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About Carl Nellis

NBN Episodes hosted by Carl:

Intellectual History February 26, 2019

The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages

Geraldine Heng

Hosted by Carl Nellis
In The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press 2018), Geraldine Heng collects a remarkable array of medieval approaches to race that show the breadth and …
Intellectual History November 7, 2018

The World Come of Age

An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology

Lilian Calles Barger

Hosted by Carl Nellis
A searching and richly textured history of the affinities and common origins of Latin American and North American liberation theologies, The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation …
Intellectual History August 3, 2018

The Experience of Education in Anglo-Saxon Literature

Irina Dumitrescu

Hosted by Carl Nellis
A sharply observed study of the representations of education found in Anglo-Saxon texts, Irina Dumitrescu’s The Experience of Education in Anglo-Saxon Literature (Cambridge University Press 2018) invites readers to recognize …
Intellectual History March 15, 2018

Strangers in Their Own Land

Anger and Mourning on the American Right

Arlie Russell Hochschild

Hosted by Carl Nellis
Since it was published in 2016, Arlie Russell Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (The New Press, 2016) has been many times heralded …
Intellectual History January 9, 2018

List Cultures

Knowledge and Poetics from Mesopotamia to Buzzfeed

Liam Cole Young

Hosted by Carl Nellis
The list is the origin of culture. At least, that's according to Umberto Eco, whose words open Liam Cole Young's new book, List Cultures: Knowledge and Poetics from Mesopotamia to …
Intellectual History October 19, 2017

Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System

John Rieder

Hosted by Carl Nellis
A deft and searching exploration of genre theory through science fiction, and science fiction through genre theory, John Rieder's Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System (Wesleyan University Press …
Intellectual History July 6, 2017

Medievalism

A Critical History

David Matthews

Hosted by Carl Nellis
A revealing exploration of representative modes of medievalism, Medievalism: A Critical History (Boydell & Brewer; hardcover 2015, paperback 2017), by David Matthews, examines the people, institutions, and moments that have …
Literary Studies May 26, 2017

The Bittersweet Science

Fifteen Writers in the Gym, in the Corner, and at Ringside

Carlo Rotella and Michael Ezra, eds.

Hosted by Carl Nellis
"Boxing has always attracted writers because it issues a standing challenge to their powers of description and imagination, and also a warning--really a promise--that no matter how many layers of …
Intellectual History May 4, 2017

The Age of Charisma

Leaders, Followers, and Emotions in American Society, 1870-1940

Jeremy C. Young

Hosted by Carl Nellis
In the age of the railroad, social movements, revivals, and campaigns for political office spread like wildfire across the United States. Leaders and their surrogates could go travel faster than …
Intellectual History March 14, 2017

Apostles of Reason

The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism

Molly Worthen

Hosted by Carl Nellis
Beginning with a network of reformed figures that orbited around Billy Graham, from J. Howard Pew's money to Carl Henry's passion for cultural esteem, Molly Worthen's Apostles of Reason: The …
Intellectual History February 9, 2017

The Watchman in Pieces

Surveillance, Literature, and Liberal Personhood

David Rosen and Aaron Santesso

Hosted by Carl Nellis
"Surveillance and literature, as kindred practices, have light to shed on each other." When David Rosen and Aaron Santesso considered the discipline of surveillance studies in the wake of the …
Intellectual History December 18, 2016

Human Programming

Brainwashing, Automatons, and American Unfreedom

Scott Selisker

Hosted by Carl Nellis
In Human Programming: Brainwashing, Automatons, and American Unfreedom (University of Minnesota Press, 2016), Scott Selisker offers readers a fascinating new history of American anxieties along the borderland between the machine …
Intellectual History December 14, 2016

Medieval Afterlives in Contemporary Culture

Gail Ashton

Hosted by Carl Nellis
Dilapidated thirteenth-century walls as a playscape for today's children, medieval relics made as fetish objects for twenty-first century enthusiasts, tourism at "the birthplace of King Arthur," Harry Potter's pageantry, Game …
General History December 2, 2016

Brothers at Arms

Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It

Larrie Ferreiro

Hosted by Carl Nellis
Was the War for American Independence really about American independence? It depends on who you ask. In his new book, Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France …
Intellectual History October 27, 2016

The Birth of Theory

Andrew Cole

Hosted by Carl Nellis
Was Hegel a medieval thinker? In The Birth of Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Andrew Cole puts forward a reexamination of Hegelian dialectics that embeds Hegel in a long …
Intellectual History September 30, 2016

Empire and Revolution

The Political Life of Edmund Burke

Richard Bourke

Hosted by Carl Nellis
Richard Bourke, Professor in the History of Political Thought in the School of History at Queen Mary University of London, began developing his history of Edmund Burke's political thought in …
General History September 21, 2016

Medieval Robots

Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art

E.R. Truitt

Hosted by Carl Nellis
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Clarke's third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge …