New Books Network

Monalisa Adhikari, "A Post-Liberal Peace: How Emergent Powers Are Reshaping Global Conflict Management" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In A Post-Liberal Peace: How Emergent Powers Are Reshaping Global Conflict Management (Cornell UP, 2026), Dr. Monalisa Adhikari shows how rising powers like India and China are reshaping global peace governance. Over recent decades, both countries have deepened engagement with institutions built on liberal principles, including those related to peacebuilding. Their growing role raises critical questions about how their approaches diverge from liberal models and their impact on the domestic politics of conflict-affected states.

Focusing on India and China's involvement in peace processes in Nepal and Myanmar, Dr. Adhikari demonstrates that these powers advance distinctive, state-centered programs that privilege regional stakeholders, stability, development, and pragmatism. Operating under conditions of "negotiated coexistence" with liberal peacebuilders, their initiatives neither fully align with nor openly contest existing actors, limiting cooperation while avoiding confrontation. This pluralized form of international engagement enables domestic elites to resist external pressures, producing hybrid peace orders that incorporate some liberal elements yet remain largely at the status quo—and often illiberal.

Rich with archival and interview evidence, A Post-Liberal Peace sheds light on alternative forms of peacebuilding and their on-the-ground effects in an increasingly multipolar world.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Onyekachi Ugwu, "The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Gospel of John" (Mohr Siebeck, 2026)

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The story of the woman caught in adultery in John’s Gospel has long stirred controversy. Given its checkered manuscript witness, many scholars don’t believe it belongs in John’s Gospel or even in the Scriptures at all, while others think it is Scripture but belongs in a different canonical setting, and still others, like our guest today, believe it is indeed authentically Johannine, foreshadowing Jesus’ own trial and his final victory over darkness.

Tune in as we speak with Onyekachi Ugwu about his recent monograph The Woman Caught in Adultery and the Gospel of John (Mohr Siebeck, 2026).

Onyekachi Ugwu earned his PhD at the Catholic University of Paris in 2024, and is a lecturer in New Testament studies.

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Luca Anceschi, "Pandemic Politics in Central Asia: Authoritarian Contagion" (Routledge, 2026)

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Pandemic Politics in Central Asia: Authoritarian Contagion (Routledge, 2026) examines how the authoritarian regimes of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan exploited the Covid-19 pandemic to consolidate their political control over Central Asia. Through restrictive policies and strategic manipulation, these governments reshaped the region's politics and societies during 2020-2022.

This volume offers readers an insight into three key areas where Central Asia's pandemic power grab was most visible: mobility control, whereby restrictive legislation limited freedom of movement and suppressed dissent; authoritarian information flows, whereby COVID-19-related measures aligned media and digital information to government messaging, further curtailing freedom of expression; and the international politics of the pandemic, whereby the regimes capitalised on global instability to strengthen their kleptocratic hold over Central Asia's politics and society. This book provides a detailed analysis of these strategies, offering a compelling exploration of how crises can be used to entrench authoritarianism.

It is ideal for scholars, students, and professionals in political science, international relations, and Central Asian Studies. The book is also valuable to readers interested in understanding the intersection between public health crises and authoritarian governance.

The Open Access version of this book, available here has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Adam Quinn is a Glasgow-based researcher whose work focuses on activism, social movements and state-society relations in the Post-Soviet space.

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Meryl Branch-McTiernan, "What You Should Worry About" (Akashic Books, 2026)

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Tune in to this interview with Meryl Branch-McTiernan about her new book What You Should Worry About (Akashic Books, 2026).

It's January of 2020 and thirty-seven-year-old Layla Moody is trying to worm her way into a party at the Sundance Film Festival. When she’s not picking up other people’s abandoned drinks or skinny-dipping in the hot tub, she’s trying to gain access to someone who can jump-start her stymied career as a Hollywood television writer. After a run-in with one of her creative heroines, she lands an opportunity to get her show produced. The only catch is, she has to return to New York, which she’s been avoiding since her father’s death.

But soon all is thwarted when COVID-19 shuts down the entertainment industry and any opportunity to propel her life forward. While quarantining alone in her parents’ apartment in Queens, Layla wrestles with the ghost of an ex-boyfriend who disappeared unexpectedly, the grief of processing the loss of her father, and the notion that she just might be the one responsible for her current state of solitude.

Finally, in spite of warnings and stay-at-home orders, Layla throws caution to the wind and joins a share house on Fire Island where she spent summers in her twenties. By returning to the house and its eclectic denizens, she is reintroduced to the comfort and annoying tendencies of other people, and begins to grasp how to find family on her own terms.

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Thomas Richardson, "Soldiers and Bushmen: The Australian Army in South Africa, 1899–1902" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Soldiers and Bushmen: The Australian Army in South Africa, 1899–1902 (Cambridge UP, 2025) by Dr. Thomas Richardson examines the commitment to what was expected to be a short war. It presents a thematic, analytical history of the birth of the Australian Army in South Africa, while exploring the Army's evolution from colonial units into a consolidated federal force. Soldiers and Bushmen investigates the establishment of the 'bushmen experiment' – the belief that the unique qualities of rural Australians would solve tactical problems on the veldt. This, in turn, influenced ideals around leadership, loyalty and traditional combat that fed the mythology of the Australians as natural soldiers. The book also examines the conduct of the war itself: how the Army adapted to the challenges of a battlefield transformed by technology, and the moral questions posed by the transition to fighting a counterinsurgency campaign.

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Eric O Silva, "Contested Realities and Identity Destigmatization: Identity Construction in the Culture Wars" (De Gruyter, 2026)

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Much scholarship has sought to decode the polarization of American culture. Eric O Silva's analysis of the public discourse on contested realities (immigration, vaccines, electric vehicles, transgender youth medicine, campus protests of Israel, the regulation of AR-15s, and race and police brutality) reveals that Americans are not governed by coherent, diametrically opposed worldviews. U.S. culture is more fractured than dominant narratives of a polarized society would suggest. Moreover, these cultural disputes result in the generation of materials for constructing identities. Disagreement over how to define reality inevitably leads to a contest over the authority and moral worthiness of the individuals involved in the dispute. Contested Realities and Identity Destigmatization: Identity Construction in the Culture Wars analyzes how participants in public discourse stigmatize but also destigmatize their adversaries. This study not only demonstrates that there are people who are seeking to "turn down the temperature" in public discourse but the generic processes by which they do so.

Michael O. Johnston is Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. His research explores symbolic interaction, leisure, meaning, place, community, and sociology of everyday life. He is the author of the forthcoming book Smalltown Urban: Performing the City in Rural America (Bloomsbury, 2027), The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla, and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest. His forthcoming book examines how small towns create moments of urbanity through festivals, public gatherings, and everyday social life. Since joining the New Books Network in 2017, he has interviewed more than 100 authors across sociology and the social sciences, helping connect scholars and their work with a broad public audience.

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Paulina Banas, "Visualizing Egypt: European Travel, Book Publishing, and the Commercialization of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Following Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 campaign in Egypt, new possibilities of travel and improvements in printing technology saw an emergence of publishing ventures in France and Britain dedicated to the production of albums and travel accounts featuring images of Muslim Egypt and Islamic architecture and catering to a growing European fascination with the East. In her debut book, Visualizing Egypt: European Travel, Book Publishing, and the Commercialization of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century (American University in Cairo Press, 2025) Paulina Banas analyzes the context and process of production of these highly illustrated publications, from their conceptualization to the finished product and its afterlife, from marketing to the sales of these books, and from circulation to their reception by nineteenth-century audiences. By tracing the long, arduous, and often risky publishing journeys of the makers of these books, including publishers, writers, and artists, such as the Frenchman Émile Prisse d’Avennes, Banas reveals a complex terrain of changing market demands, collaborations, and conflicting views, and the unsettled authorship of these works, prompting us to think more profoundly about artistic and intellectual exchange in the world of nineteenth-century Orientalist book production. Visualizing Egypt considers nineteenth-century book illustrations on Egypt and the “Orient” not merely as expressions of enduring ideology and colonial propaganda, but as representations shaped by the often-overlooked commercial exigencies of the growing publishing industry and the reckless competition within it.

Paulina Banas is an Assistant Professor of Art History at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she teaches course on Islamic world arts, 19th century European visual culture, and cross-cultural encounters between Europe and the Middle East.

Saman Nasser holds an M.A. in history from James Madison University, where he currently works as an educational staff.

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Posen Library: Jewish Studies Teaching Modules

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Bring the breadth of Jewish history and civilization into your classroom with ready-to-use teaching modules curated by experts.

The Posen Library is an educational resource grounded in primary sources and made broadly accessible through the creation and curation of engaging contextual material. Its goal is to highlight the varieties of Jewish culture and civilization across time and space for English-speaking audiences and to be the first stop for those, in university settings and beyond, who are interested in teaching about the significant breadth of Jewish experiences.

Originally conceived as a 10-volume print anthology, the Posen Library’s free digital platform makes the published content globally accessible. Content from print volumes is added to the site as the volumes are published by Yale University Press. Nine out of the ten volumes have been published to date.

The Jewish Studies Curriculum Initiative comprises teaching modules centered around core teaching topics. Each module consists of an overview and curricular material that can be used in four class meetings, focusing on 20–25 primary sources (texts, images, and other media) with interpretive content and supplementary resources for both students and instructors. Posen Library curricula offer flexibility and are designed to be easily integrated into coursework in a variety of ways—perfect for launching a new class or refreshing a syllabus to include new perspectives and voices.

Sarah Bunin Benor is Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Linguistics at Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles.

Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah is assistant professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the Senior Scholar for Pedagogy at the Posen Library.

Geraldine Gudefin is a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore.

Mentioned in this episode:

Posen Library Teaching modules: here
Jewish Studies Curriculum Initiative Fellowship: here
Sarah Bunin Benor’s “Jewish Culture around the world” Module: here
Lila Corwin Berman’s “Who Is American? Citizenship, Law, and Jewish History in the United States” Module: here
Geraldine Gudefin’s “Jewish Emancipation, Citizenship, and Belonging” Module: here
Geoffrey Levin’s “Jews of the Middle East and North Africa: Empire, Colonialism, and Identity” Module: here
Karen E. H. Skinazi’s “Sephardic Journeys: Literature, Memory, and Jewish Culture” Module: here
Jewish Language Project: here
Jewish Cultures on the Map: here
Jewish English Lexicon: here

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Adam Barsouk, "Outsmarting Cancer: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention" (JHU Press, 2026)

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Outsmarting Cancer: Risk Reduction and the Power of Prevention (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026) reframes one of the most pressing medical challenges of our time: how to prevent cancer.

In this timely and accessible book, physician and medical researcher Adam Barsouk, MD, presents a sweeping examination of cancer's true origins-biological, environmental, dietary, infectious, industrial, occupational, and behavioral-and makes a compelling case for why cancer prevention must become a central priority in public and personal health.

With personal stories from his clinical practice and the latest research, Dr. Barsouk explains why more people are getting diagnosed with cancer-and at younger ages-than ever before.

This book explores a wide range of overlooked and misunderstood risk factors, as well as how inequities in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention disproportionately impact underserved populations.

Unlike typical cancer books that focus narrowly on diet or organ-specific disease, Outsmarting Cancer takes a comprehensive, systems-level view, urging readers to look beyond the symptoms and target the root causes.

Dr. Barsouk explores the role of genetic predisposition to cancer alongside environmental, lifestyle, and public policy influences that may contribute to developing the disease.

With rigorous scientific insight, he offers real-world, evidence-based strategies to reduce cancer risk in practical, meaningful ways.

Honest, urgent, and empowering, Outsmarting Cancer challenges readers to rethink how we talk about cancer and how we can reduce its burden before it begins.

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Katie Barclay, "The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power" (Reaktion Books, 2025)

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Katie Barclay tells the surprising history of our most intimate gesture: the kiss. Richly illustrated, it explores a millennium of kisses, asking how and why the kiss has retained its power over the centuries, and what it might mean today. From the furtive kisses of fated lovers Heloise and Abelard to The Godfather’s ‘kiss of death’, Professor Barclay shows how the kiss can be romantic, peaceful, transgressive, intimate, erotic and more. There are kisses that are bad ideas, dangerous kisses and funny ones. New kisses are invented and old ones fall out of favour. 

While the kiss continues to change, Professor Barclay shows that we kiss fewer people, and less often, than we used to. The Kiss reveals a cultural inheritance transmitted in story and song, art and literature, and through the everyday kisses that we receive from our parents, or reserve for our lovers; when we kiss, we kiss with the weight of history.

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Abdelwahab Meddeb, "Returns to Marrakesh / Retour à Marrakech" (Syracuse UP, 2026)

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Abdelwahab Meddeb’s Returns to Marrakesh, co-translated by Claudia Esposito and Laura Reeck and published by Syracuse University Press in 2026, chronicles Meddeb’s successive visits to the Red City from 1968 through the 1990s, tracing both his personal journey and Marrakesh’s transformation across three pivotal decades. Through his distinctive blend of poetic prose and attentive observation, Meddeb portrays the city as a historical crossroads shaped by Jewish and Muslim communities, different social classes, Sufi mystics, merchants, and travelers—a richly layered urban space in which cultures, histories, and spiritual traditions continually intersect. Presented in a bilingual edition featuring the original French alongside the English translation, the book introduces a wider readership to the work of one of North Africa’s most significant literary and intellectual voices.

In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy sat down with Esposito and Reeck to discuss Meddeb’s distinctive literary and intellectual presence, his movement across languages, cultures, and spiritual traditions, and his intimate portrayal of Marrakesh. They also explore the collaborative process of translating his multilingual, layered prose and consider how translation can extend—and even renew—a writer’s literary afterlife.

Claudia Esposito is associate professor of French at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She is author of The Narrative Mediterranean: Beyond France and the Maghreb.
Laura Reeck is an independent translator and scholar. She is the author of Writerly Identities in Beur Fiction and Beyond and coeditor of Post-Migratory Cultures in Postcolonial France.

Ibrahim Fawzy is an Egyptian literary translator and writer. He is the translator of Hassan Akram’s A Plan to Save the World (Sandorf Passage, 2026).

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Magdalena E. Stawkowski, "Atomic Collective: Radioactive Life in Kazakhstan" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse, Kazakhstan inherited the remnants of one of the world's most contaminated landscapes: the Semipalatinsk Test Site, known locally as the Polygon. Resigned to dispossession, residents have chosen to remain on the abandoned nuclear test site, despite the isolation and the radioactive environment, rather than face marginalization or the rigors of a neoliberal world. Atomic Collective: Radioactive Life in Kazakhstan (University of Toronto Press, 2025) examines this nuclear legacy through a decade-long ethnographic examination of the village of Koian, situated on the border of the test site. Facing residual radiation all around them and isolation, Koianers persist, reshaping their pastoral existence among the ruins and scientific debates surrounding genetic damage.

Drawing on first-hand accounts and archival research, this book explores the resilience and everyday survival strategies of a community left behind to fend for itself in the shadow of nuclear testing. It offers a unique perspective on life in a nuclear zone and poses fundamental questions about human resilience and the impact of historical events on a collective identity. Atomic Collective sheds light on a community overlooked in the larger Cold War histories of atomic testing.

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Virginia McGee Richards, "The Inner Passage: An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway" (MIT Press, 2026)

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Some of the earliest canals in colonial America, referred to as the Inner Passage, were constructed by enslaved people living in the Lowcountry of South Carolina in the early 1700s. In a paradox of history, for over a hundred years enslaved Black people used these canals, constructed for white plantation owners, to travel southward to freedom in Spanish Florida.

In The Inner Passage: An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway (MIT Press, 2026), Virginia McGee Richards documents the lost narrative of the Inner Passage through 60 extraordinary photographs of landscapes altered by slavery and portraits of Lowcountry descendants, along with an essay describing her discovery of this untold history. In an accompanying essay, Imani Perry writes about her own journey on the Inner Passage, putting Black resistance to enslavement and Southern history into an immediate context. James Estrin brings decades of insight about photography and the power of visual storytelling to his affecting foreword. Together, these words and images offer a powerful living map of history.

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City on Fire: A Novel of Hong Kong with Simon Elegant

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

John chats with writer and journalist Simon Elegant about his third novel, a crime thriller set during the Hong Kong protests of 2019. City on Fire is published by Pegasus Crime, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The novel follows Inspector Killian Tong’s investigation of a brutal murder against a backdrop of political chaos, police tensions, and also personal conflict – Killian’s half-sister is a radical protester. John and Simon also discuss the background to the 2019 protests, including the National Security Law and the earlier 2014 Umbrella Movement.

Among the books mentioned were:

Manchu (1980) by Robert Elegant (a swashbuckling novel by Simon’s father).
Gorky Park (1981) by Martin Cruz Smith
Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy (2023) by Shibani Mahtani & Timothy McLaughlin
Simon’s book recommendations
The Immobile Empire (French 1989, English 1992) by Alain Peyrefitte. This is on the 1973 Macartney mission to Peking.
Apple in China (2025) by Patrick McGee, which explores Apple’s deep entanglement with China’s manufacturing system.
Ginkgo Season (2025) by Naomi Xu Elegant, a coming-of-age novel set in Philadelphia.

To learn more about Simon Elegant and his novel, visit the publisher’s website here

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press . Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. podcast service.

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Vaneesa Cook, "Empire and Liberty: The Tied Histories of Two American Landmarks" (Beacon Press, 2026)

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Empire and Liberty: The Tied Histories of Two American Landmarks (Beacon Press, 2026), historian Dr. Vaneesa Cook examines the history of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty in order to consider, more broadly, the United States' relationship with liberty and empire. Empire and liberty have been part of the American story since the founding, but they are often at odds, sometimes irreconcilably so. Cook examines their changing relationship and meaning using these two iconic buildings as anchors. She also examines the symbolism and importance of the landmarks themselves. She considers how individuals and groups who have had more limited access to liberty have tried to shape the meaning of the symbols and their own rights at the same time. In telling this sweeping history, Cook touches in themes of American identity and ideals.

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Nabi Sahak, "Anglo-Afghan Power and Politics, 1893–1947: The Durand Line Unmasked" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of New Books Network, I speak with Nabi Sahak about his book, Anglo-Afghan Power and Politics, 1893–1947: The Durand Line Unmasked (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).

Anglo-Afghan Power and Politics revisits one of the most contested borders in the modern world. The roughly 2,640-kilometre line drawn in 1893 by Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, which today divides Pashtun communities between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sahak's central argument is that the historical purpose of the Durand Line has never been settled: was it a temporary sphere-of-influence arrangement, a frontier meant to manage dissent, or a genuine international border? The book contends that answering this question by using long-neglected Afghan-language sources alongside the familiar British colonial record. Anchored chronologically in the period from Abdur Rahman Khan's rise to Afghan independence in 1919, with earlier and later chapters extending the frame back to 1761 and forward to 1947, the book draws on original correspondence between the Afghan Amir and British viceroys, the writings of Afghan historians such as Ghubar, Kakar, and Habibi, the accounts of colonial officials like Holdich and Caroe, and a set of original interviews with contemporary Afghan and Pakistani scholars and politicians. What distinguishes the book is its explicit reframing of the dispute as a matter of missing perspective. Sahak argues that decades of scholarship on the Durand Line have been built almost entirely on British and Pakistani positions, leaving the Afghan and Pashtun view including the lived experience of communities split by the line is largely absent from the international debate. Writing partly from personal history as someone who grew up in Kabul during the Soviet occupation and civil war, Sahak situates the technical and diplomatic history of the boundary within its human cost. The author treats the line not only as a nineteenth-century colonial artefact but as an unresolved question still shaping Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, Pashtun identity, and regional security today.

Qaseem Ahmadzai holds a master's degree in intellectual history from Södertörn University, Sweden. His research focuses on postcolonial theory, historiography, and non-Western intellectual traditions, with particular attention to Afghanistan and the broader Pashto-Persephone worlds.

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Murat C. Yildiz, "The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul" (U Texas Press, 2026)

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The history of sports in Turkey is deeply contested. Over the decades, journalists, pundits, non-professional historians, sports scholars, and everyday people have offered competing narratives about the origins of modern sports in the late Ottoman Empire. In The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul (University of Texas Press, 2026), Murat Cihan Yıldız tells the story of how Istanbul’s Muslims, Christians, and Jews—gymnastics teachers, football coaches, weightlifters, journalists, athletes, and fans—created a gendered and class-stratified civic project that promoted athletics as a source of fun, beauty, and moral education. Influenced by the emerging global vogue for organized sports, all boys from the expanding middle class of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century imperial capital were expected to exercise and compete on the playing field in order to develop into moral men. Yet even as the embrace of modern athletics transcended ethnoreligious divisions, it did not erase them. Drawing on a wide range of archival research in multiple languages, Yıldız shows that sportsmen created new communal boundaries in team affiliations, fandom, and sports media. Adeptly reconstructing Istanbul’s imperial culture as it was experienced more than a century ago, The Ottoman World of Sports recovers a lived imperial culture whose defining features were shaped by its multiethnic, multireligious, and multilingual sportsmen.

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Anthony J. Barbieri-Low, "Parallel Journeys: Eurasian History Through Travelers’ Eyes (400 BCE–1936 CE)" (Cambria, 2025)

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Parallel Journeys: Eurasian History through Travelers’ Eyes (Cambria Press, 2026) is a comparative history of Eurasia told through travel writing and cross-cultural encounters. In this anthology, Anthony Barbieri pairs accounts from twenty-eight travelers across different historical periods, placing side-by-side travelers looking or going East with those looking or going West. Spanning from 400 BCE through to 1936, the anthology brings together ambassadors, monks, missionaries, merchants, and journalists in order to explore how people understood the cultures, societies, and worlds that they encountered through travel.

Structured around these “parallel journeys,” the book highlights both similarities and differences in the ways travelers described foreign places and peoples. Some travelers used these encounters to criticize the societies they entered, while others turned outward observation into reflection on their own cultures. Across the anthology, travel writing emerges not simply as a way of describing a journey, but as a way of forging ideas about cultural difference, identity, religion, commerce, and political power.

This anthology will appeal to readers interested in Eurasian history, travel writing, world literature, and cross-cultural exchange. It is also a flexible and engaging anthology perfect for classroom teaching, complete with both long and short versions of each account, helpful visuals, and contextual information — an excellent way to get students thinking about what it means to do comparison effectively.

For another overview of the anthology, readers should check out Barbieri’s lecture “Beyond the Mountains and Seas,” available on YouTube here.

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Mikhail Pelevin, "Love, Honour and God: Pashto Writings of Early Modern Times" (Brill, 2025)

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of New Books Network, I speak with Mikhail Pelevin about his book Love, Honour and God: Pashto Writings of Early Modern Times (Iran and the Caucasus Monographs, vol. 5, Brill, 2025).

Love, Honour and God is a survey of three centuries of Pashto literary and educational writing, from roughly 1530 to 1830, the period Pelevin identifies as classical in the history of Pashto letters. Moving from the earliest, now-lost administrative "Daftar" of Shaykh Mali through the sectarian mystical poetry of Bayazid Ansari's Roshani movement, the Sunni traditionalist manuals of Akhund Darweza, and the towering figures of Khushhal Khan Khatak and ʿAbd al-Rahman Momand (Rahman Baba). This book reconstructs a written tradition that has been persistently marginal to both regional and Western scholarship. Pelevin frames this history through what he calls the dissolution of the Persophonie and the slow emergence of Pashto as a written language in the shadow of, and eventually alongside with the dominant Persian literary cosmopolis. Rather than reading this as a proto-nationalist story imposed retroactively, he traces a much older and more specific discourse of Pashtun self-identity — descent, language, custom, and religion, articulated by the authors themselves, long before any colonial or nationalist framework existed to name it.

What makes the book distinctive is its insistence on working from the Pashto texts as primary sources in their own right, rather than as illustrations for arguments made in Persian chronicles, in colonial-era administrative writing, or in the historiography of "Pashtun tribal society" that has tended to treat literary production as peripheral to political and military history. Pelevin is explicit about this reversal: he wants to shift attention from the political to the poetical.

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Kyle H. Keimer and George A. Pierce eds., "The Ancient Israelite World" (Routledge, 2024)

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Ancient Israelite World (Routledge, 2024) presents a collection of studies by international experts on various aspects of ancient Israel’s society, economy, religion, language, culture, and history, synthesizing archaeological remains and integrating them with discussions of ancient Near Eastern and biblical texts. Driven by theoretically and methodologically informed discussions of the archaeology of the Iron Age Levant, the 47 chapters in The Ancient Israelite World provide foundational, accessible, and detailed studies in their respective topics. The volume considers the history of interpretation of ancient Israel, studies on various aspects of ancient Israel’s society and history, and avenues for present and future approaches to the ancient Israelite world. Accompanied by over 150 maps and figures, it allows the reader to gain an understanding of key issues that archaeologists, historians and biblical scholars have faced and are currently facing as they attempt to better understand ancient Israelite society. The Ancient Israelite World is an essential reference work for students and scholars of ancient Israel and its history, culture, and society, whether they are historians, archaeologists or biblical scholars. Chapter 42 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Dr. Nathaniel E. Greene is a distinguished international scholar closely associated with the European Hebrew Journal (EHJ), an international double-blind peer-reviewed academic journal.

Dr. Greene serves as a member of the Editorial Board of the European Hebrew Journal. In addition to contributing to the supervision of the scholarly quality of submitted articles, the Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature in Belgrade, the journal’s publisher, has released an official academic interview with him as part of its series of scholarly conversations.

His publication and interview, entitled “Scribes, Scripts, and State Formation in Ancient Israel,” were produced in collaboration with Željko Stanojević, the journal’s Managing Editor.

About Dr. Nathaniel E. Greene

Dr. Greene is a lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Old Testament at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, United Kingdom. He received his PhD from the prestigious University of Wisconsin–Madison in the United States.

His principal areas of scholarly expertise and the fields he represents within the journal include:

Biblical Hebrew and Philology: The study of the historical development and linguistic structure of ancient Hebrew.
Northwest Semitic Languages and Epigraphy: The analysis of ancient inscriptions on stone, clay, and other materials from the Levant.
Palaeography: The historical development of ancient scripts and manuscript traditions.
The Formation of the Ancient Israelite State: Anthropological and sociological approaches to the emergence of institutions during the Iron Age, with particular attention to the role of scribes in the formation of biblical texts, including the Deuteronomistic History.
In his research, Dr. Greene also employs modern digital technologies, including advanced Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), to analyse damaged ancient inscriptions and reconstruct patterns of literacy in the Iron Age Near East.

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The YIVO Library in New York: Personal Reflections on Its History and Collections

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the mid-1930s a group of New York Yiddishist intellectuals established the Central Jewish Library and Press Archive, whose collections became the nucleus of the YIVO Library when the Institute relocated from Vilna to New York in 1940. Over the succeeding decades, the Library grew by leaps and bounds, thanks to the dedication of its librarians and supporters. It emerged as a “collection of collections,” absorbing the extensive personal libraries of prominent Yiddish writers, scholars, and book collectors. Crucially, after 1945 the Library also recovered large portions of the Vilna YIVO’s prewar holdings along with thousands of rabbinic works from Vilna’s Strashun Library. Throughout its history, the YIVO Library has been a beehive of scholarship and bibliography, which has been fostered by such outstanding figures as Mendl Elkin and Dina Abramowicz.

In this presentation, Zachary M. Baker will offer some personal reflections on the legacy that the YIVO Library’s founders and builders have left behind.

View the bibliography for this talk: here

This lecture originally took place on February 19, 2025.

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Isabel Heger-Laube, "China’s Landless Peasants and the Role of State-led Rural Urbanization: Narratives, Meaning Making, and the Puzzle of Social Stability" (Würzberg UP, 2025)

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

As part and parcel of China’s compressed modernization, processes of state-led rural urbanization through land expropriation and rural-to-urban relocation have been transforming rural Chinese people’s lives in unprecedented ways. This has led to different, often adverse outcomes for the affected populations – China’s “landless peasants” - as well as to the construction of divergent narratives about the role of the Chinese state’s measures for them. To provide a so-far missing perspective to existing research, Isabel Heger-Laube reconstructs the role of the experienced changes from landless peasants’ own narratives, drawing on the “big” and “small” stories collected through fieldwork in Huaming model town in Tianjin’s Dongli district. By focusing on ordinary people’s subjective processes of meaning making, this book not only puts into perspective objective assessments and persistent narrative tendencies, but also sheds new light on the puzzle of social stability in the wake of large-scale, state-led transformations in contemporary China.

China’s Landless Peasants and the Role of State-led Rural Urbanization: Narratives, Meaning Making, and the Puzzle of Social Stability was published open access with Würzburg University Press in 2025. Free e-book version.

Dr. Isabel Heger-Laube (isabelheger@gmail.com) is a sinologist and social scientist with an interdisciplinary footing in social anthropology, sociology, and psychology. She earned her PhD in Chinese Studies from Freie Universität Berlin in 2024 and currently works as a scientific associate at the School of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). Alongside her work, she is pursuing a degree in psychosocial counseling. Her research interests include urbanization and social change, higher and adult education, aging and care, as well as narrative meaning making and identity formation. ORCiD.

Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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Devin Kennedy, "Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Long before Google, Amazon, or Microsoft, computer technology shaped how people worked, how markets operated, and how businesses became big. After World War II, military officials and their partners in industry looked to the newly invented electronic computer as they sought to cut costs, speed up labor, manage supply chains, and—they hoped—bring stability to the postwar economy. Their efforts would shape early computer science and the first applications of computer technology in manufacturing and business, with profound consequences for workers and managers alike. By the 1960s, practices originally developed to improve industrial efficiency were being used by Wall Street, influencing how markets worked and even how traders thought. Digital technology became central to finance, tying together far-flung trading floors and automating decision making—with alarming consequences, including the 1987 Black Monday crash.

In Coding Capitalism: Computers and the Remaking of the Postwar US Economy (Columbia University Press, 2026), Dr. Devin Kennedy offers a new history of the digital economy, showing how the computer emerged from—and transformed—capitalism in the United States. He traces how computer science and technology were made by industry, which molded computation to manage factories, financial markets, and entire firms. Drawing on the archives of businesses, computer researchers, regulators, and financial institutions, Coding Capitalism retells the story of the postwar economy and the computer, revealing how mid-century business laid the foundations of the digital world. Bridging business and economic history with the history of science and technology, this book uncovers the prehistory of big tech and demonstrates how capitalism has shaped computing since its invention.

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The Resurgence of War and the Collapse of Arms Control

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 01:44:00 -0000

How the nuclear guardrails were dismantled. What arms control actually did (risk management, predictability, geography), how it unravelled from the 2000s onward, and why its collapse matters more now as we see a resurgence of strategic instability and armed conflict.

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Joe Ngai and Nick Leung, "The Next China Is Still China: An Insider's Playbook for Winning in the New Era" (Scribner, 2026)

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What’s going on in the Chinese economy? China reported GDP growth of just 4.3% last quarter. Consumption is sluggish, exports are booming, electronics manufacturers and chipmakers are reporting huge profits as car sales slump.

Joe Ngai and Nick Leung dive into the Chinese economy in their latest book The Next China Is Still China: An Insider's Playbook for Winning in the New Era (Scribner, 2026), which came out earlier this year. The book is motivated by a question many executives asked amid new U.S. tariffs and COVID-driven supply shocks: Is there another economy that can replace China’s massive consumer market and deep manufacturing base? The answer: No.

Joe Ngai is a McKinsey senior partner and chairman of the firm’s offices in Greater China. Frequently seen on media such as CNBC and Bloomberg, he has been named one of Forbes China’s 100 Most Influential Chinese Leaders, and he has also appeared on Bloomberg Businessweek China’s “Person of the Year 2025” list.

Nick Leung is a McKinsey senior partner and member of McKinsey’s global board of directors. He is also a lead-director of the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm’s independent research arm, where he directs research on macroeconomics, global trade, and geopolitics.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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The Letters of Emily Dickinson

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Emily Dickinson was a letter writer before she was a poet. And it was through letters that she shared prose reflections–alternately humorous, provocative, affectionate, and philosophical–with her extensive community. While her letters often contain poems, and some letters consist entirely of a single poem, they also constitute a rich genre all their own. Through her correspondence, Dickinson appears in her many facets as a reader, writer, and thinker; social commentator and comedian; friend, neighbor, sister, and daughter.

The Letters of Emily Dickinson (Belknap Press, 2024) is the first collected edition of the poet’s correspondence since 1958. It presents all 1,304 of her extant letters, along with the small number available from her correspondents. Almost 300 are previously uncollected, including letters published after 1958, letters more recently discovered in manuscript, and more than 200 “letter-poems” that Dickinson sent to correspondents without accompanying prose. This edition also redates much of her correspondence, relying on records of Amherst weather patterns, historical events, and details about flora and fauna to locate the letters more precisely in time. Finally, updated annotations place Dickinson’s writing more firmly in relation to national and international events, as well as the rhythms of daily life in her hometown. What emerges is not the reclusive Dickinson of legend but a poet firmly embedded in the political and literary currents of her time.

Dickinson’s letters shed light on the soaring and capacious mind of a great American poet and her vast world of relationships. This edition presents her correspondence anew, in all its complexity and brilliance.

Guest: Dr. Cristanne Miller is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Edward H. Butler Professor of Literature, and serves on the advisory board of the Emily Dickinson Archive. Her scholarship on Dickinson includes Emily Dickinson: A Poet's Grammar; Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them; and The Letters of Emily Dickinson, which she co-edited with Domhnall Mitchell.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the creator, producer and host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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Elijah Wald, "Rock ‘N’ Roll: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Rock 'n' roll appeared in the 1950s as the high-energy, electrically amplified music of young dancers and listeners, first in the United States and then around the globe, and from the beginning it symbolized more than music. First popularized as a marketing rubric to sell African-American rhythm and blues to white teenagers, it stood for racial integration, sexual freedom, youthful rebellion, and for change and modernity. It was never a single kind of music, and historians disagree about when it began and which artists or records should be included in its canon--but it was always a flashpoint, whether condemned as an assault on cultural standards or hailed as the most exciting movement of the twentieth century.

Rock ‘N’ Roll: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2026) explores the complex musical styles and evolutions of the genre and also examines it as product, symbol, and vehicle of societal change. The introduction seamlessly integrates the genre with elements of 1955-1965's mass influence including the rise of television and niche radio formats, the civil rights movement, a new concept of "teenagers" as a unique age group, and a sexual revolution. Rock 'n' Roll traces the rise and trajectories of the styles and musicians grouped as rock 'n' roll and their journey to becoming emblems of much more

Elijah Wald is a Grammy winning writer, musician, and historian. His books include Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues; How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music; Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories; The Mayor of MacDougal Street (source for the movie Inside Llewyn Davis); and Dylan Goes Electric! (source for the movie A Complete Unknown). He has taught at various universities and holds a PhD in ethnomusicology and sociolinguistics.

Elijah Wald’s website.

Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America (Backbeat Books, 2021), Frank Zappa's America (LSU Press, 2025), and U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, 2025). He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and is the director of its music film festival.

Bradley on Facebook and Bluesky.

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Re-Evaluating CX in the AI Era

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Michael Brand is a CX strategist and trainer, based in Switzerland, who has been named a Thinkers 360 Top 50 Global Thought Leader on Customer Loyalty. Dr. Vincent Covello directs the Center for Risk Communications, and is a nationally and internationally recognized trainer, researcher, consultant, and expert in emergency, crisis, risk, and change communications. Deanna Leonard is a futurist, executive coach, and AI transformation leader. Her career has spanned senior leadership posts across a wide range of Fortune 500 companies.

In this freewheeling, one-hour roundtable discussion, the focus is on the Customer Experience through the lens of both the opportunities and misuses that AI involves. The topics addressed include the following: 1) the importance of active listening, 2) the 20 words that can make or break an exchange with a customer, 3) how front-line CX employees can be enabled to do their jobs better, and 4) the need for training budgets to be protected, if not increased. In emotional terms, two feelings rise to prominence in this session: fear (of not being heard and responded to) and trust (rooted in the demonstration of caring before knowledge gets shared or an action-step taken). The answers as to who people trust, and why, when experiencing stress will be sure to surprise you.

Real Transformations: Business Change That Works from the Inside Out is co-hosted by Julie Anixter and Dan Hill, PhD, entrepreneurs with deep experience as corporate change agents, devoted to helping companies make continuous change work for everyone through clarity and connection. To learn about their keynote talks, workshops and labs, check out Real-Transformation.com.

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Marios Koutsoukos, "Restoring the Ancient Religion: The Theurgic Orthopraxy of Iamblichus" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026)

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Restoring the Ancient Religion: The Theurgic Orthopraxy of Iamblichus (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026) reconsiders Iamblichus’ Response to Porphyry, Late Antiquity’s seminal work on theurgy, which is often referred to as De Mysteriis. Was this text intended to be more than just a defense of ritualism or a philosophical crossing of metaphysical wits between Porphyry and Iamblichus? This volume examines whether De Mysteriis constituted a manifesto of restoration, a call to resignify and revive a religion that Iamblichus felt was spiraling into barren traditionalism.
Through a nuanced examination of Iamblichus’ theurgy, this book shows the emergence of a sophisticated philosophic-ritualistic system, one designed to reform religious practice through divine epiphanies and direct communication with the gods. Using a thorough textual analysis, this book uncovers crucial distinctions between theurgy and magic and explores the mechanics of divine illumination during theurgic rituals in the context of Iamblichus' intricate hierarchy of spiritual beings. In this system, this book demonstrates, material objects could become vessels of divine power and humans could become interlocutors with the divine itself.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Marios Koutsoukos received his PhD in Classics from the University of Liverpool, UK. His current research focuses on Late Antique theurgy, hermeticism, Graeco-Egyptian magic, animated statues and the survival of mystery cults beyond the sixth century. He also works as a fiction author, translator and screenwriter.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Kathleen W. Taylor Kollman, "The Fictional Female Presidency in Film, Television, and Literature: Representations from 1932 to 2024" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026)

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Kathleen W. Taylor Kollman has a new book out that focuses on the reality of women running for president in the United States, and the fictional representations of this idea that we have seen over the past hundred years. The Fictional Female Presidency in Film, Television, and Literature: Representations from 1932 to 2024 (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026) takes up a number of different and intriguing examples of this idea, a woman serving as president, and unpacks the various narratives to help us understand what popular culture may be communicating about this concept and what those narratives may be teaching the audience (viewers or readers). Taylor Kollman comes at her research from a variety of perspectives, including Media Studies, Women’s Studies, Feminist Studies, and American Studies. This makes the research particularly rich – since it explores these ideas from a host of analytical viewpoints, helping the reader to consider different genres (television, film, literature) and different approaches. Undergirding all of this is an interrogation of the idea of women and power, which is a controversial concept for many voters, even if it remains unacknowledged.

Taylor Kollman goes through the decades, with a focus on examples of female presidents in a variety of different cultural artifacts. In tracing this concept through almost a hundred years of different narratives, the research highlights some interesting themes, including the accidental way in which women become president within the fictional framework. One of the points Taylor Kollman makes is that, in all the different genres and contexts, there seems to be something wrong with this idea of a woman as president. Often the characters are presented as deceptive, evil, corrupt, illegitimate, or they are seen as incapable of doing the job and are often torn between work and homelife/family life. In tracing these examples, Taylor Kollman also provides the reader with an understanding of the different iterations (waves) of feminism and feminist thought, as well as noting the various backlashes to feminism. The Fictional Female Presidency in Film, Television, and Literature takes the reader through a host of different examples, fleshing out these feminist and backlash imaginary spaces that focus on women and power.

Another part of the equation, that is often overlooked in the research on this topic, is that there are fewer female film and television producers, directors, and showrunners, thus often constraining the opportunity to present these ideas of woman and power. This also influences the narratives that come before audiences, since women are not generally “trusted” in the same way that men are to helm major film releases with multi-million dollar budgets. This is another form of reality influencing the imaginary, but in a less expected way. The Fictional Female Presidency in Film, Television, and Literature: Representations from 1932 to 2024 takes the reader from Betty Boop for President to Allison Janney as President Grace Penn in The Diplomat and many other fascinating examples of fictional portrayals of women as president of the United States.

Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume I: The Infinity Saga (University Press of Kansas, 2022), and of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume II: Into the Multiverse (University Press of Kansas, 2025) as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social

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James L. Fitzgerald, "The Mahabharata, Volume 8" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Mahabharata, Volume 8 (U Chicago Press, 2026) is a translation of the twelfth book of The Mahābhārata, an epic tale of history and kingship, reinforced with legends, romances, and metaphysical, theological, and ethical teachings written in Sanskrit 1700 or more years ago. The Book of Peace is focused particularly on the ways people can escape the cycle of rebirth and realize sublime beatitude by way of saving knowledge or yoga meditation or devotion to God Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. Supported by an extensive introduction and notes, this publication will be greeted as a major event in Sanskrit studies.

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Robert Lee Maril, "Hungry Oklahoma: Confronting Poverty and Food Insecurity" (U Oklahoma Press, 2026)

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Oklahoma, one out of every six residents is poor. One in five children lives in poverty and faces food insecurity. In Hungry Oklahoma: Confronting Poverty and Food Insecurity (U Oklahoma Press, 2026), native son and sociologist Robert Lee Maril follows in the tradition of the national bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Evicted to illuminate the lived experience of poverty and food insecurity in communities across the state.

Maril's account is immediately personal. He begins with "guests," as shoppers are called by volunteers, waiting in line in the sweltering heat one summer for "Thy Will Be Done," a food pantry, to open. Unable to afford air conditioning, some guests don't buy foods that would spoil on the counter. One woman, Norma, carefully places only canned vegetables in her cart. When she returns to her twenty-year-old pickup, in the truck bed are lawn chairs, blankets, and pans-everything she owns. "The landlord told us this morning we was homeless," Norma says. "I'm not thinking straight."

Drawing on interviews and participant-observation data from his volunteer work at a food pantry, as well as census and sociological data, Maril documents in rich ethnographic detail the status of poverty and low-wage workers in the state today and within historical context. He explores how institutions-such as faith-based organizations, government, and food pantries-structure and shape experiences of poverty. While Maril celebrates the nonprofit and faith-based efforts that make a difference, this book also is critical of conditions and stereotypes that have entrenched poverty in the state.

Hungry Oklahoma ultimately suggests that persistent and pervasive poverty can be eliminated. Its moving accounts of real Oklahomans and their experiences make it a clarion call for not only those interested in policy issues but all Oklahomans who want a better today and tomorrow for those who call the state home.

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The Long Reach of the Strong Arm: Evolving Forms of Transnational Authoritarianism in Asia and Beyond

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

How do authoritarian regimes silence critics across borders? And what are the repressive tools and strategies that authoritarian regimes use transnationally? In this episode we are joined by Arild Engelsen Ruud, Mubashar Hasan and Karin Zackari to discuss the role of digital surveillance, emotional blackmail, enforced family isolation, psychological harassment, and the imprisonment of relatives on fabricated charges by Asian authoritarian regimes seeking to control populations and narratives across borders.

You can read more about the research discussed in this episode in the book The Long Reach of the Strong Arm: Evolving Forms of Transnational Authoritarianism, published by Springer.

Arild Engelsen Ruud is Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Oslo.

Mubashar Hasan is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Western Sydney University.

Karin Zackari Associate Senior Researcher at the School of Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen, your host, is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and the Director of the Centre for South Asian Democracy at the University of Oslo.

The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway).

We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.

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Jinwon Kim, "Koreatown, NYC: The Consumption of a Transnational Brand" (NYU Press, 2026)

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

How Manhattan's Koreatown functions as a new ethnic enclave

In the past decade, Korean entertainment has gained global recognition, with Korean movies and TV shows winning Oscars and Emmys, and K-Pop groups becoming wildly popular. In Manhattan, Koreatown has become a popular destination for both locals and tourists, drawing them in with its bars, restaurants, and day spas. In Koreatown, NYC: The Consumption of a Transnational Brand (NYU Press, 2026), Jinwon Kim argues that Manhattan's Koreatown has become a new type of ethnic enclave, what she dubs a "transclave." This commercialized ethnic space exists solely for consumption, leisure, and entertainment, and has been shaped by South Korea's nation-branding strategy, new economic and cultural strategies, patterns in Korean migration, and shifts in tourism and urban policies in New York City.

Kim posits that for many consumers in Koreatown, especially those who are not of Korean descent, the space has become a commercialized place where transnational culture meets the diverse racial and ethnic mosaic of New York City. Kim emphasizes how the space functions to "brand Korea" as a space to "consume ethnicity," reflecting the landscape of South Korea's consumer culture through the physical appearance of buildings and stores and the inclusion of franchise brands. Ultimately, Koreatown, NYC is a fascinating exploration of the intersection of authenticity, ethnicity, and identity in the heart of New York's midtown.

Michael O. Johnston is Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. His research explores symbolic interaction, leisure, meaning, place, community, and sociology of everyday life. He is the author of the forthcoming book Smalltown Urban: Performing the City in Rural America (Bloomsbury, January 2027), The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla, and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest. Smalltown Urban explores how small towns create moments of urbanity through festivals, public gatherings, and everyday social life. Since joining the New Books Network in 2017, he has interviewed more than 100 authors across sociology and the social sciences, helping connect scholars and their work with a broad public audience.

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The Science of Memory with Steve Ramirez

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Today I’m speaking with neuroscientist Stave Ramirez about bullshit and memory. Steve is an associate professor at Boston University, where he runs a lab dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of memory. How memory works, and importantly, how it doesn’t, are crucial questions for understanding everything from the validity of eyewitness testimony to understanding how people overcome traumatic experiences. While the science on memory is far from settled, researchers like Steve are pushing the frontiers of the field forward to better understand how memories are created, stored, and altered. If we can better understand how memory works, we will be better able to understand ourselves. To help us avoid the pitfalls of the bullshit that surrounds the science of memory, I’m pleased to speak with Steve Ramirez.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Siri Carpenter on Why She Self-Published First — and How It Led to a Traditional Book Deal

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What does it take to turn a self-published book into a traditional publishing deal? Science writer Siri Carpenter — executive director of The Open Notebook and author of The Craft of Science Writing — joins host Sarah Russo on The Publishing Playbook to break down her path from self-publishing to an expanded second edition with University of Chicago Press.

Siri shares how she landed an agent after self-publishing, why course adoption became the key to her book’s success, and the design decisions that helped it stand out. She also previews her newest project, The Best Science Stories and How They Work (also published by UCP), which features articles and annotations from Mary Roach, Ed Yong, and other leading science journalists.

Plus: Siri's take on empathy as a core writing skill, how science writers can combat misinformation, and what she’s currently reading, underwater!

In this episode:

Why Siri self-published The Craft of Science Writing before going the traditional route
How course adoption drove sales and caught a publisher’s attention
The behind-the-scenes story of landing a University of Chicago Press deal
What makes The Best Science Stories and How They Work different from a typical writing anthology
Why empathy is essential in all good writing

If you’re a writer, editor, or aspiring author weighing self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, this episode is for you. Subscribe to The Publishing Playbook for new episodes every week.

For more information on Siri’s work, please visit The Open Notebook

Books mentioned in this episode:

“The Craft of Science Writing,” edited by Siri Carpenter

“The Best Science Stories and How They Work,” edited by Siri Carpenter

“A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There,” by Aldo Leopold

“Why We Swim,” by Bonnie Tsui

“You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World,” by Ada Limón

“The Sea Around Us,” by Rachel Carson

Key Moments

00:57 — Why Siri Started The Open Notebook 📓

Siri opens up about feeling isolated as a freelance science writer, and how a friendship with a fellow journalist sparked the side project that became a major nonprofit.

02:58 — The Real Reason Siri Self-Published Her First Book 📖

Agents wouldn't touch "The Craft of Science Writing,” so Siri went the self-publishing route instead, admitting just how naive she was about the workload ahead.

05:18 — From Self-Published to University of Chicago Press 🎓

Siri walks through how a self-published book still sold over 3,000 copies and eventually landed her an agent and a traditional book deal for a second edition.

10:32 — Designing a Book You Can Read in a Hammock 🌳

Siri describes the collaborative design process behind “The Best Science Stories and How They Work,” where original articles sit side-by-side with expert annotations in the margins.

15:39 — “Every Story Is a Science Story” — Even Traffic Reports 🚗

Siri unpacks The Open Notebook’s tagline with a hilarious real-life story about a stranger shouting “what’s a science story today?” out a truck window.

19:46 — Can Journalists Actually Fight Misinformation? 🔍

Siri gets real about the uphill battle science journalists face against well-funded disinformation campaigns, and the role storytelling still plays in helping readers think critically.

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Two Revolutionary Jews: Leon Trotsky and Chaim Zhitlowsky

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

When Jews plunged into the world of politics en masse at the beginning of the 20th century, a variety of new options were available to them. Two of the leading figures who proffered novel, but opposing political avenues to the Jewish masses were Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky and Leon Trotsky. Zhitlowsky, a founder of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary party, offered a synthesis of socialism and Yiddish nationalism. Trotsky, a leading Russian Social Democrat, formulated a strict version of internationalism that left no room for Jewish national aspirations. Many Jews, however, did not view their political choices in such stark terms. Instead, they saw both men as leaders and thinkers who pointed the way to Jewish national liberation and working-class revolution, a Jewish homeland, as well as a flourishing life in the diaspora. In this lecture, Tony Michels will explore the political ideas of Trotsky and Zhitlowsky, and how Jews engaged with them during the first half of the 20th century.

This program is the first in a series of programs held in conjunction with YIVO’s current digitization of the Jewish Labor and Political Archives (JLPA). Consisting of nearly 200 collections encompassing 3.5 million pages of archival documents that were collected by the Bund Archives, the JLPA forms the world’s most comprehensive body of material pertaining to Jewish political activity in Europe and the United States.

This lecture originally took place on April 28, 2025.

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Susannah Heschel and Sarah Imhoff, "The Woman Question in Jewish Studies" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Woman Question in Jewish Studies (Princeton UP, 2025) is a critical look at the difficulties women face in the field of Jewish studies, drawing on quantitative data, personal stories, and the gendered history of the field.

The field of Jewish studies has expanded significantly in recent years, with increasing numbers of women entering the field. These scholars have brought new perspectives from studies of women, gender, and sexuality. Yet they have also faced institutional and individual obstacles. In this book, Susannah Heschel and Sarah Imhoff examine the place of women and nonbinary people in Jewish studies, arguing that, for both intellectual and ethical reasons, the culture of the field must change. Heschel and Imhoff explore quantitative data regarding women as editors of and contributors to academic journals and anthologies, examine data regarding citations of women's scholarship, and scrutinize women's presence on panels at academic conferences. They analyze the wider context of the contemporary academy, discussing what is distinctive about Jewish studies. They trace the history of the field, its connections to traditional religious studies, and its growth in US institutions, interspersing this with stories of scholars in the field who have experienced harassment and gender discrimination. Finally, they offer suggestions for a reparative path forward.

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Steven K. Green, "American Infidelity: The Gilded Age Battle Over Freethought, Free Love, and Feminism" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Today I'm speaking with Steven K. Green, Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of History and Religious Studies at Willamette University. We are discussing his book, American Infidelity: The Gilded Age Battle Over Freethought, Free Love, and Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2026). Since the first permanent Protestant settlement in Jamestown in 1607, Protestant Christianity has waxed and waned through a series of revivals, migrations, and challenges from alternative faiths like Catholicism and Mormonism. The Gilded Age, from roughly 1870 to 1900, was a unique period for Protestantism in American history. Most Americans still subscribed to a Protestant faith, though threats began to arise not from other confessions, but rather from philosophical and scientific challengers. The so-called freethinkers represented a broad range of beliefs and ideas, being united by a mutual skepticism of religious conservatism and traditional sexual and gender mores. American Infidelity tells the story of this tug-of-war for the soul of a nation, with Christianity on one side and the legacy of thinkers like Thomas Paine on the other.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Rahim Thawer and Maryam Khan eds., "Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family, and Healing" (U Regina Press, 2026)

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Rahim Thawer and Maryam Khan's new edited volume Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family and Healing (U Regina Press, 2026) is a powerful anthology that brings together writers, activists, and scholars who meditate, reflect, and share stories of queer Muslim life, that contains the complexity of rage, grief and resilience but also joy, love, and healing. In the process, Thawer and Khan deconstruct the limitations of western centric formulations of mental health and wellness, which is often individualistic and commodified, and invite readers to think through a decolonial approach that honours Muslim spirituality, religiosity, and culture, which can help us shift towards collectivistic and liberatory goals of healing. This anthology is a great resource for those who are mental health practitioners, and relevant to those who think about gender, sexuality, and Islam.

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Jacqueline West, "Black Point" (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2026)

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Black Point (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2026) is an insular small town steeped in Norse traditions, a teen’s developing romance with a newcomer becomes fraught as dark secrets from the past rise to the surface in this gorgeously atmospheric mystery by New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline West. Lucia Sorenson holds on hard to the things she loves. Her tiny Wisconsin hometown clings to the bluffs above the Mississippi River, threatened by weather, time, and the creep of climate change. Her mother is pushing her to go away to college and see the world beyond their small town, but Lucia is determined to stay and to keep her grandfather’s Viking museum going. When the Black Point Hotel, a 150-year-old landmark that’s been empty for decades, is bought by an outsider, tongues start wagging. Lucia meets the new owner’s teenage nephew, Max, and as they grow closer, she discovers there’s something thrilling about getting to know someone who hasn’t known her all her life—and maybe something more. Then Max discovers some ominous things about Black Point hidden away in the hotel—stories of ghosts and mysterious disappearances. Lucia refuses to believe that her town is hiding a sinister past. But the river is rising, and more secrets are washing to the surface. Soon, Lucia will have to choose between the home she thought she knew and uncovering the dark truths hidden underneath.

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Lisa Blaydes and Samuel Helfont eds., "Ba‘thist Iraq Through Archives: Reflections, Explorations, and Opportunities" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The opening of Iraq's Ba'th Party archives revolutionized the study of Iraqi politics and history, offering scholars unprecedented access to the inner workings of one of the world's most impenetrable autocracies. Ba‘thist Iraq Through Archives: Reflections, Explorations, and Opportunities (Stanford University Press, 2026) edited by Dr. Lisa Blaydes and Dr. Samuel Helfont brings together leading scholars to take stock of what we have learned from over a decade of research using the Ba'thist archives, contributing to a new understanding of Iraq's history, with wider implications for understanding authoritarianism in general.

The contributors show how research in these unique archives challenges previous assumptions about Ba'thist Iraq and the workings of authoritarian regimes. Their chapters provide fresh insights into how Saddam Hussein's regime functioned both at the elite level and through everyday bureaucratic practices, shedding light on state power, social relations, and international politics of the Middle East. The volume also critically reflects on the ethical questions posed by the archives, including their origins, the impact of their removal from Iraq, and access barriers for local scholars. Rich in empirical detail yet framed by cutting-edge theoretical questions, this book demonstrates how the Iraqi archives have reshaped debates about authoritarianism, governance, repression, and state-society relations well beyond the Iraqi case.

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George Savran, "Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch" (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2025)

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Jacob: Conflicted Twin, Aggrieved Patriarch (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2025), George Savran brings his narrative interpretive approach to look closely at Jacob's shifting identity. Jacob is indelibly linked to his brother Esau in the Genesis narrative, and their complex relationship as twins foregrounds this problematic connection. Jacob's lineage is examined-he differs noticeably from his ancestors and his offspring in the complexity of his changing character. At times he is a "simple man" at the mercy of the demands of others; elsewhere he is a devious trickster eager to use his wits to achieve personal success. His search for a coherent identity, as it unfolds in this study, leads to his emergence as the patriarch of his family, compelled to make peace with his brother and his sons in the midst of ongoing conflict.

This study brings out how Jacob's mature identity is clarified further by his reactions to three unusual and unexpected encounters which shed light on his ability to recalibrate his self-understanding.

The first is his struggle with the man/angel at the Jabbok, where he receives a blessing with the name Israel, and comes to realize that his relationship to God is more complicated (and less predictable) than he had previously thought.
An additional insight comes the following day during his reunion with Esau, as he learns to appreciate him in a new way and compares beholding his face to "seeing the face of God". This is a remarkable admission by a brother who thought only the worst of his twin.
Jacob's rethinking his own self-importance emerges later in the Joseph story, when he is compelled to realizes that his insistence on his personal concerns will lead to the dissolution of his family.

Savran's interpretation of these reactions underscores their significance in Jacob's development, revealing a character of depth and resilience and giving new meaning to his role as the avatar of Israel.

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On Who Blew Up Nord Stream: A Conversation with Author Bojan Pancevski

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The September, 2022 attack on the Nord Stream pipelines transporting Russian gas to Germany was perhaps the greatest single act of sabotage in modern history. In The Nord Stream Conspiracy: The Inside Story of the Explosions that Shook the World (Henry Holt, 2026), Bojan Pancevski makes a compelling case that the culprit was an intrepid team of Ukrainian intelligence agents, military personnel and civilian divers. In our conversation, he explains how he came to this conclusion. And we touch on the wider issue of what Pancevski calls the “Cossack spirit,” at the heart of the determination of courageous and resourceful Ukrainians to resist, by all means available, Moscow’s efforts to subdue Ukraine. Pancevski is the chief European political correspondent of The Wall Street Journal and has considerable experience covering Ukraine.

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Elisabeth Rhoads, "Haggard House" (Bodger Books, 2025)

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

It’s the 19th century, and a village in northern Michigan is the setting for Adam Bolton’s strange, decrepit house, called Haggard House by the community. He’s eleven, and his strictly religious mother only allows him to attend the village school after he promises not to be friendly with the other children. They’re heathens, she tells him. Adam builds an imaginary house in his mind, so when he meets a little girl who likes him, he can imagine her there. His father is a respected carpenter who leads a sad life because of Adam’s over-pious, angry and bitter mother. As a young man Adam escapes for a few years and doesn’t learn of his father’s murder until he returns. And when he goes against his mother’s wishes to marry the woman he loves, everyone pays a price in this well-written tale of madness and piety.

Elisabeth Rhoads is the Vice-President of the second largest branch of the California Writers Club—Orange County. Since 2021, she has been a volunteer juror for the Scholastic Writing Awards. She holds her BA in Theatre and has recently been accepted into Chapman University’s Creative Writing MFA program, starting in Fall of 2026. Originally from Michigan, she spent two summers working on Mackinac Island, which only allows transport by horse and carriage, foot, or bicycle. Her time on this history-soaked island deeply influenced her, and has inspired many stories, including, in part, Haggard House (Bodger Books, 2025)—and is featured briefly in the novel.

She is the author of one novel and has begun a short story series on her Substack, in which she writes a new story each month, based on subscriber prompts. Now living in California with her husband, she enjoys learning Japanese, fermenting foods of all types—although mainly kombucha—and pretends to enjoy exercise-related activities, such as kayaking and running.

As someone who grew up within a strict, religious home, her writing reflects the Victorian influences that made up a large part of her family’s reading habits, such as Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, and Edgar Allen Poe. She hopes that modern readers will find much to connect with, as these old-world literary influences combine with her now much broader view of the world.

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Andrew N. Buchanan and Ruth Lawlor eds., "The Greater Second World War: Global Perspectives" (Cornell UP, 2025)

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Andrew Buchanan and Ruth Lawlor, The Greater Second World War: Global Perspectives (Cornell University Press, 2025)

This ambitious edited collection encourages readers to think in bigger ways about the global Second World War. That includes a wider frame in space and time, but also a larger geopolitical perspective of the war as a world-system crisis and an expanded social perspective on who fought the war and why. A team of international scholars take on this task in chapters ranging from the global alliance system and colonial mobilization to studies of particular cities and dockyards.

In a wide-ranging conversation with both editors, we discuss questions of imperialism, the rise and limits of US global hegemony, the 'ragged ends' of the war, and the social movements of a window of global possibility in 1945–46.

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Paul Langley and Andrew Leyshon, "Fintech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

How is finance changing in the contemporary world? In FinTech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance (Princeton University Press, 2026), Paul Langley, a Professor of Economic Geography at Durham Universityand Andrew Leyshon, a Senior Fellow in the Centre for Economy, Policy and Place, Nottingham Trent University and Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Nottingham, chart the rise of a new form of capitalism in the digital age. Drawing on detailed case studies from across the world, from familiar everyday examples such as Klarna to continent-spanning institutions such as Standard Bank, the book theorises the dynamics of this new moment in global capitalism. Of interest across the social sciences, the book will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand money today.

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Jenny R. Labendz, "Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective (Oxford UP, 2026) Jenny Labendz addresses distinct patterns within rabbinic eschatology that have been overlooked in scholarship and in Jewish thought. Contrary to what is usually expected of eschatology, this book demonstrates that the rabbis held a sustained eschatology of irresolution. While the rabbis occasionally waxed poetic along the lines of a perfected new world in the eschaton, a vast store of rabbinic texts depicts a deeply imperfect eschaton. This is the profound difference between rabbinic and early Christian eschatology.
Despite its differences from the Christian doctrine of perfection, rabbinic eschatology aligns neatly with a different Christian concept, namely inaugurated eschatology. The eschaton is not only be hoped for in the future, but can be attained in the present. The best of all possible worlds has not yet been entirely actualized, but it has been inaugurated, in the rabbinic view by the exodus from slavery in Egypt, the revelation of the Torah at Sinai, and the construction of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. This is a paradigm shift for thinking about rabbinic eschatology, which rejects the dogmas and binaries that generations of scholars have taken for granted.

In this new book, Jenny Labendz explores the relationship between this world and the best possible world, the limits of that best possible world, and asks a crucially grounding question--what are we talking about when we're talking about the end of the world?

Interviewee: Jenny R. Labendz received her PhD from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2010 and was Associate Professor of Religious Studies at St. Francis College until 2025. She is also the author of Socratic Torah: Non-Jews in Rabbinic Intellectual Culture, published by Oxford University Press in 2013.

Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey out of Hasidism and Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

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Adam Y. Liu, "Authoritarian Markets: The Politics of China's Banking Explosion" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Authoritarian Markets explores the political foundations of China's banking boom and its far-reaching impact on the Chinese economy.

In 1978 China had no commercial banks. Today it commands the world's largest banking system, with assets equal to 40 percent of global GDP. In Authoritarian Markets: The Politics of China's Banking Explosion (Cornell University Press, 2026), Dr. Adam Y. Liu argues that this rise was not the product of market reforms but of political bargains and bureaucratic mobilization.

In the 1990s, Beijing issued bank licenses as bargaining chips—securing cooperation from local governments as it pushed through painful reforms. The result was a sprawling, competitive banking market built not in spite of authoritarian rule but because of it.

Drawing on interviews, spatial data, census records, surveys, and experiments, Dr. Liu reveals how local state banks became both engines of China's growth and incubators of its current economic risks. Eye-opening and persuasive, Authoritarian Markets offers fresh insight into the political logic of market development in China and authoritarian states worldwide.

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Anna Lively, "Revolutionary Connections: Russia and Ireland, 1905-1923" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Anna Lively is a historian of modern Ireland, Britain, and Russia. Awarded her PhD in History from the University of Edinburgh in 2022, she is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in History at the University of Strathclyde. Prior to this she held the Roy Foster Irish Government Research Fellowship in the History and Culture of Ireland at Hertford College, University of Oxford, and was a Teaching Fellow in Modern History at the University of Aberdeen. She has published in multiple journals on the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and on the Irish Save the Children Fund.

From the late nineteenth century, Ireland featured prominently in Russian liberal, conservative, and radical debates about land politics, self-determination, and empire. Equally, Irish commentators from across the political spectrum used Russia as a lens onto questions of imperialism, anti-imperialism, and socialism. But while the Irish and Russian revolutionary contexts are well-studied in isolation, their myriad political, social, and cultural entanglements are not.
Drawing on extensive Russian and Irish archival accounts, newspapers, diaries, letters, memoirs, literary, and visual sources, Revolutionary Connections: Russia and Ireland, 1905-1923 (Oxford UP, 2026) looks in both directions at Irish responses to Russian revolutionary change and at representations of Ireland in Russian-language texts from the 1905 Russian Revolution to the end of the Irish Civil War in 1923. The result is a unique account of international engagement in revolutionary Russia and Ireland and of how Ireland was imagined beyond the Anglophone world. This mutual, if selective and conditional, engagement reflected wider technological changes in news communication and the expansion of international news agencies. Diasporic networks, including in Britain and the US, helped to shape Russo-Irish relations and Irish publications and political actors engaged with different parts of the Russian empire, including Ukraine, Finland, and Poland.
Through five thematic chapters, the book considers Russo-Irish relations from contrasting and often overlooked angles, including Irish eyewitness experiences on the Eastern front during World War One and religious perspectives. Using a transnational methodology and expansive source base, the book offers a fresh angle on the entangled history of revolutions in the early twentieth century and the translation of news and ideas across borders.

Revolutionary Connections: Russia and Ireland, 1905–1923 will be published in September 2026 with Oxford University Press

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Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth, "Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions (Oxford University Press, 2026), Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth reveal the vast and complex world of France's Atlantic enterprises in the premodern era. Drawing upon years of archival work, Hodson and Rushforth demonstrate how France's overseas activities created its empire, intentionally or not, and how these distant places built the French state and used it for their own ends. Beyond the Ocean covers an impressive sweep of history, from the late eleventh century through the early nineteenth, and yet the authors manage to retain a human element. Their judicious inclusion of micro-histories and primary-source quotation, as well as their lively prose, helps the reader enter into what it may have felt like to live through these developments, to participate in the era when "France became France, and the Atlantic became a world." Crucially, their attention to the non-European actors in this story and women's worlds and work makes the book a helpful corrective to top-down approaches to imperial histories. Beyond the Ocean is a must-read for Atlantic world scholars, but has value for anyone interested in early modern Europe or cultural exchange.

Elspeth Currie is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at Boston College where she studies women’s intellectual history in early modern Europe.

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Matthew Ritger, "Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Today’s guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe’s first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the history of humanism in ways that both challenge idealized notions of European humanism and illustrate its commitments to civic and Christian reform. The book explores Bridewell’s mission to discipline the poor and the “idle” through hard labor, vocational training, and basic education, while also exposing its coercive and exploitative practices, which included whippings, forced labor, and the infliction of fear.

Houses of Correction also explores how Bridewell contributed to a broader humanist culture of correction, which united textual methods with practical forms of knowledge, and which extended to rhetorical and textual forms, as well as literary productions. The book’s five chapters connect the history and influence of Bridewell to a range of literary texts, including Thomas More’s Utopia, Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest, and Milton’s Of Educationand Samson Agonistes.

Through its interrogation of the logic of carceral humanism, Houses of Correction demonstrates the crucial role that Bridewell played in cultivating a culture of correction that pervaded humanist education, textual practices, and literary representations.

Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance.

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New Trends in YIVO Scholarship

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Since 1925, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has been a pioneer in the field of Jewish studies. At the core of YIVO since its founding was its commitment to scholarship which supported the Jewish “folk.” This manifested in a variety of initiatives, including youth autobiography contests and a youth research division (yugfor), an Economic-Statistical section (ekstat), and the establishment of various YIVO branches. These YIVO's activities continue to pique the interests of scholars, who have recently produced new scholarship analyzing these initiatives through the lens of new pioneering research methods.

Join YIVO for a panel discussion sharing new research on these historic YIVO initiatives featuring presentations by William Pimlott, Kamil Kijek, and Nicolas Vallois, followed by a conversation led by Jessica Kirzane.

This panel discussion originally took place on June 11, 2025.

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Lana Swartz on Digital Money and Digital Cultures of Money

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Lana Swartz, Associate Professor of Media Studies and Shannon Mid-Career at the University of Virginia, where she runs the Digital Cultures and Economies Lab. Swartz is a creative and wide-ranging thinker and researcher. The pair focuses on Swartz's book, New Money: How Payment Became social media, and talks about her recent work on youth money cultures and on the rich business and media dimensions of contemporary nail artists and salons.

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Charles Akl, "Red Like Orange" (Hoopoe, 2026)

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A Conversation with author Charles Akl about his debut novel Red Like Orange (Hoopoe, 2026)

An offbeat tale of creativity, friendship, and finding your voice in this uproarious journey through Cairo's music scene in the early 2000s, where everything from American rock to Egyptian popular songs cultivates big dreams

Winner of the Sawiris Cultural Award

Following a breakup with his long-term girlfriend, “Local,” as he is known to his friends, moves from Alexandria to Cairo. In his new apartment, he discovers an old accordion, while his roommate unexpectedly decides to take up the saxophone, despite never having touched one before. And so, in the blistering summer heat, the two of them, without any formal training, dive into their first musical experiment: they put his mother’s cookbook to music.

Along with an eccentric assortment of acquaintances and occasional bandmates, Local crashes through his twenties and in and out of Cairo hangouts, heated debates on different music scenes, and various impromptu jam sessions and attempts at musical production.

This is a raucous journey through offbeat downtown Cairo in the early 2000s and the music of the era, from Mohamed Mounir to Pink Floyd. Suffused with a sardonic humor and full of hilarious observations, Red Like Orange vividly chronicles life lived just outside the mainstream.

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Meredith Gamer, "City of the Gallows: Art and Execution in Eighteenth-Century London" (Yale UP, 2026)

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

City of the Gallows: Art and Execution in Eighteenth-Century London (Yale UP, 2026) uncovers the complex and often unexpected connections between eighteenth-century London’s sites of punishment and its spaces of art-making, instruction, and display. Drawing together a wide range of images, objects, and texts – from popular woodcuts and anatomical sculptures to moral tracts and dictionaries of slang – it offers new readings of works by major artists, such as William Hogarth, Johan Zoffany, and Joseph Wright of Derby, and shines a light on others that traditional accounts of the period have overlooked or ignored. In doing so, this book shows how state violence shaped the art and visual culture of this era, whose legacies persist to this day.

Kelsey Brosnan is an art historian specializing in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French art. Her book on the still-life painter Anne Vallayer-Coster was published by Lund Humphries and Getty Publications in 2026. kb2348@gmail.com

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David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab eds., "Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Visual Anthropology" (Berghahn, 2025)

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode I discuss the book Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Anthropology (Berghahn, 2025) with co-editors David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab, a posthumous collection of writings by the late anthropologist Marcus Banks. Banks was a key the figures in development of visual anthropology, but his work remains of continuing relevance. This volume brings together several of his essays on film, photography, archive work, as well as reflections of visual methods such as photo-elicitation and ways of teaching visual anthroplogy.

The conversation begins with Marcus Banks himself, his place within anthropology, his influence on visual anthropology, and the broader effort to preserve and extend his work through a set of posthumous collections. From there, the discussion turns to one of the central themes that emerge from across several essays, namely, that images are not simply illustrations or transparent representations, but socially and temporally situated objects with disctinct social lives. From there, we discuss Banks’s interest in the materiality of the visual and how the circulation and afterlives of images gather new meaning over time.

A substantial part of the interview focuses on Banks’s film Raju and His Friends (1988), which proved foundational to his later reflections on ethnographic filmmaking, and especially on the ethics and politics of representation. As well as providing an introduction to Marcus Banks’s work and serving as a tribute to a scholar whose influence continues to shape the field, many of the topics covered in the interview touches on many broader questions in anthropology itself, and as such will be of interest not only to students of visual anthropology, but to anthropology students and anthropologists more generally.

David Zeitlyn is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. His work spans visual anthropology, photography and archives, religion and divination, and long-term fieldwork in Cameroon. He also collaborated with Marcus Banks on the second edition of Visual Methods in Social Research.

Chihab El Khachab is Associate Professor in Visual Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. He is a social anthropologist specializing in visual and media anthropology, especially Egyptian media production, and is the author of Making Film in Egypt: How Labor, Technology, and Mediation Shape the Industry.

Further reading and resources mentioned in the recording

Jainism as Social and Visual Practice: Anthropological Perspectives
Marcus Banks. Edited by John E. Cort, David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2026. This posthumous volume gathers Banks’s writings on Jain social organization and visual representation.
The revived HADDON catalogue of ethnographic films
Originally created by Marcus Banks in the 1990s, HADDON is an online catalogue of archival ethnographic film. The revived site presents a restored version of the database, now hosted through Paul Henley’s Silent Time Machine project.
Raju and His Friends (1988)
The film discussed at length in this episode, and a key reference point for Banks’s later reflections on visual anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking.

Marcus Banks was Professor of Visual Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA), University of Oxford until he passed away in 2020. He was a pioneer in integrating visual approaches into the mainstream of social and cultural anthropology. With Howard Morphy, he edited the influential volume Rethinking Visual Anthropology (Yale University Press, 1999).

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Linford Fisher, "Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History" (Liveright, 2026)

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Although the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, European slavery in America began more than a century before. In a work distinguished not only by its original research but by its “passionate prose” (James F. Brooks), historian Linford Fisher demonstrates how the enslavement of Indigenous people began in the years just after 1492, ensnaring an estimated three to six million Natives throughout the Americas. Although largely erased from the public consciousness, Native enslavement continued for centuries to become a colossal phenomenon that affected nearly 600,000 Native Americans in North America alone, revealing the shocking truth that American colonizers enslaved Natives in roughly the same numbers as they imported enslaved Africans.
From Virginia to California, from New England to Barbados, Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History (Liveright, 2026) traces the history of Indigenous enslavement and land dispossession, detailing how colonizers captured Natives and often deliberately mislabeled them as Black slaves to avoid detection. While the American Revolution pealed the bells of freedom for colonists, it paved a larcenous trail of westward expansion that subsequently plundered Indigenous land and stole the labor of Natives from nations like the Cherokee, Navajo, Nisean, and many others. “This double theft,” Fisher writes, “was central to the origins, growth, and eventual success of the English colonies and the United States—not just initially but throughout all of American history.”
In this expansive narrative, Fisher weaves together accounts of major episodes in American history including early colonization, the American Revolution, and the Civil War with lesser-known stories of Native enslavement and land loss. Fisher upends conventional histories about the nature of American slavery, revealing enslaved Natives in places we have overlooked, including southern antebellum plantations and the nineteenth-century American West. After Congress outlawed Native slavery in 1867, Americans forced Indigenous children into boarding schools and white homes, where they labored under forced assimilation. This practice was not reformed until the latter twentieth century, when Native nations finally secured increasing rights and self-determination.
Nearly fifteen years in the making, this magisterial volume not only uncovers a five-century genocidal history but also illuminates the myriad ways Native Americans have fought for their sovereignty and maintained community. The most comprehensive work of its kind, Stealing America emerges as a saga of both persistent colonialism and Indigenous resilience, one that reframes American history at its core.

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Claire Hubbard-Hall, "Her Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence" (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024)

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Since the inception of the Secret Service Bureau back in 1909, women have worked at the very heart of British secret intelligence - yet their contributions have been all but written out of history. Now, drawing on private and previously-classified documents, leading historian Claire Hubbard-Hall brings their gripping true stories to life in Her Secret Service: The Forgotten Women of British Intelligence (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2024).

From encoding orders and decrypting enemy messages to penning propaganda and infiltrating organisations, the women of British intelligence played a pivotal role in both the First and Second World Wars. Prepare to meet the true custodians of Britain's military secrets, from Kathleen Pettigrew, personal assistant to the Chief of MI6 Stewart Menzies, who late in life declared 'I was Miss Moneypenny, but with more power', to Jane Archer, the very first female MI5 officer who raised suspicions about the Soviet spy Kim Philby long before he was officially unmasked and Winifred Spink, the first female officer ever sent to Russia in 1916. In Her Secret Service, Hubbard-Hall rescues these silenced voices and those of many other fascinating women from obscurity to provide a definitive account of women's contributions to the history of the intelligence services.

The book, now in paperback, includes a postscript based on a new treasure trove of documents.

Her Secret Service won the 2025 Dr Polly Corrigan Book prize. The Prize aims to recognise scholarship within the realm of intelligence and security, written by female scholars and/or about women. It encourages scholars to go beyond traditional lines of inquiry and explore how women contributed to and participated in the making of the ‘Secret World’.

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Patrick Nunn, "Whispers from Celtic Seas: The True Meanings of Ancient Stories from Northwest Europe" (Reaktion, 2026)

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What if the legends of submerged cities, land-making witches and sea-crossing bishops are not mere inventions but echoes of real events? Whispers from Celtic Seas: The True Meanings of Ancient Stories from Northwest Europe (Reaktion Books, 2026) by Professor Patrick Nunn at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia revisits coastal traditions from the Celtic fringes of northwest Europe, showing how they preserve memories of dramatic environmental change—floods, land loss and shifting shorelines—carried forward through oral storytelling for generations. Drawing on cutting-edge geological and archaeological research, this book recasts these tales not as fantasy, but as historical testimony grounded in lived experience. With clarity and insight, it also brings to life the tellers and collectors of these stories, tracing how oral knowledge endured even as literacy spread. A compelling invitation to listen again to old stories, and to hear what the land and sea remember.

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David J. Teece and Sohvi Heaton, "Dynamic Universities: How Strategic, Entrepreneurial Leaders Can Strengthen Higher Education" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In times of deep uncertainty, the university needs to transform itself into an entrepreneurial entity to maintain long-term evolutionary fitness. Dynamic Universities (Cambridge University Press, 2026) explores how strategic, entrepreneurial leadership can help US higher education institutions thrive amid unprecedented challenges. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities’ framework, David J. Teece and Sohvi Heaton provide a strategic roadmap to help university leaders identify emerging opportunities and threats, take decisive action, and sustain competitiveness. Through compelling case studies including Stanford and Berkeley and interviews with global university leaders, this book offers practical insights into managing complexity, fostering innovation, and building resilient academic ecosystems.

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Leah Pope Parker, "Light of the Everlasting Life: Disability and Crip Eschatology in Old English Literature" (U Michigan Press, 2025)

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

From disability metaphors to narratives structured around bodies presented as aberrant, early medieval English thoughtworlds conveyed the promise of resurrection and the hope of salvation through crip and disabled bodies. Light of the Everlasting Life: Disability and Crip Eschatology in Old English Literature (U Michigan Press, 2025) argues that early medieval Christian eschatology, as manifested in Old English literary texts, was a crip eschatology: a theology of the afterlife that relied upon disabled bodies and concepts related to disability in order to convey promises of resurrection and salvation. In addition to demonstrating how literature manifested theological approaches to the afterlife, Leah Pope Parker articulates the ways of thinking about bodies and disability that were available to ordinary early medieval people, many of whom experienced their bodies in ways that resonate with what we call disability today, but who rarely appear in the historical record.

By analyzing Old English texts, including Alfredian translations, Ælfric's saints' lives, and poetry from the Exeter and Vercelli Books, Parker introduces novel ways of characterizing disability's effects in literature. "Spiritual prosthesis" reveals rhetorical, narrative, and theological reliance upon disability to convey the promise of a Christian afterlife. "Systems of aberrance" emerge as a result, in which bodies marked as deviant--including disabled, monstrous, heroic, saintly, and dead bodies--form a network of embodiments that reinforce the narratives they inhabit and that of Christian salvation history. Locating crip eschatology in early medieval literature, Light of the Everlasting Life rewrites standard histories of disability, of the body, and of medieval Christian eschatology.

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Michelle Bigenho and Henry Stobart, "Heritage Fever: Law and Cultural Politics in a Decolonizing State" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The early twenty-first century ushered in a period of change in Bolivia. The country welcomed its first Indigenous president, a new constitution, and a profusion of laws that recognized individual music and dance expressions as intangible cultural heritage. Using cultural heritage lawmaking as a window through which to view the de-centered workings of the Indigenous-focused Plurinational Bolivian State, Heritage Fever: Law and Cultural Politics in a Decolonizing State (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Dr. Michelle Bigenho and Dr. Henry Stobart unpacks the myriad motivations for heritage making in this this politically transformative moment. Heritage Fever reorients UNESCO-driven heritage debates towards a different set of questions—a pivot the authors call “heritage otherwise.”

These inquiries focus on how citizens use law to frame expressive culture and engage their new state. Through grounded case studies, Bigenho and Stobart reveal how competing claims over cultural expressions stimulate aficionado research and produce an abundance of cultural activities. Managing these productive conflicts often involves strategic uses of scale within the country's new political autonomies, even as old-style nationalisms lurk beneath a plurinational sheen. One case study highlights imagined Indigenous autonomy as bolstered by decolonizing historiography that predates the Plurinational State by several decades.

Privileging the stories told by those who championed or who were bureaucratically involved in the respective heritage-making campaigns, Heritage Fever's research draws from the authors' combined fieldwork in Bolivia over the last 30 years, recent multi-sited fieldwork conducted as a team, and ethnographic interviews conducted with Bolivians involved in heritage-making projects. Contributing to legal anthropology, critical heritage studies, ethnomusicology, and anthropology of the state, Heritage Fever looks beyond intellectual property frames, opens new perspectives on archival thinking, reflects on decolonizing practices in expertise and knowledge production, and uncovers the agency of mid-level citizens in a decolonizing state.

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Mark Kitto, "China Running Dog" (Plum Rain Press, 2025)

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In his novel China Running Dog (Plum Rain Press, 2025), a young man in his early twenties lives in Shanghai in the year 2000, in a greed-crazed free-for-all moral and lawless vacuum created by the Chinese Communist Party. Johnny Trent, small-time entrepreneur from Basildon in the UK, ends up in China, where he meets Felix Fawcett-Smith, fresh off the boat and from the other side of the tracks. An unlikely friendship begins.

Johnny impresses the well-bred Felix with his street smarts until Felix takes Johnny’s advice too literally – and too far – and slips into Shanghai’s murky underbelly. He enters a world where the Party, power, and connections to them, are all that matter, where criminals are given sainthoods and saints sent to hell.

Johnny tries to stop Felix’s spiral, not least because Felix is taking a sweet, angelic girl, Anita, down with him and Johnny has feelings for Anita that he has never dared to put into words. But Felix thinks he knows best. Like Johnny, all he wants is respect.

It’s up to Johnny to save whoever he can, besides himself.

Books mentioned in this podcast: Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui, Shanghai by Richie Yokomitsu (transl. Dennis Washburn), Candy by Mian Mian

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Toby Miller and Joan Pedro Carañana, "Global Sports Go Green—Or Do They?" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026)

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Just how much damage is sport doing to the planet? In Global Sports Go Green—Or Do They? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) Toby Miller, Profesor Distinguido at the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico and Joan Pedro Carañana, Associate Professor of Journalism at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain examine the ecological impact of major sporting events. Using case studies of The World Cup, The Olympics, The America’s Cup and Formula One, the book demonstrates the vast range of economic, social, cultural and climate impacts of these mega-events. Offering a wide ranging and compelling critique, along with consideration of resistance to carbon sports, the book is essential reading for everyone with interested in whether global sporting spectacles can really be sustainable.

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A Conversation with LeUyen Pham illustrator of "As I Dream of You" (First Second, 2026)

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

As I Dream of You (First Second, 2026) illustrated by LeUyen Pham and written by Jennifer Lee. Falling in love is supposed to hurt. That’s what Franny and Sam, two cynical teenagers raised on tales of heartbreak and loss, have come to understand. Yet when they fall for each other, they find the reality of love is something else entirely: it’s electrifying, all-encompassing, and easy. Theirs is a love that can conquer anything...perhaps even death. But Franny and Sam’s quest to stay together—no matter the cost—soon blurs the line between reality and fantasy, and their shared dream threatens to turn into a nightmare.

In this episode, Pham talks about illustrating graphic novels and picture books as well as working as an artist.

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Victoria Donovan, "Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East" (Daunt Books, 2025)

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East (Daunt Books Publishing, 2025) is a unique reflection on the much-mythologised Donetsk and Luhansk regions of the Ukrainian east, the old and recent history of the region as seen by an esteemed academic multi-disciplinary scholar Victoria Donovan in her numerous travels to the region prior to the full-scale invasion. Seen through a deeply empathetic lens of conversations with local curators, historians, museum workers, and artists, the region is shown in its complexity, with the uniqueness of its landscapes, endangered biodiversity, entangled colonialisms of its past and a threatened future.

Since start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014, its eastern region—Donbas—has been synonymous with conflict. With the escalation of that war in 2022, its, cities such as Bakhmut and Lysychansk have become familiar to us through the images and reports of brutal devastation. Victoria Donovan excavates a rich, multicultural history of this area, and paints a radically different picture.

Travelling from the dramatic, jagged peaks of Bilokuzmynivka to the marshland of Mariupol, from a warehouse rave to an abandoned gypsum mine, the physical world and its importance to this region’s identity is brought to vivid life. But above all else, by speaking to those whose lives are embedded there now—curators, artists, railway workers, young people who have grown up amidst instability and destruction—Donovan amplifies local voices and reveals the intensely personal lived reality of Putin’s war.

Victoria Donovan is Professor of Ukrainian and East European Studies and Director of the Centre for Global (Post)socialisms, Southeast, Central and East European Studies at the University of St Andrews.

Viktoriia Grivina is an independent anthropologist and writer, author of Kharkiv, a War City (Ibidem, 2025), and Kharkiv is a Dream: Public Art and Activism, 2013–2023 (Ibidem, 2025).

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Amy Brann, "Make Your Brain Work: Perform at a Higher Level" (Kogan Page, 2025)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Make Your Brain Work
By Amy Brann
Neuroscience expert, author, consultant and global speaker

Make Your Brain Work: Perform at a Higher Level (Kogan Page, 2025) is a practical, science-backed guide to improving focus, performance and mental energy without burning out. Written for people balancing multiple responsibilities, the book explains how to stay productive, mentally sharp and in control, even when demands and pressure are high.

The book also explores the neuroscience of smarter leadership, high-performing teams and innovation. Brann examines working memory, what the mind needs to achieve goals and how to help the brain perform at an optimal level.

Drawing from current neuroscience, Amy Brann translates complex research about the brain into clear strategies readers can apply in everyday work and life. She explores why attention fades, distractions take over and decision-making becomes more difficult when the brain is tired or under stress.

The book emphasizes that high performance is not simply about pushing harder. It is about understanding what the brain needs to function well and creating habits that support focus, creativity, resilience, clear thinking and sustainable success.

Key Ideas:

The brain performs best when its limited attention and energy are managed intentionally.
Understanding working memory can help us process information, solve problems and pursue goals more effectively.
Mental rehearsal can activate neurons and strengthen neural circuits even when an action is only imagined. For example, imagining your finger contracting can prepare your brain and muscles to perform the movement more effectively.
Neuroscience can help leaders make smarter decisions and create the conditions for high-performing teams.
Brain-aware leadership can encourage collaboration, creativity, innovation and meaningful change.
Mental fatigue can weaken focus, self-control and the quality of our decisions.
Working with the brain, rather than continually forcing it beyond its limits, can support greater success while helping to prevent burnout.

Key Takeaway from the Conversation:

One of the strongest ideas from the conversation is recognizing that our brain can help us become smarter leaders, more creative thinkers and stronger performers. Brann’s insights about working memory and high-performing teams show that success is not only about effort. If you read the book, you’ll learn how to think clearly, innovate, collaborate and achieve meaningful goals.

Brann does not focus only on managing fatigue or avoiding burnout. She also demonstrates how understanding the brain can help people lead more effectively, develop innovative ideas, make smarter choices and perform at a higher level.

About Podcast Host

Angela Marie Hutchinson is the author of “Create Your Yes! When You Keep Hearing No,” named a Forbes No. 4 book to advance your career. She is a podcast host for New Books Network, where she leads conversations for the neuroscience and Christianity channels. Hutchinson is also a talent and intellectual property executive, former social media professor and BBC commentator. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.

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Mitra Sharafi, "Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Fear of the False: Forensic Science and the Law of Crime in Colonial South Asia (Cornell University Press, 2026) uncovers colonial South Asia's critical role in the development of forensic science. Around 1900, the government of British India created a web of institutions for the scientific detection of crime. Driven by anxieties about "native mendacity," newly minted forensic analysts focused on uncovering faked evidence planted by South Asians. These experts, joining toxicologists known as "chemical examiners," were supposed to extract objective, scientific truth in the service of British justice. But in trying to counteract the presumed tendency of colonized peoples to lie, the system enabled widespread misconduct by state experts, increasing the risk of wrongful convictions of South Asian defendants. Through scrupulously documented legal cases, Mitra Sharafi reveals that colonial dynamics put special pressure on the relationship between truth and justice. Examining falsity on both sides of the law through the use of testing to (mis)identify poisons, blood, and spermatozoa, as well as debates over adversarialism and inquisitorialism in the colonial courtroom, Fear of the False explores advances in forensic science and shortcuts in criminal procedure against the backdrop of colonial mistrust. Thanks to generous funding from the University of Wisconsin Law School, the ebook editions of this book are available as open access volumes through the Cornell Open initiative.

Mitra Sharafi is a legal historian whose research focuses on South Asia. She is the Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law at University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently serves as the president of the American Society for Legal History. She has been the host of the South Asian Legal History Resources website since 2010.

Saumya Dadoo is a PhD candidate at Columbia University's Department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS).

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Todd McGowan, "Self-Sabotage: How We Try Not to Flourish" (Polity Press, 2026)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Self-Sabotage: How We Try Not to Flourish (Polity Press, 2026) contends that an unconscious impulse to undermine our own interests plays a dominant role in our lives. The idea of a primary drive to self-destruction is at odds with the prevailing common sense in a world where almost everyone believes that we strive to flourish. Yet often we fail to flourish not because some people are wicked but because the drive to sabotage ourselves outweighs the pleasures of flourishing. Our tendency to self-sabotage distorts our politics, throws off our romantic relationships, and generally makes human existence difficult. It is why we become involved with partners who continually create unhappiness for us, and also why we elect leaders who derail the nation. Although the act of self-sabotage is clearly self-destructive, it appeals to us because it has a creative power. Through sacrificing ourselves, we create sublime value in the world. Our willingness to sacrifice our own interest elevates the value of the object we pursue and lifts it out of the realm of the ordinary. Self-sabotage leads to immense amounts of social harm. But at the same time, the tendency to self-destruction provides the basis for our ability to act ethically and surmount social pressure in the name of some higher value.

Todd McGowan teaches theory and film at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Embracing Alienation, The Racist Fantasy, Emancipation After Hegel, Capitalism and Desire, and Only a Joke Can Save Us, among other books. He is also the co-host of the Why Theory podcast with Ryan Engley.

Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).

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Galina Bogatova, "Casting War As Love: Russian Colonialism in Familial Terms" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Casting War As Love: Russian Colonialism in Familial Terms (Palgrave Macillan, 2026) by Dr. Galina Bogatova unpacks the hidden imperial logic behind Russia’s dominance over its neighbors, revealing how the Kremlin weaponizes "familial system" myths to justify control, including its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. From the Tsarist empire to Putin’s digital propaganda, Dr. Bogatova examines how Russia portrays itself as a disciplining “father,” a self-sacrificing “mother,” or an “elder brother” to post-Soviet states, protecting, subjugating, and manipulating them in the name of unity. 

Blending psychology, discourse analysis, and historical inquiry, this groundbreaking book exposes how language sanitizes oppression, legitimizes conquest, and sustains imperial ambitions. A thought-provoking exploration of power, ideology, and resistance, it offers a fresh perspective on Russia’s enduring influence over its former empire.

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Samantha Iyer, "Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The United States’ superpower status is often associated with its industrial, financial, and military might. Yet its global power after the Second World War hinged in part on something often seen as backward: agriculture. In contrast to Britain, the predominant global power of the nineteenth century, which depended on its current and former colonies for food and raw materials, the United States produced vast agricultural surpluses. During the 1950s, an era of decolonization and rising Cold War competition, the United States became the dominant exporter of food staples to industrializing nations in the Third World through its massive food aid program.

Through the lens of food and agriculture, Agrarian Superpower: Food, Development, and the Global Ascendancy of the United States (Columbia University Press, 2026) by Dr. Samantha Iyer offers new ways to understand the roots of the post–Second World War global order and the US position in it. Samantha Iyer traces how two former British territories and agricultural competitors of the United States, India and Egypt, became two of the largest importers of US food aid. She investigates the origins and consequences of the US-centric postwar food regime by examining changes in the production, distribution, and consumption of agricultural surpluses from the late nineteenth century to the early 1970s. Bringing together life in villages, towns, and cities with national, imperial, and international affairs, Dr. Iyer demonstrates that food aid was the expression of a changed political, economic, and ecological world that the United States did not create alone. Drawing on sources in Arabic, French, Urdu, and English, Agrarian Superpower is a groundbreaking comparative history of food, agriculture, and development.

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Elisabeth van Houts, "Empress Matilda: Queen of the Romans, Ruler of the English" (Yale UP, 2026)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Born in 1102, Empress Matilda combined the blood of two dynasties: the house of Wessex and their conquerors, the dukes of Normandy. As a widowed German empress, she was named as heir successor by her father, Henry I. But, after his death in 1135, Matilda’s place on the English throne was usurped by her cousin, Stephen of Blois. Civil war followed, and she ruled the south-west of England in opposition.

In Empress Matilda: Queen of the Romans, Ruler of the English (Yale University Press, 2026), Professor Elisabeth van Houts explores the remarkable life of medieval England’s only queen regnant. Van Houts examines female rulership in the Middle Ages, from Matilda’s relationships with her husbands, to her self-identification as granddaughter of William the Conqueror. Matilda used her persuasiveness effectively with the men who surrounded her, including her father, husbands, half-brothers and cousins.

This is a fascinating account, which reveals Matilda to be an assertive, if on occasion disappointed, woman who made the best of her position with intelligence and stamina.

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Samuel Moyn, "Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth—and What to Do About It" (FSG, 2026)

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A leading social critic identifies our least-discussed major crisis, and sets out to solve it.

As Americans debate President Biden’s infirmities and President Trump’s erratic behavior, we’ve neglected the bigger problem before us: a massive transfer of power and wealth to the oldest among us, and the curtailment of the prospects of the young. In Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth—and What to Do About It (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2026), the historian and social critic Samuel Moyn offers a piercing diagnosis of our age divide and its consequences. Even apart from the presidency, in legislatures, businesses, and the courts, the average leader’s age has risen dramatically. The elderly predominantly fund campaigns and dominate their agendas, often with the intent to block any challenge to their status. The tax code is rigged on their behalf, as is an economy geared to sheltering financial and housing assets. The United States was founded on the promise of generational renovation but has become an increasingly febrile country of old men.

But it doesn’t need to be this way. With understanding and wit, Moyn shows how elder power can be dismantled. With strong safety nets in place, mandatory retirement ages can be established. The early transfer of assets between generations could be encouraged and young voters can be granted more voice. In such a world, the elderly themselves would be freed from power games to confront the existential opportunities of aging, while the young would find their path to starting out in life unblocked at last.

Samuel Moyn is the Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. His books include Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, The Last Utopia, and Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World. Cohost of the Digging a Hole podcast, he is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and many other publications.

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Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of the communities of Eastern Europe. Their approach largely combined the ideas of traditional Ashkenazi culture with the heritage of medieval and early modern medicine. Holy rabbis and faith healers, as well as Jewish barbers, innkeepers, and peddlers, all dispensed cures, purveyed folk remedies for different ailments, and gave hope to the sick and their families based on kabbalah, numerology, prayer, and magical Hebrew formulas. Nevertheless, as new sources of knowledge penetrated the traditional world, modern medical ideas gained widespread support. Jews became court physicians to the nobility, and when the universities were opened up to them, many also qualified as doctors. At every stage, medicine proved an important field for cross-cultural contacts.

In A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe (Liverpool UP, 2024), Marek Tuszewicki studies manuscripts, printed publications, and memoirs to tease out therapeutic advice, recipes, magical incantations, kabbalistic methods, and practical techniques, together with the ethical considerations that such approaches entailed. His research fills a gap in the study of folk medicine in Eastern Europe, shedding light on little-known aspects of Ashkenazi culture, and on how the need to treat sickness brought Jews and their neighbors together.

Join YIVO for a discussion with Tuszewicki about this book, led by cultural critic and playwright Rokhl Kafrissen.

Buy the book here

This book talk originally took place on November 11, 2024.

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Max H. Bazerman, "Negotiation: The Game Has Changed" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The world has changed dramatically in just the past few years and so has negotiation. Traditional negotiating tactics, while still effective, need to be tailored to vastly different situations and circumstances. In Negotiation: The Game Has Changed (Princeton University Press, 2025), Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman, a legendary pioneer in the field of negotiation, shows how to negotiate effectively today by adapting proven negotiation principles and strategies to challenging new contexts. Negotiation is a fundamentally new way of thinking about the importance of context in negotiation.

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Yevgenia Nayberg, "Another Tongue" (Neal Porter, 2026)

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this, our second interview, I talk to celebrated author-illustrator Yevgenia Nayberg about her brand new book (April 14!), Another Tongue, published by Neal Porter Books. We discuss dual languages, both from the point of view of her journey from Russian to English which is recounted in the book, but also in the context of the two other languages that she masters, i.e., text and illustration. We also discuss another new book of hers:
Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters: A Graphic Memoir, published just three months ago, also by Neal Porter Books. Yevgenia shares her creative process, her upcoming book and advice for aspiring authors and illustrators.

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Mikuláš Pešta, "Student Internationalism and the Global Cold War: The International Union of Students in Socialist Prague" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of the CEU Review of Books Podcast, I sat down with Mikuláš Pešta to talk about his new book, Student Internationalism and the Global Cold War: The International Union of Students in Socialist Prague (Bloomsbury, 2026). During our discussion we touched upon how the International Union of Students ended up being headquartered in Prague, the organisation's various activities, and the life of the Secretariat, amongst other topics.

You can purchase the book from Bloomsbury here. The book is also available Open Access here.

The CEU Review of Books Podcast Series explores the questions that affect us all through in-depth talks with researchers, policy makers, journalists, academics and others. We showcase the most current research linked to Central Europe through these discussions.

At the CEU Review of Books, we encourage an open discussion that challenges conventional assumptions to foster a vibrant debate.

Visit our website to read our latest reviews, long reads and interviews.

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Andrew Flachs, "Feeding the World as If People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Backyard gardens flush with cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers where bees buzz and chickens scratch. Beyond, a forest filled with blackberries and jewelweed. Inspired by childhood memories of his grandmother’s overflowing backyard garden, author Andrew Flachs has embarked on a multi-continent, decades-long look at agriculture and its value.

The dominant view of agriculture has focused only on what we produce. It sees value in terms of capital gains or yield efficiency, masking how our global food system produces tremendous amounts of food commodities while failing to feed people, support rural communities, or enhance ecological well-being. Feeding the World as if People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields (University of Arizona Press, 2026) asks us to look more deeply and more humanely at what we perceive to be most valuable in our agricultural systems.

This book draws on fifteen years of anthropological research, taking readers to fields in South India, Eastern Europe, and North America, where people are already feeding the future amid global change. From these fields, Flachs shows us how a radical rethinking of the value of small farms and farmers is already happening. Bringing together conversations in agriculture, economics, anthropology, and the environmental humanities, Flachs deftly shows how small farms reproduce social and ecological relationships that are the only sustainable path forward.

For anyone who is curious about the food on their plate and the people who helped to get it there, Feeding the World as if People Mattered will offer a new way to find value in the food we grow and the people who grow it.

Dr. Andrew Flachs researches food and agriculture systems, exploring genetically modified crops, heirloom seeds, and our own microbiomes. Born and raised in rural Pennsylvania, he graduated from Oberlin College with dual Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts degrees in 2010. He earned his PhD from Washington University in St. Louis in April 2016 and was a 2016-2017 Volkswagen Exchange Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Heidelberg University Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies. He is currently an associate professor of anthropology at Purdue University. His work among farmers in North America, the Balkans, and South India investigates ecological knowledge and technological change in agricultural systems spanning Cleveland urban gardens and Indian GM cotton fields. His research has been supported by public and private institutions including the Department of Education, the National Geographic Society, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the Social Science Research Council, while his writing on agricultural development has been featured in numerous peer-reviewed publications as well as public venues including Sapiens, Salon, and the National Geographic magazine. His work has been recognized by eight international awards, including most recently as a finalist for the Society for Economic Anthropology Kate Browne Creativity in Research Award and the International Convention of Asia Scholars’ Book Prize.

Sandra Elizabeth is a graduate student enrolled at the Department of Sociology in Shiv Nadar University, Delhi- NCR. She looks at rice farmers’ and their way of life in Kuttanad, Kerala—which is dubbed as the state’s rice granary. She can be reached out on X.

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Barbara Holifield, "Being with the Body in Depth Psychology: Development, Trauma, and Transformation in the Unspoken Realm" (Routledge, 2024)

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Being with the Body in Depth Psychology: Development, Trauma, and Transformation in the Unspoken Realm (Routledge, 2024), featuring a foreword by Donald Kalsched, examines the integration of the subjectively experienced body in the practice of depth psychology. Barbara Holifield draws from philosophical perspectives, neuroscientific and infant research, developmental theory, and trauma studies to offer a comprehensive overview of embodiment within a relationally based psychoanalytic approach. Clinical vignettes demonstrate the critical value of working with the bodily-felt dimension of implicit relational memory and emphasize how bodily-felt sense facilitates access to feelings.

The primacy of bodily-based knowing revealed through infant research illuminates an interior world of sensorial apprehension that conceptually based knowing and psychoanalytic thought often overlook. Furthermore, it establishes the body as intrinsic to relational life. Freud’s 1923 statement that “The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego,” is as cogent today as it was then (1961, p. 26). It has only been confirmed by infant research and affective neuroscience. Psychic life is born in the body and is sustained by the body. It is in and through the body that relationship begins. Disruptions in one’s earliest relationship with the primary caregiver are synonymous with disruption of the integral unity of psyche and body.

Further, the book highlights the organizing role that felt sensation, sensory perception, and affective experience have on facilitating the re-establishment of psyche indwelling the soma. Because disruptions of the felt sense of psyche integral to soma occur in infancy, work of this nature falls out of the purview of traditional psychoanalysis. “It requires instead a working-through focused on the present, on the heart of the analytic relationship, and on the activation of an awareness of one’s own inner mode of functioning” (Lombardi, 2017, p. 23). Focus on direct sensorial and relational experience in the body is foundational in working with the analysand’s unformulated experience. As this occurs, affects are able to be borne, reflected on, and lived as feelings-in-the-body while simultaneously making way for the establishment of new relational organizations. Throughout the book, clinical examples show how the mythopoetic imagination and soma entwine––at times, attention to the somatic dimension stirs the creative unconscious in the form of dreams, active imagination, artworks, and movement. Reciprocally, the imaginal world informs and stimulates somatic experience. In this way, the mythopoetic reality revealed in a depth analysis weaves somatic experience into a tapestry of personal meaning, facilitating deep psychophysical transformation. Here the body serves as a portal to the numinous––healing that goes far beyond the relief of symptoms to a renewed sense of aliveness.

This book offers guiding principles for psychotherapists and clinicians of all levels to engage the bodily basis of experience in their clinical practice. It will appeal to general readers interested in integrating mind and body, including those in the healing arts, fine arts, dance, athletics, meditation, yoga, and martial arts.

Barbara Holifield, MSW, LMFT, SEP is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. With over forty years of clinical practice in depth psychotherapy and somatic healing — and her certification as a Jungian Analyst since 2006 — her work lives at the intersection of Jung and the body, bringing together somatic experiencing, affective neuroscience, relational psychoanalysis, and the wisdom of the bodily-felt sense to offer a path of healing for those who have suffered developmental trauma and its long aftermath.

A certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) trained directly by Dr. Peter Levine, Barbara taught Somatic Psychology for approximately twenty years at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) — one of the foremost graduate programs in somatic and depth psychology in the United States. She is also an internationally recognized teacher of Authentic Movement, a contemplative body practice rooted in Jungian active imagination that she has taught across the United States and abroad for approximately forty years.

Her clinical writing explores the relationship of body, trauma, self, and our participation in the dream of the earth. Her articles have been published in Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, Psychological Perspectives, and the Journal of Analytic Psychology. She has also contributed a chapter to The Body in Psychotherapy (North Atlantic Press) and a chapter to the anthology Authentic Movement: Moving the Body, Moving the Self, Being Moved (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). She maintains memberships in the International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP), the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP), the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP), and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT).

Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).

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Ashton Lazarus, "Performing Transgression: Crowds and Bodies in Heian Japan" (Harvard UP, 2026)

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What happens when performance defies social and political boundaries? Performing Transgression: Crowds and Bodies in Heian Japan (Harvard University Press, 2026) offers a new cultural history of non-elite spectacle in Heian Japan (794–1185), uncovering how performances on the margins—boisterous dengaku music and dance, daring sangaku acrobatics, and the infectious lyrics of imayō songs—challenged and fascinated the aristocracy.

Ashton Lazarus reveals how these unruly arts were documented by the very elites they unsettled, appearing in historical chronicles, diaries, prose, poetry, and illustrated scrolls. More than mere precursors to later forms like noh and kyōgen, these performances formed a dynamic cultural force with real political impact. By tracing their influence through literary studies, performance studies, and historiography, Lazarus rethinks the interplay between politics, class, and culture in Heian Japan.

Performing Transgression illuminates how acts of defiance and creative expression resonate across time, offering fresh insights into the ways performance bridges the vanished past and the present.

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Lily Kelting, "Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods" (UNC Press, 2026)

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The rise of “heritage” foods—that is, the reinvention of traditional foods—has enjoyed a high profile thanks to the oft-praised efforts of chefs such as Sean Brock and René Redzepi. But Lily Kelting observes the popularity of heritage foods as something more: a global movement in response to climate catastrophe and the rise of right-wing, populist movements that center a return to the past as part of their ideology. Weaving ethnography, discourse analysis, critical theory, and sensory, embodied critique, Kelting tracks and critiques the boom of traditional food revival movements in the American South, Denmark, and India. Ultimately, Kelting argues that the heritage culinary professionals wish to revive is equal parts nostalgia and invention: They engage, subvert, and ignore food histories in their creation of new food movements. As Kelting documents our contemporary moment, she shows how the conversations surrounding these new food movements leave out people already keeping their traditions alive. Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods (University of North Carolina Press, 2026), then, serves as a reparative revaluation of the work of the cooks largely excluded from the contemporary media conversation about heritage revival.

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Grégory Pierrot, "Fantômes de la révolution noire: Une histoire culturelle transatlantique" (Ròt-Bò-Krik, 2026)

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Black Power! A name with a ring to it on both sides of the Atlantic, taken as a sign of Black American rage incarnated by a few names: Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panthers, Angela Davis.

Behind these archetypes of the 1960s and 70s stood a political movement as mutable as it was international, that of Black Power, with the goal of bringing about a global uprising. This insurrection of Black worlds has haunted the West for centuries, rumbling beneath the words of Frantz Fanon and Lorraine Hansberry, the films of Melvin Van Peebles and Sarah Maldoror, in the albums of Sun Ra and Archie Shepp, the poems of Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez. In Fantômes de la révolution noire: Une Histoire culturelle transatlantique ([Ghosts of the Black Revolution: A Transatlantic Cultural History] Éditions Ròt-Bò-Krik, 2026), Grégory Pierrot evokes the ghosts of Black Power and shows that the arts are real laboratories where the Black Revolution is formed, reinvented, and broadcast.

Guest Grégory Pierrot is Associate professor of English at the University of Connecticut, where he studies the cultural and artistic networks of the Black Atlantic. In addition to Fantômes de la révolution noire published by Ròt-Bò-Krik earlier this year, Dr. Pierrot has translated and co-translated a series of essays and novels from and into French, and edited or co-edited several volumes concerning the literature of and about the Haitian revolution in French and English. He is also the author of The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture and Decolonize Hipsters.

Host Gina Stamm is Associate Professor of French at The University of Alabama, with research concentrated on the environmental humanities and speculative literatures of the 20th and 21st centuries, from Surrealism to contemporary science fiction and feminist utopias, in Metropolitan France and the francophone Caribbean, with a book manuscript under review on posthumanist ecological engagement in the surrealist movement.

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Systemic, Non-Linear Change Is Today’s Path Forward

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Ilene Fischer is the founder and CEO of Sophia Network, where she guides executive leaders through the turbulence of disruptive change, mergers, reorganizations, and breakthrough innovations – applying her signature Innovation Ecosystems methodology to turn strategic vision into reality. Earlier in her career, she was a partner at Charlie Kiefer’s Innovation Associates and managing director at the Tom Peters Company, and has been an advocate for women’s causes in an array of fields.

“Innovation theatre” in which changes are promised without ever happening is Ilene’s bete noire. Give me a corporate culture steeped in fear, and you can be sure that vital experimentation won’t be valued. In this interview, she makes a strong case for constant iteration that cuts across departmental silos in order to keep pace with the nine disruptive factors she sees as happening simultaneously in the business world today. Is AI big? Yes. But so is what quantum computing makes possible. One of the biggest points she makes in this conversation is that companies are starved for multidisciplinary talent, and the talent they do manage is attract will leave promptly if not given a license to apply that talent and achieve results. Change starts with deep listening (no judging) and grows exponentially into a virtuous circle if done with respect; fail that test, and a vicious cycle will emerge instead.

Ilene's book Innovation Ecosystems: A Dynamic Blueprint for Organizational Success and Engagement is published by John Murray Press, a division of Hachette. The book will be released on October 20 and is available for preorder now.

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Eamonn Gearon, "The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit" (Hurst, 2026)

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab Revolt and the First World War.

But Lawrence was part of the Arab Bureau, an effort to better understand and influence the region as Britain fought the Ottoman Empire for control of the Middle East. Chastened by their intelligence failures at Gallipoli and Kut al-Amara, the British tried to do something unthinkable: Actually learn how local communities operated, and ensure that propaganda was culturally authentic.

It’s the subject of The Arab Bureau: The Story of Britain's Most Ingenious Intelligence Unit (Hurst, 2026), a new book from Eamonn Gearon which he calls the first in-depth investigation into what this intelligence agency did.

Eamonn is a global historian, specialising in the Middle East and North Africa and the history of intelligence, whose books also include The Arab Revolt. His doctoral research uncovered previously unknown Arabic documents which shed new light on British intelligence work in the region.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Arab Bureau. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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Dominik A. Haas, "South Asia Before Religion: Reflections on an Anachronistic Concept" (Knowledge Commons Works, 2026)

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

South Asia Before Religion: Reflections on an Anachronistic Concept (Knowledge Commons Works, 2026) critically examines the applicability of the concept of religion to premodern South Asian culture. I argue that premodern South Asia did not possess a concept equivalent to religion as understood today – neither as a distinct system of religious teachings and practices, nor as a fundamental cultural category separate from non-religious domains such as the secular, philosophy, or science. Using Āyurveda and philosophy as examples, I show that imposing anachronistic categories on past cultures risks misrepresenting their inner logics and social realities. I advocate deconstructing modern notions of religion and refraining from reconstructing the past with religion as a template. However, concepts of religion can serve a purpose when used as historicized objects of comparison or reference for premodern concepts and systems, in order to facilitate access to premodern cultures and contribute effectively to contemporary discourses.

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Julia R. Azari, "Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Julia Azari, Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, has a new, award-winning[*] book centering on the connection between race and the American presidency, specifically in the reaction to presidents who made progress on the issue of race in the United States. Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History focuses on four different periods in American political history and a number of different presidential administrations including: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump. Race and the American presidency are not usually topics that are looped together, and this is also part of the point that Azari is making in the book, since presidents often try to elide racial politics and policy issues. Race is also not usually connected to presidential impeachments, but this is yet another key point that Azari raises, connecting racial progress, the backlash responses, and the subsequent impeachments. In noting these connections, Azari threads examples over time where presidents directly confronted race in American politics, working towards more racial equality, and how these efforts also prompt a backlash response. The key case studies in Backlash Presidents are Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War in the 1860s, Lyndon Johnson’s efforts in the 1960s in regard to the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, as well as anti-poverty legislation, and finally Barack Obama as the first Black president of the United States, which was both symbolic and structural. Backlash Presidents traces not only the progress made during these administrations, but also the responses that followed in the subsequent administrations. It is these next administrations, of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump, where each of these presidents were either impeached or were about to be impeached, and how this dynamic pulls together a variety of different threads to help us to understand presidential politics, institutional development, and American political history all in context of the question of race.

Azari’s research is connected to the idea of political time, but with the important addition of pulling out the problem of race in the United States. Backlash Presidents contributes to our thinking about not only the time and context of presidents and their administrations, but also to thinking about what it is that presidents do to politics itself. Part of this analysis also interrogates populism, positioning these movements within the context of racial backlash, while also building out the understanding of the president’s position within his own party, especially during these fraught periods. In each of the key examples, Azari highlights the ways in which Johnson, Nixon, and Trump were outsiders to what was going on inside their parties—in each case the Republican Party at the time—and how these shifting partisan foundations opened up different kinds of vulnerabilities for these presidents.

In each of the case studies, there is also the discussion of the role that the U.S. Congress plays, since they are the actors who move towards impeaching and trying the president. Members of the House of Representatives need to move beyond constraints in order to impeach a president, and in these instances, they have concluded that the president is not correct in some basic and meaningful way, that the president is not upholding his oath of office, and is also undermining the forward movement on race and racial equality.

Backlash Presidents: From Transformation to Reactionary Leaders in American History is a deeply researched analysis, with important historical context and details to help flesh out the particular time period under consideration. The examination is further complicated and built out with important understandings of party politics in the United States, and how president fits into their political party, or may be seen as an outsider. Racial dynamics in the United States undergirds the entire theory, and helps us see the tensions within partisan politics, presidential politics, and American democracy.

[*] The Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association awarded Backlash Presidents the 2025 Richard E. Neustadt Best Book Award, given for the best book on executive politics published during the year.

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Cast Out: A Call For A Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Cast Out: A Call For A Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration (Beacon Press, 2026), civil rights lawyer Joseph Margulies insists that those who commit even the most heinous crimes are one of us and should be judged in a spirit of forgiveness. He explains that American society is too often unforgiving, preferring to cast out those we consider irredeemable by fixating narrowly on the question What did they do? and imagining that those who have done great wrongs have no past worth learning and no future worth preserving.
Through intimate interviews, his rich chapters bring to life 6 men and women, sharing their (sometimes brutal) crimes, the grim but all-too-human paths that led them there, and their evolution and insights. Eye-opening and unflinching, Cast Out makes us truly see those society locks away—the so-called “worst of the worst.” It challenges the reader to see us in them and them in us, and in that way, to recognize the humanity we all share.

Guest: Joseph Margulies is a writer, litigator, Professor of the Practice of Law and Government at Cornell University. He was Counsel of Record in Rasul v. Bush (2004), and in Munaf v. Geren (2008). His books include Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power; and Cast Out.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the creator, producer and host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

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Mohamed Alyahyai, "The War" (Dararab for Publishing and Translation, 2026)

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A psychological Arabic novel in English translation, The War by Mohamed Alyahyai follows a man who begins to question whether he is truly the one who returned from war.

On a winter night, Issa Saleh prepares a small gathering at his home. By the end of the evening, they are gone—and he is no longer certain they were ever there.

As memory fractures, the war resurfaces not as event but as instability, where identity itself begins to slip and the narratives that sustain survival unravel.

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Dana Burchardt, "The Authority of International Courts: A Behavioural Framework" (Hart Publishing, 2026)

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Why do some international courts wield broad authority while others face pushback or fade into irrelevance? The Authority of International Courts: A Behavioural Framework (Hart Publishing, 2026) by Dr. Dana Burchardt provides novel theoretical and empirical insights into this question. It offers a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective on the authority of international courts, drawing from law, political science and behavioural research.

It develops, in Part I, a theoretical model and analytical framework for assessing these questions. The model explains how authority relationships between courts and their audiences—such as states, NGOs, individual applicants, and domestic courts—are formed, maintained, or contested. In Part II, the book applies this analytical framework to in-depth case studies of two selected international courts: the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States. These studies not only provide deeper insights into the authority of these courts but also demonstrate how the analytical framework can be applied to other international courts to generate an enhanced understanding of international court authority.

The book sheds new light on why some courts enjoy enduring authority and others face pushback, offering powerful tools for understanding the behaviour of international courts and their audiences.

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Building A Freedom Infrastructure in the Age of Networked Control

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Host Licia Cianetti talks to Venezuelan democracy activist and co-founder of the World Liberty Congress Leopoldo López. As part of PPP’s ongoing collaboration with the Journal of Democracy they discuss Leopoldo’s recent article on Democracy in an Age of Networked Control. They discuss the technological challenges that democracy activists worldwide face today, and how some activists are rethinking their use of technology to elude the infrastructure of control and create new infrastructures for freedom.

Guest:

Leopoldo López is a Venezuelan democracy activist and the cofounder of the World Liberty Congress, which is a global network that connects democracy advocates and leaders from across the world. From 2014 to 2020 he was imprisoned for leading peaceful protests and civil resistance against the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Currently he is a Fellow at the Wilson Center.

Presenter:

Licia Cianetti is Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham and Founding Deputy Director of CEDAR. She is the Principal Investigator of an upcoming research project on “Resisting Inter-Scalar Authoritarian Networks and Coalitions” (funded by the EU under Horizon Europe grant no. 101286676).

Transcript here

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David I. Waddington, "The Hidden Curriculum of Video Games" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Despite decades of inflammatory rhetoric, the real risk of video games lies not in their violent imagery but in the ethical and political sensibilities they normalize. Video games reward speed, efficiency, control, and meritocratic mastery, training players to align with a technolibertarian worldview - one that celebrates individual will, technological power, and skepticism toward collective forms of governance. Rather than asking whether games produce violent individuals, we might more productively ask how they contribute to a commitment to radical capitalism and a belief in highly individualistic worldviews. In this unsettling work David Waddington traces the philosophical roots of technolibertarianism, founded on faith in technological progress and personal freedom. He identifies a darker turn in this thinking, animated by the ideals of Ayn Rand and her archetype of the "tech hero of capitalism." Many games, Waddington argues, invite players to inhabit this archetype, treating mastery, control, and relentless striving as moral virtues. While educational research often praises games for motivating students and fostering problem-solving, Waddington asks a deeper question: What kinds of people do games help us become? Drawing on Martin Heidegger and other thinkers, he explores whether gameplay expands human possibility or narrows it by habituating players to efficient yet restrictive systems. The Hidden Curriculum of Video Games (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026) critiques mainstream game design and educational technology, offering hopeful alternatives and examining reflective games that resist dominant gameplay logics. Written with clarity, passion, and philosophical depth, this thought-provoking work opens new horizons on technology, education, and the moral imagination of play.

Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the HNU University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal TITEL kulturmagazin for the game section, and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter Game Studies Watchlist.

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Nick Yablon, "From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower: C. G. Hine's 1905 Photographic Survey of Broadway" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1905, when Broadway was already the most famous thoroughfare in New York City, a recreational photographer from Newark, New Jersey named Charles Gilbert Hine set out to document the street’s entire length.

Taking pictures from downtown Bowling Green and its skyscrapers to uptown Inwood with its fields and wildflowers, Hine depicted a Broadway animated by the presence of the past and the relentless pressures of change.

Through his lens appear shanties, brownstones and country houses; horse-drawn wagons and trolley cars; downtown sex workers and uptown famers.

Hines’ photographs lingered in the collection of the New York Historical until they were discovered by Nick Yablon, a professor of history and American Studies at the University of Iowa.

Now they appear in Nick’s new book, From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower: C.G. Hine’s 1905 Photographic Survey of Broadway (Columbia University Press, 2026).

Combining Hines’ photographs with his own analysis, along with maps and other images, Nick has produced an illuminating book that depicts Broadway, its peoples, its buildings, and the many neighborhoods that Broadway traverses, at a distinct moment in time.

A digital companion to From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower, with a selection of Hine’s photographs, an interactive map of Broadway, and more, can be found here.

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Michael Patrick Cullinane, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Court Cabinet" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In his final days in office in 1909, Theodore Roosevelt invited dozens of friends to the White House for lunch. They had never met as a group, but they had one thing in common: Each played tennis with the president and advised on policy matters. Roosevelt half-joked that the public would never know how much these tennis partners did to make his administration a success. Journalists dismissively called them the “Tennis Cabinet,” making light of their contribution, but Roosevelt knew otherwise.

In Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Court Cabinet (Potomac Books, an Imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2026), Michael Patrick Cullinane explains that the inner circle led the administration’s campaigns against corporate greed, investigated public health violations, and formulated consumer protections. They founded environmental conservation policies, prosecuted civil rights violations, and implemented bureaucratic efficiencies that saved the government billions. Roosevelt’s tennis mates shaped the nation’s diplomacy, ending wars and promoting American interests abroad.

Never had a more eclectic group advised a U.S. president. The Tennis Cabinet included legendary frontier lawman Seth Bullock and the starched-shirt corporate lawyer Henry Stimson, who served in five presidential administrations. Texas wolf wrangler Jack Abernathy played with stuffy bureaucrats like Labor Commissioner Charles Patrick Neill and social activist James Bronson Reynolds. The French ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand spun yarns with football hero George Washington Woodruff and Roosevelt’s college friend and banker Robert Bacon. James Garfield, namesake son of a martyred president, sipped mint juleps with Supreme Court Justice William Henry Moody. And J. P. Morgan’s silver-spooned son-in-law Herbert Satterlee kept company with rugged soldier Luther “Yellowstone” Kelly.

For all their differences, these men shared a desire to help the president transform the nation from a parochial nineteenth-century republic into an imperial and industrial global power. They have escaped the attention of reporters and historians only because of Roosevelt’s towering celebrity. Turning away from Roosevelt as the singular force behind his administration, it is possible to see how the contributions of his Tennis Cabinet quietly sowed the seeds of the American Century.

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Mark Crinson, "Aviationland: Heathrow and the Making of an Airport Landscape" (Paul Mellon Centre, 2026)

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Aviationland: Heathrow and the Making of an Airport Landscape (Paul Mellon Centre, 2026) by Professor Mark Crinson is the first critical study to examine how a major international airport takes shape on the ground, and what that means for the landscape around it. Focused on Heathrow airport, it traces how the area has been formed and reformed by overlapping systems of architecture, infrastructure and enclosure, from the common land of Hounslow Heath in the eighteenth century to the global transport hub of the present day. 

The book explores the different forces that have shaped the airport’s environment: the remaking of landforms, the design of terminal buildings, and the surrounding sprawl of hotels, schools, factories, and business parks. At the same time, it shows how the Heathrow area has been moulded by wider shifts in energy, mobility, and the economy, and how the airport has in turn left a lasting mark on its surroundings, both materially and ecologically.

Drawing on previously unpublished material, Aviationland includes close studies of key sites, as well as figures who shaped how we see the airport today, including Richard Rogers, Patrick Abercrombie, and J. G. Ballard. Bringing together architectural, landscape, and infrastructural histories that are seldom read in tandem, this volume makes the case for Heathrow as a distinctively modern landscape. The result is a nuanced account of how local places become entangled within global systems, and what happens when they do.

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Martin Shaw, "The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual and Political Challenges After Gaza" (Agenda Publishing, 2025)

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Israeli destruction of Gaza has returned the idea of genocide to the center of world politics, with sharp conflicts between the protesters and lawyers who invoke it and the governments and media that deny it. The New Age of Genocide: Intellectual and Political Challenges After Gaza (Agenda Publishing, 2025), by the foremost sociological theorist of genocide, Martin Shaw, defends the idea against thinkers who have questioned it, and argues that it is essential to the understanding of mass atrocities. It maintains that Gaza has opened a new age in which the West not only fails to prevent, but also participates in genocide.

As well as discussing the genocide idea, the book analyses the Gaza genocide in the context of the longer histories of the problem, both globally and in Palestine. Further chapters deal with "forgotten genocides," the attempted Russian elimination of Ukraine, and the history of British complicity.

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Debolina Dutta, "A Jurisprudence of Conversations: Law, Life and Feminism in Post-colonial India" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Grounded in empirical studies, this book is both a history of the emergence of feminist jurisprudence in post-colonial India and a model of innovative legal research. The book inaugurates a creative practice of scholarly activism that engages a new way of thinking about law and feminist jurisprudence, one that is geared to acknowledge and take responsibility for the hierarchies in Indian academic practices. Its method of conversation and accountability continues the feminist tradition of taking reciprocity and the time and place of collaboration seriously. It helps make visible the specific ties between post-colonial life and law and joins the work of refusing and reimagining the hierarchical formation of legal knowledge in a caste-based Indian society. A significant contribution to the history and practice of feminist jurisprudence in post-colonial India, A Jurisprudence of Conversations: Law, Life and Feminism in Post-colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 2026) will appeal to both an academic and activist readership.

Debolina Dutta is a Research Fellow at Melbourne Law School's Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW)

Saumya Dadoo is a PhD Candidate at MESAAS, Columbia University

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David Denby, "Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer" (Henry Holt, 2025)

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What made a generation of Jewish artists and intellectuals transform American culture? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with acclaimed cultural critic David Denby to discuss his book Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer (Henry Holt, 2025), a vibrant portrait of four extraordinary Americans whose Jewish identities helped shape the modern United States.

Though they worked in vastly different fields, Leonard Bernstein, Mel Brooks, Betty Friedan, and Norman Mailer shared a remarkable historical moment. Coming of age after World War II, they entered an America where Jewish opportunity was expanding and antisemitism was beginning to recede. Their Jewish heritage, energized by the freedoms of American life, fueled bold, unconventional careers that reshaped music, comedy, literature, feminism, and public debate.

Denby paints these figures in all their complexity: ambitious, difficult, generous, provocative, and endlessly creative. Rather than offering simple hero worship, he explores how their outsized personalities and relentless drive allowed them to challenge old assumptions about art, politics, gender, humor, and what it meant to be both fully Jewish and fully American.

Together, Denby and Katz explore why this particular generation produced so many cultural revolutionaries, how Jewish identity informed their work without defining it, and what their legacies reveal about the changing place of Jews in postwar America.

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Matteo Gatti, "Corporate Power and the Politics of Change" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Corporate Power and the Politics of Change (Cambridge UP, 2025) Matteo Gatti examines how corporations have taken on roles traditionally reserved for governments – advocating on social issues, setting internal norms, and stepping in where public institutions fall short. This phenomenon, called corporate governing, takes two forms: socioeconomic advocacy, when companies take public stances, and government substitution, when they deliver services or protections the state does not provide. Drawing on legal doctrine and insights from the social sciences, Gatti shows how this shift reflects broader pressures within firms and deep dysfunction outside them. The rise of corporate governing has also triggered political, legal, and cultural backlash that challenges its legitimacy and reach. This book offers a framework for understanding how corporate power reshapes policymaking and what that means for business and democracy.

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Suzy Hansen, "From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan" (FSG, 2026)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

From Suzy Hansen, whose previous book, Notes on a Foreign Country, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2026) is a story for a world out of joint. An absorbing account of one neighborhood in Istanbul that has seen profound change, it offers lessons for all of us who feel the pressure of the disorienting global forces remaking our lives. Karagümrük, a neighborhood once dominated by Ottoman-era homes, is now known for petty thieves, cheap apartment blocks, and an influx of Syrian refugees. It’s here that Hansen went looking for the truth behind the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian turn, a catastrophic regional war, and an accelerating geopolitical crisis. She asks: Was Turkey a harbinger of what would soon arise in other countries, the resurgence of authoritarianism? Or do the lives in this neighborhood, and the transformations of Erdoğan’s Turkey, reveal a more complex story? During a decade spent reporting from Karagümrük, Hansen discovered the neighborhood’s secrets and got to know some of its people: Ismail, the longtime muhtar, or neighborhood councilman; Huseyin, a loyalist in Erdoğan’s Islamic nationalist AK Party; and Ebru, a real estate agent and mother with ambitions to unseat Ismail. Through these local perspectives, Hansen connects the events unfolding in Karagümrük to the forces roiling Turkey, the Middle East, and the world, capturing the sweep of the last ten years in microcosm.

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Maria Pinto, "Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival" (UNC Press, 2026)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival (University of North Carolina Press, 2026), naturalist, forager, and educator Maria Pinto uncovers strange and beautiful connections between the natural and human worlds, mingling reportage, research, memoir, and nature writing, touching on topics that range from Black farmers’ domestication of the unforgettable aroma of truffles, to the possibility that enslaved people wielded mycological poisons against their enslavers.

Pinto brings a new perspective and a distinctive literary voice to this mix of environmental and lived history, and every page sings with her enthusiasm for the networks in which we are embedded: fungal, ecological, ancestral, and communal. Join us in pursuit of beautiful, perplexing, delicious, and deadly mushrooms as we explore this understudied kingdom’s awe-inspiring diversity, discovering how fungi have been used by people, especially those on the margins, for survival, pleasure, revelation, and revolution.

When she’s not in the woods (and sometimes when she is), Maria Pinto is a writer, editor, and educator. She teaches writing for various literary organizations. She reads fiction for Peripheries Journal and serves on the board of Hale, an outdoor education and land conservancy nonprofit. Her writing has been supported by Assets for Artists at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, the Mass Cultural Council, the Writers’ Room of Boston, The Mastheads, and The Garrett on the Green. You can find Maria at her Website and on Instagram.

Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Daniel L. Gardner, "Thresholds of Digital Gameplay" (MIT Press, 2025)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Contemporary digital gameplay is only accessible by navigating an ecosystem of interfaces that support its computational nature. Account logins, controllers, and an assortment of menus, settings, and other peripheral-to-gameplay elements support a range of practical and necessary functions that result from the transformation of gameplay into digital gameplay, as well as broader shifts toward an increasingly networked and data-driven world. The games industry has adopted usability testing on top of play testing to evaluate how these interfaces may influence the accessibility and success of their game software, but how embedding gameplay within webs of software, hardware, and platform infrastructures impacts the medium, players, and production has not yet been fully explored.

In Thresholds of Digital Gameplay (MIT Press, 2025), Daniel Gardner demonstrates how a series of interfaces and other elements on the periphery of digital gameplay fundamentally alter the phenomena of gaming. This book examines non-gameplay-centered material or mechanical attachments that surround and enclose gameplay while directing or mediating our experience of it—for example, access controls, character configuration, and microtransactional storefronts.

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Timothy Mitchell, "The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow" (Verso, 2026)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Stealing the future and concealing the theft—capitalism’s method, as examined by the author of the acclaimed Carbon Democracy Today, extraordinary wealth seems to arrive from nowhere. The trick of conjuring this unearned wealth is, in fact, the key to understanding capitalism’s origins and a clue to why the catastrophe of climate collapse is upon us: value is created by consuming the future. In The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow (Verso, 2026), Professor Timothy Michell explains how this came about through the imperial expansion of the West, encumbering today’s generations with repayments on earlier extractions. Timothy Mitchell identifies the forms of capitalisation, credit, and coercion that turn prospective assets into present income. Rejecting the common idea that claims on the future create only financial or fictitious capital, he traces the terraforming projects – the destruction of rivers, the colonising of territory, the expansion of infrastructure, and the burning of carbon—through which the future has been squandered. Terms such as finance, technology, the economy, and growth function as alibis that conceal this devastating form of extraction.

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Kelly M. Duke Bryant, "Negotiating Childhood: French Colonialism and African Children in Senegal, 1848-1940" (U Mass Press, 2026)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Kelly M. Duke Bryant’s Negotiating Childhood: French Colonialism and African Children in Senegal, 1848-1940 (U Mass Press, 2026)explores how colonial child protection policies and African children’s responses to them produced new ways of defining, measuring, documenting, and experiencing childhood in the French colony of Senegal from 1848 to 1940. In this groundbreaking book, Bryant takes the scholarship in new directions, offering to a literature dominated by studies of British colonies in the twentieth century a study of childhood in a French colony from the immediate post-emancipation period through the 1930s. This focus allows her to complicate the generally accepted timeline of child protection in colonial Africa and question other assumptions about children’s history on the continent.

The author, Kelly M. Duke Bryant, is an Associate Professor of History at Rowan University and the current President of the French Colonial Historical Society.

The host, Elisa Prosperetti, is an Assistant Professor of African and global history at NIE/NTU in Singapore. She is the author of An Anticolonial Development: Race, Schooling, and Emancipation in Twentieth-Century West Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2026).

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Elad Lapidot, "State of Others: Levinas and Decolonial Israel" (Indiana UP, 2025)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Elad Lapidot is Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Lille, France. His work is guided by questions concerning the relation between knowledge and politics. Among his publications: State of Others: Levinas and Decolonial Israel (Indiana UP, forthcoming), Politics of Not Speaking (Albany: SUNY Press, 2025), Jews Out of the Question: A Critique of Anti-Anti-Semitism (Albany: SUNY Press, 2020), Hebrew translation of Hegel’sPhänomenologie des Geistes (Tel Aviv: Resling Publishing, 2020), Heidegger and Jewish Thought: Difficult Others, edited with M. Brumlik (London/New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and Etre sans mot dire : La logique de ‘Sein und Zeit’ (Bucarest: Zeta Books, 2010).

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Kurt Warner, "False Idols: How Diversion is Destroying Democracy" (Vernon Press, 2024)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

False Idols: How Diversion is Destroying Democracy (Vernon Press, 2024) examines how modern forms of diversion shape civic life and weaken democratic responsibility. Drawing on the ancient Roman idea of “bread and circuses,” Kurt Warner explores how contemporary society is saturated with distractions that keep citizens focused on what is immediate, pleasurable, profitable, or spectacular, rather than on what is politically and socially meaningful.

The conversation introduces listeners to the book’s central concern: how celebrity culture, consumerism, economic pressures, sports, politics, art, music, literature, the internet, social media, and video games can become “false idols.” These forces do not merely entertain us; they influence how we think, what we value, and how we understand our responsibilities to one another.

A key point of discussion is the book’s comparison between ancient Rome and the contemporary United States. Warner uses “bread and circuses” to consider how societies become complacent when citizens are absorbed by basic needs and entertainment while civic duty fades into the background.

The episode also explores the book’s opening narrative, which follows an ordinary man, Chris, through a day filled with advertising, media, branding, and social pressure. This scene illustrates one of the book’s central arguments: distraction is often woven into everyday life before people have noticed its influence.

Warner’s background in psychotherapy adds an important dimension to the discussion. 'False Idols' connects personal awareness with civic awareness, asking how people can recognize the forces directing their attention and reclaim the ability to think critically.

Ultimately, this episode invites listeners to reflect on the relationship between attention and democracy. 'False Idols' asks what it would mean to wake up from the collective daze of distraction and choose more meaningful forms of civic, ethical, and social engagement.

Key Themes and Context:

“Bread and circuses” in the modern world - One of the book’s central ideas is that Juvenal’s famous phrase “bread and circuses” remains relevant today. Warner uses it to examine how entertainment, consumption, and everyday distraction can draw citizens away from civic responsibility.

The many forms of diversion- The book considers a wide range of modern distractions, including celebrity worship, money, sports, politics, art, music, literature, the internet, social media, and video games. Together, these examples show how distraction can operate across culture, politics, economics, and everyday life.

Democracy and civic duty - At the heart of the book is a concern with democracy. Warner argues that distraction becomes dangerous when it weakens civic engagement and allows people to avoid the difficult work of political and ethical responsibility.

Critical thinking as resistance - The later chapters of 'False Idols' focus on critical thinking as a way of resisting manipulation and recovering agency. The book invites readers to examine not only what they consume, but also how their attention, values, and judgments are shaped.

The psychological dimension of distraction - Warner’s background in psychotherapy informs the book’s attention to emotion, avoidance, and self-awareness. Distraction is presented not only as a social or political problem, but also as something that affects how individuals relate to themselves and others.

Vernon Press – Bridging Scholarly Ideas and Global Readership

Vernon Press stands out as a bilingual independent publisher of scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences. Their mission is crucial — to provide a home for ideas of international importance and to embrace scholarship from underrepresented voices and perspectives. Through its diverse catalog, Vernon Press engages with global readers, contributing to academic and public discourse.

Dessy Vassileva, the Marketing & Design expert at Vernon Press, brings a 360º multidisciplinary approach to her work at Vernon Press.

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Julie Buntin, "Famous Men" (Random House, 2026)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Will Miles is trapped. Trapped in tiny Greening, Michigan, where a toxic high school rumor has turned her into a social exile. Trapped in the predictable routines of her mother, and under the unrelenting gaze of her mother’s increasingly sinister boyfriend. But when Will stumbles across the early poems of Nathaniel Fellow, a famous writer forty years her senior who also grew up in Greening, she feels she’s found a kindred spirit. A passing comment from her mother only adds to Will’s fascination: Is Nathaniel the father she's never known?
Will orchestrates a plan to track Nathaniel down, following in his footsteps to New York City, where she learns he's not the answer to her past, not the way she imagined. But their meeting sparks a complicated, consuming relationship that gives Will sidelong access to a world she’s only ever imagined: of writers and intellectuals, a financial safety net, and, most intoxicatingly, a glimpse into her own potential. But who is Nathaniel Fellow, off the page? And what will shaping her life to suit his cost her? When a torrent of information about his past threatens not just her life with Nathaniel, but the story she tells herself about him, Will is faced with a choice that will change everything.
A gripping novel about ambition, parents and children, and all the ways women still pay for men’s mistakes, Famous Men (Random House, 2026) traces one woman’s journey to the truth of where she comes from, what she’s capable of, and how she might start again.

Julie Buntin‘s debut novel, Marlena, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, released in ten territories worldwide, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen outlets, including The Washington Post, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews. She is the co-editor of Notes to New Mothers, a collection of dispatches from postpartum life by sixty writers and artists. Previously, Buntin was an editor and director of writing programs at Catapult. Now, she writes and teaches in Ann Arbor, where she is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan.

Recommended Books:

Dur E. Aziz Amna, A Splintering
Chloe Benjamin, The Understory
Louise Kennedy, Stations
Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries

Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers.

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R. Joseph Parrott, "Dream the Size of Freedom: How African Liberation Mobilized New Left Internationalism" (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Dream the Size of Freedom: How African Liberation Mobilized New Left Internationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) by Dr. R. Joseph Parrott explores how anti-colonial movements in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau reshaped US activist engagement with the Global South from the 1960s through the 1970s and influenced American foreign policy as the Vietnam War drew to a close. These Portuguese African liberation movements, led by nationalists like Eduardo Mondlane and Amílcar Cabral, built global solidarity networks to support their military and social challenges to empire while defending against Western intervention. US activists disillusioned with the Cold War came to see African self-determination as central to global campaigns for racial and economic justice. A broad coalition ranging from Black Power radicals to religious liberals mobilized against the North Atlantic alliance with Portugal. In the process, this grassroots movement helped define a New Left Internationalism that championed decentralized, multiracial organizing and a collaborative vision of US foreign policy to redress historic inequalities between Global North and South.

Drawing on more than fifty oral histories and research in government and activist archives on three continents in English, Portuguese, French, and Afrikaans, Dr. Parrott reconstructs the transnational anti-imperial network that injected Global South priorities into US political debates. Popular protests and informational campaigns led to collaborations with legislators eager to constrain the powerful executive branch. In 1976, this grassroots-legislative alliance halted Gerald Ford’s anti-communist intervention against the Soviet-backed government of newly independent Angola. This victory of New Left Internationalist ideas anticipated future anti-apartheid and Latin American peace movements while also fueling a conservative revival of Cold War containment. By exploring US engagement with the contested process of African decolonization, Dream the Size of Freedom highlights the origins of two contrasting visions of American foreign policy that defined debates over the country’s proper role in the Global South into the 1990s.

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Richard Bell, "The American Revolution and the Fate of the World" (Penguin, 2025)

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Matthew Mason (Professor of History at Brigham Young University) chatted with Richard Bell (Professor of History at the University of Maryland) about his new book The American Revolution and the Fate of the World (Penguin, 2025). They had a wide-ranging conversation about this wide-ranging book, including how and why there hasn’t been a book quite like it written before, and how Bell illuminates both the “greatest hits” of American Revolutionary legend and some “deep cuts” that readers probably haven’t encountered before. For instance, they discussed how Bell recasts iconic events like the Boston Tea Party as having a much bigger context and impact than the provincial setting for most tellings. But also they mused over why certain events and participants, such as American privateers captured and turned into prisoners of war suffering for their country just as much as the soldiers at Valley Forge, have not been part of the central mythology of the Revolution. This and more make up this conversation about this important book.

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Brendan Greeley, "The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money" (Crown, 2026)

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

America’s money is global money—nearly every nation in the world writes international contracts in dollars, and in 2023, central banks around the world held nearly $6.7 trillion in dollar reserves, three times any other currency. Today, the United States’ global hegemony rests largely on its ability to produce unlimited treasury bonds that are sold around the world, dollars that supported America’s explosive growth in the twentieth century and funded its massive wars in the twenty-first. American power and the American dollar have become synonymous.
Yet in this brilliant 500-year history The Almighty Dollar: 500 Years of the World's Most Powerful Money (Crown, 2026), Brendan Greeley argues that America’s sovereignty over the dollar is an illusion—that the dollar had already empowered and destroyed nations long before it washed up on colonial shores, and that no country or king has or can ever truly control it. Reaching back to the dollar’s birth as the taler in the 15th-century silver mines of St. Joachimsthal, Greeley reveals how the dollar first thrived as a commodity for merchants and bankers—a big, silver coin that was trusted around the world, even as the miners who pulled it from the ground had trouble getting paid in that same silver. Greeley traces a captivatingly complex path across time and place, from the industrial collapse at the heart of Spain’s 17th-century silver empire, to the birth of American paper dollars in colonial Maryland, 19th-century New Orleans bank failures, and the small town of Hawarden, Iowa, which created its own dollars during the Great Depression. At every surprising turn, Greeley upends assumptions about global currencies and draws out the centuries-old tension between how dollars are manufactured and whom they actually serve.
Singular in its breadth, The Almighty Dollar dismantles the myth that America created or has ever truly controlled the dollar. Through meticulous research and vividly rendered stories of merchants, monarchs, and everyday people both past and present, Greeley shows how the dollar became America’s greatest export, spawning a vast financial industry that enriches the wealthy, even as the rest of the country’s industries suffer.

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Stefan Höltgen et al., "Commodore 64: Past, Present, and Future of a Home Computer" (Projekt Verlag, 2026)

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Commodore 64 is the most signiﬁcant computer of its era. From 1982 to 1994, a total of 27 million units were sold—more than any other computer from a single manufacturer afterwards. Due to its widespread use as well as its technical features, the C64 has a huge international following—even to this day. The 19 contributions compiled in Commodore 64: Past, Present, and Future of a Home Computer (Projekt Verlag, 2026) illustrate the signiﬁcance of the platform for the digitalization of society, the general public’s computer science knowledge, as well as digital art and culture—both in the past, present, and also in the future. Volume 5 of the »Computer Archaeology« series is partly based on the conference of the same name held in 2024 at the University of Bonn and has here been supplemented with additional contributions from the ﬁelds of artiﬁcial intelligence, quantum computing, and digital humanities.

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Marie Léticée, "Camille's Lakou" (Vanderbilt UP, 2025)

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Camille’s Lakou (Vanderbilt UP, 2025), a novel by Guadeloupean writer and educator Marie Léticée, tells the story of Camille, a young Caribbean girl living with her single‑parent mother in a 1960s urbanized zone at the edge of Pointe‑à‑Pitre, Guadeloupe, following her through her adult life as a Caribbean migrant in Florida. Léticée explores neocolonial culture clash and identity conflict themes that will be familiar to readers of the Francophone Caribbean coming‑of‑age novel and its revisions by women writers such as Capécia, Lacrosil, Manicom, Schwarz‑Bart, Condé, Pineau, and others. Léticée makes it her own by fleshing out a time and place not well‑represented in Guadeloupean literature. While previous bildungsromanefrom the writers mentioned here typically focus on rural peasant or urban bourgeois settings, Camille’s Lakoushifts location to an impoverished urban environment. “Lakou” is translated as “courtyard” or, more colloquially, “yard.” The author explores the culture and politics of lakou society while raising the issue of how this social dynamic is transformed through the impact of globalization and dispersal into a diasporic experience outside the island milieu of Camille’s childhood.
In a collaborative translation effort between the author and Kevin Meehan, Camille’s Lakou will bring the realities and joys of Léticée’s Guadeloupe to an English audience for the first time.

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Lucy D. Curzon, "Art and Citizenship in Conflict: British Women War Artists, 1939–45" (Manchester UP, 2025)

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Art and Citizenship in Conflict: British Women War Artists, 1939-45 (Manchester UP, 2026) by Dr. Lucy Curzon examines the work of women war artists in order to highlight the complexity of citizenship and gender in Britain during the Second World War.

Evelyn Dunbar, Mary Kessell, Ethel Gabain, Stella Schmolle, and Laura Knight, among others, were commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC) to document the millions of women who took up sometimes unconventional roles-in agriculture, the auxiliary services, and manufacturing, among others-to support the British war effort. Indeed, their prints, drawings, and paintings were part of a broader scheme to uphold morale and promote much-needed citizen involvement on the home front. While there is growing interest, the importance of their remit in the history of the Second World War and the quality of their artistry have nonetheless not yet secured them a significant place in scholarship. Art and Citizenship in Conflict seeks to amend this gap.

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Emanuel Tov, "Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert, Revised Second Edition" (Brill, 2025)

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Scribal Practices and Approaches Reflected in the Texts Found in the Judean Desert, Revised Second Edition (Brill, 2025) revises the first edition of this book (2004) which is long overdue. Many segments needed revision due in large part to the veritable flood of studies published in the wake of the first edition. In other cases, the author changed his mind in his continued study of the scrolls improved by the new images of the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. Hyperlinks to this library are now added to most references to the scrolls. This book covers many aspects of a handbook for those who study the scrolls, material culture, and edit scroll fragments.

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Ian J. McNiven, "Sentient Seas: Archaeologies of Seascapes and Maritime Rituals" (UP Florida, 2026)

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Sentient Seas: Archaeologies of Seascapes and Maritime Rituals (UP Florida, 2026), published by University Press of Florida (2026), offers a global perspective on maritime cultures, examining how societies across time and space have understood and interacted with the sea. Synthesizing archaeological evidence, historical documents, and ethnographic accounts, Ian McNiven explores maritime traditions from ancient civilizations in the Middle East and Mediterranean to medieval Europe and Scandinavia to contemporary Indigenous communities in the South Pacific.

McNiven investigates diverse cultural practices including shipbuilding, the treatment of shipwrecks and shipwreck victims, and maritime resource use, interpreting the evidence through the perspectives of mariners who understood the seas to be sentient and capable of acting with intentionality. He introduces the concepts of “terrestrial seascapes” and “ontological switching” to illustrate how land-based shrines and votive offerings extend maritime cosmologies and maintain a liminal transition from land to sea. By bridging anthropological and archaeological research with transdisciplinary blue humanities scholarship, Sentient Seas approaches seas as spiritscapes, recontextualizing folkloric beliefs about maritime superstitions.

Ian J. McNiven is Research Professor of Indigenous archaeology at the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre at Monash University in Melbourne, and a Chief Investigator with the Australian research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures. He is coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia and New Guinea.

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Caste as a Material Question with Rahul Sonpimple

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This episode featured a conversation with Rahul Sonpimple, founder of the All-India Independent Scheduled Castes Association. Our conversation began with Rahul’s conception of Indian history and the place of anti-caste struggle within it. We delved further into Rahul’s own understanding of “anti-caste” as deeply rooted in Ambedkar’s own argument about the necessity of force in emancipatory social transformation. Rahul was especially forthright about the political cost of elevating meekness as a moral condition, a choice that he associates with the rise of a Dalit middle class focused primarily on securing its own representational authority. This took us to a discussion of the need for an independent and consolidated Dalit politics rooted in the lives of the Dalit poor with sufficient leverage to negotiate terms with the state. The last part of the episode focused on Rahul’s critique of both Ambedkarites and Indian Marxists for their disregard of caste as a material question. He spoke at particular length about the failure of Indian Marxists to advance a materalist critique of caste and how their analytical separation of caste and class has played into the hands of the Hindu Right. We ended the episode with Rahul laying out his own definition of Ambedkarism as a material and spiritual politics that recognizes the Dalit poor as a revolutionary class with the potential to rebuild society.

Read the transcript here

Guest

Rahul Sonpimple is author and founder of the All-India Independent Scheduled Castes Association.

References

B.R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and his Dhamma, 1957.

B.R. Ambedkar, Small Holdings in India and their Remedies, 1918.

B.R. Ambedkar, Buddha or Karl Marx, 1956.

B.R. Ambedkar, “Mr. Russell and the Reconstruction of Society,” 1916.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Against Hindu Rashtra: Ambedkar’s Buddhist Rashtra as Nation,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, May 4, 2026.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Remembering Babasaheb Ambedkar: The Unfinished Task of Burying Manu,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, April 14, 2026.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Kanshi Ram Sahab: Beyond Bureaucratic Dalit Passivity,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, March 15, 2026.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Spontaneity in Ambedkar: Beyond the Passivity of Popular Dalit Discourse,” The Ambedkarian Chronicle, April 16, 2025.

Rahul Sonpimple, “The End of Independent Ambedkarite Dalit Politics?” Round Table India, July 12, 2024.

Rahul Sonpimple, “Dalit conversions: An act of rebellion against caste supremacy,” Al Jazeera, 14 June 2018.

Himsa and ahimsa are foundational ethical concepts in Buddhism. Himsa refers to injury, harm, or violence and ahimsa to non-harming, non-violence, or compassion. Ambedkar critiqued extreme, blanket doctrines of ahimsa as unworkable and often hypocritical.

Chokhamela was a saint-poet from Maharashtra, India who belonged to the Mahar caste and was a devotee of Vitthala.

Bhakt: devotee

Vitthala: Hindu deity worshipped mainly in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka as an avatar of Vishnu.

Kabir and Ravidas: medieval poet-saints who were part of the Bhakti movement (7th-17th century), which emphasized devotion to a personal god, rather than rituals and scriptural knowledge, as the path to spiritual liberation.

Samata Sainik Dal: a social organization founded by B. R. Ambedkar in 1927 with the objective of safeguarding the rights of all oppressed sections of Indian society.

Bhima Koregaon: a village in Maharashtra that was the site of an 1818 battle between the army of Peshwa Baji Rao II and an East India Company force comprised mainly of Mahars, a Dalit caste. This battle has attained legendary status for Dalits who view it as a victory of Mahars over the Brahminical Peshwas.

Baniya: refers to mercantile castes primarily from the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Kanshi Ram: Indian social reformer and politician who founded the All India Backwards and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation (BAMCEF) in 1971 and the Bahujan Samaj Party in 1984.

Jogendra Nath Mandal: Bengali politician and Dalit leader who held the law portfolio in the 1946-47 Interim Government of India and served as the Minister of Law and Labor in Pakistan from 1947-50.

Rajah: M.C. Rajah was a Tamil politician and Dalit leader who served on the Madras Legislative Council in the 1920s and founded the All India Depressed Classes Association in 1925.

Kamble: B.C. Kamble was a Marathi politician and Dalit leader who led the Republican Party of India for decades.

BAMCEF: All India Backwards and Minorities Communities Employees' Federation

UGC Bill: officially the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, is a set of regulations aimed at ending discrimination against marginalized communities in higher education. Following widespread protests and a public interest litigation (PIL), the Supreme Court of India stayed the regulations in January 2026.

Bhagwa kapda: saffron clothing

Scheduled Caste Federation: a political organization founded in 1942 by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar dedicated to advocating for the rights and political self-representation of the Dalit community.

Republican Party of India: a political party established by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in 1956.

PESA: Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996 is a landmark legislation enacted by the Government of India to ensure self-governance for tribal communities living in Fifth Schedule Areas.

Manusmriti: a text that served as a foundational legal and societal framework in ancient India.

EWS: refers to the Economically Weaker Section, a government classification referring to those within the unreserved (general) category eligible for a 10% quota in government jobs and educational admissions.

Karan Johar: an Indian filmmaker, producer and television personality.

Dharavi: a residential area in Mumbai (Bombay) considered one of the world’s largest slums.

Adani: Gautam Adani is an Indian billionaire and chairperson of the multinational conglomerate, the Adani Group.

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Molly M. Brookfield, "Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States" (UNC Press, 2026)

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Molly Brookfield’s book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) explores the historical, legal, and cultural history of street harassment in the United States. Historically, Brookfield identified the "masher panic" (late 19th–early 20th century) when reformers and municipalities labeled male accosting of women a public problem and enacted anti-masher ordinances or applied disorderly-conduct laws. On law and policy, the book highlights primarily local legal responses against harassment, with municipal codes and reinterpretations of existing ordinances more common than coherent federal action that criminalizes mashing.

In Watching the Girls Go By, street harassment is situated on a continuum with other gendered and sexualized violence, with the argument that street harassment normalizes and underpins more extreme harms against women. The book portrays historical scholarly perspectives to street harassment including those of Cheryl Bernard and Edith Schlaffler. Also, the book builds on diverse historical sources and employs varying terms for similar behaviors. The author uses "intrusive behaviors" as a more precise analytic category while preserving period-specific terms when discussing particular historical contexts.

Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam’s greatest dream is seeing a world where knowledge is accessible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links: LinkedIn, ORCID, Meta.

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Anja Foerschner, "Female Art and Agency in Yugoslavia, 1971–2001" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Female Art and Agency in Yugoslavia, 1971–2001 (Bloomsbury, 2024), Anja Foerschner offers a compelling exploration of the women artists, curators, scholars, and activists who shaped the cultural landscape of Yugoslavia and its successor states. Drawing on both original research and existing scholarship, she traces the emergence of the New Art Practice of the late 1960s and 1970s, highlighting the pivotal role of Belgrade’s Student Cultural Centre, where women were instrumental in forging a progressive artistic and curatorial vision.

Through insightful examinations of performance art, video art, and the development of feminist thought in Yugoslavia, Foerschner reveals how the region carved out a distinctive place within the international postwar avant-garde. Situating Yugoslav feminism in dialogue with Western and neighbouring contexts, she sheds new light on the complex intersections of art, politics, and social change. By exploring artistic responses to the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the enduring political dimensions of cultural production, this book invites readers to reconsider the legacies of activist art and their resonance in our present time.

