• Archive
  • Off the Record with UT Press
Off the Record with UT Press

Off the Record with UT Press

episodes

Interviews with authors of University of Texas Press books.

Samuel Markind, "Music Between Your Ears: How Musical Engagement Powers the Human Brain" (JHU Press, 2025)

May 24, 2026

Music Between Your Ears

Samuel Markind
Hosted by Gregory McNiff

Explores the profound power of music to influence brain function and well-being. IPA 2026 Distinguished Favorite in the Music Category Why does musi…

PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)

May 24, 2026

Sideways Selves

PJ DiPietro
Hosted by Sarah Tyson

How does coloniality shape the sociosomatic possibilities of our bodies? More importantly, how do gender-nonconforming people not only resist the limi…

Yosef Grodzinsky, "How Deeply Human Is Language?: Chomsky, the Brain, and the AI Fantasy" (MIT Press, 2026)

May 24, 2026

How Deeply Human Is Language?

Yosef Grodzinsky
Hosted by Mariam Olugbodi

How Deeply Human Is Language? Chomsky, the Brain, and the AI Fantasy (MIT Press, 2026) is Yosef Grodzinsky’s exploration of the criticality of the lin…

Alexander Klein, "Consciousness is Motor: William James on Mind and Action" (Oxford UP, 2025)

May 10, 2026

Consciousness is Motor

Alexander Klein
Hosted by Carrie Figdor

When it comes to consciousness, William James is well-known for his descriptions of it rather than his theory of it and its relation to the body. In C…

Masud Husain, "Our Brains, Our Selves: What a Neurologist’s Patients Taught Him About the Brain" (Canongate, 2025)

April 22, 2026

Our Brains, Our Selves

Masud Husain
Hosted by Gregory McNiff

What makes us who we are?Through the stories of seven of his patients, acclaimed Oxford University neurologist Masud Husain shows us how our brains cr…

Adam Zeman, "The Shape of Things Unseen: A New Science of Imagination" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

April 8, 2026

The Shape of Things Unseen

Adam Zeman
Hosted by Gregory McNiff

A compelling insight into how our imagination works, based on the latest scientific research. People often think of imagination as something used onl…

167* Addiction with Gina Turrigiano (EF, JP)

March 26, 2026

Addiction with Gina Turrigiano (EF, JP)

In Recall This Book's second episode (January 2019) John and Elizabeth spoke with their brilliant Brandeis colleague, the MacArthur-winning neuroscien…

Ken Chitwood, "Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism Among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam" (U Texas Press, 2025)

March 23, 2026

Borícua Muslims

Ken Chitwood
Hosted by Shobhana Xavier

Ken Chitwood's Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam (University of Texas Press, 2025), uses rich ethnographi…

Rebecca Sharpless, "People of the Wheat: Culture and Cultivation in North Texas" (U Texas Press, 2026)

March 7, 2026

People of the Wheat

Rebecca Sharpless
Hosted by Scott Catey

If you’ve ever wondered where your wheat flour is coming from, who is milling it (and how), or how it came to be such an important staple, then this e…

Alan J. McComas, "Consciousness: The Road to Reductionism" (American Scientist, 2025)

February 27, 2026

Consciousness

Alan J. McComas
Hosted by Gregory McNiff

Neuroscientific evidence increasingly shows that consciousness is a remarkable but explainable function of a machinelike brain. Alan J. McComas' discu…

Eray Çayli, "Earthmoving: Extractivism, War, and Visuality in Northern Kurdistan" (U Texas Press, 2025)

February 20, 2026

Earthmoving

Eray Çayli
Hosted by Ronay Bakan

Extractivism—exploiting the earth for resources—has long driven racial capitalism and colonialism. And yet, how does extractivism operate in a world w…

Polina Dimova, "At the Crossroads of the Senses: The Synaesthetic Metaphor Across the Arts in European Modernism" (Penn State UP, 2024)

February 6, 2026

At the Crossroads of the Senses

Polina Dimova
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Inspired by Richard Wagner’s idea of the total artwork, European modernist artists began to pursue multimedia projects that mixed colors, sounds, and …

Andreas Killen, "Nervous Systems: Brain Science in the Early Cold War" (Harper, 2023)

February 1, 2026

Nervous Systems

Andreas Killen
Hosted by Paul Lerner

In this eye-opening chronicle of scientific research on the brain in the early Cold War era, the acclaimed historian Andreas Killen traces the compl…

Najati Sidqi, "Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist: The Secret Life of Najati Sidqi" (U Texas Press, 2025)

January 30, 2026

Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist

Najati Sidqi
Hosted by Ibrahim Fawzy

In the public eye, Najati Sidqi was known as a journalist and writer, a translator of Russian classics, and an outspoken opponent of Nazism. However, …

Mark Gallagher, "Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, and Male Sex Appeal" (U Texas Press, 2025)

January 30, 2026

Cosmosexuals

Mark Gallagher
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, and Male Sex Appeal (U Texas Press, 2025), Dr. Mark Gallagher presents an examination of male screen sex appe…

Justin Owen Rawlins, "Imagining the Method: Reception, Identity, and American Screen Performance" (U Texas Press, 2024)

January 26, 2026

Imagining the Method

Justin Owen Rawlins
Hosted by Pete Kunze

Only one performance style has dominated the lexicon of the casual moviegoer: “Method acting.” The first reception-based analysis of film acting, Imag…

Damon Scott, "The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco" (U Texas Press, 2024)

January 24, 2026

The City Aroused

Damon Scott
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Damon Scott is a lively histo…

Steve Ramirez, "How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past" (Princeton UP, 2025)

January 19, 2026

How to Change a Memory

Steve Ramirez
Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

As a graduate student at MIT, Steve Ramirez successfully created false memories in the lab. Now, as a neuroscientist working at the frontiers of brain…

Justin Gregg, "If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity" (Little, Brown, 2022)

January 18, 2026

If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal

Justin Gregg
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without…

Rafael Yuste, "Lectures in Neuroscience" (Columbia UP, 2023)

January 16, 2026

Lectures in Neuroscience

Rafael Yuste
Hosted by Gregory McNiff

The human brain is perhaps the most intricate and fascinating object in the known universe. Through a mysterious process, the activity of billions of …