Off the Page: A Columbia UP Podcast

Off the Page: A Columbia UP Podcast

episodes

Interviews with Columbia University Press authors.

Rajbir Singh Judge, "Prophetic Maharaja: Loss, Sovereignty, and the Sikh Tradition in Colonial South Asia" (Columbia UP, 2024)

October 30, 2024

Prophetic Maharaja

Rajbir Singh Judge
Hosted by Arighna Gupta

How do traditions and peoples grapple with loss, particularly when it is of such magnitude that it defies the possibility of recovery or restoration? …

Sarah Dimick, "Unseasonable: Climate Change in Global Literatures" (Columbia UP, 2024)

October 29, 2024

Unseasonable

Sarah Dimick
Hosted by Louisa Hann

As climate change alters seasons around the globe, literature registers and responds to shifting environmental time. A writer and a fisher track the d…

Melissa Deckman, "The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy" (Columbia UP, 2024)

October 28, 2024

The Politics of Gen Z

Melissa Deckman
Hosted by Susan Liebell

As the 2024 American presidential election approaches, it is common to hear scholars and journalists discuss the role of particular groups such as Lat…

E. L. Gaston, "Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria" (Columbia UP, 2024)

October 19, 2024

Illusions of Control

E. L. Gaston
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Over the last two decades, the United States has supported a range of militias, rebels, and other armed groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Critic…

Beth Blum on Self-Help, Dale Carnegie to Today (JP)

October 17, 2024

Self-Help, Dale Carnegie to Today (JP)

Beth Blum

Beth Blum, Associate Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke w…

Satoru Hashimoto, "Afterlives of Letters: The Transnational Origins of Modern Literature in China, Japan, and Korea" (Columbia UP, 2023)

October 11, 2024

Afterlives of Letters

Satoru Hashimoto
Hosted by Li-Ping Chen

When East Asia opened itself to the world in the nineteenth century, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean intellectuals had shared notions of literature bec…

Andreas E. Feldmann, "Repertoires of Terrorism: Organizational Identity and Violence in Colombia's Civil War" (Columbia UP, 2024)

September 22, 2024

Repertoires of Terrorism

Andreas E. Feldmann
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Why do armed groups employ terrorism in markedly different ways during civil wars? Drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork, Dr. Andreas E. Feldmann…

Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions

September 19, 2024

Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions

Ernesto Castañeda and Carina Cione

Today’s book is: Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia UP, 2024), by Ernesto Castaneda and Carina Cione, which is a pract…

Sheri Chinen Biesen, "Through a Noir Lens: Adapting Film Noir Visual Style" (Columbia UP, 2024)

September 18, 2024

Through a Noir Lens

Sheri Chinen Biesen
Hosted by Jazz Walker

Shadows. Smoke. Dark alleys. Rain-slicked city streets. These are iconic elements of film noir visual style. Long after its 1940s heyday, noir hallmar…

Uluğ Kuzuoğlu, "Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age" (Columbia UP, 2023)

August 23, 2024

Codes of Modernity

Uluğ Kuzuoğlu
Hosted by Shu Wan

In the late nineteenth century, Chinese reformers and revolutionaries believed that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Chinese writing s…

Arthur Burns: “The smartest guy in the room”

August 8, 2024

Arthur Burns: “The smartest guy in the room”

Wyatt Wells
Hosted by Tim Jones

More than any other global institution, the US Federal Reserve’s decisions and communications drive capital markets and alter financial conditions eve…

Everyday Architecture in Context: Public Markets in Hong Kong (1842-1981) (Chinese U of Hong Kong Press, 2023)

August 1, 2024

Everyday Architecture in Context

Carmen C. M. Tsui

How do public markets, as ordinary as they seem, carry the weight of a city’s history? How do such everyday buildings reflect a city’s changing politi…

D. E. Osto, "Paranormal States: Psychic Abilities in Buddhist Convert Communities" (Columbia UP, 2024)

August 1, 2024

Paranormal States

D. E. Osto
Hosted by Raj Balkaran

A number of converts to Buddhism report paranormal experiences. Their accounts describe psychic abilities like clairvoyance and precognition, out-of-b…

Bernard E. Harcourt. "Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory" (Columbia UP, 2023)

July 31, 2024

Cooperation

Bernard E. Harcourt

Liberal democracy is in crisis around the world, unable to address pressing problems such as climate change. There is, however, another path—cooperati…

Matthew H. Sommer, "The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China" (Columbia UP, 2024)

July 30, 2024

The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China

Matthew H. Sommer

The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China (Columbia University Press, 2024) is a fascinating study of…

Christopher T. Fan, "Asian American Fiction After 1965: Transnational Fantasies of Economic Mobility" (Columbia UP, 2024)

July 29, 2024

Asian American Fiction After 1965

Christopher T. Fan
Hosted by Victoria Lupascu

After the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act loosened discriminatory restrictions, people from Northeast Asian countries such as South Korea, Taiwan…

Austin Knuppe, "Surviving the Islamic State: Contention, Cooperation, and Neutrality in Wartime Iraq" (Columbia UP, 2024)

July 26, 2024

Surviving the Islamic State

Austin Knuppe
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

How did ordinary Iraqis survive the occupation of their communities by the Islamic State? How did they decide whether to stay or flee, to cooperate or…

Hannah Freed-Thall, "Modernism at the Beach: Queer Ecologies and the Coastal Commons" (Columbia UP, 2023)

July 25, 2024

Modernism at the Beach

Hannah Freed-Thall

Departing from the conventional association of modernism with the city, Hannah Freed-Thall's Modernism at the Beach: Queer Ecologies and the Coastal C…

Arie Perliger, "American Zealots: Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism" (Columbia UP, 2020)

July 21, 2024

American Zealots

Arie Perliger
Hosted by Beth Windisch

In an unsettling time in American history, the outbreak of right-wing violence is among the most disturbing developments. In recent years, attacks ori…

Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran, "The Same Moon Shines on All: The Lives and Selected Poems of Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran" (Columbia UP, 2024)

July 21, 2024

The Same Moon Shines on All

Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran
Hosted by Jingyi Li

Yanagawa Seigan (1789–1858) and his wife Kōran (1804–79) were two of the great poets of nineteenth-century Japan. They practiced the art of traditiona…