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J. W. Mason and Arjun Jayadev, "Against Money" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Money is everywhere in our daily lives. It lurks in the swipe of a card at the grocery store, in looming student-loan debts, in the prices of things we want, and in our subconscious navigation of the modern world. In this revelatory book, economists Mason and Jayadev explain how and why money is so deeply misunderstood by the world it dominates—as well as the dangerous social implications of this misunderstanding. Against Money (University of Chicago Press, 2026) tackles the most dearly held “truths” of economics, arguing that the world of money has never been an impartial representation of the world of things. Instead, its existence in different forms—debt, capital, liquidity, and interest—increasingly shapes events in the real world rather than just reflecting them. Sometimes money enables new forms of cooperation; more often it facilitates domination. Human existence is not just facilitated by money but also governed by it.

J.W. Mason is an Associate Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York and a Senior Fellow at the Groundworks Collective. He was formerly the Policy Director for the New York State Working Families Party. Arjun teaches Economics at the University. Arjun Jayadev is Professor of Economics at Azim Premji University in India.

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Khiara Bridges, "Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans" (MIT Press, 2026)

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

An unsettling exploration of the persistence of racism in reproductive healthcare in the US—and why even affluent Black women are imperiled by substandard care.
From a leading expert on race, class, maternal health, and reproductive rights.
Racism in maternal healthcare is not reserved for the poor. An unsparing picture of inequities in prenatal care and childbirth in the United States, Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans (MIT Press, 2026) reveals that not only are black people three to four times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause, but racial disparities in maternal mortality persist across income levels. That is, wealthier black people are much more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period than their white counterparts. Focusing on a San Francisco obstetrics clinic that caters to the affluent, Khiara Bridges looks at the choices around prenatal care and childbirth that class-privileged, pregnant black people are making in order to survive what has been called the “black maternal health crisis.”
Bridges, whose previous work exposed how race and racism are embedded in maternal healthcare for the poor, draws on two years of participant-observation to show how wealthier black people try to leverage their class privilege to avoid some of the negative effects of their blackness—only to discover that in a country that has never reckoned with its horrific racial past, there is no escaping racism’s reach. Throughout the book, engaging, heartbreaking, infuriating stories of women’s experiences with pregnancy and prenatal care illustrate how race and racism matter regardless of wealth or status.

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Martin Fitzgerald, "The Umbrella Man and Other Stories: What We Talk about When We Talk about the JFK Assassination" (Biteback Publishing, 2026)

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What does the JKF assassination mean to us now? In ⁠The Umbrella Man and Other Stories: What We Talk About When We Talk About the JFK Assassination⁠, (Biteback Publishing, 2026) ⁠Martin Fitzgerald⁠ explores the lives and stories of the people present on that day in Dallas at Dealey Plaza. In doing so, the book examines cultural memory, artistic representations, history, conspiracy theory and the global impact of the event. Drawing on personal reflections, rich archival sources, and contemporary interviews, the book offers a brilliant and compelling narrative that goes beyond the circumstances of 1963 to the present day. The book will be of significant interest to a range of humanities scholars as well as to anyone interested in the ongoing legacy of one of the twentieth century’s defining events.

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Elana Resnick, "Refusing Sustainability: Race and Environmentalism in a Changing Europe" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Sustainability has become a touchstone for development worldwide, promising an antidote to environmental degradation and capitalism's excess: waste. Refusing Sustainability: Race and Environmentalism in a Changing Europe (Stanford University Press, 2025) presents a fundamentally different account of sustainability and waste itself by uncovering the intersections of international environmental reforms and racialized labor. In Bulgaria, Roma comprise the bulk of the country's waste workers, while anti-Roma racism casts them as socially disposable. Without their labor, however, the country cannot meet the sustainability targets required by the European Union. Drawing on fieldwork that spans twenty years, including eleven months working alongside Romani women street sweepers, and years embedded in waste organizations, political campaigns, Roma NGOs, and activist groups, Elana Resnick examines the power hierarchies that shape both waste management and European geopolitics.

Instead of focusing on only environmental harms or toxic distributions, Refusing Sustainability approaches Romani life-worlds as spaces of creative production, and also tells several larger stories: of postsocialist racial capitalism, environmental progressivism, democratic failures, mutual aid, and the power of women's friendships. Through these stories, Resnick illuminates how ordinary people, racialized as discardable, resist systems that simultaneously rely on and exclude them.

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Gabriella Soto, "Border Afterlives: Migrant Deaths, Forensic Investigations, and the Politics of Haunting" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Border Afterlives: Migrant Deaths, Forensic Investigations, and the Politics of Haunting (University of Arizona Press, 2026) begins with the undocumented individuals who die crossing the U.S.-Mexico border—deaths that are both preventable and politically produced. Moving between the practical and the philosophical, forensic anthropologist and author Gabriella Soto asks what it means to care for the dead and what society owes to those who die in its name. Through the lens of haunting, she explores how the dead continue to shape the living, not as objects of horror but as moral agents whose presence demands justice. Centered primarily in Arizona and South Texas, Border Afterlives offers a border-scale comparative account of forensic practices, critiques the limits of “best practices” in under-resourced systems, and calls for a re-imagining of forensic humanitarianism grounded in reciprocity and dignity, beyond human rights. This is a book that insists on remembering the dead.

In this conversation, we discuss the difficult interplay between federal immigration policy and local practices of death care on the border, the implications of policies that cause increased death tolls, the politics of humanitarian immigration reform, and, finally, how allowing ourselves to be haunted by the slow mass casualties of the border can and should inspire us to act.

Gabriella Soto is a contemporary archaeologist who examines the material world to understand pressing social issues. Integrating ethnographic methods, GIS technology, and archival research, she specializes in migration materialities, focusing on Latinx migration and security at the US-Mexico border. Her work analyzes the material footprints of transit, forensic death investigations, and security and humanitarian infrastructure. An ACLS fellow whose work has also been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, Soto is a research affiliate at the Binational Migration Institute and holds faculty affiliations at Arizona State University’s School of Transborder Studies, School of Interdisciplinary Forensics, and the Latinx Oral History Lab. Her research has appeared in American Anthropologist and Political Geography, and her article on migrant material culture won the American Anthropological Association’s Gordon R. Willey Paper Prize. Dr. Soto is the author of Border Afterlives: Migrant Deaths, Forensic Investigations, and the Politics of Haunting (University of Arizona Press, 2026).

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Celebrating "Piece by Piece: How Stephen Sondheim Made Musical Puzzles Come Alive" with Stacy Innerst

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Stacy Innerst is a renowned children’s book artist and painter. His picture books have received a host of starred reviews and have been honored with the Sydney Taylor Book Award (for The Book Rescuer), the New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award (Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of RBG Vs. Inequality) and the SCBWI Golden Kite for Picture Book Illustration (The Music in George’s Head.).

In tour wonderful conversation, we celebrate his new book, Piece by Piece: How Stephen Sondheim Made Musical Puzzles Come Alive
written by Erin Frankel (Author), artwork by Stacy Innerst which launched with Caulkins Creek in April, 2026. We discuss Stacy's love for drawing, his metamorphosis from magazine illustrator to children's book artist (with an emphasis on artist), and how his deep love for history and music infuses his work.

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Georgia Holly et al, .eds., "Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond" (U Edinburgh Press, 2025)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond (U Edinburgh Press, 2025) outlines the need to embed Ocean Heritage into ocean science, sustainable development, and marine conservation to meet the goals of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) and beyond. Ocean Heritage—spanning tangible sites, such as shipwrecks or submerged harbours, and intangible connections such as traditional practices and knowledge systems—remains underrepresented in ocean governance. Yet it offers critical insights for more effective policy and research. Its inclusion is essential to ensuring science is informed by human–ocean relationships and responsive to the needs of communities.

Led by the Cultural Heritage Framework Programme (CHFP), the Ocean Decade’s only programme focused on Ocean Heritage, this text demonstrates how heritage supports all 10 Ocean Decade Challenges. Ocean Heritage strengthens climate adaptation, improves spatial planning, and supports equitable governance by grounding decisions in historical context and lived experience. The paper draws on more than 20 CHFP-endorsed initiatives, offering clear case studies and actionable recommendations for policy alignment, institutional support, and multidisciplinary collaboration.

As the Ocean Decade reaches its midpoint, this book offers a path forward: one where science draws on the full range of human—ocean relationships to guide sustainable, equitable action. Ocean Heritage is not a symbolic gesture—it is a fundamental human right. Rather than treating culture as an add-on to marine conservation, this paper calls for its broad integration into ocean science and decision-making.

Athena Trakadas is a maritime archeologist who studies underwater and coastal marine cultural heritage and advises international and national heritage, marine science and governmental organizations.

Helen Dewar is an historian of the Atlantic World and French colonization in North America in the 17th and 18th centuries. She is a professor of history at the Université de Montréal (Québec, Canada) and the author of Disputing New France: Companies, Sovereignty and Law in the French Atlantic, 1598-1663 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022). helen.dewar[at]umontreal.ca Helen’s institutional website

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Hector Amaya, "The Economy of Anonymity: Power in the Age of Identification" (Stanford UP 2026)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

We use avatars to play video games. We use pseudonyms on social media. We use VPNs to mask our identities and activities. In the digital realm, anonymity is everywhere, a persistent option for those who wish to hide, experiment, and deceive. But we are anonymous in more contexts than the digital. In urban settings, we routinely experience the anonymity of the crowd, and routinely use anonymity to participate in political life and social protests. Anonymity matters. This book is a wager that we can learn much about society, humanity, and power by analyzing the structural tensions and possibilities of anonymity, and by analyzing how the economy of anonymity is changing in a modernity defined by computation.

While many have explored the connections between surveillance, datafication, and privacy, relatively little has been done to theorize anonymity and its critical role in our lives. The Economy of Anonymity: Power in the Age of Identification (Stanford University Press, 2026) rebalances our intellectual investments by expanding our understandings of anonymity. Putting the work of Gloria Anzaldúa and Bernhard Siegert into conversation, Hector Amaya examines the contours of anonymity in different social domains—in relationship to individuals, institutions, and contexts; to epistemology and ontology; and to history and society. As the book shows, anonymity entails paradoxical possibilities—sometimes anonymity is experienced as freedom and other times as powerlessness, or subjugation.

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US 250: A Conversation with Peter John Loewen

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This week on Democracy Dialogues, Rachel Beatty Riedl speaks with Peter John Loewen to reflect on the 250th anniversary of US independence. They discuss the ways in which America’s unique founding moment has shaped democratic institutions and practice, and the paradox of America’s profound democratic experiment.

In this episode, Loewen describes his research on the representative nature of elected politicians – how they are similar to and different from ordinary people in their decision making. He also tackles questions of polarization and what happens when people have increased contact with other points of view. And the conversation wraps up with a discussion of higher education and democracy, and what role universities can play in shaping the next generation of democratic citizens.

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Ambrogio Caiani, "Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation" (Apollo, 2026)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

It's a shadowy, ornate world of cover-ups and hidden motives. In Flirting with Evil: The Catholic Church in the Age of Total War and Globalisation (Apollo, 2026), Ambrogio Caiani lifts back the heavy velvet curtains of thechancel and peers behind the locked mahogany doors of the Vatican to reveal the shocking truths that make up a century of Catholic corruption.

For many, Catholicism's flirtation with evil has become impossible to ignore: a pope courting Nazi officials and, horribly, turning a blind eye to the Holocaust; the Vatican becoming embroiled in a series of dodgy financial dealings; the child abuse continuously perpetrated by members of the clergy. Time and time again, Catholic figures have made terrible choices in private and preached in public about goodness and morality.

This is the first history that focuses exclusively on Catholicism throughout the twentieth century, sketching not only scandalous stories of corruption but also lively portrayals of Catholicism's key characters—from a beret-clad communist revolutionary priest to the bizarre morning routine of the pope who followed a daily cold bath with dry unbuttered toast. Caiani, a critical Catholic himself, takes a frank and sceptical look at the trajectory of global Catholicism and wrestles with vital questions about the future of the church. Taking in the wider socio-political contexts of a world at war and the accumulating momentum of social progress, this brilliant history traces the evolution of the Catholic church alongside the development of our modern society right up to the election of Pope Leo XIV in 2025.

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Angela Frederick, "Disabled Power: A Storm, A Grid, and Embodied Harm in the Age of Disaster" (NYU Press, 2025)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A call to place disability at the center of climate and disaster responses
Every disaster is a disability disaster, argues Angela Frederick. Disabled Power: A Storm, A Grid, and Embodied Harm in the Age of Disaster (NYU Press, 2025) tells the stories of Texans with disabilities who endured the 2021 Texas power crisis, which forced millions of Texas residents to endure a dayslong winter storm without heat or water. Based on 58 in-depth interviews with disabled Texans and parents of disabled children, Frederick highlights how disabled people and those with chronic health conditions are uniquely harmed when basic infrastructure such as power and water systems fail. She argues that the vulnerability people with disabilities experienced during this disaster was not an inevitable consequence of individual disabled bodies. Rather, disability vulnerability was “produced” by policies that “disabled” vital infrastructure.
Frederick also emphasizes another meaning of the phrase “disabled power:” the individual and collective resilience and creativity Texans with disabilities exercised to survive the disaster. Despite common perceptions of people with disabilities as passive victims, Frederick shows how many found strategies to survive and to provide and receive care within their communities. Ultimately, the implications of this disaster extend far beyond Texas and underscore our increased vulnerability to infrastructural failures as extreme weather events become more common. Disabled Power offers a blueprint for reimagining vulnerability and resilience to center people with disabilities in disaster research and emergency response.

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Laura B. McGrath, "Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this interview, we speak with Laura B. McGrath, an Assistant Professor of English at Temple University and the author of Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction (Princeton University Press, 2026). Her writings have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and The Atlantic.

Middlemen rewrites literary history from the perspective of one of its most important but least visible figures: the literary agent. Chronicling the story of agents in the United States from the 1950s to today, Laura McGrath uncovers their critical role in the making of American literature. From the famed three-martini lunch to the Frankfurt Book Fair, Middlemen takes readers behind the scenes to show how agents influence what we read. Along the way, it explains why many debut novelists never publish another book, why agents champion short story collections even though they sell poorly, how agents advocate for writers of color in a system that values whiteness, and why there are so many New York novels.

Weaving together original archival research, data analysis, and interviews with scores of agents and other publishing professionals, Middlemen demonstrates that agents—eighty percent of whom are in fact women—are much more than “middlemen.” As intermediaries between author and publisher, agents act as advocates, matchmakers, negotiators, and tastemakers, and they must balance artistic values with the commercial imperatives of publishing conglomerates. The book describes the decisive role agents have played in celebrated novels—from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road to Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist—but also in the creation of entire literary categories like the debut novel, the story collection, postmodernism, multiethnic fiction, and world literature.

Featuring profiles of agents past and present such as Sterling Lord, Lynn Nesbit, Candida Donadio, Marie Brown, and Andrew Wylie, along with perspectives from agents at all stages of their careers, Middlemen is an entertaining and eye-opening account of how literary fiction—and the literary canon—is made.

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Gretchen Heefner, "Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Deserts, the Arctic, outer space—these extreme environments are often seen as inhospitable places at the edges of our maps. But from the 1940s through the 1960s, spurred by the diverse and unfamiliar regions the US military had navigated during World War II, the United States defense establishment took a keen interest in these places, dispatching troops to the Aleutian Islands, North Africa, the South Pacific, and beyond. To preserve the country’s status as a superpower after the war, to pave runways and build bridges, engineers had to understand and then conquer dunes, permafrost, and even the surface of the moon.

Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments (University of Chicago Press, 2025) by Dr. Gretchen Heefner explores how the US military generated a new understanding of these environments and attempted to master them, intending to cement America’s planetary power. Operating in these regions depended as much on scientific and cultural knowledge as on military expertise and technology. From General George S. Patton learning the hard way that the desert is not always hot, to the challenges of constructing a scientific research base under the Arctic ice, to the sheer implausibility of modeling Martian environments on Earth, Dr. Heefner takes us on a wry expedition into the extremes and introduces us to the people who have shaped our insight into these extraordinary environments. Even decades after the first manned space flight, plans for human space exploration and extraplanetary colonization are still based on what we know about stark habitats on Earth.

An entertaining survey of the relationship between environmental history and military might, Sand, Snow, and Stardust also serves as a warning about the further transformation of the planet—whether through desertification, melting ice caps, or attempts to escape it entirely.

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Bradford A. Bouley, "The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1644 four norcini or pork butchers were accused of killing not pigs, but seven of their fellow citizens, stripping the meat from the bones, then combining it with pig to make sausages, which were then sold to Romans from their shop behind the Pantheon. In the multiple pamphlets describing this supposed crime, the authors of this accusation blamed residents of Rome themselves, who had become so obsessed with meat that they turned a blind eye to such horrendous acts. This fabricated story points to an underlying reality—that in the early seventeenth century, a series of popes dramatically increased the amount of food and wine consumed by Romans, culminating in a per capita consumption of over a pound of meat per day during the reign of Pope Urban VIII (d. 1644).

The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2026) traces the efforts and activities of a range of actors who strove to bring meat to the Roman table. Dr. Bradford A. Bouley shows how Rome’s preoccupation with food was the result of papal policy in the aftermath of the Reformation; food, and especially meat, served as religious and political propaganda, symbolizing the correctness of the Catholic faith and demonstrating the extent of papal power. Dr. Bouley details the dramatic reorganization of Roman foodways needed to satisfy this demand for meat, as large herds of animals had to be funneled from the countryside to the city. This consumption was ultimately not sustainable, triggering a crisis that fueled sensational rumors of murder and cannibalism and eventually, Dr. Bouley contends, sparked the outbreak of civil war, as vassals rebelled against papal oversight.

The Barberini Butchers recovers this significant episode in food, environmental, and cultural history, one that brings early modern politics and history into conversation with concerns over human use of natural resources and consumption of animal products that continue to resonate clearly today.

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Stacey Copeland, "Lavender Sounds: From Lesbian Radio to Queer Feminist Soundwork" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Stacey Copeland, Assistant Professor of Cultural Heritage and Identity at the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen, joins Jana Byars to talk about⁠ Lavender Sounds: From Lesbian Radio to Queer Feminist Soundwork⁠ (University of Michigan Press, 2026) delves into lesbian radio history and its evolution into queer feminist podcasting today, exploring the politics, aesthetics, and cultural activism embedded in queer feminist soundwork. Through deeply personal and archival explorations, Stacey Copeland traces the emergence of queer feminist soundwork—a unique blend of community-led storytelling, political resistance, and creative expression rooted in feminist and LGBTQ+ activism. At the heart of the book lies a powerful idea: sound is not just heard but felt, connecting generations through shared voices and struggles. In conversation with award-winning and cutting-edge queer and feminist podcast producers from across Canada and the U.S., Lavender Sounds invites us to turn a feminist embodied ear to the past to uncover the ways gender, race, and sexual orientations are embedded in our everyday media listening practices. From pioneering Canadian radio shows like Vancouver's The Lesbian Show and Montreal's Dykes on Mykes to today's queer chumcasts and audio documentary, Lavender Sounds is a journey through auditory landscapes where joy, protest, intimacy, and identity intersect. This book opens a vibrant conversation about how radio and podcasting are vital tools for marginalized communities to connect, create, and claim space in the media world.

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Renisa Mawani, "Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire" (Duke UP, 2018)

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1914 the British-built and Japanese-owned steamship Komagata Maru left Hong Kong for Vancouver carrying 376 Punjabi migrants. Chartered by railway contractor and purported rubber planter Gurdit Singh, the ship and its passengers were denied entry into Canada and two months later were deported to Calcutta.

In Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire (Duke University Press, 2018) Renisa Mawani retells this well-known story of the Komagata Maru. Drawing on "oceans as method"—a mode of thinking and writing that repositions land and sea—Mawani examines the historical and conceptual stakes of situating histories of Indian migration within maritime worlds.

Through close readings of the ship, the manifest, the trial, and the anticolonial writings of Singh and others, Mawani argues that the Komagata Maru's landing raised urgent questions regarding the jurisdictional tensions between the common law and admiralty law, and, ultimately, the legal status of the sea. By following the movements of a single ship and bringing oceans into sharper view, Mawani traces British imperial power through racial, temporal, and legal contests and offers a novel method of writing colonial legal history.

The conversation also covers how the book, published in 2018, has shaped the author’s more recent work as well as how historical methods and approaches have evolved in the years since publication.

Helen’s institutional website

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Susanne Paola Antonetta, "The Devil's Castle: Nazi Eugenics, Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Reverberates Today" (Catapult, 2025)

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Devil’s Castle: Nazi Eugenics, Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Reverberates Today (Catapult, 2025) delves into the forgotten history of eugenics and links it to present-day psychiatry to explain how we as a culture continue to get mind care so wrong.

In The Devil’s Castle, Susanne Paola Antonetta weaves a haunting narrative that confronts the darkest chapters of psychiatric history while offering a bold vision for the future of mental health care. In 1939, the eugenics movement growing throughout the West did its worst in Nazi Germany. Through the Aktion T4 euthanasia program, five asylums and an abandoned jail were transformed into gas chambers. Tens of thousands of lives—predominantly adults with neuropsychiatric conditions—were extinguished in those structures, ultimately paving the way for the horrors of the Holocaust.

Interlacing her experiences of psychosis with the complex history of psychiatry, Antonetta sheds light on the intersections of madness and societal perceptions of mental difference. She brings to life the stories of Paul Schreber and Dorothea Buck, two historical figures who act as models for mind care and acceptance. This gripping exploration traverses the spectrum of neurodiversity, from the devastating consequences of dehumanization to the transformative potential of understanding and acceptance.

With The Devil’s Castle, Antonetta not only unearths the failures of our past, but also envisions a more compassionate, enlightened approach to consciousness and mental health care. This is a story of tragedy, resilience, and hope—a rallying cry for change that dares to challenge the limits of how we define and support the human mind.

Susanne Paola Antonetta is the author of The Devil's Castle: Eugenics, Nazi Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Hurts Us Now. She is also the author of The Terrible Unlikelihood of Our Being Here, Make Me a Mother, Entangled Objects, Body Toxic, A Mind Apart, and four books of poetry. Her awards include a New York Times Notable Book, an American Book Award, an Amazon Best Memoir of the Year award, and others. Her essays and poems have appeared in The New York Times, Ms., The Huffington Post, The UK Independent, The Hill, Orion, Psychology Today, and The New Republic and have been featured on CNN as well as the CBC Ideas documentary series. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

For more information about her work please visit her website here and sign up for notifications about her regular contributions to Psychology Today.

Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher in Massachusetts. You can follow her on Instagram, Insight Timer, YouTube (@drelizabethcronin) or visit her website.

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Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, "Animals and the Right to Politics" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The assumption that only humans can engage in politics—that only humans are 'zoon politikon'—is foundational to the Western tradition of political philosophy. While there is increasing recognition of animals' moral status (both within moral philosophy and at the level of public opinion), animals are not recognized as political subjects. This carefully researched but accessibly written volume—following on from the authors' earlier book Zoopolis—argues that animals too have a right to politics: a right to be recognized as political subjects and agents, and as members of political communities entitled to collective self-determination. ⁠Animals and the Right to Politics⁠ (Oxford University Press, 2026) draws on recent scientific work on animal societies, cultures, and decision-making, as well as recent work by political theorists rethinking ideas of agency and community—especially the significance of emplaced and embodied encounters and relationships to the activity of politics. Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka draw a picture of what it would mean to create spaces and practices, not only for politics conducted by humans on behalf of animals, but also politics with and by animals on their own terms. It then explores how this approach could inform a wide range of contemporary debates in human-animal relations, including wildlife conservation, urban planning, and animal labour.

⁠Sue Donaldson⁠ is a Canadian author and animal advocate. She has published more than 40 academic articles, and is the co-author, with Will Kymlicka, of Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford University Press, 2011) which won the Canadian Philosophical Association Book Prize in 2013, and has been translated into 11 languages. She is co-convenor of the Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics research group at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada.

⁠Will Kymlicka⁠ is the author of seven books published by Oxford University Press, including Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd ed., 2001), Multicultural Citizenship (1996), and Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (co-authored with Sue Donaldson; 2011). He is currently the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. His works have been translated into 34 languages.

⁠Kyle Johannsen⁠ is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021).

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Rory Cormac, "Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line (Oxford UP, 2026) reveals the rise and fall of the mavericks running Britain's Cold War forgery empire. Their secret mission was audacious: to disrupt and discredit adversaries across the world using phantom groups, fake sources, and counterfeit documents.

The leader was a remarkable character, wrestling with personal and professional dilemmas: Hans Welser. An Austrian refugee and one-time MI5 suspect interned behind barbed wire, Welser was a great survivor who rose to become special operations adviser to the Foreign Office, working hand in glove with MI6. His second in command was an eccentric, hard drinking, and high-flying journalist-turned-propagandist called John Rayner. Brought out of semi-retirement, for one final posting. Their team of bowler-hatted refugees, voluble ex-journalists, trailblazing women, and licentious literary sorts navigated loyalty and betrayal — both professionally and romantically — from the diplomats' attic, in the most sensitive part of the Foreign Office's secret propaganda department.

The newly declassified files expose an array of plots, some comically absurd and others dangerously controversial. The forgery empire impersonated everything from hippies and ghosts to Islamists and ballet composers in their campaign to smear hostile politicians, stir tensions among adversaries, and even stymie the career of a contentious British historian. All took place against a high stakes backdrop — both overseas as states competed beneath the looming threat of nuclear war and in the corridors of power at home where grey-suited bureaucrats circled, keen to shut down the team for good.

With timely insight into how propaganda works and how to respond to disinformation, Fakers is a thrilling journey into a secret world where nothing was as it seemed.

Rory Cormac is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Nottingham and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Paul Stangl, "San Francisco Seafood: A History from Ocean to Table" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

For early San Franciscans, seafood was an important source of nutrition and a feature of social life, inspiring culinary developments that remain components in California cuisine more than a century later. Consumers interested in flavorful alternatives to meat and associated health benefits could follow recipes for nearly fifty types of marine life from state waters, such as salmon, flounder, and oysters. Others are no longer available, out-of-vogue, or simply forgotten. Further, overfishing and environmental damage decimated many local seafood stocks, providing a cautionary tale with global significance.

In San Francisco Seafood: A History from Ocean to Table (Bloomsbury, 2026), Dr. Paul Stangl traces the development of San Francisco's fisheries, seafood markets, cookery, and dining culture from the Gold Rush to the 1920s. Migrants from around the world imported fishing techniques and cuisines, then slowly adapted as they came to understand local resources and each other. Newcomers found the tastiest fish through trial and error and assimilated the “best” into a new cuisine. Different ethnic and occupational groups collaborated, fought, and learned from one another as they irreversibly altered the natural world around them. By the end of the First World War, San Francisco's seafood cuisine scarcely resembled that of the 1850s, due to cultural adaptation, technological advancements, and changes to the natural environment. It was no longer derivative of New England and France, but included influences from the Southern states, Asia, and South America.San Francisco Seafood chronicles the city's transformation from a fish-barren town-where restaurants served canned, pickled, and dried fish from the East Coast-to a seafood-rich metropolis that harvested seafood from Mexico to Alaska. He emphasizes how the impacts on nature and local labor serve as a necessary cautionary tale for today's global seafood trade. This is a thorough and insightful history of a once emerging, and now essential, cuisine for food and history buffs alike.

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Fenwick McKelvey, "SimPolitics: America’s Quest to Solve Politics with Computers" (MIT Press, 2026)

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This book is available open access.

For more than six decades, the public has been promised that computers will revolutionize politics, both nationally and internationally. In SimPolitics: America’s Quest to Solve Politics with Computers (MIT Press, 2026), Dr. Fenwick McKelvey traces the entwined history of politics and computers from the 1960s to the late 1980s. He shows how programmers, consultants, academics, political scientists, and peace activists all worked—sometimes in tandem, sometimes not—to build simulations to win campaigns, predict coups, forecast the future, and render politics as legible as a spreadsheet.

Drawing on novel archival and historical research, Dr. McKelvey recounts the history of efforts to simulate politics by building models of elections, voters, and international relations. Comparing attempts in the United States to simulate domestic electoral politics and international affairs, he reveals the unexamined connections and conflicts between the two projects. His book provides a helpful guide to taking stock of exaggerated claims that AI and technology will fix politics, while presenting the long history of such promised technological fixes.

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Matthew Campbell, "The Man Who Stole the Gods: A True Story of War, Obsession, and a Global Art Conspiracy" (Penguin, 2026)

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

On June 10, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York returned two pieces of artwork to Cambodia: an Angkor statue and a sandstone lintel. It’s the latest repatriation effort by the U.S.’s premier art museum, and the third time the Met has had to give up Cambodian artifacts specifically.

Matthew Campbell’s The Man Who Stole The Gods: A True Story of War, Obsession, and a Global Art Conspiracy (Penguin, 2026) dives into the story of the Cambodian antiquities trade, from looted temples in the Cambodian forests, through dealers in Bangkok like Douglas Latchford, and then into museums and billionaire homes in the West. And he also digs into how this trade fell apart: How the U.S. Department of Justice and activists in Cambodia pressured dealers and museums like the Met to give this art back.

Matthew is an award-winning reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek. His previous book, Dead in the Water—co-authored with Kit Chellel—was selected as a Book of the Year by The Economist, the Financial Times, and The Times. Matt has reported from more than twenty-five countries on crime, corruption, terrorism, economics, and the environment. His work has earned some of journalism’s highest honors, including awards from the Gerald Loeb Foundation, the Overseas Press Club, the National Press Club, SOPA, and SABEW for both feature and investigative reporting

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Man Who Stole the Gods. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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Heart-Centered Connections: Seven Essential Skills for Helping Neurodiverse and Marginalized Children Thrive

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Heart-Centered Connections: Seven Essential Skills for Helping Neurodiverse and Marginalized Children Thrive is a transformative guide for working with a child who is left out, left behind, or labeled “difficult.” Dr. Niki Elliott teaches the best practices to support kids who are misunderstood and marginalized—those who are neurodivergent, have a learning disability, or are trauma survivors. In this practical book, Dr. Elliott brings clear guidance and a hopeful message: when safety, compassion, and trust come first, real learning can begin. Heart-Centered Connections shows you how to create that foundation.

Based on decades of her groundbreaking research, Dr. Elliott offers seven pillars that will help you create environments where kids can achieve their full potential. You will learn how to: increase your ability to handle stress so you remain composed when a child acts out; establish stronger bonds, even with kids who initially seem defiant; teach in a way that creates joy and confidence; design neuro-inclusive environments in which youth of all abilities can flourish; view the child from a new perspective, offering them choice and dignity; and help the child settle their nervous system state so they can focus and learn.

Guest: Dr. Niki Elliott is a clinical professor and director of the Center for Embodied Equity and Neurodiversity at the University of San Diego SOLES, where she leads research, professional certificates, and statewide initiatives that transform K–16 learning environments through trauma-informed, neuro-inclusive design. A veteran educator of more than 30 years, Dr. Niki is known for translating complex neuroscience into powerful, accessible practices that strengthen belonging, emotional safety, and academic engagement for neurodiverse learners.

Host: Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for Listeners:

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Ute Hüsken and Suganya Anandakichenin eds., "Pathika: Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions" (HAS, 2026)

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A conversation featuring the editors of the new Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing series Pathika - Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions (HAS, 2026)

Pathika – Sanskrit for "traveler" or "one who follows a path" – is a new series dedicated to the textual traditions of South Asia, engaging with the rich landscape of South Asian literary and religious traditions. The series encompasses critical editions, annotated translations, and in-depth studies of texts spanning the full breadth of South Asian traditions. From inscriptions to previously untranslated manuscripts, Pathika provides a venue to both established scholars and emerging researchers to publish their work on the textual traditions of South Asia. The volumes adhere to rigorous philological standards while making important texts and translations accessible to a wider academic audience. Pathika particularly welcomes interdisciplinary approaches that situate texts within their historical, religious, and cultural contexts. The series fully supports all South Asian scripts.

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Spirituality, Science and Environmentalism in Taiwan

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Who is Shennong, the Divine Farmer? And how can he help us understand the intricate relationships between spirituality, science and environmentalism in Taiwan today? These questions are at the heart of new research by the University of Oslo’s Koen Wellens and Mette Halskov Hansen. In this episode, we are joined by Koen Wellens for a conversation on religious responses to environmental change, community temples, and reconnecting to nature via the Divine Farmer in the context of contemporary Taiwan.

You can read more about the research discussed in this episode in the book Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia, published by Leiden University Press.

Koen Wellens is Professor of China Studies at the University of Oslo.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen, your host, is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of the Centre for South Asian Democracy at the University of Oslo.

We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.

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April Henry, "In the Blood" (Christy Ottaviano Books, 2026)

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

April Henry's latest thriller, In The Blood (Christy Ottaviano Books, 2026) introduces readers to Tessa. Adopted as a newborn, Tessa has always wondered who her biological parents are. After turning eighteen, she takes a DNA test in hopes of finding the answers. With best friend El and lab partner Victor, Tessa uses the results to start building her family tree. But they find more dead ends than answers. Her biological mother, who was raised in a religious cult, has cut all ties with her controlling family. And her biological father remains a complete mystery, at least until the police show up. For fifteen years, they’ve been trying to identify a serial killer known as the Portland Phantom. Tessa may be the link they’ve been waiting for.

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Christopher M. Federico et al., "The Authoritarian Divide: Partisan Identity, Voting, and the Transformation of the American Electorate" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Political Scientists Christopher Federico, Stanley Feldman, and Christopher Weber have an important and fascinating new book from Oxford University Press focusing on understanding authoritarianism, especially in the American context. As experts in political psychology, the authors are keen to consider authoritarianism as a psychological concept, which is more about submitting to authority, as a kind of conformity, and less about a particular political regime structure. The Authoritarian Divide: Partisan Identity, Voting, and the Transformation of the American Electorate (Oxford UP, 2026) is about trying to understand voters and how some of them are attracted to this idea or concept, and how this attraction then works itself out within the electorate and within our contemporary political moment.

In order to understand this theory of psychological authoritarianism, the authors trace the idea from origins in critical theory and pre-World War I European thinkers (Freud, Benjamin, etc.) who were examining the concepts of conformity vs. autonomy, and how these ideas functioned in political life. The authors also examined differing approaches to child-rearing, since this also reflects these same concepts of conformity and autonomy, but in how they are put into practice in bringing up children, either with more freedom or in a more rules bound approach. In using these measures, Federico, Feldman, and Weber also pulled together data from election surveys starting in the 1990s and moving forward that include questions that get at some of the same ideas. The authors also used experiments to test individual inclinations towards autonomy or uniformity. The thrust of voter’s choices was not about economics or specific public policy in these analyses, but around social issue differentiation and social context. The research for The Authoritarian Divide is complex and brings together a variety of different methodological approaches in order to examine this political divide, and to tease out the impact of psychological authoritarianism in American politics.

The Authoritarian Divide: Partisan Identity, Voting, and the Transformation of the American Electorate reveals that this inclination towards psychological authoritarianism is much more prevalent among white conservative voters than among other voting blocs in the United States. This has also led voters to sort themselves within the two parties accordingly, with far more of those who are inclined towards psychological authoritarianism moving into the Republican Party, and fewer moving into the Democratic Party. The result of this sorting has contributed to the rise in polarization within American politics over the past thirty years.

The Authoritarian Divide explains a lot about voter thinking and approaches to American politics over the past three decades. It helps to decipher the entrenched polarization because the examination is not about policy distinctions or issues, it is about how individual voters think and why they are inclined to think in particular ways about politics. The authors clearly assess the distinctions within the voting populace of the United States, and, in so doing, unpack different approaches to voting and vote choices in different sectors of the electorate. The Authoritarian Divide really helps us to understand our current political climate and to see how the rise of Donald Trump fits into a temporally longer era of American politics, partisan politics, racial politics, and the tensions between democracy and authoritarianism.

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Luna Sabastian, "Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva" (Harvard UP, 2025)

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Fascism swept the world in the 1920s and 1930s, but not only because of the seductive rhetoric of Mussolini, Hitler, and their collaborators. In India as well, a distinctive brand of fascist thought emerged—influenced by Euro-American ideologies but also departing from them in critical ways. The first systematic examination of this political philosophy, Fascism in India: Race, Caste, and Hindutva (Harvard UP, 2025) revises our sense of what fascism can be, while demonstrating that it is very much with us in the form of Hindutva, the ethnic-nationalist movement at the center of Indian politics today.
Luna Sabastian offers a novel interpretation of Hindutva, both its canonical formulation by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and its reinvention by Deendayal Upadhyaya after Indian independence. Sabastian shows how Hindutva generated ideas of Hindu race and religion that had the potential to erase Muslims not through genocide or ethnic cleansing but by means of violent absorption. Focusing on aggressive miscegenation, Indian fascists proposed a singular kind of racial project, eschewing notions of purity even while maintaining a starkly eliminationist objective. Fascism in India also grapples with Hindutva ideas of caste and its relation to race—particularly in comparison with Nazi uses of these concepts—and of sovereignty, which Indian fascists envisioned beyond the “blood and soil” narrative of the nation-state. Finally, Sabastian reflects on Hindutva’s reorientation toward Hindu piety after the creation of Pakistan effectively resolved India’s “Muslim problem.”
Bringing clarity to an ideology little understood in the West, Fascism in India is an eye-opening perspective on Hindutva and a profound meditation on the proliferation and evolution of right-wing thought.

Sachin Nikarge has extensively worked in consultative capacity with prominent foreign/diplomatic missions across both ‘hard’ as well as ‘soft’ power domains.

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Recall This Book x The Caste Pod: a Crossover episode with Ajantha Subramanian

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the spirit of Hannah Arendt's natality principle (that new things are always and should always be being born, each one unique and endowed with limitless potential) we at RTB love it when a new podcast appears. Especially one as thoughtful and original as The Caste Pod, which assembles scholars and activists to make sense of what caste is, how it's experienced and how it has travelled globally.

Join us to discuss and share an extended excerpt is its widely published (check out her earlier books!) founder Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology at CUNY Graduate Center, and producer (with Lori Allen) of the “Violent Majorities” series here at RTB.

John and Ajantha delve into the founding of the podcast, and then enter into the business end of the series, which is to explore the complex interplay between caste, race and class as organizing features of economic inequality and its corresponding features of cultural discrimination and oppression.

Ajantha's extended conversation with Prachi and Ram of Savera, a multiracial, interfaith, anti-caste coalition of Indian Americans from The Caste Pod episode 10 lays bare its premise: to put scholars and activists into conversation and opens a space engineered for each to learn form the other.

Before introducing the Savera excerpt, Ajantha frames the topic by way of Isabel Wilkerson's influential (if problematic) book Caste and its neglect of class and economic issues, and also the case against Cisco for caste discrimination in California that in significant ways internationalized the fight around caste's role in perpetuating economic and political inequity.

Listen and Read Here.

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RTB x The Caste Pod: a Crossover episode with Ajantha Subramanian

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Listen and Read Here.

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Chad S. A. Gibbs "Survival at Treblinka: Geography, Gender, and Social Networks in Jewish Resistance" (U Wisconsin Press, 2026)

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

On August 2, 1943, prisoners at the Nazi extermination camp Treblinka, located in occupied Poland, launched an uprising against their captors, during which hundreds successfully escaped while guards killed as many in the process. In this groundbreaking work, Chad S.A. Gibbs draws upon recently discovered sources and novel research methods to fundamentally reassess Jewish resistance at Treblinka—both before and during the revolt.

Using the testimonies of revolt survivors, prior escapees, those who passed through the camp, and a handful of bystander witnesses and former SS guards, Gibbs sheds new light on the events of August 2 as well as many prior acts of resistance in Survival at Treblinka: Geography, Gender, and Social Networks in Jewish Resistance (U Wisconsin Press, 2026). Critical to these new interpretations of the revolt are the actions of women prisoners, who here assume a central place in this story for the first time.

Paul Lerner is Chair of the History Department at the University of Southern California where he directs the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies. He is the author of The Consuming Temple: Jews, Department Stores, and the Consumer Revolution in Germany, 1880–1940. plerner@usc.edu @plerner.bsky.social

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Nora L. Rubel, "Recipes for the Melting Pot: The Lives of the Settlement Cook Book" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1901, Lizzie Black Kander put together a cookbook based on the classes she taught at the Milwaukee Jewish Mission. “I was trying to teach a group of young foreign girls in a crowded neighborhood how to cook simple and nutritious food, yet have it attractive and inexpensive as we prepare it in America,” she recalled. The Settlement Cook Book would go on to be the most successful charitable cookbook in American history, remaining a best-seller into the 1970s. Despite including nonkosher recipes, it became a mainstay in Jewish kitchens and an enduring touchstone of Jewish American culture.

Recipes for the Melting Pot: The Lives of The Settlement Cook Book (Columbia University Press, 2026) by Dr. Nora Rubel tells the remarkable story of The Settlement Cook Book, demonstrating how it shaped Jewish American identity—and was in turn shaped by generations of Jewish women. Dr. Rubel traces the cookbook’s evolution across forty editions over several decades, through waves of immigration, shifting gender roles, upward mobility, suburbanization, and rapid changes in Jewish life. She argues that the book celebrates pluralism, allowing it to serve at once as a tool for Americanization, a repository of tradition, and a platform for culinary innovation. Ultimately, The Settlement Cook Book is a record of American Jewish women’s history, told through the food they made and the lives they led. A cultural biography of an iconic cookbook, this lively and inviting book shares an inclusive vision of American cuisine.

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April Howells, "The Unforgettable Mailman" (Alcove Press, 2026)

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the midst of texting and cell phones, online websites and GPS, it can be difficult to remember an era when almost all communication took place by landline or snail mail, as it’s now called, and driving depended on the ability to read a printed map. But April Howells’s debut novel vividly recaptures that world.

The Unforgettable Mailman (Alcove Press, 2026) opens in Chicago in October 1966. The post office, overwhelmed with unsolicited mail in the days before the ZIP code, has shut down temporarily, and an elderly resident named Henry Walton decides that someone must deliver the mail. People depend on letters, after all, and without them, connections with their nearest and dearest will fade.

Henry himself suffers from a bad leg leftover from World War I and an increasingly dicey memory. But despite these obstacles, he succeeds in breaking into the post office and leaving with approximately 300 letters, destined for places as far apart as Canada and the Dakotas. Throughout the story we see Henry’s interactions with the recipients of the letters as well as the letters themselves, and through the exchanges Henry’s own past becomes ever clearer. After a while, his journey intersects with that of Roger, a high-school student in search of the father who left home, and the two of them pursue the delivery of the letters as we learn more about what makes each of them tick.

This haunting novel, which came out a couple of months ago, captivated me from the very beginning. Henry is beautifully portrayed and sympathetic, and so are all the people with whom he interacts along the road—including, of course, Roger.

April is a storyteller who finds heartwarming inspiration in little-known pieces of history. With a background in magazine publishing, she’s spent the last decade leading Global Internal Communications and Employee Engagement for premium apparel brand lululemon. The Unforgettable Mailman is her debut novel.

C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels, including one co-written with P.K. Adams. Her next book, Song of the Silk Weaver, will appear in September 2026.

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Adam Geczy, "Glasses" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Glasses are among the oldest and most commonplace prosthetics we have invented. But what does it mean to wear glasses? There is more to the answer than correcting vision. Glasses alter, enhance, and shield the way that we view the world, and the way the world sees us.

Everyone has encounters with glasses, passively or actively, from reading glasses to sunglasses. At times they are the main identifiers in a face (think John Lennon), and they signify extremes from nerdy and brainy to cool and sleazy. They are alternately the most mundane of things on our bodies and potentially the most glamorous.

In this edition of the Object Lessons series, Glasses (Bloomsbury, 2026) by Adam Geczy explores this most pervasive and accessible accessory and shows that it is both a conduit to and a barrier between ourselves and the world outside.

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Inside Science Fiction Studies

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode, the editors and managing editor of Science Fiction Studies offer an inside look at the journal, discussing its place in the field and revisiting notable articles that have contributed to the study of science fiction. Science Fiction Studies is published three times a year by University of California Press. For more information about the journal, including subscription and submission information, please visit online.ucpress.edu/sfs. If you are interested in supporting the work of UC Press and its Journals Program, please consider making a charitable donation to the UC Press Foundation.

To learn more about the UC Press Foundation and how to contribute, please visit ucpress.edu/support-us.

Articles mentioned:

Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.; Antimancer: Cybernetics and Art in Gibson's 'Count Zero.' Science Fiction Studies March 1995; 22 (1): 63-86. Link.
John Rieder; On Defining SF, or Not. Science Fiction Studies July 2010; 37 (2): 191-201: Link.
Paul Kincaid; Review: H.G. Wells: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Lourdes López-Ropero. Science Fiction Studies March 2026; 53 (1): 190-193: Link.
Veronica Hollinger; Introduction: Women in Science Fiction and Other Hopeful Monsters. Science Fiction Studies July 1990; 17 (2): 129-135: Link.
Darko Suvin; A, B, and C. The Significant Context of SF: A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation. Science Fiction Studies March 1973; 1 (1): 44-50: Link.
Special Issue on Science Fiction and Postmodernism. Science Fiction Studies Nov. 1991: Link.
A complete list of University of California Press journals is available at UC Press Journals

Phoenix Alexander is the Jay Kay and Doris Klein Librarian for Science Fiction and Fantasy at the University of California, Riverside, and Book Review Editor of Science Fiction Studies.

Stephen Darren Dougherty is Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Translation at the University of Agder and an Editor of Science Fiction Studies.

Colin Milburn is Distinguished Professor and Gary Snyder Chair in Science and the Humanities at the University of California, Davis, and an Editor of Science Fiction Studies.

Patrick Sharp is Professor of Liberal Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and an Editor of Science Fiction Studies.

Elizabeth (Lisa) Swanstrom is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Utah and an Editor of Science Fiction Studies.

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Gayle F. Wald, "This Is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins, Children’s Music, and the Long Civil Rights Movement" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Ella Jenkins (1924–2024) was one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century, although many people have never heard of her. A pioneer in children’s music and an innovative educator, Jenkins recorded forty albums and influenced countless children and adults over a sixty-year career. Gayle Wald places Jenkins’s life and work within the larger contexts of the civil rights movement, the folk revival, and the changing worlds of children’s education and entertainment in This is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins, Children’s Music, and the Long Civil Rights Movement (University of Chicago Press, 2025). Committed to civil rights, Jenkins infused her beliefs in social justice and our shared humanity into her work with children and her compositions. She viewed music as a way for children to come together and establish connections with each other rather than as a gateway to musical achievement or literacy. Based on dozens of interviews including with Jenkins and her life partner Bernadelle Richter, Wald traces Jenkins’s life from her childhood in segregated Chicago, her involvement with the integrated folk music scene, and her successful career as a music educator. This is Rhythm was given special recognition by the 2026 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award.

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Massoud Amin, "Both Your Houses: Iran, America, and the Wages of Unchecked Power" (Wisdom Editions, 2026)

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Both Your Houses: Iran, America, and the Wages of Unchecked Power (Wisdom Editions, 2026), Massoud Amin confronts the war between Iran, Israel, and the United States, and the civilians caught beneath it. Writing from a dual vantage as an Iranian-born American trained to see how systems break, Amin traces the chain that led to catastrophe. Iran's thwarted democracies. The 1953 coup. The architecture of sanctions was designed to inflict economic pain rather than produce diplomacy—the destruction of the JCPOA while the IAEA was certifying Iranian compliance.

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Mike F. Alvarez, Warren J. Bareiss, and Jolane Flanigan eds., "Suicide in Popular Media and Culture: Studies in Framing a Social Catastrophe" (Bristol University Press, 2026)

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

NB: This episode contains a discussion of suicide and may not be appropriate for all listeners. If you are thinking about hurting yourself, help is always available at 988 in the United States.

Suicide in Popular Media and Culture: Studies in Framing a Social Catastrophe (Bristol University Press, 2026) brings together scholars from across disciplines to examine how suicide is mythologized, politicized, and challenged across film, TV, young adult literature, digital platforms, online communities, and more. From news coverage of celebrity suicide to social media interventions with at-risk youth, this wide-ranging collection explores suicide’s intersections with class, gender, chronic illness, and cultural identity.

The book is co-edited by Mike F. Alvarez (Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire), Warren J. Bareiss (Professor of Communication at the University of South Carolina Upstate), and Jolane Flanigan (Professor of Communication Studies at Rocky Mountain College and a licensed mental health counselor).

Some Crisis Resources

*Note: some of these may utilize emergency services or law enforcement to conduct wellness/welfare checks or active rescues. Ask if these are possibilities at any point during your conversation.

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

Website

Dial 988

The Trevor Project

Website

Provides support for LGBTQ+ youth facing crisis

1-866-488-7386

Text: 678678

Chat: Here

Crisis Text Line

Text HOME to 741-741

Trans Lifeline

1-877-565-8860 (U.S.)

1-877-330-6366 (Canada)

Warmline.org

Website

Contains links to warmlines in every state

Provides peer support

Find a Helpline

Website

For those not in the U.S. Search for links to crisis centers worldwide

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Sarah Kaminsky, "The Forger of Paris" (Doppelhouse Press, 2025)

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Forger of Paris (Doppelhouse Press, 2025) presents Adolfo Kaminsky’s biography in its only authorized edition, expanded with photographs from Kaminsky's 2019 exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris and accompanied by essays from MAHJ director Paul Salmona and National Jewish Book Award winner Deborah Dash Moore.

"This necessary book provides unforgettable insights into hidden worlds of the Jews, intellectuals, and partisans who fought back.... has a thriller dimension that outshines even the best undercover fiction." — Jewish Book Council

At seventeen, Adolfo Kaminsky had narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz and was recruited to join the Jewish underground. Due to his expert knowledge of dyes and an artistic, technical ability to reproduce official documents, he soon became the primary forger for the Resistance in Paris, creating papers that would save an estimated 14,000 Jewish men, women, and children from certain death. Upon the Liberation and for the next twenty-five years, Kaminsky worked as a professional photographer. But, recognizing the fight for freedom had not ended with the defeat of the Nazis, and driven by his own harrowing experiences, he continued to forge documents in secret for activists, refugees, human rights causes, and pacifists throughout the world.

"At a moment when someone’s passport, or religion, can still mean the difference between life and death, Mr. Kaminsky’s story remains painfully relevant, but inspiring." — Filmmakers Samantha Stark, Alexandra Garcia and Pamela Druckerman for The New York Times

"A triumphant wartime biography, full of heroism and near-alchemistic craftiness." — Foreword Review

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Sarah Rosenson, "Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026)

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Can creative writing become a form of biblical interpretation?

That is the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Sarah Rosenson about her new book, Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026).

The modern phenomenon of fan fiction involves readers writing creative pieces that answer questions left open in favorite works of literature. This also describes the ancient tradition of midrash, where readers write stories filling in gaps in the Bible. In Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis Sarah Rosenson discusses the questions left open in the first book of the Bible, and every chapter includes questions for the characters in the stories, which can serve as prompts for conversations or creative writing.

Rosenson argues that careful reading reveals narrative gaps: characters whose motivations remain unexplained, conversations that never occur, ethical dilemmas left unresolved, and emotions that are only implied. Drawing on the long tradition of Jewish midrash, she proposes that readers can engage these silences through disciplined creative writing, using imagination not as a substitute for close reading but as an extension of it.

In our conversation, we discussed some of Genesis's most familiar stories from unexpected angles. What if Eve's pursuit of knowledge is more complex than simple disobedience? Why does Noah never challenge God's decision to destroy the world? What happens when Hagar's perspective becomes central rather than peripheral? Why does Abraham argue for the people of Sodom but remain silent when Isaac is placed on the altar? And how does the Joseph narrative negotiate the relationship between divine providence and human responsibility?

We also explore the broader methodological questions raised by the book. Does describing midrash as "fan fiction" make an ancient interpretive tradition more accessible, or does it risk misunderstanding it? How far can readers imaginatively expand biblical narratives while remaining faithful to the text? And what safeguards distinguish responsible interpretation from speculation?

Whether you are interested in biblical studies, literary criticism, Jewish interpretation, or creative writing, our conversation offers a thoughtful discussion of how ancient texts continue to invite new readings. More than providing answers, Rosenson's book encourages readers to ask better questions and, in doing so, to discover that Genesis remains as intellectually and ethically challenging today as it has been for centuries.

You can find more about Sarah and her work here.

Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands.

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John Burt, "A Moment's Surrender" (Press Americana, 2026)

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

It’s 1980, a decade after he dropped out of grad school, and Paul Bishop is a lowly writing instructor at a college in Nevada. His former best friend, Tom Corbin is now the celebrated poet that Paul once dreamed of being, but shortly after visiting Paul in Reno, Tom is murdered. The story focuses on Paul’s crippling guilt, Tom’s wife’s ongoing love for her cheating husband, and the difficult girlfriend both Paul and Tom betrayed a decade before. After Tom’s death, all three are forced to confront their grief and painful memories. A Moment’s Surrender (Press Americana, 2026) is a thoughtful and literary deep dive into guilt, marriage, and loyalty.

John Burt has taught English at Brandeis University since 1983. He is the author of three volumes of poetry: The Way Down (1988), Work without Hope (1996), and Victory (2007). His scholarly books include Lincoln's Tragic Pragmatism (2013) and Robert Penn Warren and American Idealism (1988). He is also the editor of The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren (1998), and Robert Penn Warren's Brother to Dragons: A Parallel Text Critical Edition of the 1953 and 1979 versions (forthcoming). Since 1984 he has sung in an ensemble devoted to the polyphonic folk songs and religious music of the Republic of Georgia, and he transcribes and engraves music from Georgia for other singers and ensembles to use. Learn more on his website.

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Thomas Smith, "The Fifth Crusade: A History of the Epic Campaign to Conquer Egypt" (Yale UP, 2026)

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1217, the crusader states were in a highly fragile condition. The Fourth Crusade had failed, and Jerusalem had not been recovered. The crusaders now set their sights on Egypt. If the breadbasket of the Mediterranean could be conquered, long-term Christian control of the Holy Land could be ensured. Led by the rulers of Hungary and Austria, and backed by the Knights Templar and Hospitaller, the Fifth Crusade was launched.

In The Fifth Crusade: A History of the Epic Campaign to Conquer Egypt(Yale University Press, 2026), Dr. Thomas Smith tells the gripping story of the crusade for Egypt. Looking at a wide range of Christian and Muslim sources, Dr. Smith sheds new light on the brutal reality of medieval combat on land and water. We see a dramatic beach landing, the invention of a unique floating siege engine, and the conquest of the crucial port city of Damietta—one of the most famous and successful sieges of the crusades. Dr. Smith provides fresh insights into strategy, showing how, despite early victories, foolish decision making meant that the crusaders ultimately snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

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Soraya Murray, "Technothriller: Film and the American Imagination" (MIT Press, 2026)

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Technothriller: Film and the American Imagination (MIT Press, 2026) is the first dedicated examination of popular movies classified as “thrillers” that channel societal anxiety or dread about advanced technologies like supercomputers, robotics, AI, biotech, military weaponry, and surveillance culture. Technothriller is about the changing imagination of technology within an American context and its role in engineering some of the most profound ideologies of modern life.

Soraya Murray is a Professor in the Film and Digital Media Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her work explores the visual culture of innovation, advanced computation, and its imaginaries as imaged in popular American films, for which technology assumes a central role. Murray’s first book, On Video Games: The Visual Politics of Race, Gender and Space (I.B. Tauris, 2018, paperback 2021), examines popular video games like Assassin’s Creed, Spec Ops: The Line, Metal Gear Solid, and Grand Theft Auto as visual culture. She currently serves as Provost of Porter College, UCSC.

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Phillip B. Williams, "Lift Every Voice" (Penguin, 2026)

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Captivating for both its grandeur and intimacy, Lift Every Voice (Penguin Books, 2026) explores the past’s capacity to be both a source of dread and empowerment, an unshakable reminder of violence and an indelible testament to the endurance of love. In virtuosic poems that are wise, musical, richly layered, and saturated with vivid imagery, Williams honors a mother “who knew seven ways to say bitch under her breath,” a grandma whose smile “reflects the world,” and wonders at “the impossible lift” of forgiveness. Lift Every Voice is a staggering tribute to personal and collective evolutions, a vital chorus that answers only to God, community, and the empowered self.

Phillip B. Williams is from Chicago, Illinois, and is the author of two collections of poetry: Thief in the Interior, which was the winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Lambda Literary Award, and Mutiny, which was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection and the winner of a 2022 American Book Award. Williams is also the recipient of a Whiting Award and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the National Endowment for the Arts. His 2025 novel, Ours, was named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, People, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and more. You can find Phillip on Instagram.

Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Molly Fader, "Lady X: A Novel" (Random House, 2026)

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Molly Fader's latest novel, Lady X: A Novel (Random House, 2026), the search for a notorious vigilante exposes the secrets between three generations of women in this propulsive novel of female resistance and rage, sweeping from contemporary L.A. to gritty, 1970s New York. Los Angeles, 2024. After learning that her A-List actor husband sent explicit photos to multiple girls on social media, Margot Cooper runs away from the world—and the paparazzi—by fleeing to her childhood home with her teenage daughter in tow. But home isn’t the sanctuary Margot was hoping for. In a cardboard box in the corner of the attic, she finds damning evidence of an infamous urban legend, the mysterious vigilante “Lady X”—including a blurry newspaper photo of a woman who looks an awful lot like Margot’s mother. New York City, 1977. In the midst of an infamous summer, Ginger Daughtry and her two beloved roommates are able to shield each other from the chaos—until one of them is assaulted. Astounded by the lack of response from police, the young women decide to engage in some light payback, signing their handiwork as “Lady X.” Soon copycats appear, and a movement inspired by acts of vandalism against terrible men spirals out of control, with criminals running amok under the guise of the enigmatic “Lady X.” When a body is found fallen—or pushed—from five stories high, the hunt reaches a boiling point. But Lady X has vanished into thin air.

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Jay Belsky, "Nature of Nurture: Rethinking Why and How Childhood Adversity Shapes Development" (Harvard UP, 2026)

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Children who grow up in troubled circumstances―experiencing deprivation or instability, living in a dangerous neighborhood or an abusive family―are more prone to aggression, recklessness, and sexual promiscuity later in life. To most of us, the lesson is clear: adverse childhood conditions make human development go awry.

In The Nature of Nurture: Rethinking Why and How Childhood Adversity Shapes Development (Harvard University Press, 2026), renowned developmental psychologist Jay Belsky challenges this interpretation and offers an exciting alternative based on Darwinian theory. There is no reason to assume, he points out, that the psychology of “well-behaved” people is normal while that of “antisocial” adults is aberrant. Instead, the supposedly dysfunctional behaviors correlated with childhood adversity could well be ingenious adaptations to harsh environments. If you are surrounded by danger and uncertainty, then being quick to lash out at potential threats and having lots of offspring at an early age are good ways to maximize your reproductive chances. From an evolutionary perspective, having just a few children and lavishing care on each works well in a stable world, but not in a perilous one.

Belsky exposes the romanticism underlying our idealized notions that “natural” equals “good” and that nature intends to maximize human happiness and well-being. When instead we take seriously the fact that humans, too, have been shaped by evolutionary pressures, we can better understand why, how, and for whom childhood experience shapes later life.

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Heidegger in Ruins

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Martin Heidegger’s sympathies for the conservative revolution and National Socialism have long been well known. As the rector of the University of Freiburg in the early 1930s, he worked hard to reshape the university in accordance with National Socialist policies. He also engaged in an all-out struggle to become the movement’s philosophical preceptor, “to lead the leader.” Yet for years, Heidegger’s defenders have tried to separate his political beliefs from his philosophical doctrines. They argued, in effect, that he was good at philosophy but bad at politics. But with the 2014 publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, it has become clear that he embraced a far more radical vision of the conservative revolution than previously suspected. His dissatisfaction with National Socialism, it turns out, was mainly that it did not go far enough. The notebooks show that far from being separated from Nazism, Heidegger’s philosophy was suffused with it.

In Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philosophy and Ideology, Richard Wolin explores what the notebooks mean for our understanding of arguably the most important philosopher of the twentieth century, and of his ideas—and why his legacy remains radically compromised. Join YIVO for a discussion with Wolin about this book led by YIVO's Executive Director Jonathan Brent.

This book talk originally took place on September 20, 2023.

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Robert G Parkinson, "Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier" (Norton, 2024)

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

We are divided over the history of the United States, and one of the central dividing lines is the frontier. Was it a site of heroism? Or was it where the full force of an all-powerful empire was brought to bear on Native peoples? In this startingly original work Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier (Norton, 2024), historian Robert Parkinson presents a new account of ever-shifting encounters between white colonists and Native Americans. Drawing skillfully on Joseph Conrad's famous novella, Heart of Darkness, he demonstrates that imperialism in North America was neither heroic nor a perfectly planned conquest. It was, rather, as bewildering, violent, and haphazard as the European colonization of Africa, which Conrad knew firsthand and fictionalized in his masterwork.

At the center of Parkinson's story are two families whose entwined histories ended in tragedy. The family of Shickellamy, one of the most renowned Indigenous leaders of the eighteenth century, were Iroquois diplomats laboring to create a world where settlers and Native people could coexist. The Cresaps were frontiersmen who became famous throughout the colonies for their bravado, scheming, and land greed. Together, the families helped determine the fate of the British and French empires, which were battling for control of the Ohio River Valley. From the Seven Years' War to the protests over the Stamp Act to the start of the Revolutionary War, Parkinson recounts the major turning points of the era from a vantage that allows us to see them anew, and to perceive how bewildering they were to people at the time.

For the Shickellamy family, it all came to an end on April 30, 1774, when most of the clan were brutally murdered by white settlers associated with the Cresaps at a place called Yellow Creek. That horrific event became news all over the continent, and it led to war in the interior, at the very moment the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Michael Cresap, at first blamed for the massacre at Yellow Creek, would be transformed by the Revolution into a hero alongside George Washington. In death, he helped cement the pioneer myth at the heart of the new republic.

Parkinson argues that American history is, in fact, tied to the frontier, just not in the ways we are often told. Altering our understanding of the past, he also shows what this new understanding should mean for us today.

Robert G. Parkinson is professor of history at Binghamton University.

Edward J. Blum is a professor of nineteenth-century United States History in the History Department at San Diego State University.

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Jeffrey A. Marx, "Jewish Firebugs: Arson and Antisemitism from the Civil War to World War I" (NYU Press, 2026)

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Why were Jews once stereotyped as America's arsonists? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with historian Jeffrey Marx to discuss his fascinating book Jewish Firebugs: Arson and Antisemitism from the Civil War to World War I (NYU Press, 2026), which uncovers a little-known chapter in the history of American antisemitism.

In the decades after the American Civil War, major insurance companies instructed agents to deny fire insurance to Jewish customers, claiming they were uniquely prone to arson. That accusation quickly spread beyond the insurance industry, finding its way into newspapers, cartoons, vaudeville, popular songs, and silent films, helping to cement the image of the "Jewish firebug" in the American imagination.

Drawing on fire department records, insurance files, trial transcripts, newspapers, and other archival sources, Marx untangles the complicated relationship between stereotype and reality. He explores why some Jewish immigrants became involved in organized arson schemes, how insurance companies often enabled those crimes for their own financial interests, and why Jews became the only ethnic group in America burdened with this particular accusation. The result is a nuanced history that reveals as much about immigrant life, poverty, and urban America as it does about the enduring power of antisemitic myths.

Together, Marx and Katz examine how stereotypes are created, why they persist long after the facts have faded, and what this forgotten episode teaches us about the history—and continuing evolution—of antisemitism in the United States.

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Wednesdae Reim Ifrach, "Queer Expressions: Expressive Art and Somatic Therapy Practices for Healing Body Trauma" (North Atlantic Books, 2026)

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A creative, body-based guide to healing for queer, trans, and gender-expansive readers—somatic tools and expressive arts to feel safer in your body, rewrite your story, and sustain connection. Queer Expressions: Expressive Art and Somatic Therapy Practices for Healing Body Trauma (North Atlantic Books, 2026) is a practical, consent-centered guide to healing body trauma through embodiment and creativity. Drawing on somatic therapy—grounding, breath, orientation, gentle movement—and expressive arts—collage, drawing, clay, movement, music, voice—within a harm-reduction frame of pacing, choice, and safety plans, Wednesdae Reim Ifrach (REAT, ATR-BC, LPC) shares grounded practices, case vignettes, and simple rituals to help you move from shut down or on high alert into steadier, more connected living. The book follows a simple arc: first, feel and steady your nervous system; next, turn those sensations into art and story; and finally, build rituals and relationships that help the changes last—whether you’re navigating dysphoria, ED recovery, chronic stress, or nervous system dysregulation. Inside you’ll find: Body check-ins (quick prompts to name sensations and needs), short breath & movement practices (1–10 minutes), and sensory prompts (sight/sound/touch/smell/taste) Art invitations (collage, drawing, movement, sound/voice) with step-by-step guidance and safety notes Consent & harm-reduction tools (opt-in/out menus, pacing, crisis planning) to keep the work manageable Community practices & rituals (altar-making, release-writing, witness circles) to anchor change in daily lif A queer-centered lens on healing, embodiment, and creativity Warm, inclusive, and usable on your own or with a therapist, Queer Expressions helps you build a more livable relationship with your body—and a story big enough to hold who you are becoming.

Wednesdae Reim Ifrach is a trans/non-binary art therapist and counselor dedicated to providing gender-affirming, trauma-informed care that emphasizes healing-centered engagement, body justice, intersectional social justice, and equitable access to eating disorder treatment. They co-own and operate Rainbow Recovery, offering clinical supervision, consultations, trainings, workshops, counseling, and art therapy services to clients in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. As a full-time professor at Moravian University, Wednesdae teaches mental health counseling, social work, and expressive art courses, inspiring future professionals. Over the past decade, they have led trainings and workshops for organizations such as the American Art Therapy Association, National Alliance for Eating Disorders, and Yale University, among others. Previously, Wednesdae founded the country’s first 2sLGBTQIA+ Eating Disorder Program, served on Project HEAL’s Board, and presided over the Connecticut Art Therapy Association. They currently co-chair the Health Professionals in Training Program on the GLMA Board. Their expertise addresses LGBTQ+ concerns and trauma, honoring each client’s identity.

Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).

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Rod Phillips, "Cats: A History" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

For more than 10,000 years, cats have prowled at the edges of human life. But, starting only a few decades ago, hundreds of millions of them became pets. In Cats: A History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Professor Rod Phillips shares a sweeping cultural and social history of felines, tracing their shifting place across societies and centuries, from ancient Egypt's revered hunters to Europe's suspected familiars of witches and from shipboard rodent controllers to cherished internet icons.

Professor Phillips illustrates how cats have always occupied spaces both familiar and mysterious and how their perceived independence and disruptive nature—and their associations with women, the supernatural, and outsiders—have shaped humans' attitudes toward these fascinating creatures. Cats have been lauded as companions and vermin-killers, reviled as threats to moral and ecological order, and cherished for the very qualities that make them hard to control. This richly textured portrait of cats explores their significance in religion, politics, gender, literature, warfare, and pop culture. It also provides profound insights into our relationships with other animals, especially dogs and rodents.

The many roles that cats have played throughout history illuminate a variety of contradictions in humans' perceptions of them: as affectionate yet aloof, adorable and evil, ordinary and exceptional. This book is the definitive story of the feline presence in human history—an elegant study of how we live with animals whom we see as living by their own rules.

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Philippa Gander, "Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We’re Disrupting Them" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

All of life is profoundly shaped by the daily, monthly, and yearly cycles of our planet, and all creatures have internal timekeeping systems that rely on cues from the surrounding environment. With modern technology, we are changing our environments—and by proxy, the ecosystems around us—to override these innate rhythms of life. But at what cost? Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We're Disrupting Them (Princeton University Press, 2025) reveals how Earth’s rotations shape our biology, what human sleep cycles looked like before the advent of artificial light, and why technology can’t free us from the constraints of our circadian clocks.

Philippa Gander explores the science behind the biological rhythms that animate us and our world, blending captivating storytelling with illuminating examples ranging from migratory birds and hibernating squirrels to jet-lagged pilots and astronauts in space. She shows how genetic circadian clocks are an ancient evolutionary adaptation that we share with all life on the planet, and how our rapidly expanding use of artificial light at night disrupts the time cues for entire ecosystems. Gander explains why cutting back on sleep adversely affects our well-being, safety, and longevity, and how breakthroughs in sleep science offer solutions to bring our lives more in harmony with nature’s rhythms.

An astonishing journey of scientific discovery, Life in Sync unlocks the mysteries of biological time—and offers new perspectives for anyone who has ever given up a good night’s sleep for the sake of their hectic waking hours.

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Nelson Lichtenstein on Clinton and Neoliberalism

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

We are joined by Nelson Lichtenstein, one of the deans of American labor history. The conversation ranges widely, from the tragedy of the Clinton administration and what might have been, to the importance of studying capitalism, to the politics of baby boomer self-loathing—all key parts of the history of the 1990s!

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Sara Farhan, "Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors, 1869–1959" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors, 1869–1959 (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) by Dr. Sara Farhan offers a rigorous social and cultural history of the formation of medical professionals in modern Iraq and their role in shaping public health institutions. Tracing developments from late Ottoman medical reforms to the establishment of the Medical College of Mosul, the book examines the institutionalization of medical education as a critical element of the social transformation of Iraq. It reveals how shifting imperial, colonial and national frameworks sought to cultivate a cadre of physicians who would serve state and society. These experts, however, often found themselves navigating competing ideological imperatives.

This extensively researched study highlights a wealth of rarely consulted sources gathered from 14 archives, family collections, medical journals, student newspapers, film and oral interviews. Drawing on these materials, it interrogates the contradictions inherent in state-driven efforts, wherein doctors functioned as agents of reform and subjects of bureaucratic oversight. Through this, Dr. Farhan reveals the nexus between medical pedagogy, professional authority, public health policy and the broader political transformations that continually redefined medicine in Iraq.

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The Emerging Anocracy: AI, Tech Oligarchs, and the Future of Democracy with Alexis Cruz

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Acting Director Eli Karetny sits down with Alexis Cruz, founder of Enough Consulting and former strategic advisor for governance at Meta. Cruz explores how the proliferation of AI and digital platforms has shifted global politics into an "anocracy"—a precarious gray zone situated between traditional democracy and authoritarianism.

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Stephen G. Covell, "The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

How have Buddhist teachings come to be in modern and contemporary Japan and how are they taught? This pioneering work seeks to answer these questions by highlighting the public teachings of Temple Buddhism institutions, in particular Temple Buddhism kindergartens and Buddhist secondary schools and colleges. The community outreach provided by these Buddhist facilities is far greater than any other with the possible exception of funerals yet until now it has received little attention from scholars of Japanese religion.

After determining what is taught in Buddhist education and how, Stephen Covell introduces readers to a select group of monks who undergo some of the most grueling practices in Japanese Temple Buddhism to determine if the public-facing teachings of Buddhist education are unique or similar to those of elite Buddhist practitioners. The teachings and sites of teaching examined here include but are not limited to classical doctrinal studies and temples focused on the education of Buddhist clergy. Covell uncovers the arguments made by priests involved in morals education, the dharma talks of famous ascetics, and the ways in which laws and legal codes have changed Buddhist education. He looks at what is taught on the ground, online, and in popular texts to discuss the current teachings embraced as Buddhism within the institutions of Temple Buddhism. Among his numerous findings is such teachings and worldview are remarkably similar to those of New Religions and Buddhist lay movements as outlined by Japan religion scholars and government bodies in charge of education.

The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2024) will be welcomed by students and scholars in Japanese religious studies and early childhood and higher education as well as those interested in current Buddhist practice and teachings in general.

Dr. Victoria Montrose is the James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Religion at Furman University. Her recent research, “From Disciples to Dissidents: Student Protests and Reform Movements in Meiji-Era Buddhist Universities” was published in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies in late 2025.

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Rachel Bachman on What Makes an Excellent Picture Book

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this insightful interview, librarian, writer, blogger, Rachel Bachman shares her astute thoughts on what makes an excellent picture book, discussing both fiction and nonfiction, the advantages and disadvantages of being a female vs. male author, traditional vs. self-publishing, the celebrity pitfall, why some books are great and others not so, and who gets to decide.

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Dan Altman, "Taking Territory: The Persistence of Conquest Since 1945" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Taking Territory: The Persistence of Conquest Since 1945 (Cornell University Press, 2026) is an eye-opening account of why territorial conquest persists today.

The end of World War II seemingly brought about a decline in territorial conquest. Many have argued that a strong territorial integrity norm in the postwar era explains this decline. Yet as Dan Altman shows, states have seized territory numerous times since 1945. Large-scale conquests have waned, but small, targeted seizures have persisted. The relationship between conquest and war has also shifted. While states attempting conquest before 1945 often initiated war and sought to occupy large territories, challengers today more often seize small regions and try to avoid war. This strategy, the fait accompli, has become the predominant mode of conquest.

Drawing on his original data, which include 175 conquest attempts between 1918 and 2024, Altman explains why conquest persists, what motivates it, when it turns violent, and when it succeeds. He shows how miscalculated fait accompli have sparked many post-1945 wars, and why the motives behind many territorial grabs are often about image, domestic politics, and the ambitions of military officers. Incisive and illuminating, Taking Territory cuts against what we think we know about post-1945 conquest to reveal its true causes and consequences.

Our guest is Dan Altman, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University.

Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of Volatile States in International Politics (Oxford University Press, 2023).

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M. A. Carrick, "The Eye of Leviathan" (Orbit, 2026)

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Eye of Leviathan (Orbit, 2026) begins with a deal between Teresa—wife of an abusive Hidalgo living in 1500s Spain—and her friend the fairy Castaña, who agrees to become a changeling, taking the form of an infant boy and the place of Teresa’s daughter, who will instead be raised by fairies. Teresa gets protection for a child that would otherwise be killed and Castaña, now Estevan, gets access to the human world, where he can hopefully learn enough to stop the increasing violence against his people. The Eye of Leviathan imagines a world where Spain focuses not on the Americas as its primary target for colonization, but on the Sea Beyond, the realm of the fae.

In this interview Carrick describes the myriad of historical sources they used to build the novel and the impact that the inclusion of the fae had on the mythology and history of the world. We chat about map making, gender in early modern Spain, and the various islands of the Sea Beyond. We also discuss the initial European discovery of the Sea Beyond, which is covered in a prequel story available to read at Adventitious.

The Eye of Leviathan is a rich and detailed novel full of adventure and the struggle towards justice in the face of violent cruelty. It was a joy to discuss with the authors.

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Democratic Backsliding and Resistance: Poland’s Civil Society, Electoral Strategies, and Institutional Levers

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This week on Democracy Dialogues, Frances Cayton speaks with four experts on Polish politics about the success of Poland’s opposition coalition in 2023, and the headwinds that democracy continues to face today.

What challenges do parties and civil society face in building pro-democracy electoral coalitions? If victorious, how do these challenges affect post-election governance and efforts at pursuing democratic renewal? This episode brings together politicians, political scientists, and civil society leaders who each played a critical role in the 2023 elections to examine what made Poland’s pro-democracy mobilization possible, the gains the 2023 coalition has achieved since entering power, and the challenges it continues to face in pursuing democratic renewal.
This episode was originally recorded as a part of the Lessons from Global Democratic Resistance panel series. The series brings together frontline activists, civic leaders, institutional actors, and field‑informed scholars to examine how democratic actors have resisted, responded to, and learned from democratic backsliding across countries. The series aims to identify practical lessons and comparative insights for those defending democracy today and is organized in collaboration with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University; Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania; the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame; the Democratic Futures Project at the University of Virginia; Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law; and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Mikołaj Cześnik, Director of the Institute of Social Science at SWPS University, Chairman of the Council of the Stefan Batory Foundation

Michał Wawrykiewicz, Member of the European Parliament (MEP). Co-Founder of the civic initiative Wolne Sady (Free Courts)

Marek Tatała, President and Co-Founder of the Economic Freedom Foundation

Dominika Lasota, Student and Activist in the Youth Climate Strike Poland, Co-Founder of Inicjatywa WSCHÓD

Frances Cayton is a PhD Candidate in Government at Cornell University. Her research focuses on questions surrounding democratic backsliding, civil society, and political communication.

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Diana Cucuz, "Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Diana Cucuz about her book, Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR (University of Toronto Press, 2023) and also asks her for advice to beginner scholars studying gender and the Cold War. A bit about Dr. Cucuz’s book: throughout the Cold War, Soviet citizens had limited access to US life and culture. Amerika, a glossy Russian-language magazine similar to Life, provided a rare exception. Produced by the United States Information Agency (USIA), America’s first peacetime propaganda organization, Amerika was used to influence the Soviet public and convince women in particular that an American-style consumer culture and conservative gender norms could better their lives. Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds relies on USIA archives, issues of Amerika, and American women’s magazines such as the Ladies’ Home Journal to show how, during the postwar period, USIA officials deployed idealized images of American women as happy, fulfilled, and feminine wives, mothers, and homemakers.

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Rachel Phan, "Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging" (Douglas & McIntyre, 2025)

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Rachel Phan about her powerful memoir, ⁠Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family & Belonging⁠ (Douglas & McIntyre, 2025).

A warm and poignant narrative about finding one’s self amidst the grind of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a daughter’s attempts to connect with parents who have always been just out of reach.

