Shows / New Books in Sociology
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
Biko Koenig, "Worker Centered: Allyship & Action in the Contemporary Labor Movement" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Worker Centered: Allyship & Action in the Contemporary Labor Movement (Oxford UP, 2024) is a close-to-the-ground, ethnographic narrative of a workplace…
- New Books in Sociology
Sari Hanafi, "Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogical Sociology" (Liverpool UP, 2025)
In an era of deepening polarization, Sari Hanafi examines how social scientists often reproduce the very injustices they seek to challenge, taking entrenched…
- New Books in Sociology
Tamara Kay, "Sesame Street Around the World: Culture, Politics, and Transnational Organizational Partnerships" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Given the sometimes extraordinary politicization of culture, it is surprising that Sesame Street has gained acceptance and legitimacy in more than fifty…
- New Books in Sociology
Eleanor Gordon et al., "Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939 (Oxford UP, 2025) by Professor Eleanor Gordon, Professor Katie Barclay, and Dr. Jeff…
- New Books in Sociology
Jennifer Randles, "Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood" (U California Press, 2026)
Many of us take diapers for granted. Yet diaper insecurity is a common, often hidden consequence of poverty in the US, where nearly half of American families…
- New Books in Sociology
Michael James Roberts et al., "Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing" (San Diego State UP, 2024)
In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024), Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline take…
- New Books in Sociology
Nicole E. Trujillo-Pagán, "Detroit Never Left: Black Space, White Borders, Latino Crossings" (NYU Press, 2025)
Detroit seemed to experience an explosive rebirth following its bankruptcy, the largest in US municipal history. It was as if the slate had been wiped clean…
- New Books in Sociology
Miguel Sicart, "Playing Software: Homo Ludens in Computational Culture" (MIT Press, 2023)
The play element at the heart of our interactions with computers—and how it drives the best and the worst manifestations of the information age. Whether we…
- New Books in Sociology
Alice Wiemers, "Village Work: Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana" (Ohio UP, 2021)
Most development histories focus on large-scale projects and multi-year plans. But how would we understand development differently if we chose a different…
- New Books in Sociology
Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)
Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Elliot Dolan-Evans examines the impact of World Bank…
- New Books in Sociology
The Shtetl: Myth and Reality with Samuel Kassow
Even those who do not know much Yiddish have probably heard the word “shtetl,” but what does that word mean exactly? Can we just say that it was a small town…
- New Books in Sociology
A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education
A Light in the Tower argues that excellent education and radical support for mental health struggles can coexist, and provides detailed advice for how to do…
- New Books in Sociology
Zalman Newfield, "Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism" (Temple UP, 2026)
Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of…
- New Books in Sociology
Jessica Martin, "Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Is the home still a site for feminist resistance? In Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity Jessica Martin, a…
- New Books in Sociology
Michelle Jackson, "The Division of Rationalized Labor" (Harvard UP, 2025)
How have jobs changed in the last 150 years? In The Division of Rationalized Labor (Harvard UP, 2025) Michelle Jackson, an Associate Professor in the…
- New Books in Sociology
The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy
In an age of growing wealth disparities, politicians on both sides of the aisle are sounding the alarm about the fading American Dream. Yet despite all…
- New Books in Sociology
Agustín Santella and Adrián Piva, "Marxism, Social Movements and Collective Action" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
Marxists have an obvious interest in understanding social movements. Less obvious, even with the voluminous theoretical archives at hand, is how to pull their…
- New Books in Sociology
Alexis Lerner, "Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States (University of Toronto Press, 2025) is an empirically grounded ethnographic study of how graffiti and…
- New Books in Sociology
Sourit Bhattacharya, "Postcolonialism Now: Literature, Reading, Decolonising" (Orient BlackSwan, 2024)
Postcolonialism Now: Literature, Reading, Decolonising (Orient BlackSwan, 2024) by Sourit Bhattacharya introduces a new method of decolonial reading and…
- New Books in Sociology
Linda Connolly and Tina O’Toole, "Documenting Irish Feminisms: The Second Wave" (Arlen House, 2022)
Linda Connolly is a professor of sociology at Maynooth University, with research focusing on gender, Irish society, family studies, migration, and Irish…
- New Books in Sociology
Peer Schouten, "Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Peer Schouten, of the Danish Institute for International Studies, has written a breathtaking book. Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central…
