New Books Network

About Carla Nappi

NBN Episodes hosted by Carla:

Chinese Studies December 17, 2018

After Eunuchs

Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China

Howard Chiang

Hosted by Carla Nappi
Howard Chiang’s new book is a masterful study of the relationship between sexual knowledge and Chinese modernity. After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2018) guides readers through the history of eunuchs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the techniques of visualization that helped establish the conditions that produced sex as an object of empirical knowledge, the rise of sexology …
Communications December 6, 2018

General Intellects

Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century

McKenzie Wark

Hosted by Carla Nappi
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for …
Literary Studies November 20, 2018

Discognition

Steven Shaviro

Hosted by Carla Nappi
Steven Shaviro’s book Discognition (Repeater Books, 2016) opens with a series of questions: What is consciousness? How does subjective experience occur? Which entities are conscious? What is it like to …
East Asian Studies October 17, 2018

Making Time

Astronomical Time Measurement in Tokugawa Japan

Yulia Frumer

Hosted by Carla Nappi
Yulia Frumer’s new book follows roughly three hundred years of transformations in how time was conceptualized, measured, and materialized in Japan. Making Time: Astronomical Time Measurement in Tokugawa Japan (University …
European Studies October 11, 2018

The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius

A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions

Dániel Margócsy, Mark Somos, and Stephen N. Joffe

Hosted by Carla Nappi
The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions (Brill, 2018) is a masterful new book that will long be on …
East Asian Studies September 25, 2018

Forgotten Disease

Illnesses Transformed in Chinese Medicine

Hilary A. Smith

Hosted by Carla Nappi
Hilary A. Smith’s new book examines the evolution of a Chinese disease concept, foot qi (jiao qi) from its documented origins in the fourth century to the present day. However …
Chinese Studies September 13, 2018

The Art of Being Governed

Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China

Michael Szonyi

Hosted by Carla Nappi
At the heart of Michael Szonyi’s new book are two questions: 1) How did ordinary people in the Ming deal with their obligations to provide manpower to the army?, and …
Chinese Studies August 31, 2018

The End of Concern

Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies

Fabio Lanza

Hosted by Carla Nappi
If you work in Asian studies as a scholarly field, you should read Fabio Lanza’s new book. The End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies (Duke University Press …
Art August 27, 2018

Curating Revolution

Politics on Display in Mao's China

Denise Y. Ho

Hosted by Carla Nappi
“In Mao’s China, to curate revolution was to make it material.” Denise Y. Ho’s new book explores this premise in a masterful account of exhibitionary culture in the Mao period …
Anthropology August 13, 2018

The Ecology of Attention

Yves Citton

Hosted by Carla Nappi
We are arguably living in the midst of a form of economy where attention has become a key resource and value, labor, class, and currency are being reconfigured as a …
Literary Studies August 10, 2018

The Pidgin Warrior

Zhang Tianyi (tr. David Hull)

Hosted by Carla Nappi
“Big boys, the story in this little book is told for you.” Thus begins the preface to Zhang Tianyi’s The Pidgin Warrior (Balestier Press, 2017), as translated by the wonderful …
Art August 2, 2018

Textures of Mourning

Calligraphy, Mortality, and The Tale of Genji Scrolls

Reginald Jackson

Hosted by Carla Nappi
Reginald Jackson’s inspiring new book takes a transdisciplinary approach to rethinking how we read, how we pay attention, and why that matters deeply in shaping how we understand the past …