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In Conversation: An OUP Podcast August 17, 2022

Rome

Strategy of Empire

James Lacey

Hosted by Mark Klobas
From Octavian's victory at Actium (31 B.C.) to its traditional endpoint in the West (476), the Roman Empire lasted a solid 500 years -- an impressive number by any standard, and fully one-fifth of all recorded history. In fact, the decline and final collapse of the Roman Empire took longer than most other empires even existed. Any historian trying to unearth the grand strategy of the Roman Empire must, therefore, always …
Animal Studies August 16, 2022

Animal Revolution

Ron Broglio

Hosted by Callie Smith
Animals are staging a revolution—they’re just not telling us. From radioactive boar invading towns to jellyfish disarming battleships, Animal Revolution (U Minnesota Press, 2022) threads together news accounts and more …
Psychoanalysis August 15, 2022

Circumcision on the Couch

The Cultural, Psychological, and Gendered Dimensions of the World's Oldest Surgery

Jordan Osserman

Hosted by Tracy Morgan
It is not terribly controversial to say that castration fear is one of the key conceptual engines driving the psychoanalytic project overall. Whether one thinks of it manifesting as a …
Economics August 12, 2022

Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism

Roselyn Hsueh

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Roselyn Hsueh’s Micro-Institutional Foundations of Capitalism (Cambridge, 2022) presents a new framework for understanding how developing countries integrate into the global economy. Examining the labor-intensive textile sector and the capital-intensive …
Psychology August 11, 2022

Hatred of Sex

Oliver Davis and Tim Dean

Hosted by Eugenio Duarte
How well do we understand our relationship to sex? According to Oliver Davis and Tim Dean, authors of the new book Hatred of Sex (University of Nebraska Press, 2022), we …
Performing Arts August 10, 2022

The Lost Conversation

Interviews with an Enduring Avant-Garde

Sara Farrington

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Sara Farrington's The Lost Conversation: Interviews with an Enduring Avant-Garde (53rd State Press, 2021) is a collection of interviews with a host of influential artists in experimental theatre, including Richard Foreman …
Genocide Studies August 9, 2022

Ideology and Mass Killing

The Radicalized Security Politics of Genocides and Deadly Atrocities

Jonathan Leader Maynard

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In research on 'mass killings' such as genocides and campaigns of state terror, the role of ideology is hotly debated. For some scholars, ideologies are crucial in providing the extremist …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast August 8, 2022

Sonorous Desert

What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks—and What It Can Teach Us

Kim Haines-Eitzen

Hosted by Mark Klobas
For the hermits and communal monks of antiquity, the desert was a place to flee the cacophony of ordinary life in order to hear and contemplate the voice of God …
General History August 5, 2022

The Last Witches of England

A Tragedy of Sorcery and Superstition

John Callow

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping and tapping at the window of a prosperous Devon merchant. Frightened by its appearance, his servants and …
Biography August 4, 2022

The Enigma of Clarence Thomas

Corey Robin

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
Most people can tell you two things about Clarence Thomas: Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment, and he almost never speaks from the bench. Here are some things they …
Popular Culture August 3, 2022

Teenage Dreams

Girlhood Sexualities in the U.S. Culture Wars

Charlie Jeffries

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
Utilizing a breadth of archival sources from activists, artists, and policymakers, Charlie Jeffries' Teenage Dreams: Girlhood Sexualities in the U.S. Culture Wars (Rutgers UP, 2022) examines the race- and class-inflected battles over …
Literary Studies August 2, 2022

Free Indirect

The Novel in a Postfictional Age

Timothy Bewes

Hosted by Iqra Shagufta Cheema
What is the purpose of a novel? What purpose or logic do literary critics assign to a novel? How has the novel changed? What does that mean for its readers …
Critical Theory August 1, 2022

Producing Politics

Inside the Exclusive Campaign World Where the Privileged Few Shape Politics for All of Us

Daniel Laurison

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
Who runs American politics? In Producing Politics: Inside the Exclusive Campaign World Where the Privileged Few Shape Politics for All of Us (Beacon Press, 2022), Daniel Laurison, an associate professor …
African American Studies July 29, 2022

Insurrection

Rebellion, Civil Rights, and the Paradoxical State of Black Citizenship

Hawa Allan

Hosted by Brittney Edmonds
The little-known and under-studied 1807 Insurrection Act was passed to give the president the ability to deploy federal military forces to fend off lawlessness and rebellion, but it soon became …
Native American Studies July 28, 2022

Seeing Red

Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America

Michael John Witgen

Hosted by John Cable
Against long odds, the Anishinaabeg resisted removal, retaining much of their land in the Old Northwest—what’s now Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Their success rested partly on their roles as sellers …
German Studies July 27, 2022

Prevail until the Bitter End

Germans in the Waning Years of World War II

Alexandra Lohse

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
In Prevail until the Bitter End: Germans in the Waning Years of World War II (Cornell UP, 2021), Alexandra Lohse explores the gossip and innuendo, the dissonant reactions and perceptions …
East Asian Studies July 26, 2022

Designing Reform

Architecture in the People's Republic of China, 1970-1992

Cole Roskam

Hosted by Ed Pulford
China’s urban landscapes are full of radically different architectural styles which memorialise different eras in the country’s political past, from the remains of imperial palaces or city walls, to Republican-era …
British Studies July 25, 2022

Humanitarian Governance and the British Antislavery World System

Maeve Ryan

Hosted by Joseph Krulder
Maeve Ryan’s new book Humanitarian Governance and the British Antislavery World System (Yale UP, 2022) highlights Britain’s early-nineteenth-century, Royal Navy seizures of slave ships and the processes involved in the “liberation” of …
The Future of Higher Education July 22, 2022

The Real World of College

What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be

Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
For The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be (MIT Press, 2022), Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner analyzed in-depth interviews with more than 2,00 …
Film July 21, 2022

Killing John Wayne

The Making of the Conqueror

Ryan Uytdewilligen

Hosted by Daniel Moran
Behold the history of a film so scandalous, so outrageous, so explosive it disappeared from print for over a quarter century! A film so dangerous, half its cast and crew …