Shows / New Books in American Studies
New Books in American Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in American Studies
Nanna Katrine Luders Kaalund, "Explorations in the Icy North: How Travel Narratives Shaped Arctic Science in the Nineteenth Century" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)
Harsh conditions, intense isolation, and acute danger inevitably impacted the making and communicating eighteenth-century scientific knowledge leading up to…
- New Books in American Studies
Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant, "To Live More Abundantly: Black Collegiate Women, Howard University, and the Audacity of Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe" (U Georgia Press, 2022)
Today I talked to Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant about her book To Live More Abundantly: Black Collegiate Women, Howard University, and the Audacity of Dean Lucy…
- New Books in American Studies
Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza, "A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism" (Oxford UP, 2021)
In A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism (Oxford UP, 2021), Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza examine public…
- New Books in American Studies
Sophie Cooper, "Forging Identities in the Irish World: Melbourne and Chicago, 1840-1922" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)
Forging Identities in the Irish World: Melbourne and Chicago, 1840-1922 (Edinburgh UP, 2022,) explores the shifting influences of religious demography…
- New Books in American Studies
Daniel R. Bare, "Black Fundamentalists: Conservative Christianity and Racial Identity in the Segregation Era" (NYU Press, 2021)
As the modernist-fundamentalist controversy came to a head in the early twentieth century, an image of the “fighting fundamentalist” was imprinted on the…
- New Books in American Studies
Helene Meyers, "Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition" (Rutgers UP, 2021)
Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition (Rutgers University Press, 2021) focuses on a rich, usable American Jewish cinematic tradition. This tradition includes…
- New Books in American Studies
Melvin I. Urofsky, "Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue" (Vintage, 2017)
In his major work, Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue (Vintage, 2017), acclaimed historian…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael Gorra, "The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War" (Liveright Publishing, 2020)
William Faulkner, one of America's most iconic writers, is an author who defies easy interpretation. Born in 1897 in Mississippi, Faulkner wrote such classic…
- New Books in American Studies
Peter S. Goodman, "Davos Man: How the Billionaire Class Devoured Democracy" (Custom House, 2022)
Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, New York Times' journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative Davos Men-members of the…
- New Books in American Studies
Tim Smolko and Joanna Smolko, "Atomic Tunes: The Cold War in American and British Popular Music" (Indiana UP, 2021)
During the Cold War, over 500 songs were written about nuclear weapons, fear of the Soviet Union, civil defense, bomb shelters, McCarthyism, uranium mining…
- New Books in American Studies
Carl R. Weinberg, "Red Dynamite: Creationism, Culture Wars, and Anticommunism In America" (Cornell UP, 2021)
In Red Dynamite: Creationism, Culture Wars, and Anticommunism In America (Cornell UP, 2021), Carl R. Weinberg argues that creationism's tenacious hold on…
- New Books in American Studies
Dahlia Schweitzer, "Haunted Homes" (Rutgers UP, 2021)
In her new book, Haunted Homes (Rutgers University Press, 2022), Dahlia Sweitzer explores the ways in which the trope of the haunted house in horror signifies…
- New Books in American Studies
Matthew C. Ehrlich, "Dangerous Ideas on Campus: Sex, Conspiracy, and Academic Freedom in the Age of JFK" (University of Illinois Press, 2021)
In 1960, University of Illinois professor Leo Koch wrote a public letter condoning premarital sex. He was fired. Four years later, a professor named Revilo…
- New Books in American Studies
Randall Horton, "Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays" (Northwestern UP, 2022)
Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays (Northwestern UP, 2022) chronicles the improbable turnaround of a drug smuggler who, after being sentenced to eight years in…
- New Books in American Studies
Dana Stevens, "Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century" (Simon and Schuster, 2022)
“Not a whisper. / Never laughter. / Buster, thank you / for disaster.” So wrote graduate student Dana Stevens, who would go on to become Slate’s resident film…
- New Books in American Studies
Joshua Myers, "Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition" (Polity, 2021)
Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work resonates…
- New Books in American Studies
Martin Rizzo-Martinez, "We Are Not Animals: Indigenous Politics of Survival, Rebellion, and Reconstitution in Nineteenth-Century California" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)
Josefa Velasquez lived a long and full life. When Josefa wasn't co-running a tamale factory and cantina just outside of Wastonville, she was hosting friends…
- New Books in American Studies
Bill V. Mullen, "James Baldwin: Living in Fire" (Pluto Press, 2019)
In the first major biography of Baldwin in more than a decade, James Baldwin: Living in Fire (Pluto Press, 2019), Bill V. Mullen celebrates the personal and…
- New Books in American Studies
Sherry Scott, "Playhouses: Sexuality and Fundamentalism" (Black Rose Writing, 2022)
In this episode of Queer Voices of the South I talk to Dr. Sherry Scott about her new book Playhouses: Sexuality and Fundamentalism, released in February 2022…
- New Books in American Studies
Celia Stahr, "Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure. In November, 1930, she was thrilled to realize her dream of traveling to the United States to live in San…
- New Books in American Studies
Randy E. Barnett and Evan D. Bernick, "The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Adopted in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment profoundly changed the US constitution, giving the federal judiciary and Congress new powers to protect the…
- New Books in American Studies
Richard W. Etulain, "Thunder in the West: The Life and Legends of Billy the Kid" (U Oklahoma Press, 2020)
Henry McCarty, aka William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, is one of the most well known figures from the American West. His short life made an outsized impact…
- New Books in American Studies
Amélie Barras et al., "Producing Islams(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality, and Politics" (U Toronto Press, 2022)
In Producing Islam(s) in Canada: On Knowledge, Positionality and Politics (University of Toronto, 2021), Amélie Barras, Jennifer Selby, and Melanie Adrian…
- New Books in American Studies
James Lapine, "Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created 'Sunday in the Park with George'" (FSG, 2021)
James Lapine's Putting it Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created "Sunday in the Park with George" (FSG, 2021) is a fascinating behind the scenes look at…
- New Books in American Studies
Mark Christian Thompson, "Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
Mark Christian Thompson's book, Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2022) examines the changing…
- New Books in American Studies
76 Land-Grab Universities with Robert Lee (Jerome Tharaud, JP)
John and new Brandeis host Jerome Tharaud (author of Apocalyptic Geographies) learn exactly how the growth of America's public universities relied on shameful…
- New Books in American Studies
Brian Ogren, "Kabbalah and the Founding of America: The Early Influence of Jewish Thought in the New World" (NYU Press, 2021)
In his fascinating survey Kabbalah and the Founding of America: The Early Influence of Jewish Thought in the New World (NYU Press, 2021), Brian Ogren explores…
- New Books in American Studies
Carolyn Chen, "Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley" (Princeton UP, 2022)
Silicon Valley is known for its lavish perks, intense work culture, and spiritual gurus. Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley…
- New Books in American Studies
Jessie Singer, "There Are No Accidents: The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster—Who Profits and Who Pays the Price" (Simon and Schuster, 2022)
We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But, as Jessie Singer…
- New Books in American Studies
Megan Kate Nelson, "Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America" (Scribner, 2022)
From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the propulsive and vividly told story of how Yellowstone became the world’s…
- New Books in American Studies
Myisha Cherry, "The Case for Rage: Why Anger Is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle" (Oxford UP, 2021)
According to a broad consensus among philosophers across the ages, anger is regrettable, counterproductive, and bad. It is something to be overcome or…
- New Books in American Studies
Andrea Flores, "The Succeeders: How Immigrant Youth Are Transforming What It Means to Belong in America" (UC Press, 2021)
Dr. Andrea Flores’ most recent book, The Succeeders: How Immigrant Youth Are Transforming What It Means to Belong in America (University of California Press…
- New Books in American Studies
David Schwartz, "David Cronenberg: Interviews" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
From his early horror movies, including Scanners, Videodrome, Rabid, and The Fly—with their exploding heads, mutating sex organs, rampaging parasites, and…
- New Books in American Studies
Jon Butler, "God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan" (Harvard UP, 2020)
In Gilded Age Manhattan, Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant leaders agonized over the fate of traditional religious practice amid chaotic and multiplying…
- New Books in American Studies
Kathy Roberts Forde and Sid Bedingfield, "Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America" (U Illinois Press, 2021)
White publishers and editors used their newspapers to build, nurture, and protect white supremacy across the South in the decades after the Civil War. At the…
- New Books in American Studies
Linda LeGarde Grover, "Gichigami Hearts: Stories and Histories from Misaabekong" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
Stephanie Khattak speaks with Dr. Linda Legarde Grover, an award-winning author whose latest book interweaves family and Ojibwe history with stories from…
- New Books in American Studies
William Sites, "Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
Poet and jazz band musician Sun Ra, born in 1914, is one of the most wildly prolific and unfailingly eccentric figures in the history of music. Renowned for…
- New Books in American Studies
Kerry Dean Carso, "Follies in America: A History of Garden and Park Architecture" (Cornell UP, 2021)
Follies in America: A History of Garden and Park Architecture (Cornell UP, 2021) examines historicized garden buildings, known as "follies," from the nation's…
- New Books in American Studies
Robert K. Sutton, "Nazis on the Potomac: The Top-Secret Intelligence Operation that Helped Win World War II" (Casemate, 2022)
Robert K. Sutton's Nazis on the Potomac: The Top-Secret Intelligence Operation that Helped Win World War II (Casemate, 2022) is the first full account of the…
- New Books in American Studies
Kristina Wilson, "Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design" (Princeton UP, 2021)
In the world of interior design, mid-century Modernism has left an indelible mark still seen and felt today in countless open-concept floor plans and spare…
- New Books in American Studies
The Future of the Apocalyptic Right in the U.S.: A Discussion with Benjamin R. Teitelbaum
How did Steve Bannon come to believe the strange things he believes? The influential, former Trump aid, began as a Democrat-supporting Naval officer with an…
- New Books in American Studies
Charles E. Cotherman, "To Think Christianly: A History of L'Abri, Regent College, and the Christian Study Center Movement" (InterVarsity Press, 2020)
In the late 1960s and on into the next decade, the American pastor and bestselling author Francis Schaeffer regularly received requests from evangelicals…
- New Books in American Studies
Charles R. Shipan and Craig Volden, "Why Bad Policies Spread (and Good Ones Don't)" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
Building on a deep theoretical foundation and drawing on numerous examples, Volden and Shipan examine how policies spread across the American states in Why Bad…
- New Books in American Studies
Clarissa Ceglio, "A Cultural Arsenal for Democracy: The World War II Work of U.S. Museums" (U Massachusetts Press, 2022)
In A Cultural Arsenal for Democracy: The World War II Work of US Museums (University of Massachusetts Press, 2022), Dr. Ceglio argues that attempts during the…
- New Books in American Studies
Kyle T. Mays, "An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States" (Beacon Press, 2021)
Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Kyle T. Mays, an Afro-Indigenous…
- New Books in American Studies
75* Sean Hill Talks about Bodies in Space and Time with Elizabeth Bradfield
This conversation, first aired in July 2021, features Brandeis poet Elizabeth Bradfield, and the poet Sean Hill, author of Blood Ties and Brown Liquor (2008)…
- New Books in American Studies
Gregg Cantrell, "The People's Revolt: Texas Populists and the Roots of American Liberalism" (Yale UP, 2020)
Pundits, politicians, and scholars often use words like "liberalism" and "populism" uncritically. Dr. Gregg Cantrell, professor of history at Texas Christian…
- New Books in American Studies
Michella M. Marino, "Roller Derby: The History of an American Sport" (U Texas Press, 2021)
Today we are joined by Dr. Michella Marino, the Deputy Director of the Indiana Historical Bureau, a division of the Indiana State Library, and the author of…
- New Books in American Studies
Kate Henley Averett, "The Homeschool Choice: Parents and the Privatization of Education" (NYU Press, 2021)
Homeschooling has skyrocketed in popularity in the United States: in 2019, a record-breaking 2.5 million children were being homeschooled, within an…
- New Books in American Studies
Michael Marmur and David Ellenson, "American Jewish Thought Since 1934: Writings on Identity, Engagement, and Belief" (Brandeis UP, 2020)
Mordecai Kaplan’s Judaism as a Civilization was first published in 1934. The editors of American Jewish Thought Since 1934: Writings on Identity, Engagement…
- New Books in American Studies
Sara Matthiesen, "Reproduction Reconceived: Family Making and the Limits of Choice After Roe V. Wade" (UC Press, 2021)
We tend to associate Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion in 1973, with the choice not to have children. But Roe was…
- New Books in American Studies
Vânia Penha-Lopes, "The Presidential Elections of Trump and Bolsonaro, Whiteness, and the Nation" (Lexington Books, 2021)
The Presidential Elections of Trump and Bolsonaro, Whiteness, and the Nation (Lexington Books, 2021) is a sociological analysis of the similarities between the…
- New Books in American Studies
Christopher Chávez, "The Sound of Exclusion: NPR and the Latinx Public" (U Arizona Press, 2021)
How is power enacted in everyday broadcast practices? National Public Radio has a “rhetoric of impartiality” but this obscures the ideological work done by the…
- New Books in American Studies
In Science We Trust?: An insider Conversation with Health Policy Reporter, Fran Kritz
Americans are deeply polarized on many issues, including science and medicine. Where once was widespread agreement, today the differences are sharp: on one…
- New Books in American Studies
Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, "Elegy for Mary Turner: An Illustrated Account of a Lynching" (Verso, 2021)
In late May 1918 in Valdosta, Georgia, ten Black men and one Black woman—Mary Turner, eight months pregnant at the time—were lynched and tortured by mobs of…
- New Books in American Studies
Eric Protzer and Paul Summerville, "Reclaiming Populism: How Economic Fairness Can Win Back Disenchanted Voters" (Polity Press, 2022)
I spoke with Eric Protzer (Harvard University) and Paul Summerville (University of Victoria) about their great new book: Reclaiming Populism: How Economic…
- New Books in American Studies
Max Krochmal and Todd Moye, "Civil Rights in Black and Brown: Histories of Resistance and Struggle in Texas" (U Texas Press, 2021)
Max Krochmal and Todd Moye’s Civil Rights in Black and Brown: Histories of Resistance and Struggle in Texas (University of Texas Press, 2021) is a critical…
- New Books in American Studies
Rachel Pagones, "Acupuncture as Revolution: Suffering, Liberation, and Love" (Brevis, 2021)
Many in the global West have heard something about acupuncture as a treatment for pain relief; they may even have learned of its use in treating opioid…
- New Books in American Studies
David S. Roh, "Minor Transpacific: Triangulating American, Japanese, and Korean Fictions" (Stanford UP, 2021)
In Minor Transpacific: Triangulating American, Japanese, and Korean Fictions (Stanford University Press, 2021), David S. Roh brings Asian Americanist study of…
- New Books in American Studies
Eric Herschthal, "The Science of Abolition: How Slaveholders Became the Enemies of Progress" (Yale UP, 2021)
In the context of slavery, science is usually associated with slaveholders' scientific justifications of racism. But abolitionists were equally adept at using…