New Books in American Studies
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.
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5501
David A. Hopkins, “Red Fighting Blue: How Geogr...
Do we live in a country of red and blue states or something more purple-ish? The red state/blue state meme of 2000 has really never gone away, and scholarly debate, as well as frequent media attention, has argued for its merits and demerits.
19 min
5502
J. Mark Souther, “Believing in Cleveland: Manag...
Like many cities, Cleveland has gone through periods of decline and renewal, yet the process there has followed a process where these periods were not always obvious and often failed because of a lack of cohesiveness among civic leaders,
66 min
5503
Gregory A. Daddis, “Westmoreland’s War: Reasses...
In the wake of Ken Burns’ most recent series, The Vietnam War, America’s fascination with the conflict shows no sign of abating. Fortunately the flood of popular retellings of old narratives is supplemented by a number of well-researched and reasoned e...
68 min
5504
Robert Aquinas McNally, “The Modoc War: A Story...
On a cold, rainy dawn in late November 1872, Lieutenant Frazier Boutelle and a Modoc Indian nicknamed Scarface Charley leveled firearms at each other. Their duel triggered a war that capped a decades-long genocidal attack that was emblematic of the Uni...
54 min
5505
Claire Schmidt, “If You Don’t Laugh, You’ll Cry...
Claire Schmidt is not a prison worker, rather she is a folklorist and an Assistant Professor at Missouri Valley College. However, many members of her extended family in her home state of Wisconsin either were or are prison workers and it is their work-...
67 min
5506
Nicholas Trajano Molnar, “American Mestizos, th...
In 1898, the United States took control of the Philippines from the Spanish. The U.S. then entered into a brutal war to make the Filipinos submit to the new colonial power. The war and subsequent decades of U.S. rule meant a small,
51 min
5507
Robert Foxcurran, “Songs Upon the Rivers” (Bara...
The story of the American West as it is often told typically involves Spanish, British, and American Empires struggling with Indigenous people for control of the vast territory lands and riches from the Mississippi to the Pacific.
67 min
5508
Paul Ortiz, “An African American and Latinx His...
Throughout many American classrooms, students learn how the United States was formed, and most importantly, the historical figures who helped produce the contemporary nation we occupy. All too often, however, African American, Latinx,
60 min
5509
David W. Grua, “Surviving Wounded Knee: The Lak...
It’s a sad story known well. In dead of winter at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890, U.S. soldiers with the Seventh Cavalry Regiment gunned down over two hundred Lakota men, women, and children. Their crime? Taking part in the Ghost Dance ritual.
35 min
5510
Sam Rosenfeld, “The Polarizers: Postwar Archite...
In our hyper polarized world, it is easy to assume that this is a natural state of being, the result of natural shifts in politics. In Sam Rosenfeld‘s new book, The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era (University of Chicago Press,
22 min
5511
Deborah Vargas, et al., “Keywords for Latina/o ...
In Keywords for Latina/o Studies (NYU Press, 2017) editors Deborah Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes engage many of the fields top scholars in a critical and generative dialogue surrounding the primary concepts and themes th...
41 min
5512
Kevin Patrick, “The Phantom Unmasked: America’s...
In The Phantom Unmasked: America’s First Superhero (University of Iowa Press, 2017), Kevin Patrick examines the history of The Phantom—an American comic strip superhero that made his debut in 1936. Although not popular in the United States,
65 min
5513
Lisa King, “Legible Sovereignties: Rhetoric, Re...
In Legible Sovereignties: Rhetoric, Representations, and Native American Museums (Oregon State University Press, 2017), Lisa King explores the ways in which rhetoric is used to represent Indigenous sovereignty and explore difficult histories related to...
47 min
5514
Kathryn Troy, “The Specter of the Indian: Race,...
In a meticulously researched study The Specter of the Indian: Race, Gender and Ghosts in American Seances, 1848-1890 (SUNY Press, 2017), Kathryn Troy investigates the many examples of Indian ghosts appearing to Spiritualists in the latter half of the n...
48 min
5515
Sridhar Pappu, “The Year of the Pitcher: Bob Gi...
Today we are joined by Sridhar Pappu, author of the book The Year of the Pitcher: Bob Gibson, Denny McLain and the End of Baseball’s Golden Age (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017). Pappu is The Male Animal columnist for The New York Times,
57 min
5516
Kyle Longley, “LBJ’s 1968: Power, Politics, and...
It was a year that at times left Lyndon Johnson feeling as though he was living in a continuous nightmare. Yet as Kyle Longley describes in his book LBJ’s 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America’s Year of Upheaval (Cambridge University Pre...
47 min
5517
Joseph Nathan Cohen, “Financial Crisis in Ameri...
Are iPhones or homes bankrupting Americans? Joe Cohen‘s new book, Financial Crisis in American Households: The Basic Expenses That Bankrupt the Middle Class (Praeger, 2017), presents data and discussion on the financial status of American households.
44 min
5518
Becky Aikman, “Off the Cliff: How the Making of...
Thelma and Louise is rightly considered a great film that went through an incredible journey to the screen. It is also an illustration of how dedicated women still had to fight hard to get it made. Becky Aikman‘s book Off the Cliff: How the Making of T...
64 min
5519
Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, “Colored Travelers: M...
Typically the Jim Crow Era of segregation is understood as beginning directly after Reconstruction and going into the mid-twentieth century with the dual climaxes of the Brown vs. Board Supreme Court decision and the Montgomery Bus Boycott Movement in ...
58 min
5520
Zoe Wool, “After War: The Weight of Life at Wal...
Zoe Wool‘s ethnography of rehabilitation After War: The Weight of Life at Walter Reed (Duke University Press, 2015) describes how soldiers injured in the war on terror are pulled towards a normal and idealized American life (Duke University Press,
85 min
5521
Michael Patrick Cullinane, “Theodore Roosevelts...
That Theodore Roosevelt remains one of America’s most recognizable presidents nearly a century after his death is due in no small measure to the flamboyant image he presented. Yet as Michael Patrick Cullinane reveals in Theodore Roosevelt’s Ghost: The ...
46 min
5522
Zach Sands, “Film Comedy and the American Dream...
On this episode Diana DePasquale talks to Zach Sands, author of Film Comedy and the American Dream (Routledge, 2017). Some of the films Zach writes about are Harvey, The Graduate, Blazing Saddles, The Jerk, Trading Place, and Office Space.
29 min
5523
Richard E. Schroeder, “The Foundation of the CI...
The CIA is a well-known agency to say the least. It is a key part of the United States’ national security apparatus and has been for the past 70 years. The CIA’s reputation is mixed though. From 1970s scandals to intelligence failures to its inherent s...
55 min
5524
Robert Hunt Ferguson, “Remaking the Rural South...
In an unlikely place at an unlikely time, a group of black and white former sharecroppers, socialist organizers, and Christian reformers began an agricultural experiment in pursuit of economic subsistence and human dignity.
51 min
5525
Daniel J. Sharfstein, “Thunder in the Mountains...
Daniel J. Sharfstein, Professor of Law and History at Vanderbilt University, narrates a postbellum struggle that raged in the Northern Rockies in Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War (W.W.
73 min