New Books Network Podcast

Ministry of Ideas December 9, 2023

Picturing Race in Colonial Mexico

Genealogies of Modernity Episode 5

Hosted by Zachary Davis

Race is sometimes treated as a biological fact. It is actually a modern invention. But for this concept to gain power, its logic had to be spread – and made …

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast November 15, 2023

The Dialectic Is in the Sea

The Black Radical Thought of Beatriz Nascimento

Beatriz Nascimento

Hosted by Mark Klobas

Beatriz Nascimento (1942-1995) was a poet, historian, artist, and political leader in Brazil's Black movement, an innovative and creative thinker whose work offers a radical reimagining of gender, space, politics …

Anthropology November 11, 2023

Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain

Nahua Sacred Journeys in Mexico's Huasteca Veracruzana

Alan R. Sandstrom and Pamela Effrein Sandstrom

Hosted by Nathan Moore

An ethnographic study based on decades of field research, Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain: Nahua Sacred Journeys in Mexico's Huasteca Veracruzana (UP of Colorado, 2023) explores five sacred journeys to the …

Latin American Studies November 3, 2023

Keep the Bones Alive

Missing People and the Search for Life in Brazil

Graham Denyer Willis

Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Every year at least 20,000 people go missing in São Paulo, Brazil. Many will be found, sometimes in mundane mass graves, but thousands will not. Keep the Bones Alive: Missing …

Anthropology November 1, 2023

The Chase and Ruins

Zora Neale Hurston in Honduras

Sharony Green

Hosted by Reighan Gillam

Listen:

Zora Neale Hurston, an anthropologist and writer best known for her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, led a complicated life often marked by tragedy and contradictions. When both …

Food October 28, 2023

Eating Peru

A Gastronomic Journey

Robert C. Bradley

Hosted by Laura Goldberg

Today, Peru is rightly recognized as the number one food destination on the planet. But twenty-five years ago, the world’s culinary critics were focusing their attention elsewhere. Fortunately, wine merchant–turned–archaeologist …

Anthropology October 27, 2023

Crossing Waters

Undocumented Migration in Hispanophone Caribbean and Latinx Literature and Art

Marisel C. Moreno

Hosted by Reighan Gillam

Debates over the undocumented migration of Latin Americans invariably focus on the southern US border, but most migrants never cross that arbitrary line. Instead, many travel, via water, among the …

French Studies October 25, 2023

The Zombie in Contemporary French Caribbean Fiction

Lucy Swanson

Hosted by Annie de Saussure

Listen:

Believed to have emerged in the French Caribbean based on African spirit beliefs, the zombie represents not merely the walking dead, but also a walking embodiment of the region's history …

African American Studies October 18, 2023

Black Crown

Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom

Paul Clammer

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

How did a Caribbean child, born into plantation slavery, come to defeat Napoleon's armies in battle and crown himself king of the first free black nation in the Americas? Black …

Mobilities and Methods October 18, 2023

The Color of Asylum

The Racial Politics of Safe Haven in Brazil

Katherine Jensen

Hosted by Alize Arıcan

In 2013, as Syrians desperate to escape a brutal war fled the country, Brazil took the remarkable step of instituting an open-door policy for all Syrian refugees. Why did Brazil—in …

Caribbean Studies October 15, 2023

Cuba and Puerto Rico

Transdisciplinary Approaches to History, Literature, and Culture

Carmen Haydée Rivera and Jorge Duany

Hosted by Anna Lindner

Carmen Haydée Rivera and Jorge Duany's edited volume Cuba and Puerto Rico: Transdisciplinary Approaches to History, Literature, and Culture (U Florida Press, 2023) is the first systematic, comparative study of Cuba …

French Studies October 15, 2023

A Secret Among the Blacks

Slave Resistance Before the Haitian Revolution

John D. Garrigus

Hosted by Brigid Wallace

A bold rethinking of the Haitian Revolution reveals the roots of the only successful slave uprising in the modern world.Unearthing the progenitors of the Haitian Revolution has been a historical …

Environmental Studies October 13, 2023

Salvaging Empire

Sovereignty, Natural Resources, and Environmental Science in the South Atlantic

James J. A. Blair

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Salvaging Empire: Sovereignty, Natural Resources, and Environmental Science in the South Atlantic (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. James J. A. Blair probes the historical roots and current predicaments of …

Latin American Studies October 13, 2023

The House on G Street

A Cuban Family Saga

Lisandro Pérez

Hosted by Katie Coldiron

In The House on G Street: A Cuban Family Saga (NYU Press, 2023), award-winning author Lisandro Pérez tells Cuba’s story through the lens of a single family: his own. His …

Latin American Studies October 10, 2023

Civil Wars and Reconstructions in the Americas

The United States, Mexico, and Argentina, 1860–1880

Evan C. Rothera

Hosted by Ethan Fredrick

Listen:

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, three violent national conflicts rocked the Americas: the Wars of Unification in Argentina, the War of the Reform and French Intervention in …

Ethnographic Marginalia October 6, 2023

Feel the Grass Grow

Ecologies of Slow Peace in Colombia

Angie Lederach

Hosted by Alexander Diamond

Listen:

What can collaborative research with Colombian campesino leaders teach us about building peace? In this episode, I talk with Angie Lederach, author of Feel the Grass Grow: Ecologies of Slow …

Anthropology September 30, 2023

Progress in the Balance

Mythologies of Development in Santos, Brazil

Daniel R. Reichman

Hosted by Yadong Li

Progress and development have long been important issues in anthropology and social sciences. Based on extensive archives and ethnographic fieldwork, Progress in the Balance: Mythologies of Development in Santos, Brazil …

Latin American Studies September 22, 2023

Reading the Walls of Bogota

Graffiti, Street Art, and the Urban Imaginary of Violence

Alba Griffin

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu

Listen:

A cultural imaginary is a structuring space through which collective understandings of cultural and society phenomena are formed, reproduced, and accepted as the norm. Reading the Walls of Bogota: Graffiti …

Interpretive Political and Social Science September 20, 2023

Rooted Globalism

Arab–Latin American Business Elites and the Politics of Global Imaginaries

Kevin Funk

Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Listen:

Triumphant capitalism has in our time engendered a new global class that lives and works in a borderless world, beyond the reach of national politics or sovereign power. Or has …

Caribbean Studies September 17, 2023

Negotiating Relief and Freedom

Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907

Oscar Webber

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Negotiating Relief and Freedom: Responses to Disaster in the British Caribbean, 1812-1907 (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Oscar Webber is an investigation of short- and long-term responses to disaster …