New Books Network
Intellectual History
In Conversation: An OUP Podcast April 15, 2021

The Hidden History of Coined Words

Ralph Keyes

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Successful word-coinages--those that stay in currency for a good long time--tend to conceal their beginnings. We take them at face value and rarely when and where they were first minted …

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History April 14, 2021

The Athenaeum

More Than Just Another London Club

Michael Wheeler

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
When it was founded in 1824, the Athenæum broke the mold. Unlike in other preeminent clubs, its members were chosen on the basis of their achievements rather than on their …
Japanese Studies April 13, 2021

Flowering Tales

Women Exorcising History in Heian Japan

Takeshi Watanabe

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Telling stories: that sounds innocuous enough. But for the first chronicle in the Japanese vernacular, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari), there was more to worry about than a …
Indian Religions April 13, 2021

The Integrity of the Yoga Darsana

A Reconsideration of Classical Yoga

Ian Whicher

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Join Raj Balkaran as he discusses yoga philosophy with Ian Whicher. We begin with a discussion on how he began his journey towards yoga philosophy before probing his assertion that …
Education April 13, 2021

Bearing with Strangers

Arendt, Education and the Politics of Inclusion

Morten T Korsgaard

Hosted by Kai Wortmann
Bearing with Strangers: Arendt, Education and the Politics of Inclusion (Routledge, 2018) looks at inclusion in education in a new way. By introducing the notion of the instrumental fallacy, it shows …
Law April 12, 2021

Human Dignity in Context

Dieter Grimm, Alexandra Kemmerer, and Christoph Möllers

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Human dignity is the key term that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights placed at the center of legal discourse on a global level. In 1949, Germany incorporated the concept …
Critical Theory April 12, 2021

Abolishing Freedom

A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism

Frank Ruda

Hosted by Dominik Finkelde
Frank Ruda's book Abolishing Freedom. A Plea for a Contemporary Use of Fatalism (University of Nebraska Press 2016) presents a compelling reading of authors diverse as Martin Luther, Descartes, Kant …
Philosophy April 9, 2021

Marcus Aurelius

John Sellars

Hosted by Carrie Figdor
Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is one of the most popular philosophical works by sales to the public, while in academic philosophy he is considered somewhat of a philosophical lightweight. In Marcus …
Jewish Studies April 9, 2021

Don Issac Abravanel

An Intellectual Biography

Cedric Cohen-Skalli

Hosted by Makena Mezistrano
Don Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508) was an important forerunner of Jewish modernity. A merchant, banker, and court financier; a scholar versed in both Jewish and Christian writings; a preacher and exegete …
Islamic Studies April 9, 2021

Transformations of Tradition

Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity

Junaid Quadri

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
In his much anticipated and equally brilliant book Transformations of Tradition: Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity (Oxford UP, 2021), Junaid Quadri explores the productive tensions, fissures, and creative interpretive projects …
History April 9, 2021

Magic, Science, and Religion in Early Modern Europe

Mark A Waddell

Hosted by Jana Byars
Today on New Books in History, Mark A. Waddell, Associate professor of History, Philosophy & Sociology of Science in the Department of History at Michigan State University in beautiful East …
Italian Studies April 7, 2021

Old Schools

Modernism, Education, and the Critique of Progress

Ramsey McGlazer

Hosted by Ellen Nerenberg
Ramsey McGlazer's Old Schools: Modernism, Education, and the Critique of Progress (Fordham University Press, 2020), traces the ways in which a group of modernist cultural practitioners (thinkers, politicians, artists, poets, novelists …
African Studies April 7, 2021

Street Archives and City Life

Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania

Emily Callaci

Hosted by Esperanza Brizuela-Garcia
Emily Callaci's book Street Archives and City Life: Popular Intellectuals in Postcolonial Tanzania (Duke University Press, 2017) tells the histories of the young migrants who shaped the city of Dar es …
Anthropology April 6, 2021

Anthropology and Radical Humanism

Native and African American Narratives and the Myth of Race

Jack Glazier

Hosted by Alex Golub
Paul Radin was one of the founding generation of American cultural anthropologists: A student of Franz Boas,  and famed ethnographer of the Winnebago. Yet little is known about Radin's life. A leftist who was …
Literary Studies April 6, 2021

The Shortest Way with Defoe

Robinson Crusoe, Deism, and the Novel

Michael B. Prince

Hosted by Akash Ondaatje
A scholarly and imaginative reconstruction of the voyage Daniel Defoe took from the pillory to literary immortality, The Shortest Way with Defoe: Robinson Crusoe, Deism, and the Novel (University of Virginia Press …
Science, Technology, and Society April 5, 2021

Break on Through

Radical Psychiatry and the American Counterculture

Lucas Richert

Hosted by Chad Valasek
"Antipsychiatry," Esalen, psychedelics, and DSM III: Radical challenges to psychiatry and the conventional treatment of mental health in the 1970s. The upheavals of the 1960s gave way to a decade …
Political Science April 1, 2021

African American Political Thought

A Collected History

Melvin L. Rogers and Jack Turner

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Political theorists Melvin Rogers and Jack “Chip” Turner have produced a truly magisterial edited volume centering the work by African American thinkers over the past centuries. With thirty contributed chapters …
Eastern European Studies March 31, 2021

Gender, Pleasure, and Violence

The Construction of Expert Knowledge of Sexuality in Poland

Agnieszka Kościańska

Hosted by Jill Massino
Behind the Iron Curtain, the politics of sexuality and gender were, in many ways, more progressive than the West. While Polish citizens undoubtedly suffered under the oppressive totalitarianism of socialism …
Psychoanalysis March 31, 2021

Freud and Said

Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis

Robert Beshara

Hosted by Vira Sachenko
Robert Beshara’s Freud and Said: Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis (Palgrave, 2021) is a guide through the textual relationship between the work of Sigmund Freud and Edward Said. It is also a …
Indian Religions March 30, 2021

Daya Krishna and Twentieth-Century Indian Philosophy

A New Way of Thinking about Art, Freedom, and Knowledge

Daniel Raveh

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Daya Krishna and Twentieth-Century Indian Philosophy: A New Way of Thinking about Art, Freedom, and Knowledge (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) by Daniel Raveh introduces contemporary Indian philosophy as a unique philosophical genre through …