New Books in Anthropology

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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Science
Social Sciences
2326
George Paul Meiu, “Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexu...
Professor George Paul Meiu‘s debut anthropological book, Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexuality, Money, and Belonging in Kenya (University of Chicago Press, 2017), dives into the commodification of culture and sex on the beachfronts of coastal Kenya,
51 min
2327
Dorothy Noyes, “Humble Theory: Folklore’s Grasp...
Humble Theory: Folklore’s Grasp on Social Life (Indiana University Press, 2016) is an anthology of essays from Dorothy Noyes, professor of English and Comparative Studies at the Ohio State University and president of the American Folklore Society.
79 min
2328
Fareen Parvez, “Politicizing Islam: The Islamic...
Politicizing Islam: The Islamic Revival in France and India (Oxford University Press, 2017) by Fareen Parvez is a rich ethnographic analysis of Islamic Revival movements in France (Lyon) and India (Hyderabad). In her study,
38 min
2329
Karina O. Alvarado et al, “U.S. Central America...
In U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance (University of Arizona Press, 2017) editors Karina O. Alvarado, Alicia Ivonne Estrada, and Ester E. Hernandez have produced the first anthology to focus on the...
56 min
2330
Claudio Sopranzetti, “Owners of the Map: Motorc...
When the army brutally dispersed Red Shirts protestors in Bangkok’s busy commercial district in May 2010, motorcycle taxi drivers emerged as a key force, capable of playing cat-and-mouse with security forces, evading military checkpoints,
34 min
2331
Kathryn Woolard, “Singular and Plural: Ideologi...
Kathryn Woolard is Professor Emerita and Research Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She has authored seminal works on language ideology and the sociolinguistic situation in Catalonia,
100 min
2332
Sida Liu and Terence C. Halliday, “Criminal Def...
Sida Liu and Terence C. Halliday spent ten years interviewing criminal defense attorneys throughout China in order to compile the evidence on the professional lives of criminal defense attorneys in the one-party authoritarian state that is modern China...
66 min
2333
Thomas Mira y Lopez, “The Book of Resting Place...
We’ve all participated in the rituals of the dead at some time or another in our lives, going to funerals and wakes, visiting loved ones in cemeteries. Some of us may even have a plan for when we pass away, ourselves.
52 min
2334
Christopher J. Lee, “Jet Lag” (Bloomsbury Acade...
My father has this personality quirk that drives me crazy. Whenever and wherever he travels, no matter how far, he refuses to reset his watch to the local time. For him, it’s always whatever time it is in Cincinnati, Ohio,
49 min
2335
Lucinda Carspecken, “Love in the Time of Ethnog...
Love in the Time of Ethnography: Essays on Connection as a Focus and Basis for Research (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) is edited by Lucinda Carspecken, anthropologist and lecturer in the School of Education, Indiana University Bloomington.
41 min
2336
Rachel Sherman, “Uneasy Street: The Anxieties o...
For her new book Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence (Princeton University Press, 2017), Rachel Sherman conducted in-depth interviews with fifty wealthy New Yorkers—including hedge fund financiers, corporate lawyers, professors, artists,
45 min
2337
Jerry Flores, “Caught Up: Girls, Surveillance, ...
What are the lives of young incarcerated Latinas like? And what were their lives like before and after their incarceration? In his new book, Caught Up: Girls, Surveillance, and Wrap-Around Incarceration (University of California Press, 2017),
59 min
2338
Ammara Maqsood, “The New Pakistani Middle Class...
The relationship between class and religious piety represents a theme less explored in the study of modern Islam in general, and in the study of South Asian Islam in particular. In her incredibly nimble and nuanced recent book The New Pakistani Middle ...
34 min
2339
C. Grant and H. Schippers, “Sustainable Futures...
Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: An Ecological Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2016), a multi-authored volume co-edited by Catherine Grant and Huib Schippers, examines a range of musical traditions from cultures around the world.
50 min
2340
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
2341
Peter Hempenstall, “Truth’s Fool: Derek Freeman...
The debate over Margaret Mead’s and Derek Freeman’s conflicting ethnographic reports has gone on for decades. While no longer a hot topic, Mead-Freeman stands as a testament to the power and, sometimes, imprecision of social scientific inquiry.
37 min
2342
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,
86 min
2343
Alison Gerber, “The Work of Art: Value in Creat...
Is making art a job? This question is central to The Work of Art: Value in Creative Careers (Stanford University Press, 2017), the new book by Alison Gerber, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology at Lund University.
50 min
2344
Leo Coleman, “A Moral Technology: Electrificati...
We take electricity for granted. But the material grids and wires that bring light to homes and connect places are also objects of moral concern, political freedoms and national advancement, suggests Leo Coleman in his new book A Moral Technology: Elec...
51 min
2345
Ray Cashman, “Packy Jim: Folklore and Worldview...
How do individuals on national or societal peripheries make use of tradition and to what ends? How can narratives discursively construct a complex worldview? These are some of the questions Ray Cashman seeks to answer in his new book Packy Jim: Folklor...
68 min
2346
Tam T. T. Ngo, “The New Way: Protestantism and ...
Think of Christianity in Southeast Asia today and what might come to mind is the predominantly Catholic Philippines, or the work of the Baptist church among linguistic and cultural minorities in Myanmar, or any one of the thousands of Christian communi...
44 min
2347
April Mayes, “The Mulatto Republic: Class, Race...
In a perceptive challenge to longstanding assumptions about Dominican anti-Haitianism, April J. Mayes finds fresh ways to think about the production of race in late 19th and 20th century Dominican Republic.
47 min
2348
Michel Leiris, “Phantom Africa” (Seagull Books,...
Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable,
76 min
2349
Owen Flanagan, “The Geography of Morals: Variet...
What is it to be moral, to lead an ethically good life? From a naturalistic perspective, any answer to this question begins from an understanding of what humans are like that is deeply informed by psychology, anthropology,
64 min
2350
Zek Valkyrie, “Game Worlds Get Real: How Who We...
Zek Valkyrie teaches at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. His new book, Game Worlds Get Real: How Who We Are Online Became Who We Are Offline (Praeger, 2017), takes readers into the world of electronic games and the complex social relatio...
54 min