New Books in Popular Culture

Episodes

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  Christopher R. Rogers, "My City Need Something" (Common Notions, 2026) 11.08.2026

  Moving between word and image, the call-and-response collaboration between writer Christopher R. Rogers and photographer karim brown improvises a contemporary portrait of present-day Black Philadelphia, replete with the unfinished activism present since the transnational upsurge of the George Floyd Uprising.Arriving five years after the crucible of that period, this experimental essay-as-LP challenges us to prioritize the urgency of reckoning with our own hang-ups and half-steps and to reground ourselves within the daily, prefigurative life-work of rehearsing Black liberation. This is a hyperlocal, future-forward recommitment to ongoing principled struggle and a hopeful model of contemporary self-criticism.Taking its title from a song by the late, beloved Uptown Philadelphia rapper PnB Rock, My City Need Something (Common Notions, 2026) challenges readers to strive for clarity in a time of Black suffering, in a city resplendent with Black joy. Christopher R. Rogers, PhD is a Philadelphia-based cultural organizer and educator hailing from Chester, PA with more than a decade of experience in supporting radical arts, culture, and community-building. He is a Facilitator with the W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition & Reconstruction and co-coordinates the Friends of The Tanner House, incubating a revitalized National Historic Landmark rowhome that Dr. Carter G. Woodson once dubbed the “center of Black intellectual life in Philadelphia.” He previously published with Common Notions as Lead Editor for How We Stay Free: Notes on a Black Uprising (2022) alongside novelist Fajr Muhammad. You can find Chris on Instagram @justmaybechris. After listening to this episode, head over to the Additions to the Archive Substack, where Chris and Sullivan talk further about community education and activism. Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Naomi Kanakia, "What's So Great About the Great Books?: Why You Should Read Classic Literature (Even Though It Might Destroy You) (Princeton UP, 2026) 10.08.2026 50m

  Writer Naomi Kanakia has spent her adult life reading the so-called “great books,” those classic works of literature which are–depending who you ask–either deeply unfashionable, or a time-honored testament to human accomplishment. With What’s So Great About the Great Books: Why You Should Read Classic Literature (Even Though It May Destroy You) (Princeton UP, 2026) Kanakia, a devoted lay reader, unpacks popular anxieties surrounding classic writers like Milton, Tolstoy, and Proust. Using the unpretentious approach she has cultivated on her popular Substack, Woman of Letters, Kanakia addresses common reservations about the great books, questions about why we should bother with literature with dated politics, or books exceedingly difficult to read. For plenty of readers, particularly those who came of age in the last decade, the answers may not be clear. Kanakia offers an intriguing reminder to challenge ourselves, to look beyond the walls of the ideology we have constructed for ourselves. (Just don’t ask her about “Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes.) “What’s So Great about the Great Books” is out now with Princeton University Press. Megan Peck Shub (AKA Galley Hag) is a writer, journalist, and a producer who has won Emmy and Peabody awards for her work on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO. She previously worked on Finding Your Roots with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the PBS history docuseries. Megan’s eclectic slate runs the gamut from literature to pop culture to politics, with a particular focus where those topics intersect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Caryl Flinn and Dana B. Polan, "The Patty Duke Show and the American Sixties: Hot Dogs and Crêpes Suzette" (Oxford UP, 2026) 09.08.2026 57m

  In The Patty Duke Show and the American Sixties: Hot Dogs and Crêpes Suzette (Oxford UP, 2026), the first ever published on The Patty Duke Show (1963-66), Caryl Flinn and Dana Polan examine the significance of this classic US sitcom within popular culture and within American society at the time. Child acting sensation Patty Duke plays the all-American Patty as well as her staid British counterpart Cathy, who comes to live with Patty's family in Brooklyn. Far from being a frivolous show, the show's use of twin girls--and their comic antics--offers glimpses into different identities and possibilities to try on, in keeping not only with girls' popular culture of the time but the optimism of John F. Kennedy's Camelot years.At the same time, the series plugged into many of the contradictions of the mid-1960s. It flirted, as much of the US did, with foreign cultures, such as Julia Child's mediation of Frenchness, only to return to and reaffirm core US values. Like Kennedy, who encouraged the country's youth to engage with the world at large, the show gestures towards a cosmopolitanism that, ultimately, retreats into an American-based perspective, as evidenced in the series' preferential treatment of Patty over Cathy--despite the two characters being played by one actor.Drawing on archival research, Flinn and Polan bring to light the show's production background, which has until now been largely lost to history, as well as considering the series's conception, reception, its many tie-in products, and its ongoing afterlife in the decades since its initial broadcast. In so doing, they reveal hidden and overt issues that shaped American culture and ideology of the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Cycling Cities: Lisbon and Tehran with M. Luísa Sousa and Kazem Afradi 06.08.2026 1h

  Cycling Cities is a series of books that investigates 150 years of cycling policy and practice across fifty cities in twenty-five countries, and keeps adding new cities to the list including, recently, Lisbon and Tehran. In this episode, I interview two authors, M. Luísa Sousa and Kazem Afradi, from the teams of researchers that wrote Cycling Cities: The Lisbon Experience and Cycling Cities: The Tehran Experience. These books uncover the histories of bicycles and their cyclists from Lisbon to Tehran, from the 19th century to the 21st century, and from royals to revolutionaries. As you’ll hear, while there are of course many differences between Lisbon and Tehran, there are also many commonalities in their cycling histories. Jacob Ward is an historian at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He has written on the history of science and technology, environmental history, business and financial history, and political history. He recently published Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024) and he’s currently working on a history of futurology in the United Kingdom and Europe from 1945 to the present day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The War of the Worlds 03.08.2026 30m

  In light of the dismal Disclosure Day (2026), we return to two films that show Spielberg tackling alien visitation (or invasion) stories while at the height of his powers. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and The War of the Worlds (2005) are decades apart, yet united by a single image and devotion to their audiences. The first is as Disneylike as Pinocchio; the second conjures memories of 9/11. Both show domesticity under great strain as families and infrastructures break down; one ends with hope while the other simply stops. Incredible bumper music by John Deley. The War of the Worlds is based on H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel, which you can purchase here. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Jinwon Kim, "Koreatown, NYC: The Consumption of a Transnational Brand" (NYU Press, 2026) 31.07.2026 34m

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Elijah Wald, "Rock ‘N’ Roll: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2026) 30.07.2026

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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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) 30.07.2026 49m

  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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  David I. Waddington, "The Hidden Curriculum of Video Games" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026) 22.07.2026 42m

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  David Denby, "Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer" (Henry Holt, 2025) 22.07.2026 51m

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Daniel L. Gardner, "Thresholds of Digital Gameplay" (MIT Press, 2025) 21.07.2026 1h 2m

  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. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Stefan Höltgen et al., "Commodore 64: Past, Present, and Future of a Home Computer" (Projekt Verlag, 2026) 20.07.2026 27m

  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. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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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) 15.07.2026 1h 17m

  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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Adam Geczy, "Glasses" (Bloomsbury, 2026) 15.07.2026 34m

  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. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill, "Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story" (Da Capo, 2026) 09.07.2026 52m

  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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Metamodern Mysticism with Linda Ceriello 08.07.2026 50m

  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: “What is Metamodern?” website “What is Metamodern? Conversations” on YouTube Bloomsbury Press series: Studies in Metamodernism, Theory and Criticism Across the Disciplines Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism” (2010) Kersten, Polo, Wilbers, Glocal Metamodernisms: European Fiction After Postmodernism (2026) Disambiguation video Recorded lecture: “An Overview of the Academic Research on Metamodernism” (2023) Recorded panel: “A Bodhisattva Move: Popular Mysticism’s Influence on the Metamodern Turn?” (2021) 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Aswin Punathambekar, Adrienne Shaw and Jonathan Gray eds., "Planet Digital: A Global Media Cultures Reader" (NYU Press, 2026) 07.07.2026 1h 1m

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  A.D. Carson, "Owning My Masters (Mastered): The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions" (U Michigan Press, 2026) 02.07.2026 52m

  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. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Alan Brender, "Pink Tsunami: The Hello Kitty Kawaii Wave that has Swept the World" (Headpress, 2026) 01.07.2026 59m

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture
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  Scott Reich, "One Day in September: Baseball, Brotherhood, and the Birth of the All-Star Game" (Compass Rose, 2026) 30.06.2026 52m

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture