New Books Network Podcast

Art October 4, 2022

The Metabolic Museum

Clementine Deliss

Hosted by Holiday Powers

In The Metabolic Museum (Hatje Cantz, 2020), Clémentine Deliss, a curator, researcher, and former director of the Frankfurt Weltkulturen Museum, explores possible functions for anthropological museums in a postcolonial culture …

Middle Eastern Studies October 4, 2022

Street-Level Governing

Negotiating the State in Urban Turkey

Elise Massicard

Hosted by Reuben Silverman

Muhtars, the lowest level elected political position in Turkey, hold an ambiguously defined place within the administrative hierarchy. They are public officials, but local citizens do not always associate them …

Anthropology October 4, 2022

Games

Agency As Art

C. Thi Nguyen

Hosted by Adam Bobeck

Games are a unique art form. Games work in the medium of agency. Game designers tell us who to be and what to care about during the game. Game designers …

Japanese Studies September 30, 2022

Okinawan Women's Stories of Migration

From War Brides to Issei

Johanna O. Zulueta

Hosted by Jingyi Li

The phenomenon of “war brides” from Japan moving to the West has been quite widely discussed, but this book tells the stories of women whose lives followed a rather different …

Islamic Studies September 30, 2022

Hidden Caliphate

Sufi Saints Beyond the Oxus and Indus

Waleed Ziad

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani

Today, we speak with Waleed Ziad, about his book Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus, published in 2021 with Harvard University Press. Ziad is an assistant professor …

LGBTQ+ Studies September 29, 2022

Queer and Trans Madness

Struggles for Social Justice

Merrick Daniel Pilling

Hosted by Clayton Jarrard

In Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice (Palgrave Macmillan), Merrick D. Pilling urges those invested in social justice for 2SLGBTQ people to interrogate the biomedical model of mental …

Sociology September 28, 2022

Hospital Land USA

Sociological Adventures in Medicalization

Wendy Simonds

Hosted by Michael Johnston

In Hospital Land USA: Sociological Adventures in Medicalization (Routledge, 2016), Wendy Simonds analyzes the wide-reaching powers of medicalization: the dynamic processes by which medical authorities, institutions, and ideologies impact our …

Sociology September 28, 2022

Delivery As Dispossession

Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City

Zachary Levenson

Hosted by Richard Ocejo

In Dispossession as Delivery: Land Occupation and Eviction in the Postapartheid City (Oxford University Press; 2022), Zachary Levenson explains why post-Apartheid South Africa continues to evict land occupations. Levenson shows …

Anthropology September 27, 2022

Franz Boas

The Emergence of the Anthropologist

Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt

Hosted by Alex Golub

Franz Boas is remembered today as one of the most important figures in the history of anthropology. In the United States, he is widely created with creating the modern field …

Israel Studies September 27, 2022

The Invisible Palestinians

The Hidden Struggle for Inclusion in Jewish Tel Aviv

Andreas Hackl

Hosted by Akin Ajayi

The city of Tel Aviv presents itself as a bastion of liberal values, tolerance, and ultimately of freedom. But like many self-definitions, there is something of a gap between this …

Canadian Studies September 27, 2022

The History and Ethnography of Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Northwest

A Discussion with Jennifer Brown

Jennifer Brown

Hosted by Greg Marchildon

Greg Marchildon interviews historian and ethnographer Jennifer Brown on her two most recent books. The first, Ojibwe Stories from the Upper Berens River: A Irving Hallowell and Adam Bigmouth in …

Latino Studies September 26, 2022

Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies

A Reader

Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas and Mérida M. Rúa

Hosted by Jonathan Cortez

Latinx Studies has long been overdue for a revamp – a different orientation to the questions with which we concern ourselves. Critical Dialogues in Latinx Studies: A Reader (New York …

Critical Theory September 26, 2022

The Quantified Scholar

How Research Evaluations Transformed the British Social Sciences

Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra

Hosted by Dave O'Brien

How do metrics and quantification shape social science? In The Quantified Scholar: How Research Evaluations Transformed the British Social Sciences (Columbia UP, 2022), Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, an Associate Professor in …

General History September 26, 2022

Nomads

The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World

Anthony Sattin

Hosted by Maggie Freeman

Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022) by Anthony Sattin tells the remarkable story of how nomads have fostered and refreshed civilization throughout history …

Anthropology September 23, 2022

Trouillot Remixed

The Michel-Rolph Trouillot Reader

Yarimar Bonilla, Greg Beckett, and Mayanthi L. Fernando

Hosted by Adam Bobeck

Throughout his career, the internationally renowned Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot unsettled key concepts in anthropology, history, postcolonial studies, Black studies, Caribbean studies, and beyond. From his early critique of the …

Religion September 23, 2022

Stories, Senses and the Charismatic Relation

A Reflexive Ethnography of Christian Experience

Jamie Barnes

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer

Stories, Senses and the Charismatic Relation: A Reflexive Ethnography of Christian Experience (Routledge, 2020) offers a uniquely intimate and auto-ethnographic exploration of Christian experience, rendering a deep, phenomenological account of …

Critical Theory September 22, 2022

Against Decolonization

Taking African Agency Seriously

Olúfemi Táíwò

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez

Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West’s direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, often for performing ‘morality’ or ‘authenticity’. In …

Middle Eastern Studies September 22, 2022

A Sephardi Sea

Jewish Memories Across the Modern Mediterranean

Dario Miccoli

Hosted by Roberto Mazza

A Sephardi Sea: Jewish Memories Across the Modern Mediterranean (Indiana UP, 2022) tells the story of Jews from the southern shore of the Mediterranean who, between the late 1940s and …

Anthropology September 22, 2022

A Future History of Water

Andrea Ballestero

Hosted by Gustavo Gutiérrez Suárez

Based on fieldwork among state officials, NGOs, politicians, and activists in Costa Rica and Brazil, A Future History of Water (Duke UP, 2019) traces the unspectacular work necessary to make …

East Asian Studies September 21, 2022

The Concrete Plateau

Urban Tibetans and the Chinese Civilizing Machine

Andrew Grant

Hosted by Palden Gyal

In The Concrete Plateau: Urban Tibetans and the Chinese Civilizing Machine (Cornell UP, 2022), Grant examines how China’s urban development policies of frontier cities like Xining (Tib. zi ling) accompanied …