New Books Network Podcast

Sociology September 24, 2023

The Golden Passport

Global Mobility for Millionaires

Kristin Surak

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Our lives are in countless ways defined by our citizenship. The country we belong to affects our rights, our travel possibilities, and ultimately our chances in life. Obtaining a new …

Sociology September 24, 2023

Good Soldiers Don't Rape

The Stories We Tell About Military Sexual Violence

Megan MacKenzie

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Sexual violence is a significant problem within many Western militaries. Despite international attention to the issue and global #MeToo and #TimesUp movements highlighting the impact of sexual violence, rates of …

Anthropology September 24, 2023

Blackness As a Universal Claim

Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin

Damani Partridge

Hosted by Reighan Gillam

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University of California Press, 2023), Damani Partridge examines the possibilities …

Media September 23, 2023

The New True Crime

How the Rise of Serialized Storytelling Is Transforming Innocence

Diana Rickard

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The New True Crime: How the Rise of Serialized Storytelling Is Transforming Innocence (NYU Press, 2023) by Dr. Diana Rickard examines how serialized crime shows became an American obsession. TV …

Nordic Asia Podcast September 22, 2023

The Political Life of Memory

Birsa Munda in Contemporary India

Rahul Ranjan

Hosted by Kenneth Bo Nielsen

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How do affective sites such as memorials and statues produce political visions, emotions, and opportunities? And how are they used strategically to further particular political projects? In this episode, we …

Education September 22, 2023

Off the Mark

How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don't Have To)

Jack Schneider and Ethan L. Hutt

Hosted by Max Jacobs

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Amid widespread concern that our approach to testing and grading undermines education, two experts explain how schools can use assessment to support, rather than compromise, learning. Anyone who has ever …

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

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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 …

Sociology September 21, 2023

Nice Is Not Enough

Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High

C. J. Pascoe

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

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Nice is not enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High (University of California Press, 2023) by Dr. C. J. Pascoe is a provocative story of contemporary high …

Southeast Asian Studies September 21, 2023

Recycling Infrastructures in Cambodia

Circularity, Waste, and Urban Life in Phnom Penh

Kathrin Eitel

Hosted by Michele Ford

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Kathrin Eitel's book Recycling Infrastructures in Cambodia: Circularity, Waste, and Urban Life in Phnom Penh (Routledge, 2022) examines the recycling infrastructure in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It considers the circular flows of …

Indian Religions September 21, 2023

Middle-Class Dharma

Gender, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism

Jennifer D. Ortegren

Hosted by Raj Balkaran

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Middle-Class Dharma: Gender, Aspiration, and the Making of Contemporary Hinduism (Oxford UP, 2023) is a contemporary ethnography of class mobility among Hindus in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. Focusing on women …

British Studies September 21, 2023

The Happiness of the British Working Class

Jamie Bronstein

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh

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For working-class life writers in nineteenth century Britain, happiness was a multifaceted emotion: a concept that could describe experiences of hedonic pleasure, foster and deepen social relationships, drive individuals to …

Disability Studies September 21, 2023

Mediating Alzheimer's

Cognition and Personhood

Scott Selberg

Hosted by Shu Wan

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With no known cause or cure despite a century of research, Alzheimer's disease is a true medical mystery. In Mediating Alzheimer's: Cognition and Personhood (U Minnesota Press, 2022), Scott Selberg …

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

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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 …

African American Studies September 20, 2023

Passing

An Alternative History of Identity

Lipika Pelham

Hosted by Katrina Anderson

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A slave woman in 1840s America dresses as a white, disabled man to escape to freedom, while a twenty-first-century black rights activist is 'cancelled' for denying her whiteness. A Victorian …

Gender Studies September 20, 2023

Male Femininities

Dana Berkowitz, Elroi J. Windsor, and C. Winter Han

Hosted by Isabel Machado

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Innovative essays that explore how men perform femininity and what femininity looks like without women.What counts as “male femininity”? Is it simply men behaving in effeminate ways or is it …

Urban Studies September 19, 2023

Before Gentrification

The Creation of DC's Racial Wealth Gap

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza

Hosted by Deidre Tyler

This book shows how a century of redlining, disinvestment, and the War on Drugs wreaked devastation on Black people and paved the way for gentrification in Washington, DC. In Before …

Asian American Studies September 19, 2023

Model Minority Masochism

Performing the Cultural Politics of Asian American Masculinity

Takeo Rivera

Hosted by Julia Lee

There are few grand narratives that loom over Asian Americans more than the “model minority.” While many Asian Americanist scholars and activists aim to disprove the model minority as “myth,” …

Chinese Studies September 18, 2023

Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance

Hongwei Bao

Hosted by Shu Wan

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In Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance (Routledge, 2022), Hongwei Bao analyses queer theatre and performance in contemporary China. Boa documents various forms of queer performance - including music, film, theatre, and …

International Horizons September 18, 2023

Global Inequality

Are We Really Measuring What We Should Be Measuring?

Jayati Gosh

Hosted by International Horizons

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviewed Jayati Ghosh, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, about different debates surrounding inequality. Ghosh criticizes …

Public Policy September 15, 2023

Poverty in the Pandemic

Policy Lessons from COVID-19

Zachary Parolin

Hosted by Stephen Pimpare

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Zachary Parolin's book Poverty in the Pandemic: Policy Lessons from COVID-19 (Russell Sage Foundation, 2023) is interested in poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., as well as what the …