New Books Network Podcast

Performing Arts June 5, 2023

Performing the Socialist State

Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture

Xiaomei Chen

Hosted by Andy Boyd

Xiaomei Chen's book Performing the Socialist State: Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture (Columbia UP, 2023) looks at three "founding fathers" of Chinese spoken drama: Tian Han, Hong Shen, and Ouyang Yuqian. Dr. Chen argues that these three theatre artists laid the groundwork for Mao-era Chinese drama during the earlier Republic period, and that there is more continuity between the two periods than has typically been supposed. She also argues that these …

Anthropology June 4, 2023

The Politics of Survival

Black Women Social Welfare Beneficiaries in Brazil and the United States

Gladys L. Mitchell-Walthour

Hosted by Reighan Gillam

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Poor Black women who benefit from social welfare are marginalized in a number of ways by interlocking systemic racism, sexism, and classism. The media renders them invisible or casts them …

The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones June 3, 2023

The Future of Big Finance

A Discussion with Anastasia Nesvetailova

Anastasia Nesvetailova and Ronen Palan

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones

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How common is financial malpractice in big, well known financial companies? Is it so common that it should really be seen as a business model more than an occasional aberration …

Southeast Asian Studies June 2, 2023

A History of Manners and Civility in Thailand

Patrick Jory

Hosted by Nick Cheesman

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If you’ve visited Thailand even for a short time you’ve probably been given, or have come across, some basic instructions on dos and don’ts — where to put, or not …

Disability Studies June 1, 2023

Prenatal Genetic Testing, Abortion, and Disability Justice

Amber Knight and Joshua Miller

Hosted by Shu Wan

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The routinization of non-invasive prenatal genetic testing (NIPT) raises urgent questions about disability rights and reproductive justice. Supporters defend NIPT on the grounds that genetic information about the fetus helps …

Critical Theory May 31, 2023

Anarchism

A Very Short Introduction

Alex Prichard

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh

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If you asked a passerby on the street what anarchism is, they may answer that it is an ideology based on chaos, disorder, and violence. But is this true? What …

South Asian Studies May 30, 2023

A Part Apart

The Life and Thought of B. R. Ambedkar

Ashok Gopal

Hosted by Rituparna Patgiri

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Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) is perhaps the most iconised historical figure in India. Born into a caste deemed ‘unfit for human association’, he came to define what it means to …

Science, Technology, and Society May 29, 2023

The Possibility of Life

Science, Imagination and Our Vision of the Cosmos

Jaime Green

Hosted by John Traphagan

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In this episode we talk to Jaime Green about her superb cultural and scientific exploration of alien life and the cosmos. It examines how the possibility of life on other planets shapes our understanding …

Biblical Studies May 28, 2023

Armageddon

What the Bible Really Says about the End

Bart D. Ehrman

Hosted by Frances Sacks

A New York Times bestselling Biblical scholar, reveals why our popular understanding of the Apocalypse is all wrong—and why that matters.You’ll find nearly everything the Bible has to say about the …

General History May 27, 2023

The West

A New History of an Old Idea

Naoíse Mac Sweeney

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Dr. Naoíse Mac Sweeney presents a radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascinating lives in her …

Islamic Studies May 26, 2023

Broken

The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion

Evelyn Alsultany

Hosted by Kristian Petersen

In Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion (NYU Press, 2022), Evelyn Alsultany, Professor at the University of Southern California, argues that, even amid challenges to institutionalized Islamophobia, diversity initiatives …

Women's History May 25, 2023

The Suffragist Peace

How Women's Votes Lead to Fewer Wars

Robert F. Trager and Joslyn N. Barnhart

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the modern age, some parts of the world are experiencing a long peace. Nuclear weapons, capitalism and the widespread adoption of democratic institutions have been credited with fostering this …

Chinese Studies May 24, 2023

Reproductive Realities in Modern China

Birth Control and Abortion, 1911-2021

Sarah Mellors Rodriguez

Hosted by Laurie Dickmeyer

In Reproductive Realities in Modern China: Birth Control and Abortion, 1911-2021 (Cambridge UP, 2022), assistant professor of history at Missouri State University, Sarah Mellors Rodriguez explores the longue durée history …

Medieval History May 23, 2023

Rome and the Invention of the Papacy

The Liber Pontificalis

Rosamond McKitterick

Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The remarkable, and permanently influential, papal history known as the Liber pontificalis shaped perceptions and the memory of Rome, the popes, and the many-layered past of both city and papacy …

Political Science May 22, 2023

Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood

White Women, Class, and Segregation

Rebecca Brückmann

Hosted by Susan Liebell

Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation (U Georgia Press, 2021) offers a comparative sociocultural and spatial history of white supremacist women involved in massive resistance. The …

Science, Technology, and Society May 21, 2023

We Have Always Been Cyborgs

Digital Data, Gene Technologies, and an Ethics of Transhumanism

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Hosted by Frances Sacks

The concept of transhumanism emerged in the middle of the 20th century, and has influenced discussions around AI, brain–computer interfaces, genetic technologies and life extension. Despite its enduring influence in …

Political Science May 20, 2023

The State

Philip Pettit

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin

In The State (Princeton University Press, 2023), the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking, offering a major new account of the foundations of the state and …

Media May 19, 2023

City of Newsmen

Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington

Kathryn J. McGarr

Hosted by James Kates

Kathryn McGarr’s City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington (U Chicago Press, 2022) explores foreign policy journalism in Washington during and after World War II—a …

Interpretive Political and Social Science May 18, 2023

Freedom Inside?

Yoga and Meditation in the Carceral State

Farah Godrej

Hosted by Nick Cheesman

Are meditation and yoga offered to prisoners merely to have them acquiesce to being incarcerated and degraded? Or can they help prisoners interrogate the political and social structures that incarcerate …

Chinese Studies May 17, 2023

The Dean of Shandong

Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University

Daniel A. Bell

Hosted by Keith Krueger

I am not now nor at any time have ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet I serve as dean of a large faculty of political …