New Books Network Podcast

Literary Studies September 16, 2023

Emergency

Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis

Edgar Garcia

Hosted by John Yargo

Today’s guest is Edgar Garcia. Garcia’s new book Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2022). Emergency takes nine words—“birds,” “wealth,” “caves,” “television,” …

Mobilities and Methods September 12, 2023

Unsettling

The El Paso Massacre, Resurgent White Nationalism, and the US-Mexico Border

Gilberto Rosas

Hosted by Alize Arıcan

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On August 3, 2019, a far-right extremist committed a deadly mass shooting at a major shopping center in El Paso, Texas, a city on the border of the United States …

Sports September 6, 2023

Daybreak at Chavez Ravine

Fernandomania and the Remaking of the Los Angeles Dodgers

Erik Sherman

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

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Fernando Valenzuela was only twenty years old when Tom Lasorda chose him as the Dodgers' opening-day starting pitcher in 1981. Born in the remote Mexican town of Etchohuaquila, the left-hander …

General History September 4, 2023

Since Time Immemorial

Native Custom and Law in Colonial Mexico

Yanna Yannakakis

Hosted by Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez

In Since Time Immemorial: Native Custom and Law in Colonial Mexico (Duke UP, 2023), Yanna Yannakakis traces the invention of Native custom, a legal category that Indigenous litigants used in disputes …

Latin American Studies September 1, 2023

Love and Despair

How Catholic Activism Shaped Politics and the Counterculture in Modern Mexico

Jaime M. Pensado

Hosted by Brad Wright

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Love and Despair: How Catholic Activism Shaped Politics and the Counterculture in Modern Mexico (U California Press, 2023) explores the multiple and mostly unknown ways progressive and conservative Catholic actors …

Mexican Studies August 25, 2023

Arise!

Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution

Christina Heatherton

Hosted by Ari Barbalat

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The Mexican Revolution was a global event that catalyzed international radicals in unexpected sites and struggles. Tracing the paths of figures like Black American artist Elizabeth Catlett, Indian anti-colonial activist …

Latin American Studies August 6, 2023

Sewer of Progress

Corporations, Institutionalized Corruption, and the Struggle for the Santiago River

Cindy McCulligh

Hosted by Brad Wright

For almost two decades, the citizens of Western Mexico have called for a cleanup of the Santiago River, a water source so polluted it emanates an overwhelming acidic stench. Toxic …

Mexican Studies July 27, 2023

Stormy Passage

Mexico from Colony to Republic, 1750-1850

Eric Van Young

Hosted by Richard Grijalva

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In Stormy Passage: Mexico from Colony to Republic, 1750-1850 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Eric Van Young draws on four decades of extraordinary scholarship on colonial and nineteenth-century Mexico to capture the crucial hundred …

Anthropology July 26, 2023

Blackness in Mexico

Afro-Mexican Recognition and the Production of Citizenship in the Costa Chica

Anthony Russell Jerry

Hosted by Reighan Gillam

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Through historical and ethnographic research, Blackness in Mexico: Afro-Mexican Recognition and the Production of Citizenship in the Costa Chica (UP of Florida, 2023) delves into the ongoing movement toward recognizing …

Military History July 22, 2023

Conquistadors and Aztecs

A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan

Stefan Rinke

Hosted by AJ Woodhams

Five hundred years ago, a flotilla landed on the coast of Yucatán under the command of the Spanish conquistador Hérnan Cortés. While the official goal of the expedition was to …

Early Modern History July 5, 2023

Rethinking Zapotec Time

Cosmology, Ritual, and Resistance in Colonial Mexico

David Tavárez

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec

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Professor David Tavárez, historian and linguistic anthropologist, is Professor of Anthropology and at Vassar College. He is a specialist in Nahuatl and Zapotec texts, the study of Mesoamerican religions and …

Peoples & Things June 26, 2023

The Singer Sewing Machine in Spain and Mexico

Multinational Business, Gender, and Technologies

Paula A. De La Cruz-Fernández

Hosted by Lee Vinsel

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Historian Paula de la Cruz-Fernandez talks about her book, Gendered Capitalism: Sewing Machines and Multinational Business in Spain and Mexico, 1850-1940 (Routledge, 2021), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel …

Latino Studies June 16, 2023

Sowing the Sacred

Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California

Lloyd Daniel Barba

Hosted by Joseph Stuart

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Lloyd Daniel Barba's book Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California (Oxford UP, 2022) traces the development of Pentecostalism among Mexican-American migrant laborers in California's agricultural industry from the 1910s …

Early Modern History June 3, 2023

We, the King

Creating Royal Legislation in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish New World

Adrian Masters

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

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We, the King: Creating Royal Legislation in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish New World (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. Adrian Masters challenges the dominant top-down interpretation of the Spanish Empire and …

Anthropology June 2, 2023

¡Alerta!

Engineering on Shaky Ground

Elizabeth Reddy

Hosted by Liliana Gil

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The Sistema de Alerta Sísmica Mexicano is the world’s oldest public earthquake early warning system. Given the unpredictability of earthquakes, the technology was designed to give the people of Mexico …

Women's History May 21, 2023

From Back Alley to the Border

Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969

Alicia Gutierrez-Romine

Hosted by Jeannette Cockroft

In From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920-1969 (U Nebraska Press, 2020), Alicia Gutierrez-Romine examines the history of criminal abortion in California and the role abortion providers …

General History May 12, 2023

Contracting Freedom

Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs

Maria L. Quintana

Hosted by Michael Vann

Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022) explores the origins of twentieth-century U.S. guestworker programs from Mexico and the Caribbean. It investigates these government-sponsored programs …

Political Science May 4, 2023

Evading the Patronage Trap

Interest Representation in Mexico

Brian Palmer-Rubin

Hosted by Lilly Goren

Marquette University Political Scientist Brian Palmer-Rubin has a new book that examines the connections and disconnections between economics and politics in Mexico and how the varied governing institutions within the …

Literary Studies April 30, 2023

The Bard in the Borderlands

An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en la Frontera

Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn Vomero Santos

Hosted by John Yargo

First performed in the Milagro Theater of Portland, Oregon in 2014, Olga Sanchez Saltveit’s ¡O Romeo! imagines William Shakespeare, late in his life, writing a play set in Mexico about …

Latin American Studies April 30, 2023

Death in Old Mexico

The 1789 Dongo Murders and How They Shaped the History of a Nation

Nicole von Germeten

Hosted by Ethan Fredrick

In a Mexico City mansion on October 23, 1789, Don Joaquín Dongo and ten of his employees were brutally murdered by three killers armed with machetes. Investigators worked tirelessly to …