New Books Network
American South
LGBTQ+ Studies November 17, 2020

Gay Faulkner

Uncovering a Homosexual Presence in Yoknapatawpha and Beyond

Phillip Gordon

Hosted by Morris Ardoin
The life and works of William Faulkner have generated numerous biographical studies exploring how Faulkner understood southern history, race, his relationship to art, and his place in the canons of …

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Literature October 19, 2020

Stone Motel

Memoirs of a Cajun Boy

Morris Ardoin

Hosted by John Marszalek
In the summers of the early 1970s, Morris Ardoin and his siblings helped run their family's roadside motel in a hot, buggy, bayou town in Cajun Louisiana. The stifling, sticky …
American Studies October 2, 2020

Basket Diplomacy

Leadership, Alliance-Building, and Resilience among the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, 1884-1984

Denise E. Bates

Hosted by David Dry
Before the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana became one of the state’s top private employers—with its vast landholdings and economic enterprises—they lived well below the poverty line and lacked any clear …
African American Studies September 10, 2020

Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865-1968

Boris Heersink and Jeffery A. Jenkins

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Prior to the 1960s, Democrats were seen as having a lock on the South in national and local electoral politics, while Republicans had strengths in other parts of the country …
American Studies September 2, 2020

Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet

Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi

John F. Marszalek III

Hosted by Christopher Babits
In Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi (University of Mississippi Press, 2020), John F. Marszalek III shares conversations with same-sex couples living in small-town and rural …
American South August 21, 2020

Redefining the Immigrant South

Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston During the Cold War

Uzma Quraishi

Hosted by Allison Leigh
In Redefining the Immigrant South: Indian and Pakistani Immigration to Houston During the Cold War (University of North Carolina Press), Uzma Quraishi (Sam Houston State University) follows the Cold War-era …
American Studies August 18, 2020

Union

The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood

Colin Woodard

Hosted by Diana De Pasquale
Colin Woodard's new book Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood (Viking, 2020) tells the story of the struggle to create a national myth for the …
African American Studies August 17, 2020

Black Market

The Slave's Value in National Culture after 1865

Aaron Carico

Hosted by Derek Litvak
On the eve of the Civil War, the estimated value of the U.S. enslaved population exceeded $3 billion--triple that of investments nationwide in factories, railroads, and banks combined, and worth …
Performing Arts August 10, 2020

New Orleans Carnival Balls

The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920

Jennifer Atkins

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
In New Orleans Carnival Balls: The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920 (LSU Press, 2017), Dr. Jennifer Atkins draws back the curtain on the origin of the exclusive Mardi Gras …
American Studies August 5, 2020

Brain Magnet

Research Triangle Park and the Idea of the Idea Economy

Alex Sayf Cummings

Hosted by Christopher Babits
Beginning in the 1950s, a group of academics, businesspeople, and politicians set out on an ambitious project to remake North Carolina’s low-wage economy. They pitched the universities of Raleigh, Durham …
American Studies August 4, 2020

Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites

America in the Eighteenth Century

Anne Lindsay

Hosted by Michael Vann
2020 had been an intense year for Americans reflecting on their nation’s history. From attacks on statues to public debates about the 1619 Project to the release of Hamilton on …
American Studies July 29, 2020

Newest Born of Nations

European Nationalist Movements and the Making of the Confederacy

Ann Tucker

Hosted by Christopher Babits
From the earliest stirrings of southern nationalism to the defeat of the Confederacy, analysis of European nationalist movements played a critical role in how southerners thought about their new southern …
Art July 24, 2020

Road Sides

An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South

Emily Wallace

Hosted by Carrie Helms Tippen
In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Emily Wallace, author and illustrator of the new book Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South …
African American Studies July 15, 2020

Louis Austin and the Carolina Times

A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle

Jerry Gershenhorn

Hosted by James West
James West speaks with Jerry Gershenhorn, Julius L. Chambers Professor of History at North Carolina Central University, about Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black …
American Studies July 3, 2020

Confederate Exceptionalism

Civil War Myth and Memory in the Twenty-First Century

Nicole Maurantonio

Hosted by Susan Liebell
In a time of contentious debate over Confederate monuments, Nicole Maurantonio (Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Communication studies and American Studies at the University of Richmond) provides an intriguing look …
African American Studies June 24, 2020

The Southern Key

Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

Michael Goldfield

Hosted by Beth English
The golden key to understanding the last 75 years of American political development, the eminent labor relations scholar Michael Goldfield argues, lies in the contests between labor and capital in …
American Studies June 11, 2020

Southern Decadence in New Orleans

Howard Philips Smith

Hosted by Isabel Machado
Almost a year ago, on my second interview for this podcast, I talked to Howard Philips Smith about Unveiling the Muse: The Lost History of Gay Carnival in New Orleans …
Food May 25, 2020

The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell

Contemporary Appalachian Tables

Elizabeth Engelhardt and Lora Smith

Hosted by Carrie Helms Tippen
In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Elizabeth Engelhardt, co-editor of the new collection The Food We Eat, the Stories We Tell: Contemporary Appalachian Tables (Ohio University Press, 2019) …
Literary Studies May 4, 2020

The Life of William Faulkner

The Past Is Never Dead, 1897-1934

Carl Rollyson

Hosted by Mark Klobas
As a novelist, short story author, screenwriter, and Nobel laureate, William Faulkner looms large in modern American literature. Yet the very range of his work and the sources for his …
African American Studies April 23, 2020

The False Cause

Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory

Adam H. Domby

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Adam H. Domby, an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Charleston, has written a rigorous analysis of American political memory as it connects to the Civil War and …