New Books in American Studies

Interviews with Scholars of America about their New Books

Society & Culture
History
4826
Lisa Blee and Jean M. O'Brien, "Monumental Mobi...
Dallin's statue, set alongside the historical memory of the actual Massasoit and his mythic collaboration with the Pilgrims, shows otherwise hidden dimensions of American memorial culture...
86 min
4827
Anne A. Cheng, "Ornamentalism" (Oxford UP, 2019)
Anne A. Cheng illustrates the longstanding relationship between the ‘oriental’ and the ‘ornamental’...
33 min
4828
Matthew Green, "Legislative Hardball: The House...
Following the 2014 elections, a group of conservatives called the House Freedom Caucus regularly issued threats against its own party's leadership...
19 min
4829
Hilary Plum, "Watchfire" (Rescue Press, 2016)
Plum examines our moment at the cellular level—whether that’s a cancerous cell or a terrorist cell—with the aim of understanding what’s happened to us in the Iraq War, in the attacks on 9/11, at the Boston Marathon bombings...
48 min
4830
Jerry T. Watkins III, "Queering the Redneck Riv...
Watkins re-queers this North Florida tourist destination showing how people who defied gender and sexual normalcy found their space in the “Sunshine State” after the Second World War...
51 min
4831
Quincy D. Newell, "Your Sister in the Gospel: T...
A free black woman from Connecticut, Jane Manning James positioned herself at the center of LDS history with uncanny precision...
52 min
4832
Sarah Miller-Davenport, "Gateway State: Hawai’i...
Miller-Davenport takes a close look at some of the narratives that have grown up around the islands and unpacks them...
53 min
4833
Marixa Lasso, "Erased: The Untold Story of the ...
Lasso argues compellingly that the construction of the Panama Canal prompted the destruction of a bustling network of towns, along with the livelihoods and democratic traditions of their inhabitants...
33 min
4834
J. Dyck and E. Lascher, "Initiatives without En...
Do Americans who vote on initiatives grow in political efficacy and participate more in the future?
22 min
4835
Jennifer Thomson, "The Wild and the Toxic: Amer...
Jennifer Thomson revisits canonical figures and events from the environmental movement in the United States and finds everywhere talk of health. At its best, viewing the environment through the lens of health encouraged decentralized organizing and a sense of collective responsibility...
43 min
4836
Max Edelson, "The New Map of Empire: How Britai...
Edelson shows how the Crown and the Board of Trade initiated the mapping of every new corner of Britain’s American dominions – places that were also the ancestral homes of Native Americans and the site of emerging settler republics...
53 min
4837
Peter B. Josephson and R. Ward Holder, "Reinhol...
Josephson and Holder note that their “focus is Niebuhr himself and what the encounter between his own theology and his practical political experience might reveal in our contemporary situation.”
56 min
4838
Derrick Spires, "The Practice of Citizenship: B...
In The Practice of Citizenship, Derrick R. Spires examines the parallel development of early black print culture and legal and cultural understandings of U.S. citizenship...
49 min
4839
Diane Tober, "Romancing the Sperm: Shifting Bio...
The development of a whole suite of new reproductive technologies in recent decades has contributed to broad cultural conversations and controversies over the meaning of family in the United States...
50 min
4840
Aram Gousouzian, "The Men and the Moment: The E...
The endlessly fascinating 1968 presidential race transformed American politics in ways that are still being felt...
30 min
4841
Heather R. White, "Reforming Sodom: Protestants...
White argues that today's antigay Christian traditions originated in the 1920s when a group of liberal Protestants began to incorporate psychiatry and psychotherapy into Christian teaching...
32 min
4842
Henry Kissinger and Winston Lord, "Kissinger on...
In a series of riveting and in depth interviews, America's senior statesman, former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, discusses the challenges of directing foreign policy during times of great global tension...
69 min
4843
Ali Michael, "Raising Race Questions: Whiteness...
In Raising Race Questions, Ali Michael worked with a group of white teachers to inquire about race and schooling...
69 min
4844
Dan Golding, "Star Wars after Lucas: A Critical...
Golding examines the current status of Star Wars, as well as the similarities and differences between the old and the new...
72 min
4845
David Courtwright, "The Age of Addiction: How B...
We are living in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and binge eating to pornography and opioid abuse...
41 min
4846
Karin Rosemblatt, "The Science and Politics of ...
Rosemblatt traces how U.S.- and Mexican-trained intellectuals, social and human scientists, and anthropologists applied their ethnographic field work on indigenous and Native American peoples on both sides of the Rio Grande to debates over race, national culture, and economic development...
51 min
4847
Carrie Baker, "Fighting the US Youth Sex Trade:...
Campaigns against prostitution of young people in the United States have surged and ebbed multiple times over the last fifty years...
61 min
4848
Fernando Orejuela and Stephanie Shonekan, "Blac...
Music has always been integral to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States...
55 min
4849
Peter Daou, "Digital Civil War: Confronting the...
Daou analyzes the daily political skirmishing that rages online, urges progressives to engage on the “digital battlefield.”
41 min
4850
Ernest McGowen III, "African Americans in White...
Relative wealth has given suburban African Americans employment opportunities and political resources--but not necessarily neighbors, coworkers, or elected officials who share their concerns....
21 min