- New Books in Sociology
Olivier Esteves et al., "France, You Love It but Leave It: The Silent Flight of French Muslims" (Polity, 2025)
Their names are Mohamed, Samira, sometimes Matthieu or Sophie. They were born and bred in France and are highly qualified, but they have decided to go and live…
- New Books in Sociology
Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them
Rural students are unlikely to pursue degrees from private, selective schools. Why? And what happens to the handful of rural students who do attend elite…
- New Books in Sociology
Nina Bandelj, "Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Parents are exhausted. When did raising children become such all-consuming, never-ending, incredibly expensive, and emotionally absorbing effort? In this…
- New Books in Sociology
P. C. Saidalavi, "Seeking Allah's Hierarchy: Caste, Labor, and Islam in India" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
Why Muslims in South India observe hierarchical intra-communal relationships despite the egalitarianism of their religion In Seeking Allah’s Hierarchy: Caste…
- New Books in Sociology
David McCrone, "Changing Scotland: Society, Politics and Identity" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
Scotland is a nation that has undergone significant changes over the last 50 years or so. This is, of course, true of much of the Western world but, as David…
- New Books in Sociology
Jason Roberts, "We Stay the Same: Subsistence, Logging, and Enduring Hopes for Development in Papua New Guinea" (U Arizona Press, 2024)
An ethnography of indigenous lives amidst subsistence labor, large-scale logging, and unrealized schemes, We Stay the Same: Subsistence, Logging, and Enduring…
- New Books in Sociology
Maurice Rafael Magaña, "Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico" (U California Press, 2020)
In Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico (U California Press, 2020), based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork…
- New Books in Sociology
The Caste Question with Suraj Yengde and Anupama Rao
TCP’s inaugural episode features Suraj Yengde and Anupama Rao, two scholars whose academic work and activism have helped to set the parameters of the…
- New Books in Sociology
Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, "By the Power Vested in Me: How Experts Shape Same-Sex Marriage Debates" (Columbia UP, 2025)
In both the United States and France, each side of the legal battle over same-sex marriage and parenthood relied heavily on experts. Despite the similarity of…
- New Books in Sociology
163* The Drama of Celebrity with Sharon Marcus (JP)
As Oscar Season rolls around, Recall This Book looks back to John's 2019 discussion with Columbia University professor Sharon Marcus about The Drama of…
- New Books in Sociology
Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine
Despite reform efforts that have grown in scope and intensity over the last two decades, the machine of American mass incarceration continues to flourish. In…
- New Books in Sociology
Kimberley Johnson, "Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis (Cornell UP, 2025) by Dr. Kimberley Johnson is about how the Black Power movement reshaped…
- New Books in Sociology
Lauren D. Sawyer, "Growing Up Pure: White Girls, Queer Teens, and the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture" (NYU Press, 2025)
Gaining mass popularity in the mid-1990s with the True Love Waits rally on the Washington Mall, purity culture began as an urge from evangelical conservatives…
- New Books in Sociology
Robert Dorschel, "The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism" (MIT Press, 2025)
Who are the people staffing the digital economy? In The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism (MIT Press, 2025) Robert Dorschel…
- New Books in Sociology
Emily Hund, "The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Before there were Instagram likes, Twitter hashtags, or TikTok trends, there were bloggers who seemed to have the passion and authenticity that traditional…
- New Books in Sociology
Ryan Donovan, "Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Broadway has body issues. What is a Broadway Body? Broadway has long preserved the ideology of the "Broadway Body": the hyper-fit, exceptionally able…
- New Books in Sociology
Di Wu et. al, eds., "China As Context: Anthropology, Post-globalisation and the Neglect of China" (Manchester UP, 2025)
A provocative collaborative project, China as Context challenges the marginalization of Chinese-grounded ideas in academia, arguing that neglecting China…
- New Books in Sociology
Emily Walton, "Homesick: Race and Exclusion in Rural New England" (Stanford UP, 2025)
A racial demographic transition has come to rural northern New England. White population losses sit alongside racial and ethnic minority population gains in…
- New Books in Sociology
Leah Lowthorp, "Deep Cosmopolitanism: Kutiyattam, Dynamic Tradition, and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India" (Indiana UP, 2025)
Deep Cosmopolitanism: Kutiyattam, Dynamic Tradition, and Globalizing Heritage in Kerala, India explores the extraordinary past and present of Kutiyattam…
- New Books in Sociology
Julia H. Meszaros, "Economies of Gender: Masculinity, "Mail Order Brides," and Women’s Labor" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Economies of Gender: Masculinity, "Mail Order Brides," and Women's Labor (Rutgers University Press, 2025) by Dr. Julia Meszaros offers a provocative…
