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New Books in Sociology
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 Sociology
Maya Phillips, "Nerd: Adventures in Fandom from This Universe to the Multiverse" (Atria Books, 2022)
When Maya Phillips first saw the opening of Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, she knew her life would change forever. She then spent her formative…
- New Books in Sociology
Piro Rexhepi, "White Enclosures: Racial Capitalism and Coloniality Along the Balkan Route" (Duke UP, 2022)
In White Enclosures: Racial Capitalism and Coloniality Along the Balkan Route (Duke UP, 2022), Piro Rexhepi explores the overlapping postsocialist and…
- New Books in Sociology
Shailaja Paik, "The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India" (Stanford UP, 2022)
Shailaja Paik's book The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India (Stanford UP, 2022) is an important reflection on the question of…
New Books in SociologyALICE and Economic Hardship in the United States
Stephanie Hoopes, National Director of United for ALICE, a research center founded at United Way of Northern New Jersey, talks about the ALICE program with…
- New Books in Sociology
Ijlal Naqvi, "Access to Power: Electricity and the Infrastructural State in Pakistan" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Pakistan would desperately like to produce enough electricity, but it usually doesn't. Despite prioritization by successive governments, targeted reforms…
- New Books in Sociology
Nilakantan RS, "South vs. North: India's Great Divide" (Juggernaut, 2023)
Compare two children – one born in north India, the other in the south. The child from south India is far less likely to die in the first year of her life or…
- New Books in Sociology
Hannah Noel, "Deflective Whiteness: Coopting Black and Latinx Identity Politics" (Ohio State UP, 2022)
In Deflective Whiteness: Coopting Black and Latinx Identity Politics (Ohio State UP, 2022), Hannah Noel repositions Whiteness studies in relation to current…
- New Books in Sociology
Jessica Barnes, "Staple Security: Bread and Wheat in Egypt" (Duke UP, 2022)
Egyptians often say that bread is life; most eat this staple multiple times a day, many relying on the cheap bread subsidized by the government. In Staple…
- New Books in Sociology
Jonathan Ervine, "Humour in Contemporary France: Controversy, Consensus and Contradictions" (Liverpool UP, 2019)
Thinking through serious questions about racial, ethnic, and religious difference, Jonathan Ervine’s Humour in Contemporary France: Controversy, Consensus and…
- New Books in Sociology
A New Hope? Japanese Retirement Migration to Malaysia
In post-growth Japan, some people are looking to Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, as a source of new hope. A notable change in the recent pattern of global…
New Books in SociologyEnergy Costs, Poverty, and Race
Destenie Nock, an assistant professor in the Engineering and Public Policy and Civil and Environmental Engineering Departments at Carnegie Mellon University…
- New Books in Sociology
Dianne M. Stewart, "Black Women, Black Love: America's War on African-American Marriage" (Seal Press, 2020)
According to the 2010 US census, more than seventy percent of Black women in America are unmarried. Black Women, Black Love: America's War on African-American…
- New Books in Sociology
Leslie Bow, "Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy" (Duke UP, 2022)
In Racist Love: Asian Abstraction and the Pleasures of Fantasy (Duke UP, 2022), Leslie Bow traces the ways in which Asian Americans become objects of anxiety…
- New Books in Sociology
Sheila R. Foster and Christian Iaione, "Co-Cities: Innovative Transitions toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities" (MIT Press, 2022)
A new model of urban governance, mapping the route to a more equitable management of a city’s infrastructure and services. The majority of the world’s…
New Books in SociologyMaking Meaning Episode 3: The Weight of the World
The ideology of capitalism, which drives us to find happiness in endless exertion and economic gain, dulls our emotions and blinds us to the source of our most…
New Books in SociologyThe Promises and Perils of Hype in Science and Technology
Journalist and STS graduate student Gemma Milne talks about her book, Smoke and Mirrors: How Hype Obscures the Future and How to See Past It, with Peoples &…
New Books in SociologyThe Internet, Inequality, and the “Digital Divide”
Information scholar Daniel Greene, an assistant professor at University of Maryland, talks about his book, The Promise of Access: Technology, Inequality, and…
- New Books in Sociology
Thomas Poell et al., "Platforms and Cultural Production" (Polity, 2022)
Hello, world! This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. In this episode, our co-hosts Aswin Punathambekar and Jing Wang discusses the book…
- New Books in Sociology
Amy S. Bruckman, "Should You Believe Wikipedia?: Online Communities and the Construction of Knowledge" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
As we interact online we are creating new kinds of knowledge and community. How are these communities formed? How do we know whether to trust them as sources…
- New Books in Sociology
Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner, "Claiming the State: Active Citizenship and Social Welfare in Rural India" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
Citizens around the world look to the state for social welfare provision, but often struggle to access essential services in health, education, and social…
- New Books in Sociology
Geneviève Zubrzycki, "Resurrecting the Jew: Nationalism, Philosemitism, and Poland’s Jewish Revival" (Princeton UP, 2022)
Since the early 2000s, Poland has experienced a remarkable Jewish revival. Klezmer music, Jewish-style restaurants, kosher vodka, and festivals of Jewish…
- New Books in Sociology
Nick Seaver, "Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
The people who make music recommender systems have lofty goals: they want to broaden listeners’ horizons and help obscure musicians find audiences, taking…
- New Books in Sociology
Sue Ann Barratt and Aleah N. Ranjitsingh, "Dougla in the Twenty-First Century: Adding to the Mix" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
Identity is often fraught for multiracial Douglas, people of both South Asian and African descent in the Caribbean. In this groundbreaking volume titled Dougla…
- New Books in Sociology
Brooke Schedneck, "Religious Tourism in Northern Thailand: Encounters with Buddhist Monks" (U Washington Press, 2021)
The city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand has become the destination for a growing segment of the international tourism market: religious tourism…
- New Books in Sociology
Clare Forstie, "Queering the Midwest: Forging LGBTQ Community" (NYU Press, 2022)
Drag shows that test the capacity of bars persist alongside wishes for stronger community among River City's LGBTQ population. In this examination of LGBTQ…
- New Books in Sociology
Robert O'Mochain and Yuki Ueno, "Sexual Abuse and Education in Japan: In the (Inter)National Shadows" (Routledge, 2022)
Bringing together two voices, practice and theory, in a collaboration that emerges from lived experience and structured reflection upon that experience…
- New Books in Sociology
Ross Beveridge and Philippe Koch, "How Cities Can Transform Democracy" (Polity Press, 2022)
We live in an urban age. It is well-known that urbanization is changing landscapes, built environments, social infrastructures and everyday lives across the…
- New Books in Sociology
David Newheiser, "The Varieties of Atheism: Connecting Religion and Its Critics" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
The Varieties of Atheism: Connecting Religion and Its Critics (University of Chicago Press, 2022), edited by Professor David Newheiser reveals the diverse…
- New Books in Sociology
Missing: Men at Work
Over six million prime-age men are neither working nor looking for work; America's low unemployment rate hides the fact that many men have dropped out of the…
New Books in SociologyOut of TIme: Sacred Time and 'Time is Money'
Many of the earliest time technologies were used to mark sacred time -- time set apart for the divine. But with the Industrial Revolution, efficient time use…
- New Books in Sociology
M. R. Sharan, "Last Among Equals: Power, Caste and Politics in Bihar's Villages" (Westland, 2021)
M. R. Sharan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, studying questions centred around development economics and political economy. He…
New Books in SociologyQueer Space
In this episode of High Theory, Jack Jen Gieseking tells us about queer space. Queer geographies matter alongside queer temporalities. And it turns out that…
- New Books in Sociology
Robin Bartram, "Stacked Decks: Building Inspectors and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
Though we rarely see them at work, building inspectors have the power to significantly shape our lives through their discretionary decisions. The building…
- New Books in Sociology
Rukmini S. "Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India" (Context, 2021)
How do you see India? Fuelled by a surge of migration to cities, the country's growth appears to be defined by urbanisation and by its growing, prosperous…
- New Books in Sociology
Shailaja Paik, "The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India" (Stanford UP, 2022)
The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India (Stanford UP, 2022) offers the first social and intellectual history of Dalit…
- New Books in Sociology
Batja Mesquita, "Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions" (Norton, 2022)
Today I talked to Batja Mesquita about her book Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions (Norton, 2022). To a degree sometimes not realized, we discuss…
- New Books in Sociology
Kevin Munger, "Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture" (Columbia UP, 2022)
In Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture (Columbia UP, 2022), Kevin Munger marshals novel data and survey evidence…
- New Books in Sociology
Stephanie C. Kane, "Just One Rain Away: The Ethnography of River-City Flood Control" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
Not long ago it seemed flood control experts were close to mastering the unruly flows funnelling toward Hudson Bay and the Prairie city of Winnipeg. But as…
- New Books in Sociology
Elizabeth Farfán-Santos, "Undocumented Motherhood: Conversations on Love, Trauma, and Border Crossing" (U Texas Press, 2022)
Claudia Garcia crossed the border because her toddler, Natalia, could not hear. Leaving behind everything she knew in Mexico, Claudia recounts the terror of…
- New Books in Sociology
Gillian Tan, "Pastures of Change: Contemporary Adaptations and Transformations among Nomadic Pastoralists of Eastern Tibet" (Springer, 2018)
Tibetan nomads have developed a way of life that is dependent in multiple ways on their animals and shaped by the phenomenological experience of mobility…
- New Books in Sociology
Lois Presser, "Unsaid: Analyzing Harmful Silences" (U California Press, 2022)
Harm takes shape in and through what is suppressed, left out, or taken for granted. Unsaid: Unsaid: Analyzing Harmful Silences (U California Press, 2022) is a…
- New Books in Sociology
Namita Vijay Dharia, "The Industrial Ephemeral: Labor and Love in Indian Architecture and Construction" (U California Press, 2022)
What transformative effects does a multimillion-dollar industry have on those who work within it? The Industrial Ephemeral presents the untold stories of the…
- New Books in Sociology
David Collier and Gerardo L. Munck, "Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies: Insights and Methods for Comparative Social Science" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)
Over the past 50 years, scholars across the social sciences have employed critical juncture analysis to understand how social orders are created, become…
- New Books in Sociology
Hil Malatino, "Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)
Fatigue, disorientation, numbness, envy, rage, burnout. What good could come from thinking about trans experience and these bad feelings? In Side Affects: On…
- New Books in Sociology
Surviving the State: Struggles for Land and Democracy in Myanmar
How do farmers struggle for land and democracy in Myanmar’s hybrid political system? How might a feminist approach to this question look like and enable novel…
- New Books in Sociology
Jennifer Forestal, "Designing for Democracy: How to Build Community in Digital Environments" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Political Theorist Jennifer Forestal’s new book is a fascinating exploration of contemporary democracy and how it operates in different spaces. Forestal’s…
- New Books in Sociology
Malini Ambach et al., "Temples, Texts, and Networks: South Indian Perspectives" (HASP, 2022)
For many centuries, Hindu temples and shrines have been of great importance to South Indian religious, social and political life. Aside from being places of…
- New Books in Sociology
James C. Rhoads et al., "Cultivating Q Methodology: Essays Honoring Steven R. Brown" (Bookbaby, 2022)
Cultivating Q Methodology is a collection of essays is in honor of Professor Steven R. Brown, the preeminent scholar of Q methodology. Q methodology, innovated…
- New Books in Sociology
Steffen Mau, "Sorting Machines: The Reinvention of the Border in the 21st Century" (Polity Press, 2022)
It is commonly thought that, thanks to globalization, nation-state borders are becoming increasingly porous. In Sorting Machines: The Reinvention of the Border…
New Books in SociologyThe Ideology of Innovation in India
Science and Technologies scholar Lilly Irani talks her book, Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India, with Peoples & Things host…
- New Books in Sociology
Eric A. Stanley, "Atmospheres of Violence: Structuring Antagonism and the Trans/Queer Ungovernable" (Duke UP, 2021)
Content note: This episode contains discussions of suicide, as well as allusions to graphic anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Black violence Advances in LGBTQ rights in the…
- New Books in Sociology
How Did the Pandemic Transform Workers and Work?
The pandemic brought to the fore a group of workers deemed “essential” – frontline healthcare workers, restaurant employees, slaughterhouse workers, and the…
- New Books in Sociology
Marlene Schäfers, "Voices That Matter: Kurdish Women at the Limits of Representation in Contemporary Turkey" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
“Raise your voice!” and “Speak up!” are familiar refrains that assume, all too easily, that gaining voice will lead to empowerment, healing, and inclusion for…
- New Books in Sociology
Benjamin Hegarty, "The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity, and Citizenship in Indonesia" (Cornell UP, 2022)
In The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity, and Citizenship in Indonesia (Cornell UP, 2022), Benjamin Hegarty contends that warias, one of Indonesia's…
- New Books in Sociology
Carwil Bjork-James, "The Sovereign Street: Making Revolution in Urban Bolivia" (U Arizona Press, 2020)
In the early twenty-first century Bolivian social movements made streets, plazas, and highways into the decisively important spaces for acting politically…
- New Books in Sociology
Chris Bilton et al., "Creativities: The What, How, Where, Who and Why of the Creative Process" (Edward Elgar, 2022)
How does creativity work? In Creativities: The What, How, Where, Who and Why of the Creative Process (Edward Elgar, 2022), Chris Bilton, a Reader at University…
New Books in SociologyInfrastructure and Inequality
Daniel Armanios, associate professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, talks about his work on infrastructure and inequality with…
- New Books in Sociology
On Émile Durkheim's "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" (1912)
In 1912, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim published The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Centered around the experience of religion in tribal cultures…
- New Books in Sociology
Xiang Biao and Wu Qi, "Self as Method: Thinking Through China and the World" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
Today I had the pleasure of talking to Professor Xiang Biao on his new book, Self as Method: Thinking Through China and the World, which was originally written…
New Books in SociologyConsumed: The Myth and Reality of Cannibalism
Cannibalism has been used for centuries to define the lowest form of humanity, but the story isn't as straightforward as it may seem. Turns out, there may be a…