New Books Network

Epizódy

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  Pushpesh Kumar et al. eds., "Sociology of Gender in India: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives" (Cambridge UP, 2026) 19.09.2026 1h 8min

  Sociology of Gender in India brings together feminist and queer scholarship to chart the changing landscape of gender debates in Indian sociology. Spanning over five decades of disciplinary evolution, this volume interrogates how gender, caste, sexuality, class, and digitalisation intersect in shaping contemporary social life. With chapters by a new generation of scholars, it critically engages with foundational debates in kinship, marriage, labour, media, nationalism, and pedagogy, while foregrounding neglected areas such as femtech, queer infrastructures, and digital precarity. The volume not only reanimates classic concerns of Indian feminist sociology but also aims to intervene in global conversations on intersectionality, decolonial knowledge, and the sociology of everyday life. Pushpesh Kumar teaches sociology at the University of Hyderabad. He has written extensively on gender and sexuality issues. Rituparna Patgiri teaches Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati. Her research explores questions of culture, food, media, gender, and pedagogy. Deepali Aparajita Dungdung teaches in the Department of Sociology, Ranchi University. Her research examines the intersections of gender, ethnicity, and care work within contemporary capitalism, with her more recent work focusing on language, education, and development. Priyam Sinha is an Early-Career Fellow at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, where her work sits at the intersection of critical media industry studies, production cultures, disability studies, gender studies, and digital media development in Asia. She previously held a Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University Berlin, and her doctoral research was awarded by the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Her articles appear in the European Journal of Cultural Studies; Media, Culture and Society; Communication, Culture and Critique; and South Asian Diaspora, among others. Committed to public scholarship, she is a regular host on the New Books Network and has written for the Economic and Political Weekly, the Asian Film Archive, and FemAsia. Her work can be found at here and you can follow her on X here
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  Abi Bae and Hamza Hamouchene eds., "Towards Palestinian Liberation: Global Perspectives on Anti-Colonial Resistance and Solidarity" (Daraja Press, 2026) 19.09.2026 42min

  The book Towards Palestinian Liberation: Global Perspectives on Anti-Colonial Resistance & Solidarity (Daraja Press, 2026), published by Daraja Press, portrays a collection of solidarity movements around the world, highlighting the interconnectedness of global struggles with Palestine. It situates Palestine in a wider, historical decolonial liberation movement. By examining the role of economic and political interests, it critically assesses the opportunities and challenges that these movements face. This book is an amazing new addition to the critical literature on Palestine. Abi Bae is a Korean researcher and activist currently working at the Transnational Institute. Hamza Hamouchene is a London-based Algerian researcher-activist, commentator and a founding member of Algeria Solidarity Campaign (ASC), and Environmental Justice North Africa (EJNA). The host of this episode is Sarah Vogelsanger. Sarah Vogelsanger is a feminist researcher and writer based in London.
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  Audun Dahl, "Between Fixed and Fickle: Why Our Moral Views Keep Changing" (Harvard UP, 2026) 19.09.2026 35min

  Between Fixed and Fickle: Why Our Moral Views Keep Changing (Harvard UP, 2026), a psychologist explains why—and how—moral views change across different life stages, situations, and historical eras. We like to believe that moral truths are obvious and unchangeable: cheating is wrong, killing is wrong, slavery is wrong. Yet people have often cheated, killed, and enslaved without regret. The acts that feel glaringly wrong to us in the here and now can seem fine to someone who is younger, or faces different circumstances, or lived a century ago. Why does morality appear so unstable? The popular explanation is that emotions, self-interest, and social pressure easily divert people from moral concerns because they lack sincere moral commitment. But the evidence shows otherwise. Drawing on studies of young children, adolescents, and adults, Audun Dahl argues that human morality is neither immutable nor capricious, neither fixed nor fickle. Rather, people change their moral views when they believe they have good reasons to—reasons that they can articulate to themselves and would endorse for others. The science of moral change cannot resolve our ethical dilemmas: it does not tell us what’s morally right or wrong. But it can help us understand why we have moral views in the first place, why those views keep changing, and why moral views that seem obvious to us aren’t obvious to everyone else. Separating moral psychology from moralizing, Between Fixed and Fickle reveals what’s behind our changing agreements and disagreements as we travel toward shared and hard-won moral truths. Host: Renee Garfinkel Guest: Audun Dahl
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  Tamara Hundorova, "Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma" (Academic Studies Press, 2026) 19.09.2026 46min

  Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma (Academic Studies Press, 2026) explores transitional post-Soviet cultural consciousness in Ukraine at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The main themes in the book are postcolonial traumas in relation to past empires and old historiographical narratives; post-totalitarian consciousness, which is characterized by sociocultural ruptures, postcolonial resentment, and intergenerational crises; and post-memory as a means of overcoming historical and familial traumas. Against the backdrop of the Chornobyl catastrophe, the book examines the meeting of different generations and views the clown Verka Serduchka as a mediator between the transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet world. The book focuses on three significant Ukrainian novels written between the two Maidans: The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko (2009), Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan (2010), and Notes of a Ukrainian Madman by Lina Kostenko (2010).
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  Conor Harrison, "Brokers of Power: The Financialization of the US Electricity System" (U Minnesota Press, 2026) 19.09.2026 37min

  The twenty-first century has seen major transformations in the US electricity sector—but while the use of coal power wanes and the need for renewable energy becomes more urgent, financial actors maintain a complicating influence on the trajectory of energy transition. Brokers of Power: The Financialization of the US Electricity System (University of Minnesota Press, 2026) identifies changing patterns of investment intertwined with the shift from state-regulated electricity monopolies to a market-driven price model and the embrace of wind and solar hookups to the grid. Drawing from case studies such as catastrophic Winter Storm Uri that hit Texas in 2021 and in-depth interviews with people working in the electricity and financial sectors, Dr. Conor Harrison reveals how the various entanglements of private equity, investment banking, and financial modeling are shaping the future and raising the costs of this vital infrastructure. Today’s financial firms, he shows, are engaged in the electricity industry beyond matters of investment: they own electricity generation infrastructure, trade electricity on markets, capture federal renewable energy tax credits, and advise on electricity firm operating strategy. Looking beyond technology and policy, Dr. Harrison interrogates what it means to have powerful financial institutions as the primary agents of change in the fraught and ongoing energy transition. A timely and invaluable contribution to the fields of geography, environmental studies, and the energy social sciences, Brokers of Power is a cautionary account delving into the complexities surrounding the push for decarbonization. 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.
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  Jared D Aldern and Theresa Lynn Gregor, "Landkeeping: Restoring Indigenous Fire Stewardship and Ecological Partnerships" (OSU Press, 2026) 19.09.2026 46min

  With rising temperatures, longer summers, drought, and more wildfires occurring in the United States and Canada, there is growing interest in the impact and efficacy of Indigenous fire and cultural burning practices. Indigenous communities throughout this region known as Turtle Island have long used fire to manage their homelands. An interdisciplinary anthology that includes extensive Native views, Landkeeping: Restoring Indigenous Fire Stewardship and Ecological Partnerships (OSU Press, 2026) provides engaging perspectives on the role of Indigenous fire and its importance to our ecological health, cultural continuity, and land-based kinship. Indigenous-identified and non-Indigenous allies and researchers in ecology, natural resource management, forestry, ethnobotany, and Native American/Indigenous Studies demonstrate how Indigenous knowledge offers sustainable, relational approaches to land care and resilience. Each chapter builds on the idea that fire stewardship is a manifestation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)—a system of knowledge that is rooted in place, transmitted through oral traditions and embodied practices, and guided by values such as reciprocity, responsibility, and interdependence with more-than-humans. By recognizing that fire is part of a larger cosmology, Landkeeping contributors share how fire stewardship is a path toward ecological balance, cultural revitalization, and just climate futures.
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  Brian L. Porto, "Twin States, Different Paths: The Politics of New Hampshire and Vermont" (U Mass Press, 2026) 19.09.2026 35min

  At first glance, New Hampshire and Vermont seem like mirror images. Separated only by the Connecticut River, the oft-termed "Twin States" share a common history, relatively small populations, and heavily mountainous and forested landscapes dotted with small towns. Yet despite their similarities, they have evolved strikingly different political cultures, with Vermont prizing cooperation and community and New Hampshire celebrating independence and freedom from government. Perhaps nowhere is this divergence in political visions more pronounced than in their respective state mottos: Vermont's communal "Freedom and Unity" and New Hampshire's libertarian "Live Free or Die." Twin States, Different Paths: The Politics of New Hampshire and Vermont (U Mass Press, 2026) explores these contrasting political cultures. Brian Porto traces these differences back to the land itself: to the geology and geography that shaped early settlement, patterns of land use, and the distinct ways people built their communities. From these origins emerged two enduring civic philosophies--New Hampshire's devotion to low taxes and limited government, and Vermont's emphasis on equality and shared responsibility. Bringing historical and cultural analysis together with contemporary case studies, Porto examines how these traditions influence each state's approach to today's policy challenges, including affordable housing and public-school funding. The result is a clear, balanced portrait of how deeply rooted attitudes toward freedom, unity, and governance continue to shape public life in both states. Written with scholarly rigor yet in an engaging and accessible style, Twin States, Different Paths fills a notable gap in the study of New England politics. It offers insights not only for scholars and students of political culture, history, and public policy, but also for general readers, policymakers, and residents who wish to understand how two neighbors--so similar in geography and spirit--continue to follow such different paths in defining the role of government and community.
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  Xiaofei Tian, "Writing Empire and Self: Poetic and Cultural Transformation in Early Medieval China" (Columbia UP, 2026) 19.09.2026 57min

  China’s early medieval period, from the fifth through the early seventh century, from the Northern and Southern Dynasties through the unified Sui, was a time of political fragmentation, military strife, and ethnic conflict. It also witnessed brilliant artistic creations as well as a full flowering of court culture, with poetry at its heart. How did poetry come to be regarded as the most potent form of cultural capital, a privileged literary genre, and a foundational skill for members of the elite? How was poetry transformed from an instrument of empire building to a venue for articulating personal trauma and voicing critique of the state? Tracing the evolution of poetry’s role in Chinese society, Writing Empire and Self: Poetic and Cultural Transformation in Early Medieval China (Columbia University Press, 2026) uncovers the profound cultural changes that took place in the early medieval era. Dr. Xiaofei Tian argues that in this period, a social community, eventually known as the “scholar elite” and treated as if it had always been a permanent fixture of the Chinese social order, came into being. She investigates the formation of this community, which left its mark on all later Chinese arts and letters, through a careful account of its history and textual production. Combining meticulous readings of numerous previously untranslated texts with a long-term, large-scale view of social and cultural history, Writing Empire and Self offers a fresh perspective on poetry’s intricate relationship with the state. 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.
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  Sarah Trad, "A House in the Lebanese Mountains: Recipes & Stories from Beit Trad" (Thames & Hudson, 2026) 18.09.2026 37min

  High in the Lebanese mountains above Beirut sits Beit Trad, an eighteenth-century family home that Sarah Trad transformed into a guesthouse devoted to Levantine hospitality. The house brings together family history, Lebanese design, food, and the belief that welcoming someone into your home is an essential part of life. In A House in the Lebanese Mountains: Recipes & Stories from Beit Trad (Thames & Hudson, 2026), Trad tells the story of Beit Trad and the family who shaped it, alongside recipes for the generous Lebanese food served around its tables. Part memoir, part cookbook, and part portrait of a remarkable house, the book captures interiors that mix Eastern and Western influences and reflect the layered identity of the Levant. The recipes range from Beit Trad’s elaborate breakfasts to vegetable dishes, stews, meats, fish, and sweets. Throughout, Trad explores hosting as both an art and a practice: making guests feel completely at home while recognizing the work and dedicated team required to make that sense of ease seem effortless. Sarah Trad joins New Books Network to discuss Levantine hospitality, her family’s house and its transformation into a guesthouse, and her mother’s influence on her understanding of hosting. She also talks about what it takes to run Beit Trad, the relationship between beauty and appetite, and recipes including Pasta B Laban – a decidedly non-Italian spaghetti dish with garlic and yogurt that is pure Lebanese comfort food – and a strawberry and orange salad that showcases the magic of orange blossom water. Interview by Laura Goldberg, longtime food blogger at VittlesVamp.com.
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  Museums in Digital Age 18.09.2026 33min

  How are museums adapting to the digital age, and what transformations are taking place in institutions we often consider to be highly conservative? In this episode, researcher Aya Kimura shares her fascination with museums in both Japan and Lithuania, as well as insights from her research and analysis over the past several years. For those who read Japanese, more details can be found in Aya Kimura’s book Museums of the Digital Age (デジタル時代の博物館), published by Kadensha. Aya Kimura is Associate Professor, Department of Human Sciences, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine The episode is hosted by Linas Didvalis, an Associate Professor at Centre for Asian Studies at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania). The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Host: Linas Didvalis  Find the book here
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  Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, "Pierogi: An American Story of Polish Food" (Columbia UP, 2026) 18.09.2026 48min

  Today, pierogi are the most recognizable Polish food in the United States and a symbol of Polish American identity. How did this humble dish attain such lofty status? In Pierogi: An American Story of Polish Food (Columbia UP, 2026), Professor Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann explores the surprising history of pierogi, tracing how Polish cuisine evolved in the multiethnic landscape of the United States. When Polish immigrants crossed the ocean, they brought with them their traditional cuisine, which came to signify enduring attachment to homeland, family, religion, and culture. In time, they as well as new generations and new immigrant waves gradually transformed Polish American culinary culture, reflecting food trends and changes in the United States, Poland, and the world. Pierogi takes readers into the kitchens where Polish American families, friends, and community organizations carry on the custom of cooking and eating together. Dr. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann highlights small- and large-scale pierogi producers who adapted traditional dishes for the US market and food celebrities who mainstreamed them, and she traces the symbolic representation of pierogi in popular culture. She also shares personal stories, from her family’s resourcefulness in communist-era Poland facing near-constant food shortages to her experiences as an immigrant to the United States in the 1980s. Drawing on sources from historical and recent cookbooks to interviews with Polish American entrepreneurs and community members, this book offers new insights for anyone interested in East Central European and American foodways. 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.
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  Revisiting The Leftovers 18.09.2026 25min

  The Pop Culture Professors revisit the pilot of The Leftovers, which ran on HBO from 2014-2017. How does this grief-drenched story about a world in ontological crisis play today, in 2026?
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  Class Struggle and the New York Mets: A Conversation with AM Gittlitz 18.09.2026 55min

  With his riveting chronicle of the New York Mets baseball team, AM Gittlitz is emerging as a rising star in the field of popular social history.
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  Carl Dennis, "Earthly Virtues" (Penguin, 2026) 18.09.2026 39min

  In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Dennis about his collection, Earthly Virtues (Penguin Random House, 2026). Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Dennis explores the expansiveness and complexity of universal virtues within the realm of the everyday in this thought-provoking new collection Though most of the virtues that interest Carl Dennis in Earthly Virtues have traditional names, they are provided with contexts that give them fresh implications, moving us in two directions at once, toward a recognition of limits and a recognition of possibilities. On one hand, they confront what it means to lack the knowledge and power we need to make our lives as consequential as we may want them to be. On the other, they reach out to widen the circle of our concern, suggesting a kinship of the local with the distant, enlarging the passing moment with history and prophecy. Wherever the poems turn, they prove spacious enough to take us with them, and they leave us grateful for the journey. Carl Dennis is the author of fourteen books of poetry, most recently Earthborn (2022). A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Ruth Lilly Prize, he taught for many years in the English Department of the State University of New York, and in the Warren Wilson Writing Program in North Carolina. He lives in Buffalo, New York.
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  Jerome Sauvage, "Witness to North Korea: Three Years on the Ground in the DPRK" (Bloomsbury, 2026) 18.09.2026 38min

  Jerome Sauvage served as the United Nations Resident Coordinator and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resident Representative in North Korea from 2009 to 2013. In this capacity, he was the most senior UN official in North Korea during one of the most eventful political periods on the Korean peninsula in recent memory. Amidst the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan, shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, and death of Kim Jong-il, Sauvage had to resurrect and strengthen UNDP’s—and the UN overall’s—presence in North Korea by delicately navigating the politics of not only Pyongyang, but also the overall international development ecosystem. In this NBN episode, we talk with Sauvage about those experiences, which he recounts in his memoir Witness to North Korea: Three Years on the Ground in the DPRK (Bloomsbury, 2026).
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  Jim Gaona Ellis, "Educators As Designers: The Hidden Architecture of Learning" (Harvard Education Press, 2026) 18.09.2026 50min

  This timely and original book challenges readers to see themselves not just as implementers, but as architects capable of reshaping learning cultures and opportunities for all students.
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  Bryant Simon, "For Customers Only: Public Bathrooms and the Making of American Inequality" (U Chicago Press, 2026) 17.09.2026 38min

  Americans have nowhere to go. Nationwide, countless public spaces lack one crucial thing: bathrooms, never mind ones that are safe and functional. Yet in the past, political leaders celebrated the opening of public bathrooms with boisterous press conferences and showy ribbon-cutting ceremonies. For Customers Only: Public Bathrooms and the Making of American Inequality (University of Chicago Press, 2026) is the first book to tell the larger history of public bathrooms in the United States, a fascinating story characterized by persistent discrimination, squeamishness about unknown bodies, and disinvestment in public amenities. Acclaimed writer and historian Dr. Bryant Simon argues that restrooms aren’t only an architectural feature, but an emblem of control and inequality. In the late nineteenth century, cities vied for the newest and biggest comfort stations to meet the demands of their bustling economies and accommodate a broad and growing public. They built restrooms with gold-domed entrances and ornamented stall doors to inspire cleanliness and order.
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  Sandra Rozental, "The Absent Stone: Mexican Patrimony and the Aftershocks of State Theft" (Duke UP, 2026) 17.09.2026 41min

  Where and to whom do ancient things belong? What happens when they are stolen—not by a colonial power, but by a national museum claiming them as state patrimony? What kinds of healing and restitution can follow? In The Absent Stone: Mexican Patrimony and the Aftershocks of State Theft (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Sandra Rozental tells the story of the Piedra de los Tecomates, the largest stone monument in the Americas, popularly identified as the pre-Hispanic rain deity Tlaloc. In 1964, the Mexican state called in the military to forcefully relocate this 167-ton carving from the town of Coatlinchan to Mexico City’s National Anthropology Museum. Using in-depth historical and ethnographic research, Rozental traces how the stone’s absence continues to affect and unsettle Coatlinchan and its residents decades later, revealing the tensions between patrimony, nationalism, territory, memory, and materiality in Mexico. 
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  Andrew Seth Meyer, "To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China, from Confucius to the First Emperor" (Oxford UP, 2026) 17.09.2026 52min

  The Warring States Period is one of the most important times in China’s history. It marked the end of one dynasty–the Zhou–and the beginning of a new imperial era, under the Qin. It’s an era that historian Andrew Seth Meyer describes as one of the most important revolutions in world history: The fall of the old aristocratic order, the birth of Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism, and the creation of the imperial system that would shape China for over two thousand years. Andrew has put together one of the first English comprehensive histories of the Warring States period in his new book To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China from Confucius to the First Emperor (Oxford UP, 2026)
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  Laura Portwood-Stacer, "The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors" (Princeton UP, 2021) 17.09.2026 55min

  Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DM us your suggestion on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you’ll hear about: what a book proposal is and isn’t, why you have to write one, the importance of seeking the right “fit” for your manuscript, how to pitch a quirky book, the difference between a book’s topic and its argument, how to summarize your project in just one sentence, and a discussion of The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors (Princeton UP, 2021)