- New Books in Sociology
Ofer Sharone, "The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed" (Oxford UP, 2024)
An eye-opening look at how all American workers, even the highly educated and experienced, are vulnerable to the stigma of unemployment. After receiving a PhD…
- New Books in Sociology
Anita Gonzalez, "Shipping Out: Race, Performance, and Labor at Sea" (U Michigan Press, 2025)
Shipping Out: Race, Performance, and Labor at Sea (University of Michigan Press, 2025) by Dr. Anita Gonzalez provides a rare perspective on performance by…
- New Books in Sociology
Sarah Kunz, "Expatriate: Following a Migration Category" (Manchester UP, 2023)
Who are expatriates? How do they differ from other migrants? And why should we care about such distinctions? Expatriate: Following a Migration Category…
- New Books in Sociology
Lesley Nicole Braun, "Congo's Dancers: Women and Work in Kinshasa" (U Wisconsin Press, 2023)
Today I spoke with Lesley Nicole Braun to talk about her new book on Congo's dancers. Dance music plays a central role in the cultural, social, religious, and…
- New Books in Sociology
Arseli Dokumaci, "Activist Affordances: How Disabled People Improvise More Habitable Worlds" (Duke UP, 2023)
For people who are living with disability, including various forms of chronic diseases and chronic pain, daily tasks like lifting a glass of water or taking…
- New Books in Sociology
Julia Elyachar, "On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo" (Duke UP, 2025)
On the Semicivilized: Coloniality, Finance, and Embodied Sovereignty in Cairo (Duke University Press, 2025) by Julia Elyachar is a sweeping analysis of the…
- New Books in Sociology
Judd B. Kessler, "Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics of Getting More of What You Want" (Little, Brown Spark, 2025)
What's the secret to scoring a reservation at a hot new restaurant? When should you enter a lottery to increase your odds of winning? Why did your neighbor's…
- New Books in Sociology
Matt Dawson, "The Political Durkheim: Sociology, Socialism, Legacies" (Routledge, 2023)
Matt Dawson's The Political Durkheim: Sociology, Socialism, Legacies (Routledge, 2023) presents Durkheim as an important political sociologist, inspired by and…
- New Books in Sociology
Henry Grabar, "Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World" (Penguin, 2023)
Parking, quite literally, has a death grip on America: each year a handful of Americans are tragically killed by their fellow citizens over parking spots. But…
- New Books in Sociology
Henrike Kohpeiß, "Bourgeois Coldness" (Divided Publishing, 2025)
Bourgeois Coldness (Divided Publishing, 2025) refers to an affective strategy that offers an explanation for how self-preservation works. Bourgeois coldness…
- New Books in Sociology
Suvi Rautio, "The Invention of Tradition in China: Story of a Village and a Nation Remade" (Springer Nature, 2024)
Today, anthropologist Professor Anru Lee is joining NBN as a guest host to interview me, Suvi Rautio, on my new book, The Invention of Tradition in China…
- New Books in Sociology
Emanuel Deutschmann, "Mapping the Transnational World: How We Move and Communicate Across Borders, and Why It Matters" (Princeton UP, 2022)
Increasingly, people travel and communicate across borders. Yet, we still know little about the overall structure of this transnational world. Is it really a…
- New Books in Sociology
Karma F. Frierson, "Local Color: Reckoning with Blackness in the Port City of Veracruz" (U California Press, 2025)
The Caribbean port city of Veracruz is many things. It is where the Spanish first settled and last left the colony that would go on to become Mexico. It is a…
- New Books in Sociology
Christian Smith, "Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Is traditional American religion doomed? Traditional religion in the United States has suffered huge losses in recent decades. The number of Americans…
- New Books in Sociology
Tourism and a Kyoto in Flux: A Conversation with Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano
In today’s episode Julia Olsson continues her talk with Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano from last episode, and they discuss the issue of overtourism and its effect…
- New Books in Sociology
Caitlin Schroering, "Global Solidarities Against Water Grabbing: Without Water, We Have Nothing" (Manchester UP, 2024)
Conflicts over water are human-caused events with socio-political and economic causes. From Brazil's Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB) to…
- New Books in Sociology
Nathan McGovern, "Seeing Through Religion: An Introduction to the Study of Religion and Religions" (Routledge, 2025)
Seeing Through Religion is a cutting-edge textbook that gives students the tools to learn this valuable subject theoretically, McGovern argues that religion…
- New Books in Sociology
Leila Hudson, "Lines of Flight, Assemblages of Home: Syrian Women Displaced" (Syracuse UP, 2025)
While humanitarian organizations and media outlets often reduce Syrian refugees to statistics or brief anecdotes, the real story of displacement unfolds in the…
- New Books in Sociology
Sharon Sliwinski, "An Alphabet for Dreamers: How to See the World with Eyes Closed" (MIT Press, 2025)
Borrowing from the traditional alphabet book genre for children, An Alphabet for Dreamers: How to See the World with Eyes Closed (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr…