Shows / The Academic Life
The Academic Life
A podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Created and produced by Dr. Christina Gessler, the Academic Life podcast is inspired by today’s knowledge-producers around the world, working inside and outside the academy. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life
Episodes
- The Academic Life
I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti’s Fight for Freedom
“My name has become a horror to all those who want slavery,” declared Jean‑Jacques Dessalines as he announced the independence of Haiti, the most radical…
- The Academic Life
Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality
Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality offers practical guidance, tools, and resources to assist practitioners in creating effective…
- The Academic Life
Jumping Through Hoops: Performing Gender in the 19th Century Circus
Jumping Through Hoops: Performing Gender in the 19th Century Circus, by Betsy Golden Kellem, reveals the hidden history of early female circus performers…
- The Academic Life
Who Needs College Anymore: Imagining A Future Where Degrees Don’t Matter
In this optimistic yet practical assessment of how postsecondary education can evolve to meet the needs of next-generation learners, Kathleen deLaski…
- The Academic Life
Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football
Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality…
- The Academic Life
Citizenship Stripping: You Are Not American
Over the last two centuries, the US government has revoked citizenship to cast out its unwanted, suppress dissent, and deny civil rights to all considered…
- The Academic Life
Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life
In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting…
- The Academic Life
Every Purchase Matters: How Fair Trade Farmers, Companies, and Consumers are Changing the World
We all have the power to change the world through the products we buy. This simple premise has driven the growth of the conscious consumer movement for…
- The Academic Life
Teacher by Teacher: The People Who Change Our Lives
Teacher By Teacher traces the journey of the tenth U.S. Secretary of Education and is a deeply personal love letter to all the teachers in our lives. The story…
- The Academic Life
Rehearsals for Dying
Deena stepped out of the shower and opened her towel in the steam. “Does my breast look weird?” These words irrevocably change the lives of writer Ariel Gore…
- The Academic Life
Religion in the Lands That Became America
Until now, the standard narrative of American religious history has begun with English settlers in Jamestown or Plymouth and remained predominantly Protestant…
- The Academic Life
The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond
In the increasingly competitive world of academia, simply mastering your discipline is no longer enough to guarantee career success or personal fulfillment…
- The Academic Life
Overcoming ABD Pitfalls: Tips for Getting Unstuck
The ABD [All But Dissertation] phase can either feel liberating—no more coursework or comps!—or like the floor has dropped out. The scaffolding that prepared…
- The Academic Life
Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom
Decolonizing Ukraine, by Dr. Greta Lynn Uehling, illuminates the untold stories of Russia's occupation of Crimea from 2014 to the present, revealing the…
- The Academic Life
Secrets of the Killing State
In the popular imagination, lethal injection is a slight pinch and a swift nodding off to forever-sleep. It is performed by well-qualified medical…
- The Academic Life
Considering Leaving Academia?
Today we again explore what it means to leave academia, as Dr. Sophia Basaldua-Sun shares how an informational interview was key to her success in landing a…
- The Academic Life
How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America
In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which…
- The Academic Life
Trans Technologies
How can technology creates new possibilities for transgender people? How do trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology? Trans…
- The Academic Life
Moments of Impact: How to Design Strategic Conversations That Accelerate Change
In our fast-changing world, leaders are increasingly confronted by messy, multifaceted challenges that require collaboration to resolve. But the standard…
- The Academic Life
The Freedom Academy
When Professor Asha Rangappa began posting online about the lessons she was teaching in the Yale University course on Russian intelligence and information…
- The Academic Life
Brittany Friedman, "Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons" (UNC Press, 2025)
In Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons, Dr. Brittany Friedman delves into how the California Department of Corrections deployed…
- The Academic Life
Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio
Bands like R.E.M., U2, Public Enemy, and Nirvana found success as darlings of college radio, but the extraordinary influence of these stations and their DJs on…
- The Academic Life
Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine
In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that…
- The Academic Life
Academic Librarians: A Discussion with Karen McCoy
The library is an important partner in academic success for students and professors. So why do so many people overlook this key resource? Karen McCoy takes us…
- The Academic Life
Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe
What is the growing appeal of fascist idealism for young people? Why is radical nationalism on the rise in Europe and throughout the world? In Living Right…
- The Academic Life
You Have More Influence Than You Think
In You Have More Influence Than You Think (Norton, 2023) social psychologist Vanessa Bohns draws from her original research to illustrate why we fail to…
- The Academic Life
No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice
When it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground. Polarizing debates over their meaning have intensified into legislative maneuvering to…
- The Academic Life
Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves
Ages before the dawn of modern medicine, wild animals were harnessing the power of nature’s pharmacy to heal themselves. In Doctors by Nature (Princeton UP…
- The Academic Life
Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts
In 2012, Steve Green, billionaire and president of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores, announced a recent purchase of a Biblical artefact—a fragment of…
- The Academic Life
What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions
Leaders who introduce anti-racist approaches to their organizations often face backlash. In What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions…
- The Academic Life
Womanist Bioethics: Social Justice, Spirituality, and Black Women's Health
Black people, and especially Black women, suffer and die from diseases at much higher rates than their white counterparts. The vast majority of these health…
- The Academic Life
The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking
For many, technology offers hope for the future―that promise of shared human flourishing and liberation that always seems to elude our species. Artificial…
- The Academic Life
Project Management for Researchers
Our book is: Project Management for Researchers: A Practical, Stress-Free Guide to Getting Organized (U Michigan Press, 2025), by Dr. Shiri Noy, which tackles…
- The Academic Life
The Burnout Workbook
Our book is: The Burnout Workbook, by Drs. Amelia Nagoski and Emily Nagoski, the experts behind the New York Times bestselling book Burnout. This interactive…
- The Academic Life
Teaching With Positive Psychology Skills
Studies show that students who have a positive outlook on their lives outperform students who don’t. Is positive thinking a skill? Can it be taught? Our…
- The Academic Life
Big Box USA: The Environmental Impact of America's Biggest Retail Stores
Our book is: Big Box USA: The Environmental Impact of America’s Biggest Retail Stores (UP of Colorado, 2024) which presents a new look at how the big box…
- The Academic Life
The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at the New Yorker
Our book is: The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at the New Yorker (Mariner Books, 2024) by Dr. Amy Reading, which is a lively and intimate biography of…
- The Academic Life
The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn
Our book is: The Vice President's Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (University of North Carolina Press, 2023) by award-winning historian Dr. Amrita…
- The Academic Life
Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra
Our book is: Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra (UNC Press, 2025), by Ericka Verba, which explores the life of Chilean musician and artist Violeta…
- The Academic Life
Understanding Disinformation
How do we discern what is factual from what isn’t? In this episode, Dr. Colleen Sinclair joins us to discuss the functions of disinformation, and to unpack how…
- The Academic Life
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe
Henry Christophe was born to an enslaved mother on the Caribbean island of Grenada, and fought to overthrow the British in North America before helping his…
- The Academic Life
Tara Dorabji, "Call Her Freedom" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
In this episode, we explore one woman’s struggle to protect her culture and her family amidst the backdrop of a military occupation. Our book is: Call Her…
- The Academic Life
Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany
Our book is: Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts To Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany (Citadel Press, 2025) by Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham…
- The Academic Life
Graduate School Myths and Misconceptions
It’s daunting when you don’t know what to expect about graduate school…or you’re worried you won’t measure up. This episode helps dispel the myths and…
- The Academic Life
Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller
Welcome to Sotheran’s, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabeled keys, poisoned books…
- The Academic Life
A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names
Today’s book is: A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024), by Michelle D…
- The Academic Life
Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials
Today’s book is: Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials (Scribner, 2024), by Dr. Marion Gibson, which explores the global history of witch trials across Europe…
- The Academic Life
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America
Today’s book is: That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Amanda Jones, which offers her story of life as a small-town…
- The Academic Life
Disabled Ecologies: Lessons From a Wounded Desert
Deep below the ground in Tucson, Arizona, lies an aquifer forever altered by the detritus of a postwar Superfund site. Disabled Ecologies: Lessons From a…
- The Academic Life
Without Parents or Papers: A Discussion with Stephanie L. Canizales
Today’s book is: Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied Migrant Youth Coming of Age in the United States (U California Press, 2024), a which explores how each…
- The Academic Life
We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance
Today’s book is: We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (Seal Press, 2024) by Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson. Black resistance to white supremacy is…
- The Academic Life
Why Not Be Kind?: A Discussion with Catherine J. Denial
Today’s book is: A Pedagogy of Kindness (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024), by Dr. Catherine Denial, which explores why academia is not, by and large, a kind…
- The Academic Life
When We Prioritize Data and Metrics, What Happens to Human Connections?
Today’s book is: The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton University Press, 2024), by Dr. Allison Pugh, which explores the…
- The Academic Life
The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide
In early June 2020, Christina Gessler and Zerlina Maxwell met remotely to discuss Maxwell’s soon-to-be-released book. This episode is an encore presentation of…
- The Academic Life
Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration
Today’s book is: Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration (Russell Sage Foundation, 2024), by Dr. Ernesto Castañeda and Daniel Jenks…
- The Academic Life
Subatomic Writing: Six Fundamental Lessons to Make Language Matter
Subatomic Writing: Six Fundamental Lessons to Make Language Matter (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023), by Johns Hopkins University instructor Jamie Zvirzdin, is a guide…
- The Academic Life
Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action
Today’s book is: Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of Rochester…
- The Academic Life
Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World
Why do we assume that computers always get it right? Today’s book is: Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (MIT Press, 2019), in…
- The Academic Life
Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions
Today’s book is: Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia UP, 2024), by Ernesto Castaneda and Carina Cione, which is a practical…
- The Academic Life
Before and After the Book Deal
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask. Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing…