krulder
As the old cliché goes, “there must have been something in the water.” A new book by historian Micah Alpaugh, Friends of Freedom: The Rise of Social Movements in the …
Caribbean Studies February 4, 2022

Urban Dwellings, Haitian Citizenships

Housing, Memory, and Daily Life in Haiti

Vincent Joos

Hosted by Alejandra Bronfman
Vincent Joos' book Urban Dwellings, Haitian Citizenships: Housing, Memory, and Daily Life in Haiti (Rutgers UP, 2021) explores the failed international reconstruction of Port-au-Prince after the devastating 2010 earthquake. It describes …
Caribbean Studies February 2, 2022

Cuba

An American History

Ada Ferrer

Hosted by Steven Rodriguez
“No country is ever just one thing.” In her new book Cuba: An American History (Scribner, 2021), NYU historian Ada Ferrer shows this again and again. In clear and engaging …
Popular Culture January 18, 2022

Punk! Las Américas Edition

Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, and Shane Greene

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In PUNK! Las Americas Editions (Intellect Books, 2021), editors Olga Rodrguez-Ulloa, Rodrigo Quijano, and Shane Greene have compiled a collection of academic essays and punk paraphernalia (including interviews, zines, poetry, and visual segments) …
Philosophy January 10, 2022

Creolizing the Nation

Kris F. Sealey

Hosted by Sarah Tyson
Can the concept of the nation be a resource for liberatory political struggle? Are the dangers of nationalism simply too great? In Creolizing the Nation (Northwestern UP, 2020), Kris F …
Jewish Studies January 5, 2022

Revolutionary Visions

Jewish Life and Politics in Latin American Film

Stephanie M. Pridgeon

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Stephanie M. Pridgeon's book Revolutionary Visions: Jewish Life and Politics in Latin American Film (U Toronto Press, 2020) examines recent cinematic depictions of Jewish involvement in 1960s and 1970s revolutionary movements …
Caribbean Studies November 19, 2021

Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean

Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930–1970

Nicole C. Bourbonnais

Hosted by Alejandra Bronfman
Over the course of the twentieth century, campaigns to increase access to modern birth control methods spread across the globe and fundamentally altered the way people thought about and mobilized …