New Books in African 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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751
Hilary Matfess, “Women and the War on Boko Hara...
Today we talked with Hilary Matfess about her new book Women and the War on Boko Haram: Wives, Weapons, Witnesses, just recently published by Zed Books in 2017. Drawn from her extensive research and interviews from 2015 to 2017,
42 min
752
Sowande Mustakeem, “Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex...
Most scholars and members of the public believe the process of enslavement was confined to the Western Hemispheric plantation or other locations of enslavement. Sowande Mustakeem’s award-winning Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex,
46 min
753
Marie Grace Brown, “Khartoum at Night: Fashion ...
Marie Grace Brown’s Khartoum at Night: Fashion and Body Politics in Imperial Sudan (Stanford University Press, 2017) is in many ways a history of fashion in Sudan, but in so many ways, its much more than that. It is the story of women in Sudan,
49 min
754
Padraic Scanlan, “Freedom’s Debtors: British An...
What was the British abolition of the slave trade like in practice? Padraic Scanlan, in his beautifully-written first book, Freedom’s Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution (Yale University Press, 2017),
73 min
755
Stephane Robolin, “Grounds of Engagement: Apart...
Writers have long created networks and connections by exchanging letters or writing back to one another in their poetry and fiction. Letters between Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes,
56 min
756
Sara E. Brown, “Gender and the Genocide in Rwan...
Thanks to Scott Straus, Leanne Fujii and others, we know quite a bit about how men behaved during the genocide in Rwanda. But we know surprisingly little about women’s actions during that crisis. Sara Brown begins to remedy this in her excellent new st...
64 min
757
Gregory Mann, “From Empires to NGOs in the West...
Today we spoke to Gregory Mann about his book From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel: The Road to Non-Governmentality (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Gregory Mann investigates how the effectiveness of government institutions declined in the...
53 min
758
Keren Weitzberg, “We Do Not Have Borders: Great...
Somalis have lived in Kenya for generations, in many cases since long before the founding of the country. Yet, Kenyan officials and citizens often perceive them as a dangerous and alien presence, with attendant civil and human rights abuses.
2 min
759
Regine Jean-Charles, “Conflict Bodies: The Poli...
Regine Jean-Charles’ Conflict Bodies: The Politics of Rape Representation in the Francophone Imaginary (Ohio State University Press, 2014) foregrounds black women as speaking subjects in narrating and protesting sexual violence.
41 min
760
Anne C. Bailey, “The Weeping Time: Memory and t...
Contemporary conversations and debates over Confederate monuments underline how memory-making and the legacies of U.S. slavery and the Civil War remains raw and highly contested in public discourse. In her new book,
42 min
761
Joanna Dee Das, “Katherine Dunham: Dance and th...
By drawing on a vast, never-utilized trove of archival materials along with oral histories, choreographic analysis, and embodied research, Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora (Oxford University Press,
46 min
762
Michael Allan, “In the Shadow of World Literatu...
Michael Allan‘s In the Shadow of World Literature: Sites of Reading in Colonial Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2016) challenges traditional perceptions of world literature: he argues that the disciplinary framework of world literature levels the di...
30 min
763
Michael Barnett, “Eyewitness to a Genocide: The...
This podcast marks the beginning of a new occasional series of podcasts about the genocide in Rwanda. In the next few months we’ll hear from Timothy Longman, Sara Brown, Erin Jessee and others. We start with Michael Barnett.
61 min
764
Adriana Helbig, “Hip Hop Ukraine: Music, Race, ...
In 2004, during the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Adriana Helbig saw African musicians rapping in Ukrainian and wearing embroidered Ukrainian ethnic costumes. Her curiosity about how these musicians came to be performing during the protests led to her ...
46 min
765
Ira Dworkin, “Congo Love Song: African American...
In his 1903 hit “Congo Love Song,” James Weldon Johnson recounts a sweet if seemingly generic romance between two young Africans. While the song’s title may appear consistent with that narrative, it also invokes the site of King Leopold II of Belgium’s...
55 min
766
Patrick N. Hunt, “Hannibal” (Simon and Schuster...
In 218 BCE, the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca launched an invasion of Italy designed to bring the Roman Republic to its knees. Yet for all of his success in defeating Rome’s legions on the battlefield,
99 min
767
Sarah Ladipo Manyika, “Like a Mule Bringing Ice...
Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s second novel, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun (Cassava Republic Press, 2016), is an excellent addition to the larger, and ever-expanding, genre of Nigerian literature. The novella begins slowly,
25 min
768
Sarah Eltantawi, “Shari’ah on Trial: Northern N...
Few images attached to Islam and to the Islamic legal tradition (the Sharia) in particular are more often and more disturbingly sensationalized than that of the stoning punishment. In her riveting new book Shari’ah on Trial: Northern Nigeria’s Islamic ...
39 min
769
Anita Hannig, “Beyond Surgery: Injury, Healing,...
Anita Hannig‘s first book, Beyond Surgery: Injury, Healing, and Religion at an Ethiopian Hospital (University of Chicago Press, 2017) is an in-depth, ethnography of two fistula repair and rehabilitation centers in northern Ethiopia.
51 min
770
Linda Heywood, “Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warr...
In the capital of the African nation of Angola today stands a statue to Njinga, the 17th century queen of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms. Its presence is a testament to her skills as a diplomat, warrior, and leader of her people,
52 min
771
Grace Davie, “Poverty Knowledge in South Africa...
Apartheid in South Africa formally ended in 1994, but the issue of poverty and what to do about it remained as contentious as it had been a century earlier. In the new book, Poverty Knowledge in South Africa: A Social History of Human Science,
59 min
772
Bert Ingelaere, “Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts:...
Rwanda’s homegrown gacaca law has been widely hailed as a successful indigenous solution to the unprecedented problem of the country’s 1994 genocide. In his book Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice After Genocide (University of Wisconsin Pre...
77 min
773
Brandon Kendhammer, “Muslims Talking Politics: ...
Brandon Kendhammer takes a fresh approach to the juxtaposition of Islam and democracy in his latest book, Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy and Law in Northern Nigeria (University of Chicago Press, 2016).
41 min
774
Anuradha Chakravarty, “Investing in Authoritari...
In my time doing this podcast, I’ve covered a number of books about transitional justice. All have been insightful and interesting. But few of them focused carefully on the trials themselves. Anuradha Chakravarty seeks to remedy this.
63 min
775
Daniel Magaziner, “The Art of Life in South Afr...
Daniel Magaziner’s latest book, The Art of Life in South Africa (Ohio University Press, 2016, and UKZN Press, 2017), is a welcome addition to the intellectual history of South Africa. Rich in color images and documentary history,
54 min