New Books Network
Food October 26, 2021

The Immigrant-Food Nexus

Borders, Labor, and Identity in North America

Julian Agyeman and Sydney Giacalone

Hosted by Amir Sayadabdi
The Immigrant-Food Nexus: Borders, Labor, and Identity in North America (MIT Press, 2020) considers the intersection of food and immigration at both the macroscale of national policy and the microscale …

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East Asian Studies October 26, 2021

Decadence in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture

A Comparative and Literary-Historical Reevaluation

Hongjian Wang

Hosted by Victoria Lupascu
European Decadence, a controversial artistic movement that flourished mainly in late-nineteenth-century France and Britain, has inspired several generations of Chinese writers and literary scholars since it was introduced to China …
Literature October 26, 2021

The Authenticity Project

A Novel

Clare Pooley

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Today I talked to Clare Pooley about her novel The Authenticity Project (Penguin, 2020). In this chatty, very British story, a few personal lines written in a “pale-green exercise book like the …
Science, Technology, and Society October 26, 2021

Defending Beef

The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat

Nicolette Hahn Niman

Hosted by Christopher Gambino
In Defending Beef: The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat (Chelsea Green, 2021), Nicolette Hahn Niman makes the expanded case for large ruminants as part of the solution to the …
Education October 26, 2021

Making Games for Impact

Kurt Squire

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Digital games for learning are now commonplace, used in settings that range from K–12 education to advanced medical training. In Making Games for Impact (MIT Press, 2021), Kurt Squire examines …
Popular Culture October 26, 2021

Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire

Punk Rock in the 1990s United States

David Pearson

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In Rebel Music in the Triumphant Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020), musicologist David Pearson explores the changing landscape of punk in the United States in the 1990s. Pearson examines how the 1990s underground …
German Studies October 26, 2021

Jewish Difference and the Arts in Vienna

Composing Compassion in Music and Biblical Theater

Caroline A. Kita

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
During the mid-19th century, the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner sparked an impulse toward German cultural renewal and social change that drew on religious myth, metaphysics, and spiritualism …
Ideas Roadshow Podcast October 26, 2021

The Consolations of History

Teofilo Ruiz

Hosted by Howard Burton
The Consolations of History is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Teofilo Ruiz, Professor Emeritus of History at UCLA. Teo Ruiz is a scholar of the …
Scholarly Communication October 26, 2021

How to Write a Scientific Paper

An Academic Self-Help Guide for PhD Students

Jari Saramäki

Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of Jari Saramäki, author of How to Write a Scientific Paper: An Academic Self-Help Guide for PhD Students (2018) and professor of computational science at Aalto University, Finland …
Postscript October 26, 2021

Postscript

The Supreme Court, Concealed Carry, and How Your Laws Might Change

Joseph Blocher and Jacob B. Charles

Hosted by Susan Liebell
The American media has been focused on the Supreme Court’s upcoming abortion cases but a decision in a critical Second Amendment case could overturn public safety laws for 25% of …
African American Studies October 26, 2021

Imani Perry on a Life in African American Studies

Imani Perry

Hosted by Adam McNeil
On today’s podcast, I am chopping it up with my dear friend and play cousin Dr. Imani Perry, the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Dr. Perry …
Jewish Studies October 26, 2021

Is Superman Circumcised?

The Complete Jewish History of the World's Greatest Hero

Roy Schwartz

Hosted by Amber Nickell
​Introduced in June 1938, the Man of Steel was created by two Jewish teens, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the sons of immigrants from Eastern Europe. They based their hero’s …
World Affairs October 26, 2021

Marketing Global Justice

The Political Economy of International Criminal Law

Christine Schwöbel-Patel

Hosted by Margot Tudor
Christine Schwöbel-Patel's Marketing Global Justice: The Political Economy of International Criminal Law (Cambridge UP, 2021) is a critical study of efforts to 'sell' global justice. The book offers a new reading …
Latin American Studies October 26, 2021

La Güera Rodrígue

The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine

Silvia Marina Arrom

Hosted by Rachel Newman
In La Guera Rodriguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine (U California Press, 2021), Silvia Marina Arrom traces the legends of María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco y …
Anthropology October 26, 2021

Connected

How a Mexican Village Built Its Own Cell Phone Network

Roberto J. González

Hosted by Hussein Mohsen
Connected: How a Mexican Village Built Its Own Cell Phone Network (U California Press, 2020) is the true story of how, against all odds, a remote Mexican pueblo built its own …
Historical Materialism October 25, 2021

Lukács

Praxis and the Absolute

Daniel Andrés López

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The Hungarian Marxist philosopher George Lukács has long occupied a complicated place in the Marxist canon of thinkers, both his lived and theoretical practice subject to much critical commentary …
Japanese Studies October 25, 2021

Yamamba

In Search of the Japanese Mountain Witch

Rebecca Copeland and Linda C. Ehrlich

Hosted by Matthew Hayes
Alluring, nurturing, dangerous, and vulnerable, the yamamba, or Japanese mountain witch, has intrigued audiences for centuries. What is it about the fusion of mountains with the solitary old woman that …
Catholic Studies October 25, 2021

America's Most Famous Catholic (According to Himself)

Stephen Colbert and American Religion in the Twenty-First Century

Stephanie N. Brehm

Hosted by Carlos Ruiz Martinez
For nine years, Stephen Colbert’s persona “Colbert”?—a Republican superhero and parody of conservative political pundits--informed audiences on current events, politics, social issues, and religion while lampooning conservative political policy, biblical …
East Asian Studies October 25, 2021

An Urban History of China

Toby Lincoln

Hosted by Zachary Lowell
In An Urban History of China (Cambridge UP, 2021), Toby Lincoln offers the first history of Chinese cities from their origins to the present. Despite being an agricultural society for …
Latino Studies October 25, 2021

My Book of the Dead

New Poems

Ana Castillo

Hosted by Jonathan Cortez
“My poetry captures a moment,” remarked Dr. Castillo when asked about the process of writing her most recent collection of poems My Book of the Dead: New Poems (University of …