New Books Network
Sociology
History January 22, 2021

Feral Atlas

The More-than-human Anthropocene

Anna L. Tsing

Hosted by Michael Vann
Do you feel lost in the Anthropocene? Would you like a map to chart your way through our changing world? How about an atlas? Well, the Feral Atlas Collective has …

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Anthropology January 22, 2021

Everyday Economic Survival in Myanmar

Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung

Hosted by John Traphagan
Reforms in Myanmar (formerly Burma) have eased restrictions on citizens' political activities. Yet for most Burmese, Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung shows in Everyday Economic Survival in Myanmar (U Wisconsin Press, 2019), eking …
Sociology January 21, 2021

Digital Nomads

In Search of Freedom, Community, and Meaningful Work in the New Economy

Rachael A. Woldoff and Robert C. Litchfield

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
In the space of a few weeks this spring, organizations around the world learned that many traditional, in-person jobs could, in fact, be performed remotely. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, however …
East Asian Studies January 21, 2021

Being in North Korea

Andray Abrahamian

Hosted by Ed Pulford
As well as presenting practical challenges, addressing the question ‘what is it like in North Korea?’ raises ethical concerns around who is entitled to interpret life in a place so …
Indian Religions January 20, 2021

Anti-Christian Violence in India

Chad M. Bauman

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Does religion cause violent conflict, asks Chad M. Bauman, and if so, does it cause conflict any more than other social identities? Through an extended history of Christian-Hindu relations, and …
East Asian Studies January 20, 2021

Rural Origins, City Lives

Class and Place in Contemporary China

Roberta Zavoretti

Hosted by Suvi Rautio
Many of the millions of workers streaming in from rural China to jobs at urban factories soon find themselves in new kinds of poverty and oppression. Yet, their individual experiences …
Anthropology January 20, 2021

Channeling Moroccanness

Language and the Media of Sociality

Becky L. Schulthies

Hosted by Ahmed Almaazmi
What does it mean to connect as a people through mass media? This book approaches that question by exploring how Moroccans engage communicative failure as they seek to shape social …
Sociology January 19, 2021

Other End of the Needle

Continuity and Change Among Tattoo Workers

David C. Lane

Hosted by Michael Johnston
In The Other End of the Needle (Rutgers University Press, 2020), David C. Lane, Ph.D. investigates the intricacies of the tattoo industry. Particularly, Lane found that tattooing is more complex …
Christian Studies January 19, 2021

Reformed Resurgence

The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism

Brad Vermurlen

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
Since the turn of the millennium, American Evangelical Protestantism has seen a swell of interest in Calvinist theology. Variously described as the New Calvinism or Neo-Reformed Christianity, the latter half …
Systems and Cybernetics January 18, 2021

Network Origins of the Global Economy

East vs. West in a Complex Systems Perspective

Hilton L. Root

Hosted by Tom Scholte
Twenty-eight years after Francis Fukuyama declared the “end of history” and pronounced Western-style liberalism as the culmination of a Hegelian narrative of progress, pundits and academics of all stripes find …
Ethnographic Marginalia January 18, 2021

Studying LBGT Organizing in China

A Conversation with Caterina Fugazzola

Caterina Fugazzola

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
In today’s episode of Ethnographic Marginalia, Sneha Annavarapu talks with Dr. Caterina Fugazzola, Earl S Johnson Instructor in Sociology at the University of Chicago, about her research on the contemporary …
Japanese Studies January 14, 2021

Creativity in Tokyo

Revitalizing a Mature City

Matjaz Ursic and Heide Imai

Hosted by Jingyi Li
In Creativity in Tokyo: Revitalizing a Mature City (Palgrave, 2020), Heide Imai and Matjaz Ursic focues on overlooked contextual factors that constitute the urban creative climate or innovative urban milieu in …
Art January 12, 2021

Knowledge Beside Itself

Contemporary Art's Epistemic Politics

Tom Holert

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
What is the role and function of contemporary art in economic and political systems that increasingly manage data and affect? Knowledge Beside Itself: Contemporary Art's Epistemic Politics (Sternberg Press, 2020) delves into …
Education January 11, 2021

Walking with Strangers

Critical Ethnography and Educational Promise

Barbara Dennis

Hosted by Pengfei Zhao
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Barbara Dennis of Indiana University on her new ethnography, Walking with Strangers: Critical Ethnography and Educational Promise, published in 2020 by Peter Lang …
Chinese Studies January 8, 2021

Recovering Histories

Life and Labor after Heroin in Reform-Era China

Nicholas Bartlett

Hosted by Suvi Rautio
Heroin first reached Gejiu, a Chinese city in southern Yunnan known as Tin Capital, in the 1980s. Widespread use of the drug, which for a short period became “easier to …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel January 8, 2021

The Tyranny of Merit

What's Become of the Common Good?

Michael J. Sandel

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and …
Military History January 8, 2021

Adaptation Under Fire

How Militaries Change in Wartime

David Barno and Nora Bensahel

Hosted by Scott Lipkowitz
Few human enterprises are as complex, dynamic, and unpredictable as war. Armed conflict substitutes the relatively ordered reality of peace with the undeniably chaotic reality of combat. Militaries, by design …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight January 7, 2021

Good Guys

How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace

David G. Smith and W. Brad Johnson

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to David Smith and Brad Johnson about their new book Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace (HBR Press, 2020). This episode addresses …
Japanese Studies January 7, 2021

Immigrant Japan

Mobility and Belonging in an Ethno-nationalist Society

Gracia Liu-Farrer

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
Immigrant Japan? Sounds like a contradiction, but as Gracia Liu-Farrer shows in Immigrant Japan Mobility and Belonging in an Ethno-nationalist Society (Cornell University Press, 2020), millions of immigrants make their …
Medicine January 6, 2021

The Structure of Moral Revolutions

Studies of Changes in the Morality of Abortion, Death, and the Bioethics Revolution

Robert Baker

Hosted by Claire Clark
We live in an age of moral revolutions in which the once morally outrageous has become morally acceptable, and the formerly acceptable is now regarded as reprehensible. Attitudes toward same-sex …