New Books Network
South Asian Studies
Gender Studies May 7, 2021

Hear #metoo in India

News, Social Media, and Anti-Rape and Sexual Harassment Activism

Pallavi Guha

Hosted by Jana Byars
Hello Everyone, and welcome to New Books in Gender and Sexuality, a channel on the New Books Network. I’m your host, Jana Byars, and I’m here today with Pallavi Guha …

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Middle Eastern Studies May 7, 2021

Turkey, Egypt, and Syria

A Travelogue

Shibli Numani

Hosted by Asad Dandia
Turkey, Egypt, and Syria: A Travelogue (Syracuse UP, 2019) vividly captures the experiences of prominent Indian intellectual and scholar Shibli Nu'mani (1857-1914) as he journeyed across the Ottoman Empire and Egypt in …
Islamic Studies May 7, 2021

Words of Experience

Translating Islam with Carl W. Ernst

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Brannon M. Wheeler

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
For more than three decades now, Carl Ernst, through his scholarship and his public engagement on the study of Islam and Muslim societies, has modeled the finest form of intellectual …
Asian Review of Books May 6, 2021

Finding the Raga

An Improvisation on Indian Music

Amit Chaudhuri

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Dismissal, in fact, is the default response to khayal (the preeminent genre of North Indian classical music), well before we get to know what khayal is, and vaguely term its …
World Affairs May 3, 2021

India and Asian Geopolitics

The Past, Present

Shivshankar Menon

Hosted by Medha Prasanna
A clear-eyed look at modern India's role in Asia and the broader world. One of India's most distinguished foreign policy thinkers addresses the many questions facing India as it seeks to …
Indian Religions April 30, 2021

Land of the Golden River

The Medieval Tamil Folk Epic of Poṉṉivaḷa Nāḍu

Brenda Beck

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
This podcast features Brenda Beck’s lifelong work on the Tamil folk epic Ponnivala. In addition to her forthcoming new English translation of the epic (“Land of the Golden River”), we …
Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work April 28, 2021

Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India

Mytheli Sreenivas

Hosted by Rachel Stuart
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, India played a pivotal role in global conversations about population and reproduction. In Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India (University of Washington …
Indian Religions April 28, 2021

Regional Communities of Devotion in South Asia

Insiders, Outsiders, and Interlopers

Gil Ben-Herut and Jon Keune

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Gil Ben-Herut and Jon Keune's book Regional Communities of Devotion in South Asia: Insiders, Outsiders, and Interlopers (Routledge, 2019) explores the key motif of the religious Other in devotional (bhakti) literatures …
South Asian Studies April 27, 2021

Revolutionary Pasts

Communist Internationalism in Colonial India

Ali Raza

Hosted by Samee Siddiqui
In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza reveals the lives, geographies, and anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries and how they sought to …
South Asian Studies April 26, 2021

Elementary Aspects of the Political

Histories from the Global South

Prathama Banerjee

Hosted by Saronik Bosu
Prathama Banerjee's book Elementary Aspects of the Political: Histories from the Global South (Duke UP, 2020) studies the rise of modern politics in India, between the mid-19th and the mid-20th centuries …
Indian Religions April 23, 2021

Sikhs in the Deccan and North-East India

Birinder Pal Singh

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Birinder Pal Singh's book Sikhs in the Deccan and North-East India (Taylor & Francis, 2018) is a major intervention in the understanding of the dynamics of internal migration in South Asia …
Ethnographic Marginalia April 23, 2021

The Ethnography of Immigration

In Conversation with Dr. Tahseen Shams

Tahseen Shams

Hosted by Alexander Diamond
How are immigrants’ lives shaped by cultural and political dynamics in their homeland, hostland, and “elsewhere” countries whose geopolitical dynamics affect their experiences (such as South Asian Muslims who are …
East Asian Studies April 22, 2021

Building a Religious Empire

Tibetan Buddhism, Bureaucracy, and the Rise of the Gelukpa

Brenton Sullivan

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
How did Geluk Buddhism become the most widespread school of Tibetan Buddhism in Inner Asia and beyond? In Building a Religious Empire: Tibetan Buddhism, Bureaucracy, and the Rise of the Gelukpa (University …
Indian Religions April 22, 2021

The Science of Satyug

Class, Charisma, and Vedic Revivalism in the All World Gayatri Pariwar

Daniel Heifetz

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
The first in-depth study of the All World Gayatri Pariwar, a modern Indian religious movement. The All World Gayatri Pariwar is a modern religious movement that enjoys wide popularity in …
Indian Religions April 20, 2021

Many Mahābhāratas

Nell Shapiro Hawley and Sohini Sarah Pillai

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Nell Shapiro Hawley and Sohini Sarah Pillai's book Many Mahābhāratas (SUNY Press, 2021) is an introduction to the spectacular and long-lived diversity of Mahābhārata literature in South Asia. This diversity begins with the …
Indian Religions April 14, 2021

The Muhammad Avatāra

Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam

Ayesha A. Irani

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
The Muhammad Avatāra: Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam (Oxford University Press, 2021) reveals the powerful role of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal.Its focus is on …
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 …
Anthropology April 13, 2021

Waiting Town

Life in Transit and Mumbai's Other World-Class Histories

Lisa Björkman

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research in the Indian city of Mumbai, Waiting Town: Life in Transit and Mumbai's Other World-Class Histories (Association for Asian Studies, 2020) is an …
Indian Ocean World April 8, 2021

Empire of Convicts

Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia

Anand A. Yang

Hosted by Kelvin Ng
Empire of Convicts: Indian Penal Labor in Colonial Southeast Asia (University of California Press, 2021) (University of California Press, 2021) focuses on male and female Indians incarcerated in Southeast Asia …
Ethnographic Marginalia April 8, 2021

New Ethnographies of the Global South

In Conversation with Victoria Reyes and Marco Garrido

Victoria Reyes and Marco Garrido

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
How can Sociology be nudged away from its traditional parochialism to embrace empirical work that focuses on the global south? Marco Garrido (assistant professor of sociology at the University of …