When she was three years old, Rachel Phan met her replacement. Instead of a new sibling, her mother and father’s time and attention were suddenly devoted entirely to their new family restaurant. For her parents—whose own families fled China during Japanese occupation and then survived bombs and starvation during the war in Vietnam—it was a dream come true. For Phan, it was something quite different. Overnight, she became a restaurant kid, living on the periphery of her own family and trying her best to stay out of the way.

As Phan grew up, the restaurant was the most stalwart and suffocating member of her family. For decades, it’s been both their crowning achievement and the origin of so much of their pain and suffering: screaming matches complete with smashed dishes; bodies worn down by long hours and repetitive strain; and tenuous relationships where the family loved one another deeply without ever really knowing each other.

In Restaurant Kid, Phan seeks to examine the way her life has been shaped by the rigid boxes placed around her. She had to be a “good daughter,” never asking questions, always being grateful. She had to be a “real Canadian,” watching hockey and speaking English so flawlessly that her tongue has since forgotten how to contort around Cantonese tones. As the only Chinese girl at school, she had to alternate between being the sidekick, geek, or Asian fetish, depending on whose gaze was on her.

Now, three decades after their restaurant first opened, Phan’s parents are cautiously talking about retirement. As an adult, Phan’s “good daughter” role demands something new of her—and a chance to get to know her parents away from the restaurant.

In Restaurant Kid, Phan deftly combines candour, wit and insight to craft a vibrant and important narrative on the strength and foibles of family, and how we come to understand ourselves.

Rachel Phan is a Chinese Canadian author. A graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Master of Journalism program, she and her work have been featured on CBC, Huffpost, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Toronto Star, the National Post, Chatelaine, and Maclean’s. Her instant national bestselling book, Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging (2025), was named one of CBC Books’ Best Books of 2025 and longlisted for Canada Reads in 2026. She lives in Toronto, ON.

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Amélie Junqua and Geoffrey Day, "Too Good to Waste: Recycling Paper in the Eighteenth Century" (Bodleian Library, 2026)

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Paper was a precious commodity in the eighteenth century: every sheet was made by hand. There was therefore a significant market in recycling substandard paper from paper mills and discarded proofs and sheets from printers and booksellers for secondary use, alongside a black market in which stealing and receiving stolen paper took place on a vast scale. A single piece of paper could be termed ‘waste’ and yet sold for cash three times in succession, on each occasion performing a useful function. The end user would keep the newly purchased ‘waste’ or paper wrapping in a special drawer from which it would be taken for a myriad household purposes, including cooking, needlework, decoration and hygiene. Popular satirical prints depicted explicit paper uses, while creators of flamboyant papier mâché ceilings concealed the material by gilding it.

With over 100 illustrations, and drawing on letters from a range of people from farmers to notable authors and members of the aristocracy, together with meticulous archival research, Too Good to Waste: Recycling Paper in the Eighteenth Century (Bodleian Library, 2026) by Dr. Amélie Junqua and Dr. Geoffrey Day traces the extraordinary history of ingenious paper recycling in eighteenth century England.

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M. Guy Thompson, "Existential Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Introduction" (Routledge, 2025)

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A fascinating introductory volume, Existential Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2025) integrates existential philosophy with psychoanalysis, drawing on key theorists from both areas and expertly guiding the reader on how to incorporate these two disciplines, which may appear disparate on the surface, into their clinical and theoretical work.

This unique and accessible book sees M. Guy Thompson explore key concepts, such as experience, authenticity, freedom, psychic change, agency, and the pervasive role of suffering in our lives. Throughout, he draws on a wide range of thinkers from both fields, including Sartre, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Freud, Winnicott, Bion, Laing, and Lacan. Exquisitely lucid and engaging, Thompson deftly brings the reader into thoughtful and enlightening territory typically inaccessible to the general reader. Although existential philosophy and psychoanalysis are often thought of as incompatible fields, Thompson shows how they share far more in common than is usually supposed. This volume will help clinicians, scholars, and students of all persuasions learn how integrating the two disciplines introduces a more personal and revolutionary understanding of what psychoanalysis can be in the twenty-first century.

This compelling assimilation of continental philosophy and psychoanalysis will be of interest to psychoanalytic practitioners and psychotherapists, as well as philosophers, social scientists and any student of the human condition

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“American Elegy” with author Ed Simon

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

I discuss with the author his book American Elegy: Reflections on 250 Years of the Dis-United States of America (Ig Publishing, 2026). Simon is the founding editor of The Pittsburgh Review of Books. The book is a lively and lyrical medley of short “flash” essays, as he calls them, and our conversation ranges from his notes on “General Tso’s Chicken” as a sticky American fusion classic to his thoughts on Jane Jacob’s early 1960’s exploration of what makes for a vibrant urban milieu. As Simon tells me, there is much in the American experience—in the American song, it can be said—to celebrate notwithstanding all of the discordant notes.

Veteran journalist Paul Starobin is a former Moscow bureau chief for Business Week and a former contributing editor of The Atlantic. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications. His latest book, Putin’s Exiles: Their Fight for a Better Russia (Columbia Global Reports) will be published in January.

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Cécile Bishop, "Forms of Blackness: Race and Visibility in the French-Speaking World" (Duke UP, 2026)

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What does Blackness look like? In Forms of Blackness: Race and Visibility in the French-Speaking World (Duke University Press, 2026), Cécile Bishop argues that this seemingly simple question has no straightforward answer. Instead of treating race as something immediately visible, she explores how Blackness emerges through the interplay of perception, language, and history.

A central theme of the book is that visibility is never neutral. Through examples ranging from photographs of the Liberation of Paris to works of art such as Portrait of a Black Woman, Bishop shows that Blackness cannot be reduced to what is seen. Instead, she introduces the idea of Blackness as form, emphasizing the importance of representation, opacity, and aesthetic experience.

Engaging with thinkers such as Édouard Glissant and Frantz Fanon, Bishop invites readers to rethink the assumption that seeing is the same as knowing. Forms of Blackness offers a thoughtful and original account of how race is shaped not simply by appearance, but by the ways we learn to see.

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Mary E. Mendoza, "Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, and People Defied the US-Mexico Border" (UNC Press, 2026)

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

As many as ten thousand people attempt to illegally cross the border between the US and Mexico each month, braving deserts, rivers, and other environmental hazards in the process. But the very illegality of that crossing has an environmental history, writes Penn State University assistant professor Mary Mendoza in Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, and People Defied the US-Mexico Border (University of North Carolina Press, 2026). It was diseases, microbes, insects, and animals which, in part, hardened the border from a porous array of landscapes into the militarized zone seen on the news every night. However, despite the ecological and political difficulties of doing so, people continue to cross the border between the two countries, defying environmental odds and risking death along the way. In Deadly Divide, Mendoza explains why, underscores the risks involved, and shows how we got to this point, keeping an eye on the border region's stark landscape with every step of the way.

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Diana T. Kudaibergen, "What Does It Mean to Be Kazakhstani?: Power, Identity and Nation-Building" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In early 2022, protests rocked Kazakhstan. Initially peaceful demonstrations turned violent after brutal government crackdowns, leaving at least 238 dead during "Bloody January." Many feared the unrest might fracture the country along ethno-linguistic lines—yet ethnicity played little role. It was deep socio-economic grievances and anti-regime sentiment that brought people onto the streets. In What Does It Mean to Be Kazakhstani?: Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Central Asia (Oxford University Press, 2024), Diana T. Kudaibergen asks why. Building on unpublished archival materials and hundreds of interviews, she examines how Kazakhstan developed a relatively stable inter-ethnic framework where others fractured, how regime elites and ordinary citizens have pulled that identity in different directions, and how Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the Russian immigration it has prompted, is once again transforming what it means to call oneself Kazakhstani.

Cholpon Ramizova is a London-based creator and researcher. She holds a Master's in Migration, Mobility and Development from SOAS, University of London. Her thematic interests are in migration, displacement, identity, gender and nationalism—and in the ways these intersect within the Central Asia context.

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Peter C. Mancall, "Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000-1680" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Contested Continent: The Struggle for America, c.1000-1680 (Oxford University Press, 2026), the newest installment of the acclaimed Oxford History of the United States series, Peter C. Mancall recounts how North America was forged from the experiences of millions of Indigenous women and men as well as Europeans and Africans. This history spans the continent from the North Atlantic to the West Indies and includes the entire Atlantic basin, telling a new story about the origins of major aspects of American culture. He illuminates the rise of a booming trans-Atlantic economy based on the extraction of abundant American natural resources; the central role that European migrants and their descendants played in the enslavement of Africans and the displacement of Indigenous peoples; and the spread of self-governing polities where many enjoyed religious freedom. None of these developments was inevitable. Conflicts broke out frequently as different peoples battled over precious resources. Europeans' appetites for material gain and expanding Christendom brought horrific consequences for those brutalized, enslaved, and vulnerable to infectious diseases. This is a sweeping history of developments crucial to the eventual founding of the United States. Contested Continent underscores the titanic struggles between the peoples who had populated the Americas for centuries and the migrants from the Old World who initiated changes that created a New World that offered boundless opportunities for some and crushed the aspirations of others.

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Vignesh Rajahmani, "The Dravidian Pathway: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Politics of Transition in South India" (Hurst Publishers, 2025)

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the rich political landscape of Tamil Nadu, few movements have had as profound and enduring an impact as the Dravidian movement. Vignesh Rajahmani’s The Dravidian Pathway (Hurst Publishers, 2025) offers a compelling and detailed account of how the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) transformed a powerful socio-cultural and anti-caste movement into a highly successful electoral political force.

Focusing on the pivotal decades of the mid-20th century, Rajahmani traces the strategic leadership of key figures including Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, C.N. Annadurai, M. Karunanidhi, and others. The book explores how the DMK skilfully synthesised anti-caste ideology, demands for linguistic pride and Tamil identity, socioeconomic reforms, and educational mobility. This synthesis not only resonated deeply with marginalised communities but also enabled the party to translate ideological commitments into concrete welfare policies and political power.

The Dravidian Pathway is particularly valuable for its nuanced examination of the transition from movement to party, shedding light on the organisational innovations — such as the spread of reading rooms (padippakams) — that helped build a robust Dravidian public sphere in the 1950s and 1960s. Rajahmani’s work provides fresh insights into one of modern India’s most distinctive and influential regional political traditions.

This timely study is essential reading for anyone interested in South Indian politics, federalism, identity politics, and the enduring legacy of social justice movements in India.

Host: Dhiren Swain is a joint PhD Candidate in Urban Studies at The University of Melbourne and IIT Madras.

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Ali Fard, "Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Since the 1990s, technologists have promoted a vision of the “cloud” as a shapeless and intangible entity. Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data (University of Minnesota Press, 2026) by Dr. Ali Fard peers through this hazy façade to reveal the earthly material foundations of global computing and data extraction. Tracing the historical and technological development of the cloud computing paradigm, Dr. Fard exposes an ever-evolving project in which ideologies, economic models, and marketing images collude to shape our shared urban environments.

Demonstrating how technology’s spatial footprint now stretches to nearly every corner of the globe, Grounding the Cloud analyzes the often-hidden infrastructures that facilitate platform capitalism—from the mines extracting rare earth minerals in remote regions to the vast global network of fiber-optic cables at the bottom of the oceans to the nondescript data centers that sit on the peripheries of major urban areas. Meanwhile, with compelling examples of smart-city initiatives and corporate campuses, Dr. Fard shows how the future of urbanism is deeply intertwined with the growing economies of data extraction.

Breaking down the myth of a clean and efficient tech urbanism, this book makes visible the complex material geographies and geopolitics that undergird today’s most powerful and omnipresent corporations. A timely critique of the growing agency of tech platforms in determining the future of urban space, Grounding the Cloud offers an essential framework for understanding the shifting relationship between technology and urbanization.

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Yiddish Tangos and Klezmer Mambos

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This panel discussion will explore the remarkable influence of Latin American music and dance on the culture of Yiddish speaking communities in the United States. Ronald Robboy will discuss Latin American musical influences upon Yiddish theater composers, including Sholom Secunda, Abraham Ellstein, and Alexander Olshanetsky; Sonia Gollance will discuss the popularity of dances like the Tango and Mambo in the Borscht Belt, as exemplified by movies like Dirty Dancing and Mamboniks; and Josh Kun will discuss the influence of Latin American music on post-war Jewish music and the influence of Jewish music on U.S. Latino/a artists.

This event forms part of Carnegie Hall’s Nuestros sonidos festival.

This panel discussion originally took place on March 10, 2025.

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What are the Limits of Political Speech? A Conversation with Erik J. Olsen

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A New Approach to Political Speech: Democratic Theory, Constitutional Law, and Public Liberty After January 6 (de Gruyter, 2026) challenges conventional understandings of political speech and its relationship to democracy. Through a focused case study of Donald Trump's role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election and the prosecutions stemming from it, Erik Olsen develops a critique of the prevailing view that political speech is a private right that is only instrumentally related to political action. He advocates instead for a theoretical framework that treats political speech as a form of communicative action and balances the protection of free expression with the need to safeguard core democratic practices and processes. He thus outlines a more robust First Amendment jurisprudence that can better defend both public liberty and democratic institutions from authoritarian threats in the current era of democratic backsliding.

Erik J. Olsen is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Seattle University.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Juliet McShannon “Rescue” (Spring, 2026)

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Juliet McShannon speaks to Emily Everett about her story “Rescue,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. The story follows a woman on her search for a lost dog through a neighborhood very different from her own, and explores ideas of loss, class, community, and healing. Juliet also discusses how her childhood in Apartheid South Africa, and young adulthood practicing law during the time of transition that followed, has shaped her writing.

Juliet McShannon is an emerging fiction writer who was born in England, raised in South Africa where she practiced law, and now lives in the Colorado Desert in Southern California. She is a graduate of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers and was selected as a Luso-American Fellow for Disquiet International. Her writing has appeared in Five Points Literary Journal, the New England Review, The Guardian, The Independent, The Star, and elsewhere.

Read the story in The Common at thecommononline.org/rescue.

Follow Juliet on Instagram at @julietmcshannon.

The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook.

Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. In 2025 her debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese’s Book Club pick, and her work appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column. Previous publications include the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction.

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Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja, "Foundations for Metasemantics" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Metasemantics studies the foundations of meaning, asking what makes it the case that certain words have the meanings that they do. But what makes metasemantic theories true? This question has been all but ignored in philosophy of language. In this book, Cohnitz and Haukioja address this issue and argue that just as in metasemantics, both internalist and externalist answers are available for this foundational question.

The authors introduce and defend meta-internalism, arguing that the foundations of reference and meaning are anchored in the individual dispositions and psychological states of language users, offering an alternative to meta-externalist views that would appeal to broader community-based or otherwise external factors. Meta-internalism is, moreover, compatible with semantic externalism as usually understood, and provides an explanation of why externalism is true. Through a critical examination of prominent theories and thought experiments, the book explores fundamental issues like reference failure, conceptual engineering, and the metaphysical implications of reference, as well as the methodology of theories of reference. With its focus on the foundations of metasemantics, the book provides a fresh and empirically informed perspective on one of the core questions in the philosophy of language. Foundations for Metasemantics (Oxford University Press, 2025) is essential reading for philosophers, scholars, and students seeking to understand the underlying principles that support our theories of meaning and reference.

Daniel Cohnitz is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at Utrecht University.

Jussi Haukioja is Professor of philosophy at NTNU Trondheim, Norway.

Carrie Figdor is professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa.

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Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill, "Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story" (Da Capo, 2026)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

With his shag haircut and white Stratocaster guitar, Jeff Beck was an icon known and loved by millions. Yet somehow, he maintained the ineffable low profile cool of a cult hero as he glided through six decades of musical trends with nary a lapse in taste. Not to say he ever played it safe. What other guitarist can lay claim to performing with opera star Luciano Pavarotti, mainstream television personality Kelly Clarkson, and professional degenerates like Guns N’ Roses with equal grace and wit? Or as Beck himself once quipped, “I’m an awkward son of a bitch when it comes to doing the expected.”

In Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story (Da Capo, 2026), Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill return to chart the unexplored life of rock’s greatest and perhaps most enigmatic instrumentalist. Culled from approximately 30 hours of interviews with the late guitarist himself, numerous conversations with those closest to him, and extensive research, the book sheds new light on the genius that Jimmy Page once said, “shifted the whole sound and face of electric guitar music.”

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Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach, "Freedom to Know: Creating Community with Ambedkar, Du Bois, Iqbal, Ramabai and Tagore" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Freedom to Know: Creating Community with Ambedkar, Du Bois, Iqbal, Ramabai and Tagore (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) asks how a (world) community can be created to allow structural minorities equitable access to intellectual and material resources

Draws on a range of primary sources
Brings the work of W.E.B. Du Bois into conversation with his Indian contemporaries
Adds a novel historical perspective to recent scholarship on critical social epistemology
Diversifies current ways of doing Indian philosophy

Abstract: In this book, Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach studies how Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891-1956), W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963), Mohammed Iqbal (1877-1938), Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) diagnose the epistemic oppression they perceive and experience, their analysis of the coloniality of being as its cause, and their proposals to counter it. Kirloskar-Steinbach explores how these voices seek to co-create a space in which they can experience what it means to be free from the conceptual domination of academic frameworks, relish that freedom with their collaborators and, in the equal participation that that space affords, develop open-ended concepts that help them to resist the coloniality of being.

Jessica Zu's personal reflection: This book models for readers and scholars alike on how to practice "hermeneutical democracy." The notion of hermeneutical philosophy resonates strongly with Artruso Escobar's philosophy of "pluri-verse" instead of Eurocentric metaphysics of "uni-verse", Roger Ames's "zeotology" or philosophy of the living in Chinese traditions, and Brook Ziporyn's mystical atheism against the dominant paradigm of "nous as arché".

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Pratap Kumar Penumala and Arvind Sharma, "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Hindu Ethics" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

With the plurality of Hinduism in mind, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Hindu Ethics focuses on the human, sociological and situational ethical framework underpinning Hindu ethics. Chapters go beyond the traditional classical sources-such as the Vedas, epics, mythological narratives and Dharmasastra texts-to include lesser known vernacular based moral texts, as well as contemporary sources from organizations, intellectuals and movements of religious, social and political nature.
Going beyond only theological and philosophical discussions, this handbook presents a truly multidisciplinary approach to Hindu ethics. This book will benefit not only scholars and students within religious studies and philosophy, but also those from sociology, history, theology, law, anthropology and literature.

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Kit Chapman, "The Age of Alchemy: How Early Innovators Shaped Modern Chemistry" (Profile Books, 2026)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The first chemists were Sri Lankan forgers who crafted unimaginably strong steel millennia before it should have been possible. They were alchemists in Roman Egypt, who designed apparatus still in use today. They were Stone Age leatherworkers, Tang Dynasty herbalists and Mayan stoneworkers.

The Enlightenment is usually credited with the origins of chemistry, but in truth, the science blossomed gradually. As early innovators distilled, smelted, forged and fermented their way through the centuries, they blurred science and mysticism in search of answers to life's greatest mysteries.

In reading The Age of Alchemy: How Early Innovators Shaped Modern Chemistry (Profile Books, 2026), join Kit Chapman on a global quest to achieve immortality, cure all disease and transmute lead into gold as he reveals the illuminating stories of how the alchemists first broke new ground and shaped the scientific method.

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Andrew Martin, "Down Time" (FSG, 2026)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Andrew Martin is the author of the novel Early Work, a New York Times Notable book of 2018, and the story collection Cool for America, longlisted for the 2020 Story Prize. His essays and stories have appeared frequently in The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, and Harper's, as well as in The Yale Review, The Atlantic, McSweeney's, The Times Book Review and elsewhere. He lives in New York City with his family.

Recommended Books:

William Demby, Love Story Black

Morgan Meis, The Drunken Silenus

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Are Capitalism and Democracy Fundamentally Incompatible? A Conversation with Mordecai Kurz

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Today I'm speaking with Mordecai Kurz, Joan Kenney Professor of Economics Emeritus at Stanford University. We are discussing his latest book, Private Power and Democracy's Decline: How to Make Capitalism Support Democracy (MIT Press, 2026). After its high-water mark several decades ago, democracy's status continues to slide globally. Capitalism and democracy, which once seemed to complement each other, now appear at odds. Free-market policies and monopolistic technologies have enriched many while driving inequalities that harm workers. Many have opined on how to fix the political and economic problems of our day, from an embrace of radical libertarian policy to socialist ownership of the means of production. Mordecai Kurz's extensive study of capitalism and democracy charts a path for balancing economic and political freedom. Since the days of Adam Smith, technology has changed rapidly, necessitating new formulations that take into account the private power centers that exercise control much like monarchies did in the Age of Enlightenment. Despite the imbalance, capitalism still remains a driver of technological progress and innovation. How can we make both capitalism and democracy work for the good of everyone? I'm happy today to get the chance to speak with such an illustrious scholar and to learn a bit more about how to understand this defining puzzle of our age.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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On “Turtling” Versus Being Primed for Possibilities

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Tissa Richards is a leadership expert, keynote speaker, and the award-winning author of No Permission Needed and Rethinking Resilience: Fueling Your Competitive Advantage. Her mission is to help bold, high-capacity leaders become unshakable. A repeat tech founder and CEO who has raised millions in funding, Tissa advises a wide array of companies on innovation and performance.

In an era when trust is eroding, holding back and failing to communicate is a greater failing than ever. Rather than act like a turtle withdrawing into your shell, be bold: that’s the message here. The better route is to be in learning more, applying lessons learned from “failures” so that you can seize on the opportunities ahead. Most of all, remember that resiliency is a team sport; the lone hero won’t cut it in a world where exponential growth happens through the chemistry of a community that provides synergy. Case in point: Tissa mentions her interview with a former Executive at Campbell’s, whose Prickly Pear Council proved to be so successful in airing and resolving conflicts that eventually it no longer needed to exist.

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Gregory Smits, "The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Most people only know one of the Ryukyu Islands: the island of Okinawa, home to sandy beaches and one of the U.S.’s most important bases in Asia. There are lots of myths about this island chain, which stretch from southern Japan down to the island of Taiwan: That it owed loyalty to China, given its place in the imperial tribute trade; that it was a pacifist kingdom; that it was quasi-sovereign even within Japan.

Gregory Smits tackles a lot of these myths in his expansive history of the islands, titled The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present (University of Chicago Press: 2025). His book, and today’s conversation, dives into all the ways that the Ryukyu Islands will frustrate anyone trying to fit this place into an easy historical or political narrative.

Gregory Smits is professor of history and Asian Studies at Penn State University. He is the author of several books, including Early Ryukyuan History: A New Mode (University of Hawaii Press: 2024), Maritime Ryukyu, 1050-1650 (University of Hawaii Press: 2019) and Visions of Ryukyu: Identity and Ideology in Early-Modern Thought and Politics (University of Hawaii Press: 1999)

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Ryukyu Islands. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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Doubled Up: Shared Households and the Precarious Lives of Families

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

More than eleven million children in the US live in doubled-up households, sharing space with extended family or friends. These households are even more common among low-income families, families of color, and single-parent families, functioning as a private safety net for many in a country with extremely limited public support for families. Despite their prevalence, we know little about how shared households form and how they shape family life. Doubled Up is an in-depth look at the experiences of families with children living in doubled-up households.

Drawing on extensive interviews with sixty parents living in doubled-up households, Dr. Hope Harvey examines what circumstances and motivations lead families to form doubled-up households, how living in shared households affects daily routines, and how families fare after these arrangements dissolve.
Dr. Harvey shows that although families rely on doubling up to get by in the face of rapidly rising housing costs, precarious labor markets, and unaffordable childcare, these private arrangements are rarely sufficient to overcome such structural barriers. And doubling up incurs its own costs for both host and guest families. For doubled-up families, negotiating household relationships and navigating shared space reshapes family life. Understanding the dynamics of doubled-up households extends scholarship on family life beyond the nuclear family and points the way toward better policies that will serve all families.

Guest: Dr. Hope Harvey is an assistant professor at the Martin School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Kentucky and a research affiliate at the Center for Poverty Research. She is the author of the award-winning book Doubled Up.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

What's On Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life

The Fight To Save The Town

You're Doing It Wrong

Raising Them

What Do You Want Out Of Life

How Girls Achieve

What Might Be

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Paul Helseth and David P. Smith eds., "New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929" (Routledge, 2024)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

New Perspectives on Old Princeton, 1812-1929 (Routledge, 2024) focuses on Princeton Theological Seminary and the theologians who taught there from the time of its founding in 1812 to the time of its reorganization in 1929. It confronts the standard assessment of Old Princeton in the historiography of North American evangelicalism and sets out why a new paradigm is needed. The volume critically engages with the 'Ahlstrom thesis' and other more recent scholarship concerning Old Princeton's relationship to the Scottish intellectual tradition. The contributions seek to move beyond Old Princeton's alleged indebtedness to Enlightenment thought and advance a more constructive reading of the Old Princetonians, their theology, and their place in the American evangelical experience. The book offers a fresh and more accurate assessment of the theological and philosophical assumptions that held sway at Old Princeton and through the seminary to the American continent and beyond. It will appeal to scholars interested in theology, religious history and intellectual history.

Paul K. Helseth (PhD, Marquette University) is associate professor of Christian thought at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of Right Reason and the Princeton Mind (2010).

David Smith (PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is pastor in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and adjunct faculty in historical theology at Erksine Theological Seminary. He received his M.Div. from Covenant Seminary (1995) and completed his dissertation, published as B. B. Warfield’s Scientifically Constructive Theological Scholarship in 2010, under John Woodbridge.

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A. G. Hopkins, "The Land Where Nothing Works: How Britain Lost the Plot" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What has happened to Britain? As drivers on its roads can attest, it is the pothole capital of Europe. Once-beautiful towns now feature peeling paint, weeds, and broken railings. Public services are no longer fit for purpose. A malaise seems to infect every aspect of British life: its economy, polity, social order, sense of well-being, domestic regional relationships, and place in the world. In The Land Where Nothing Works: How Britain Lost the Plot (Princeton University Press, 2026), the distinguished historian A. G. Hopkins offers an explanation, tracing Britain’s current problems to decisions made in the 1980s that abandoned its postwar experiment in social democracy and mimicked policies of deregulation and privatisation promoted by the United States.

In 1945, the new Labour government’s development programme aimed at creating a social democracy that would benefit all members of society. The counterrevolution launched by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1979, which remains in force today, promoted individualism and deregulation. The transition from one programme to another was a response to the growth of finance and services centred on the City of London, and to decolonisation, which redirected trade to Europe. The expansion of credit led to the financial crisis of 2008 and the years of austerity that followed, and fuelled the populist movement that culminated in Brexit. Hopkins argues that, instead of following the free-market policies of its mentor, the United States, Britain should draw on its own history of social democracy and borrow from its neighbours in Europe, where communitarian principles continue to be upheld.

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Roberta J. Magnusson, "Urban Infrastructure in Medieval England: Sustainability and Resilience" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the bustling market towns and growing cities of medieval England between 1200 and 1600, public works were the lifelines of urban society. In Urban Infrastructure in Medieval England: Sustainability and Resilience (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Dr. Roberta J. Magnusson offers the first comprehensive study of how medieval towns built, financed, and sustained their defenses, bridges, streets, water systems, and harbors.

Dr. Magnusson reveals how even modest communities, like the Warwickshire town of Atherstone, boldly pursued projects that reshaped their futures. Grants of tolls and taxes funded paving initiatives, bridge repairs, and fortified walls, while enterprising lords and abbots sponsored sluices, conduits, and quays. These efforts were not confined to England's great cities; small towns with limited means also sought to enhance their competitive edge, even when such investments strained their resources. Drawing on royal records, municipal archives, and archaeological evidence, Dr. Magnusson situates these civic undertakings in their broader social and environmental contexts. She shows how townsmen adapted traditional obligations of labor and charity alongside innovative fiscal tools to sustain projects that could span generations. Yet the balance was fragile. The crises of the fourteenth century—famine, plague, and the harsher climate of the Little Ice Age—undermined local resources, leaving many communities to struggle with maintenance or watch their infrastructures decline.

At once a history of engineering, economy, and community, this study illuminates how medieval people conceived of security, health, and prosperity through the material fabric of their towns. By tracing the rise, transformation, and survival of these infrastructures, Dr. Magnusson demonstrates how urban communities navigated centuries of change while shaping the very landscapes in which they lived.

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Metamodern Mysticism with Linda Ceriello

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode, host Pierce Salguero sits down with Linda C. Ceriello, a scholar of mysticism and popular culture from Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Linda is one of the foremost scholars of metamodernism, with particular focus on contemporary spirituality and mystical experiences. She talks with us about what this concept of metamodernism means, and how it can open up new kinds of more capacious thinking. I’m sure you will agree that a lot of what we’ve been doing on the Black Beryl podcast over the past 4 years — juxtaposing different perspectives, exposing our full selves, exploring the dark sides of spirituality, leaning into sincerity, etc. — has all embodied a metamodern sensibility. Anyway, I think she’s the perfect guest to talk with as we launch season 4, and I hope you’ll enjoy the show.

If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in multidisciplinary conversations about Asian healing and mystical traditions, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members area on Substack (blackberyl.substack.com), as each episode our guests share downloadable PDFs of articles, book chapters, and other materials for you.

One last thing: we are planning an “Ask Me Anything” episode coming up soon, so reach out via Substack or my website here, and let me know your questions. Ok, on with the show!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Subscribe on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including these PDFs of Linda’s work:

Metamodern Mysticisms (2018)
“Toward a metamodern reading of Spiritual but Not Religious mysticisms” (2018)
“The Metamodern Bend: Theorizations for Religious Studies” (2022)

Black Beryl’s host Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com

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Gregg Andrews, "Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970" (LSU Press, 2026)

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970 (LSU Press, 2026), Dr. Gregg Andrews examines the history of factory laborers in a celebrated Mississippi River town. In the late 1890s, shoe manufacturing transformed Mark Twain’s boyhood home from a steamboat village to a factory town. By the mid-1920s, the St. Louis–based International Shoe Company, the world’s largest shoe manufacturer at the time, controlled all shoe production in Hannibal and continued to do so until it shut down production lines in the 1960s. The company kept a tight grip on the town as it battled to keep out unions and maintain labor at a low cost and in a malleable state. When Hannibal’s shoe workers claimed their right to organize under the New Deal during the Great Depression, the shoe corporation was defiant. The company’s stance sparked mob violence against outside union organizers, nurtured a company union, pitted unionists against company loyalists, and badly divided Hannibal. At the same time, the town was engaged in yearlong festivities to celebrate the centennial of Mark Twain’s birth and the opening of a museum named in his honor.

Dr. Andrews’s study of shoe manufacturing and its production workers is thick in detail and rich with the human stories of those whose lives were shaped by the rise and fall of the shoe industry in Hannibal. Andrews captures the shoe workers—white and Black, men and women—in their own words as they describe their jobs, family struggles, and battles to unionize.

Dr. Andrews examines the prevailing conditions that led the company to close its production facilities in Hannibal, leaving shoe workers and the town to confront the early shock waves of deindustrialization. His study of an industry that has virtually disappeared in the United States leaves a record for the families of thousands of American shoe workers and the citizens of Hannibal to better understand their history and the role shoe manufacturing played in it.

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Podcast Intellectuals, Panel #4

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s Center for Human Values hosted a day-long conference titled Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting. It was co-sponsored by Princeton’s Journalism program, and the NYU Podcast Initiative. Over the course of four panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research.

In the fourth panel, Jody Avirgan led a discussion about what it takes for someone to make an academic podcast. Jody Avirgan is a podcast host, producer, and editor. His production company is Roulette Productions; Sara McCrea is a writer, audio producer, and researcher, who leads podcast strategy and production at Random House Publishing Group. She has produced podcasts for Slate, Pushkin Industries, TED Audio Collective, Audible, and the Center for Humane Technology. She created and produced the "Attention Lab" series for the Strother School of Radical Attention, and wrote and produced the award-winning "McCartney: A Life in Lyrics", a 24-episode narrative journey through Paul McCartney's songwriting, hosted by poet Paul Muldoon; Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.; Julia Barton is an award-winning podcast, audiobook, and radio editor. She was the executive editor of Pushkin Industries, where she helped develop Revisionist History and Against the Rules. She’s the editor of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia, Michael Specter’s Fauci, and Michael Lewis’s unabridged Liar’s Poker and companion podcast. Her 2019 series, Spacebridge, was called “dazzling” by The New Yorker. She writes the audio history newsletter, Continuous Wave.

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Becoming the System

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick sits down with Dr. Nelson Flores to discuss his 2024 book entitled Becoming the System: A Raciolinguistic Genealogy of Bilingual Education in the Post-Civil Rights Era, published by Oxford University Press.

In his book, Dr. Flores examines the ways that institutionalizing bilingual education in the post-Civil Rights Era in the United States has served to maintain rather than challenge racial hierarchies. He and Brynn discuss the lasting legacies of this institutionalization within neoliberal ideologies for Spanish-English bilingual education in the United States from the post WWII era to today.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Campaigning, Parties and the Digital in Contemporary Politics

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Politics, parties and campaigning are all changing. AI, digital tools and the rapid spread of messages all mean that the conduct and content of politics are changing. In many respects, it feels like the only constant is change. But closer observation often illuminates a patchier picture with elements of change and elements that remain. Moreover, change can be more evolutionary than revolutionary, and the change is not always along the lines we might predict. So, how and in what ways is political campaigning changing? What role are digital tools playing? What do citizens want from their political parties, and what are they (or could be) doing to meet those desires and expectations? Join Tim Haughton and guest Kate Dommett for a discussion of campaigning, digital politics and political parties.

Kate Dommett is Professor of Digital Politics at the University of Sheffield. Among her many publications are The Reimagined Party: Democracy, change and the public, published by Manchester University Press in 2020, and a co-authored book with Glenn Kefford & Simon Kruschinski, Data Driven Campaigning and Political Parties: Five Advanced Democracies Compared, published by Oxford University Press in 2024.

Tim Haughton is Professor of Comparative and European Politics and a Deputy Director of CEDAR at the University of Birmingham. He is the author, inter alia, of The New Party Challenge published by Oxford University Press in 2020 and Clicks and Mortar: Electoral Campaigning in the 21st Century published last year in Government and Opposition.

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Psychoanalysis and Jewish Languages

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

There is an academic interest in the "Jewish Freud," aiming to detect Jewish influences on Freud, his own feelings about being Jewish, and suppressed traces of Jewishness in his thought. This book takes a different approach, turning its gaze not on Freud but rather on those who seek out his concealed Jewishness. What is it that propels the scholarly aim to show Freud in a Jewish light? Naomi Seidman explores attempts to "touch" Freud (and other famous Jews) through Jewish languages, seeking out his Hebrew name or evidence that he knew some Yiddish. Tracing a history of this drive to bring Freud into Jewish range, Seidman also charts Freud's responses to (and jokes about) this desire. More specifically, she reads the reception and translation of Freud in Hebrew and Yiddish as instances of the desire to touch, feel, "rescue," and connect with the famous professor from Vienna.

Join YIVO for a discussion with Seidman about this newly published book, led by scholar Ken Frieden.

Buy the book: here

This book talk originally took place on June 6, 2024.

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Meena Khandelwal, "Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women's Technology in India" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Stove improvers have been designing and promoting “clean” or “efficient” biomass cookstoves in India since the 1940s and have been frustrated to find their carefully engineered stoves abandoned in trash heaps or repurposed as storage bins, while the traditional mud chulha retains a central place in the kitchen. Why do so many Indian women continue to use wood-burning, smoke-spewing stoves when they have other options?

Based on anthropological research in Rajasthan, Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women’s Technology in India (University of Arizona Press, 2024) by Dr. Meena Khandelwal argues that the supposedly obsolete chulha persists because it offers women control over the tools needed to feed their families. Their continued use of old stoves alongside the new is not a failure to embrace new technologies but instead a strategy to maximize flexibility and autonomy. The chulha is neither the villain nor hero of this story. It produces particulate matter that harms people’s bodies, leaves soot on utensils and walls, and accelerates glacial melting and atmospheric warming. Yet it also depends on renewable biomass fuel and supports women’s autonomy as a local, do-it-yourself technology.

Dr. Khandelwal, a feminist anthropologist, describes her collaboration with engineers, archaeologists, and others. She employs critical social theory and reflections from fieldwork to bring together research from a range of fields, including history, geography, anthropology, energy and environmental studies, public health, and science and technology studies (STS). In so doing she not only demystifies multidisciplinary research but also highlights the messy reality of actual behavior.

Cookstove Chronicles critically examines why, despite extensive development efforts, use of the chulha persists. It offers an important new framework for looking at development, technology, environmental change, and human behavior.

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Jay Szpilka, "BDSM Practices in Contemporary Poland: Barbed Wire Floggings, Rope Orgasms, and the Problem with Desire" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In BDSM Practices in Poland: Barbed Wire Floggings, Rope Orgasms, and the Problem with Desire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), cultural anthropologist and cultural studies scholar Jay Szpilka analyzes the way that BDSM is practiced in contemporary Poland. Based on extensive field research, she asks what social, cultural, and political conditions are necessary for BDSM to be possible to practice in the first place. Through a nuanced analysis of the way that practitioners navigate conflicting understandings and politics of kink, this book provides an alternative to Western-centric narratives of BDSM communities and challenges a number of long-standing notions about the status kink which circulate in sexuality and queer studies.

Jay Szpilka is a visiting fellow at Edinburgh Napier University and an assistant professor at SWPS University in Poland. She is the author of BDSM Practices in Contemporary Poland, and her work has been published in the Feminist Review, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Journal of Lesbian Studies, Teksty Drugie, and the Australian Feminist Studies.

Atalia Israeli-Nevo is an anthropology PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Judith Starkston, "Achilles's Wife: A Novel of Greek Myth Retelling" (Bronze Age Books, 2026)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In an ancient kingdom, a princess takes inspiration from a visiting young woman to challenge her father's views and reach for leadership-and then discovers her muse is a man.

The goddess mother of Greek mythology's most famous warrior, Achilles, will do anything to prevent her son's fated early death. In a desperate move, she hides Achilles, against his will, on an island-disguised in a girl's body.

Tormented by inner discord, the miscast "girl" befriends Mia, the eldest daughter of the island's king, launching a transformation of Mia's own. Armed with a new vision she believes comes from a girl, Mia contends with family secrets, a controlling father, her destiny to rule, and the wrath of a goddess.

When fate reveals Achilles's identity, a divine mother's fury drives Mia and Achilles into marriage. Mia must navigate her love for a man with a divided heart and a dangerous measure of immortality. Balancing governance and motherhood, Mia will face an unbearable choice.

Achilles's Wife: A Novel of Greek Myth Retelling (Bronze Age Books, 2026) is a stand-alone novel in the Trojan Threads Series.

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Gullah-Geechee Diasporas: Knowledge, Culture, and Black Lowcountry Legacies

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Gullah-Geechee Diasporas: Knowledge, Culture, and Black Lowcountry Legacies (University of South Carolina Press, 2026) counters romantic portrayals of Gullah-Geechee culture as a static, geographically isolated remnant of the past. Across eight interdisciplinary essays, the book’s contributors trace an arc, described in time and space, from pre-Middle Passage Africa through the Caribbean and coastal United States into the interior South and beyond. They consider how Gullah-Geechee cultural traditions are simultaneously rooted in the physical Lowcountry homeland and represent a dynamic cultural ethos that is not bounded by geography and has shaped Black life across North America and the Caribbean Basin. Together, these essays reveal the resilience and adaptability of people whose history defies myths of isolation and immobility. Gullah-Geechee Diasporas is a fresh framework for understanding African American cultural origins, migrations, and transformations.

Dr. Muhammad Fraser-Rahim is associate professor of Intelligence and Security Studies at The Citadel. He is the author of America’s Other Muslims and Gullah Geechee Muslims in America. You can find him on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Dr. Elizabeth J. West is professor of English and the John B. and Elena Diaz-Verson Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters at Georgia State University. Her books include Finding Francis and African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction. She can be found online at Instagram and LinkedIn.

Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Krzysztof Rowiński, "Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film" (Routledge, 2026)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Today’s guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film (Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields. Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland, Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important, transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and cultural traditions.

Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in these fields.

Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance.

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George Grella, "Minimalist Music" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Minimalist Music (Bloomsbury, 2026) looks critically into the music's past, shows how the genre thrives across styles, and points the way toward minimalism's ongoing future.

Minimalism as a genre is best defined not by any style or flavor but by its means. Certain rhythms and chords in other music may identify things like jazz or bossa nova or reggae; take those same elements and put them through the processes of minimalism and you have minimalism with the hues of other musics.

A still young genre with ancient roots, minimalism is much less any kind of style than a practice, a manner of making music. Reviving those means and applying them to contemporary sounds and experiences, the pioneers of minimalism created a new and avant-garde music that immediately communicated its power to listeners of all kinds. The global appeal of minimalism and the way the methods adapt to myriad styles open up a view into how music actually works as an art and an experience, how through time it connects in a fundamental way to how we as humans listen.

George Grella, Jr. has written about music and culture for over thirty years for print and online publications, and has contributed to the Grove Dictionary of Music and the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. He is Music Editor at The Brooklyn Rail, publishes the Kill Yr Idols newsletter, and is the author of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (Bloomsbury, 2015). He has played jazz, classical, and improvised music from CBGB to Carnegie Hall.

George Grella on Bluesky and Kill Yr Idols newsletter.

Bradley on Facebook and Bluesky.

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Nicholas Freudenberg, "Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice Since The 1960s" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Today I'm speaking with Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Public Health at the CUNY School of Public Health. We are discussing his book, Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice Since the 1960s (Columbia University Press, 2026). In March 2020, during one of the first major US outbreaks of Covid, New York became an epicenter of the spread. New York's connective tissue, like the walkable city streets, subways, and taxi cabs, became pathways of transmission. In places where ideas and cultures can spread, diseases can, too. As the hospitals began to fill, essential workers from doctors and nurses to ambulance drivers and social workers stepped up to help heal the city in a time of crisis. For a brief moment, health workers became highly visible in our public consciousness. For many, the pandemic came as a shock. It had been more than 100 years since the last pandemic of comparable magnitude hit the five boroughs. We soon discovered that there already existed a network of public health workers and activists waiting to spring into action to blunt the virus's spread. Many wished that this network had been more robust, better developed, and better funded. Fighting for New York looks at the long sweep of public health activism in New York City from the 1960s to now. Covid was not the first public health crisis the city faced, and it certainly won't be the last. Nicholas details various initiatives to mobilize support for public health projects in the city. How have activists identified problems in their communities? How have they gained institutional support in addressing these problems? And how do they discover and implement workable solutions to the identified problems? Though primarily a work of history, Fighting for New York also serves as a road map for public health workers and activists seeking to navigate contemporary issues.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Daniel Rood, "In the Shadow of the Great House: A History of the Plantation in America" (Norton, 2026)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Dan Rood’s In the Shadow of the Great House (W.W. Norton & Co., 2026) is one of the first contemporary books to focus on the primary engine of slavery, race, and capitalism in this country: the plantation. The plantation was invented on the small Atlantic island of São Tomé in the 1500s, and the island also became the site, soon enough, of the first slave revolt. The brutal technology was then perfected in Barbados, where planters worked tens of thousands of African captives to their deaths in sugar factories. But it was in the United States, Rood shows, that the plantation found its most powerful manifestations. In Virginia, Carolina, and then the Deep South, successive plantation revolutions transformed slavery into a much more rigid and oppressive institution. Incomparably wealthy planters now insisted on a rightless, eternally available, “increasing” source of labor, and in the process reinvented human bondage and stamped it onto a single race. But the plantation did not die after the Civil War. It metastasized. From the advent of sharecropping in the late nineteenth century to the rise of cotton in mid-twentieth century California to today’s chicken processing plants, the plantation has cast a long shadow over American life. Rood further documents the “dark retreats” carved out of plantation life by the enslaved. It was the enslaved who offered the most clear-eyed understanding of what the plantation behemoths told us, and still tell us, about our country.

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Aswin Punathambekar, Adrienne Shaw and Jonathan Gray eds., "Planet Digital: A Global Media Cultures Reader" (NYU Press, 2026)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the three decades since the rise of the global internet, digitalization has transformed how media are made, circulated, and consumed, reshaping culture on a planetary scale. Yet the story of global media is not one of seamless connection or cultural homogenization. Planet Digital: A Global Media Cultures Reader (NYU Press, 2026) challenges the myth of a “global village,” revealing instead how regional histories, infrastructures, economies, and power relations shape the uneven terrains of our digital world.

Edited by the series editors of Critical Cultural Communication, this field-defining anthology gathers leading scholars to examine the texts, genres, platforms, and industries that define today’s global entertainment landscape. From TikTok to Squid Game, K-Pop to Marvel, Bluey to Nollywood, each chapter offers a focused case study that illuminates how digital media both reflect and remake global cultural life.

Spanning influencer culture, streaming platforms, esports, and beyond, Planet Digital shows how digital technologies and global media flows continually reshape one another, producing hybrid forms of creativity, circulation, and control. Together, these essays provide a vital framework for understanding how the world’s screens, sounds, and networks are rewriting the relationship between culture and power in the twenty-first century.

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Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (UNC Press, 2025)

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What was it like to live in a city experiencing occupation by a foreign army? What did it mean when a family had to quarter an officer in their home? More specifically, how did military occupation affect the women and men who lived in those cities, and alter the gender system?

Lauren Duval’s The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence (Omohundro Institute and the University of North Carolina Press, 2025) tackles the these questions by looking at the experiences of a wide range of Americans, Black and white, in the cities occupied by the British during the American Revolution. Why the household? Because this was the primary social and economic unit of the day, a site where people during the war encountered unprecedented threats to their sense of social order. By looking at households, we gain not only an intimate view of the experience of war, but also a sweeping interpretation of the effects of war on American understandings of gender and power.

Some Americans saw military occupation as a threat, full stop. It challenged men’s senses of power and authority over their families, and the ever-present threat of rape hovered over women and girls. But because occupation could loosen some of the patriarchal control in the household, it could also offer tempting new opportunities. Free and enslaved Black people could take advantage of the disruptions to make calculated moves to gain freedom—or more freedom than they currently enjoyed. Black and white women could hope for a different kind of freedom when they forged relationships with military men. In all, The Home Front reveals entire worlds of young women, British officers, anxious patriarchs, enslaved Black women, German soldiers, and wives struggling to survive while their husbands or sons languished in prison or served in the military. And when the book turns to the postwar era, it reveals a stunning assessment of how those experiences of military occupation altered Americans’ views of household social order. As a result, Duval’s book does something unusual: it threads the needle between military history and the history of gender, women, and sexuality.

Join us for this conversation between Lauren Duval and Carolyn Eastman (The Strange Genius of Mr. O and President of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic) and get a glimpse into the experience of living during wartime.

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Alexandre Frenette, "Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking Into the Creative Economy" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Who gets to be a creative worker? In Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking Into the Creative Economy, (Princeton University Press, 2026) Alexandre Frenette, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, examines the relationship between work and education in the difficult moment of the early career transition from university to industry. Drawing on a detailed case study of the music industry, the book explains and critiques the way internships have come to dominate routes into many careers in contemporary society. An accessible yet theoretically rich read, the book will be of interest to creative workers at any point in their career, as well as sociologists and humanities scholars, along with any reader interested in how and why our workplaces are so unequal.

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Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, or Romeo and Juliet can attest. The popularity of social dance transcends class, gender, ethnic, and national boundaries. In the context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish culture, dance offers crucial insights into debates about emancipation and acculturation. While traditional Jewish law prohibits men and women from dancing together, Jewish mixed-sex dancing was understood as the very sign of modernity—and the ultimate boundary transgression.

Writers of modern Jewish literature deployed dance scenes as a charged and complex arena for understanding the limits of acculturation, the dangers of ethnic mixing, and the implications of shifting gender norms and marriage patterns, while simultaneously entertaining their readers. In this book, Sonia Gollance examines the specific literary qualities of dance scenes, while also paying close attention to the broader social implications of Jewish engagement with dance. Combining cultural history with literary analysis and drawing connections to contemporary representations of Jewish social dance, Gollance illustrates how mixed-sex dancing functions as a flexible metaphor for the concerns of Jewish communities in the face of cultural transitions.

Join YIVO for a discussion of Gollance's book with Josh Lambert, professor and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Wellesley College.

Buy the book

This book talk originally took place on October 26, 2023.

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Ted Powell, "Churchill and the Crown" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Winston Churchill was born in a palace and was given a funeral worthy of a king. His family had enjoyed an intimate association with the British monarchy stretching back centuries. As King Edward VIII said of him, 'I have never met anyone of royal blood who exemplified in such high degree the ideal of the 'good king.'

Churchill and the Crown (Oxford University Press, 2026) tells the story of Churchill's relationship with the various kings and queens he served during his long political career, from young journalist under Edward VII, through his dramatic fall from grace in the First World War under George V, the frustrations of appeasement during the interwar period and his relationship with Edward VIII during the abdication crisis of 1936, culminating in his Finest Hour in the Second World War under George VI and the coda of Churchill's public service to his final monarch: Queen Elizabeth II.

Ted Powell analyses Churchill's writings on monarchy and his role in preserving and establishing monarchies outside Britain. At the core of the book is a series of studies of Churchill's relationships with the monarchs he served. These studies offer a two-way perspective, examining both Churchill's view of individual monarchs and their attitudes towards him. They shed light not only on Churchill's career but also on the changing role of the monarchy in 20th century Britain.

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Katherine Krauss, "Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a new framework for interpreting interactions with classical source material in Macrobius’ Saturnalia. It argues that the Saturnalia, an educational dialogue from the fifth century ce, does not view its Greco-Roman models as hegemonic sources of authority but engages with these texts in dynamic and critical ways. In particular, Macrobius responds to both the literary and ethical agendas of his predecessors, a strategy which is termed ethical allusion. The book explores this intertwining of moral, social, and aesthetic commentary in the Saturnalia’s allusions to authors such as Aulus Gellius, Cicero, Plato, Plutarch, and Virgil. It also examines Macrobius’ ethical allusions alongside the aesthetic practices and moral thought of the late fourth and the fifth centuries, and sheds light on the Saturnalia’s role in pioneering a late antique intellectual culture at once less hierarchical and less engaged with civic life.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Katherine Krauss is Assistant Teaching Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Penn State.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Stephen Robertson, "Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935" (Stanford UP, 2024)

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The violence that spread across Harlem on the night of March 19, 1935 was the first large-scale racial disorder in the United States in more than a decade and the first occurrence in the nation’s leading Black neighborhood. However, as many observers pointed out, the events were “not a race riot” of the kind that had marked the decades after the Civil War. Racial violence took a new form in 1935.

Through a granular analysis of those events and the mapping of their locations, Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935 (Stanford University Press, 2024) reveals that Harlem’s residents participated in a complex new mix of violence that was a multifaceted challenge to white economic and political power. Tracing the legal and government investigations that followed, this project highlights how that violence came to be distorted, diminished, and marginalized by the concern of white authorities to maintain the racial order, and by the unwillingness of Harlem's Black leaders and their white allies to embrace fully such direct forms of protest.

Focused on capturing rather than simplifying the complexity of the new form of racial violence, Harlem in Disorder is a multi-layered, hyperlinked narrative that connects different scales of analysis: individual events, aggregated patterns, and a chronological narrative. Its structure foregrounds individual events to counter how data can dehumanize the past, and to make transparent the interpretations involved in the creation of data from uncertain and ambiguous sources.

Harlem in Disorder is an award-winning monograph earning recognition as a Finalist for the 2026 ACLS Open Access Book Prize, Multimodal Category, sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies; winner of the 2025 Ángel David Nieves Book Award for Best Monograph, sponsored by the American Studies Association Digital Humanities Caucus; Honorable Mention for the 2025 Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize, sponsored by the American Society for Legal History, and Honorable Mention for the 2025 Open Scholarship Award, sponsored by the Canadian Social Knowledge Institute.

Kishauna Soljour is an Assistant Professor of Public Humanities at San Diego State University. Her most recent writing appears in the edited collection: From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle.

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Lila Corwin Berman, "Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The history of Jews in the United States is often told as if they immigrated, gained citizenship, and almost immediately achieved full legal rights. Yet this story fundamentally misses how citizenship rights worked for Jews and countless others who arrived on American shores. In Who Is American? Belonging and the Question of Jewish Citizenship, Lila Corwin Berman draws on case law, statutes, and debates to argue that both the laws of American citizenship and Jews’ position in them changed repeatedly across the twentieth century. Courts, policymakers, and the public persistently asked what it meant to be Jewish under the law. Were Jews a race, a nationality, a religion—or some combination of each? The answer carried profound legal consequences. Not only did it determine Jews’ citizenship status, but it also affected the rights they could exercise. Just as significantly, the meaning of the categories under law changed over time, affecting Jews’ self-understanding, their political ideals, and their relationships to other groups of Americans.
Who Is American? tells a history that resonates powerfully with today’s high-stakes battles over citizenship and rights. As Berman concludes, citizenship law has always been better at posing questions about the terms of belonging than at providing any ultimate resolution. The tangled story of Jewish citizenship demonstrates the limits of law and explains why the United States continues to fall into new and, often, unsettling debates about who is American.

Lila Corwin Berman is the Paul and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, where she directs the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History. She is author of The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The History of a Multibillion-Dollar Institution (Princeton) and Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit.

Geraldine Gudefin is a modern Jewish historian researching Jewish migrations, family life, and legal pluralism. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore, and is completing a book titled An Impossible Divorce? East European Jews and the Limits of Legal Pluralism in France, 1900-1939.

Mentioned in this episode:

Linda Bosniak, The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).
Lila Corwin Berman, The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The History of a Multibillion Dollar Institution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020).
William E. Forbath, “Constitutionalism, Human Rights, and the Genealogy of Jewish American Liberalism,” in James Loeffler and Moria Paz, eds., The Law of Strangers: Jewish Lawyers and International Law in the Twentieth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 118-140.
Ian Haney López, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York: New York University Press, 2006).
Will Herberg, Protestant—Catholic—Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983).
Benjamin Lawrance and Jacqueline Stevens, eds., Citizenship in Question: Evidentiary Birthright and Statelessness (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017).
David Sorkin, Jewish Emancipation: A History Across Five Centuries (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019).
Posen Library Jewish Studies Curriculum Initiative: https://www.posenlibrary.com/Jewish-Studies-Curriculum

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Meditation Sickness and the Dangers of Buddhist Practice with Pierce Salguero

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Pierce Salguero joins us to discuss his new co-edited volume, Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice. While modern mindfulness frames meditation purely as a wellness tool, the Buddhist tradition has long recognized its inherent psychological and physical risks. We explore multi-tradition historical texts, the anatomy of practice crises, and the ethical responsibility of teachers and app developers to provide something along the lines of informed consent.

Key Discussion Points & Timeline

Contrasting modern wellness marketing with historical accounts of meditative danger; the book provides a sourcebook for Dharma teachers, clinicians, and serious practitioners.

Multi-Tradition Mapping throughout covers Pali, medieval Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan sources, many of which we touch on.
Traditional sources diagnose destabilization and even offer a range of physical, energetic, and lifestyle remedies to mediate crisis: whether they would be a good fit for today’s practitioner is another matter.

Challenging the modern claim that adverse effects only happen to the unprepared or mentally fragile.
Classical lineages show that severe physical ailments and mental destabilization can happen randomly, even to advanced practitioners.

The hidden risks of unmonitored, commercialized meditation apps.
Why creators have an ethical duty to move past treating meditation as a risk-free panacea and offer clear safety guardrails.

How different cultures draw the line between a spiritual breakthrough and clinical pathology.
The ongoing project of integrating traditional remedies with modern psychology and neuroscience.

Links & Resources Mentioned

The Book: Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice.
Guest Website: here (Includes the book's introduction).

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Nyck Walsh, "Neurodivergent Somatics in Therapy: An Anti-Oppressive Model for Whole Person Care" (Norton, 2026)

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A new paradigm that honors the wisdom and wholeness of neurodivergent clients. Focusing on autism and what is medically known as ADHD, neurodivergent author Nyck Walsh takes readers on an anti-oppressive, intersectional journey into a new standard of care for neurodivergent clients and their therapists. Whether new to or well-versed in the neurodiversity paradigm, readers will learn how to best support their neurodivergent clients in a way that prioritizes their well-being, honors their self-expertise, encourages their anti-ableist embodiment, and celebrates their joy. Bridging the theoretical with the practical, Walsh’s model offers a tangible framework that can be applied on its own or in tandem with other modalities. Neurodivergent Somatics in Therapy (Norton, 2026) is an intimate and engaging guide to providing accessible, liberatory, whole-person care that will benefit clients and therapists of all neurotypes.

Nyck Walsh, MA, LPC, (he/they) brings a whole person, anti-oppressive, intersectional, somatic lens to working with Autistic and KCS/VAST (what is commonly known as ADHD) folx. An Autistic and VAST counselor, Nyck is the director of Nyck Walsh Counseling & Training Center and creator of the Neurodivergent Somatics model. He curates reparative experiences for late identified Autistic and VAST folx to connect with their innate wisdom, dismantle ableism, be supported in their challenges, and unpack their lives through their unidentified and misunderstood Neurodivergent (ND) experience. His counselor education programs have created an international following, and both ND and neurotypical counselors alike report feeling deeply validated by his approach.

Registration for Public Programs event with Nyck at CIIS on July 16.

waHelena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies in the Somatic Psychology program. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).

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Hayagreeva Rao and Henrich R Greve, "Ctrl+Alt+Doubt: Decoding the Language of Online Conspiracy Talk" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Ctrl+Alt+Doubt: Decoding the Language of Online Conspiracy Talk (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a new way to understand why conspiracy theories grow and persist. Rather than treating them as cognitive errors, psychological pathologies, or products of echo chambers, Rao and Greve analyze conspiracy theories as linguistic constructions, that is as stories built from recognizable semantic patterns. Drawing on cases from COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests, Rao and Greve show that conspiracy theorizing is a form of bricolage. People tinker with cultural fragments to craft explanations that reduce uncertainty and threat. New conspiracy beliefs are most likely to take hold when they are linguistically close to beliefs people already hold. The book traces how conspiracy theories spread through superspreaders, fear-laden language, bots, and shared hashtags, revealing conspiracy theorizing as a form of proto-coordination that generates community, amplifies outrage, and enables collective sensemaking among opponents of social movements.

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Paul Osterman, "Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment" (Harvard UP, 2026)

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A revealing look at the decline in formal employment in favor of hiring contractors, freelancers, temps, and marginal workers, who are excluded from traditional benefits and career ladders.

Companies cannot exist without workers, but they are increasingly reluctant to have employees. Instead of providing the benefits and protections that have traditionally come with employee status, businesses are turning to tactics that let them treat people as interchangeable parts, to be used and discarded as needed. Drawing on an original survey of over 6,000 workers, Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment (Harvard University Press, 2026) reveals the striking extent of this transformation across the occupational hierarchy, affecting everyone from janitors to nurses.

Paul Osterman identifies three distinct categories of disposable workers: contractors, freelancers, and marginal employees. The marginal category, unique to Osterman’s analysis, describes workers who are employees from a narrow legal standpoint but are held at arm’s length by their firm—left without job security, skill training, or opportunities for promotion. Many low-wage service workers toil in marginal jobs, but so do white-collar professionals such as adjunct university faculty and staff attorneys at law firms. When the three categories are added up, they account for more than 35 percent of the American workforce.

Not all disposable workers object to their arrangements. But most contractors and marginal employees would prefer standard employment, and there is a significant cost to their current status. In response, Disposable Workers offers a range of policy recommendations, including mechanisms to prevent over-reliance on contracting and freelancing as well as reforms to improve job quality for part-timers and marginal employees. As the deconstruction of employment affects more and more workers, the importance of such measures will only grow.

Paul Osterman is Professor Emeritus of Human Resources and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His numerous books include Good Jobs America, Who Will Care for Us? (Russell Sage, 2011); and The Truth about Middle Managers (Harvard Business School Press, 2009), Who Will Care For Us: Long Term Care and the Long Term Workforce (Russell Sage,2017), Gathering Power: The Future of Progressive Politics in America (Beacon Press, 2003); Securing Prosperity: The American Labor Market: How It Has Changed and What to Do About It (Princeton University Press, 1999), and Working In America: A Blueprint for the New Labor Market (MIT Press, 2001).

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Molly Crabapple, "Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund" (Random House, 2026)

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Molly Crabapple joins Michael Stauch to discuss the history of the Jewish Labor Bund, the subject of her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund (Random House, 2026). Once the most influential Jewish political force in Eastern Europe, the Bund was secular, socialist, and uncompromisingly anti-Zionist. The Bundists fought for dignity and equality, not in an imagined homeland in Palestine but “here where we live.” In the first popular history of the Bund, Crabapple re-creates their extraordinary world through dramatic portraits of insurgent poets and antireligious rebels, clandestine revolutionaries and lovers on the barricades. The Bundists live deeply within this violent, volatile, and somehow hopeful period, as their stories interweave with the Russian Revolution and the Holocaust. The Bund’s rise and fall raises the vital question: What can we learn from a movement that, for all its toughness, imagination, and moral clarity, was largely destroyed?

Highlights include:

Crabapple’s personal connection to the Bund through her great-grandfather, Sam Rothbort;
How the Bund built a vibrant youth counterculture amid harsh anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe;
The significance of “Hereness” to the Bund’s politics and how it distinguished the group from Zionist groups advocating the colonization of Palestine;
A discussion of “theory-pilled nerds” and how Crabapple’s activism and journalism since Occupy Wall Street shaped her insights into the inner life of the Bund;
The future of anti-Zionism in the context of Israel’s ongoing destruction of Palestine.

Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer based in New York. She is the author of two books, Drawing Blood and Brothers of the Gun (with Marwan Hisham), which was longlisted for a National Book Award. She was a 2020 New America Fellow and her reportage is the winner of the Bernhard Labor Journalism Award, and has been published in The New York Times, New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. Her animations have won two Emmys and an Edward R. Murrow Award. Her art is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art.

Michael Stauch is an associate professor of history at the University of Toledo and the author of Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2025.

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Annakeara Stinson, "Nerve Damage: A Novel" (Knopf, 2026)

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Annakeara Stinson's Nerve Damage: A Novel (Knopf, 2026) is a riotous revenge novel about a woman’s quest to escape her stalker ex-boyfriend—by stalking him herself. Clarice’s breakup with P.T. began the usual way—she discovered he was cheating. Then came the constant texts, the nonstop emails from burner accounts, countless phone calls from dozens of different numbers. He showed up outside her apartment and her office. He sent her flowers and poems, and, perhaps most sinister of all, a link to the music video for Dido's “White Flag.” Relief arrived only when Clarice finally obtained a restraining order and one-way ticket from New York to L.A. Just as the restraining order expires—and three years to the day since she left him—Clarice spots a man who looks suspiciously like P.T. at a nightclub. Could it be him? Her best friend thinks she’s imagining things. Her therapist wants her to focus on healing her inner child. Her mother is busy planning her wedding to her fourth husband. A psychic medium can reveal only that P.T.’s energy is too volatile to locate on the spiritual plane. As painful memories resurface, Clarice is convinced her ex has returned to ruin her life. But with scant evidence to prove it, she takes increasingly unhinged steps to uncover the truth, ultimately leading to a place where paranoia and reality begin to blur. A profane and poignant debut novel, Nerve Damage is a different kind of survivor narrative, about how far one woman will go to wrest back control of her life in a world determined to send her spiraling.

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Matthew Del Papa and Andy Taylor, "Supercanucks: An Anthology of Canadian Small-Town Superheroes" (Latitude 46, 2026)

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Matthew D. Del Papa, one of the editors of SuperCanucks: An Anthology of Canadian Small-Town Superheroes (Latitude 46 Publishing, 2026). SuperCanucks features eleven stories that explore the usual superhero tropes while shining a spotlight on the unique corners of Canada. Not your typical big city superhero, but those who live in and around Canada’s more often overlooked locales—isolated small towns and rural outposts. These heroes battle unique Canadian dangers, including government bureaucracy and the overreaching neighbours in the south.

About the Editors:

Matthew D. Del Papa spent every Tuesday of his youth crisscrossing his hometown of Capreol in search of newly arrived comic books. He wore superhero-themed Underoos to a truly worrying age and still has his Batman (and Robin) lunchbox, backpack, and wristwatch. A graduate of Laurentian University, Matthew is a writer, editor, and self-publisher, and has released ten titles to some modest local acclaim. He joined the Sudbury Writers’ Guild in 2009 and his writing has appeared in Spooky Sudbury, Nothing Without Us Too, Mighty, and the forthcoming Sudbury Superstack: A Changing Skyline. His first book, a collection of humorous essays titled Jerry Lewis Told Me I Was Going to Die, was released in 2023 through Latitude 46 Publishing.

Andy W. Taylor grew up as a teen in the 1980s reading Alpha Flight comics and was excited to see Canadian superheroes represented for the first time. Andy was a reader and writer of speculative fiction from an early age thanks in no small part to his mother’s frequent trips to the public library with her kids. He’s a member of the Sudbury Writers’ Guild, a graduate of the Viable Paradise writing workshop and Playwright’s Junction workshop, and a member of CODEX writer’s forum. Originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Andy currently lives in Sudbury with his family. His fiction has appeared in On Spec Magazine, FictionVale, Polar Borealis, Sudbury Ink Anthology, and on the streets of Sudbury. He has a new poem and non-fiction piece coming out in 2024 in the anthology Sudbury Superstack: A Changing Skyline.

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S. C. Bandreddi, "The Game of Oaths" (Candlewick Press, 2026)

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

S. C. Bandreddi's debut YA historical fantasy novel The Game of Oaths (Candlewick Press, 2026). It’s 1896. Beneath a hotel in the heart of Paris is the famed le Cirque des Ombres, led by ringmaster and Enchanteur Jean-Pierre. But behind the dazzling spectacles, the circus performers are bound by magical contracts, also making them potential players in the annual Game of Oaths, an underground bloodthirsty tournament watched by the wealthy elite. Twelve will compete. Eleven will die.

Seventeen-year-old trapeze artist Falan Sunkara is out for revenge. After her sister ended up as one of the unlucky eleven last year, Falan wants nothing more than to make Jean-Pierre pay for her death. When she’s chosen to compete in this year’s tournament, Falan is not above playing dirty and forging unlikely alliances. But to be the last one standing, she has to determine whom to trust and whose motives to question. Vengeance on top of survival is a dangerous gamble—and in games like this, the house always wins.

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Martina Baradel, "21st Century Yakuza: Death of Japanese Organised Crime" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Once dominant and institutionalised, the Yakuza, one of Japan's best known criminal organisations, is now shrinking under the combined pressure of legal exclusion, social stigmatisation, and market regulation. Their membership has dropped from more than 80,000 in 2009 to fewer than 20,000 in 2025. Yet their disappearance is far from complete. Based on extensive fieldwork with active and former members, police officers, lawyers, and journalists, in 21st Century Yakuza: Death of Japanese Organised Crime (Oxford University Press, 2026), Dr. Martina Baradel examines how these organisations adapt to repression and explores what happens when a mafia begins to die.

21st Century Yakuza illuminates how Japan's model of regulatory saturation has dismantled the Yakuza's organisational capacity but left behind governance vacuums in markets the state struggles to control. This book demonstrates how the Yakuza persist through symbolic and residual forms of authority even as their formal power erodes, and how their decline has fragmented the criminal underworld. It traces the transformation of the Yakuza from territorially embedded brokers of governance to marginal actors in a more decentralised criminal landscape, including the delegation of trading activities to non-affiliated networks.

Through a sharp lens on criminal decline and adaptation, 21st Century Yakuza offers a compelling portrait of a fading underworld and the new forms of disorder emerging in its wake. It is an essential read for anyone interested in the shifting boundaries of law, authority, and illicit power in contemporary Japan.

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Jonathan L. Friedmann, "Chai Noon: Jews and the Cinematic Wild West" (U Wisconsin Press, 2025)

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Only a few Westerns contain explicitly Jewish stories or themes, and very rarely do Old West tales involve identifiably Jewish characters. Yet Jewish contributors have shaped the Western—once Hollywood's most popular genre—ever since the silent era, both onscreen and offscreen, and some filmmakers have sought to infuse the genre with a distinctly Jewish sensibility. In Chai Noon: Jews and the Cinematic Wild West (University of Wisconsin Press, 2025), Friedmann engages with larger themes of Jewish identity in popular film, including depictions of race, ethnicity, and foreignness. He also identifies similar concerns within the invention and creation of the imaginary West writ large in American culture. The juxtapositions prove to be both unexpected and intuitively understandable.

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Tyler Girard, "Financial Inclusion: How an Idea Became a Global Agenda" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The number of people in the world with a bank account or money service provider increased by 2 billion over the past decade. This phenomenon reflects what Dr. Tyler Girard calls the global financial inclusion agenda. This agenda emerged in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and quickly became a prominent feature of global economic governance. 

The core idea of financial inclusion is that all individuals and businesses should have access to and use formal financial services, including bank accounts, payment services, credit, and insurance. Today, the widespread ability to digitally store and transfer money has impacted every aspect of our lives. What explains the emergence and evolution of the global financial inclusion agenda? And what does the politics of the agenda tell us about the impacts of new technologies on global politics and how ideas become global agendas? 

Drawing on an original collection of primary documents and interviews with elites from Ghana, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Switzerland, Financial Inclusion: How an Idea Became a Global Agenda (Stanford University Press, 2026) traces the global financial inclusion agenda over time and interrogates its adaptation in specific contexts and issue areas. Through the concept of participatory ambiguity, Dr. Girard offers a novel explanation of the agenda that advances important debates in international relations and international political economy on the distribution of power and authority in global governance.

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Sadiah Qureshi, "Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction" (Penguin, 2025)

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Anyone alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living: over 90% of species that ever existed are now extinct. How did we come to think of ourselves as survivors in a world where species can vanish forever, or as capable of pushing our planet to the verge of a sixth mass extinction?

Extinction, Professor Sadiah Qureshi shows us, is a surprisingly modern concept—and a phenomenon that’s not as natural as we might think. In Europe until the late eighteenth century, species were considered perfect and unchanging creations of God. Then in the age of revolutions, scientists gathered enough fossil evidence to determine that mammoth bones, for example, were not just large elephants but a lost species that once roamed the Earth alongside ancient humans. Extinction went from being regarded as theologically dangerous to pervasive, and even inevitable.

Yet Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction (Penguin, 2025) shows us that extinction is more than a scientific idea; it’s a political choice that has led to devasting consequences. Europeans and Americans quickly used the notion that extinction was a natural process to justify persecution and genocide, predicting that nations from Newfoundland’s Beothuk to Aboriginal Australians were doomed to die out from imperial expansion.

Exploring the tangled and unnatural histories of extinction and empire, Vanished weaves together pioneering original research and breath-taking storytelling to show us extinction is both an evolutionary process and a human act: one which illuminates our past, and may alter our future.

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Rachel Silveri, "The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

With The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Rachel Silveri takes a fresh look at the desire to unify art and life, an ambition long regarded as foundational to the European historical avant-gardes. She reveals how many early twentieth-century artists saw their own everyday lives—their bodies, identities, and relationships—as a type of creative material and a central component to their avant-garde practice. These artists abandoned traditional forms of artmaking and venues of art viewing, instead aspiring to integrate art with everyday life, creating an “art of living.”

Considering Tristan Tzara’s performances of Dadaist identity, Sonia Delaunay’s simultaneous fashions and self-branding, and the collective endeavor to open and operate the Surrealist Research Bureau, Silveri offers a new narrative about how the artists of interwar Paris developed experiential life practices that resisted dominant forms of “lifestyle” and normative discourses surrounding gender, ethnicity, and office work. This book argues that ethical questions of “How should I live?” and “How should I relate to others?” were as important to the avant-garde as politics, and that aspirations to change the world played out in daily practices of self-making.

Hannah Freed-Thall is Professor of French Literature, Thought and Culture at NYU. She is the author, most recently, of Modernism at the Beach: Queer Ecologies and the Coastal Commons.

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L. L. Madrid, "My Lips, Her Voice" (Creature Publishing, 2025)

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

L.L. Madrid's My Lips, Her Voice (Creature Publishing, 2025) takes place in Copper City, a town who's bloody history is steeped in ghost stories and whispers of serial killers, but three girls have caught the attention of something far more sinister.

A grandmother tormented by visions tried to warn the town, but no one listened. Now, a haunted inheritance has passed to her granddaughters, Audrey and Mara. When Mara’s body is discovered in the old mine, Audrey fears her grandmother’s premonition is manifesting.

The nightmare begins as Mara’s spirit returns—lurking under Audrey’s skin, hellbent on vengeance and desperate to rekindle things with her former girlfriend, Zadie. Willing to hijack Audrey’s body to get what she wants, Mara drags them both into a deadly pursuit.

When another girl in town goes missing, Audrey, Mara, and Zadie know the killer has struck again. In a fight to solve Mara’s death and uncover the mystery of disappearances in Copper City, the girls soon find themselves at war with each other. How do you survive long enough to hunt a murderer on the loose if the person inside you might kill you first?

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Gajendran Ayyathurai, "Tamil Buddhism and Brahminism in Modern India: Deep Resistance Against Caste" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Tamil Buddhism and Brahminism in Modern India: Deep Resistance Against Caste (Oxford University Press, 2026) explores Tamil Buddhism in modern India, focusing on its emergence as a response to caste-based oppression during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Central to this movement was Pandit Iyothee Thass (1845–1914), a pioneering intellectual who reinterpreted India’s Buddhist past to challenge brahminical dominance. Thass reasoned that it was because many Indians followed Buddhist cultural and material traditions in ancient times, that they were oppressed as untouchables and lower castes by self-privileging-caste groups, such as brahmins. Thus, Thass challenged brahminism/casteism in India by reconstructing and mobilizing a reading public about the casteless Buddhist history of Indians who were prone to caste oppression. His writings, petitions, and archives reveal the castelessness of Tamil Buddhists and their commitment to a radical political transformation in modern India. Key aspects of the Tamil Buddhist movement include public mobilization for caste-free societies, self-representation of oppressed communities, economic redistribution through affirmative action, and a feminist critique of caste and patriarchy. Through interdisciplinary methods drawn from Critical Caste Studies, this monograph uncovers the intellectual history of Tamil Buddhism and its radical call for vernacular emancipation. It highlights how Indigenous, Tamil/Indian communities used Buddhist foundations to resist caste and envision a modern, casteless future.

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Carrie LeVan, "Neighborhoods Matter: How Place and People Affect Political Participation" (NYU Press, 2026)

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Participation in official governmental institutions and activities has declined dramatically. Americans are less inclined to express trust in, or cooperate with, political leaders and each other to address society's most pressing problems. In Neighborhoods Matter: How Place and People Affect Political Participation (NYU Press, 2026), Carrie LeVan explores this growing crisis in civic engagement, arguing that where we live—and the people who live around us—may be to blame.

Drawing on national surveys, census data, and spatial analysis, LeVan demonstrates how neighborhood design can dramatically impact political participation, including people's desire and ability to vote in local, state, and national elections. She argues that the suburbs, which isolate residents, require driving, and are zoned for single-use, do not provide an effective infrastructure for civic engagement. However, cities, which are often designed to be walkable, more interactive, and are zoned for mixed-use, provide a supportive environment where people and politics can thrive.

Ultimately, LeVan underscores how neighborhoods that support interaction, competition, collective action—and even conflict—can support greater civic engagement and political participation. Neighborhoods Matter highlights the connection between politics, people, and place, calling for good suburban and urban design that can support a vibrant and engaging civic life.

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How “They” See “Us” with editor Madeleine Schwartz

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The remarkable political ascent of Donald J. Trump and his sustained grip on a certain segment of American society have given fresh life to a question as old as Tocqueville’s visit to Jacksonian America a century ago: How do foreigners regard America, Americans and the American experiment? I explore this question in a conversation with Madeline Schwartz, founder and editor in chief of The Dial, an online publication. She wrote the Introduction to a collection of essays featuring work commissioned by The Dial, the new book titled How We See It: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump (The New Press, 2026). We discuss perspectives from Italy, Argentina and South Africa, among other places

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Joseph Turow, "The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A respected voice on technology shows how seemingly simple ads help dismantle democracy and public discourse.

Whether you’re intentionally shopping or casually browsing social media, something is following you: ads. Their creators seem to know your income bracket, politics, age, location, medical conditions, and tastes in clothing, food, and romantic partners. As advertising firms use predictive AI to discover your hot buttons and generative AI to push them, your online world becomes an increasingly bespoke—and isolated—place. The fervid competition around personalization in digital marketing has given rise to an ecosystem of advertisers, media outlets, tech companies, and retailers who monetize your data while threatening the health of our media, discourse, and sense of community. In this urgent book, award-winning author Joseph Turow shows how we got here, and how to change direction.The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age (University of Chicago Press, 2026) shatters common beliefs about advertising history by showing that individualized ads are not new. Today’s AI-enabled advertisers draw on past aspirations and assumptions about personalization while weaponizing data in unprecedented ways that drive social fragmentation and the disappearance of shared social reality. Informed by interviews with marketing insiders and covering the latest technology advances, Turow accessibly explains how artificial intelligence sifts through our data to tag and target us wherever we go with personalized videos, pictorial billboards, audio messages, and more. A logical next step for advertiser support is tailored entertainment and news, a shift that further destroys the common ground necessary for a functioning democracy.

A must-read for all who care about the future of public discourse, The Problem with Personalization reveals how targeted advertising has altered how we’re seen and what we see in return.

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Podcast Intellectuals Podcast Panel #3 with Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the third panel, Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne discussed the relationship between podcasting and science. Carruth is a professor at Princeton’s Effron Center for the Study of America and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. At Princeton, she directs the Program in Environmental Studies and leads Blue Lab, an environmental media and storytelling studio. Her research and teaching areas include climate storytelling, environmental art and narrative, contemporary food movements and the evolving relationships between technology and environmentalism in American culture. She is the author of Global Appetites: American Power and the Literature of Food.

Horne directs the Podcasting and Audio Reportage concentration at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her research is focused on performance, documentation, the perception of authority in voice, labor and production in audio and podcasting. Horne was producer for Admissible: Shreds of Evidence, a 13-episode investigative podcast that told the story of shocking misconduct at a Virginia state crime lab. Admissible won the Gold Award for Best Documentary at the Signal Awards; an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the Public Media Award NETA for Best Podcast. Horne was an executive producer at Audible and an executive producer for WNYC’s Radiolab.

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Bjørn Berge, "Smell: The Tale of a Fading Sense" (Reaktion Books, 2026)

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The sense of smell is often linked to the dark, the antisocial, the primitive—the very opposite of modernity and progress. Today we live in an almost odorless world, where everything is reduced to images. Yet smell plays a vital role in how we relate to others and our surroundings, forming our experiences and our memories. Tracing a history of smell from the first ancient cities, through medieval plagues and the Industrial Revolution to the present day, Smell: The Tale of a Fading Sense (Reaktion, 2026) is a tribute to the sense of smell in all its beauty and disgust. Along the way, Bjørn Berge introduces us to twenty iconic scents—from blood and soil to the ocean—and invites readers to reflect on and reawaken their senses.

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Making Microbes Explicit

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This episode takes listeners into the latest issues of Gastronomica, with a special feature on microbes. Sarah Elton and Maya Hey talk with Dan Bender of the Gastronomica Editorial Collective about their special section on microbes and food. In a conversation that spans food systems, environment, health, dietetics, and culture, they explore human microbial relationships from the soil to the processing plant, at the grocery store, in home kitchens, and beyond. Sarah and Maya share how they each came to the study of microbes, discuss what microbes are and what it means to center microbes in food studies research, and reflect on some of the policy implications. Their two-part special section in the Spring and Summer 2026 issues of Gastronomica brings together 11 articles on microbes in food and food systems from researchers around the world.

Listeners can find "Making Microbes Explicit: Introduction to Microbes, Food, and Food Systems" by Maya Hey and Sarah Elton, and their co-written follow-up piece, "Finding the Microbes in Food Studies” in Gastronomica (issues 26.1 and 26.2).

Sarah Elton is an assistant professor and Eakin Chair in Critical Qualitative Health Research Methodology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She has published widely, with her research appearing most recently in journals such as Nature Cities, Social & Cultural Geography, Qualitative Inquiry and Gastronomica. She is also the author of Locavore (HarperCollins Canada 2010) and Consumed: Food for a Finite Planet (University of Chicago Press, 2013).

Maya Hey is based in Stockholm at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, where she is a postdoctoral researcher with the Environmental Humanities Laboratory. Her interdisciplinary work on microbes draws on her background in food studies, dietetics, and communication. Her new book, Singing with Invisible Worlds: Fermenting Sake on Microbial Time will be published later this year by the University of Minnesota Press.

Daniel E. Bender is a professor of food studies, environmental studies, and history at the University of Toronto, the President of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS), and Co-Chair of the Editorial Collective at Gastronomica.

Listeners can now find the Gastronomica podcast on the New Books Network here. Subscribe to Gastronomica’s podcast feed to stay updated on the newest episodes.

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Podcast Intellectuals Podcast Panel #3 with Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

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Ysabelle Cheung, "Patchwork Dolls" (Blair, 2026)

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this debut story collection Patchwork Dolls (Blair, 2026), Ysabelle Cheung weaves an eerie fabulism with tales that cross continents, technology, and time.

Set in Hong Kong and America--between the present day and an uncannily altered future--this story collection warps the familiar rules of our world to ask: what does it mean to be Asian and a woman--living under the specter of state and technological surveillance--or trying to break free from it?

In the title story, a young woman of color realizes she can make her fortune by surgically selling her facial features to whiter, wealthier clients. In "Please, Get Out and Dance," a group of rebels escapes a city that is literally disappearing around them--building by building, person by person--to migrate to a new home beneath the ocean, defying their government's mandate. "Herbs" follows an elderly widow who, when the clones of her dead husband start to appear uninvited in her home, must grapple with her memories.

In each of these stories, Cheung tilts the world just slightly off its axis to bring together a haunting meditation on what it means to survive within our increasingly digitized and mechanized world.

Ysabelle Cheung is a writer and art critic based in Hong Kong. Her Fiction has appeared in Granta, Slate, and The Rumpus. She was awarded the 2023 Aspen Words Fellowship and was in residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation in 2024. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Atlantic, Artforum, and Lit Hub. She is the co-founder of a contemporary art gallery in Hong Kong called the PhD Group.

Recommended Books:

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life
Sayumi Kamakura, Applause for a Cloud

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Max Weinreich and the Meaning of Yiddish

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Max Weinreich spent the entirety of his adult life building YIVO and the field of Yiddish Studies. A 'convert' to the cause of Yiddishism in his adolescence, he pursued a doctorate in German philology in Weimar Germany with the explicit goal of returning to Eastern Europe to contribute to the project of building a modern, secular Yiddish culture. His study visits to Yale University and Vienna in the early 1930s proved transformational in broadening and revising his understanding of the role of the social sciences in Jewish life as a tool for strengthening Jews' psychological and material resources. The destruction of the traditional Yiddish heartland in Eastern Europe and his experiences leading YIVO in post-WWII New York City added yet another dimension to Weinreich's conception of the importance of both Yiddish and Jewish Studies for the future of American and world Jewry. Would Max Weinreich recognize Yiddish studies today?

Moderated by Kalman Weiser and featuring Naomi Seidman, Kenneth Moss, and Jeffrey Shandler, this panel will examine Weinreich's evolving understanding of the meaning of Yidishe visnshaft (Yiddish studies) and the role of Yiddish in Jewish life throughout his career.

This panel discussion originally took place on June 15, 2023.

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250 Years of Special Providence: On American Grand Strategy Since the Declaration with Walter Russell Mead

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

To celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, Madison’s Notes is having a special Fourth of July episode to close out the season. So in Episode 12 of Season 5, I have as our guest Walter Russell Mead to talk about American grand strategy since the Declaration of Independence.

A Yale graduate, Mr. Mead is a professor at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School and a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Foreign Affairs contributor and a Wall Street Journal columnist, as well as the host of the podcast, “What Really Matters.”

Drawing on his book, Special Providence (2001), we discuss the history of the four American schools of foreign policy—the Hamiltonians, Jeffersonians, Jacksonians, and Wilsonians—and how his analysis of the American traditions has held up nearly a quarter of a century later.

Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison’s Footnotes.”

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Dmytro Soloviov, "Ukrainian Modernism: Modernist Architecture of Ukraine" (Fuel, 2025)

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Ukraine’s modernist buildings are an extraordinary blend of function, avant-garde aesthetics and ingenious design, but despite these qualities, they remain largely unrecognized. This is a result of several factors, including the stigma of belonging to the Soviet era, corruption, neglect, as well as the ongoing threat of destruction from both unscrupulous developers and war. Photographer Dmytro Soloviov has crossed Ukraine documenting them to form the most comprehensive publication available on the subject.

With an introduction by renowned architecture critic Owen Hatherley, complete with historical images, Ukrainian Modernism: Modernist Architecture of Ukraine (Fuel, 2025) cements these buildings in a cultural and political context.

Dmytro Soloviov is a photographer, tour guide, and activist, and the creator of the popular Ukrainian Modernism Instagram page. He frequently leads tours of modernist architecture in different cities in Ukraine.

Megan Buskey is an independent writer and scholar focused on Ukrainian history, culture, and politics. She is the author of Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet: A Family Story of Exile and Return (ibidem, 2023).

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Xian Aubin Wang, "Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024 (Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Xian Aubin Wang investigates decades of contentious relations between the Communist party-state of China and the Muslim community of southern Yunnan centered on the village of Shadian, site of an incident of state violence in 1975 that resulted in 1600 civilian deaths. Examining the causes and legacies of the Shadian massacre, Dr. Wang draws on an extensive review of internal official documents, original written testimonies, and firsthand interviews with Muslim villagers.

By exploring interactions among Beijing, the Yunnan provincial government, county officials, CCP Muslim cadres, and Shadian villagers against the backdrop of the CCP's nationwide political campaigns since the early 1950s, Dr. Wang shows how Islam and Maoism influenced the ways that local villagers and party cadres saw and dealt with each other—and how these encounters shaped the developing conflict and its aftermath. Providing an in-depth account of Chinese religious groups living under the CCP, Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan reveals how religion and politics shaped Muslim villagers' responses to the party-state's efforts to control and secularize them.

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Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan, "Tamil Śiva Temples, Āgamas, and Śivabrāhmaṇas/Ādiśaivas" (YSSR Foundation, 2026)

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Tamil Śiva Temples, Āgamas, and Śivabrāhmaṇas/Ādiśaivas addresses the issue of whether members of all castes can become priests in Tamil Śiva temples. The history of the Śivabrāhmaṇas or Ādiśaivas as priests in Tamil Śiva temples is described using the epigraphic corpus as well as other Śaiva texts in Tamil along with information from the Śaiva studies of the likes of Richard Davis, Alexis Sanderson, Dominic Goodall, and Michael Gollner.

Find the open access PDF here

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Jilanne Hoffmann, "HeartLand" (Little, Brown, 2026)

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Picture book author, Jilanne Huffmann's first middle-grades novel, Heartland (Little Brown Books, 2026). Out of the Dust meets Me and Marvin Gardens in this coming-of-age novel about a young misfit searching for the truth of her family's past, set against the backdrop of an environmental cover-up. Twelve-year-old Xyla is sick of two things: working on her family's sixth-generation Iowa farm and her mother's nagging words, "Pay attention!" But Xyla can't help getting lost in the thoughts that fill her head, sometimes leaving a wake of costly mistakes. If only her mother would tell her something, anything, about her father, who left when she was little. When Xyla finds her mother's hidden childhood diary, she's soon sucked into the story of a hardscrabble life on the family farm in the 1980s. Can she find the key to her past and her father in the pages? Xyla's life grows even more complicated as a new family begins renting a vacant house on the farm, and the daughter Alegría is focused and motivated--the kind of kid Xyla is sure her mother prefers. But when the girls stumble upon an environmental disaster right next door, Xyla must trust her new friend and her complicated mother to figure out how to stop it. Alternating timelines in prose and verse connect the quiet desperation of Iowa farmers in the late 1980s to the modern farming landscape in this layered and voice-driven middle grade debut.

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Mark Rukman: Translating History Into Advertising

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

I chatted with brand planner Mark Rukman about his quest to translate historical ways of thinking into advertising. Mark likes to joke that, as a historically obsessed, private-sector strategist, he thinks of himself as a nineteenth-century gentleman scholar working in the "Department of Analogies." We discuss Mark's journey from a childhood in the USSR to the lifeblood of capitalism: the advertising industry. Along the way, we explore the nonlinearity of life choices, historical rhythms and events, and even a few unresolved differential equations. Throughout our conversation, we return to history as a surprisingly powerful source of order and clarity in a chaotic world—and as an underused source of insight for brand strategy. Last but not least, we talk about Mark's witty new show, "Old Takes," in which he tackles the hottest cultural trends and historicizes them, showing that if we look back far enough, we've often seen them before.

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A.D. Carson, "Owning My Masters (Mastered): The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Owning My Masters (Mastered) is a digital archive of original rap music and spoken word poetry containing two volumes of music, an annotated timeline, videos, and a digital book. In this project, A.D. Carson exposes the artificial boundaries imposed on understood ideas about knowledge production in academia by employing hip-hop creative and compositional practices to interrogate ideas of citizenship, history, historical imagination, race, home, and humanness. Using sampled and live instrumentation and repurposed music, film, and news clips, an introductory video, and original rap lyrics, heoffers a new examination of how to create theory through hip-hop.

The unmastered album was originally submitted to Clemson University in South Carolina as the author’s dissertation, composed against the backdrop of the growing unrest across the U.S. and the world in response to the public attention to the deaths of Black people, many at the hands of police and vigilantes. As such, the songs highlight outlooks on Black life in America—on campuses and in communities across the country—and how they fit with geographic and temporal place and space. For this publication, the tracks have been mastered, and Carson has written a new introduction to contextualize and reflect on the moment in which the songs were written. It is a 2026 ACLS Open Access Multimodal Book Prize Finalist.

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The Tin Man Model of Running a Company Is Rusty

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner are enterprise strategists at Amazon Web Services, based in London. Phil was previously a corporate VP and international CIO at McDonalds. Jana was formerly at DHL and studied uncertainty dynamics in academia. They are authors of The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation published by Harvard Business Review Press.

Octopus’s are nimble and amazing, as anybody who has watched the 2020 Oscar-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher will verify. In contrast, the Tin Man model we know from The Wizard of Oz needs constant oil and is too rusty and rigid to function well on its own for long. This episode’s guests lean into the Octopus model, which is about earning trust and evading, in this case, the enemy within ourselves when it comes to not admitting mistakes and quickly learning from them. The value of a strong feedback loop, creating an technology infrastructure that is “thin” and allows for freedom, and not chasing metrics that prevent you from learning from anecdotal evidence of where change is necessary: those are among the topics that lively conversation pursues. A final key point the authors make is that at a time when investment in executive learning has tripled while other personnel developments remain flat is a mistake; now more than ever, human capabilities need to be built upon in an era of rapid innovation.

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Christian Martinez, "NYC Open Data Student Gallery" (Brooklyn College CUNY, 2026)

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

About NYC Open Data

During the Fall 2025 semester, students in the M.S. program in Psychological Research at Brooklyn College completed the inaugural offering of Reproducible Psychological Research. Using the R programming language, students developed weekly R Markdown documents to solve simulated real-world analytical problems using authentic datasets, with an emphasis on transparency, documentation, and reproducibility.

For their final projects, students were tasked with conducting independent, original research using open data related to New York City. Rather than working with pre-cleaned or artificial datasets, students engaged directly with messy, real-world data and were responsible for every step of the analytical workflow—from data acquisition and cleaning to analysis, visualization, and interpretation. A majority of projects utilized data from the NYC Open Data Portal, though students were encouraged to explore any open NYC-based data source that aligned with their research questions.

Each project in this volume represents a complete, reproducible research artifact. Students were required to meet the following criteria:

The data must be openly available
The data must meaningfully relate to New York City
The research question, analysis, and interpretation must be original

Collectively, these projects demonstrate not only technical proficiency in R, but also the ability to ask meaningful questions about the city students live in, evaluate real-world data critically, and communicate findings in a clear, reproducible manner. This volume serves both as a showcase of student growth and as an example of how open data and open-source tools can be used to conduct rigorous, socially relevant research. Chapters are organized in alphabetical order of the student’s last names.

This volume is designed for students, educators, and practitioners interested in applied data analysis, reproducible research, and open data. Each chapter represents an independent research project and can be read on its own. Readers are encouraged to explore the accompanying code, reproduce analyses, and adapt methods for their own work.

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Anna Terwiel offers A Moment of No to the Prison-Industrial Complex (JP)

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Punishment makes nobody safer, imprisonment only impoverishes us as a society. And yet, we lock up our own, more and more for worse and worse reasons. What might finally inspire us to run the equation another way, and come up with a different solution?

Anna Terwiel joined John to discuss her remarkable new book, Prison Abolition for Realists, which charts a path away from paranoid (as documented by Eve Sedgwick) and purity politics in favor of an abolitionism that fuses "abstract normative theorizing" with attainable worldly goals. One name for this is agonistic abolitionism; it offers, as Anna sees it a positive vision alongside its criticism of the status quo.

Anna is a professor of political science at Trinity College in Hartford, where she co-directs their Prison Education Project. She beings by tracing the impact of Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1975) and his activism with the Prisons Information Group, and credits the influence, during her schooling, of the Prison and Neighborhood Arts/Education Project in Illinois at Statesville Prison.

John (apropos of his earlier work) mentions the failed pursuit of purity among late 19th century Chartists, while Anna makes the case not for perfect solutions but for remainders, a form of politics of the possible. They explore possibilities of "non-reformist reform"; Anna stresses the enduring importance of Angela Davis's Are Prisons Obsolete and her contribution to revolutionary black Marxist thought; and she praises local gender-based-violence organizations like CARA in Seattle. They discuss Sharon Dolovich's recent work on conditions for correctional officers, and Anna explores the notion of a new "right to comfort" that might take into account the current inhumanity of treatment inside prisons as regards profound but basic factors like ventilation and heat. As well as the right to a loved one's hugs.

Listen to and read the episode here.

Also mentioned in the episode

Abolitionist work by Mariame Kaba,
Ruth Wilson Gilmore , e.g. Golden Gulag

Recallable Books

Nils Christie, "Conflicts as Property."
Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed.

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Olivier Hein, "Mother of the World: The Remarkable History of Turkmenistan" (Hurst, 2026)

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Turkmenistan rarely makes international headlines–and when it did, it was often stories that highlighted things like the strange cult of personality that surrounded Saparmurat Niyazov, its first post-Soviet president, who named months after himself and made his memoir required reading.

Olivier Hein joins us on the show today to talk about Turkmenistan’s long history: as a possible origin for Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic faith; the rise of Merv, at one point possibly one of the world’s largest cities; the emergence of the Turkmen; and how this region ended up becoming the crossroads of empires. Olivier’s work is now a book Mother of the World: The Remarkable History of Turkmenistan (Hurst, 2026)

Olivier Hein is a Mauritian-British author whose books include Star and Key: The Historical Adventure of Mauritius and Borneo: The History of an Enigma. Formerly a UN, UK and OSCE diplomat, posted to New York, Paris, Kosovo and Turkmenistan, he also contributes to The Chap magazine.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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Chinese EVs: From Nordic Streets to Central Asian Hubs

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy.

While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China’s control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray’s fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here.

Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master’s Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online.

We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.

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Rosa Campbell, "The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared: Shere Hite and the Hite Report" (Melville House, 2026)

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Despite being one of the leading thinkers of the second wave feminist movement, today Shere Hite is little known, little written about, and, unsurprisingly, little read. Her groundbreaking book, The Hite Report, was the first feminist exploration of the link between sex and male power. It sold millions of copies when first published in 1976 and revolutionised the way people thought about marriage and the female orgasm. How, then, did it, and Hite, disappear from public consciousness?

In The Book that Taught the World to Orgasm and then Disappeared: Shere Hite and The Hite Report (Melville House and New South, 2026), Australian historian Dr. Rosa Campbell combines original research and sharp cultural analysis to explore the complicated life and literary legacy of Shere Hite. Expanding on her ideas about sex – namely, that sex is sexist – the book explores Hite’s fraught childhood, struggles working in the porn industry, and eventual cancellation by the far-right Evangelical movement. All the while, Dr. Campbell holds Hite and The Hite Report to account for their own failings and absence of intersectionality.

In a post-#MeToo world, with the far-right on the march globally, Dr. Rosa Campbell’s examination of shifting ideological movements is essential to understanding the current feminist movement, as well as how conservative and reactionary efforts can silence even the most successful of women.

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Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (UNC Press, 2026), historian John Garrison Marks tells the story of Americans’ long, fraught struggle to come to terms with Washington’s legacy of slavery. He traces how politicians, abolitionists, educators, activists, Washington’s former slaves and their descendants, and others have remembered, forgotten, and manipulated slavery’s place in Washington’s story, and how they have wielded versions of that story in the political and cultural fights of their time. Dr. Marks shows how generational struggles over our collective memory of Washington and slavery have always been part of a bigger conversation about defining the United States and its people. As debates about the founders’ participation in the system of slavery continue to roil public discourse, Dr. Marks shows with new clarity that Americans have never collectively reconciled Washington’s conflicted legacy. By truly grappling with Washington’s role as enslaver and emancipator, we may come to better understand the nation and ourselves.

This episode considers: the life and legacy of George Washington, the role of myth and memory in the New Republic, and how conflicted legacies continue.

A Neuroscientist's Guide to a Healthier, Happier Life

Guest: Dr. John Garrison Marks holds a Ph.D. in history from Rice University. He is a New Jersey native currently living outside Washington, DC. He is the author of Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler holds a Ph.D. in history which she uses to explore the stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. She is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast, and writes the newsletter at christinagessler.substack.com.

Playlist for listeners:

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Thomas Paine at the Semiquincentennial: A Conversation with Gregory Claeys

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 21:24:00 -0000

Thomas Paine: Collected Writings (Princeton University Press, 2026) is the first major new edition of Paine’s works, bringing together all his writings in six breathtaking volumes that dramatically revise our previous understanding of his activities as a writer and his importance as a democratic theorist in the age of revolutions. It includes about 180 new letters and some two hundred works newly attributed to Paine, with twenty-nine works previously regarded as Paine’s being deattributed. Drawing on pioneering computerized text analysis that makes possible for the first time attributions of anonymous and pseudonymous texts, this collection includes in volumes 5–6 newly identified pamphlets and newspaper and journal contributions, and suggests that Paine was extremely active as a Grub Street oppositional Whig writer in the decade prior to the American Revolution. Many writings from the period of his residence in France (1792–1802) and his subsequent return to the United States are also restored to his published output. Paine emerges as a much more consistent and serious democratic theorist than is often assumed, whose contributions to revolutionary debates in America, Britain, and France were unparalleled in their time. This volume spans the years 1772 to 1782, a decade that witnessed a diverse output of writings from Paine, from editorials and magazine pieces to pamphlets and newspaper articles. The book includes the Forester Letters, the Crisis papers, the Deane Affair articles, and Common Sense, with Gregory Claeys’s general introduction and commentary by the editors providing invaluable historical context.

Gregory Claeys is professor emeritus of the history of political thought at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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The Once and Future Republic: On Cicero, Locke, and the Making of America with Michael C. Hawley

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In preparation for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, it would be wise to look back at the ancient thinkers and writers who helped inspire its early leaders. Perhaps the preeminent role model was the Roman statesman and orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero. So here in Episode 11 of Season 5, I interview Michael C. Hawley to talk about the political philosophy of Cicero and his influence on the American Republic.

Michael Hawley is an assistant professor in the School of Civic Life and Leadership at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. A 2025-2026 Visiting Fellow with the James Madison Program, he wrote the book, Natural Law Republicanism: Cicero's Liberal Legacy (2022). Now, he's working on a new one, Preaching to the Choir: The Rhetoric of Prophets, Reformers, and Demagogues.

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Kate Dannies, "Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law and War" (Edinburgh UP, 2026)

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law and War (Edinburgh UP, 2026) by Dr. Kate Dannies examines the gender and family dimensions of mobilisation for the First World War in the Ottoman Empire, situating the war in a long-nineteenth-century social history of Ottoman military reform for the first time. It focuses on the military legal concept of muinsizlik (sole breadwinning) and how this concept shaped Ottoman military policy – namely, how militarisation and mobilisation were supported by the exploitation of women’s care and social reproductive labour, as well as the extraction of material and physical resources from Ottoman families.

In exploring how war worked at the level of the body, the individual and the family, this book demonstrates how Ottoman society and war became imbricated through processes of militarisation that led to significant consequences during the First World War and its aftermath. Based on a gendered reading of Ottoman military and bureaucratic archives, it addresses a pivotal moment in the modern history of the Middle East that has long awaited further study from a bottom-up perspective.

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Jeremy D. Popkin, "The First Emancipation: The Forgotten History of Abolition in Revolutionary France" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The First Emancipation: The Forgotten History of Abolition in Revolutionary France (Princeton UP, 2026) is a dramatic account of how slavery and race profoundly influenced the course of the French Revolution and had a central impact on the lives of key leaders, including Mirabeau, Robespierre, Toussaint Louverture, and Napoleon. Acclaimed historian Jeremy D. Popkin brings this often-forgotten story to life, highlighting the arguments put forward by French abolitionists and their opponents and the profound repercussions of the first abolition of slavery in a Western empire.
When the French revolutionaries passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, they immediately faced a burning question: did that document’s first article—“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”—apply to the 800,000 enslaved Black people in the country’s colonies? Over the next dozen years, revolutionary leaders fought over this question. The First Emancipation tells how French lawmakers initially protected slavery in their constitution but reversed themselves in 1794, making France the first western country to abolish slavery throughout its empire. Yet only eight years later, in 1802, Napoleon tried to force the emancipated Black populations of the colonies back into slavery. His decision led to his first major military defeat and to the proclamation of the independence of the Black nation of Haiti, but also to the reestablishment of slavery in other French colonies, where it would not finally be abolished until 1848.
The story of how France emancipated its enslaved people and declared them full citizens only to return many of them to bondage, The First Emancipation reveals that the course of abolition in the modern world was more winding and halting than is often remembered.

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Arpan Roy, "Relative Strangers: Romani Kinship and Palestinian Difference" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Examining how memory, intergenerational transmission, and kinship work together, Relative Strangers: Romani Kinship and Palestinian Difference (U Toronto Press, 2025) sheds light on Romani life in Palestine. Arpan Roy presents an ethnographic portrait of Dom Romani communities living between Palestine and Jordan, zooming in on everyday life in working-class neighborhoods, and under conditions of perpetual war and instability.

The book focuses on how Doms are able to sustain ethnic difference through kinship, even when public performances of difference are no longer emphasized – a kind of alterity that is neither visible by obvious markers like race or religious difference, nor detected by the antennas of the state. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Amman, Roy makes a case for such alterity for Romani people and other groups in the region.

Analysing intimate ethnographic scenes through anthropological theories of kinship, psychoanalysis, social theory from the Global South, and more, the book reveals how alterity in the Middle East does not adhere to rigid identitarian categories. Ultimately, Relative Strangers demonstrates the inadequacy of transposing models of pluralism centred on European and American experiences of minoritization onto other contexts.

Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Blusky and IG: @robbyref

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Kate Bayliss, "Privatising Humanity: How Our Essential Human Needs Became Financial Assets" (Manchester UP, 2026)

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Privatising Humanity: How Our Essential Human Needs Became Financial Assets (Manchester UP, 2026) is the latest book from Dr Kate Bayliss, a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Economics at SOAS, University of London. Dr Bayliss’ excellent title, published with Manchester University Press, is a critical examination of the privatisation paradigm.

In the book, Dr Bayliss specifically analyses the history, processes, political economy and outcomes of privatisation policies in Britain across three major economic sectors – that of water, energy, and housing. Infamously, Britain was arguably in the vanguard of a proliferation of privatisation policies in the 1980s, courtesy of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a key proponent of the neoliberal revolution at this time. Privatisation was touted as a solution for increased efficiency, the creation of a shareholder society, and relieving taxpayer burdens. Dr Bayliss’ book, Privatising Humanity, is a crucial tool to understand how privatisation policies were applied, who benefited, and whether the outcomes lives up to these expectations. It is both an exceptionally detailed account of the web of interests that have profited from privatisation, on the one hand, and on the other, a highly accessible volume that is critical reading in this current moment.

Elliot Dolan-Evans is a sessional lecturer and tutor in law at Monash University and RMIT. His research investigates the political economy of global capitalism, forms of international governance, and questions of war and peace. His first book, Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF and the Conflict in Ukraine, is now out with Bristol University Press.

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Alan Brender, "Pink Tsunami: The Hello Kitty Kawaii Wave that has Swept the World" (Headpress, 2026)

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In his latest book, Pink Tsunami: The Hello Kitty Kawaii Wave that has Swept the World (Headpress 2026), Alan Brender delves into Hello Kitty the marketing wonder and cultural phenomenon, who has been around for 50 years. There are theme parks, restaurants, cafes and hotels dedicated to her. There are millions worldwide who buy Hello Kitty products, superfans who don’t know when to stop and amass thousands of items bearing Kitty’s countenance, and star fans, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears to name two, who do not think twice about purchasing a $50,000 Hello Kitty necklace. In Pink Tsunami you will hear about the fans, and Kitty’s designers and marketers and how they contributed to her popularity. But all is not glittery for this Queen of Kawaii. She has a dark side that even involves murder. Dive inside this book and all will be revealed.

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Aditi Chandra, "Unruly Monuments: Disrupting the State at Delhi's Islamic Architecture" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Unruly Monuments: Disrupting the State at Delhi's Islamic Architecture (Cambridge University Press, 2025) examines how Delhi's Sultanate and Mughal architecture, dating from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, became modern monuments and were assimilated and ordered into public consciousness as spaces for tourism, leisure, and intellectual contemplation during the colonial and early postcolonial eras (1828-1963). It examines the resistance that challenges this ordering, rendering monuments unruly and unassimilable despite state efforts to control their narrative. This exposes the nation's contradictory claims of inclusivity while marginalizing subaltern groups. It guides readers through picturesque landscapes, museums, imperial displays, postcards, travel experiences, Partition refugee camps, and cinema. Analyzing these forms reveals how the archive of Indo-Islamic monuments was shaped through presences and absences. Each chapter examines everyday life, untangles knowable public transcripts, illuminates strategic excisions and hidden transcripts, juxtaposes evidence that has not yet been analyzed in conjunction, reads archival material against the grain, and finds archival layers in unfamiliar places.

NBN Host: Sohini Majumdar

Sohini teaches history at University of San Francisco and Santa Clara University.

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Good Goy, Bad Goy: The Portrayal of Gentiles in Sketches from the London Yiddish Press

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Gentiles often appeared in the news sections of the London Yiddish press, and sometimes they also appeared in the regular “feuilleton” section in character sketches and fiction, stories and scenes from immigrant East-End Jewish life. Many of these portrayals were humorous local scenarios and imagined tales. This talk will look at a broad section of how and where Gentile characters appear and their relationship to the Jewish immigrant.

Gentiles fix cars and do physical chores for the hapless immigrant. The wily immigrant hoodwinks the Gentile recruiting officers during the First World War. The stern Gentile gatekeeper of British government politics, refuses access to the naïve immigrant wanting to help. The paternalistic English police officer gives directions to parts of London never before visited by an East-End immigrant. A proud fascist blackshirt is confused when he sees his respected Jewish neighbors in a strident communist counter-demonstration. Yet the word goy is also used by Jews describing each other: skipping the bus fare, not sharing their Yiddish newspaper, or being rude to their neighbor.

This lecture originally took place on January 26, 2023.

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Jonathan Schneer, "Nine Days in May: The General Strike Of 1926" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In May, 1926, nearly three million British workers downed tools to support nearly one million of their countrymen, miners whose employers meant to lengthen their working day and cut their pay. This General Strike brought the country to a grinding halt - which, according to Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, represented a threat not merely to the nation but to the parliamentary system itself. For nine days, the world's best organized working class confronted the world's most powerful, and self-confident, government. And yet the outcome was never in doubt, for Britain's most important trade-union leaders thought as Baldwin did, although they kept saying they were engaged in a wages dispute only. Really, they feared winning even more than they feared losing.

In Nine Days in May: The General Strike of 1926 (Oxford University Press, 2026), award-winning author and historian Jonathan Schneer mines hitherto untapped archival sources to explain why and how the Strike came about, why and how it was waged and countered, why and how it ended. In addition to government reports and TUC reports, he uses reports of undercover agents and spies, "special" constables sworn in for the duration of the Strike, volunteer strike-breakers, Communist agitators, trade-union leaders and rank-and-file members of trade unions; also, of course, the papers of politicians of all parties.

This is a tale of Shakespearian dimensions, replete with tragic heroes and villains and buffoons and opportunists and double-dealers, and contending, evenly matched, forces - both of which meant to do their duty whatever the cost. There may never be another general strike in Britain, but the General Strike of 1926 was one for the ages, illuminating the human condition.

Jonathan Schneer is Professor Emeritus of History at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of New Books Network.

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Peter Ross, "Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in Georgian London" (Bodleian Library, 2026)

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in Georgian London (Bodleian Library, 2026) by Dr. Peter Ross, step into the kitchens, streets and chop houses of Georgian London—one day, one city, countless appetites. From dawn until past midnight, Londoners dined at taverns, coaching inns, oyster rooms, confectioners, coffee shops, chocolate houses, soup shops and dining rooms. For the poor, the streets bustled with vendors offering early versions of fast food: hot green peas, baked potatoes, suet puddings, curds and whey, rice milk, gingerbread, pastry ‘pigs,’ and the now-forgotten saloop, a warming drink made from orchid roots.

After dark, sex workers and their clients indulged in a glass of jelly, then considered an aphrodisiac, as a precursor to a visit to the brothel. As the empire expanded, culinary influences poured in: London’s first Indian takeaway appeared in 1773, while the East End became home to Jewish fried fish, Italian baloney and German sausages.

Through the course of a single day, this book takes readers on a journey through breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper in Georgian London, drawing on contemporary archives to follow hungry citizens from all walks of life as they navigate the city’s diverse food landscape. It reveals not only culinary pleasures and horrors, but also the social challenges and daily struggles that shaped life in the capital.

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John Wills, "Doom Town, USA: The Nevada Test Site As Ground Zero of 1950s American Culture" (UP of Kansas, 2026)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In March 1953 and May 1955, government officials—including the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), the US Department of Defense, and the Atomic Energy Commission—released nuclear bombs on two model towns at Nevada Test Site, the continental nuclear test facility during the Cold War. These so-called “Doom Towns” were designed to illustrate in the most vivid way possible what might happen to a “typical American home” caught in a Soviet atomic blast. Instead of training troops for war overseas, the Doom Towns literally brought the Cold War home.

Drawing on newspaper articles, FCDA reports, and corporate documents, in Doom Town, USA: The Nevada Test Site as Ground Zero of 1950s American Culture (University Press of Kansas, 2026), Dr. John Wills brings readers into Doom Town, USA—a place where life-size mannequins of the archetypal Mr. and Mrs. America walked the streets in JCPenney clothes, drove Chrysler cars, and lived in the latest trailer homes, tailor-made to escape in the event of nuclear war. The two Doom Towns of Operation Doorstep (1953) and Operation Cue (1955) were far more than just an exercise in developing a new civilian home front. They were a media spectacle and a cultural flashpoint, attracting corporate sponsors, drawing in atomic tourists, and generating new consumer products. The atom bomb may have been bad for world peace, but it was good for business. In the excitement about these experiments, real people even volunteered to be living test subjects—but most were turned away.

Doom Town became an unusual but effective banner for corporate and consumer life in the 1950s. Doom Town was an effective simulacrum of white middle-class America, right down to the racially segregated social spaces and the hierarchical gender roles of the dummies living in their classic suburban homes. But these homegrown Hiroshimas also contributed to a broader culture of catastrophe and fear in the late 1950s. Concerns over Communist invasion, Soviet spies, and ICBM missiles coalesced in the Nevada desert, framing a national culture of anxiety. The sudden explosion of the model towns revealed the shocking fragility of postwar living, calling into question the 1950s American Dream and the survivability of American ideals. The cultural crater left by these nuclear test sites exists even today in the many movies, television shows, and video games that dwell on the existential crisis of impending apocalypse.

Doom Town, USA is an eye-opening tour guide of one of the most bizarre and uniquely American places in history.

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David Ly, "Not All Dragons" (Poplar Press, 2026)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with David Ly about his novel, Not All Dragons (Wolsak & Wynn, 2026).
What is it that you are, Rhys?

In a land of magic and myth, Rhys awakens on the shore of Lanilia with mysterious wounds on his back and no memory of his life before. Disoriented, he stumbles on the Mernese estuary protected by the mermaid Delia, who is quickly intrigued by this male who doesn't smell like any Lanilian she's ever met and who is unable to answer questions about himself. Determined to figure out his past, Rhys convinces Delia to help, and begins a dangerous journey to discover who he is, or was, and who he might become as they hunt for the truth beneath story and prophecy. David Ly brings readers a fascinating and fresh take on dragons and destiny in this captivating debut novel.

David Ly is the author of Mythical Man (Anstruther Books, 2020) and Dream of Me as Water (Anstruther Books, 2022), both short-listed for ReLit Poetry Awards, and the fantasy novel Not All Dragons (Poplar Press, 2026). He co-edited, with Daniel Zomparelli, Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022). David’s poems have appeared in publications such as Arc Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry, PRISM International, and The Ex-Puritan, where he won the inaugural Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence for Poetry, as well as in the Pan MacMillan anthologies He, She, They, Us: Queer Poems (2024) and You’re Never Too Much: Poems for Every Emotion (2025). He is the Poetry Editor at This Magazine. More here.

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Kevin Reilly, "Gregory Ghosts: Haunting Irishness" (Peter Lang, 2026)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Kevin P. Reilly is President Emeritus and Regent Professor with the University of Wisconsin System, having served as President from 2004-13. Kevin grew up in Manhattan and the Bronx, and went on to earn his B.A. at the University of Notre Dame, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, all in English. He has published on higher education policy and accreditation, autobiography and biography, and in Irish Studies.

In this interview he discusses his most recent book, Gregory Ghosts: Haunting Irishness (Peter Lang, 2026), a creative non-fiction intervention into Irish literary studies.

This book is a kind of Irish ghost story. In it the ghosts of Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) and eight of her family members and colleagues look back over their lives—and sometimes forward beyond them—to try to make sense of them, their times, and one another. Theirs were all turbulent lives played out on the western edge of Europe at a time of great change.
Lady Gregory helped shape that change at a pivotal moment in Ireland’s development into a modern nation state. The author’s fresh approach questions and complicates the image of her as a prim Victorian workhorse. Setting her in the midst of the personal chatter of her departed family, lovers, friends, and collaborators brings home how the historical Irish moment found her just when it needed her.

Gregory Ghosts: Haunting Irishness is published with Peter Lang, as part of their Re-imagining Ireland series

Aidan Beatty is a lecturer in the history department at Carnegie Mellon University and the President of the American Conference for Irish Studies

Transcript here

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Scott Reich, "One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game" (Compass Rose, 2026)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

On a crisp September afternoon in 1917, as the country waged war and the national pastime faced questions about its purpose, baseball paused to reconsider what it stood for. At Fenway Park, the game's greatest stars-many of them rivals, some near the end of their careers, others just emerging-took the field together in an exhibition played not for standings or championships, but for a colleague who had died, and for a cause larger than the game itself.

Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson, Connie Mack, and more. One newspaper called it "the greatest baseball show on earth."

What unfolded that day was more than a benefit or a curiosity. It was a moment of recognition among players, fans, and the sport's leaders that baseball could be something more than competition. It could be a shared stage. A public trust. A civic ritual capable of carrying the weight of a nation. Listen to our interview about One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game (Compass Rose, 2026)

Paul Knepper covered the New York Knicks for Bleacher Report. His first book was The Knicks of the Nineties: Ewing, Oakley, Starks and the Brawlers That Almost Won It All. His next book, Moses Malone: The Life of a Basketball Prophet, is now available. You can reach Paul at paulknepper@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @paulieknep.

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In Praise: A Conversation with Texas Poet Laureate & Founder of Torch Literary Arts, Amanda Johnston

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 2006 poet Amanda Johnston went in search of community and, when she didn’t find what she was looking for, Amanda built her own. Today, Torch Literary Arts is a resource and a destination for Black women writers and readers across the diaspora. Fueled by wisdom and writings from poets, novelists, and screenwriters, the organization’s exceptional programming and award-winning magazine amplify Black women’s voices, and has featured work from poets like Patricia Smith, Yona Harvey, and Toi Derricotte, screenwriters and playwrights like Jonterri Gadson, Charla Lauriston, and Lisa B. Thompson, and novelists like Tayari Jones, Crystal Wilkinson, and Sapphire.

And at a time when Amanda is preparing for Torch’s 20th Anniversary celebration, “A Gathering of Flames,” she is also celebrating the publication of a new book in her capacity as the 61st Texas Poet Laureate, Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas (Host Publications, 2025), showcasing original praise poems commissioned from poets across the state, and seeking to uplift diverse and intersecting populations across age, gender, and BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, differently-abled, and immigrant communities.

You can find Amanda at her website, on Instagram, and on Threads. And check out Torch Literary Arts, Torch Magazine, and follow the organization on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads.

Want to hear more from Amanda about the journey to Torch’s 20th Anniversary? Check out our continued conversation on Substack.

Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Nancy Micklewright, "Fashion in Late Ottoman Istanbul: Photography and Identity in a Global City" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Over the 19th century, the women of Istanbul gradually transformed their appearance, adopting European dress and new modes of self-fashioning, including photographs. Fashion in Late Ottoman Istanbul: Photography and Identity in a Global City (Bloomsbury, 2026) by Dr. Nancy Micklewright reconstructs a complex fashion history, and the dramatic changes that took place in women's lives in this period, and given the diverse population of Istanbul in terms of ethnicity, class, race and religion, attends to the differing clothing habits of the women of the city. The book focuses particularly on elite women as fashion tastemakers and on the dress of enslaved and working women.
Appealing to scholars across a range of fields, including fashion history, Ottoman studies, women's and gender history, visual culture and photography history, Fashion in Late Ottoman Istanbul provides a fascinating insight into women's histories, writing and dress practices in a rapidly changing Istanbul.

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Chiara Formichi, "Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In her most recent publication, Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia (Stanford UP, 2025), Chiara Formichi argues that Muslim women in Java and Sumatra, from the late 1910s to the 1950s, were central to Indonesia's progress as guardians and promoters of health and piety through gendered activities of care work. While sidelined in the Dutch colonial project of hygienic modernity, women's labor of social reproduction became increasingly visible during the Japanese Occupation and early years of independence. Women from all walks of life were called upon to fulfill domestic and motherly roles for the production and socialization of laborers, soldiers, and citizens. The medicalization of cleanliness, intersecting with multiple patriarchal orders, marginalized women's traditional influence and knowledge. However, leveraging the critical importance of infant care, cleanliness, and nutrition, women pushed against the boundaries imposed on them by the colonial and postcolonial state. Largely absent from government archives, their words and acts are evident in vernacular magazines and visual sources drawn from official outreach, news and lifestyle media, and advertisements. Women writers rearticulated scientific mothering, nationalist maternalism, and Islamic ideals of motherhood to create a public voice through gendered care work. The framework of Domestic Nationalism proposes that as the modern Indonesian nation-state took shape capitalizing on the public function of mothering, so did homemaking become a crossroads of national and international approaches to development, blurring nonaligned self-reliance and global capitalist interests.

In this episode Dr. Chiara Formichi (Cornell University) and Leah Cargin (University of Oklahoma and Journal of Women’s History) discuss Domestic Nationalism. We converse about feminist theory and tensions between Indonesian women and colonial establishments. We talk about food, food choices, food preparation and nutrition to reveal an intersection of hygiene, nutrition, and imperialism. And last, we discuss how imperial and colonial invocation of novel hygiene practices was a global phenomenon in the mid-twentieth century.

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Chiara Formichi, "Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

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Daniel Krcmaric, "Above the Law" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The United States has traditionally been a great promoter of international justice – forging the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals after World War II and leading the way in creating tribunals to address genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda after the Cold War. Yet the US views the International Criminal Court – the culmination of the tribunal-building process – as a dire threat.

The US voted against its establishment, passed legislation threatening to invade The Hague, and tried to destroy the ICC with economic sanctions. Delving into the uneasy relationship between the world's superpower and one of its most prominent international institutions,

Above the Law: The United States and the International Criminal Court (Cambridge UP, 2026) explains how the desire to shield American soldiers from unwanted ICC scrutiny is the ultimate source of tension. Offering a sophisticated analysis of the ICC's track record that shows how American fears are overblown, Daniel Krcmaric argues that a more cooperative US policy toward the ICC would benefit both sides.

Our guest is Daniel Krcmaric, an Associate Professor of Political Science and Law at Northwestern University.

Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).

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Christopher de Bellaigue, "The Golden Throne: The Curse of a King" (Bodley Head, 2025)

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What does a 16th century ruler reveal about the nature of power, past and present?

Istanbul, 1538. The greatest of the Ottoman Sultans is at the pinnacle of world power, while his family and future are at the mercy of their own dynastic law: whichever of his five sons succeeds him must eventually kill all the others. So why not get a head start?
For the next fifteen years, as Suleyman the Magnificent and his terrifying pirate captain Barbarossa face down imperial enemies across two hemispheres, the self-fulfilling curse of the Ottomans gathers its own unstoppable momentum.
From the burning pyres of Paris to the rain-lashed mountains of Transylvania, from Buda to Basra, from Crimea to the coast of India, Christopher de Bellaigue's The Golden Throne is an intensely gripping yet entirely historical reconstruction of the life and world of the most feared and powerful man of the sixteenth century, revealing the price of succession and the terrible cost of success.

Christopher de Bellaigue is an author, journalist and founder of The Lake District Book Festival. The Golden Throne is the second book in a trilogy.

Lucas Tse is Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.

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Caste and Music with T.M. Krishna

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This episode features a conversation with Carnatic vocalist, T.M. Krishna, who is also the author of two books on this musical tradition. We began with his first book’s account of the modernization of Carnatic music through a set of social, technical, and spatial processes that transformed it from a more socially diverse practice into a predominantly Brahmin performative genre. We moved on to discuss a figure who is at the heart of his second book: the maker of the Carnatic percussion instrument, the mrdangam. This took us into an extended discussion of the changing relationship between mrdangam makers, who are predominantly Dalit, and mrdangam players, who are predominantly Brahmin, and what the complex mix of inequality, stigma, artistry, and pride suggests about the specificity of this inter-caste relationship. The episode ended with Krishna fleshing out his distinction between classical music and art music and the reasons why he rejects the former in favor of the latter.

Read the transcript

Guest

T.M. Krishna is a vocalist in the Carnatic tradition and the author of two books and numerous articles.

References

T.M. Krishna, A Southern Music: The Karnatik Story (Harper Collins, 2016).

T.M. Krishna, Sebastian and Sons: A Brief History of Mrdangam Makers (Westland, 2023).

Devadasi: refers to a historical practice of “marrying” girls to a temple deity. In the pre-colonial period, Devadasis held a respected place in society as literate, land owning women who were highly trained in music and dance. During colonialism, their sexual relations with male patrons came to be seen as a threat to householder society and they became targets of moral reform. The Devadasi system was abolished in 1947.

Sadir: a dance form historically performed by the Devadasi community that was the precursor to modern Bharatanatyam.

Bharatanatyam: a modern dance form now widely performed by upper castes.

Khayal: vocal genre of North Indian music.

ICS: Indian Civil Service, the higher tier of colonial administration in British India that became the basis of the post-independence Indian Administrative Service.

The Music Academy: the main performance space for Carnatic music in Madras (now Chennai), India.

Kutcheri: term for the venue where Carnatic music is performed.

Thanjavur: city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu known for its art and architecture.

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Shawn William Miller, "Dream Road to Pan America: A Century in Pursuit of the World's Longest Highway" (U California Press, 2026)

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A century after the Pan-American Highway was first conceived, its story remains largely unknown—even to the hundreds of motorists who annually attempt the 30,000-kilometer drive from far northern Alaska to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. There is more to the highway, however, than the persistent allure of the open road. In Dream Road to Pan America: A Century in Pursuit of the World's Longest Highway (University of California Press, 2026), historian Dr. Shawn William Miller unveils a larger tale of lofty ideals and bedrock greed, romantic adventure and pragmatic diplomacy, immigrant desperation and Indigenous resistance.

This book journeys to the early 1920s when everyday Americans invented the idea of a road that would spread fraternity, democracy, and prosperity across the hemisphere. It looks at the commercial and geopolitical interests that shaped the highway—often with little concern for those living along its margins—and explains why the road became an escape route for millions of migrants rather than a corridor for tourists. Dr. Miller contends that the highway’s troubled past points to an unresolved future, offering insights into the growing costs of continuing down well-worn paths.

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Juxuan Zhang and Pierre-Yves Donzé, "Entrepreneurs and the Structural Transformation of the Chinese Apparel Industry, 1980–2020" (Journal of Evolutionary Studies in Business, 2026)

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this interview I met with Dr. Juxuan Zhang (Osaka University) to discuss her research on the history of the Chinese apparel industry since 1979. Her paper with Prof Pierre-Yves Donzé (Osaka University) investigates the structural transformation of the Chinese apparel industry from 1980 to 2020. Following an approach of industry studies and classic business history, it focuses on the 10 largest apparel companies in the four decades since the 1980s. Drawn from a broad range of published sources and official data, it analyses the ownership transition and entrepreneurial strategies of these companies under the changing institutional context. The findings show how different types of firms were able to use regulations and policies to dominate the industry. The study contributes to literature by exhibiting the dynamics of the industry development from the perspective of companies and entrepreneurs.

Read the full research for free here

Presented by Paula de la Cruz-Fernández, Ph.D.

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Dallas Liddle, "News Machines: The Systems of Daily Journalism in Britain, 1785–1885" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

British daily newspapers transformed rapidly at the turn of the nineteenth century, ballooning in size and radically reorganizing staffing and production decade by decade. By mid-century, newspapers had grown from the folded single sheets of the previous century to large multi-page broadsheets, so impressive in the quantity of print they held and their speed of production that one of their nicknames was 'the daily miracle'.

Traditional news history has overlooked a key fact for understanding this era of news: that Victorian daily newspapers were high-pressure systems. As demand for newspapers outpaced their original production capacity, newspaper organizations began to build complex technical and production mechanisms to continue to grow and compete. As these systems expanded, newspapers became dependent on them, and decisions about how daily journalism should develop began to pass from editorial choice to systemic necessity. The previously untold story of Victorian daily news is that the personalities of editors and owners and the larger social forces at work in that era were not the only (or even primary) drivers of its history. Once set in motion, the systems of Victorian news gained major shaping agency over their own development.

Combining deep archival research and traditional historical analysis with modern data mining methods, News Machines: The Systems of Daily Journalism in Britain, 1785–1885 (Oxford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Dallas Liddle reconstructs the systemic workings of Victorian daily news in unprecedented detail, offering new and counterintuitive accounts of when and why daily papers expanded, how and why steam-powered printing machines developed, how specialized news discourses evolved, and how newspaper leadership was organized.

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The 'Tsenerene': The Most Popular Yiddish Book in History

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Arguably the most popular book in the history of Yiddish literature, the Tsenerene (alternative Romanization: Ze’enah U-Re’enah) has been reprinted, both in Yiddish and in translation, 273 times since its appearance in the early seventeenth century. Arranged according to the weekly Torah portion, the book employs fragments of biblical verses in Hebrew to open sections of Yiddish text that may include direct translations, midrashic stories, commentaries, and – less often – interpretations original to the author, Yankev ben Yitskhok Ashkenazi of Janów.

In this talk about the Tsenerene, Dr. Avi Blitz will show how the work’s anthological style accommodates curious combinations of commentary and folklore and he will discuss what the book teaches us about the folk beliefs of early modern Ashkenazi society. Using different editions of the work, he will talk about textual variances and diverse paratextual elements that hint at the various ways the book was read throughout its 400-year history. Finally, he will discuss the idea of the book as a “women’s Bible.”

This lecture originally took place on July 18, 2023.

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Susannah Crockford, "A Perturbed System: Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Our ecological system is disturbed, and with it, every other system we’ve built to inhabit it. We do not face inevitable destruction, yet many of us cannot conceive of climate change as anything but the end of the world, an apocalypse with all its biblical trappings. Why?

In A Perturbed System: Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World, anthropologist Susannah Crockford argues that we must understand the climate emergency as a spiritual crisis, a result of Christian colonialism that we (religious or not) still struggle to describe without religious language. Climate discourse in the United States and northern Europe, Crockford shows, is framed by the same theological motifs that drove extraction, including ideas about prophecy, mediation, sacrifice, original sin, cult, messiah, and apocalypse. By listening to people on the edge of the crisis, A Perturbed System reveals a world in transition, what happens when worlds end—ecologically, socially, politically, and personally—and how we might live through these endings together.

Susannah Crockford is a lecturer at the University of Exeter. She is the author of Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Buy the book: here

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Ryan Angulo and Doug Crowell, "Kindness & Salt: Recipes for the Care & Feeding of Your Friends & Neighbors" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018)

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

When Brooklyn restaurateurs Doug Crowell and Ryan Angulo opened Buttermilk Channel in Carroll Gardens in 2008, they created more than a restaurant—they built a neighborhood institution. Known for dishes like Buttermilk Fried Chicken with Cheddar Waffles and towering Popovers, the restaurant became one of Brooklyn's most beloved dining destinations. They followed it with French Louie, a warm bistro that blends French influences with the spirit of a Brooklyn neighborhood restaurant.

In Kindness & Salt: Recipes for the Care and Feeding of Your Friends and Neighbors (Grand Central Publishing, 2018), Crowell and Angulo share more than 100 recipes from both restaurants, along with the philosophy that has guided their work for decades. The title reflects the two principles they believe are essential to every great meal: kindness, expressed through genuine hospitality, and salt, the attention to flavor that brings food to life. Alongside signature dishes, the book offers advice on entertaining, cocktails, wine, and the art of making guests feel welcome.

Kindness & Salt stands out among restaurant cookbooks because it is as much about community as it is about cooking. Part cookbook and part neighborhood memoir, it captures the relationships among restaurateurs, staff, regulars, and the communities that grow around a dining room. At its heart, the book argues that hospitality is every bit as important as the food on the plate.

Doug Crowell joins New Books Network to discuss the origins of Kindness & Salt, the legacy of Buttermilk Channel, the continued success of French Louie, and what he has learned about restaurants, hospitality, and community over nearly two decades in Brooklyn dining.

Interview by Laura Goldberg, longtime food blogger at VittlesVamp.com, who enjoyed many wonderful meals at Buttermilk Channel and remains a regular at French Louie.

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Ranita Ray, "Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A powerful exposé of the American public education system's indifference toward marginalized children and the "slow violence" that fashions schools into hostile work and learning environments.
In 2017, sociologist Ranita Ray stepped inside a fourth-grade classroom in one of the nation’s largest majority-minority districts in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was there to conduct research on the lack of resources and budget cuts that regularly face public schools. However, a few months into her immersion, a disturbed Ray recognized that that greatest impediment to students was the “slow violence” that preys on their minds, bodies, and spirits at the hands of teachers and administrators who are charged with their care.
Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom (St. Martin's Press, 2025) lays bare the routine indifference, racism, and verbal and emotional abuse and harassment that teachers and administrators perpetrate routinely against the most vulnerable children in our schools. We meet Nazli, a bright, funny Black girl, and math wiz, who loses her baby brother, and is told that “grit” will enable her to rise above her grief. Reggie is a devoted student and curious scholar, but his path to success is derailed when teachers fashion him as a predator after they find him looking at two inappropriate photos on his iPad. There’s Nalin, a shy and determined Filipina who has just arrived in the US, but is ignored based on her educator’s assumption that “Asians” are “good at math.” Her entire journey through school is darkened by this stereotype. And there’s Miguel, a sharp, distracted Latino boy who can’t overcome his teachers’ urge to incorrectly diagnose him with autism.
Bolstered by an empathetic and passionate voice as well as the latest breaking research in the social sciences, Ray goes beyond timeworn discussions about the school-to-prison pipeline, funding, and achievement gaps to directly address what happens behind the closed doors of classrooms, introducing a compelling—and crucial—new perspective into the conversation about our education system.
In the warm, luminous spirit of character-driven books like Invisible Child, Slow Violence allows us to see that the way we’ve tried to make a start in education reform is wrong. To forge new approaches that foster young minds and flourishing generations we have to start with how children experience the classroom. Unflinchingly, Slow Violence tells us—and shows us where to begin.

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Andrew Wilson, "I Wanna Be Loved By You: Marilyn Monroe: A Life in 100 Takes" (Grand Central Publishing, 2026)

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Publishing one hundred years after her birth, Andrew Wilson’s biography of Marilyn Monroe, I Wanna Be Loved By You: Marilyn Monroe: A Life in 100 Takes (Grand Central Publishing, 2026), is a kaleidoscopic tour of her life told through 100 captivating snapshots.
Dreamer. Bombshell. Icon. Featuring a wealth of unpublished material, I Wanna Be Loved By You presents Marilyn in a startling new light. It draws upon unpublished letters from Marilyn, Arthur Miller, and Joe DiMaggio; case notes and private letters from Monroe’s psychoanalyst, Dr. Ralph Greenson; and unpublished audio recordings from the likes of Jane Russell, Billy Wilder, John Huston, Amy and Milton Greene, housekeeper Eunice Murray (the last person to see Marilyn alive), and many more.
We go behind the scenes of her marriages to teenage sweetheart Jim Dougherty, Joe DiMaggio, and Arthur Miller. We see Marilyn train with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, working to dismantle the common perception that she was merely a dumb blonde. And in the concluding chapters, Wilson dissects what happened on the night Marilyn died after a suspected drug overdose. Were the Kennedys involved, or was she just let down by those closest to her? With a dazzling and unique blend of reportage, archival investigation, interviews, and oral history, I Wanna Be Loved By You is a revealing and nuanced portrait of the life, death and afterlife of an icon who still fascinates us today.

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Fred S. Naiden, "Railroaded: A Motorman’s Story of the New York City Subway" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Fred S. Naiden, professor emeritus of history of at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is an authority on the ancient world. In the 1980s in New York City, however, he was New York City Transit Authority Employee number 4046. He cleaned subway platforms and restrooms, drove subways and locomotives, and belonged to Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union.

All of these experiences inform his book, Railroaded: A Motorman’s Story of the New York City Subway (Rutgers UP, 2026), published by Rutgers University Press. The book covers his work, his life in New York before gentrification, and how the subway system is embedded in the city’s history.

Robert W. Snyder, interviewing for the New Books Network and the Gotham Center for New York City History, is professor emeritus of Journalism and American Studies at Rutgers University. His books include Transit Talk: New York’s Bus and Subway Workers Tell their Stories (New York Transit Museum/Rutgers University, 1997).

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Larry Atkins, "Foul or Fair? Ethical and Social Issues in Sports" (McFarland, 2024)

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

There's more to sports than what occurs during games. Check your social media, listen to sports talk radio, or watch ESPN--there are daily stories of social issues in sports regarding concussions, playing hurt, gambling, Olympics and politics, athletes as social activists, paying college athletes, recruiting violations, academics, youth sports, diversity and gender issues, hazing, athletes' mental health, disabled athletes' rights, sportsmanship, and media coverage.

How do these issues affect athletes, fans, and society?

Written equally for casual and hardcore fans, Foul or Fair? Ethical and Social Issues in Sports (McFarland, 2024) analyzes social and ethical issues in sports in a lively, journalistic manner, combining quotes from writers, broadcasters, athletes, coaches and others with the author's observations. It shows pros and cons of how sports affect our daily lives and society. While sports inspire and excite us and lead to social change like the civil rights movement, Title IX, and rights of disabled people, controversies surrounding sports can be divisive even as sports work as a uniting factor in society.

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“O Albany”: Novelist William Kennedy on His Great Cycle of the City

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Monday, June 22—William Kennedy is to Albany what Joyce is to Dublin and Faulkner to Mississippi, a fictional alchemist who transforms his native place into novels at once deeply evocative of their setting and movingly universal in their human resonances. In The Albany Trilogy, just out from Library of America, three of Kennedy’s masterpieces—including his beloved novel Ironweed—take readers from the gutter to the statehouse in narratives of brokenness, resilience, and unexpected grace set against the backdrop of one of America’s most storied underdog cities.

Join Kennedy himself, one of only a handful of living authors in the LOA series, and his longtime friend Paul Grondahl, editor of the LOA edition, for a special, intimate, and wide-ranging conversation about craft, Albany as a protagonist, and what’s next for this titan of American letters, at work on his next book at ninety-eight years old.

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Thomas S. Mullaney, "How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information" (W. W. Norton, 2026)

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This is the third time I have the great fortune of interviewing Tom Mullaney. I can hardly think of a more worthy ambassador for the history discipline, and the work we are discussing today, I believe, will serve as the perfect bridge from Tom’s historical scholarship to the wider, reading public. We are discussing Tom’s latest book, How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information (W.W. Norton, 2026). Tom’s book takes on some of the most philosophically rich ideas at the center of both history and memory. Over time, things come apart: objects, archives, ephemera, people, memories, histories. For millennia, we relied on common tools to remember the past: oral tradition, writing, and artifacts. In under 200 years, we developed more advanced information technology like the camera, phonograph, typewriter, computer, and more. The information encoded by these devices has a shelf life too, decaying over time, disintegrating, becoming obscured, getting deaccessioned. How We Disappear explores this process through the lens of family tragedy: the death of Tom’s parents and the attempts to recover and remember the past. What happens when we try to recover the lives of our parents, the people who shape our world, and what do we do when we discover the unexpected? To take us through his brilliant new book, I’m pleased today to have Tom Mullaney on the podcast.

Thomas S. Mullaney is Professor of History and UNESCO Chair in Digital Futures at Stanford University.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Bryan Alexander, "Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Over the past decade, American colleges and universities have seen enrollment decline, campuses close, programs cut, faculty and staff laid off, and public confidence erode. In Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026), futurist Bryan Alexander forecasts what the next decade might hold if we continue down this path. He argues that the United States has passed its high-water mark for postsecondary education and now faces a critical turning point. How will higher ed institutions respond to this wave of change and crisis? Combining data-driven research with scenario modeling, Alexander outlines a powerful framework for understanding what led to this moment: declining birthrates, surging student debt, rising tuition, shifting political winds, and growing skepticism about the value of a college degree. He maps out how these forces, if left unchecked, could continue to reshape academia by shrinking its footprint, narrowing its mission, and jeopardizing its role in addressing the planet's most pressing challenges, from climate change to artificial intelligence. Alexander explores how institutions might adapt or recover, presenting two possible futures: a path of managed descent and a more hopeful course of reinvention. Peak Higher Ed examines the fraying of the "college for all" consensus, the long shadow of pandemic-era disruptions, and the political polarization that has placed universities in the crosshairs. Written for educators, policymakers, students, and anyone invested in the future of higher learning, this book offers a deeply informed, unflinching look at the road ahead and the choices that will determine whether colleges and universities retreat from their peak or rise to a new one.

Guest: Bryan Alexander is an award–winning, internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of higher education’s future.

He completed his English language and literature PhD at the University of Michigan in 1997, with a dissertation on doppelgangers in Romantic-era fiction and poetry. Then Bryan taught literature, writing, multimedia, and information technology studies at Centenary College of Louisiana. There he also pioneered multi-campus interdisciplinary classes, while organizing an information literacy initiative.

From 2002 to 2014 Bryan worked with the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE), a non-profit working to help small colleges and universities best integrate digital technologies. With NITLE he held several roles, including co-director of a regional education and technology center, director of emerging technologies, and senior fellow. Over those years Bryan helped develop and support the nonprofit, grew peer networks, consulted, and conducted a sustained research agenda. In 2013 Bryan launched a business, Bryan Alexander Consulting, LLC. Through BAC he consults throughout higher education in the United States and abroad.

Bryan is currently a senior scholar at Georgetown University and teaches graduate seminars in their Learning, Design, and Technology program.

You can learn more about Peak Higher Ed here

You can follow Bryan’s writing on AI, academia, and the Future here

Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Ijeoma Uchegbu, "Chain Reaction: How Chemistry Shapes Us and Our World" (HarperCollins, 2026)

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

By one of the world's leading chemists, an entertaining and revealing tour of the chemical bonds that shape our everyday lives and provide the infrastructure for our chaotic world.

We all have a relationship with chemistry. Bonds between molecules, forged and broken in the blink of an eye, underpin everything from the food we eat and the clothes we wear to the ways we treat illnesses and construct our homes. It’s a relationship we nurture, whether we know it or not, and for leading chemist Ijeoma Uchegbu, it was serious from the beginning.

In Chain Reaction: How Chemistry Shapes Us and Our World (HarperCollins, 2026) Uchegbu shows us the world through a chemist’s eyes, revealing the intricate science we take for granted: how our body’s most fundamental chemical structure, our DNA, is estimated to be two meters long, resting tightly within each of our cells; how egg yolks are held together by weak chemical bonds that make them primed for emulsifying our salad dressings; and how the chemical makeup of PFAs, or “forever chemicals,” makes them so good at sticking around.

Along the way, we travel from Uchegbu’s home in London to Nigeria, where cooking experiments go awry in her family kitchen, and to Italy, where the chemically inert compounds that make up stained glass keep medieval windows shining. The careful interplay of bonds and molecules brings a sense of order and wonder to the chaos of our lives, she shows, and we don’t have to wear a lab coat or study solutions in beakers to appreciate it.

For readers of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and anyone who wanted to be like Elizabeth Zott in Lessons in Chemistry, Chain Reaction is a lively and intimate portrait of the wondrous and under-explored field that shapes our everyday lives.

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Sharron Wilkins Conrad, "The Trinity: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Civil Rights in African American Memory" (UNC Press, 2026)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A striking triptych once displayed in countless African American households, the Trinity typically features Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F. Kennedy. More than decoration, these portraits were deliberate acts of memory and quiet resistance, a medium through which African Americans asserted their own narratives of hope, leadership, and the fight for justice.

In this provocative history The Trinity: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Civil Rights in African American Memory (UNC Press, 2026), Sharron Wilkins Conrad traces the Trinity across several decades, showing how African Americans didn’t merely remember the civil rights movement; they shaped its meaning. The Trinity reveals why Kennedy’s image hung beside King and Christ, while Lyndon B. Johnson, despite signing landmark legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, remained largely unheralded. Kennedy’s charisma, symbolic promise, and perceived martyrdom placed him among sacred icons, while Johnson—seen as transactional and confronted by the era’s growing impatience—never secured the same emotional legacy. In a gripping exploration of memory and meaning-making, Conrad reveals how communities create historical truths by elevating some leaders, sidelining others, and preserving their own visions in defiance of the official record.

Raymond Williams, PhD is a political scientist, blogger, and book club administrator with an interest in American History and Politics. You can find Raymond on Instagram, Threads, and Twitter at @rtwilliams16.

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Andrew J. Hoffman, "Business School and the Noble Purpose of the Market: Correcting the Systemic Failures of Shareholder Capitalism" (Stanford Business Books, 2025)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Today's business schools were designed for a world that no longer exists. Capitalism raised the standard of living for billions of people over the past 150 years, but is now causing systemic challenges it is unable to address. Business School and the Noble Purpose of the Market: Correcting the Systemic Failures of Shareholder Capitalism (Stanford Business Books, 2025) explains the intellectual foundation MBA students, faculty, and administrators need to reform, how to restore capitalism to its noble purpose. It provides a practical program for amending curriculum and pedagogy, changing student and faculty rewards, and bringing a new spirit and sensibility to the business school.

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Cultivating Consciousness: A Conversation with Ronald E. Purser on Mind Space (2026)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What does it mean to connect with mind and space without the typical baggage of contemporary meditation trends? In this episode of the New Books Network, Matthew Joseph O'Connell sits down with author and practitioner Ronald E. Purser to discuss his timely new book, Mind Space: Discovering Meditation Without the Meditator (Dharma Publishing, 2026).

Drawing from his decades-long engagement with Tarthang Tulku’s seminal 1977 work, Time, Space, and Knowledge, Purser offers a refreshing, experimental, and surprisingly playful guide to understanding our structural realities. Rather than preaching a prescriptive self-help routine, Mind Space serves as an experiential commentary that invites readers into a radical, non-dualistic inquiry of how we inhabit our lives.

Key Themes from the Episode

Beyond McMindfulness: How Mind Space transitions away from corporate, present-moment-focused trends and pivots toward a deeper, more expansive territory of human freedom.
The Anatomy of Mind and Space: An etymological and philosophical breakdown of mind as our generative source of knowledge, and space not as a passive, empty container, but as an active, alive, and accommodating dimension.
The Myth of the Inner Manager: A critique of the reflexive, modern impulse to over-manage every facet of our internal lives, and how to cultivate a state of un-management.
Digital Colonization: Confronting the psycho-physical compression, social comparisons, and anxiety induced by modern screens, and how the acceleration of time flattens our capacity for deep meaning.
The Playfulness of Inquiry: Why true contemplative practice thrives on curiosity, experimentation, and humour rather than rigid, sombre discipline.

"Space is not a thing. It is what permits experience to be experienced at all. When we realize space is projecting space into space, our rigid focal settings begin to thaw." — Ronald E. Purser

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Fabio Lanza, "Urban Revolution: People's Communes in Beijing" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

During the Great Leap Forward (1958-62), the collectivization of the Chinese countryside had catastrophic results, but how did this short-lived political experiment reshape urban life? In his new book, Urban Revolution: People's Communes in Beijing (Cambridge UP, 2026), Fabio Lanza examines the most radical attempts to remake cities under Mao. This first full-length history in English of China's urban communes shows how universalization of production, the collectivization of life, including communal canteens and nurseries, and women's liberation, were intended to transform modern urban life along socialist lines. Urban Revolution writes a new history of the socialist everyday by showing how urban residents, and women in particular, struggled to enact a radical change in their lives. Lanza argues that this transformation of everyday life must be taken seriously, but that ultimately the failure of urban collectivization reveals the most crucial contradictions of the socialist revolution.

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Andy Byford, "Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia" (Oxford UP, 2020)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Between the 1880s and the 1930s, children became the focus of unprecedented scientific and professional interest in modernizing societies worldwide, including in the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union. Those who claimed children as special objects of investigation were initially spread across a network of imperfectly professionalized scholarly and occupational groups based mostly in the fields of medicine, education, and psychology. From their various perspectives, they made ambitious claims about the contributions that their emergent expertise made to the understanding of, and intervention in, human bio-psycho-social development. The international movement that arose out of this catalyzed the institutionalization of new domains of knowledge, including developmental and educational psychology, special needs education, and child psychiatry.
Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia (Oxford UP, 2020) charts the evolution of the child science movement in Russia from the Crimean War to the Second World War. It is the first comprehensive history in English of the rise and fall of this multidisciplinary field across the late Imperial and Soviet periods. Drawing on ideas and concepts emanating from a variety of theoretical domains, the study provides new insights into the concerns of Russia's professional intelligentsia with matters of biosocial reproduction and investigates the incorporation of scientific knowledge and professional expertise focused on child development into the making of the welfare/warfare state in the rapidly changing political landscape of the early Soviet era.

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John Kapusta, "Self-Realization Nation: How Artists of the Creative Counterculture Made a New America" (U California Press, 2026)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

John Kapusta's Self-Realization Nation: How Artists of the Creative Counterculture Made a New America (U California Press, 2026) is the story of an unexpected group of performing artists who led one of the most influential artistic movements in contemporary American history. After World War II, personal fulfillment emerged as a defining American cultural ideal. Self-realization--the quest to become our authentic selves--remains a powerful part of American culture and arts today. In Self-Realization Nation, John Kapusta provides a lively cultural history of how an overlooked movement of musicians, dancers, and actors championed the ideal of self-realization. These performers, who spanned many backgrounds, identities, genres, and artistic styles, became what he calls the creative counterculture. Artists as varied as Sonny Rollins, John Cage, Anna Halprin, Alice and John Coltrane, and Pauline Oliveros shared an approach to creativity focused on letting go of limiting beliefs and subverting oppressive social norms. Through colorful vignettes, Kapusta reveals how these artists made their art and how their approach spread beyond the performing arts to influence such fields as psychology, education, and wellness. Ultimately, these creative counterculturists came to define a new vision of an America where everyone was free to be themselves, together.

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Elizabeth Cotton, "UberTherapy: The New Business of Mental Health" (Policy Press, 2025)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

UberTherapy: The New Business of Mental Health (Policy Press, 2025) is the essential guide to the rise of digital therapy for anyone working in, researching or using mental health services.

This timely book explores the emerging uberization of therapy through algorithmic control, datafication of despair and attrition by design. Analysing the deployment of e-commerce business models, this book makes a compelling case that the rise of 'therapeutic Tinder' allows would-be clients to sidestep the deep, uncomfortable work of therapy. UberTherapy offers a defence for the irreplaceable value of human therapists and a roadmap for preserving the legacies of real therapy in the digital world.

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Aliza Einhorn, "Tarot of the Unconscious: Uncovering the Hidden Link Between Psychoanalysis and the Cards" (Weiser Books, 2026)

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

I spoke with author Aliza Einhorn about her new book Tarot of the Unconscious: Uncovering the Hidden Link Between Psychoanalysis and the Cards (Weiser Books, 2026) United States: Red Wheel Weiser. Aliza Einhorn is a Psychoanalyst in training at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies in New York City. She's a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a longtime tarot reader, tarot teacher, and astrologer.

“My book is a method” Einhorn tells me. The method is free association. This is the link to psychoanalysis. Einhorn wants us to free associate to the cards as one free associates to dream imagery.

“Let’s break it down. In any given Tarot card, as in a dream, there are images, visual details (what Freud might call the manifest meaning), and then there are the hidden meanings beneath those images (what Freud might call the latent meaning), which we only discover after we analyze it.” (p.44)

She is enthusiastic about the “infinite” meanings of the cards. In Einhorn’s world Card 7, The Chariot, is on Freud’s royal road to the unconscious. While Tarot books have historically engaged with Jungian though, Einhorn’s book is a “love letter to Freud.”

One of the book's most striking ideas is that people develop a transference to their deck — that how you treat your cards mirrors relational patterns from your past. In this interview we discussed an approach to transference adopted by Modern Psychoanalysis and referenced a foundational paper on countertransference. Listeners interested in the specifics of this approach to transference can find it here Clevans, E. L. (1983) On Countertransference. Modern Psychoanalysis 8:129-130.

Einhorn concludes “if there’s one thing I want to teach you in this book, one thing I hope you will remember, it’s that your unconscious is your friend. It’s good to get to know it.”

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Philip Norman, "Mr. Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles" (Da Capo Press, 2026)

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Philip Norman's latest biography, Mr. Moonlight (DaCapo Press, 2026) is the definitive, comprehensive biography of Brian Epstein--the man who built the Beatles. There will never be another pop manager like Brian Epstein, the young record-retailer from Liverpool behind the 20th century's greatest romance. Having achieved his much-derided aim of making the Beatles "bigger than Elvis," Brian went on to make them bigger than any earthly instrument could measure. Only a handful of years older, he nonetheless referred them as "the Boys," protecting and pampering them like the children he could never hope to have. Due to his homosexuality--and possibly his Jewishness--Brian received no public honor (or even thanks) for this incalculable contribution to Britain's exports, let alone the national morale. He may not have been the best dealmaker for the Beatles, but in his hands, their guiding principles were always good taste, niceness to their fans, and value for money. Yet his only tangible memorials are a blue plaque marking his former office in London's theatreland and a modest bronze statue near the site of his family's electrical goods store in Liverpool. Mr. Moonlight draws on a cache of never-before-heard audio interviews to tell the story of this hugely complex, self-contradictory, and ultimately tragic character. From his Pre-Beatles years--the eight different expensive private schools at which he failed to shine, his problematic career as an army National Serviceman, his vague ambitions to be a couturier--through his management of the Beatles, where he turned a quartet of unruly young musicians in cracked black leather into a worldwide religion, up to his supposedly "incautious" overdoses in 1967 at aged 32, and the calamity that followed. As John Lennon said upon hearing the news, "Then we're fucked!"--and they were.

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Cleo Nisse, "Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Between the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, European painting underwent a profound transformation as artists increasingly painted on canvas instead of wood or walls. Nowhere was more important to this shift than Venice, where painters experimented with canvas with remarkable creativity and innovation. In Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting (Princeton University Press, 2026), Dr. Cleo Nisse investigates why Venetian artists adopted canvas and how it revolutionized their art between 1400 and 1600.

Intertwining approaches from art history and art conservation, and featuring stunning new photographs that show details as never before, the book presents groundbreaking research based on close study of Venetian artworks, archival sources, art-making treatises, and early modern art criticism. It sheds new light on the materiality of early modern canvas, its production and supply, and the influence of climate on its use. The book offers fresh interpretations of iconic works and important concepts such as pittura di macchia and non finito, and demonstrates how canvas contributed to the radical new style of painters such as Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. But above all else, it shows how canvas changed the making and meaning of paintings.

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Benjamin J. Nourse, "The Power of Publishing in Early Modern Tibetan Buddhism"(Lexington Books, 2025)

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Power of Publishing in Early Modern Tibetan Buddhism (Lexington Books, 2025) is a rich exploration of the history of Tibetan books during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Looking at this ‘golden age’ of book production, Benjamin Nourse focuses on two core topics: What was driving Tibetan publishing in the eighteenth century, and what happened as a result of that growth? How should we understand Tibetan Buddhist ideas and practices related to religious books?

Through individual chapters on publishing in Lhasa, Qing Beijing, Derge, Chone, and Labrang, Nourse shows how Tibetan books operated simultaneously as religious objects, political tools, and markers of cultural authority. Across each, we see books being used in different ways: as a way of cementing the authority of the Fifth Dalai Lama, as part of Beijing’s emergence as a major center for Tibetan Buddhist publishing, and as objects that people engaged with through reading, chanting, translation, and ritual practice.

This book should naturally appeal to those interested in Tibetan Buddhism, religion, and early modern Asia — but it is also a valuable contribution to book history, print culture, and the study of how the production of books can shape political authority and religious practice.

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Kirill Shamiev, "Imperfect Equilibrium: Civil-Military Relations in Russian Defense Policymaking" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Why has Russia's military struggled to adapt to the challenges of contemporary warfare? Despite years of attempts to improve its military capabilities, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 revealed a crippling lack of skill, discipline and equipment. Non-material factors, in particular the power struggle between military and civilian leaderships, have hindered reform of its armed forces: with officers dominating defence policy, the Kremlin has struggled to implement the necessary changes. In Civil-Military Relations in Russian Defense Policymaking (Oxford UP, 2026) Kirill Shamiev explores the political reasons behind Russia's poor military preparedness for the war in Ukraine. He demonstrates how a seemingly obedient military has frequently blocked civilian reforms, taking advantage of weak oversight mechanisms. The Kremlin's efforts to centralise control and make the armed forces personally accountable to President Vladimir Putin harmed institutional learning, cementing a conservative civil-military status quo. While this protected the military from civil society interference and ensured Putin's autocratic rule, it ultimately limited the pace and scope of change. Analysing three cases of reform between 2000 and 2021,Imperfect Equilibrium offers critical insights into the relationship between civilian control and military effectiveness in Russia. Drawing on extensive qualitative and quantitative evidence--including interviews, parliamentary speeches, media reports and surveys--it shows how unchecked autonomy can undermine military development, even in authoritarian contexts.

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Gina M. Pérez, "Sanctuary People: Faith-Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities" (NYU Press, 2024)

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In her latest book, Sanctuary People: Faith Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities (NYU Press, 2024), Dr. Gina Perez explores sanctuary practices in Ohio, locating them in broader local and national efforts to provide refuge and care in the face of the challenges facing Latina/o communities in a moment of increased surveillance, migrant detention, displacement, and economic and social marginalization. Pérez argues for a conceptualization of sanctuary that is capacious, placing support of Puerto Ricans displaced in the wake of Hurricane Maria within the broader practices of sanctuary and expanding our understandings of the movement that addresses the precarious conditions of Latinas/os beyond migration status.
Based on four years of ethnographic research and interviews at the local, state, and national levels, Sanctuary People offers a compelling exploration of the ways in which faith communities are creating new activist strategies and enacting new forms of solidarity, working within the sometimes conflicting ideological space between religion and activism to answer the call of justice and live their faith.

Dr. Gina Perez is a cultural anthropologist and chair of the Department of Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College. She is the author of two award-winning books—The Near Northwest Side Story: Gender, Migration and Puerto Rican Families (2004, University of California Press) and Citizen, Student, Soldier: Latina/o Youth, JROTC and the American Dream (2015, New York University Press). Pérez's research interests include Latinas/os, youth, militarism, gender, migration, urban ethnography, and faith-based organizing. Her new project focuses on sanctuary movements and multiethnic faith-based organizing among Latina/o communities in Ohio.

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John K. Roth, "Saving the American Dream: Meditations for Dark Times" (Wipf and Stock, 2026)

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The American Dream at its best is an ethical ideal and a moral compass. If respected and sustained, it can guide the United States through Trump 2.0. Anchored in the US Constitution, Saving the American Dream: Meditations for Dark Times (Wipf and Stock, 2026) features meditations for dark times. Meditations are intentional acts of focused attention.Its fundamental premise is that individuals moved to communal action by warned awareness and committed resistance are indispensable to meet challenges that grow by the day. Guidance from reliable American writers—philosophers, historians, novelists, poets, essayists, religious thinkers—maps the way.

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Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Why has the Catholic Church in India become so engaged in environmental initiatives? And what does the wider Indian political context defined by an assertive Hindu nationalism mean for the ability of church actors to pursue environmental agendas? In this episode, we are joined by Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Nihar Gokhale who have examined these questions in the Indian state of Goa, focusing on church activities and outreach in the domain of sustainable agriculture and agroecology.

You can read more about their research on the relationship between Christian environmentalism, agroecology and the rise of Hindu majoritarianism in the edited volume Religion and Ecological Crisis: Responses from Asia, published by Leiden University Press.

Kenneth Bo Nielsen is a Social Anthropologist at the University of Oslo in Norway.

Nihar Gokhale is a DPhil student in International Development at the Oxford Department of International Development.

Mette Halskov Hansen, your host, is a Professor of China Studies at the University of Oslo.

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Emily De Angelis, "The Stones of Burren Bay" (Latitude 46 Publishing, 2024)

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with YA author Emily De Angelis about her acclaimed novel, The Stones of Burren Bay (Latitude 46 Publishing, 2024).

In a tragic car accident, 15-year-old Norie loses her father while her distant mother is injured. Her prized possession, an antique artist’s box that traveled from Ireland with her great-great-grandmother, is destroyed along with her deep connection to her art. As Norie grapples with her self-identity, obscured by grief and anger, she and her physically and emotionally fragile mother are forced to relocate. With no other relatives to rely on, they call on the kindness of her mother’s oldest friend Dahlia and her daughter Wil, who run the Jolly Pot Tearoom and Burren Bay Lighthouse Museum on Manitoulin Island. Dahlia introduces Norie to ancient Irish Celtic spiritualism and opens the thin veil between the past and present where Norie encounters the echo of a century’s old spirit, Oonagh. Through Oonagh’s own story Norie comes to terms with her father’s betrayal and death and rediscovers her passion for art. As her mother’s emotional wounds reach a crisis, Norie realizes they must face their guilt and grief together in order to heal and become reunited as mother and daughter.

Emily De Angelis comes from a long line of visual artists, musicians, and storytellers. She was born in Sudbury, Ontario where she lived and taught special needs students for 30 years. A graduate of the Humber School of Writing, her western and Japanese-style poems as well as short stories have been published in various anthologies. The Stones of Burren Bayis her first YA novel. Emily now lives in Woodstock, Ontario while spending summers on Manitoulin Island.

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Introducing Periodically: A UC Press Journals Podcast with Journals Director David Famiano

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 22:48:00 -0000

1. A complete list of University of California Press journals is available at UC Press Journals

2. Clare E. B. Cannon; Advancing sustainable transitions: A spatial analysis of socio-environmental dynamics of landfills across the United States. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 12 January 2024; 12 (1): 00101: Link

3. Morrison, Matthew D. Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States. Oakland: University of California Press, 2024. Available at: UC Press Bookstore

4. Matthew D. Morrison; Race, Blacksound, and the (Re)Making of Musicological Discourse. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 December 2019; 72 (3): 781–823: Link

6. Jennifer Lynn Peterson; Scenes of Destruction and Beauty: Sponsored Film, Women Reformers, and the Save-the-Redwoods League. Feminist Media Histories 1 April 2023; 9 (2): 43–75: Link

If you are interested in supporting the work of UC Press and its Journals Program, please consider making a charitable donation to the UC Press Foundation. To learn more about the UC Press Foundation and how to contribute, please visit UC Press Website.

David Famiano is the Journals Director at the University of California Press

Jessica Chesnutt is the Journals Manager at the University of California Press.

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Michelle Chase and Isabella Cosse eds., "The Cuban Revolution and the New Left: Transnational Histories of Gender, Sexuality, and Family" (U Florida Press, 2026)

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Understanding overlooked dimensions of the Cuban Revolution and its impact on the global left in the 1960s and beyond. This volume, The Cuban Revolution and the New Left: Transnational Histories of Gender, Sexuality, and Family (University of Florida Press, 2026) reconsiders revolutionary Cuba's global influence by shifting the focus from high-level political leaders to perspectives traditionally sidelined, offering new insights into how everyday lives, family dynamics, and notions of gender and sexuality impacted revolutionary transformation. Its expansive scope uncovers ties between Cuba and Latin America, the United States, Africa, and Asia, examining the interplay of global forces including new models of mass consumption, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, and national liberation struggles. Chapters include analyses of Chinese reinterpretations of a Cuban play, Angela Davis's influential visits to the island, Cuba's complex relations with Black militants in Angola, and a Mexican transgender and disability activist who reimagined Che Guevara's legacy. They also present research on Cuba's solidarity campaigns with Vietnam, foreign journalists who covered the revolution, the role of consumption and fashion, and the lasting impact of the revolution's refugee policies on exiled children and families from the Southern Cone. Through its interdisciplinary sociocultural approach, this volume challenges conventional top-down narratives by foregrounding the interplay between grassroots actors and transnational affairs. It is an essential resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in the multilayered stages of the Cuban Revolution and its continued relationship with global politics and culture. A volume in the series Caribbean Crossroads: Race, Identity, and Freedom Struggles, edited by Lillian Guerra, Devyn Spence Benson, April Mayes, and Solsiree del Moral Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Michelle Chase is an associate professor of history at Pace University.

Isabella Cosse is a professor of history at Universidad Nacional de San Martín and researcher at Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)

Katie L. Coldiron is a librarian and doctoral candidate in history at Florida International University.

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Charles J. Stivale, "Unfolding the Deleuze Seminars, 1970–1987: Summaries and Commentary" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

From the inside flap:

“A rich resource of Deleuze’s research that is unavailable in his published writing

Includes summaries of 216 seminar sessions available in transcripts and recordings
Summaries are based on research for the Deleuze Seminars project (co-directed by Charles J. Stivale and Daniel W. Smith), where full transcripts and translations, to which readers will have access for simultaneous or subsequent consultation, have been developed by an international team of scholar-translators
Alongside summaries, an attached critical apparatus provides references to corresponding links within Deleuze’s writings, seminars, and other sources to facilitate additional research

The texts in this volume - summaries of the 216 seminars taught by Gilles Deleuze - provide unique insight into the latter half of Deleuze’s teaching career. Deleuze understood his seminars as a laboratory for developing his ongoing research, and this volume is a guide to the creative becomings in the development of his philosophical works through teaching.
From Anti-Oedipus (1972) to The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (1987), Deleuze examined a wide range of philosophical perspectives in pursuit of successive thematic topics. These summaries and commentaries serve as incitement for further research, allowing readers familiar with Deleuze’s work to find new angles of approach and providing greater access to readers coming to his work for the first time."

New Books Network:

Stivale, Charles J., and Daniel W. Smith. (2025-10-21). "Gilles Deleuze, On Painting"

Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour:

Stivale, Charles J., Taylor Adkins, and Cooper Cherry. (2025-08-12). "Deleuze and Guattari – How Do You Make Yourself A Body Without Organs"
Stivale, Charles J., Daniel W. Smith. (2023-06-29). "Deleuze on Painting and Cinema".

The Deleuze Seminars: here

Nathan Smith is a PhD candidate in Music Theory at Yale University

nathan.smith@yale.edu

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Carola E. Lorea, "Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal" (Wesleyan UP, 2026)

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal (Wesleyan University Press, 2026) brings together insights from religion, anthropology, sound, and migration studies to explore the sonic traces of untouchability and forced migration across the Bay of Bengal. Based on an immersive, multi-sited ethnography with Matua devotees—a low-caste, Bengali-speaking Dalit religious community fragmented by Partition, war, and postcolonial displacement—the book explores how sound sustains identity across fractured geographies. Using richly detailed descriptions, the book follows traveling archives of song, story, and ritual performance through West Bengal, Bangladesh, and the Andaman Islands. These sonic practices—congregational singing, drumming, and itinerant storytelling—forge belonging beyond nation-states, connecting the Matua's fifty million members across borders and seas. In a world dominated by visual culture, Communities of Sound centers listening as a mode of knowledge and care, revealing how sound shapes our sense of self and cosmos. More than scriptures or doctrine, it is sound—entangled with authority and power—that binds this transregional Dalit movement and animates its collective action. The book is generously illustrated and references an online companion with video and audio examples.

Author bio: Carola E. Lorea is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology University of Tübingen, at the University of Tübingen, Germany, where she leads the ERC-funded project MANTRAMS: Mantras in Religion, Media, and Society in Global Southern Asia. She is the author of Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman (2016), and editor with Rosalind Hackett of Religious Sounds Beyond the Global North: Senses, Media and Power (2024).

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Xiaobing Li, "China’s Mahan: Admiral Liu Huaqing and the Rise of the Modern Chinese Navy (Naval Institute Press, 2026)

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 2012, China debuted its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, a refurbished Soviet-era ship from Ukraine. The debut of the Liaoning was largely thanks to a longtime pressure campaign by Liu Huaqing, the onetime leader of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and the man responsible for transforming China’s naval strategy. (China now has three carriers, and is building a fourth).

When Liu began his career, China saw its military victories as coming primarily via land warfare; Liu, over decades, forced China to take naval combat seriously. Xiaobing Li writes about Liu’s life in his book China’s Mahan: Admiral Liu Huaqing and the Rise of the Modern Chinese Navy (Naval Institute Press, 2026), from his early career in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War and finishing with his long push to start China’s aircraft carrier program.

Xiaobing Li, professor of history and Don Betz Endowed Chair in International Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma, is the author of The Dragon in the Jungle, Attack at Chosin, Building Ho’s Army, History of Taiwan, and The Cold War in East Asia. He is the executive editor of the Chinese Historical Review. Li served in the PLA in China.

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Hamsa Stainton and Anna Lee White, "Sanskrit Hymns Across Traditions: Studying Stotras" (Routledge, 2026)

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Sanskrit hymns of praise (stotra/stuti/stava) have been popular and influential within multiple religious traditions for thousands of years. Sanskrit hymns remain lively, meaningful parts of the religious lives of countless Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains today, and new stotras continue to be composed and recited around the world. The academic study of these hymns has made notable progress in recent decades as scholars have paid increasing attention to such compositions. A valuable pedagogical resource for educators teaching about Asian religions and literature, especially in comparative contexts, Sanskrit Hymns Across Traditions: Studying Stotras (Routledge, 2026) also establishes the foundation for future research and scholarship on a genre of religious poetry popular across South Asian religious traditions.

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The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Research shows that honesty is the single most important characteristic a person can possess when it comes to liking them, respecting them, and understanding them. But honesty is eroding in many areas of society today, as we are confronted with honesty crises in politics, education, relationships, religion, celebrity culture, and technology.

Over the past 50 years, no single philosopher has offered a comprehensive exploration of honesty—how we define it, how it diverges in private and public spaces, and how it depends on shared perceptions of reality. Dr. Christian Miller addresses this gap, while showing how modern life increasingly rewards dishonesty, with profound consequences for our relationships, institutions and culture—a phenomenon he names The Honesty Crisis (Oxford UP, 2026).

From cases such as sermon plagiarism to AI-assisted cheating to the rise of fake news, Dr. Miller explores how dishonesty has become easier, more pervasive and even normalized in our society. Yet The Honesty Crisis does more than diagnose the problem: it proposes concrete, practical steps to preserve honesty where it matters most.

Guest: Dr. Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. The author of numerous articles and books, he also directed The Honesty Project, one of the largest research initiatives ever undertaken on honesty.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She holds a Ph.D. in history which she uses to explore which stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. She is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You help support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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The Jewish Press Today

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1897 when the Forverts was founded, the need for a Jewish newspaper—a Yiddish newspaper that is—was self-evident: millions of Yiddish speaking Jewish immigrants needed a reliable daily source of news in their own language. In the first few decades of the 20th century the Yiddish press blossomed in New York, peaking at five different daily papers and an estimated daily readership of approximately one million in New York City alone in the early 1920s. The major form of media for immigrant Jews and their offspring, the Yiddish press provided its readers with everything from international, national, and local news, to original and translated literature, both high and low, literary and theater criticism, politics, humor, advice columns, and more. Yiddish newspapers taught immigrants how to vote and even how to play baseball.

Today, nearly 125 years after the first issue of the Forverts, the vast majority of American Jews speak and read English and can get their news from the mainstream English language press. And yet, the Jewish press—now mostly in English—remains an important journalistic outlet for topics of particular interest to the Jewish community. From Jewish TV shows, movies, books, music, and restaurants to the happenings of Jewish institutions and communities; from the Jewish angles and stories behind the news, to in-depth focus on topics such as Israel and antisemitism; Jewish publications fill the gaps of the mainstream press for a Jewish readership hungry for today's Jewish stories.

Join us for a conversation with editors of today's major American Jewish publications about the role they play in the Jewish world. Moderated by Gal Beckerman (The New York Times Book Review) this panel will feature Alana Newhouse (Tablet Magazine), Jodi Rudoren (The Forward), and Philissa Cramer (Jewish Telegraphic Agency). This panel will explore questions including: Now that American Jews have so clearly assimilated into American society what is the need for a Jewish press? What audience do the editors of these publications target? How do they serve the American Jewish community as it grows diverse and diffuse?

This panel was originally held on September 13, 2021.

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Marta Dominguez Diaz, "Tunisia's Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Tunisia’s Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority (Edinburgh UP, 2025) tells the captivating story of those Andalusians, descendants of Muslims expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century, who sought refuge in Tunisia. Rather than simply replicating Iberian traditions, Andalusian culture in Tunisia stands as a vibrant and evolving phenomenon, shaped by complex dynamics of interaction and adaptation over four centuries. The book dismantles the romanticised view of Andalusian culture as a mere transplantation of al-Andalus, analysing distinctive cultural features that distinguish Andalusians as an ethnic group within Tunisia’s diverse social fabric. Drawing on historical records and contemporary ethnographic data, including personal accounts and family archives, the book sheds light on how Andalusians navigate their unique cultural position amidst a Tunisian national narrative often focused on Arabo-Muslim homogeneity. By examining the complexities of cultural preservation and assimilation, the book offers a nuanced perspective on Andalusian identity, revealing its dynamism and resilience in the face of changing social, political, and economic circumstances.

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Antizionism as a Distinct Anti-Jewish Bigotry with Adam Louis-Klein

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In contemporary discourse, antizionism is treated either as legitimate political critique or as bigotry only when it resembles recognizable forms of classical antisemitism. This article challenges that assumption. I argue that antizionism is a coherent ideological formation with a distinct genealogy, stable core tropes, and a specific political logic. Tracing its development across the Nazi–Islamist axis, Soviet propaganda, and Western settler-colonial theory, I identify a recurring triad of libels—colonizer, apartheid, genocide—that compose its discourse. Combining genealogical reconstruction with anthropological description, I show that antizionism constitutes a political inversion of classical antisemitism. Whereas classical antisemitism was anti-assimilationist, casting Jews as alien outsiders, antizionism is assimilationist, denying the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood and indigeneity. This inversion reclassifies the Jew by reversing the cultural categories through which Jews are imagined, recoding the Jew from non-European infiltrator to white colonizer. Recognizing this structure clarifies antizionism as a distinct contemporary formation of anti-Jewish bigotry.

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What Running Your Own Imprint for 15 Years Teaches You about Books, Readers, and Risk with Sarah Crichton

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Great books don't happen by accident. Sarah Crichton, one of publishing's most respected voices and the founder of Sarah Crichton Books at FSG, joins host Sarah Russo for an unfiltered conversation about what it takes to acquire, edit, and launch books that last. They cover everything: crashing books in secret, fighting for the right jacket design, discovering A Long Way Gone by child soldier, Ismeal Beah, the differences between being a publisher and an editor, what to understand about hiring a developmental editor, and more. Whether you're an author, aspiring editor, or publishing professional, this episode is a masterclass.

For more information on Sarah Crichton’s work, visit her website: Sarah’s website or connect with her on LinkedIn

Books mentioned in this episode:

“Cyberwar” by Kathleen Hall Jamieson

“A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah

“What Is the What” by Dave Eggers

“A Mighty Heart” by Mariane Pearl, co-written with Sarah Crichton

“Portrait of a Marriage: A Memoir” by Judy Crichton and Jennifer Crichton

“Fierce Attachments” by Vivian Gornick

“The Odd Woman and the City” by Vivian Gornick

“M Train” by Patti Smith

Key Moments

00:44 — How Magazine Editors Think About Readers Sarah Crichton explains how her magazine background gave her a superpower most book editors lack: never forgetting the reader exists.

02:27 — What It Really Means to "Crash" a Book Sarah C. breaks down the secret, adrenaline-fueled process of rushing a book to publication in weeks instead of years.

05:09 — The Editor vs. Publisher Divide (And Why It's Disappearing) Hear about the traditional difference between an editor and a publisher — and why the line between them is blurring

07:22 — How She Turned a Rejected Manuscript into a National Phenomenon

Sarah C. tells the story of discovering “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah — a book passed over by every publisher — and how a deliberate cover strategy and the first-ever Starbucks book pick turned it into a classroom staple.

14:58 — What Sarah Looks for in a Manuscript (and Why a Great Title Matters More Than You Think)

Sarah reveals what makes her sit up when reading a submission, and the brutal reality of how critics decide what to review.

17:08 — Developmental Editors, Self-Publishing, and "Hitting the Lottery" Sarah gets candid about the economics of book doctoring, shares the story of self-publishing her late mother's memoir, and explains the role of a developmental editor.

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Ciruce A. Movahedi-Lankarani, "Accelerant: Energy Infrastructures and the Natural World in Making Modern Iran" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Between the late 1940s and the end of the twentieth century, natural gas became Iran's bedrock energy source. Billed as a futuristic fuel for a future world power, gas became an avenue for the country's developmentalist ambitions. The ability to build technologically sophisticated infrastructures served as a powerful tool of state legitimation, both before and after the 1979 Revolution, and tied top-down politics of modernization to bottom-up feelings of national belonging. Accelerant: Energy Infrastructures and the Natural World in Making Modern Iran (Stanford UP, 2026) analyzes the interwoven histories of energy, development, and the environment inIran. Following the movement of natural gas from underground deposits, through infrastructures of refining and distribution, and into everyday life, Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani explores the roles of development planners, oil firms, industrialists, engineers, and consumers—as well as the mountain ranges, sedimentary rock, and natural gas itself—to show how natural gas emerged as a crucial enabler of industrialization and a strong impetus for resource nationalism. Tracing the transformation of gas from a waste product into a vital resource, this book offers a history of anticolonial developmentalism in Iran—revealing a key driver toward intensified energy use that suggests why and how societies in the Global South became voracious consumers of fossil fuel energy.

Ciruce Movahedi-Lankarani is the Farhang Foundation Early Career Chair in Iranian Studies and Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies and Environmental Studies at the University of Southern California.
Filippo De Chirico is a Ph.D. Candidate in Energy History at Roma Tre University. His research focuses on the history of the Italian natural gas sector.

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Infrastructure, Nickel, and the Politics of Polyalignment in Indonesia

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Indonesia is often framed as a key arena of China-Japan-US competition in the Second Cold War. In this episode, we talk with Trissia Wijaya about her book on the political economy of Chinese and Japanese infrastructure financing in Indonesia. She challenges the view that it is simply an instrument of competition and instead situates infrastructure finance within Indonesia’s own development strategies. She shows how development assistance, commercial loans, export credits, and public-private partnerships are shaped by contestation among Chinese and Japanese capital, as well as Indonesian civil society, state actors, and labor. We also link these dynamics to the country’s changing industrial policy, from energy infrastructure to Nickel processing to the planned capital of Nusantara, asking how Indonesia uses strategies of polyalignment and foreign finance to pursue its own developmental ambitions.

—

Trissia Wijaya is a McKenzie Research Fellow at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this role, she worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Asia-Japan Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, and taught at the College of Global Liberal Arts. She received her PhD in Politics from Murdoch University, Australia, and remains affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow at the Indo-Pacific Research Centre there. She has also worked at the Asian Development Bank and UNDP Indonesia, cultivating an interest in the political economy of development and evidence-informed policymaking. Her research spans green infrastructure financing, industrial policy, and critical mineral development. She has conducted intensive fieldwork across Indonesia, Japan, and China.

The Political Economy of Japanese and Chinese Infrastructure Financing Governance: Organizing Alliances, Institutions, and Ideology (Bristol University Press 2025)

Indonesia, nickel, and the political economy of polyalignment in the Second Cold War in Third World Quarterly

An EV-fix for Indonesia: the green development-resource nationalist nexus in Environmental Policy

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Hilary R. Buxton, "Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain (U Chicago Press, 2026) examines how imperial precedents and racial ideologies shaped the medical treatments that the British state offered to several million Black and brown servicemen during World War I. In recovering the voices and experiences of these soldiers, Hilary R. Buxton illustrates how they navigated the institutional culture of the imperial military and how they helped to shape health and welfare systems well beyond the interwar period.

The Great War was the first time that troops and volunteers from nearly all reaches of the Empire participated in the war effort side-by-side. Despite official attempts at segregation, colonial troops met in trenches, mobile camps, casualty clearing stations, hospital ships, and convalescent homes. Just as importantly, those organizing treatment encountered men of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures from across and beyond the British Empire. For British officials, this moment offered an opportunity to remake colonial efficiency and medical knowledge. Yet, as Buxton shows, colonial servicemen were not passive subjects in a wartime laboratory: they were vocal participants who demanded a say in the therapies prescribed to them, the rations they required, the psychiatric care they received, and the prosthetics with which they were fitted. Together, these encounters profoundly remade colonial relations, reshaping imperial science, administration, and colonial understandings of subjecthood.
Disabled Empire pushes literature on the war and medicine outside its national, Eurocentric focus to confront the colonial logic of global health inequity.

Hilary R. Buxton is assistant professor of history at Kenyon College.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.

YouTube Channel: here

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Marcia Bonato Warren, "Movement and IdentityMulticulturalism, Somatic Awareness and Embodied Code-Switching" (Singing Dragon, 2025)

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Movement and Identity: Multiculturalism, Somatic Awareness and Embodied Code-Switching (Singing Dragon, 2025) is a trauma-informed approach to counselling and bodywork explores the ways in which varying facets of identity and culture manifest in the body, allowing a much more nuanced, person-centred approach to client care. Marcia Bonato Warren, MA, MA, LPC describes how our bodies interpret our identities, often informed by cultural norms, communication styles, trauma, and systems of power and oppression. Therapists and bodyworkers reading this book will have the opportunity to engage personally and professionally, learning to build on their own somatic awareness in order to engage with compassionate curiosity rather than resistance when confronted with identity-based differences. Each section uses the SIA Loop, a mechanism representing three entry-points we use to process information: Sensation, Interpretation, Action, which supports the deeper work offered by the Identity Expression Infinity Loop, where identities are invited to move with strength and skill. These pioneering tools allow readers to examine their own somatic experiences, beliefs, behaviours, and choices, all of which is supplemented with journal prompts and questions. In guiding readers in how to interpret the body's expression of identity, this unique guide maximises the potential of therapists to foster change, increase empathy, and nurture connection through trauma-informed, somatically aware bodywork.

Marcia Bonato Warren, MA, MA, LPC is a Somatic Counselor/Body Psychotherapist and Interculturalist with over 10 years of experience in the fields of somatic counseling and education, as well as 15 years of experience in international educational exchange and Native American policy and advocacy. She works with individuals and groups in the areas of cultural awareness, social justice, and intercultural communication through a trauma-informed lens, and is passionate about developing the potential in human beings to embrace diversity through cultural embodiment and the sharing of stories and creativity. Marcia is an enrolled member of the Santa Clara Pueblo (Tewa) in the state of New Mexico, U.S. and is of Brazilian-Italian heritage.

Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).

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Valerie Tiberius, "What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money―or work for justice? To have children―or travel the world? The things we care about in life―family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals―often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don’t always know what we really want, or how to define success. This insightful book offers invaluable advice about living well by understanding your values and resolving the conflicts that frustrate their fulfillment.

What Do You Want Out of Life?: A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters (Princeton University Press, 2024) is an essential guide to helping you understand what really matters to you and how you can thoughtfully pursue it.

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Cyanne E. Loyle, "Escaping Justice: Impunity for State Crimes in the Age of Accountability" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Now more than ever, the international community plays a central role in pressing governments to hold themselves to account. Despite pressure to adhere to global human rights norms, governments continue to benefit from impunity for their past crimes. In an age of accountability, how do states continue to escape justice?

Escaping Justice: Impunity for State Crimes in the Age of Accountability (Cambridge UP, 2025)presents a theory of strategic adaptation that explains the conditions under which governments adopt transitional justice without a genuine commitment to holding state forces to account. Cyanne E. Loyle develops this theory through in-depth fieldwork conducted over the last ten years in Rwanda, Uganda, and Northern Ireland. Research in each of these cases reveals a unique strategy of adaptation: coercion, containment, and concession.

Using evidence from these cases, Loyle traces the conditions under which a government pursues its chosen strategies and the outcomes of transitional justice.

Our guest is Professor Cyanne Loyle, who is the Political Science Board of Visitors Early Career Professor of Political Science at Penn State University and a Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).

Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).

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Catherine Fletcher, "The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on the battlefield by 1440; later in that century Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for a faster-firing, more portable handgun that could be hidden beneath a cloak. As the gun proliferated in society, it became both a means of self-defence and a threat to civic order. In The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires (Princeton University Press, 2026), historian Catherine Fletcher explores the emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy and beyond, describing the social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun from innovative military technology to widely used personal accessory.
Fletcher shows that as guns became smaller and the new wheellock mechanism made concealed carry possible, Italian states increasingly tried to control their use—even as they viewed firearms as necessary for their militias. In the end, Fletcher reports, the importance of civic defence trumped the concern for social order. As guns became ever more acceptable, stories of how firearms aided Europeans’ overseas conquests created a new and more positive image for a weapon once considered the devil’s work. Debates over the regulation of firearms five centuries ago—which included arguments over the restriction of gun ownership, the use of guns for self-defence and the regulation of an armed militia—in many ways anticipate discussions about gun control today. Fletcher’s groundbreaking account sheds new light on how governments weighed the competing priorities of defence and social order as they set out to build empires.

Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of several books on early modern Italy, including The Roads to Rome, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance and The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de’ Medici.

YouTube Channel: here

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Christina Williams "Work of Fiction: Making a Living from Writing in the UK" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Just how difficult is a career as a writer? In Work of Fiction: Making a Living from Writing in the UK (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024) Christina Williams, a Lecturer in Media Communications at Bath Spa University examines contemporary writing as a paradoxical and precarious occupation. Foregrounding the experiences of a range of different writers, the book shows the range of work writers actually do to sustain their lives, along with the ideas and ideologies that help them to cope with the complexity and contradictions of their vocation. Rich with narratives of the love, luck and magic associated with the contemporary publishing industry, the book will be of interest across the arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in reading about writing!

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Where Harlem Rests at the Woodlawn Cemetery

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A cemetery as open-air museum? Historian and award-winning author of Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal, Eric K. Washington thinks so.

In this compelling discussion, Washington talks about his newly-completed project revealing the hidden stories of Harlem Renaissance figures buried at the historic Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. Funded by a $50,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the initiative was led by Washington, alongside A’Lelia Bundles, journalist, historian, and great-granddaughter of entrepreneur and icon Madam C.J. Walker.

While the Harlem Renaissance is often told through a handful of well-known names, Where Harlem Rests (available here) allows for a look beyond the spotlight, uncovering the many voices that helped shape the movement, and the community itself, expanding the historical narrative, and honoring a broader, more inclusive legacy of creativity, resilience, and cultural impact that has long deserved recognition.

The Woodlawn Conservancy is the 501c3 not-for-profit support organization for the Woodlawn Cemetery. Woodlawn Cemetery was established in 1863 and spans 400 acres in the Bronx, New York. It is one of the nation’s most distinguished historic cemeteries and a certified Level II Arboretum. In 2011, Woodlawn was designated a National Historic Landmark for its singular importance in the history of the nation and New York City. It is also an active cemetery with ongoing burials and funeral services, and more than 310,000 individuals are memorialized on its grounds. Woodlawn is one of the nation's finest examples of a 19th-century garden cemetery. Its monuments represent some of the best memorial art and architecture in the nation, including nearly 1,300 private mausoleums designed by some of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. The Woodlawn Cemetery is open to the public free of charge 365 days a year from 8:30am - 4:30 pm.

You can find Erik at his website, and on at personal Instagram page, as well as @taggingthepast.

His recommended reading list is available on the Additions to the Archive Substack.

Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer, "Boundaries of Belonging: Sectarianism and Statecraft in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Examining sectarian divergence in the early modern Middle East, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer's study provides a fresh perspective on the Sunni–Shi'i division. Drawing on Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and European sources, Boundaries of Belonging: Sectarianism and Statecraft in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2026) explores the paradox of an Ottoman state that combined rigid ideological discourses with pragmatic governance. Through an analysis of key figures, events, periods, and policies, Boundaries of Belonging reveals how political, economic, and religious forces intersected, challenging simplistic sectarian binaries. Baltacıoğlu-Brammer provides a comprehensive historical account of Ottoman governance during the long sixteenth century, focusing on its relationship with non-Sunni Muslim subjects, particularly the Qizilbash. As both the founders of the Safavid Empire and the largest Shiʿi-affiliated group within the Ottoman realm, the Qizilbash occupied a crucial yet often misunderstood position. Boundaries of Belonging examines their role within the empire, challenging the notion that they were merely persecuted outsiders by highlighting their agency in shaping imperial policies, negotiating their status, and influencing the Ottoman–Safavid rivalry in Anatolia, Kurdistan, and Iraq, and western Iran.

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Naomi Hirahara, "Crown City (A Japantown Mystery)" (Soho Crime, 2026)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Crown City (A Japantown Mystery)" (Soho Crime, 2026), Ryunosuke “Ryui Wada is orphaned at 18, with no family or path left in Japan. He’s lucky when merchants from the states pay for him to get to Pasadena to work in their store selling authentic Japanese merchandise. It’s 1903, and although he’s lonely and confused by American customs, he’s committed to his new life. He thinks he’s starting to fit in, making friends with his roommate, Jack, and falling for a pretty seamstress in his boarding house, but the man whose bed he acquired has gone missing, he’s attacked on the street, and a painting is stolen from Pasadena’s most well-known Japanese artist, Toshio Aoki. The artist then hires Jack and Ryui to find his painting, which just might get them both killed.

Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple traditional mystery series and noir short stories. Her Mas Arai mysteries, which have been published in Japanese, Korean and French, feature a Los Angeles gardener and Hiroshima survivor who solves crimes. Her first historical mystery, Clark and Division, which won a Mary Higgins Clark Award, follows a Japanese American family’s move to Chicago in 1944 after being released from a California wartime detention center. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Naomi has also written numerous non-fiction history books and curated exhibitions. She has also written a middle-grade novel, 1001 Cranes. Her follow-up to Clark and Division, Evergreen, was released in August 2023 and was on the USA Today bestseller list for two weeks. And she’s passionate about collecting vintage postcards!

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Rachael Renae, "Prioritize Play: Express Your Creativity, Boost Your Confidence, and Foster Deeper Connection" (Balance, 2026)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Prioritize Play: Express Your Creativity, Boost Your Confidence, and Foster Deeper Connection (Balance, 2026), host of the Chaotic Creatives podcast and play enthusiast Rachael Renae reveals that play is more important to our wellbeing than productivity or career titles and should be prioritized as readily as getting groceries, paying your rent, or getting your work done. When we connect to ourselves through play, we become more curious and intentional in how we express ourselves and connect with other people. Within these pages are:

Mindset shifts to start seeing play in the everyday
Guidance to help you find your version of play
Strategies to turn play into a regular practice
Exercises to release expectations on your creativity
Lessons in becoming your own hype pal

Through introspection and fun challenges, you’ll see that play is the solution toward overcoming our creative blocks, caring less about what people think of us, and showing ourselves that we do deserve to prioritize our creative ideas. Even when they don’t make money. Even if we’re not “good” at them. Even if they’re not a “traditional” creative outlet. Because we all deserve our version of our Big, Juicy Life!

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Jonathon W. Penney, "Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age (Cambridge UP, 2025), Jonathon W. Penney explores the increasing weaponization of surveillance, censorship, and new technology to repress and control us. With corporations, governments, and extremist actors using big data, cyber-mobs, AI, and other threats to limit our rights and freedoms, concerns about chilling effects – or how these activities deter us from exercising our rights – have become urgent. Penney draws on law, privacy, and social science to present a new conformity theory that highlights the dangers of chilling effects and their potential to erode democracy and enable a more illiberal future. He critiques conventional theories and provides a framework for predicting, explaining, and evaluating chilling effects in a range of contexts. Urgent and timely, Chilling Effects sheds light on the repressive and conforming effects of technology, state, and corporate power, and offers a roadmap of how to respond to their weaponization today and in the future.

You can find more information about Jon at his website: https://jonpenney.com/

Jake Chanenson is a computer science Ph.D. student and law student at the University of Chicago. Broadly, Jake is interested in topics relating to HCI, privacy, and tech policy. Jake’s work has been published in top venues such as ACM’s CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

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Street Level: HUD at 60

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) marked its 60th anniversary. Created amid the optimism and urgency of the civil rights era, HUD embodied a bipartisan commitment to building stronger, more integrated, and equitable cities. How did that vision unfold alongside the music, culture, and politics that shaped urban life?

Street Level, a special audio documentary episode of Soundscapes NYC, explores the intertwined histories of urban policy, housing, and popular culture in the years following HUD’s establishment. Through archival recordings, immersive sound design, and music drawn from the neighborhoods most affected by federal housing decisions, the documentary traces how government policies shaped city life—and how residents responded through creativity, resilience, and community.

Featuring insights from historian and author Bench Ansfield, author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Born In Flames, senior career HUD staff members Kent Watkins and John Finch, and public history scholar Kristin Sylvian, Street Level connects policy decisions to lived experience, revealing how federal housing initiatives shaped the urban landscape—and how music and culture helped sustain joy, identity, and perseverance when city life grew more difficult. Part history, part cultural exploration, and part sonic journey, Street Level offers a powerful new perspective on the forces that have shaped America’s cities.

HOST/PRODUCER: Ryan Purcell

WRITER/PRODUCER: Shelagh Little

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Why Democracy’s Troubles Should Come as No Surprise

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Why have so many democracies become more polarized, unstable, and vulnerable to authoritarianism? And why did so many political observers fail to see it coming? In this episode of the People, Power, Politics podcast, Nic Cheeseman talks to Sheri Berman, Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, about her recent article, “Democracy’s Troubles Should Be No Surprise”, and its powerful argument that democracy’s current troubles follow a familiar historical pattern. Drawing on classic theories of democratic stability, Berman explains how rising inequality, declining social mobility, polarization, and the erosion of cross-cutting cleavages have undermined even long-established democracies – and what policymakers can do in response. This podcast is part of our regular collaboration with the Journal of Democracy.

Read the transcript here

Guest:

Sheri Berman is Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is one of the leading scholars of democracy, liberalism, and political development, and the author of numerous influential books and articles on the historical foundations of democratic stability and crisis. Professor Berman’s recent article, Democracy’s Troubles Should Be No Surprise, published in the Journal of Democracy, explores why rising inequality, polarization, and declining social mobility have left even long-established democracies increasingly vulnerable to instability and authoritarianism. A widely read commentator and public intellectual, Berman’s work bridges academic research and contemporary political debate.

Presenter:

Dr Nic Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham and Founding Director of CEDAR.

The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Join us to better understand the factors that promote and undermine democratic government around the world and follow us on Twitter at @CEDAR_Bham!

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Robin Dembroff, "Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Real Men on Top: How Patriarchy Shapes Our Reality (Oxford University Press, 2026), Robin Dembroff shows us that we don't just live in a patriarchal world. We live in a world that patriarchy taught us to see. Patriarchy is not simply a system where men dominate women, Dembroff argues. It is a deeper reality-shaping force that legitimizes economic exploitation, political injustice, and social cruelty by dividing all of us into the rigid categories of Man, Woman, Animal, and Child.

These categories are presented as natural truths, but Dembroff reveals them as man-made myths--ones that construct a reality in which being characterized as Woman, Animal, or Child marks moral degradation. By no coincidence, feminization, dehumanization, and infantilization are the very degradations used to make a man 'less of a man'.

But this book is more than critique; it's also a guide to transformation especially for those grappling with what it means to be a man under patriarchy. Patriarchy's myths celebrate the identity Man, but these myths are no friend to most men. Promising strength and superiority, they instead fuel isolation, emotional repression, and relentless pressure to prove oneself while propping up systems that enrich the powerful few. Rather than deliver freedom and prosperity, these myths entrap and impoverish. Real Men on Top invites readers to see through them and, in so doing, to find new possibilities for living, relating, and becoming human.

Sharp, daring, and deeply felt, Real Men on Top is a book for anyone who senses that something is deeply wrong with the way we live and wants to understand how we got here, and where we might begin the work of remaking reality.

Robin Dembroff is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale University

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Olivia Rodrigo Blends Past and Present in Her New Album

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

It’s The Pop Culture Professors, and today we react to Olivia Rodrigo's new album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. We analyze the lyrics and the aesthetics of the album, including the notable influence of The Cure and 80s British New Wave in particular. We offer an appreciation of Rodrigo's commitment to song craft and to live performance. And we note with pleasure that, perhaps unusually for a contemporary pop release, this album works as a coherent set of songs placed in an intentional order and with a defined narrative.

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Rebecca Kosick, "Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press" (Wayne State UP, 2026)

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Can publishing change the world? In Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press Rebecca Kosick (Wayne State UP, 2026), an Associate Professor in Comparative Poetry and Poetics at the University of Bristol, tells the story of The Alternative Press. Beginning in Detroit in the late 1960s, initially based in the house of Ann and Ken Mikolowski, the press created a rich and eclectic set of artworks. The story of The Alternative Press is also the story of US art and radical politics from the 1970s into the 1990s, with lessons for art and politics today. Drawing on a huge amount of archival work, interviews, and visual reproductions to analyse both the form and content of The Alternative Press’s activity, the book will be essential reading for arts and humanities scholars, as well as for anyone interested in the history of radical art and culture in the USA.

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Olivier Krischer and Shuxia Chen, "Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s-1980s" (Australian Centre on China in the World, 2025)

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s (Australian Centre on China in the World, 2025) explores four transformative decades of photography in Taiwan, tracing its evolution amid the island’s emergence from Japanese colonialism and integration into Nationalist China, largely under martial law (1949–87). Through a dozen richly illustrated essays and interviews, the book bridges the gap between vigorous Chinese-language scholarship on photography in Taiwan and its limited representation in English. Essays on photographers in the 1950s–60s, including Long Chin-San (Lang Jingshan) (1892-1995), Deng Nan-Guang (1907-1971), Chang Chao-Tang (1943-2024), Liu An-Ming (1928-2022), Hwang Pai-Chi (b. 1931), Hsu Yuan-Fu (1932-2018) and Tsai Hui-Feng (1928-2005), reveal photography’s pivotal role in documenting ‘local’ culture and shaping cultural identity, while challenging ideas of ‘amateur’ and ‘realist’ practices and recognising the importance of transnational connections. Meanwhile, essays on Hsu Jen-Shiu (b.1946), Lin Bo-Liang (b. 1952), Kao Chung-Li (b. 1958), Lien Hui-Ling (b. 1961) and Hou Tsung-Hui (b. 1960), along with interviews sharing the firsthand experiences of Liu Chen-Hsiang (b.1963), Lulu Shur-tzy Hou (1962-2023) and Yao Jui-Chung (b.1969), highlight the experience of photography in 1970s–80s Taiwan, as both witness and agent of social transformation, addressing issues such as environmental protection, mental health and gender politics, as well as being a crucial vehicle for the transdisciplinary nature of contemporary art, theatre, cinema and performance in Taiwan at that time.

Chen Shuxia is a historian and curator of Chinese art. Her research concerns art collectives, diasporic artistic practice, and reciprocal relations between people and objects. Her most recent books include Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s (2025), Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature (2024) and A Home for Photography Learning: the Friday Salon, 1977-1980 (2024). Her most recent curated exhibitions include “Merchants of Haymarket: the Making of Sydney’s Chinatown” (2026), “The trace is not a presence…” (2025), “Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature” (2024). Chen is the inaugural curator of the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s China Gallery, and a Senior lecturer in the Master’s degree programme in Curating and Cultural Leadership, at the University of New South Wales School of Art & Design.

Olivier Krischer is a historian and curator of art from East Asia and the Asian Australian diaspora, whose research concerns modern and contemporary transcultural art, photography and intermedia practices. His curatorial projects include “Assembly” (2023), featuring eight Hong Kong-born artists, “Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s-80s Taiwan” (2021) and “Between: Picturing 1950-1960s Taiwan” (2016). His publications include John Young: The History Projects (2025), Zhang Peili: From Painting to Video (2019) and Asia through Art and Anthropology: Cultural Translation Across Borders (with F. Nakamura and M. Perkins, 2013). Krischer is currently a lecturer and program convenor for the Master’s degree programe in Curating and Cultural Leadership, at the University of New South Wales School of Art & Design.

Li-Ping Chen is a visiting scholar in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts. Li-Ping’s NBN episodes on Taiwan Studies are supported by the Chun and Jane Chiu Family Foundation Taiwan Studies Program at Oregon State University.

Relevant Links:

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Grizzly Man

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Tennyson called nature “red in tooth and claw,” but that warning didn’t keep Timothy Treadwell from living among the grizzlies of Alaska for thirteen summers–until one of them killed him and his girlfriend. Werner Herzog’s 2005 documentary Grizzly Man tells Treadwell’s story and raises the issues of what happens when we ascribe human motives and characteristics to animals and the ways in which we all attempt to stake out our own territory in an indifferent world.

Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

Herzog’s most recent book The Future o f Truth (2025) is a series of essays about what constitutes truth and the threats truth faces in our age of AI and deepfakes.

Please subscribe to the show and consider leaving us a rating or review. You can find over three hundred episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Letterboxd and email us any time at fifteenminutefilm@gmail.com with requests and recommendations. Check out Dan Moran’s substack, Pages and Frames, where he writes about books and movies, as well as his many film-related author interviews on The New Books Network. Read Mike Takla’s substack, The Grumbler’s Almanac, for commentary on offbeat topics of the day.

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A Very Jewish Christmas: Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi, from Heretic to Hero

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Jewish memory, Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi were heretics, false messiahs who rebelled against the rabbis and against normative Judaism. But a funny thing happened in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: modern Jewish writers and artists reclaimed these heretics and gave them an honored place in Jewish history. In doing so, they transformed the historical figures, Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi, into heroes, projecting on to them these thinkers own modern dilemmas.

This lecture originally took place on December 22, 2022.

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Laura Borghetti and Thomas Arentzen, "Ecologizing Late Ancient and Byzantine Worlds" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

How can we study the late ancient and Byzantine history from ecological perspectives? How might one grapple with the more-than-human in sources and media created by humans? Exploring the diverse ways in which pre-modern texts engaged with the broader natural world, Ecologizing Late Ancient and Byzantine Worlds (Bloomsbury, 2025) presents scholarly ventures into the terrains of the past. From the ancient treatises on dreams to monastic tales from the Hexameron literature to the Byzantine romance, from the Exeter Book to a mysterious Byzantine icon, the chapters investigate a diverse range of literature and other sources, uncovering intricate ecosystems of relationships.

The team of leading international experts behind the volume focuses on encounters between human and more-than-human beings. They pay attention to the entanglement of multiple agencies that cut through texts and other meshes. With insights from such theoretical traditions as ecocriticism, new materialism and environmental humanities, they re-expose ancient media to the elements.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Laura Borghetti is a Doctoral Candidate in Byzantine Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany.

Thomas Arentzen is a Reader in Church History at Lund University, Sweden, and Associate Professor at Sankt Ignatios College, Stockholm School of Theology, Sweden.

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken (Sydney Anne Bennett): A Young Woman Facing A Neurological Disorder Is A Case Study In Theodicy

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

At age 22, Sydney’s Bennett’s brain stopped communicating with her body correctly; she was suffering from Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a condition in which the nervous system stops sending or interpreting signals the right way. Suddenly this bright, beautiful, college girl, recently married, was having seizures, numbness, difficulty moving. Soon she needed a cane, then a wheelchair. But, when we are weak, we are strong, and she found her rock in Jesus our cornerstone. Today she is a faithful and faith-filled advocate, mother of two, and (in the view of your host) present-day Job; and Job reminds us, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Sydney’s book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Broken, on Amazon, and also from the publisher, Thomas Nelson, where you can listen to the first chapter of the audio book.

The episode of Almost Good Catholics with Mako Fujimura talking about kintsugi (which I excerpted):

Mako Fujimura on Almost Good Catholics, episode 14: The Silence of God: The Meaning of Our Suffering and Redemption

Other related Almost Good Catholics episodes about the Book of Job and the meaning of suffering:

Jonathon Fessenden on Almost Good Catholics, episode 58: The Book of Job: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
Brian Zahnd on Almost Good Catholics, episode 112: The Tree of Life: “no one who loves the way of Grace ever comes to a bad end.”

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Mesrob Vartavarian, "Privileged Minorities: A History of Wealth Concentration on South Africa" (Ohio UP, 2026)

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Mesrob Vartavarian has written a wonderful book. Privileged Minorities: A History of Wealth Concentration on South Africa (Ohio UP, 2026) argues that the rise of privileged minorities – small, exclusive groups that dominate political and economic life – parallels the development of successful anticolonial movements. Vartavarian traces how distinct sociocultural groups in South Africa navigated and negotiated these advantages from the Dutch colonial era through the rise and decline of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). He then demonstrates why ANC elites have not dismantled minority privilege, and how challenges from marginalised groups have served to reshape entrenched advantages by incorporating new actors into existing structures. These dynamics have produced composite systems of accumulation that have deepened socio-economic inequality. Privileged Minorities offers a compelling framework for understanding how structural advantage persists and evolves, even in the wake of promised liberation from political and economic elites.

Mesrob Vartavarian recommends two books for further learning at the end of our interview. They are: Anthony Butler (2025). Presidential Power, Jacana Media; and Jeffrey A. Winters (2012). Oligarchy, Cambridge University Press.

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Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting, Panel #2

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s Center for Human Values hosted a day-long conference titled Audio & Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting. It was co-sponsored by Princeton’s Journalism program, and the NYU Podcast Initiative. Over the course of four panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research.

In the second panel, Chenjerai Kumanyika led a discussion about the aesthetics of podcasting. Professor Kumanyika is an assistant professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, who specializes in using narrative non-fiction audio journalism to critique the ideology of American historical myths about issues such as race, the Civil War, and policing. His podcast Empire City, was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best podcasts of 2024. He was the co-creator, co-executive producer and co-host of Uncivil, a podcast on the Civil War, and he is the collaborator for Scene on Radio’s Season 2 “Seeing White,” and Season 4 on the history of American democracy. His current podcast is Unruly Subjects. The panel included Vinson Cunningham, a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he has written about theatre and television. He is a Spring 2026 McGraw Professor of Writing in the Program in Journalism at Princeton University. He is the author of the novel, Great Expectations; Julia Barton is an award-winning podcast, audiobook, and radio editor. She was the executive editor of Pushkin Industries, where she helped develop Revisionist History and Against the Rules. She’s the editor of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia, Michael Specter’s Fauci, and Michael Lewis’s unabridged Liar’s Poker and companion podcast. Her 2019 series, Spacebridge, was called “dazzling” by The New Yorker. She writes the audio history newsletter, Continuous Wave.

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Jeremy J. Holland, "The Political Worldviews of American Social Movements: Partisan Politics and the Future of Democracy" (Routledge, 2026)

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Political Worldviews of American Social Movements: Partisan Politics and the Future of Democracy (Routledge, 2026) explores the political worldviews of progressive American social movements and how they play an increasingly important role in defining social problems, setting the national political agenda, and offering viable policy solutions.

Arguing that the liberal consensus that historically held the United States together politically has broken down, this book demonstrates how new forms of authoritarian and democratic populisms are being offered as alternatives to a rigged capitalist system by an unaccountable oligarchy. It utilises the method of frame analysis to elucidate the political worldview of particular, left-leaning social movements, exploring their historical backgrounds, organizing methods, social grievances, policy solutions, current actions, and future goals. It examines three movements concerned with economic issues, three organizing around identity, and three advocating for change in the domain of public safety. The last chapter focuses on the current political situation in the U.S. and potential futures of democracy. Bringing together lessons from U.S. history and the previous chapters, the book ends with a proposal for how to ensure more democratic and egalitarian outcomes in America as a whole.

As such, it offers an important reference for both academics and activists in the fields of sociology, political science, and policy analysis.

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Shelley Fisher Fishkin, "Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade" (Yale UP, 2025)

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Mark Twain’s Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he is viewed as an emblem both of Twain’s alleged racism and of his opposition to racism; a diminished character inflected by minstrelsy and a powerful challenge to minstrel stereotypes; a reason for banning Huckleberry Finn and a reason for teaching it; an embarrassment and a source of pride for Black readers.
In Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade (Yale UP, 2025) eminent Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin probes these controversies, exploring who Jim was, how Twain portrayed him, and how the world has responded to him. Fishkin also follows Jim’s many afterlives: in film, from Hollywood to the Soviet Union; in translation around the world; and in American high school classrooms today. The result is Jim as we have never seen him before—a fresh and compelling portrait of one of the most memorable Black characters in American fiction.

Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, professor of English, and professor (by courtesy) of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, and editor of the twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She lives in Stanford, CA.

YouTube Channel: here

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Jonathan Daly, "The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

He’s been called the man academics love to hate. One time, when the author disclosed that he worked with Pipes, the colleague responded, “I will forgive you.” Love him or hate him, Richard Pipes (1923–2018), left an indelible mark on Russian and Soviet history in his long and remarkable life. This conversation delves into Pipes’ personal and intellectual biography, scholarly contributions, the role he played in shaping late Cold War policy and a generation of American historians of the Imperial and Soviet Russia. Have a listen to get a better sense of this humanist historian—described as both polemical and preeminently polite—who cast such a long shadow on academia in and beyond the Cold War.

Jonathan Daly is Professor of History at University of Illinois Chicago. In addition to The Man Who Knew Russia: Richard Pipes, Humanist and Cold Warrior (Stanford University Press, 2025), he is the author of several monographs on Russian and Soviet history.

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Loretta Chefchaouni, "The Lustrous Dark" (Peachtree Teen, 2026)

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Loretta Chefchaouni's debut The Lustrous Dark (Peachtree Teen, 2026) follows protagonist Shay.Orphaned as a baby, Shay has spent her life training as the midwife’s apprentice. Her role grants her stability, yet Shay has always yearned for more. Namely, motherly affection and answers regarding her mysterious birth—neither of which the midwife deems practical to provide.
After Shay discovers her birth mother, Hind, is still alive and addicted to a magical drug called Snow, she determines to get the woman clean. But when Hind betrays Shay to get her hands on more Snow, Shay’s abandoned within a deadly forest and forced to rely on a band of monstrous ghouls for safety.
Shay’s realm has long stood on the brink of war between the men who control magic and the revolutionaries who want to eliminate it. But in the forest, Shay hears the pleading call of ancient spirits who claim that not only has magic been stolen, but Shay has the power to return it. With the help of a spitfire revolutionary and the boy who’s winning over her heart, Shay discovers the horrific truth of who produces Snow and will have to decide for herself whether to heed the spirits’ charge or fade into obscurity.

This emotionally raw and gorgeously rendered fairy tale combines the lush worldbuilding of This Woven Kingdom with the mother trauma of Snow White and a dash of Tim Burton. Steeped in mysticism and mythology, The Lustrous Dark confronts injustices against women with a righteous scream that’ll inspire readers to rally against the patriarchy and oppressive regimes worldwide.

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Gareth Doherty, "Landscape Fieldwork: How Engaging the World Can Change Design" (U Virginia Press, 2025)

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Landscape architecture is at a crossroads. The ability to draw upon interdisciplinary perspectives and generate insights from the combined vantage points of design, environmental studies, and the social sciences puts it in a prime position to address the most pressing issues of our time, such as climate change and social inequality. Its current reliance on digital and technological solutions, however, has increasingly caused landscape architects to lose sight of the ways in which humans actually use spaces. And while landscapes are designed all over the world, the discipline remains inordinately centered on the Global North. Dr. Gareth Doherty's Landscape Fieldwork: How Engaging the World Can Change Design (University of Virginia Press, 2025) alters that long-standing paradigm through real-life examples that provide tools for practitioners to engage more deeply with multidimensional, diverse landscapes and the communities that create, live in, and use them.

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Jackie M. Blount, "Straighten Up, Girls and Boys: How Schools Have Shaped Sexuality and Gender" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Straighten Up, Girls and Boys: How Schools Have Shaped Sexuality and Gender (Harvard Education Press, 2026), acclaimed historian and educator Jackie M. Blount exposes the hidden history of how American schools have carefully shaped and policed gender and sexuality--affecting every student and educator, past and present. With clarity and compassion, she invites readers not only to understand these forces, but to take action for positive change in their own school communities.

Drawing on centuries of school design, hiring practices, and classroom curriculum, Blount uncovers how seemingly neutral decisions--from the layout of restrooms to textbooks and teacher roles--have been used to enforce binary gender norms and rigid expectations around sexuality. She explores the implications for both students and educators, highlighting moments of resistance and progress, but also the persistence of exclusion and harm. Through vivid historical storytelling and fresh analysis, Blount connects the dots between age-old anxieties and today's most pressing debates around LGBTQ+ issues in schools.

This book empowers educators with the knowledge and historical context needed to question entrenched practices and build more supportive school cultures. Encouraging both critical reflection and practical action, Blount's work is a vital resource for anyone committed to fostering respect and opportunity for every member of the school community.

Jackie M. Blount is professor emeritus of educational studies at the Ohio State University.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Jessica Dibb, "Breathwork and Psychotherapy: Clinical Applications for Healing and Transformation" (W. W. Norton, 2025)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A journey into the power of conscious breathing for therapy and everyday life.

Breathing is at the center of our lives, yet we are only beginning to tap into its full potential as a tool for healing. Conscious breathing is a powerful mechanism for transforming our physiological, emotional, and brain states, and is the fastest way to cultivate integrated presence. However, its full capacity for facilitating healing, personal development, stronger relationships, self-actualization, and personal and collective love is vastly unrecognized and underutilized.

In Breathwork and Psychotherapy: Clinical Applications for Healing and Transformation (W. W. Norton, 2025), breathwork expert Jessica Dibb offers compelling reasons to integrate the power of breathwork with psychotherapy and other healing and wellness practices. Here readers will find inspiration for daily breathwork practice as well as the methods, case examples, and actionable advice needed to incorporate breathwork into therapeutic sessions. Seamlessly marrying ancient wisdom with contemporary science, this insightful guide is for clinicians, breathwork practitioners, and anyone interested in exploring the transformative power of breath.

For 20% off the purchase price of the book: Breathwork and Psychotherapy: Clinical Applications for Healing and Transformation by Jessica Dibb, for a 20% discount, in the U.S. click here, in the UK, Ireland, Europe, the Middle East, India, Pakistan and South Africa: Click here and use promo code: WN286

To learn more about the Universal Breathing Declaration — the project Jessica Dibb mentioned in our interview — please visit the Universal Breathing Declaration website. It was launched in March 2026 by Jessica Dibb, Dan Siegel, and Jack Kornfield. Be part of co-creating a world where all can breathe safely, freely, joyously!

Jessica Dibb

Through life-long exploring of pathways for physical and psychological health and development, awakened consciousness, and living from love, Jessica Dibb’s work centers conscious breathing—synthesizing depth psychology, consciousness studies, science, individualized spirituality, and somatic, emotional, and cognitive energy and wholeness. Extensively trained in ballet and yoga, during biology and pre-med studies at UC Irvine, she had an epiphany: Breathing is a universal and unifying medicine in every situation, for everyone.

Jessica advocates rigorous training and ethical standards that support powerful, safe, multi-dimensional, nuanced Breathwork to access our deepest potential. She founded a 1200+ hour Breathwork and Psychospiritual Facilitation Program at Inspiration Consciousness School; is the Global Professional Breathwork Alliance founding co-director and ethics chair; and created the "Breath Immersion—From Science to Samadhi" conferences.

Jessica develops innovative processes for embodying psycho-spiritual wholeness using Breathwork with established and emergent wisdom teachings to cultivate presence, wisdom, and love throughout our lifespan—in relationship with all life and this breathing planet.

For more information about Jessica and her work, please visit her website here

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Don Baker, "Korean New Religions" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Korean New Religions (Cambridge University Press, 2025) is an excellent primer for anyone interested in modern Korea’s religious landscape. The Korean peninsula has dramatically transformed over the past century, and various new religions have emerged. Dr. Donald Baker outlines these new religions, explores their basic beliefs and shared features, and compares them with the peninsula’s three spiritual traditions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and folk religion). In addition to the interview, Dr. Baker also speaks about his experience witnessing the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, a democracy movement that was violently suppressed by the authoritarian government.

Donald Baker is a recently retired Korean historian whose relationship with Korea spans decades. He was most recently Professor in Korean History and Civilization at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Other recent publications of his include A Korean Confucian’s Advice on How to Be Moral: Tasan Chŏng Yagyong’s Reading of the Zhongyong (University of Hawaii Press, 2023), and Catholics and Anti-Catholicism in Chosŏn Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2017) with Franklin Rausch.

Buy Korean New Religions here

About the host: Leslie Hickman is an Anthropology graduate student at Emory University. She has an MA in Korean Studies and a KO-EN translation certificate from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. You can contact her at leslie.hickman@emory.edu

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Donna Vorreyer, "Unrivered" (Sundress Publications, 2025)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Donna Vorreyer about her poetry collection, Unrivered (Sundress Publications, 2025).

Donna Vorreyer strikes gold with Unrivered, a stunning collection of poems that meditate on grief, regret, longing, self-love, and acceptance. Reeling from the loss of her parents, Vorreyer’s speaker is forced to grapple with her own mortality, and with the complicated feelings that come with aging. At times whispering softly in our ears, at times spitting venom with every word, Vorreyer charts the ways loss impacts the body and our perceptions of self, and how we are to keep on living. With a heroic sonnet crown woven through the book like the loose stitches in her grandmother's quilt, Vorreyer offers hope, courage, and gratitude in the face of our deepest fears. The result is a masterful and gripping story of loss and acceptance. Offering up rending, apocalyptic elegy, ironic detachment, or passionate, joyful celebration of life, Unrivered is bound to both take your breath away and give it a new form.

Donna Vorreyer is the author of four full-length poetry collections: To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), and Unrivered (2025), all from Sundress Publications. Recent work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Harpur Palate, Baltimore Review, and Booth. Her visual art has been featured in North American Review, Waxwing, About Place, Penn Review, Ilanot Review, Double Back Review, Pithead Chapel, and other journals. Donna currently lives and creates in the western suburbs of Chicago and runs the online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey.

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Peter Paul Dobek, "The Public House in Central Europe: Inns, Tavern, and Alehouses in Cracow during the Jagiellonian Dynasty" (Lexington Books, 2024)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In his new book The Public House in Central Europe: Inns, Tavern, and Alehouses in Cracow during the Jagiellonian Dynasty (Lexington Books, 2024), Peter Dobek takes us into the daily life of the medieval tavern in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Cracow. This is the ‘Golden Age’ of Poland Lithuania and the crepuscule between the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. The taverns were the public space where different categories of people mixed: travelers, merchants, diplomats, clerics, prostitutes, gamblers, and rogues. This book a time machine: Dobek writes social history as attentive and detailed narrative. We learn about the economy of the petty entrepreneur, the special roles of Jews in medieval Poland, the gray areas where prostitution and gambling thrived. Dobek’s prose is lively, his research impressive, and his conclusions important.

Peter Dobek is a scholar of medieval Europe particularly medieval Poland with a focus on public houses (inns, taverns, and ale houses). He received his PhD from Western Michigan University in 2019. In addition to other publications, his book is the Public House in Central Europe.

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Alex Boodrookas, "Comrades Estranged: Labor and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century Persian Gulf" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1975, Kuwaiti workers orchestrated arguably the most powerful citizen-led movement for noncitizen rights in the history of the Persian Gulf. Their efforts built on decades of wide-ranging struggle over the meanings and outlines of citizenship. During the twentieth century, anticolonial nationalists, pro-democracy reformers, feminists, and labor organizers joined forces to fight for a more equitable citizenship regime. In so doing, they won a remarkable series of victories: political independence, constitutional rights, and oil nationalization, reshaping not just Kuwait, but the global petroleum order. This book reframes the history of labor activism, citizenship, and decolonization in Persian Gulf by centering the history of social movements—especially organized labor. In Comrades Estranged: Labor and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century Persian Gulf (Stanford University Press, 2026), Alex Boodrookas traces how workers and their allies shaped the world-historic transformations witnessed across the region: the consolidation of British sovereignty, formation of autocratic states, inrush of hydrocarbon wealth, onset of decolonization, and rise of both mass migration and mass politics. But unions failed to incorporate noncitizens into their movement, and as Boodrookas argues, this fatally undermined the movements' strength. The contradictions of nationalist and internationalist visions proved insurmountable. Comrades Estranged thus sheds light on both the power, and the limits, of citizenship and the nation-state as the framework for political action.

Dr. Alex Boodrookas is Assistant Professor of History at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Dr. Ahmed AlMaazmi is Assistant Professor of History at the United Arab Emirates University.

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Alena Ledeneva, "Russian Pendulum: Paradoxes, Practices and Patterns" (UCL Press, 2026)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Alena Ledeneva is Professor of Politics and Society at the University College London and a founder of the Global Informality Project. Her research focuses on informal practices, and she has written several Russia-focused books, including Russia’s Economy of Favours, How Russia Really Works and Can Russia Modernise. The Global Informality has also published 3 volumes of its Global Encyclopaedia of Informality. Alena is here today to talk about her new book Russian Pendulum: Paradoxes, Practices and Patterns (UCL Press, 2026), which has been shortlisted for the 2026 Pushkin House Book Prize.

Adam Quinn is a Glasgow-based researcher whose work focuses on activism, social movements and state-society relations in the Post-Soviet space.

Alena’s new book: art, music, text in a new UCL Press book in open access:

Russian Pendulum: here
The accompanying music: Delphian Records classical album The System Made Me Do It composed by Benjamin Woodgates: here
And a brilliant review of the music: here

Plus, a nice mention in the BBC sounds for dark: here

Enjoy the podcast!

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Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In her recent publication, Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age, scholar Ayala Fader tells the fascinating, often heart-wrenching stories of married ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and women in twenty-first-century New York who lead “double lives” in order to protect those they love. Drawing on five years of fieldwork with those living double lives and the rabbis, life coaches, and religious therapists who minister to, advise, and sometimes excommunicate them, Fader investigates religious doubt and social change in the digital age. In following those living double lives, who range from the religiously observant but open-minded on one end to atheists on the other, Fader delves into universal quandaries of faith and skepticism, the ways digital media can change us, and family frictions that arise when a person radically transforms who they are and what they believe.

Join YIVO for a discussion of this recent publication featuring Fader in conversation with Josh Lambert, professor and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Wellesley College.

Buy the book: here

This book talk originally took place on September 22, 2022.

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Amy J. Heineke and Kristin J. Davin, "Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy: Promoting Multilingualism in Elementary and Middle Schools" (Georgetown UP, 2026)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A roadmap for enhancing students' equitable access to biliteracy development Monolingual ideologies have driven US educational policy for centuries. Despite the benefits of multilingualism, policies have often prioritized English and reduced children's access to their home languages. The "Seal of Biliteracy" is a language education policy that recognizes students' proficiency in two languages as a mechanism for nurturing students' bilingualism and growing the United States' multilingual capacity. Since its inception, the Seal of Biliteracy has become a national program that has been extended into elementary and middle schools as pathway awards—benchmarks signaling that younger students are on the pathway to receiving the Seal of Biliteracy. Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy provides foundational understandings, practical examples, and key levers necessary to help parents, educators, and policymakers understand and implement pathways to biliteracy in schools. In Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy: Promoting Multilingualism in Elementary and Middle Schools (Georgetown UP, 2026), ituating the program within broader bilingual, heritage, and world language education systems, Amy J. Heineke and Kristin J. Davin explain the history of bilingualism and language policy in US education, and they outline an accessible and equitable approach to developing successful pathway programs. Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy will be an invaluable tool for educators, stakeholders, and policymakers looking to nurture multilingualism, advance language programming, and help students achieve the Seal of Biliteracy.

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Blair LM Kelley, "Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days" (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026)

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026) is the first fully illustrated history of Juneteenth and other Emancipation Day celebrations, told through photographs, art, and an engrossing narrative.

For more than 150 years, Black communities have gathered to honor freedom, resilience, and the ongoing struggle for true liberation. While Juneteenth has recently gained wider recognition, it was one of many Emancipation Day traditions celebrated across the United States.

These observances were spaces of joy, remembrance, and resistance—even as the fight for full freedom was unfinished. This volume brings together stirring essays and striking images from Juneteenth and beyond, offering a sweeping portrait of how Black people have created and sustained rituals of remembrance, a testament to the generations who, through celebration and storytelling, demanded that their contributions to the making of America be fully recognized.

Blair LM Kelley is an award-winning author, historian, and scholar of the African American experience. She is also the president and director of the National Humanities Center, the only independent center for advanced study in the world dedicated exclusively to the humanities.

Kishauna Soljour is an Assistant Professor of Public Humanities at San Diego State University. Her most recent writing appears in the edited collection From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle.

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Wendy J Fox, "The Last Supper" (Sante Fe Writer's Project, 2026)

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Wendy J. Fox about her novel, The Last Supper, published by Sante Fe Writer's Project, 2026.

As stay-at-home mom Amanda turns forty, she faces a reckoning. She' s doing her best at parenting eight-year-old Toby, who only wants to eat orange-colored food, and almost-four-year-old Blake, who really should be in pre-school but is home doing YouTube aerobics with her. Amanda' s mother is a successful attorney. Her next-door neighbor makes an enviable living as a visual artist. Her two best friends from college seem to handle careers and motherhood just fine. Yet, Amanda just barely manages to muddle through dinner every night while obsessively Googling life advice. She' s racked up failures, like being swindled into pyramid schemes, and is struggling to launch what she thought was a sure-fire influencer lifestyle brand, AMANDAtory. When her husband loses his job and threatens her with divorce, Amanda is forced to face her choices head-on. Will she finally forge her own identity, or is she doomed to repeat her past mistakes?

Wendy J. Fox is the author of four books of fiction, including What If We Were Somewhere Else, which won the Colorado book and received a star for excellence in the genre of short-stories in Booklist. Her 2019 novel, If the Ice Had Held, was a top pick in audio for LitHub. She has written for many national publications including Self, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, and Ms. and authors a quarterly column in Electric Literature focusing on small press. She is a former SVP of marketing for a green tech firm and lives outside of Phoenix. Find her at wendyjfox.com. Wendy J. Fox is the author of four books of fiction, including What If We Were Somewhere Else, which won the Colorado book and received a star for excellence in the genre of short-stories in Booklist. Her 2019 novel, If the Ice Had Held, was a top pick in audio for LitHub. She has written for many national publications including Self, Business Insider, BuzzFeed, and Ms. and authors a quarterly column in Electric Literature focusing on small press. She is a former SVP of marketing for a green tech firm and lives outside of Phoenix. Find her at wendyjfox.com.

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Steven Segal, "Mandela’s Leadership Legacy: Emotional and Existential Wisdom" (Routledge, 2026)

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Mandela’s Leadership Legacy: Emotional and Existential Wisdom (Routledge, 2026) Steven Segal explores Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary ability to lead through moments of existential crisis and uncertainty. Central to Mandela's leadership was his attunement to mood—the emotional and existential atmosphere through which people experience disruption. Long overlooked in leadership studies, mood shaped the way Mandela created trust, defused fear, and opened possibilities when conventional strategies failed. Mandela’s wisdom was forged not only in prison but in the existential challenges he faced upon leaving the familiarity of his ancestral homeland and confronting the disorientation of city life. From this early rupture through to his imprisonment, the collapse of apartheid, and the assassination of Chris Hani, he demonstrated a rare capacity to transform existential threats into opportunities for renewal and unity. This book examines how Mandela combined strategic foresight with therapeutic sensitivity, allowing him to guide individuals and nations through disruption with ethical resolve and visionary clarity. Drawing on frameworks from Heidegger and Ubuntu it highlights Mandela’s "existential practical wisdom"—the ability to embrace uncertainty, work with paradox, and foster collective transformation through attuned presence. By investigating Mandela’s profound relational sensitivity, including his ability to turn estrangement and enmity into trust and collaboration, the book offers timeless lessons for navigating today’s global crises. It is ideal for professionals seeking inspiration for leading in turbulent times and for students interested in leadership, philosophy, or history.

Steven Segal was formerly an Associate Professor of Management at Macquarie University, Australia and is currently in private practice as a psychologist and leadership coach. He also runs professional development workshops for coaches and psychotherapists.

Elena Sobrino is an anthropologist studying environmental emotions and politics. Her current writing projects focus on the Flint water crisis, and she regularly teaches undergraduate courses on environment, race and racism, crisis, and science and technology.

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Colin R. McCulloch, "Sanctified by the Spirit: John Owen, Habits of Grace, and Biblical Counseling" (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024)

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Sanctified by the Spirit: John Owen, Habits of Grace, and Biblical Counseling (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024) Dr. Colin McCulloch examines how approaches to biblical counseling have diverged over the last generations, proposing John Owen's emphasis on Spirit-infused habitual grace as a helpful corrective and as a richer understanding of the dynamics of sanctification.

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James O'Leary, "The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The premiere of Oklahoma! in 1943 is commonly called a “turning point” in the history of the Broadway musical. Often characterized as the first integrated musical―meaning that the songs and other elements of the show are integrated into the story―James O’Leary offers a different interpretation of Oklahoma! and other musicals at the beginning of Broadway’s Golden Age in The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America (Oxford University Press, 2025). Contextualizing his discussion within debates among US critics, O’Leary argues that the negotiation between operatic and popular music, and between frothy comedy and more serious themes mark the musicals he analyzes as examples of the middlebrow. Through detailed archival work, O’Leary uncovers the crucial critical networks that originally theorized a middlebrow approach to culture, beginning in the literary circles of Van Wyck Brooks and Archibald MacLeish, and radiating outward to major theater and music critics including Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes. These writers believed American culture had splintered into factions, which in turn divided American audiences: highbrow art, which they regarded as obscure and elitist; folk art, which they found provincial and alienating; and popular culture, which they considered merely commercial. Blending these kinds of art, they argued, could draw together a fractured society into mutual understanding (if not necessarily agreement) by situating the most sophisticated ideas within longstanding expressive traditions, accessible to all. O’Leary finds in Oklahoma!, Beggar’s Holiday, and Street Scene a new kind of musical comedy that embraced American politics and weighty stories in ways not seen before 1943.

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Youssef J. Carter, "The Vast Oceans: Remembering Allah and Self on the Mustafawiyya Sufi Path" (UNC Press, 2026)

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Youssef J. Carter’s The Vast Oceans: Remembering Allah and Self on the Mustafawiyya Sufi Path (UNC Press, 2026) is a stunning meditation on Black Atlantic Sufism, specifically as it travels between South Carolina and Senegal via the Mustafawiyya Sufi community and Shaykh Arona Faye. The book orbits around Sufi conceptual frameworks which are translated through the register of Black and Africana Studies. For example, bay’a is rendered as “solidarity” or khidma as “labour”; such attunement of Sufi concepts presents capacious possibilities for Sufi studies at the intersection of Black and Muslim studies. The book then uses deep ethnography to capture the flows of stories, rituals, and piety, and also Black radical labour, motherwork, and becoming to highlight how in spite of the ongoing violence of racial capitalism and plantation modernity, Black-Africana Sufi communities are vital spaces of worldmaking, one that is not merely metaphysical (such as through ritual piety) but also political, anti-racist, and anti-colonial and rooted in collective care. This book is necessary reading for scholars of Sufism, and those who work on Black and African Islam.

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Anna Calori, "Engineering Global Socialism: Ownership, Non-Alignment, and Corporate Culture in a Bosnian Company" (Indiana UP, 2026)

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Engineering Global Socialism: Ownership, Non-Alignment, and Corporate Culture in a Bosnian Company (Indiana UP, 2026) chronicles the journey of the Bosnian global corporation Energoinvest and its workers from its Yugoslav socialist ideals through decades of dissolution, reconstruction, and post-socialist transformation.

Author Anna Calori provides a company-centric window into the business history of socialist globalization during periods of national development, destruction, and rebuilding. Contrary to popular perceptions of "centralized" socialist states, Energoinvest actively shaped trade relations with the Global South, driven by a socialist corporate culture that encouraged competition as well as collective decision-making. Even after Yugoslavia's disintegration in 1992 ended its dreams of a socialist path to globalization, these core characteristics shaped Energoinvest's adaptation to capitalist transformations and made it a key player in the struggle for Bosnia's post-war economic reconstruction. Through oral histories and archival research, Calori reveals how Energoinvest's workers paired the promise of a new model of global integration with their own visions of a working world in which they set the rules of engagement—and how, upon its sale to mostly foreign owners, the marginalization and ethnic homogenization of employee shareholders mirrored changes around citizenship in Bosnia. Now, in the twenty-first century, Energoinvest offers new promises of a post-industrial future, but its often hazy parameters leave workers to rely on the memory of "what could have been" to make sense of change.

Tracing the long trajectory of a Yugoslav enterprise through decades of large-scale social change, Engineering Global Socialism presents a historical and sociological moment in which workers' ideas about social and corporate enterprise offered the possibility of a more democratic path to globalization.

Anna Calori is Lecturer in Contemporary Economic History at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow.

Filippo De Chirico is a Ph.D. Candidate in Energy History at Roma Tre University. His research focuses on the history of the Italian natural gas sector.

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Inside the Mississippi Marathon: How Mississippi Dramatically Improved Its Education System with Rachel Canter

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 2008, Rachel Canter founded Mississippi First, an education non-profit with the mission of improving educational outcomes for students across the state. Dating back to the 1990s, Mississippi ranked near the very bottom on educational assessment metrics for reading and math. Today, Mississippi’s elementary school students score above the national public average and the eight graders have nearly reached the national public average. For nearly two decades, Rachel has been on the frontlines fighting to improve reading and math outcomes for Mississippi’s public school students. In the process, she has learned that there are no quick fixes, silver bullets, or magical solutions. Improving educational outcomes takes time, accountability, evidence, and institutional support. Rachel and the Progressive Policy Institute have produced a short research paper on this incredibly improvement in outcomes titled “Inside the Mississippi Marathon.” This paper is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of education in America. Whether you are a researcher, policy maker, parent, or student, Inside the Mississippi Marathon charts a path for national improvement in education.

Rachel Canter is the Director of Education Policy for the Reinventing America’s Schools project at PPI. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and History from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 2008, she founded Mississippi First and served as its Executive Director for over 16 years.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Anna O. Law, "Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship: African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Anna O. Law, the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights in the Department of Political Science at City University of New York-Brooklyn Campus, has a deeply researched and important new book that weaves together different approaches to understanding American citizenship, especially in context of immigration and migration in the first century of the U.S. republic. Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship: African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants (Oxford University Press, 2026) engages three different disciplines, including Political Science, History, and Legal Studies/Law, to unpack the many different approaches to citizenship in the new republic. Law noted as we spoke that she had not intended to write a book about slavery, but it was impossible to think about or understand immigration in the United States, especially in the first century of the United States, without examining the particular place and role of those who were enslaved, since they were also immigrants to the United States, though it was a forced immigration, against their will and without their consent. Part of what Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship focuses on is that prior to the Civil War and the post-war constitutional Amendments, immigration was a patchwork, designed state by state, without a national standard or structure. Thus, we see a form of federalism that shifts from the states to the national government after the 14th and 15th Amendments, and after a number of pieces of legislation passed in the 1880s by Congress. Immigration becomes a more centralized issue and process as Congress passed a raft of restrictive laws focused mostly on Chinese individuals. These moves took the power to manage immigration away from the individual states and nationalized policies and regulations.

At the same time, the story of American immigration is incomplete without understanding how the national government forcefully took land belonging to Native Americans and compelled their migration to other areas of the United States. In much the same way that we cannot understand immigration without understanding how slavery was intertwined with it, we also can’t understand immigration to the United States without the history of how newly arrived immigrants displaced Native Americans and were given stolen land through national and state level regulations and policies. This is another entire area of history, policy, law, and regulation that Law unpacks to explore the interaction between Native Americans, sovereignty, land claims, and federalism in context of American citizenship and the complexity of who was and was not considered to be a citizen.

Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship is a masterful work that helps us understand the contemporary battles over citizenship. As the Supreme Court is set to make yet another determination of how the 14th Amendment is to be applied to individuals born in the United States, Law’s research and analysis has particular relevance and importance as we grapple with these ongoing disputes.

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Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A woman miscarries and is charged with murder. A new mother tests positive for a drug her hospital administers and loses custody of her newborn. Four women are convicted of horrific crimes against children they never touched, based on junk science and homophobia and spend nearly twenty years in prison before being exonerated. A queer teenager takes a photo of a child’s diaper rash at work and is sentenced to 126 years. These cases are not aberrations. They are symptoms of a system that punishes women and queer people not for what they have done, but for who they are. In the United States, nearly three-quarters of all wrongly convicted women were convicted of crimes that never occurred at all.

Valena Beety, co-founder of the Indiana Innocence Project and award-winning legal scholar cited by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reveals how ordinary tragedies—a child’s sudden death, a husband who dies in his sleep—are transformed by prosecutors into murders that never happened. These “no crime” convictions disproportionately target women and queer people, whose identities are recast as evidence of guilt through bias, junk science, and entrenched stereotypes. Drawing on devastating real-life cases, Professor Beety exposes how prosecutorial overreach, flawed forensic science, and cultural panic converge—and how fetal personhood laws, the fall of Roe v. Wade, and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation have dramatically expanded the reach of criminal law. What emerges is a chilling portrait of a legal system that increasingly criminalizes pregnancy outcomes, motherhood, and queer identity itself.

Guest: A wrongful convictions litigator and former federal prosecutor, Valena Beety is the McKinney Professor of Law at Indiana University-Bloomington Maurer School of Law and a co-founder of the Indiana Innocence Project. Her coursebook The Wrongful Convictions Reader is used in classrooms nationwide to teach about wrongful convictions.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She uses her Ph.D. in history to explore which stories we tell, and what happens to those we never tell. She is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

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Alexander Vandewalle, "Characters and Characterization in Mythological Video Games" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The first book-length study on mythology reception in video games, Characters and Characterization in Mythological Video Games (Bloomsbury, 2026) examines how video games characterize mythological characters from the perspectives of classical reception and game studies. Characters are vital to most stories, and many video games. They allow us to enter the fiction of a game, and facilitate our embodiment in the game world. Over time, what are initially blank slates transform into fictional existents with well-developed personalities and goals. In this context, narratology uses the term 'characterization' to refer to how character traits are ascribed to the entities we call 'characters'. How does characterization operate in games? How do players impact this process? How is mythology transformed by video games? What can games 'do' that other media cannot? After establishing a theoretical framework, this book moves to six case studies that each analyze mythological characters in a particular game: Smite, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Immortals Fenyx Rising, God of War, Theseus and Asgard's Wrath 2. The scope of these studies is diverse, incorporating examples from mainstream, indie and virtual reality gaming. While the book's main focus lies with Greco-Roman mythology, it also includes games with Norse and Egyptian settings, or with playable characters from a wide range of international mythological traditions. Through these case studies, Alexander Vandewalle leads his readers to an understanding of different modalities or 'languages' of mythology reception in games. He argues for a striking diversity in mythological games and their characters, and illuminates how the relationship between games and antiquity is fundamentally one of continuous dialogue and play.

Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal TITEL kulturmagazin for the game section and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter Game Studies Watchlist.

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Shana Galen, "A Shop Girl's Guide to Wooing a Lord" (Berkley, 2026)

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Romance novels—especially historical romance novels—thrive on heroes and heroines who don’t match in terms of social class. There must be conflict, after all, or the novel would end before it began. But not even George Bernard Shaw’s mismatched couple in Pygmalion (later My Fair Lady) can claim quite as much distance as Shana Galen’s Tamsin Archer and the Honourable Garret Kildare, the main characters in A Shop Girl’s Guide to Wooing a Lord (Berkley, 2026).

Tamsin’s once comfortable if never opulent life took a sharp downward turn when a Royal Navy press gang hauled her father off to unwanted service on a seagoing vessel, service from which he never returned. By 1813, when we meet her at age twenty-three, she’s doing her best to support her injured mother and two much younger siblings by selling flowers in the street. A young man named Garret speaks kindly to her and pays her a shilling when she’s expecting far less, and as a result she remembers him fondly, but it’s not until two years later that she meets him again. By then, a chimney sweep has taken her younger siblings and holds them hostage to payments she can never make and that he might not honor even if she did. She’s desperate to get them back.

In 1815, Garret’s life also makes a dramatic turn. His father, the Earl of Glenister, announces that the family has run out of money and must sell its ancestral lands in Ireland. Not exactly poverty, especially by Tamsin's standards, but still uncomfortable. Garret and his three brothers—Liam, Killian, and Daire—make a bet that one of them will secure the hand of an heiress, thus sparing their younger sister, Mariah, from having to marry an elderly and decrepit duke. But as Garret sets out to woo his heiress, he encounters Tamsin somewhere she’s not supposed to be …

Shana Galen, a former English teacher, has written more than fifty romances. A Shop Girl’s Guide to Wooing a Lord, first in her The Heiress Hunters series, is the latest. Find out more about her and her books here.

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Reinvention in an Era of Volatility

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Caroline Stokes is a strategist who works with C-Suites and Boards to lead their organizations through AI disruption, climate risk, and geopolitical instability. Her new book Aftershock to 2030: A CEO's Guide to Reinvention in the Age of AI, Climate, and Societal Collapse is published by Broad Book Press and serves as a roadmap for leaders navigating the tidal wave of change going on today. The founder of Workplace EQ, Caroline Stokes is previously the author of the business book Elephants Before Unicorns, about which she was interviewed by Dan Hill for his previous NBN podcast, “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” in 2020.

Empathy, mental sovereignty, super hero: those three aspirations define this conversation well. Let’s unpack each term, in turn, to provide a sense of Caroline Stokes’ perspective on the world of work nowadays. One of Stokes’ points here is that emotional labor is of real value but the burden of getting it done rarely falls equally on people’s shoulders in business, with women often taking the greater load. Who should be stepping up more? CEOs, for whom empathy is rarely a Top 10 or even Top 30 strength of theirs. Sometimes hyper-masculinity gets in the way; other times, it might be that they feel blocked by the misperception that empathy entails just “dumping” one’s feelings on others at work, when in reality admitting vulnerability in relation to specific, mission-critical aspects of one’s job should really be the primary focus. In turn, what is “mental sovereignty” in Stokes’ work view? The term is meant to denote showing respect to everyone, regardless of rank, as part of creating a culture that highly values psychological safety. Finally, “super hero” enters the picture because, as a long-time executive coach, Stokes knows that within most if not all leaders lies a desire to be a difference-maker in ways that go beyond hitting the quarterly numbers alone. Within every leader, she believes, lurks a seven-year-old child eager to be a force for moral good as well as financial success for the enterprise overall.

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European Jews in the 21st Century

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What is the status of Jews in Europe in the 21st century? How do they maintain vital communities? Do they desire to remain in Europe? To remain Jewish? Where are the trendlines headed? A mere 0.1% of Europe's population is Jewish. Proportionally, this figure is at its lowest since the turn of the first millennium. European Jews' numbers have continued to decline even after the Holocaust. Once a major center of world Jewry, Europe often goes largely unmentioned in conversations about the global Jewish community.

K., the European Jewish Review, is a new magazine founded in March 2021 to document and analyze the current situation of the 1.3 million Jews living in Europe. The magazine is devoted to reporting from and fostering dialogue across all the various communities of European Jewry.

Daniel Solomon, the English-language editor of K. will lead a discussion with members of the editorial board of K.: Stéphane Bou (Editor of chief of K., European Jewish Review), Macha Fogel (Author at K., European Jewish Review), and Danny Trom (Senior Researcher, EHESS).

This panel discussion originally took place on October 12, 2021.

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Charlotte Brooks, "The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One Family’s Extraordinary Journey Through War and Revolution" (U California Press, 2026)

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The story of the Moy family—U.S.-born Chinese-American siblings who grow up in the first half of the 20th century—is one that spans the Pacific, covering New York, Chicago, and cosmopolitan Shanghai. It’s a story that spans the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Chinese Civil War, and the early Cold War—and stars one sibling who was an early participant in the Kuomintang…and another who records propaganda for Germany and Japan during the Second World War.

In her new book, The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One Family’s Extraordinary Journey Through War and Revolution (University of California Press, 2026), historian Charlotte Brooks follows the Moys as they confront discrimination in the United States, search for opportunity in cosmopolitan Shanghai, and wrestle with questions of loyalty, identity, and belonging that still resonate today.

Charlotte is a historian and author who has published widely on Asian American history, especially Chinese American and Chinese diaspora history. Originally from California, she graduated from Yale and worked in mainland China and Hong Kong before earning a PhD from Northwestern University. She is a professor of history at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

In this conversation, we talk about Charlotte’s research, the lives of the Moy siblings, and what their experiences tell us about being Chinese American in a turbulent century.

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Michael D. Nichols, "Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films" (McFarland, 2026)

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Fans of Batman are used to seeing the Caped Crusader associate with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but what if one were to put the Dark Knight into the company of figures such as Beowulf, Robin Hood, Oedipus, and Sun Tzu, among others? Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films (McFarland, 2026) is the first book to compare famous Batman graphic novels, story arcs, and films to classic texts of literature and philosophy from around the world. Through this comparison we can see, for instance, how the epic warrior archetype of Beowulf or Roland persists in The Dark Knight Returns, or how the metaphor of the journey, found in such works as The Odyssey, occurs in the story arc Knightfall. By placing Batman stories into conversation with such classic texts, this book sheds light on the deeper meanings of key stories of the Dark Knight, as well as how long-lasting themes of literature and philosophy have persisted in the fiction of this popular character.

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Anna Harwell Celenza, "On the Record: Music that Changed America (Norton, 2026)

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

There is no shortage of books on music and politics, but Anna Harwell Celenza explores an interesting premise in her book On the Record: Music that Changed America (Norton, 2026). Each of the twelve chapters discusses a different instance when music, as Celenza writes, “sparked debates in the halls of Congress.” Arranged basically chronologically, Celenza tackles some of the most powerful and contentious issues in twentieth and twenty-first century American politics. From censorship to copyright law; from the Civil Rights Movement, to foreign policy during Apartheid, Celenza traces the extraordinary moments when music moved Congress, challenged power, and united people around shared ideals. The stories Celenza tells are just as much about music including the intertwined histories of “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” or the making of Paul Simon’s album Graceland, as they are about US legislation or American politics. She offers readers a history of America heard through the songs and compositions that changed its course.

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Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting, Panel #1

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s Center for Human Values hosted a day-long conference titled Audio & Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting. It was co-sponsored by Princeton’s Journalism program, and the NYU Podcast Initiative. Over the course of four panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research.

In the first panel, podcaster Benjamen Walker discusses Tuning Time, a podcast about the politics of time stretching technology, with NYU media and disability studies professor Mara Mills. Professor Mills teaches in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and is Director of the NYU Center for Disability Studies. Her work on “disability and media” spans disability arts and technoscience, with a focus on the history, politics, and cultures of electronics and digital media. Benjamen Walker is one of the co-founders of the podcast network Radiotopa from PRX, and for a decade hosted and produced his award winning program Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything.

The panel continues with a presentation by NYU musicologist Fanny Gribenski in which she discusses her current project, The Elephant in the Piano: Music, Ecology, Empire. The book, and podcast, is an investigation of the 19th century piano through a material history of its primary components: ivory, wood, felt, and metal. Professor Gribenski is a historical musicologist who specializes in the history of musical and sonic practices. Her first book, L'Église comme lieu de concert. Pratiques musicales et usages de l'espace (Paris, 1830–1905) analyzes the role of music in the production of sacred spaces. Tuning the World: The Rise of 440 Hertz in Music, Science, and Politics, 1859-1955 (University of Chicago, 2023) traces the rocky path towards international pitch standardization.

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Samantha Ellis, "Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture" (Pegasus Books, 2026)

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

I had the privilege of speaking with writer Samantha Ellis about her deeply moving new book, Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture (Pegasus Books, 2026). Our discussion explored not only the story of a disappearing language, but also the broader questions of memory, identity, and what it means to inherit a fragile cultural legacy.

At the heart of Ellis’s book is Judeo-Iraqi Arabic—also known as Baghdadi Jewish Arabic or Hakimalna—a language once spoken by the Jews of Iraq. Rich with layers of Hebrew and Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic, it reflects over two millennia of Jewish life in the region. Today, however, it stands on the brink of extinction. As Ellis shared, a language is considered endangered when it is no longer passed on to children, and Judeo-Iraqi Arabic may have only about a thousand speakers remaining worldwide. Within a generation, it could fall silent.

Ellis described a powerful turning point in her own awareness: a casual question from another parent about why she was not sending her son to a nursery that spoke “her language.” Her spontaneous response—“my language is dead”—became the catalyst for the journey that led to this book. That moment captures the quiet grief of linguistic loss, but also the urgency of preservation.

Our conversation traced the long arc of Iraqi Jewish history, beginning with the Babylonian exile in 597 BCE. Iraqi Jews lived in the region long before the arrival of Arabic, shifting over centuries from Hebrew to Aramaic and later to Arabic, while preserving distinctive linguistic features from earlier eras. This layered history lives on in the language itself. Yet the mass departures of Iraqi Jews in the mid-20th century—particularly the 1950–51 airlift—fractured this continuity. Today, only a handful of Jews remain in Iraq.

And yet, as Ellis emphasized, culture does not disappear all at once. Language may fade, but other forms of transmission endure. Food, in particular, becomes a powerful vessel of memory. Ellis initially resisted including recipes in her book, but came to understand that cooking is itself a kind of language—a sensory bridge to the past. The image of her mother carrying three rolling pins from Iraq is emblematic of this continuity: tangible objects that hold intangible heritage. Even the book’s title gesture—“always carry salt”—evokes protective practices familiar across Mizrahi communities, small rituals that encode belief, memory, and identity.

We also discussed the remarkable story of the Iraqi Jewish Archive, discovered in 2003 in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein’s secret police headquarters. The archive contains hundreds of thousands of documents—school records, letters, communal registers—offering an intimate portrait of everyday Jewish life in Iraq. Today, innovative projects are using AI to transcribe and translate these materials across multiple scripts, making them accessible to descendants and scholars alike. Yet the archive’s ultimate fate remains uncertain, raising complex questions about ownership, memory, and cultural restitution.

A particularly resonant theme in our conversation was Ellis’s struggle with authenticity. As a second-generation Iraqi Jew raised in the UK, she grappled with whether she had the “right” to tell this story, especially without having visited Iraq herself. Her resolution—to be “authentic to me”—offers an important model for thinking about diasporic identity. Preservation, she suggests, does not require perfect replication. It allows for adaptation, creativity, even reinvention. One can honor tradition while also “messing with it,” whether by adjusting a recipe or reimagining inherited practices.

Ellis introduces a beautiful concept she calls “milk language”—the language absorbed in early childhood, through intimacy and care, even if it is not the dominant language of one’s environment. This idea invites us to reconsider how language lives within us, not only as a tool of communication but as a carrier of emotional and cultural memory.

As an educator, I was especially struck by Ellis’s closing insight and her implicit call to action: to speak with our elders while we still can. There is a profound difference between hearing fragments of family stories in childhood and sitting down, as an adult, to listen fully and intentionally. These conversations do more than preserve history; they create connection, continuity, and a deeper sense of self.

Always Carry Salt is not only a memoir. It is an invitation—to remember, to document, and to carry forward what might otherwise be lost. In a time when so many cultural threads are at risk of unraveling, Ellis’s work reminds us that preservation begins with attention, with curiosity, and with the willingness to listen.

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Joe P. L. Davidson, "Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times" (MIT Press, 2026)

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

There is no alternative. The End of History. Climate Apocalypse. It seems that our contemporary moment is defined by the idea that things can only get worse or, in the most optimistic reading, perhaps stay as they are. Ideas for things getting better, utopian ideas, seem in short supply. It is this which Joe Davidson confronts in his book Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times (MIT Press, 2026). Davidson links this apparent decline in utopian thinking to a change in ‘time consciousness’, the ways in which our sense of the future seems less open to possibility than it once was. Despite this he notes the persistence of utopianism in a new form, the ‘postdystopian utopia’ which takes account of the assumption the future will be worse and uses this as a spur to utopian thinking. He then explores how this manifests itself in various utopian works in different traditions, from Black utopianism considering the tragedy of the slave trade, feminism mining the nostalgia of previous battles to consider how things could be different and climate change utopianism confronting catastrophe.

In our discussion we explore the changing fortunes and forms of utopianism over time, the value of ‘utopian studies’, why Silicon Valley tech-bros might be as utopian (or dystopian) as they make out and think about why it is important we all imagine the possibility of different worlds. Joe also makes a number of reading recommendations for postdystopian utopian novels.

Your host, Matt Dawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow and the author of G.D.H. Cole and British Sociology: A Study in Semi-Alienation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and co-editor of The Anthem Companion to Henri Lefebvre (Anthem Press, 2026) along with other texts.

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Yoshiko Nakano and Georgina Challen, "Meiji Graves in Happy Valley: Stories of Early Japanese Residents in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The connections between Hong Kong and Japan began far earlier than many realise. Yet only recently has Hong Kong’s historic Japanese community received the attention it deserves through Meiji Graves in Happy Valley: Stories of Early Japanese Residents in Hong Kong (Hong Kong UP, 2024). In this compelling book, Dr Yoshiko Nakano and Georgina Challen guide readers into the Meiji era, reconstructing history through the lives of ordinary people whose stories have long been overlooked. During our interview, Yoshio explained her desire to place this research within a broader East-West framework, a cross-cultural perspective reflected in her own collaboration and long-term friendship with Georgina.

Perhaps the book’s most moving aspect is the authors’ compassion for Kiya Saki, a karayuki-san (sex worker) from Nagasaki who migrated to Hong Kong and later died by suicide. Yoshiko and Georgina spoke movingly about discovering her story. Like Saki, both have experienced life far from home and understand the challenges of building a life as a sojourner. Her tragic fate inspired them to investigate the lives of early Japanese residents through the meticulous study of 470 graves in Happy Valley.

Beyond individual tragedies, the book reveals a diaspora divided by deep social tensions. While the Meiji state sought to project the image of a modern, civilised nation, the Japanese community in Hong Kong was effectively a ‘community of two halves’. Elite business figures, including Mitsubishi managers, existed alongside marginalised karayuki-san and boarding-house operators.

Yet from this division emerged a remarkable story of solidarity. Through institutions, wealthier members of the community funded healthcare, financial assistance, and dignified burials for those in need. Driven by the necessity of mutual support in a foreign colonial port, they transformed a fragmented group of migrants into a resilient and organised community.

This dynamic resonates with Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, which views the cemetery as a counter-site where distinctions of class, gender, and status dissolve. The Meiji graves vividly illustrate this reality. In death, social divisions that shaped everyday life become impossible to conceal: the graves of marginalised karayuki-san lie alongside those of the community’s elite. Together, they offer a unique window into a history shaped by colonialism, human trafficking, global trade, and Japan’s transformation into a world power.

Richly narrated and grounded in extensive archival research, Meiji Graves in Happy Valley fills an important gap in the histories of both Hong Kong and Japan. By recovering the experiences of ordinary migrants, merchants, workers and sojourners, it reveals the human stories behind larger processes of migration, empire, and modernisation, offering a fresh perspective on the intertwined histories of Hong Kong and Japan.

Yoshiko Nakano is a professor in the Department of International Design Management at Tokyo University of Science. She previously taught Japanese studies at the University of Hong Kong.

Georgina Challen holds an MA in literary and cultural studies from the University of Hong Kong. Born in England, she grew up in Switzerland and has called Hong Kong home since 1990.

Bing Wang receives her PhD at the University of Leeds in 2020. Her research interests include the exploration of overseas Chinese cultural identity and critical heritage studies. She is also a freelance translator.

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Adrian Ciani, "Contesting Zion: The Vatican, American Catholics, and the Partition of Palestine" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The modern relationship between the Vatican and the State of Israel is rooted in a long history of hostility between Judaism and Roman Catholicism. Through the centuries, popes and theologians marginalized the Jewish people, assigning them collective guilt for the death of Jesus Christ and claiming that the sacred territory of Palestine was the true patrimony of the Roman Catholic Church. With the advent of political Zionism in the nineteenth century, Catholic fears of a Jewish-dominated Palestine were renewed.

Contesting Zion: The Vatican, American Catholics, and the Partition of Palestine (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025) examines the relationship between the Vatican and the Zionist movement from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to the first decade of Israeli statehood. Adrian Ciani considers the transnational nature of Catholic responses to Zionism and the creation of Israel, with a focus on the Catholic Church in the United States. From the 1920s through the 1950s, American Catholic leaders became crucial intermediaries between Washington and the Vatican. Speaking as both loyal American citizens and devout Catholics, they were uniquely positioned to articulate the Vatican’s policy objectives to the American government, including on the future of Palestine. American Catholics were also instrumental in advocating the church’s Palestine policy at the United Nations, playing a central role in the Holy See’s attempts to shape the twentieth-century international order.

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Legacy of the Ancient Greeks: On Classical and Modern Democracy with Josiah Ober

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

American democracy is in a period of crisis, so it seems natural to look back to its origins. So here in Episode 10 of Season 5, I interview Professor Josiah Ober.

Having previously taught at Princeton University, Ober is a professor of political science, classics, and philosophy at Stanford University, the Director of the Stanford Civics Initiative, as well as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. The author of many books, including Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989), The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (2015), and Civic Bargain (2023), co-written with Brook Manville, he was previously a Madison’s Notes guest in Season 3.

Drawing on his 2015 book, we discuss the history of ancient Greece and the political legacy of its classical period. Our conversation ranges from the Bronze Age Collapse and the age of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey to the rise of the Greek city-state and decline of democratic Athens.

We discuss contingencies of the Peloponnesian war, the cases for and against Alcibiades, whether the polity flourished under Macedonian and Roman empires, the relationship of philosophy to civics, was Socrates guilty and how much did Plato invent about him, in what way the god Hermes symbolized Greek trade in the Mediterranean, if James Madison truly understood ancient history, and lastly Ober’s work with the growing civics programs in American higher education.

Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on our new Substack page, “Madison’s Footnotes.”

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Great Minds in Despair

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Ingrid Piller speaks with Frank Stahnisch, Professor of the History of Medicine and Health Care at the University of Calgary in Canada, about his new book Great Minds in Despair – The Forced Migration of German-Speaking Neuroscientists to North America, 1933 to 1989 (2025, McGill-Queen’s University Press).

Great Minds in Despair examines the long-term effects of the forced migration of neuroscientists from the German lands in the 20th century on scientific and medical cultures in North America, and on the researchers themselves. The book traces the lives and careers of approximately 400 German-speaking doctors, scientists, and researchers over two generations. It is a fascinating read that anyone interested in migration, science history, Nazi Germany, transatlantic relations, Jewish Studies, and much more should read.

Reference

Stahnisch, F. W. (2025). Great Minds in Despair: The Forced Migration of German-Speaking Neuroscientists to North America, 1933 to 1989. McGill-Queen's University Press.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Cheryl Thompson, "Staging Blackface in Canada: Public Amusements, Variety Shows, and Racial Acts in an Age of Imitation, 1898-1919" (Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2026)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the early twentieth century, as variety shows flooded Canadian stages, new forms of blackface, inspired by modern forms of amusements, changed the theatre. In this era marked by progressive social reforms, the stage embodied the modern ethos of imitation, mimicry, and change.

Staging Blackface in Canada: Public Amusements, Variety Shows, and Racial Acts in an Age of Imitation, 1898-1919 (Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2026) covers a moment when Canadians did not produce professional theatre, but they built amusement parks, wrote songs, and produced records. As the stage (drama), and its variants (burlesque, light opera) adapted elements from the new stages (amusement parks, social dance, and film), the modern culture popularized forms of blackface that impacted white, Anglo-Protestant, and English-speaking audiences, and drew theatrical criticism.

This book explores a twenty-year period in Canada’s history when there was no media regulation, and no mandate to promote Canadian culture. Through an examination of theatrical reviews, images, and textual records, Staging Blackface in Canada locates how the Canadian stage became a playground for ethnic jokes, racial caricature, and women’s emancipation. It also locates some of the first Black musicals and operas to appear on Canadian stages.

This episode also mentions a previous Additions to the Archive episode with assistant curator of New York City’s Poster House museum, Es-pranza Humphrey, and her exhibition “Act Black: Posters From Black American Stage & Screen.”

You can find Cheryl at her website, on Instagram, and on LinkedIn And check out her previous appearances on the Additions to the Archive podcast and Substack.

Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Jewish Identity in Lithuania Today

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Join YIVO for a conversation about the resurgence of interest in Jewish identity and history in Lithuania today. Jonathan Brent will moderate a conversation among Miglė Anušauskaitė, a Lithuanian cartoonist and archivist working on the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project, Anna Avidan, Managing Director of LitvakWorld, Kęstas Pikūnas, publisher of Passport, and former Lithuanian Minister of Culture, Mindaugas Kvietkauskas. Together they will explore topics such as the historical and social realities of Jewish-Lithuanian relations, and the challenges of building a multi-cultural, democratic society in Lithuania today.

This panel originally took place on December 7, 2021

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Kimberly McCreight, "Someone Else's Husband" (Knopf, 2026)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

New York Times bestselling author Kimberly McCreight delivers a tour de force of character-driven suspense with her latest novel, Someone Else's Husband (Knopf, 2026), the story of two women whose secrets and desires entrap them in a deadly love triangle. You had to rely on the power of love. That he loved you enough not to do the thing that would break your heart. It was paper-thin ice on which to stake your survival. Gretchen Falk, a Park Avenue sophisticate born into great wealth and blessed with a storybook marriage, knows she lives a charmed life, and she’s not about to risk losing any part of it. That’s why she tried to convince Richard, her devoted husband and the father to their three children, not to join his old college friends on an expedition almost eight thousand miles away, to the imposing peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. Little did she know that the beautiful artist climbing alongside him might prove the far greater danger. Frankie Callahan’s dream of artistic success is within reach, with her career-making exhibition at a celebrated New York gallery only weeks away. If all goes well, the show will leave her financially independent, free of the tainted money that ties her to a past—and a man—she’s desperate to escape. To mark this new beginning, she is going to climb Kilimanjaro. But when she learns she’s the sole female accompanying a group of male friends, Frankie realizes that nothing about the trip will be as she expected. She certainly hasn’t counted on meeting anyone like the very charismatic, very rich, very married Richard Falk. By the time they descend—with one fewer in their group than when they began—they have lost more than they ever could have imagined. Now, less than two weeks after their return to New York, Frankie’s East Village loft is a blood-soaked crime scene, and Richard has been charged with her murder. It falls to Gretchen to figure how the life she so carefully constructed could have imploded so completely. There are only two things she knows for sure: she’s the only woman Richard has ever loved, and he would never hurt anyone. Someone Else’s Husband is the sweeping and suspenseful story of two women on a collision course with love—and with each other—in which no one is right and everyone is very, very wrong.

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Emily Doucet, "Inventing Nadar: A History of Photographic Firsts" (Duke UP, 2026)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Félix Nadar took the first aerial photograph in 1858, so the story goes. The evidence, Emily Doucet notes, is mixed. In Inventing Nadar: A History of Photographic Firsts (Duke UP, 2026), Doucet analyzes the historical and material production of the nineteenth-century Parisian photographer’s famous and numerous photographic firsts. Focusing on these oft-labeled groundbreaking elements of his career, she deconstructs Nadar’s legacy as a prime protagonist in the history of photography by interrogating the media techniques used to construct his invention narratives. Doucet highlights this highly mediated process as one that canonized novel applications of photography as discrete techniques with single authors and inventors. Looking to this process of mediation through the institutions and individuals that shaped Nadar’s archives, Doucet unpacks assumptions of Nadar as a master of early photography and shows how the medium is enmeshed in larger histories of media, science, and technology. The result is both a new account of Nadar’s place in photographic history and a critical study of how stories of innovation take shape.

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Fredrik Saxegaard, Mia Lövheim, and Geir Afdal eds. "Doctoral Supervision Across Boundaries" (Scandinavian UP, 2026)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What does doctoral supervision actually look like in contemporary academia?

In this NBN episode, Fredrik Saxegaard discusses the open-access book Doctoral Supervision Across Boundaries: Interdisciplinarity as Process and Practice (Scandinavian UP, 2026), co-edited with Mia Lövheim, and Geir Afdal.

The conversation challenges the traditional image of supervision as a private relationship between a supervisor and a PhD candidate. Instead, the book argues that supervision today is distributed across networks, institutions, peers, reviewers, research schools, and academic cultures.

We discuss:

Why interdisciplinarity complicates doctoral identity formation,
How Accountability Pressures Reshape Supervision,
The hidden curricula of doctoral education,
Writing and evaluation across disciplinary boundaries

Drawing on experiences from the Scandinavian RVS research school, the book offers a critical rethinking of supervision as a relational, collective, and institutionally embedded practice.

This episode will be particularly relevant to supervisors, doctoral candidates, academic developers, and anyone interested in the future of higher education.

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Cristina Florea, "Bukovina: The Life and Death of an East European Borderland" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Bukovina, when it has existed on official maps, has always fit uneasily among its neighbors. The region is now divided between Romania and Ukraine but has long been a testing ground for successive regimes, including the Habsburg Empire, independent and later Nazi-allied Romania, and the Soviet Union, as each sought to reshape the region in its own image. In this beautifully written and wide-ranging book Bukovina: The Life and Death of an East European Borderland (Princeton UP, 2025), Cristina Florea traces the history of Bukovina, showing how this borderland, the onetime buffer between Christendom and Islam, found itself at the forefront of modern state-building and governance projects that eventually extended throughout the rest of Europe. Encounters that play out in borderlands have proved crucial to the development of modern state ambitions and governance practices.
Drawing on a wide range of archives and published sources in Russian, Ukrainian, German, Romanian, French, and Yiddish, Florea integrates stories of ethnic and linguistic groups—rural Ukrainians, Romanians, and Germans, and urban German-speaking Jews and Poles—who lived side by side in Bukovina, all of them navigating constant reconfiguration and reinvention. Challenging traditional chronologies in European history, she shows that different transformations in the region occurred at different tempos, creating a historical palimpsest and a sense among locals that they had lived many lives.
A two-hundred-year history of a region shaped by the conflicting pulls of imperial legacies and national ambitions, Bukovina reveals the paradoxes of modern history found in a microcosm of Eastern Europe.

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Jesse Montgomery, "It Is Not Enough to Survive: The Young Patriots Story" (UNC Press, 2026)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Jesse Montgomery joins Michael Stauch to discuss It Is Not Enough to Survive: The Young Patriots Story (UNC Press, 2026). They examine how young white migrants from Appalachia and the South fought police brutality, racism, economic exploitation, and displacement through community organizing, and even joined forces with Fred Hampton’s Black Panther Party and the Young Lords to create the original Rainbow Coalition in the streets of Chicago in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Highlights include:

How the Young Patriots evolved from street gang to political organizers active in Chicago’s “Hillbilly Harlem,” the Uptown neighborhood;
A reminder that poor white workers made up the large majority of migrants from the South during the Great Migrations of the 20th century;
How the Young Patriots attempted to “re-signify” the Confederate flag, paralleling efforts by “race traitors” like Noel Ignatiev to reframe white workers in a context of interracial class solidarity;
How the story of the Young Patriots is also a story of urban renewal, and the fight against it, in Chicago;
A discussion of Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” and the role of country music in the culture wars of the 1960s.

Guest: Jesse Montgomery is a visiting assistant professor of English at Berea College who works on American literature after 1945, Appalachian outmigration, and radical culture. Jesse holds a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University. His writing has appeared in n+1, Popula, Full Stop, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies.

Host: Michael Stauch is an associate professor of history at the University of Toledo and the author of Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2025.

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Robert Suits, "The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

From the mid-nineteenth century through the dust bowl years of the Great Depression, a new kind of migrant worker became a familiar sight in communities across America. The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants (Princeton UP, 2026) by Dr. Robert Suits traces the journeys of these homeless men and women, showing how hobo work was an adaptation to energy transitions and a harsh and unpredictable climate, and how the hobo played a central role in the histories of industrialization and westward expansion.
Challenging common depictions of the hobo as a world-weary, bearded man in ragged clothes, Dr. Suits reveals how these wandering laborers were often fastidious and heartbreakingly young. Forever on the move due to economic hardship and climate disaster, they chased harvests and took seasonal jobs in industries like logging and mining. Too often they couldn’t find employment at all. Suits describes the difficult, dangerous, and highly unstable jobs they worked while shedding light on the hobo life and philosophy, from their techniques for stowing away on railroads to their unique blend of socialist, anarchist, and anti-work thought. He traces the emergence of the hobo to the advent of steam and the need for manual laborers in places where this new technology couldn’t reach and describes how a growing reliance on the internal combustion engine brought an end to hobo work.
Drawing on oral histories, environmental data, and cutting-edge digital methods, The Hobo paints an unforgettable portrait of an eclectic group of wandering radicals, troublemakers, poets, and writers, demonstrating how their experiences upend some of our basic assumptions about how environments and technologies shape society.

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Jake Dyble, "Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany" (Boydell Press, 2025)

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:30:00 -0000

Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant’s cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use.

In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development.

Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy.

This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social.

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Blue Jasmine

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Woody Allen has called A Streetcar Named Desire the most well-directed film ever made and its influence on Blue Jasmine (2013) is unmistakable. Both concern a woman whose fantasy life and self-deception break down and both feature incredible performances by the lead actress: in Streetcar, it’s Vivien Leigh and here it’s Cate Blanchett. And if Streetcar is a high point of Eliza Kazan’s filmography, Blue Jasmine is surely one of Allen’s and perhaps the best of the subgenre Woody Allen Movies Without The Woody Allen Character.

Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

Blue Jasmine is Allen’s 44th film; his memoir, Apropos of Nothing, details how he became a writer and director of fifty films.

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Colin Flahive, "The Galaxy's Last Ride: Shifting Gears in Rural China" (Earnshaw Books, 2026)

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Colin Flahive is an American entrepreneur and writer who has spent more than two decades living and running social enterprises in southwestern China. He is best known as one of the founders of Salvador's Coffee House, which is a hub of international exchange in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province.

In this New Books Network episode, we talk with Colin about his latest book, The Galaxy's Last Ride: Shifting Gears in Rural China (Earnshaw Books, 2026).

The Galaxy's Last Ride is a rich combination of memoir, travelogue, and oral history that explores China's sweeping development through a deeply personal lens. The book weaves together several strands—a 2,500-kilometer solo motorcycle journey that Colin took across rural China during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the personal stories of Salvador’s employees, and recollections from Colin’s past travels—to paint a part-insider-part-outsider portrait of China’s evolutions over the last two decades.

Anthony Kao is a writer who intersects international affairs and cultural criticism. He founded/edits Cinema Escapist—a publication exploring the sociopolitical context behind global film and television—and also writes for outlets like The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, and Eater.

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Karl Whittington, "Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2025)

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Karl Whittington joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2025). What role does desire play in the making of art objects? Art historians typically answer this question by referring to historical evidence about an artist's sexual identity or to particular kinds of imagery. But what about anonymous artists? Or works whose subject matter is mainstream? We know little about the identities and personalities of most premodern artists, but this should not hold us back from thinking about their embodied experience. In this book, Karl Whittington contends that we can "queer" the works of anonymous makers by thinking about their embodied experiences creating art. Considering issues of touch, pressure, and gesture across substances such as wood, stone, ivory, wax, cloth, paint, and metal, Whittington argues for an erotics of artisanal labor, in which the actions of hand, body, and breath interact in intimate ways with materials. Whittington takes seriously the agency of materials and technical processes, arguing that they necessarily placed the bodies of artists and artisans into physical situations and psychological states that can be read through the lens of desire. Combining historical evidence with speculative description, this evocative set of essays broadens our understanding of the motivations and experiences of premodern artists. It will appeal to scholars and students of art history, medieval studies, gender studies, queer studies, and anthropology.

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Marielle Risse, "Ethnographic Reflections on Marriage in Dhofar, Oman" (Anthem Press, 2026)

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of the New Books Network, we explore Ethnographic Reflections on Marriage in Dhofar, Oman (Anthem Press, 2026), with anthropologist Dr Marielle Risse. Drawing on nearly two decades of ethnographic fieldwork, Dr Risse offers a nuanced examination of marriage practices among Sunni Muslim communities in southern Oman, challenging many of the assumptions that often underpin Western discussions of gender, family, and personal autonomy.

Rather than portraying marriage as either oppressive or emancipatory, Dr Risse presents it as a complex social institution shaped by kinship networks, religious values, and community expectations. Risse’s work encourages readers to reconsider familiar ideas about family, marriage, household, intimacy, autonomy, and social life.

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Darren Haber, "Addiction, Accommodation, and Vulnerability in Psychoanalysis: Circles Without a Center" (Routledge, 2022)

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Addiction, Accommodation, and Vulnerability in Psychoanalysis: Circles Without a Center (Routledge, 2022) explores the compulsions and trauma that underlie addiction, using an intersubjective approach in seeking to understand the inspirations and challenges arising from the psychoanalytic treatment of addiction, compulsivity, and related dissociative conditions.

Drawing on insights from his own analytic practice and personal experience, in addition to the work of Stolorow, Brandchaft and Winnicott, among others, Haber considers the complex ways in which addiction becomes woven into a person’s life, and analyses how it interacts with other problems such as depression and anxiety, self-fragmentation, and ambivalence about treatment. Haber creatively integrates the work of Camus, Kafka, and Beckett to further contemplate the dilemmas that can arise during the clinical process and, in identifying his own and his patients’ vulnerabilities and contradictions, provides an honest, humorous and sometimes painful account of what happens in the consulting room.

With its use of rich clinical material and an accessible and vivid writing style, this book will appeal to all psychoanalysts and psychotherapists working with patients affected by addiction, as well as other professionals seeking new insights into effective strategies for treating this most challenging malady.

Darren M. Haber is a psychoanalyst practicing in west Los Angeles.

Isak de Vries is a Psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City, New York.

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David Leupold, "The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities: Urban Futures and Their Afterlives" (Routledge, 2026)

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What does it mean, three decades after the demise of the USSR, to inhabit cities built for a future that has never arrived? In pursuit of the question—what is left of the socialist city?—this book aims not only to trace the material and mnemonic remains of the socialist city,  but to show how the Soviet discourse of the city at times engendered radical ideas that challenged the narrow confines of state socialism itself.

These ideas are, for instance, the efforts of Esperanto-speaking internationalists from Czechoslovakia to build the internationalist city from below in the Central Asian steppe, the quest of Armenian Futurists to root the architectural style of Soviet Armenia in the country’s Persianate heritage, or a Jewish-Kyrgyz philosopher's vision of turning a science town in the hinterland of Moscow into the first ecopolis of the USSR. In an effort to rethink the life and afterlife of the Soviet city from its geographical South, The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities: Urban Futures and Their Afterlives (Routledge, 2026) explores the material and immaterial legacies of socialist-era urbanization in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. To this end, it embarks on a historical and ethnographic journey to urban sites in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. In a quest to reconstruct competing visions of urbanity that emerged from within the Soviet South, using varied empirical sources in Armenian, Czech, Kyrgyz, and Russian, the book outlines four urban visions: bottom-up urbanity, rooted urbanity, polycentric urbanity, and ecocentric urbanity. By understanding the social vision of a "socialist city of the future" beyond the political center in its trans-local independence, the book highlights the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Soviet South and its historical embeddedness within the regional dynamics of the Global South.

David Leupold is a sociologist, scholar of memory wars and research fellow in the ERC-funded research project REVENANT: Revivals of Empire. He is the author of the prize-winning book Embattled Dreamlands: The Politics of Contesting Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish Memory (2021), the former principal investigator of the DFG-funded research project Future Images of the Past (2021–2025), and a current resource scholar for the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies (Middlebury Institute of International Studies). He lives in Berlin.

This interview was conducted by Ernest Lee, PhD student at the University of Chicago. He researches the history of postcolonial energy through the lens of development, infrastructure and environment, with a focus on West Africa and Southeast Asia.

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Elly Kent, "Artists and the People: Ideologies of Art in Indonesia" (NUS Press, 2022)

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Exploring the work of established and emerging artists in Indonesia’s vibrant art world, Artists and the People: Ideologies of Art in Indonesia (NUS Press, 2022) examines why so many artists in the world’s largest archipelagic nation choose to work directly with people and in the studio. While the social dimension of Indonesian art makes it distinctive in the globalised world of contemporary art, Elly Kent is the first to explore this engagement in Indonesian terms. What are the historical, political and social conditions that lie beneath these polyvalent practices? How do formal and informal institutions, communities and artist-run-initiatives contribute to the practices and discourses behind socially-engaged art in Indonesia? What do artists do when they locate their practice in a broader social milieu, and what tensions arise when artists integrate communities, governments, politics, history and people into their practice?

Drawing on interviews with artists, translations of archival material, visual analyses and participation in artists’ projects, this book presents a unique, interdisciplinary examination of ideologies of art in Indonesia. It portrays the ways art practice and theory are understood within Indonesia and inside Indonesian-language discourse. Indonesia's artists have continued to explore, resist and draw on the methodologies and discourses of social responsibility and artistic autonomy generated by Indonesian arts practitioners through their early 20th-century encounters with modernity and the founding of the nation state. This book brings contemporary practice into conversation with art history in Indonesia.

Dr Elly Kent is a visual artist, translator, researcher and educator with 20 years of experience working in academia and the arts in Indonesia and Australia. Elly is Deputy Director of the ANU Indonesia Institute and Sub-dean of Languages in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. She convenes the Year in Asia program and is Treasurer of the Indonesia Council, Australia’s peak body for Indonesian studies.

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Brook Wilensky-Lanford, "A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2026)

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Ever since conquistadores claimed Taino land in the name of their Catholic God and New England Puritans formed their strictly Protestant “city on a hill,” religion has been central to American life. Even as some found religious freedom—Rhode Island welcomed the Quakers, Jews, and Baptists that Massachusetts expelled as dissenters—indigenous people and Africans forced into slavery struggled to protect their religious practices. With the constitutional separation of church and state, it fell to the American people to decide: would they sharpen religion’s formidable powers of division, or reimagine its creative possibilities?

In A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2026) Brook Wilensky-Lanford follows this essential American tension from first contact through the 2024 election. This is an expansive history of extraordinary religious questions, told through the ordinary people who grappled with them. It is a story of defiance: Anne Hutchinson, preaching against Puritan clergy; Reform rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise serving soft-shell crab to his kosher guests at an 1883 banquet; and Wovoka, a Paiute man who envisioned the Ghost Dance movement, which persisted in the face of violent government repression at Wounded Knee. It is also a story of community: Millerites waiting together in vain for Jesus’s return on a rainy October night in 1844; Chinese immigrants bringing Daoist and Buddhist gods to their California temples; Mormons pushing westward to build their “new Zion” in Utah. And in the last fifty years, it has been a story of muscular political power, as the religious right has sought to shape the present and paint the past in its own image.

At a moment when religion penetrates even the most secular aspects of American life, understanding its history is more essential than ever before. “It is in history that the very human work of religion happens,” Wilensky-Lanford shows us, “and in ordinary time that even the most carved-in-stone tenets can and do change.”

Brook Wilensky-Lanford is a religion writer, editor, and teacher. The author of Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and former managing editor of Killing the Buddha, her work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, and elsewhere. Currently the Associate Director of Sacred Writes Public Scholarship, she holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University and a PhD in Religion in the Americas from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she lives.

This episode’s host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com

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Raissa von Doetinchem de Rande, "The Politics of Islamic Ethics: Hierarchy and Human Nature in the Philosophical Tradition (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Fundamental to Islamic thought is the idea that there is a way that human beings simply are, by nature or creation. This concept is called fiṭra. In The Politics of Islamic Ethics: Hierarchy and Human Nature in the Philosophical Tradition (Cambridge UP, 2025), rooting her investigation in two central passages in the Qur’an and hadith literature, where it is asserted that God created human beings in a certain way, the author moves beyond discussion of the usual figures who have commented on those texts to look instead at a group of classical Islamic philosophers rarely discussed in conjunction with ethical matters. Tracing the development of fiṭra through this overlooked strand of medieval thinking, von Doetinchem de Rande uses fiṭra as an entrée to wider topics in Islamic ethics. She shows that the notion of fiṭra articulated by al-Fārābī, Ibn Bājja, Ibn Ṭufayl, and Ibn Rushd highlights important issues about organizational hierarchies of human nature. This, she argues, has major implications for contemporary political and legal debates.

Raissa von Doetinchem de Rande is Assistant Professor of Religious Ethics and Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago.

Host Yaseen Christian Andrewsen is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, specialising in Islamic intellectual history in West Africa focusing on issues in Sufism, theology, renewal, and authority. Yaseen is a co-host for the New Books in Islamic Studies podcast. He can be reached by email at: christian.andrewsen@pmb.ox.ac.uk

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The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Historians began writing the history of the Holocaust in Yiddish from a distinctly Jewish perspective in the years immediately after World War II. These Yiddish historians studied the Holocaust from the perspective of its Jewish victims, rather than that of the Nazi perpetrators, examining daily life in the ghettos and camps, and stressing the importance of survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and memoirs. Above all, they redefined “resistance” to include the many ways Jews struggled to remain alive under Nazi occupation. Mark Smith chronicles and contextualizes this largely overlooked yet significant set of scholars in his recently published work, The Yiddish Historians and the Struggle for a Jewish History of the Holocaust.

This book talk originally took place on October 29, 2021.

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Marinus De Jong, "A Church for a Secular World: The Development of Klaas Schilder's Ecclesiology" (Brill, 2025)

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The relationship between the Church and the world has been a subject of debate since the Church's earliest days. In ⁠A Church for a Secular World: The Development of Klaas Schilder's Ecclesiology⁠ (Brill, 2025), Marinus De Jong explores how Stanley Hauerwas, with his emphasis on the Church as polis, made a significant contemporary contribution—one that has also faced strong criticism. This study examines the distinctive insights of second-generation neo-Calvinist theologian Klaas Schilder (1890-1952) on this issue. Neo-Calvinism is renowned for its development of Reformed theology, particularly in this area, and Schilder builds on this tradition with a critical eye. Engaging with the increasing secularity of the twentieth century, he carefully interacts with Karl Barth's writings while refining his own perspective. In doing so, Schilder's position comes close to the Anabaptist stance of Hauerwas, yet remains firmly rooted in the Reformed understanding of creation.

Marinus de Jong, Ph.D., is assistant professor of the theology of neo-Calvinism at Theologische Universiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands. He co-editedThe Klaas Schilder Reader: The Essential Theological Writings (Lexham, 2022).

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Pamela Walker Laird, "Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth" (Cambridge University Press, 2025)

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

"Self-Made" success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four centuries ago, our foundational stories actually disparaged ambitious upstarts as dangerous and selfish threats to a healthy society. In Pamela Walker Laird's fascinating history of why and how storytellers forged this American myth, she reveals how the goals for self-improvement evolved from serving the community to supporting individualist dreams of wealth and esteem. Simplistic stories of self-made success and failure emerged that disregarded people's advantages and disadvantages and fostered inequality. Fortunately, Self-Made also recovers long-standing, alternative traditions of self-improvement to serve the common good. These challenges to the myth have offered inspiration, often coming, surprisingly, from Americans associated with self-made success, such as Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and Horatio Alger. Here are real stories that show that no one lives – no one succeeds or fails – in a vacuum.

Pamela Walker Laird is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Colorado Denver. Laird’s publications include her newest book, Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth (Cambridge University Press, 2025); Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin (Harvard University Press, 2006), which won the 2006 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history and is available in Chinese; and Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), a Choice Outstanding Academic Book.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos

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John Longhurst, "Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? A Journalist Reports on Faith" (CMU Press, 2024)

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

One of the things that stood out in my conversation with John Longhurst about his book Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? A Journalist Reports on Faith (CMU Press, 2024) was his seriousness about journalism itself. Longhurst understands the journalist's vocation not as providing definitive answers but as asking good questions, paying close attention, and engaging thoughtfully with the people and events that shape our world.

Our discussion focused on a theme that runs throughout the book: if religion's enduring strength lies not in providing final answers but in sustaining meaningful questions, then what sustains belief amid suffering, doubt, and uncertainty? Longhurst's work suggests that faith often emerges not from certainty but from ongoing engagement with life's deepest mysteries.

Rather than offering simple conclusions, Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? invites readers into conversations about faith, technology, culture, politics, and everyday life. It reminds us that religious questions remain central to how many people understand themselves and the world around them. In an age increasingly shaped by AI and our histories, these questions may become even more important, not less so.

My thanks to John Longhurst for joining me on the New Books Network and for sharing insights drawn from a lifetime of careful observation, thoughtful reporting, and persistent questioning.

Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research examines the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, particularly within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands.

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Stephanie Coontz, "For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage" (Viking, 2026)

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Marriage rates have fallen dramatically since the 1970s. Yet far from devaluing marriage, people still overwhelmingly describe marriage as the highest commitment they can imagine. Most Americans say they want to marry eventually, and couples who do marry have a lower chance of divorce than at any time since the 1970s. Increasingly, though, people tell pollsters they “have no idea” if they actually will end up married. And unlike in the past, young women are more uncertain than young men.

In For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage (Viking, 2026), Stephanie Coontz—author of the “rich, provocative, and entertaining” book Marriage, A History—unravels the roots of such paradoxical trends. Examining five critical periods of historical transformation, she reveals how shifting romantic ideals, gender expectations, sexual mores, and cultural myths have bequeathed us a welter of contradictory beliefs, dysfunctional habits, and emotional earworms that make it hard to adjust our family relationships to the social and economic challenges of twenty-first-century life.

Coontz demonstrates that today’s widespread nostalgia for a seemingly more stable past is an understandable reaction to heightened economic insecurity and eroding social solidarities. But trying to reproduce a largely imaginary golden age of marriage from the past simply locks us into a restricted future.

Current public debates about marriage are dominated by two diametrically opposed groups. One argues that marriage is the only sure route to personal happiness and social stability; the other, that marriage is inherently oppressive. Coontz puts forward a radical middle ground, pointing to surprising new research on the personal changes and the policy innovations that can help people create successful relationships, in or out of marriage.

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Ida Kinalska-Pietruska and Isabella Skrypczak, "A Polish Girl in Siberia: Surviving and Transcending Exile" (Disruption Books, 2026)

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A memoir of a child’s forced relocation to Siberia under Stalin’s Gulag system reveals the potential for true human kindness in the face of extraordinary hardship.

In April of 1940, six-year-old Ida woke to the sound of pounding on her door. Soviet soldiers forcibly packed her and her mother onto a train with thousands of their neighbors and deported them to remote Siberia, leaving them stranded to survive the brutal winter in subhuman conditions. Looking back, Ida shares their struggles: foraging for food, trying to reunite with her imprisoned father, spending weeks in a desolate hospital with typhoid fever, and adapting to shifts in the political climate to make the long journey home to Poland.

Ida published this acclaimed memoir in her native Polish in 2011. Here, Ida’s granddaughter, Isabella Skrypczak, translates her babcia’s words and provides additional context—including describing the remarkable life Ida has gone on to live as a pioneering doctor.

In the vein of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, A Polish Girl in Siberia: Surviving and Transcending Exile (Disruption Books, 2026) chronicles Ida’s experiences on a lesser-known front of the Second World War. Together, Ida and Isabella reflect on how every small act of kindness contributed to Ida’s liberation from exile and ability to build a life and a family. Her story celebrates the capacity of the human spirit to not only survive trauma but thrive beyond it.

Ida Kinalska-Pietruska survived childhood exile to Siberia during the Soviet Union’s World War II assault on Poland. When she returned to Poland as a teen, she began studying medicine. A pioneering endocrinologist, she founded the School of Endocrinology and Diabetology in Białystok and led the region’s first endocrinology clinic for twenty years. Ida has authored more than four hundred publications, mentored countless other doctors, and collaborated across the international medical community, including using her research to make widely known the Chernobyl disaster’s effects on people’s endocrinological health. She has been honored with the Order Odrodzenia Polski, Poland’s second-highest civilian state award, and two Doctor Honoris Causa titles, reflecting her resilience, brilliance, and global impact on science and humanity.

Isabella Skrypczak is an author, intuitive healer, and former HR professional in Big Tech whose work bridges the seen and unseen. Born to Polish immigrants and raised in Houston, Texas, she spent every summer with her grandmother in Poland. When her grandmother’s memoir gained national attention in Polish media, Iza felt called to translate it into English—an act of love, remembrance, and advocacy. As war returned to Eastern Europe, she recognized the urgency in sharing this history with the Western world. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her daughter, Kamila.
Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar with research areas spanning Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War Studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, and Russian and East European history. He is currently the Book Review Editor for Comparative Civilizations Review.

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Derek R. Peterson, "A Popular History of Idi Amin's Uganda" (Yale UP, 2025)

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Idi Amin ruled Uganda between 1971 and 1979, inflicting tremendous violence on the people of the country. How did Amin's regime survive for eight calamitous years? Drawing on recently uncovered archival material, Derek Peterson reconstructs the political logic of the era, focusing on the ordinary people—civil servants, curators and artists, businesspeople, patriots—who invested their energy and resources in making the government work.

In A Popular History of Idi Amin's Uganda (Yale University Press, 2025), Peterson reveals how Amin (1928-2003) led ordinary people to see themselves as front-line soldiers in a global war against imperialism and colonial oppression. They worked tirelessly to ensure that government institutions kept functioning, even as resources dried up and political violence became pervasive. In this case study of how principled, talented, and patriotic people sacrificed themselves in service to a dictator, Peterson provides lessons for our own time.

Derek Peterson is the Ali Mazrui Professor of History and African Studies at the University of Michigan. His books include Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent and The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin. He lives in Ann Arbor, MI.

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The Legacy of Chaim Grade

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Chaim Grade was born in 1910 in Vilna, Poland. In his youth, Grade was a student of the Novaredok Musar Yeshiva and of Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz. He was also a founding member of the Yung-Vilne literary group, known for its leftist politics, secular Jewish thinking, and literary influence. After losing both his mother and wife during the Holocaust, he emerged as one of the most prolific and defining Yiddish voices in post-war literature. Besides publishing several volumes of poetry, he is best known for his two acclaimed novels, The Agunah and The Yeshiva.

In early 2023, YIVO and the National Library of Israel (NLI) completed the digitization of the Papers of Chaim Grade and Inna Hecker Grade. The collection helps to illustrate Grade’s literary development and impact on Yiddish literature, from his earliest poetic works written in Vilna and the Soviet Union to his prolific and accomplished prose work composed mainly in the United States.

Join YIVO and NLI for a panel discussion of Grade’s legacy with Ruth Wisse, Ofer Dynes, and Curt Leviant, led by scholar and translator Justin Cammy.

This panel discussion originally took place on November 15, 2023.

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Philippe Huneman, "When Metaphysics Meets Biology: Kantian Approaches to the Concept of An Organism" (Routledge, 2026)

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Central to modern biology and the study of life is the concept of the organism—roughly, a body with interconnected parts that make specific contributions to the development and functioning of the whole. There are competing organism concepts even today, but the 18th century was a critical period in which thinkers gradually shed prior ideas of life in terms of a body with a principle of spontaneous motion, a body as a mere physical mechanism, or a body infused with vital spirits. In When Metaphysics Meets Biology: Kantian approaches to the concept of organism (Routledge, 2026), Philippe Huneman combines extensive scholarship in the history and philosophy of biology with Kantian critical philosophy and metaphysics to trace Kant’s contributions to the emerging organism concept. Huneman discusses the Critique of the Power of Judgment and other writings in which Kant developed a view of organisms as natural purposes and in which part-whole reasoning by the faculty of judgment is a condition of the possibility of thinking of organisms at all. Huneman, who is director of research at the Institute of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at CNRS and University of Paris 1 – Pantheon-Sorbonne, provides an account of Kant’s thinking that is accessible yet promises to bring this neglected aspect of Kant into dialogue with contemporary Kantian scholarship.

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Curtis Dozier, "The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate" (Yale UP, 2026)

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics.
It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which employ symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters wore Spartan helmets in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These juxtapositions may appear incongruous to people who associate the ancient world with enlightened political ideals and sophisticated philosophical inquiry. But, as Dozier points out in this thought-provoking book, it’s hard to imagine a historical period better suited to rhetorical use by white nationalists. Indeed, some of the most widely admired voices from ancient literature and philosophy endorsed ideas that modern white supremacists promote, and the social and political realities of the ancient world provide models for political systems that white supremacists would like to establish today.

Part introduction to contemporary white nationalist thought, part exploration of ancient racism and xenophobia, and part intellectual history of the political entanglements of academic study of the past, this book reveals that contemporary white nationalist intellectuals know much more about history than many people assume—and they deploy this knowledge with disturbing success.

Curtis Dozier is associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College. He is the director of the internationally recognized website Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics, which documents appropriations of Greco-Roman antiquity by hate groups. He lives in Poughkeepsie, NY.

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An Interview with Rachel Orr

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Rachel Orr is celebrating her nineteenth year at Prospect Agency, where she represents both authors and illustrators in projects ranging from board books through YA. She previously worked for eight rewarding years at HarperCollins Children’s Books. A native of Pittsburgh and a graduate of Kenyon College, she currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, with her husband and two children, where she enjoys dancing, running and reading, of course. In our interview, Rachel shares her journey in children's publishing and provides great tips for aspiring authors.

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Jeffrey Hoelle, "Cultivated: Plants, Hair, and the Aesthetic of Control" (Yale UP, 2026)

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

An exploration of the concept of cultivation, as conducted on both the land and the body, which expands our understanding of it as practice, aesthetic, and ideology.

In Cultivated: Plants, Hair, and the Aesthetic of Control (Yale University Press, 2026), Jeffrey Hoelle traces the imprint of cultivation across the naturally growing covers of the land and body—plants and hair. The book builds from research in the agricultural fields and cattle pastures at the edge of the Amazon rainforest to domestic landscapes and hair salons and shops in the frontier cities of Brazil and beyond. In spaces where the tangled forest once stood, clean pastures and ordered rows of crops now sit on properties with geometric edges. From rural spaces to immaculate lawns and cemeteries in the city, the imprint leads to the body, where hair, like plant growth, is cut, trimmed, and otherwise managed. Seemingly separate domains of agriculture, landscaping, and personal grooming are governed by a similar aesthetic of control.

This unique pairing of land and body expands our understanding of cultivation as a practice and as an ideology that operates in frontier Amazonia—but also closer to home, influencing how we conceptualize and interpret the covers that grow on and around us, and our imagined relations with nature in the future. Hoelle argues that we must understand this system of thought and the overlooked role it plays in environmental destruction and social inequality.

Jeffrey Hoelle is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research explores the social, cultural, and political-economic dimensions of environmental transformation and deforestation in frontier Amazonia. He is the author of Rainforest Cowboys: The Rise of Ranching and Cattle Culture in Western Amazonia (UT Press, 2015)

Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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Patrick Brodie, "Wild Tides: Media Infrastructure and Financial Crisis in Ireland" (Duke UP, 2026)

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Wild Tides: Media Infrastructure and Financial Crisis in Ireland (Duke University Press, 2026), Patrick Brodie maps the shifting fortunes of the Irish economy before the 2008 financial crisis up to 2020, outlining how the Irish state moved from rampant and irresponsible financialized development to incentivizing private media infrastructure and policy as instruments for economic recovery. Brodie contends that while the Irish state’s investment in creative and technological sectors of media was supposed to bring resources back into the country and stabilize the economy, it instead rendered the country even more vulnerable to future instability and transferred wealth into the hands of multinational corporations. Through ethnographic work and close engagement with the Irish state’s policy and planning across a number of key media infrastructure sites, Brodie unfolds the very real environmental and social impacts of Ireland’s naturalized model of financialized, foreign direct investment-led infrastructural development. Richly researched and comprehensively argued, Wild Tides reveals the multifarious, unexpected ways that financialization reaches into the daily life of a nation.

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Justin C. Key, "The Hospital at the End of the World: A Novel" (Harper, 2026)

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

From author Justin C. Key comes The Hospital at the End of the World: A Novel (Harper, 2026), set in a near future where artificial intelligence runs the world, involving a young medical student who must unravel family secrets to uncover the truth of his father’s mysterious death.

In a time not so far from our own, society is run by a global AI system controlled by an all powerful corporation. The Shepherd Organization oversees every medical school in the country save one in New Orleans, the renegade Hippocrates which still insists on human-led medicine. It is the last choice school for an ambitious young New Yorker named Pok. But after his father—himself a physician—dies under mysterious circumstance that seems connected to “the shepherds” and their megalomaniacal young CEO, Pok finds himself on a quest for answers that leads right to Hippocrates. Once enrolled, he stumbles upon a further mystery: a strange illness is plaguing newcomers to New Orleans who grew up under shepherd rule. What is causing this fatal anomaly? And how does it relate to the mystery of Pok’s father’s death and his own mysterious past?

Justin C. Key is a practicing psychiatrist and a speculative fiction writer. He is the author of the debut novel The Hospital at the End of the World and the story collection The World Wasn’t Ready for You. His stories have appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Lightspeed, and on Tor.com. He received a BA in biology from Stanford University and completed his residency in psychiatry at UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

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Poet-Prophet of American Democracy: Walt Whitman’s Vital Political Prose

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Walt Whitman’s outrage at American politics and politicians was surpassed only by his passionate faith in democracy’s future. Both his anger and his hope fire his visionary prose writings on democracy, gathered for the first time in a new Library of America paperback edited by acclaimed political commentator and literary critic David Bromwich.

Join Bromwich, Mark Edmundson (author of Song of Ourselves: Walt Whitman and the Fight for Democracy) and Karen Karbiener (The Modern Scholar: Walt Whitman and the Birth of Modern American Poetry) for an exploration of our essential poet of democracy and his prophetic vision for the country that speaks directly to our present moment.

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How Does the Second-Hand Book Business Really Work? with WeBuyBooks Co-Founder Mike Lane

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 19:34:00 -0000

Today I’m speaking with Mike Lane, Managing Director and co-founder of WeBuyBooks about the economics of the second-hand book business. WeBuyBooks is one of the UK’s largest second-hand book dealers. Mike talks about how he got his start in the book industry, which books sell and which don't, and what the future holds for the book industry more broadly. Mike also discusses other second-hand business lines in CDs, DVDs, and Legos.

Visit WeBuyBooks.co.uk and use code NBN15 for 15% extra on your first offer.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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AI, Algocracy, and Democracy's Challenging Road Ahead with Andrew Sorota

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Like many people, I've been following the developments of AI, testing out new models and following the deluge of news stories about the fight for supremacy. Much has been written about the existential and economic risks posed by AI, but the political implications of superintelligent systems have often been sidelined. In the United States and elsewhere, AI companies steam ahead with little regulation or oversight. Meanwhile, politicians appear flatfooted and unsure about the best way to integrate AI into the government to make democracies stronger and more responsive to the needs and will of the people. AI will undeniably change how governments work, but how can we ensure that democracy and individual rights are safeguarded amidst the most transformative technological revolution in more than a century? Today I'm speaking with Andrew Sorota, Head of Research for the Office of Eric Schmidt. Andrew has written extensively about the relationship between democracy and artificial intelligence. His writing has appeared in outlets like the New York Times and Noema magazine. Andrew will dispel many myths about AI, where he looks to call bullshit on the idea that democracy is a system heading fast into the dustbin of history.

Follow Andrew Sorota on LinkedIn

"This Is No Way to Rule a Country" in the New York Times

"Rescuing Democracy From The Quiet Rule Of AI" in Noema

Andrew Sorota is currently Head of Research for the Office of Eric Schmidt.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Jeffrey R. Di Leo et al. eds., "Theory as World Literature" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What does it mean for theory to be considered as a species of not just literature but world literature? Theory as World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2025), edited by Jeffrey De Leo, offers a wide range of accounts of how the “worlding” of literature both problematizes the national categorizing of theory (e.g., French theory), and brings new meanings and challenges to the coming together of theory and literature. In sum, it presents theory as world literature as a viable alternative to more commonplace approaches to theory.
Under such an approach to theory, what it means to be an African, American, or Asian “theorist” – let alone a French, German, or Spanish one – in the new millennium is as complicated (or simple) as what means to be “African,” “American,” or “Asian.” “Worlded” literature is not considered here as only the world literature of nations and nationalities. Rather, it is also the worlded literature of individuals crossing borders, mixing stories, and speaking in dialect. So too is it the worlded literature of the multinational corporate publishing industry wherein success in the global market is a major determinate of aesthetic and literary value.
Offering accounts of what it means to consider theory as world literature, the authors in this pioneering collection explore the ways in which we might regard theory as connected and reconnected through global literary networks of increasing complexity and precarity. By approaching theory from this perspective, Theory as World Literature demonstrates how and why theory is more worldly now than ever.

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Stephen Spector, "God and the First Families: Parenting, Trauma, and Healing in the Book of Genesis" (Jewish Publication Society, 2026)

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What if the book of Genesis is not only the story of humanity’s first family, but also the story of God learning how to parent? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with Stephen Spector to discuss his book God and the First Families: Parenting, Trauma, and Healing in the Book of Genesis (Jewish Publication Society, 2026), a provocative reexamination of the Bible’s foundational stories through the lens of parenting.

Drawing on both biblical interpretation and contemporary psychology, Spector explores how God’s relationship with the patriarchs and matriarchs evolves throughout Genesis. God begins as a demanding authority figure, shifts toward a more nurturing presence, returns briefly to authoritarianism in the binding of Isaac, and ultimately develops a style focused on fostering moral and emotional growth. Remarkably, Spector argues, Genesis anticipates parenting insights that psychologists would not articulate for thousands of years.

Along the way, familiar stories take on new meaning. Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers—each narrative becomes a window into questions of favoritism, resilience, forgiveness, family conflict, and healing after trauma. By reading Genesis as a story about parenting and human development, Spector uncovers enduring wisdom about how families flourish, fracture, and find their way back to one another.

Together, Spector and Katz explore what the Bible can teach about raising children, repairing relationships, and understanding the complex bond between love, authority, and growth.

Stephen Spector is a professor of English emeritus at Stony Brook University. He is the author of Operation Solomon: The Daring Rescue of the Ethiopian Jews and Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism, among other volumes. Spector has taught the Bible to undergraduate and graduate students for fifty years. He has been a visiting scholar at Hebrew University and a senior research fellow at the National Humanities Center and the Wesleyan Center for Humanities.

Rabbi Marc Katz is the senior rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, New Jersey. He is the author of The Heart of Loneliness: How Jewish Wisdom Can Help You Cope and Find Comfort, a National Jewish Book Award finalist and Yochanan’s Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life.

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Richard Bennet and Alexander Noyes, "War at Arm's Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance" (Yale UP, 2026)

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

An in-depth examination of how the United States can build more effective partner militaries.

Military assistance has a bad reputation. Large-scale attempts to build partner militaries in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam cost the United States billions of dollars and ended ignominiously, with the collapse of local forces as American troops withdrew. Arms transfers of sophisticated, American-made weapons often appear to do more harm than good. Yet military assistance and support—operating indirectly through partners—when done right, can deliver remarkable strategic results for the United States and its partners. Working effectively with partner militaries is one of the most pressing national security challenges for the United States today.

In their latest book, War at Arm's Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance (Yale University Press, 2026), Richard Bennet and Alexander Noyes offer a systematic look at military assistance in the twenty-first century, examining a frequently deployed but often misunderstood set of tools that allows the United States to leverage partner militaries to achieve national security objectives. Bennet and Noyes posit that two main factors—the degree of interest alignment on security issues and the level of institutional capacity of the receiving force—will be the most important variables in Washington’s ability to build militarily effective partners.

Our guests today are Doctor Richard Bennet, who is a senior research associate at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, and Doctor Alexander Noyes, who is a fellow in the Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution.

Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of Volatile States in International Politics (Oxford University Press, 2023).

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Kristen Abbott Bennett, "Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2025) engages with one of Shakespeare's greatest thought-experiments: How does one navigate the 'theatre of the world'?

It invites students to examine how Shakespeare challenges this metaphor's vertical hierarchies in response to shifting understandings of cosmological order.

Teachers will find rich contextual frameworks for exploring how Shakespeare envisions 'worlds' as emerging from dynamic variables, raising urgent questions about how identity and justice are environmentally constructed.

Focal plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Hamlet, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello.

Each discussion features student centered 'Explorations'.

These play-specific classroom activities can also be adapted across Shakespeare's corpus and tailored for both secondary and university-level students.

These exercises encourage non-linear critical and creative thinking, inviting students to contemplate big ideas and generate new perspectives about the shared points of contact between Shakespeare's world and their own.

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Radio ReOrient Season 14 Round Up, hosted by Saeed Khan, Amina Easat-Daas, Marchella Ward and Claudia Radiven

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode, Saeed Khan, Amina Easat Daas, Chella Ward and Claudia Radiven sit down for a round up of the season’s dynamic episodes, and take a look toward the future and the next season. The conversation drew on the manifestations of Islamophobia across many different national contexts and the connectedness of them all. Across the episodes this season we explored the structural and systemic problems facing Muslims internationally, the work being done to combat it, and how tolerance may not be so tolerant after all. In this round up the team looked back at conversations at the recent International Islamophobia Studies Research Association Conference in Malaysia as well as in the ReOrient journal and blog, ReOrientations. We also looked forward to the upcoming debates and discussions to be held at the Critical Muslim Studies Conference and Summer Programme in Turkiye.

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Ro Skelton, “Naow’s Boutique” (Spring, 2025)

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Ro Skelton speaks to Emily Everett about her essay “Naow’s Boutique,” which appears in The Common’s Spring issue. The essay explores Ro’s time living and working in Dakar, where she formed a friendship in her neighborhood that eventually led to a sense of community, and then a community garden, and then a lifelong friendship. Ro also discusses how the essay fits into her focus as a writer – writing about gardening in unconventional spaces – and her memoir-in-progress on the subject, Easement.

Ro Skelton is a writer and gardener from Scotland. She is currently working on her first book, Easement, a memoir about mental health, queer parenting, and radical acts of gardening. Her work has appeared in Four Way Review, Waxwing, New Ohio Review, and Ecotone. Previously a reporter in West Africa and a member of an ocean-going rescue crew, she now lives and gardens on the Isle of Mull.

Read the essay in The Common here.

Learn more about Ro and her work at here.

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Laurie D. Graham, "Calling It Back to Me: Poems" (Random House, 2026)

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery interviews acclaimed poet Laurie D. Graham about her new book of poetry, Calling it Back to Me (McClelland & Stewart, 2026).

A poet’s clear-eyed witnessing of familial history, this is the most personal collection yet from two-time Trillium Book Award finalist Laurie D. Graham.

In these searching, spare, and resonant poems, Laurie D. Graham traces the story of her great-grandmothers’ lives before and after they left their homelands and settled on this continent, striving to understand how she came to be here and writing the act of colonization as it exists in her own family history. This collection’s fractured lines, time-weathered yet alive with detail, reflect a family’s knowledge broken by global immigration and memory loss, both individual and collective. The result is a courageous reckoning with the legacy of leaving home.

With tender curiosity and a determination to bear unflinching witness, Calling It Back to Me: Poems (Random House, 2026) asks: When language and memory are so tenuous, what is it that gets passed down between generations?

LAURIE D. GRAHAM grew up in Treaty 6 Territory, near amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta), and she has lived in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough, in the Territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg, since 2018, where she is a poet, an editor, and the publisher of Brick magazine, a journal of literary non-fiction based in Toronto. Her first book, Rove, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for the best first book of poetry in Canada. Her second and third books, Settler Education and Fast Commute, were both nominated for Ontario’s Trillium Book Award for Poetry.

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Don Thomas Deere, "The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space" (Duke UP, 2026)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026), Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous, African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control and movement. Deere demonstrates how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and who is excluded—becomes an essential component of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity.

Don Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

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Deb Olin Unferth, "Earth 7: A Novel" (Graywolf Press 2026)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Well, that’s about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.
Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?
By the end of Unferth’s wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers.

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney’s. She’s a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers’ Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary.

Recommended Books:

Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra
Jean Stafford, A Mother in History
Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth

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Robert Templer, "The Shah's Party: And the Iranian Revolution That Followed (Hurst, 2026)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1971, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi threw a party to celebrate the 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian Empire. It was planned to be a massive party, with tents set up in the desert, and invitations sent to just about every world leader across both the Western and Soviet blocs.

Robert Templer writes about this celebration–and how it presaged the events of the Iranian Revolution of 1979–in his new book The Shah's Party: And the Iranian Revolution That Followed (Hurst, 2026).

Robert Templer is a writer and former professor at the Central European University, where he also founded a research centre on post-conflict recovery. From 2011-2012, he was director of the Asia Programme at the International Crisis Group and has visited Iran on many occasions. He is the author of four books including the acclaimed Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam and A Basilisk Glance: Poisoners from Plato to Putin.

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Can I Say That: Your Go-To Guide for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Can I Say That: Your Go-To Guide for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is your safe space to learn more about diversity, equity and inclusion, and how you can be a force for change. Most DEI books focus on gender, race or the intersection of those two dimensions. This book adopts a broader intersectional lens while also providing concrete tools for allyship.
This book is for you if: you want to know more about diversity, equity, and inclusion but don't know where to start; are worried about saying the wrong thing; feel uncomfortable talking about DEI; are worried conversations might escalate or end in conflict; or don't want to be the only one fighting for change.

By explaining the common fears we all face about DEI, you'll feel empowered to talk with confidence and take action.

Guest: Dr. Poornima Luthra is an author, keynote and Tedx speaker, business consultant, and leading practitioner-academic in the field of talent management and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). As a senior faculty at Imperial Business School and external faculty at Copenhagen Business School, she bridges cutting-edge scholarship with real-world impact. She draws on eighteen years of research, teaching experience, and expertise in the field of talent management and DEI in Asia and Europe. She is the author of Leading Through Bias; The Art of Active Allyship; and Diversifying Diversity, and contributor to Harvard Business Review. Can I Say That? was named as one of the 10 best new management books of 2025.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

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“America’s Founding Son”: Author & Musician Bob Crawford on the Life of John Quincy Adams

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

John Quincy Adams was the great visionary of America’s post-founding era, a writer and orator of consummate skill who reframed the origins and principles of the republic for a new generation. It’s fitting then that as the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of independence, that Adams should be the focus of renewed attention.

One new book in particular caught our eye at Library of America: America’s Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick by Bob Crawford (Zando 2026). Crawford is perhaps best known as the bassist for the acclaimed folk-rock band The Avett Brothers, out of Concord, North Carolina. But he is also the host of not one but two popular podcasts: American History Hotline, on iHeart Radio, and The Road to Now, on SiriusXM’s POTUS channel. With all this going on, we’re very grateful that he could make time to sit down with LOA associate publisher Brian McCarthy for a free-ranging conversation about all things Adams.

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Sarah McNamara, "Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South" (UNC Press, 2023)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Decades before Miami became Havana USA, a wave of leftist, radical, working-class women and men from prerevolutionary Cuba crossed the Florida Straits, made Ybor City the global capital of the Cuban cigar industry, and established the foundation of latinidad in the Sunshine State. Located on the eastern edge of Tampa, Ybor City was a neighborhood of cigar workers and Caribbean revolutionaries who sought refuge against the shifting tides of international political turmoil during the early half of the twentieth century.
In Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), Historian Sarah McNamara tells the story of immigrant and U.S.-born Latinas/os who organized strikes, marched against fascism, and criticized U.S. foreign policy. While many members of the immigrant generation maintained their dedication to progressive ideals for years to come, those who came of age in the wake of World War II distanced themselves from leftist politics amidst the Red Scare and the wrecking ball of urban renewal. This portrait of the political shifts that defined Ybor City highlights the underexplored role of women’s leadership within movements for social and economic justice as it illustrates how people, places, and politics become who and what they are.

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Karine Premont and Christopher J. Devine eds., "Second in Command: Reevaluating the Role of Vice Presidents and Running Mates in Modern American Politics" (U Michigan Press, 2026)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Karine Premont and Christopher Devine have a new edited volume focusing on the American Vice Presidency and analyzing not just the office and the officeholders, but also the role of vice presidential candidates in the campaigns for the presidency. Second in Command: Reevaluating the Role of Vice Presidents and Running Makes in Modern American Politics (U Michigan Press, 2026) is a fascinating exploration of the role and place of the vice president, the vice presidency, and the vice presidential running mate. Often this position and this job are dismissed—since the vice president has very few actual powers, besides his/her role as president of the Senate and tiebreaker in that body, and one of the certifiers of the Electoral College votes after an election. But in the contemporary political environment, vice presidents have grown in importance in terms of their role on the presidential ticket and in their role once elected to office.

Second in Command is split into two parts, the first section focusing on the vice president in office, while the second part examines the vice presidential candidate and the role of being a running mate to a presidential candidate. In our conversation we discuss the fact that the vice president is often considered to be the “appendix” of American government, created at the Constitutional Convention to break a tie in the Senate, should there be one, and to solve the problem coming out of the newly designed Electoral College where two votes needed to be cast for president. But over the past fifty years, there has been tremendous change in terms of the inhabitants in the office, their relationship to the president and the presidency, and their activities on the campaign trail. Vice Presidents have become general advisors to the president. This precedent was established between President Jimmy Carter and his vice president, Walter Mondale. And since the 1970s, this newly engaged position and role for the vice president have generally been in place, with different approaches from different presidents/vice presidential pairs. The idea of trying to “balance” the ticket is still part of the selection dynamic, but it is as important as the working relationship that presidents have pursued with their vice presidential pick.

We had a fascinating discussion of the history of the vice presidency as well as an analysis of the more modern dynamic. We talked about different parts of ticket balancing, since it is not necessarily about geography so much as constituent appeals: religious groups, gender, expertise/experience, and more.

Second in Command: Reevaluating the Role of Vice Presidents and Running Mates in Modern American Politics is available from the University of Michigan Press via open access. Here is the link: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.14505045 It can, of course, also be purchased.

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Manasicha Akepiyapornchai, "Surrender to God Across Languages: Multilingual Intellectual History of Premodern India" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Surrender to God Across Languages: Multilingual Intellectual History of Premodern India (Oxford UP, 2026) explores the role of languages in the intellectual landscape of second-millennium India by way of six theological treatises composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, each written by a key intellectual figure: Vātsya Varadaguru, Periyavāccān Pillai, Meghanādari Sūri, Pillai Lokācārya, and Vedāntadeśika. Drawing on theories of language politics and translation, Manasicha Akepiyapornchai proposes a new theoretical framework of "language sphere" to better capture the linguistic and intellectual interaction from a micro perspective.

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Helping Companies Foster Agility

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Born and raised in San Diego, Charles Snow held a variety of jobs early in life, including: paperboy, grocery store cashier, accounting clerk, chauffeur, and sports director at a private school; each of which taught him important lessons about how organizations worked and were managed. Chuck earned his PhD in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley, and spent his entire academic career as a professor and researcher at Penn State. While there, Chuck taught management subjects to MBA students and executives in more than 35 countries.

In this episode, we focus on the core essay that Chuck and co-editor Oystein D. Fjelstad wrote for their book, “Actor-Oriented Organizing,” which is part of Cambridge University’s Companions to Management series. In conversation, Chuck discusses three key qualities essential to flattening hierarchical bureaucracies so that teams of employees can respond to emerging customer needs with greater speed and spontaneity. First, there’s a great (often unmet) value in openness to change and transparency. The second is a “commons” area, a space where team members feel they’re on equal, shared ground. And third is having the resources – financial, digital, and political – to ensure their work leads to outcomes that are incorporated into the company’s operational bloodstream. Underlying the entire approach that Chuck advocates for is seeking to act for the common good of all, embodying the “mutual sympathy” style that made Adam Smith not the just the “Father of Modern Economics,” but also a leading promoter of empathy before the term rose to prominence today.

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Natalia Rogach Alexander, "Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey" (Columbia UP, 2025)

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

John Dewey is among history’s most celebrated thinkers on democracy and education, yet he has often been underappreciated and misunderstood as a philosopher. This book paints a fresh portrait of Dewey as not only a reformer of schooling but also a profound theorist of human development, whose vision of the centrality of education to democracy, philosophy, and flourishing can still inspire us today.

What can we learn from this great thinker as we face challenges such as widespread drudgery and disaffection, estrangement among individuals and groups, and a crisis of democracy? This book supplies the answers, offering a bold new account of Dewey as an educational theorist who is essential for our troubled times.

Revealing the true scope of Dewey’s educational vision, this book provides a new perspective on a neglected aspect of the philosophical tradition. Natalia Rogach Alexander's Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey (Columbia University Press, 2025) presents an alternative canon—running from Plato to Rousseau to Du Bois—that recasts philosophy in terms of education and, in so doing, opens new pathways for social critique and the liberation of human potential.

Natalia Rogach Alexander is a lecturer in philosophy at Columbia University.

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Cape Fear Retells an Archetypal Revenge Story for a New Generation

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

It’s the Pop Culture Professors, and today we analyze the new TV series Cape Fear. First we give a reaction to episodes 1 & 2 of the series, and then we discuss the two earlier movie versions of the story, from 1962 and 1991.

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Arlene W. Saxonhouse, "Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists" (U Notre Dame Press, 2026)

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Athenian Democracy provides innovative readings of ancient theorists to reveal both the complexity of democracy's achievements and its limits.

In Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists (U Notre Dame Press, 2026), noted political scientist Arlene W. Saxonhouse offers fresh and provocative explorations of ancient political theorists, lending new insights about democracy's foundations and principles. These insights are more relevant than ever in a moment when the viability of democratic regimes is under scrutiny. Saxonhouse provides an in-depth discussion of the modern mythmakers (Hobbes, Paine, Hamilton, Mill, and Arendt, among others) who, in praising or excoriating Athenian democracy, have in fact distorted it to support their own assessments of democracy. She then offers detailed reinterpretations of the writings on democracy of four ancient theorists who had directly experienced life in the first democratic regime: Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle.

Saxonhouse argues that the mythmaking that often attends our views of Athenian democracy—whether as a flawed, slaveholding regime that fostered factions and oppressed women or as an ideal regime of egalitarian and participatory democracy—blinds us to the deeper understanding of democracies that these ancient theorists can offer.

Arlene W. Saxonhouse is the Caroline Robbins Collegiate Professor of Political Science, Emerita, at the University of Michigan. She is the author of numerous books and articles dealing with ancient Greek political thought, including Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens and Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought.

YouTube Channel: here

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Justin F Jackson, "The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines" (UNC Press, 2025)

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, the US Army seemed minuscule and ill-equipped for global conflict. Yet over the next fifteen years, its soldiers defeated Spain and pacified nationalist insurgencies in both Cuba and the Philippines. Despite their lack of experience in colonial administration, American troops also ruled and transformed the daily lives of the 8 million people who inhabited these tropical islands.
How was this relatively small and inexperienced army able to wage wars in Cuba and the Philippines and occupy them? American soldiers depended on tens of thousands of Cubans and Filipinos, both for military operations and civil government. Whether compelled to labor for free or voluntarily working for wages, Cubans and Filipinos, suspended between civilian and soldier status, enabled the making of a new US overseas empire by interpreting, guiding, building, selling sex, and many other kinds of work for American troops. In Th e Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines (UNC Press, 2025), Justin Jackson reveals how their labor forged the politics, economics, and culture of American colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines and left an enduring imprint on these islands and the US Army itself. Jackson offers new ways to understand the rise of American military might and how it influenced a globalizing imperial world.

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Michael Staudenmaier, "White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago" (UNC Press, 2026)

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Independent historian Michael Staudenmaier joins Michael Stauch to discuss his new book about “becoming Puerto Rican” in Chicago. Staudenmaier’s book, White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago (University of North Carolina Press, 2026), describes how generations of Puerto Rican organizers and activists, facing persistent exploitation, discrimination, and marginalization in the postwar United States, drew on competing versions of nationalism to challenge the racial order in one of America’s most segregated cities.

Highlights include:

A description of the historical process of “becoming Puerto Rican” as a racial project;
How class differences between activists and ordinary Puerto Ricans shaped distinct experiences of “becoming Puerto Rican”;
How the gendered experience of migration led one woman to collaborate with the FBI;
The effect of the 1966 Division Street Riot on Puerto Rican identity;
The rise of “panethnic Latinidad” and its possible futures.

Michael Staudenmaier is an independent historian and serves on the Board of Directors of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School in Chicago.

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Jaime Forsythe, "Yield" (Buckrider Books, 2026)

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In her third collection, Nova Scotian poet Jaime Forsythe has created an elegant long poem with Yield (Buckrider Books, 2026). In these dreamlike lines a mother faces the postpartum void from a porous house by the ocean as the veil between land and sea, and between being lost and being found, grows thinner. With repeated waves of couplets Forsythe brings the reader unforgettable images: a pom-pom that hardens into a sea urchin, an underwater dance club, a coast that melts into the sea. Delicately tracing the disorientation and dark edges of new motherhood, this is a collection that embraces beauty and ambiguity with a baby that roots for milk while what's ancient—whether history or memory—floods in.

Jaime Forsythe's previous books are I Heard Something (Anvil Press, 2018) and Sympathy Loophole (Mansfield Press, 2012). Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Arc, EVENT, Grain, The Malahat Review, Geist, The Ampersand Review and This Magazine, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph and currently lives close to where she grew up in Nova Scotia/Mi'kma'ki.

Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir.

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Islam in English

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Tazin Abdullah speaks with Dr. Oludamini Oguannaike, Associate Professor of African Religious Thought and Democracy at the University of Virginia.

Tazin and Oludamini talk about his work into how languages, such as English, express concepts that originate from onto-epistemic perspectives that are not historically associated with the English language. They discuss his 2019 article “Islam in English,” which he co-authored with Dr. Mohammed Rustom and how this research is expressed in the literary genre in his book of poetry called The Book of Clouds.

The conversation considers how the distinctive philosophical and metaphysical concepts associated with Islam collide with the use of English as a result of the global dominance of English. Tazin and Oludamini discuss how he has used his research and knowledge of historical religious thought to express these concepts using English in poetry.

References

Ogunnaike, O. (2024). The Book of Clouds. Fons Vitae of Kentucky.
Ogunnaike, O., & Rustom, M. (2019). Islam in English. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 36(2), 102-111.
For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Tania Sengupta and Stuart King eds., "Reclaiming Colonial Architecture" (Routledge, 2024)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Reclaiming Colonial Architecture (Routledge, 2024) explores the built inheritance of colonialism and considers how architects, heritage practitioners, students, communities, and activists might narrate, care for, transform, or challenge them today. Awarded the SAHGB’s Colvin Medal in 2025, the book draws on a variety of authors to combine historical context with thematically organised case studies across urban and architectural scales.

This interview was conducted by Matthew Wells, Senior Lecturer in Architectural History at the University of Manchester. His research explores nineteenth-century European architecture, focusing on artistic techniques, technology, and political economy. Wells is the author of Modelling the Metropolis: The Architectural Model in Victorian London (2023).

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Joanna Stalnaker, "The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death" (Yale UP, 2025)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What would the Enlightenment look like if we viewed it through the eyes of the philosophers as they were facing death? Joanna Stalnaker turns our usual perspective on the Enlightenment on its head, bringing to light a set of works written at the end of the Old Regime and at the end of their authors’ lives. These works, all written before the French Revolution, cast a retrospective glance over the intellectual movement their authors participated in, and over the authors’ own lives and works. Stalnaker shows that the beauty of these works stems from their authors’ efforts to give literary form to the materiality and fragility of their dying bodies. As they reflected on writing as a means of reaching posterity, Enlightenment philosophers embraced the possibility that neither their names nor their writings would survive long beyond the decomposition of their bodies. They inscribed the silence and nothingness of death into their last works.

Stalnaker’s book The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death (Yale UP, 2025) unsettles reigning interpretations of the Enlightenment as a precursor to our modernity and shows its protagonists at their moments of fragility and doubt, capturing their sense of an ending rather than the confidence in a glowing future so often attributed to them.

Joanna Stalnaker is professor of French at Columbia University. She is the author of a prizewinning first book, The Unfinished Enlightenment: Description in the Age of the Encyclopedia. She lives in New York City.

YouTube Channel: here

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Brexit Britain: 10 Years on from the Referendum

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Anniversaries provide opportunities to take stock and reflect. It is now ten years since voters in the United Kingdom cast their ballots in a referendum on whether the UK should Leave or Remain in the European Union. The subsequent decade has seen much churn and change in British politics. Join Tim Haughton and guests Maria Sobolewska, Charlotte Galpin and Monika Brusenbauch Meislova for a discussion of the causes, process and consequences of that decision made on 23 June 2016.

Maria Sobolewska is Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester. Among her many publications is the book, Brexitland, co-written with Rob Ford, which won the 2022 WJM Mackenzie Prize for the best book published in political science.

Monika Brusenbauch Meislova is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations and European Studies at Masaryk University in Brno in the Czech Republic. Monika has published extensively on many aspects of Brexit in a host of academic journals including Political Quarterly, British Politics, Journal of Legislative Studies, Europe-Asia Studies, the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, European Security and the Journal of Common Market Studies.

Charlotte Galpin is Associate Professor in German and European Politics at the University of Birmingham. She has published widely on these aspects of Brexit, including in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, the Journal of Common Market Studies, and Social Movement Studies.

Tim Haughton is Professor of Comparative and European Politics and a Deputy Director of CEDAR at the University of Birmingham. He has published articles on David Cameron’s referendum pledge and a review article on Brexit, Ruling Divisions.

Transcript here

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Shikha Jhingan, "The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema: Voice, Body, Technology" (Wayne State UP, 2025)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

How the sound of the female playback voice impacts Bollywood's cultural, musical, and cinematic environment.

Drawing on sound studies and performance theory, scholar Shikha Jhingan explores the discursive nature of the female playback voice in Bombay film songs in The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema: Voice, Body, Technology (Wayne State UP, 2025). Mapping the production, circulation, and reception of the voices of singing stars—notably Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle—Jhingan situates the singing voice as a cinematic object with limitless possibilities of distribution and dispersal. She employs the perspectives of a diverse range of listeners across a vast media landscape to illustrate how the affective charge of the female playback voice, combined with developments in audio technology, has led to a gradual expansion of opportunities for women in film, popular music, and media and audio production. With nuanced exploration of the way the human voice becomes intertwined with devices such as the microphone, radio, cassettes, and digital technologies, Jhingan argues for the sonic excess of the female voice beyond the narrative and visual. The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema is an authoritative addition to the field of sound studies with implications for gender studies, performance studies, and cinema studies.

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Understanding Themistocles: A Discussion with Author Michael Scott

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Themistocles is one of the great personages of ancient Athens, known for his heroics in warfare as well as for his overweening and ultimately tragic ambitions. In Themistocles: The Rise and Fall of Athen’s Naval Mastermind (Yale UP, 2026), Michael Scott takes a distinctly human measure of this complex figure. As he tells me in our conversation, it would be wrong to see Themistocles, as some ancient scribes were disposed to, as the product of a fixed nature. Born and raised as an outsider in the status-obsessed world of Athens, he shaped his destiny through his own choices, some of them flawed. Scott is professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Warwick, UK.

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Kyra Davis Lurie, "The Great Mann" (Crown, 2025)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1945, Charlie Trammell steps off a cross-country train into the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles. Lured by his cousin Marguerite’s invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Charlie is immediately captivated by the Black opulence of L.A.’s newly rechristened “Sugar Hill.”
Settling in at a local actress’s energetic boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life—one brimming with opportunity—from a promising career at a Black-owned insurance firm, the absence of Jim Crow, to the potential of an unforgettable romance. But nothing dazzles quite like James “Reaper” Mann.
Reaper’s extravagant parties, attended by luminaries like Lena Horne and Hattie McDaniel, draw Charlie in, bringing the milieu of wealth and excess within his reach. But as Charlie’s unusual bond with Reaper deepens, so does the tension in the neighborhood as white neighbors, frustrated by their own dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that threatens the community’s well-being with promises of retribution.
Told from the unique perspective of a young man who has just returned from a grueling, segregated war, The Great Mann (Crown, 2025) is a poignant reimagining of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby set amongst L.A.’s Black elite weaves a compelling narrative of wealth and class, illuminating the complexities of Black identity and education in post-war America.

You can find Kyra on Instagram, Threads, and TikTok.

Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Matti Friedman, "Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe" (Spiegel & Grau, 2026)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Was it one of the war’s most memorable feats of valor or an act of desperation, even madness?

In Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe (Spiegel & Grau, 2026), Matti Friedman unravels one of the strangest episodes of World War II: In 1944, a team of young women and men who had escaped the Holocaust made the inconceivable choice to parachute back into Nazi-occupied Europe under the cover of a British military operation. Yet by the end of the mission, not a single Nazi was harmed and not a single Jew was saved, and many of the parachutists died in the process. Even so, some of their names would become legendary, especially that of twenty-three-year-old Hannah Senesh, the author of the beloved Hebrew song “Eli, Eli.” Their story would become one of the young state of Israel’s founding myths—but what exactly was the mission, and what had the parachutists actually accomplished? What made them heroes?

Using thousands of original documents from once-secret files, manuscripts, memoirs, and unpublished letters, Matti Friedman follows four of the parachutists from the spring of 1944 to the operation’s dramatic end that winter. In Out of the Sky, he tells the gripping and surprising tale of a forgotten moment, demonstrating how storytelling itself can have a power even greater than warfare. And in exploring the line between myth and reality, heroism and futility, he creates an argument that has resonance in our own time.

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Christopher D. Stanley, "A Ram for Mars" (NFB Publishing, 2026)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

What would you do if you were pressured to support a rebellion that you believed was misguided and doomed to failure? What if the safety of your family and business depended on your answer? In A Ram for Mars (NFB Publishing, 2026), Marcus and Miriam, recently freed slaves from Asia Minor, arrive in Israel buoyed by hopes of finding Marcus's long-lost mother and starting a new life together. They discover that the land is seething with social and political unrest, with anti-Roman parties in the ascendancy. Marcus, who grew up in a Roman colony and owes his present prosperity to a Roman master, finds these anti-Roman sentiments perplexing. His uncertainty increases when war breaks out and he's asked to ship supplies to the rebel army, including a newfound cousin who protects the northern front. As his entanglement with the rebellion deepens, Marcus is torn between loyalty to the world in which he was nurtured and the need to secure his family's safety. Then his adopted son runs off to join the rebels. What is he to do? Fans of Conn Iggulden, Ken Follett, and Robert Graves will be captivated by this richly detailed and compelling exploration of the Jewish revolt against Rome (66-73 AD/CE) through the lens of a pro-Roman Jew in the rural district of Galilee.

More about A Ram for Mars, as well as the trilogy, “A Slave’s Story,” can be found here.

Christopher D. Stanley is a social and religious historian who writes about early Christianity and Judaism in the Greco-Roman world. He served for over twenty years as a professor at St. Bonaventure University in western New York, where he holds the title of Professor Emeritus.

Dr. Stanley has written or edited ten books and dozens of professional articles on early Christian texts and history and presents papers at academic conferences around the world. The “A Slave’s Story” trilogy, which grew out of his historical research on first-century Asia Minor, is his first foray into fiction. He continues to write for the academic world as well, including a recently finished book on sickness and healing in the Greco-Roman world that explores some of the history behind this trilogy, Paul and Asklepios: The Greco-Roman Quest for Healing and the Apostolic Mission (T&T Clark, 2023).

Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023).

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Deb Olin Unferth, "Earth 7" (Graywolf Press 2026)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

With thanks to “forever” plastics, the earth has reverted to sand and dust. Dylan has been raised by her scientist mother, in a pod under the sea, and longs to escape the loneliness of being confined. The only friend she ever had was a pen pal from Mars, who disappeared. With great effort, she’s escorted onto land, to the place of her mother’s employment where she becomes the groundskeeper. Unofficially, she begins studying sand. After a few years, the company sends her on a vacation and she meets Melanie, possibly a robot. Love flourishes on the floundering planet, but death is never far, and Dylan’s pen pal returns too late in Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026), a dystopian novel about the frailty of the planet, the ongoing need for scientific research, and the human struggle for survival.

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including the novels Barn 8 and Vacation, the memoir Revolution, finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, two story collections, and the graphic novel I, Parrot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in over fifty magazines and journals, including Harper’s, the New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney’s. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature, fellowships from the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross residencies.

She’s a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers’ Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Unferth founded and directs the Pen City Writers, a creative writing program for incarcerated men at a maximum-security prison in south Texas. The program has been running for ten years, and the students regularly win writing awards from Pen America and the Insider Prize. Their work has appeared in many places, including Vice, StoryQuarterly, the Texas Observer, the Stranger's Guide, and the Marshall Project.

Deb and her friend, Lucy Corin, have gone on several research and writing trips together, including to the Sahara Desert for the sand; in 2024, they spent a month in the Arctic to see ice, trying to get as close to the North Pole as possible, and reaching the 82nd parallel. Last year, they rented two pods in a scrub desert Dark Sky area of the US to see darkness. Originally from Chicago, Unferth lives in Austin with philosophy professor Matt Evans.

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Aditya Deshbandhu, "The 21st Century in 100 Games" (Routledge, 2024)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The 21st Century in 100 Games (Routledge India, 2024) is an interactive public history of the contemporary world. It creates a ludological retelling of the 21st century through 100 games that were announced, launched and played from the turn of the century.

Aditya Deshbandhu is Senior Lecturer of Communications, Digital Media Sociology at the University of Exeter, UK. A researcher of video game studies, new media, and the digital divide, he examines how people engage with digital artefacts and seeks to understand how these interactions shape everyday lives. As someone who actively examines digital acts of leisure, his research in the last decade has examined social media and streaming platforms alongside video games and digital cultures. He is also the author of Gaming Culture(s) in India: Digital Play in Everyday Life and also serves as an editor for this book series.

Khadeeja Amenda is a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication and New Media at the National University of Singapore, Singapore.

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Michael Dillon, "Shanghai: The Story of China's Most Dynamic City" (Yale UP, 2026)

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Home to 25 million people, Shanghai is the most populous and wealthiest city in China. A meeting point between China and the wider world, the city has become the beating heart of Chinese capitalism, a place of initiative, confidence, and forward thinking. It is a city of stark contradictions, suffused with both extreme wealth and poverty, luxury living, and a highly organised criminal underworld.

In Shanghai: The Story of China's Most Dynamic City (Yale University Press, 2026), Professor Michael Dillon explores the full history of Shanghai, from its origins as a small fishing village to the bustling financial hub of today. The city has been central to some of the most turbulent events in China’s modern history, from the British and French colonial concessions of the nineteenth century, to the birth of the Chinese Communist Party and its vital role in Chinese economics and politics today. Shanghai is a fascinating portrait of China’s most dynamic city—and explores its future role in the country’s development.

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Javier Arbona-Homar, "Explosivity: Following What Remains" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Offering a novel approach to contemporary landscape studies, Explosivity: Following What Remains (U Minnesota Press, 2025) unearths the hidden legacies of violence that have shaped the physical and cultural environment of the San Francisco Bay area. As he sifts through the historical debris of previous centuries, Dr. Javier Arbona-Homar analyzes a series of explosions that took place between 1866 and 2011 to call attention to the scattered remnants of militarism and racialized capitalism embedded in the region’s geography.

From incidents involving nineteenth-century explosives manufacturing and World War II munitions loading to radical activism and contemporary television productions, Dr. Arbona-Homar locates a pattern of historical violence that refocuses the broader racial and colonial context. Citing the material, social, and political conditions that gave rise to these disparate episodes, he reviews the historic erasure of those driving forces and puts forth alternative possibilities for how such disasters might be memorialized.

Synthesizing a diverse set of field research methods, including oral histories and site visits, and supplemented by specially commissioned landscape photographs by Andrea Gaffney, Explosivity presents a radical exercise in the exposition of public memory.

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Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode of the New Books Network, I spoke with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their new edited volume, From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity (Open Book Publishers, 2026). The book is open access.

As universities promote internationalisation while maintaining labour systems that leave many migrant scholars vulnerable, this volume builds on the editors’ 2023 collection (also featured on New Books Network) by incorporating global perspectives. Through personal and autoethnographic narratives, contributors examine visa insecurity, institutional exclusion, racialisation, loneliness, and overwork, while also highlighting joy, solidarity, and “resilience”.

By treating lived experience as critical knowledge, From the Margins offers a strong critique of contemporary academia and invites readers to consider whom universities serve, whose labour sustains them, and what a more equitable academic future could look like.

Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Religion and Theology within the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research examines the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, particularly within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands.

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Bruce Dearstyne, "Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change" (SUNY Press, 2026)

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change (SUNY Press, 2026), edited by Bruce Dearstyne and published by SUNY Press, examines what the volume calls the “unfinished revolutions” of the Empire State. In sixteen essays by a varied cast of authors, the book explores efforts to achieve what the editor describes as the full promise of the revolution. Central to the book are ordinary New Yorkers who faced great challenges, such as the Oneida who tried to maintain sovereignty in the era of the American Revolution, women winning the vote, and African American soldiers who served in the United States Army in World War I. Together, Dearstyne writes, they tell a story of “the two-and-a-half century struggle to realize the Revolution’s ideals and bring increased freedom and opportunities to marginalized populations.”

Dearstyne is the editor of this volume and the author of several books, including The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State’s History and The Crucible of Public Policy: New York Courts in the Progressive Era.

Robert Snyder, interviewing for the New Books Network and the Gotham Center for New York Cit History, is professor emeritus of Journalism and American Studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers (Cornell, 2025), winner of the Fiorello LaGuardia Book Prize. rwsnyder@rutgers.edu

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Stephen C.E. Hopkins, "⁠Translating hell: Vernacular theology and apocrypha in the medieval North Sea"⁠ (Manchester UP, 2026)

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In the Middle Ages, hell was useful because it was vaguely defined. Canonical scriptures scarcely mention hell, leaving much to the imaginations of early Christians, who used it to sort out who belonged within the faith. Translating hell: Vernacular theology and apocrypha in the medieval North Sea (Manchester University Press, 2026) by Dr. Stephen C. E. Hopkins explores how hell became a place for literary experiments with local challenges in theology and identity. Following the reception and transformations of two popular hell apocrypha, it argues that they served as this role because of their liminal textual authority. As noncanonical scriptures, apocrypha afforded medieval writers space to revise their hells (since they were not actually scripture), while also encouraging readers to revere those experiments as valid (since they seemed like scripture). The book brings together adaptations from early medieval England, Iceland, Ireland, and Wales, placing the early vernacular theologies of the North Sea in comparative conversation.

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Terese Mason Pierre, "As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories" (Spiderline, 2025)

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with editor, poet, and author, Terese Mason Pierre about As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories (Spiderline, 2025).

A ground-breaking anthology of haunting speculative stories by contemporary Black Canadian writers that explore growth, futurity, and joy.

Edited by esteemed poet Terese Mason Pierre, this bold and innovative anthology of speculative short fiction reveals and uplifts the spectacular imaginings, reveries, reflections, experiments, and hopes of Black writers in Canada. A masseuse attends her mother's fourth funeral, only to encounter family she's never met. A postdoc instructor navigates an almost-life in an Elsewhere realm of safety and comfort. After societal collapse, an immigrant leaves her precarious station, and her memories, behind. A woman isolating from a new virus starts hallucinating. A young nanny accepts a job with a peculiar employer in search of immortality. A medium is tasked with summoning a spirit that hits too close to home. And two teenagers test a friendship over magic carpet flying practice.

These ten breathtaking stories explore natural and urban landscapes, living and dead relationships, economic catastrophe, love, and desire--all while celebrating the persistent and ever-changing self, and envisioning beautiful Black futures.

Featuring stories by:
Trynne Delaney
francesca ekwuyasi
Whitney French
Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga
Chimedum Ohaegbu
Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Chinelo Onwualu
Lue Palmer
Terese Mason Pierre
Zalika Reid-Benta

TERESE MASON PIERRE (she/her) is a writer, poet, and editor whose work has appeared in the Walrus, ROOM, Brick, Quill & Quire, Uncanny, and Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction. Her work has been nominated for the bpNichol Chapbook Award, Best of the Net, the Aurora Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Ignyte Award. She is one of ten winners of the Writers’ Trust Journey Prize and was named a Writers’ Trust Rising Star. Terese is the chief programming officer at Augur, a speculative arts nonprofit, and co-director of AugurCon, Augur’s biennial speculative arts conference. Terese lives in Toronto.

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Dating Apps, Queer Stigma, and Digital Intimacy in Kazakhstan

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

How queer men in Kazakhstan navigate dating apps in a context of stigma, surveillance, and limited legal protections. It shows how platforms like Grindr, Hornet, Tinder, and VKontakte function as spaces where trust, visibility, and safety must be continuously negotiated.

This episode explores how queer men in Kazakhstan navigate dating apps in contexts shaped by stigma, surveillance, and limited legal protections. Drawing on interviews and platform analysis in Shymkent and Almaty, the research challenges the idea of dating apps as neutral or purely liberating spaces, showing instead how they function as ‘ambivalent infrastructures’ where connection is always intertwined with risk. Rather than simple tools for meeting partners, apps like VKontakte, Grindr, Hornet, and Tinder are used as distinct social environments that require careful interpretation and strategy. Users constantly assess authenticity, safety, and potential harm, often moving across multiple platforms, starting with apps, then shifting to messaging services like WhatsApp or Telegram, and using calls and additional checks to verify identity before meeting offline. Set against Kazakhstan’s broader socio-political context, where queer visibility can lead to harassment, outing, or violence, the episode highlights how digital intimacy becomes a form of ongoing risk management. It ultimately reframes dating apps not as spaces of free connection, but as complex systems where trust, visibility, and safety must be continuously negotiated.

Yerkebulan Sairambay is a scholar at risk based at the Centre for Oriental studies in the University of Tartu (Estonia). His research interests involve, but are not limited to, the following areas of expertise: political participation, new media, civil society, climate change, clan politics, democratisation, queer studies, academic freedom, transitional justice, and nation- and state- building with a particular focus on the countries of post-communist Europe and former Soviet Union. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, and IMRCEES Erasmus Mundus Master’s Double Degrees in Russian, Central and East European studies (University of Glasgow) and political science (Corvinus University of Budapest).

The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.

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Susanna Drake, "Veiling in the Late Antique World" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Veiling meant many things to the ancients. On women, veils could signify virtue, beauty, piety, self-control, and status. On men, covering the head could signify piety or an emotion such as grief. Late Roman mosaics show people covering their hands with veils when receiving or giving something precious. They covered their altars, doorways, shrines, and temples; and many covered their heads when sacrificing to their gods. Early Christian intellectuals such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa used these everyday practices of veiling to interpret sacred texts. These writers understood the divine as veiled, and the notion of a veiled spiritual truth informed their interpretation of the bible. Veiling in the Late Antique World (Cambridge UP, 2026) provides the first assessment of textual and material evidence for veiling in the late antique Mediterranean world. Susanna Drake here explores the relation between the social history of the veil and the intellectual history of the concept of truth as veiled/revealed.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Susanna Drake is Professor of Religious Studies at Macalister College. Her first book was Slandering the Jew: Sexuality and Difference in Early Christian Texts.

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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The Diasporic Hindu Right with Savera

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This episode features a conversation with Prachi and Ram, organizers with Savera, a multiracial, interfaith, anti-caste coalition of Indian Americans and partners standing together in the fight against the rise of the transnational far right. After laying out Hindu supremacy as an ideology, we considered the different phases of consolidation of the Hindu right in the United States from its late 20th century orientation around homeland politics to its 21st century effort to forge a Hindu American identity, first through an alignment with U.S. civil rights organizations and then through a realignment with white supremacist forces. We delved more deeply into the role of caste within this formation, in particular the longstanding efforts of the Hindu right in both India and the U.S. to forge Hindu unity by opposing anticaste politics. This took us to a discussion of the Hindu right’s embrace of the pro-Israel lobby’s tactics, especially its weaponization of Hinduphobia as an echo of the weaponization of antisemitism, to battle criticisms of the Modi government in India, and the need to distinguish this from the real rise in both anti-Hindu and antisemitic sentiment. We ended with Savera’s efforts to forge a broad-based antiracist, left majority as a counterweight to the multiracial far right.

Read the transcript

Guests

Prachi Patankar is a writer and activist based in New York. Her speaking and organizing is grounded in feminist, anti-caste, and solidarity commitments. Her writing has appeared in outlets including The Guardian, Indian Express, Al Jazeera, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and Jacobin. She has been interviewed in media including Democracy Now, Jewish Currents, and National Public Radio.

Ram Vishwanathan is an organizer with the Savera coalition based in New York City.

References

Savera, “The Global VHP’s Trail of Violence,” January 2024.

Savera, “Cut From the Same Cloth: the VHP-A’s Ties To Its Indian Counterpart,” April 2024.

Savera and Political Research Associates, “HAF Way to Supremacy: How the Hindu American Foundation Rebrands Bigotry As Minority Rights,” October 2024.

Jyotiba Phule: an anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra.

Satyashodhak Sangh: a social reform society founded by Jyotiba Phule in Pune, Maharashtra in 1873 that addressed caste and gender injustices.

Golwalkar: M.S. Golwalkar was the second supreme leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing paramilitary organization that advanced the ideology of Hindu supremacy and mobilized around the transformation of India into a Hindu nation.

Pracharak: refers to a full-time organizer of the RSS.

Houston 2019: “Howdy Modi” was an event organized by the Texas India Forum to welcome Narendra Modi to Houston and featured a joint address by Modi and Donald Trump.

Ahmedabad 2020: designed as a reciprocal counterpart to Howdy Modi, “Namaste Trump” was an event organized to celebrate Donald Trump’s official state visit to India and hosted by Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

Article 370: article of the Indian Constitution that granted a special autonomous status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. This status was abrogated by the Modi government in 2019.

CAA/NRC: the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) are policies introduced by the Modi government. The 2019 CAA fast-tracks the naturalization of populations identified as victims of persecution by Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan and explicitly excludes the eligibility of Muslims. The 2019 NRC aims to create an official record of legal citizens of India. Critics and human rights organizations argue that the policies together discriminate against Muslims. If a nationwide NRC is implemented, individuals who lack the required documentation to prove their citizenship could be excluded from the final registry. Because the CAA allows non-Muslims to claim citizenship if they fall through the cracks, Muslims left off the NRC list would face disproportionate risks of statelessness, detention, or deportation.

Edward Blum: a conservative legal strategist and the president of the American Alliance for Equal Rights and Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), an organization that fought to overturn affirmative action on the grounds that it constitutes "reverse discrimination" against white and Asian applicants.

Dan HoSang: professor of American Studies at Yale University.

“Violent Majorities: Indian and Israeli Ethnonationalism,” Recall this Book/New Books Network, Episodes 118, 119, 120, 143, 144, 145.

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Margaret O’Mara on the Clintons, Tech, and Memory

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

We were joined by Professor Margaret O’Mara of the University of Washington, who had a front row seat to the Clinton campaign and went on to become an expert in the history of information technology and Silicon Valley.

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Andrea Gunraj, "Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots as Reclaimed Present" (McClelland & Stewart, 2026)

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with author Andrea Gunraj about her collection of essays, Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots as Reclaimed Present (McClelland & Stewart, 2026).

The under-told legacy of indentured servitude runs through the blood of countless descendants in the diaspora. In this deeply felt collection of essays, Andrea Gunraj explores the impact of her family’s history on her sense of self.
Andrea Gunraj delves into the under-told legacy of indentured labour and its lasting impacts on descendants across diasporas, from the Caribbean and Latin America to Canada, the United States, and beyond. She captures the complexities of belonging and the challenges of navigating dichotomies. Through the concept of “go-betweenness,” Gunraj illustrates her path from the intersections of race, class, and identity to a broader understanding of colonial histories.
A gripping read that weaves memoir with history and cultural criticism, Go-Between Girl is both accessible and profound, intimate and political. Gunraj invites readers to reconsider their narratives about work, love, and heritage. Her essays are a touching testament to the enduring quest for justice, offering a powerful contribution to contemporary conversations on race, feminism, and the unfinished legacies of colonialism.

Andrea Gunraj is an essayist and author of The Lost Sister (Vagrant Press) and The Sudden Disappearance of Seetha (Knopf Canada). She lives in Toronto and loves to write about underseen stories and connections. She is a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada. Visit andreagunraj.ca for more information.

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Annie Selak, "The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism" (Fordham UP, 2026)

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Dr. Annie Selak (she/her/hers) is an expert in feminist ecclesiology. She studies wounds in the church, or moments where the church fails to live into its mission and causes harm. Racism, sexism, and the clergy sex abuse crisis are examples of the church failing to credibly be church. Guided by a feminist methodology, Selak integrates the lived experience of women with a robust vision for the church. Selak serves as a Visiting Scholar in the Center on Faith and Justice while working as a campus minister at a local independent school. She earned her Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College and M.Div at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Selak has over 15 years of experience in Catholic ministry, and her writing has appeared in Modern Theology, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, Washington Post, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, and America.

Her forthcoming book, The Wounded Church: Tending to the Harm within Catholicism (Fordham UP, 2026) puts forth a vision of the church in the shadow of wounds, guided by a feminist methodology. Selak argues that the Catholic Church must confront its own injuries in order to credibly be Church. Using a feminist framework, she develops a new ecclesiology around three wounds, racism, sexism, and clericalism, that actively harm the Body of Christ and distort its witness.

Attentive to history, pastoral practice, and lived experience, Selak shows how each wound is both inflicted by the Church and borne within the Church. She offers the resurrected body of Jesus, scarred yet no longer bleeding, as a guiding metaphor for ecclesial renewal, a body that does not deny its wounds but is transformed through them. Drawing on Karl Rahner, she grounds hope in the reign of God while insisting on concrete institutional and spiritual conversion.

Written for students and scholars, ministers and lay leaders, The Wounded Church uncovers overlooked histories tied to racism, sexism, and the clergy sexual abuse crisis, and proposes clear theological principles for reform. The result is a constructive, pastorally engaged vision that tells the truth about harm and imagines credible paths toward change, accountability, and justice.

You can use the code “church2026” at the link here to receive a discounted book and free shipping.

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Kristian Williams, "Policing the Progressive City: Portland, Oregon, from Settlement to Uprising" (AK Press, 2026)

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Kristian Williams, longtime activist and writer, joins Michael Stauch to discuss his new book Policing the Progressive City: Portland, Oregon, from Settlement to Uprising" (AK Press, 2026) about police reform in Portland. Billed as perhaps the nation’s most “progressive” city, Williams explores how “law and order” in Portland has been shaped for over two hundred years by business interests, political climbers, and social campaigners — as well as its history of mass resistance to police brutality.

Highlights include:

The contrast between image and reality in Portland’s history of policing;
Portland’s role as an experimental site of police reform in the 20th century;
When community policing arrived in Portland and how it shaped the city’s progressive image;
How the city’s history of activism against both police brutality and fascism influenced events during the George Floyd Summer in 2020.

Guest: Kristian Williams has been writing about and organizing against the police since the mid 1990s. He is the author of seven books, including Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, and lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Ben Brabyn: Entrepreneur and Community Builder

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

This episode of the New Books Network’s Entrepreneurship and Leadership channel features Richard Lucas in conversation with entrepreneur and community builder Ben Brabyn about Walkabout, a global movement that brings people together for monthly walks and open conversations. Walkabout began in Green Park, London, in June 2023 as a low‑friction alternative to venue‑based events and now runs in about 37 locations worldwide, welcoming anyone who wants to join a friendly, curiosity‑driven walking group.

Ben explains how Walkabout’s simplicity—free, open, lightly structured—attracts a high proportion of multidisciplinary participants, many with PhDs, and how emergent collaborations have led to startups, investment, hiring, and pro bono work on “thorny” challenges like non‑compressible haemorrhage and electric vehicle battery fires. Inspired by Richard Feynman’s habit of carrying a dozen long‑term problems in his back pocket, Walkabout offers participants an evolving set of shared challenges they can keep in mind and revisit whenever they learn something new, effectively serving as a living, collective version of “Feynman’s 12 problems.

A recurring theme is serendipity: Richard and Ben discuss how Walkabout exemplifies the kind of designed chance encounters that David Cleevely describes in his book “Serendipity: It Doesn’t Happen By Accident,” and how Cleevely himself both influenced and later joined Walkabout events. Lessons learned include the power of radical welcome, the importance of not over‑optimizing for scale or vanity metrics, and the value of formats where multidisciplinary dialogue and unexpected connections can flourish. Ben and Richard also touch on Walkabout’s business structure within Amitypath Limited, its use of platforms like Mighty Networks and LinkedIn, and Ben’s broader journey from the Royal Marines and JP Morgan to founding crowdfunding platform BmyCharity and leading Level39.
Links

Ben Brabyn Linkedin
Amitypath
Interview with David Cleevely on the NBN about his book Serendipity
About Richard Feynman’s 12 problems
Walkabout

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Robert Jason Grant, "Understanding Sensory Differences: A Neurodiversity Affirming Guidebook for Children and Teens" (2022)

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Children and teens who experience sensory differences often find it difficult to understand their sensory system and sensory/regulation needs they may be experiencing. Understanding Sensory Differences: A Guidebook for Children and Teens is designed for professionals and parents to work with children to help them understand their sensory system and address any sensory needs. The guidebook offers an overview of sensory differences from a neurodiversity affirming perspective. Neurodiversity affirming constructs are provided and instructions for developing a regulation play time to help address sensory and regulation needs is provided. The guidebook also contains several worksheets and resources specifically designed to help the child or teen explore their questions, feelings, and thoughts about sensory differences. Each worksheet covers a different topic related to gaining awareness about sensory differences (needs and strengths) and helping children and teens better understand what it means to be neurodivergent and sensory different. The guidebook also provides a guide for professionals and parents offering instructions, information, and suggestions for implementing and processing through each worksheet page. Additionally, several sensory different professionals share their lived experience being a neurodivergent child and suggestions for being neurodiversity affirming

Dr. Grant is a Licensed Professional Counselor, National Certified Counselor, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, and Certified Autism Specialist. Dr. Grant completed his education from Missouri State University receiving a B.A. in Psychology and M.A. in Counseling. Dr. Grant further received his doctorate degree in Education from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Dr. Grant specializes in Play Therapy techniques with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. Dr. Grant also specializes in working with Autism Spectrum Disorders (Autism, Aspergers Disorder and Pervasive Development Disorder) and is the creator of AutPlay Therapy, an autism treatment using Play Therapy, cognitive and behavioral therapy and relationship development approaches. Dr. Grant serves as mentor and is a professional board member for The Southwest Autism Network of Missouri and is a contributing writer for the Missouri Autism Report. Dr. Grant is the author of AutPlay Therapy: A Play Therapy Based Approach for Treating Autism Disorders, The Handbook for Parent-Led Social Skills Groups for Children and Adolescents with Autism Disorders, and Play Therapy Techniques for Autism Disorders.

Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies, in the Somatic Psychology program. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).

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Joshua Comaroff, "Spectropolis: The Enchantment of Capital in Singapore" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Singapore, the financial center of Southeast Asia, hyperurbanization and commercial development exist alongside enduring belief in the economic power of ghosts: in their ability to control the flows of money and value and to determine the outcome of investments and wagers. Spectropolis: The Enchantment of Capital in Singapore (U Minnesota Press, 2025) explores the unlikely collusion of these two systems, demonstrating both the productive role of popular beliefs in the modern world and the surprising correlations between “late” capitalism and the workings of the spirit realm. Detailing the logic and practices of Singapore’s ghost economy—from performing exorcisms on real estate development sites to offering money and commodities to the dead as a hedge against precarious real-world transactions—Joshua Comaroff shows how speculative finance, largely governed by chance and volatility, is understood via its inherently spectral qualities. Based on detailed case studies and years of extensive fieldwork, Spectropolis argues for the power of popular belief systems to theorize contemporary socioeconomic conditions and to give form to collective affect as well as shared aspirations and anxieties, often in deeply hopeful, horizontal and empowering ways.

Joshua Comaroff is the assistant professor of architecture at the National University of Singapore. He is coauthor of Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition (Minnesota, 2024).

Alyssa Kee recently finished graduate studies at the University of Vienna. Her research interests lie in urban geography, multispecies ecologies, and urban food assemblages. She is currently in the field of Geographical Education.

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Sarah M. Cushman et al eds., "The Routledge Handbook to Auschwitz-Birkenau" (Routledge, 2026)

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The Routledge Handbook to Auschwitz-Birkenau (Routledge, 2026) examines Auschwitz-Birkenau as both a site and a symbol of Nazi genocide. Scholars from a range of disciplinary perspectives consider Auschwitz’s history by engaging with Holocaust historiography and its place in Holocaust memory and representation, illustrating their mutual influence.

The chapters bring new insights to topics that other studies of Auschwitz have explored before, such as the Sonderkommando, the Czech family camp, and literary representations of Auschwitz. Other chapters cover recent developments and more neglected areas, such as the experience and memory of Romani prisoners, the fate of Soviet prisoners of war, and Auschwitz’s presence on social media. The handbook also responds to a number of recent trends and new paradigms in Holocaust Studies, including contributions from the fields of Environmental Studies, Spatial Studies, and Gender Studies.

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Christina Lord, "Reimagining the Human in Contemporary French Science Fiction" (Liverpool UP, 2023)

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The study of French science fiction – even in France – remains an underexploited field. Only recently have French literary scholars been able to gain recognition for the validity of studying SF, but their works are often literary histories. Reimagining the Human in Contemporary French Science Fiction (Liverpool UP, 2023) is the first book-length study to take into account both French and Anglo-American intellectual trends, theories, and SF scholarship and apply them to a corpus of French works. It shows how contemporary French SF imagines two broad philosophical inquiries into the powerful, yet terrifying geological age of the Anthropocene: posthumanism and transhumanism. While the posthumanist perspective calls attention to the interdependence and co-evolution of humans and nonhumans within a complex ecosystem of life, the transhumanist view of coping with the Anthropocene offers more pragmatic, tool-based solutions, rather than a reworking of the human imagination. Given the history of philosophical thought’s entanglement with literature in France, French SF can tell us a lot about this existential crisis of Anthropos as both destroyer and savior of worlds and bodies alike. With a focus on encounters between humans, nonhumans, and posthumans in selected works, this book investigates both the immaterial (the psychological state of the mind) and material (the body) stakes of posthumanist or transhumanist thinking in French SF.

Guest Christina Lord is Associate Professor of French at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. As a scholar of French and francophone studies and science fiction (sf) studies, she often writes about nonhuman beings in literary and visual storytelling. In addition to Reimagining the Human She has published essays in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Oeuvres et Critiques, Studies in the Fantastic, and European Comic Art, among others. She also serves as contributing editor for the section on “Speculative Studies in French” for the bibliographic journal, The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies. Her current research focuses on transnational and transmedial processes of circulation, recycling, and adaptation of sf imagery and narratives. Her current work focuses on the "alien aesthetic" of Denis Villeneuve’s sf films and the iconography of mid-twentieth century French comics, Valérian et Laureline.

Host Gina Stamm is Associate Professor of French at The University of Alabama, with research concentrated on the environmental humanities and speculative literatures of the 20th and 21st centuries, from Surrealism to contemporary science fiction and feminist utopias, in Metropolitan France and the francophone Caribbean, with a book manuscript under
review on posthumanist ecological engagement in the surrealist movement.

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Robert B. Marks, "Deep Time in the Mono Lake Basin: Nature and History Over the Last 10,000 Years" (U California Press, 2026)

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

"Deep Time," a way of understanding the distant past popularized in the late 20th century by the writer John McPhee, changes our perspective on history. When looked at in the context of tectonic movements long-term climate shifts, human affairs can seem small, even insignificant. However, in Deep Time in the Mono Lake Basin: Nature and History Over the Last 10,000 Years (U California Press, 2026), Whittier College professor emeritus Bob Marks explains that people still matter, even within the long sweep of deep time. Rather than shrink human affairs down to nothing, deep time helps us contextualize the places where humans live, die, build societies, and destroy one another. Geology, hydrology, and climate change (anthropogenic and otherwise) are all part of the human story, and vice versa, in Marks' telling. The Mono Lake Basin, as a fragile and unforgiving environment that has been peopled for many centuries, is a perfect place to tell this story of environmental change, environmental degredation and, ultimately, hopeful ecoloigical restoration.

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Jane Kanarek, "Beyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah" (Brandeis UP, 2025)

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Beyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah (Brandeis University Press, 2025) draws on feminist analysis and gender studies to examine tractate Sotah of the Babylonian Talmud as a literary unit. By interrogating how, why, and where women are invisible within Bavli Sotah, Jane Kanarek brings to light a ubiquitous female presence throughout the text. Despite the brutality of the sotah ritual—in which the woman accused of adultery is put through a divine ordeal intended to reveal her innocence or her guilt—this book demonstrates that Bavli Sotah is not primarily concerned with describing the sotah ritual or establishing male control over women. Instead, Bavli Sotah becomes a pedagogical text in which the sotah is secondary to moral and sinning men. As the sotah herself fades into the background, the sotah ritual nevertheless overflows its boundaries and weaves its way through a range of other topics within the tractate. In the process, Bavli Sotah teaches its audience who transmits and how one transmits rabbinic culture.

Dr. Rabbi Jane Kanarek is Professor of Rabbinics at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, Newton, MA.

Dr. Rabbi Rachel Adelman, Professor of Bible at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, Newton, MA.

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Ashok Malhotra, "Imperial Science, the Organic Movement and the Path to Shangri La, 1900-1969" (UCL Press, 2026)

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Imperial Science, the Organic Movement and the Path to Shangri La, 1900-1969 (UCL Press, 2026) is a global history project that examines the diffusion of scientific and environmental discourses from India to Britain and the US.

Ashok Malhotra examines how imperial agendas and colonial stereotyping shaped dietary and agricultural research carried out in the 1920s in British India, from soil protection initiatives to studies of diet and healthy living. It also discusses how a selective interpretation of this research, which focused on the supposed vigor of one community, the Hunzas, influenced the organic and lifestyles movements that later emerged in Britain and the US from the 1940s to the 1960s.

Ashok Malhotra is a senior lecturer in British imperial history at Queen's University Belfast.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.

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Allyson Nadia Field, "Acts of Love: Black Performance and the Kiss That Changed Film History" (U California Press, 2026)

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In 1898, vaudeville actors Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown joyously embraced in a short silent film titled Something Good—Negro Kiss. The first known film to portray African American affection, it was lost for over a century until its rediscovery inspired contemporary audiences with a powerful and enduring depiction of Black love. More than a missing piece in an untold history of Black cinematic performance, Something Good—and the magnetism of Suttle and Brown—attests to the power of Black performance on stage and screen from the nineteenth century to today.

In Acts of Love: Black Performance and the Kiss That Changed Film History (University of California Press, 2026), Allyson Nadia Field tells the story of Something Good and recovers the forgotten yet fascinating lives of its performers and their world. Drawing a vivid picture from sparse historical records, Acts of Love examines popular culture's negotiation of blackness to reconsider the intersections of minstrelsy, vaudeville, and cinema in ragtime America. This book not only presents the story of Something Good, its performers, and the drama of its rediscovery; it shows how the rediscovery of this short early film changes our understanding of American film history.

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Robert W. Snyder, "When the City Stopped: Stories from New York's Essential Workers" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

The COVID-19 pandemic delivered its first and most devastating strike in the United States in New York City in the Spring of 2020. Closely connected to the world by air travel, with a virus able to circle the globe in a single flight, and with a population always living life largely in public spaces, sickness swept through the city, with the daily death toll reaching, at its worst point in April 2020, almost 800 persons per day.

In When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers (Cornell UP, 2026) author Robert W. Snyder offers readers the voices of 45 New Yorkers, recorded in real time during the pandemic, people whose names we would likely not know or recognize. Snyder centers the “oral histories” of these 45 -- transit workers, ambulance drivers, grocery store clerks, firefighters, police officers, “deliveristas” of take-out food, nurses, and doctors. These 45 also speak for thousands of others, the people we came to know as “essential workers.” They could not work from home. They showed up to do their jobs every day during the most dangerous weeks of early Spring 2020, and beyond. Their dedication cost some of them their lives, but their courage, perseverance, and endurance ensured that the city and its people would be saved, in the author’s words, “from the bottom up.”

This interview was conducted by James Melchiorre, a journalist, documentary producer, and teacher of English as a Second Language. Melchiorre lives in New York City.

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Eileen Otis, "Walmart: Made in China" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Walmart: Made in China (Stanford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Eileen Otis tells the story of Walmart's expansion in China, making the case that it is the story of a major shift in the structure of global capitalism. Walmart, argues Dr. Otis, is a leading actor in the rise of merchant capitalism, wherein the role of the merchant has changed from operating at the whim of industrialists, to leveraging control over large consumer markets. As Walmart's retail business grew at unprecedented rates across the globe, so too did this business model.

Walmart: Made in China documents the business's expansion into China not as a tale of seamless market entry, but as a case of frictions, improvisations, and labor struggles that reveal deeper transformations in global economic power. Drawing on years of fieldwork in Walmart stores across China, Dr. Otis traces an internal supply chain—from warehouse to checkout—where workers stock, promote, explain, and process goods under varying regimes of control. These labor regimes, structured by gender, migration, surveillance, and corporate rules and culture, as well as managerial oversight, reveal how capitalist value is realized, and how it can be contested.

At the heart of her analysis is the rise of a new system—merchant capitalism—in which control over consumer markets, rather than production, drives profit. Thus, Walmart: Made in China offers a compelling account of this shift in global capitalism, as it gets made and remade, on the retail floor.

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Ginger Dellenbaugh, "Maria Callas's Lyric and Coloratura Arias" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

More than 40 years after her death, the legend of Maria Callas, "La Divina Assoluta," remains unsurpassed. Much has been written about her sensational opera career and fraught private life, from her definitive mastery of iconic opera roles to her love affairs and tantrums. The prototype for the 20th century celebrity diva, Callas emblematizes the cliche of tormented talent - genius in the ring with catastrophe.

Her extraordinary voice, in particular, has become an object of cult-like adoration and cultural significance almost with a life of its own: as fetish object, as sophisticated sonic signifier, and most recently, as the lifeblood for a Callas hologram. Such adoration is not without consequences. When Callas is transformed into a vessel for such transcendent magic, it overshadows what is perhaps her most superhuman ability - the masterful technique she deployed to shape and craft her astounding instrument. Singing bodies are working bodies, enacting an intimate and complex form of artistic labor and cultural signification.

Using one of Callas's first recital recordings from 1954, Maria Callas's Lyric and Coloratura Arias (Bloomsbury, 2021) envisions each aria as a lens to examine various aspects of vocalization and cultural reception of the feminized voice in both classical and pop culture, from Homer's Sirens to Star Trek. With references to works by Marina Abramovic, Charles Baudelaire, Michel Chion, Wayne Koestenbaum, Greil Marcus, and Farah Jasmine Griffin, as well as films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jonathan Demme, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, each chapter explores phenomena unique to the singing voice, including the operatic screaming point, the politics of listening, and the singing simulacrum.

Ginger Dellenbaugh is a musician and historian who has written and lectured on music and politics, vernacular notation systems, and the cultural history of the voice. A trained opera singer, she performed for over a decade in Europe and the United States. Ginger is currently a lecturer at The New School in New York, USA and completing a PhD in musicology at Yale University, USA. She lives in New York City and Vienna, Austria.

Ginger Dellenbaugh’s website.

Bradley on Facebook and Bluesky.

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Michael Brownstein et al., "Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change" (MIT Press, 2025)

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

A novel and scientific approach to creating transformative social change—and the surprising ways that each of us can help make a real difference. Changing the world is difficult. One reason is that the most important problems, like climate change, racism, and poverty, are structural. They emerge from our collective practices: laws, economies, history, culture, norms, and built environments. The dilemma is that there is no way to make structural change without individual people making different—more structure-facing—decisions. In Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change (MIT Press, 2025), Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly show us how we can connect our personal choices to structural change and why individual choices matter, though not in the way people usually think. The authors paint a new picture of how social change happens, arguing that our most powerful personal choices are those that springboard us into working together with others—warehouse worker Chris Smalls’s unionization at Amazon is one powerful example. Taking inspiration from the writer Bill McKibben, they stress how one “important thing an individual can do is be somewhat less of an individual.” Organized into three main parts, the book first diagnoses the problem of “either/or” thinking about social change, which stems from the false choice of making better personal choices or changing the system. Then it offers a different way to think about social change, anchored in a new picture of human nature emerging across the social sciences. Finally, the authors explore ways of putting this picture into practice. Neither a how-to manual nor an activist’s guide, Somebody Should Do Something pairs stories with science (plus some jokes) to help readers recognize their own power, turning resignation about climate change and racial injustice into actions that transform the world.

My guests today are Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva and Daniel Kelly. Michael is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at John Jay College and Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center, Cuny. Alex is Professor of Philosophy, Director of the California Center for Ethics and Policy, and Co-Director of the Digital Humanities Consortium at Cal Poly Pomona. Daniel Kelly is Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Cognition, Agency, and Intelligence Center at Purdue University.

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Ann Carlson, "Smog and Sunshine: The Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air" (U California Press, 2026)

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Los Angeles and smog have been synonymous for decades. From the 1940s through the 1980s, children breathed air so heavy with lead that their blood was poisoned with it. In 1970, officials declared smog alerts on 235 days. But the last smog alert happened in 2003, and lead has virtually disappeared from the air. This is the story of how Los Angeles cleaned up its air.

In Smog and Sunshine: The Surprising Story of How Los Angeles Cleaned Up Its Air (University of California Press, 2026), environmental law expert and LA native Ann Carlson recounts the dramatic policy fights and the determined scientists, lawyers, and community members who worked alongside public officials to face off against major polluters and save their city. In a time of unprecedented climate change and skepticism about government and science, this book is an inspiring reminder of what concerned residents, individual leaders, and all levels of government can achieve by working together.

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Radio ReOrient S14:10: Muslims in the Neoliberal Era, with William Barylo, hosted by Salman Sayyid and Amina Easat-Daas

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In this episode hosts Salman Sayyid and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by William Barylo to discuss his most recent book ‘Muslims in the Neoliberal Era: Resisting, Healing, and Flourishing in the Metacolonial Era’. The discussion centred on the differing nature of the Muslim experience in France, the UK, and beyond, and the ways in which Muslims find spaces and forms of community resistance in view of the dominant structures. William Barylo is a research fellow in Sociology at the University of Warwick.

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Emmanuel Buzay, "Contemporary French and Francophone Futuristic Novels: The Longing to be Written and Its Refusal" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Contemporary French and Francophone Futuristic Novels: The Longing to be Written and Its Refusal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) sheds a new light on the metafictional aspects of futuristic and science fiction novels, at the crossroads of information and media studies, possible worlds theories applied to cognitive narratology, questions related to the criticism of post-humanity, and, more broadly, contemporary French and Francophone literature. It examines the fictional minds of characters and their conceptions of resistance to the anticipated worlds they inhabit, particularly in novels by Pierre Bordage, Marie Darrieussecq, Michel Houellebecq, Amin Maalouf, Jean-Christophe Rufin, Antoine Volodine, and Élisabeth Vonarburg. It also explores how corporal postures serve as a matrix for philosophical quests in novels by Amélie Nothomb, Alain Damasio, and Romain Lucazeau. More specifically, from the fictional readers’ points of view, it provides a critical approach to the mythologies of writing, in the wake of the French philosophical tales by authors including Cyrano de Bergerac and Voltaire, to question the traditionally expressed formulations of the mythologies of writing, that is, of the metaphors of the book (the book of life, nature, and the world), to rethink the idea of a humanity within its limits.

Guest Emmanuel Buzay is currently working as an international technical expert for the Modern Language Association and the French Embassy in the US, having previously held appointments at UMass Amherst and the University of Connecticut. In addition to this monograph, he has published book chapters on topics from Frankenstein to Michel Houellebecq, and his articles have appeared in Nouvelles Études Francophones, Res Futurae, and Contemporary French and Francophone Studies.

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Adam Phillips, "The Life You Want" (FSG, 2026)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Where do we get ideas about the lives we want? And, what do we do - and fail to do - about actually getting them? In The Life You Want Adam Phillips uses psychoanalytic and literary approaches to show that we are obsessed by the idea of our lives being ones we want and enjoy rather than merely endure, tolerate or make the most of. Through a series of interlinked essays, Phillips explores the difficulties we have around the whole idea of enjoying - and fashioning - our lives in cultures that insistently promote enjoyment while making it very difficult for so many people. Exploring the personal and political overlap in the issue of our lives, The Life You Want (FSG, 2026) is a profound examination of our ambivalence about enjoyment, and indeed, wanting.

Adam Phillips, formerly a principal child psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, is a practicing psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English department at the University of York. He is the author of numerous works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including Missing Out, Unforbidden Pleasures, In Writing, Attention Seeking, On Wanting to Change, On Getting Better, and On Giving Up. He is also the general editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).

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Bruno Shirley, "Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215" (ARC Humanities Press, 2026)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Dr. Shirley's monograph, Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215 (ARC Humanities Press, 2026), is now available open access, thanks to the generous support of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. This book offers a radical reconsideration of the Poḷon-naruva period, long understood to be a turning point in the history of Theravāda Buddhism. Histories of this period have been overwhelmingly based on a series of literary accounts written long after the fact. But by drawing on textual, inscriptional, numismatic, and material evidence from within the period itself, the book reveals how the intellectual and social histories of Buddhism, politics, and gender were inextricably intertwined in Poḷon-naruva. In particular, it argues that debates over what it meant to be a “good Buddhist king” were intrinsically debates about Buddhist masculinity and about the proper relationship of gender to power.

Link to purchase/download the book here.

Bruno M. Shirley is a lecturer in Buddhist Studies at Heidelberg University, Germany. He completed his MA in Religious Studies at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, and then PhD in Asian Literature, Religion, and Culture at Cornell University in New York, USA.

Dr. Shirley is a historian of religion, gender, and politics in early second-millennium Sri Lanka and beyond. As an academic, he is interested in what it meant to understand oneself as “Buddhist” in medieval South Asia. His research explores a wider range of evidence—from royal inscriptions, to monastic disciplinary codes, to elaborate poems—in order to expose the cracks and fissures between competing visions of Buddhism.

Resources referred to in the interview:

Alastair Gornall, Rewriting Buddhism: Pali Literature and Monastic Reform in Sri Lanka, 1157–1270. University College London Press, 2020.
Day, Tony. “Ties That (Un)Bind: Families and States in Premodern Southeast Asia.” The Journal of Asian Studies 55, no. 2 (1996): 384–409.
Gunawardana, R. A. L. H. Robe and Plough: Monasticism and Economic Interest in Early Medieval Sri Lanka. University of Arizona Press, 1979.

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Ralph Jones, "Microphone" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Since its invention more than 150 years ago, the microphone transformed the world in an instant. Yet its evolution and integration into our daily lives has been comparatively gradual – so gradual, crucially, that it is easy to forget just how much we take it for granted. As explored in Microphone (Bloomsbury, 2026) by Ralph Jones, every phone has a microphone. Every laptop has a microphone. We are surrounded by microphones.

The microphone wields enormous power. But when we're 'on mic' we aren't just powerful, we're vulnerable. Microphones can destroy careers as quickly as make them. The microphone is inextricable from our need to be heard. This book takes a curious, always humorous look at this object as a metaphor for power and how the fulfillment of our desire to be heard has created a multi-headed beast we are still learning how to tame.

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Lewis Ryder, "Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain" (Manchester UP, 2026)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain (Manchester University Press, 2026) by Dr. Lewis Ryder examines John Hilditch (1872-1930), a notorious collector of Chinese art who lied, hoaxed and manipulated in his struggle against museum experts to become a cultural authority. Previously overlooked as a pest with a dubious collection, this book uses Hilditch to interrogate how far the monumental social, cultural and political changes of the early twentieth century unsettled social and cultural hierarchies and how these hierarchies were remade. It shows how the cultural elites were forced to engage with the public and re-draw the boundaries of citizenship, expertise and high and low culture in response to unprecedented social mobility, the democratisation of culture and politics, as well as the effects of British imperialism which brought ordinary Britons access to antiquities as well as confidence to claim expertise over foreign cultures. The book will interest social and cultural historians of Modern Britain, museum scholars and art historians.

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Delia Duong Ba Wendel, "Rwanda's Genocide Heritage: Between Justice and Sovereignty" (Duke UP, 2025)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

In Rwanda's Genocide Heritage: Between Justice and Sovereignty (Duke UP, 2025), Delia Duong Ba Wendel contends with the forms of justice and sovereignty enacted through sites of violent memory. Drawing from oral histories and a visual archive of memory work after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, she explores the human rights and government priorities that preserved killing sites and victims' remains for public display. Rwanda's genocide memorials exemplify a global phenomenon that Wendel terms trauma heritage, wherein hidden or unrecognized violence is spatialized--made visible in public space--to demand justice and recognition. She argues that trauma heritage innovates on the form histories take by "writing" them into landscapes, constituting a reparative historiography from the Global South. Among those sites, Rwanda's genocide heritage comprises exceptionally visceral sites of truth-telling that highlight the politics of a past made present. Wendel demonstrates that such sites of memory require reckoning with the ethical and political dilemmas that arise from viewing violence as forms of repair and control.

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Courtney Rickert McCaffrey et al., "Geostrategy By Design: How to Manage Geopolitical Risk in The New Era of Globalization" (Disruption Books, 2024)

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

How should executives position a company for growth when the geopolitical future is so uncertain? Recent events in Ukraine and the Middle East and tightening restrictions on international trade and investment are reshaping the global business environment. History shows that any such era of change presents both challenges and opportunities. The authors of ⁠Geostrategy by Design: How to Manage Geopolitical Risk in the New Era of Globalization⁠ (Disruption Books, 2024) use examples, from historical global turning points to recent political disruptions, to illustrate how geostrategy is essential to surviving and succeeding in the next era of globalization.

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In Search of Trustworthy AI

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:02:00 -0000

Craig Hatkoff has spent four decades at the intersection of innovation, culture-building, and institutional transformation. He pioneered commercial mortgage securitization at Chemical Bank, co-founded the Tribeca Film Festival alongside Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal after 9/11, and .in 2010 co-founded the Disruptor Awards with Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen and Irwin Kula. His latest initiative is Dragon Camp, which provides a methodology for using CGI (Collaborative General Intelligence) as a practice framework for creating a viable human-AI partnership.

In this episode focused on unlocking the potential of AI in a humanist manner, the first order of business is to secure trustworthy information from AI. To that end, Craig discusses a four-stage model for verifying AI’s output. The first element is to leverage output from multiple AI sources, rather than just one, in order to guard against what have been called “AI hallucinations” or “fabrications.” To do so, moves organizations beyond stage 1: single-source vulnerability. Stages 2 through 4 then ramp up from cross-checking via multiple AI models (stage 2), to human intervention to verify (stage 3), culminating in stage 4: where a panel of experts serves as a de facto jury. There is far more than just that 4-stage model, however, in this intriguing episode, as Craig traverses from a love of exploring the power of anomalies as a way to explore insights—to using AI as his “lawyer” in tackling Open AI in court. Building a truth economy that simultaneously allays people’s fears about AI is the ultimate goal here.

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Navigating Landmines at Work: Differences Can Create Value

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:01:00 -0000

Susan MacKenty Brady is a leadership educator, executive coach, bestselling author, and the founding CEO of the Simmons University Institute for Inclusive Leadership. At Simmons she holds the Deloitte Elen Garbriel Chair for Women and Leadership and has advised executives at over 500 organizations worldwide. She is co-author of All the Difference: Six Leadership Actions to Bridge Perspectives, Strengthen Teams, and Create Value with Stuart D. Kilman and Lt. Gen (Ret) Leslie C. Smith.

Uncomfortable stuff, organizational issues that have been “on my heart.” That is how Susan opens this interview, mentioning how everything from the evolving role of women on the job to five generations of employees to the advent of AI is roiling the business world as much as it’s ever been turbulent and, frankly, agitated and anxious. From the call to Know Yourself to Ignite Togetherness and Commit to Action, this episode explores target actions where the biggest interpersonal sin is to dismiss the dignity of the world you’re talking to just because they can pull rank or fail to apply empathy. Emotions “bring the weather,” Susan says, in a discussion that highlights her suggestion that certainty, inconsistency, reactivity, and (self) justification are the landmines that will get you –and others – blown up because curiosity as to what is happening to others and how they can be their best self has got lost in the mix.
Real Transformations: Business Change That Works from the Inside Out is co-hosted by Julie Anixter and Dan Hill, PhD, entrepreneurs with deep experience as corporate change agents, devoted to helping companies make continuous change work for everyone through clarity and connection. To learn about their keynote talks, workshops and labs, check out Real-Transformation.com.

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Amrita Chowdhury and Ujaan Ghosh trans., "Baidehisha Bilasa: The Amorous Plays of Sita’s Husband" (Wide Open Window Books, 2025)

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Amrita Chowdhury and Ujaan Ghosh bring into English for the first time a long-inaccessible masterpiece of South Asian literature Baidehisha Bilasa: The Amorous Plays of Sita’s Husband (2025). Composed in the late seventeenth century by Upendra Bhanja — the Odia prince-poet hailed as Kavi Samrat, the Emperor of Poets — the work is a Ramayana that privileges shringara, the erotic sentiment, over martial heroism. Rama-the-lover overshadows Rama-the-warrior, and his conjugal life with Sita takes center stage in a poem dense with puns, classical ragas, and chitrapadya — word-arrangements that resolve into wheels, chariots, and arrows on the page. Famously, every verse begins with the letter ba, and the text has long been considered untranslatable. With a preface by Wendy Doniger, Chowdhury and Ghosh's decade-long translation preserves the strangeness and sensuality of the original while opening it to a new readership.

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David Cunningham on Contesting Confederate Monuments (JP)

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

David Cunningham joins John to speak about his pathbreaking article about visiting each of the 113 communities that removed or relocated Confederate symbols between 2015 and 2023. After discussing his co-authored Social Problems article, “Contesting Commemorative Landscapes” which first got him thinking about monument removal, he posits that “expungement, amplification, and repositioning” are three ways contemporary communities contest the monuments of the past.. The conversation from there ranges onward through various kinds of contested removal, ending with Cesar Chavez and his ongoing de-monumentalization.

David is author of There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, the Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence and the award-winning Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era KKK,, a member of the City of St. Louis Reparations Commission and recently has been engaged in exploring political signalling in public art and monuments, including a forthcoming article on the political and cultural work of murals in Protestant and Catholic communities and in the interface areas that connect them in Belfast. His earlier Recall This Book episodes include on racialized policing in the US, on January 6th , and also on the 2024 presidential election–and a conversation with Glenn Patterson, author of Lapsed Protestant about the mural culture and politicized spaces of Belfast and Northern Ireland.

Read the episode here.

Mentioned in the episode

By David Cunmningham himself: “What Richmond got Right about taking down Confederate Monuments” and a 2023 article coauthored with Christina Simko, “Montgomery’s Monumental Truths”
On place vs space there is wonderful work by Pierre Nora and Henri Lefebvre.
Interface zones and the strategic cul de sacs that continue to divide Belfast neighborhoods have been brilliantly detailed and studied by various historians; eg this tour by Neil Jarman.
The lucid John Guillory article (mentioned but not discussed) is “Monuments and Documents: On the Object of Study in the Humanities.”
Confederate generals whose statues were erected essentially to glorify the KKK famously include Nathaniel Bedford Forrest. Private parks built up to collect Confederate monuments (with an underlying anti-government bias) include North Carolina’s Valor Memorial Park, and in Texas the SS American Memorial Foundation’s military retreat space now adorned with removed Confederate statues. In Bentonville, this park glorifies a Confederate statue that has now been (dubiously) linked to Governor James H. Berry.
The MOCA/Brick reimagined MONUMENTS Exhibition includes work by Kara Walker and Bethany Collins.
https://www.nps.gov/boaf/learn/historyculture/shaw.htm
Sylva North Carolina Confederate plaque debate.
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant and the Nietzschean problem of “creative forgetting.”
The idea of Productive creative cognitive dissonance is drawn from MLK’s idea of “creative tension.”
Hajar Yazdiha, Struggle for the People’s King
How long will the Chavez National Monument last? The statue at UC Fresno is already gone…” Is The Trail of Tears a historical site the same way Confederate statues are?
Denmark Vescey’s Garden by Ethan J. Kytle and, Blain Roberts
Zore Neale Hurston Their Eyes were Watching God

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Turning IBM's Culture Massively Around

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Phil Gilbert is best known for leading IBM’s transformation as their General Manager of Design, a project that updated the work of 400,000 IBM employees across 180 countries. The transformation became the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, the documentary film The Loop, and feature articles in the New York Times and Fortune magazine. Phil was inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Hall of Fame in 2018, and being a native from there was named a Oklahoma Creativity Ambassador in 2019 for his achievements in the world of creative thinking and innovation. He is the author of Irresistible Change: A Blueprint for Earning Buy-In and Breakout Success.

Wedding cakes. Birthday cakes. Cupcakes. Shit umbrellas. The baggage that comes with using the word “design” in the business world. You might get a more unique guest than Phil, but the odds would be heavily against you. With tenacity and street smarts, this guy whose start-up was purchased by IBM shares with us the unlikely story of how IBM’s CEO Ginny Rometty got behind him, unleashing the creativity that had made his smallish business unit within the company a top performer. Into business unit after unit, as detailed here, Phil tells with verve the story of overcoming the sorry state that endless rounds of cost-cutting initiatives had landed a now bedraggled company. “Empathy is the hardest word you will ever learn,” Phil told colleagues, left and right, prodding them to move forward.

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Anand Gopal, "Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution" (Viking, 2026)

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0000

From Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist Anand Gopal, an epic and enthralling account of six Syrians fighting for a better world, in the tradition of classic works by Philip Gourevitch and Katherine Boo.
In 2011, in a northern Syrian city, a small group of men and women began a movement that overthrew a brutal dictatorship. For the next eighteen months, many of the citizens of Manbij carried out one of the most remarkable experiments in democracy in modern times.
Days of Love and Rage (Viking, 2026) details the powerfully intimate narratives of the men and women who led this struggle, and who experienced the highs of camaraderie and the lows of betrayal. Among them: a pair of best friends torn apart by political polarization, a mother who stands up to male dominance, and a worker who risks everything for the dream of equality.
Anand Gopal immerses you in the world of a single city in the throes of revolution, and lays bare the danger that inequality poses to democracy. But this book transcends the particulars of one terrible conflict to tell the broader story of rising authoritarianism in our times. Days of Love and Rage has the force, sweep, and artistry of a great novel, and is ultimately a story of our enduring human need for dignity and hope.

Anand Gopal is a writer for The New Yorker. He is the author of No Good Men Among the Living and writes about democracy, inequality, and conflict.

Recommended Books:

Loubna Mrie, Defiance
Walter Ang, Orality and Literacy

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