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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2451
Michael F. Robinson, “The Lost White Tribe: Exp...
Michael F. Robinson‘s new book is such a pleasure to read, I cant even. It’s not just because you get to say Gambaragara over and over again if you read it aloud. (I recommend doing this, even if just with that one word.
68 min
2452
Alfred Frankowski, “The Post-Racial Limits of M...
How are cultural practices that suggest social inclusion at the root of marginalizing social suffering? In The Post-Racial Limits of Memorialization: Towards a Political Sense of Mourning (Lexington Books, 2015), Alfred Frankowski,
43 min
2453
Sahana Udupa, “Making News in Global India: Med...
What role does Bangalore’s private news culture play in shaping the southern Indian metropolis’ ongoing urban transformation? Sahana Udupa‘s new book Making News in Global India: Media, Publics, Politics (Cambridge University Press,
58 min
2454
Malcolm James, “Urban Multiculture: Youth, Poli...
How is youth culture changing in a globalised city? In Urban Multiculture: Youth, Politics and Transformations in a Global City Malcolm James, a lecturer at the University of Sussex, introduces the concept of Urban Multiculture as a framework for under...
2 min
2455
Brooke Schedneck, “Thailand’s International Med...
In her recent monograph, Thailand’s International Meditation Centers: Tourism and the Global Commodification of Religious Practices (Routledge, 2015), Brooke Schedneck examines Buddhist meditation centers in Thailand and draws our attention to the way ...
62 min
2456
Mary M. Steedly, “Rifle Reports: A Story of Ind...
Mary M. Steedly‘s book, Rifle Reports: A Story of Indonesian Independence, is “one of a kind and will continue to be so,” writes Benedict Anderson. This is high praise from one of the greats of Southeast Asian studies.
67 min
2457
Lynn Davidman, “Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories o...
In Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews (Oxford University Press, 2015), Lynn Davidman, Robert M. Beren Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the University of Kansas, utilizes interviews with more than forty individuals who h...
33 min
2458
Birgit Meyer, “Sensational Movies: Video, Visio...
Anthropologist Birgit Meyer‘s most recent book, Sensational Movies: Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana (University of California Press, 2015), explores the dynamic process of popular video filmmaking in Ghana as a new medium for the imagination t...
63 min
2459
Mark Schuller, “Humanitarian Aftershocks in Hai...
The earthquake that shook Haiti on January 12, 2010 killed and destroyed the homes of hundreds of thousands of people. Mark Schuller‘s book Humanitarian Aftershocks in Haiti (Rutgers University Press, 2016) takes readers into the temporary camps in Por...
48 min
2460
Rebecca Lemov, “Database of Dreams: The Lost Qu...
Rebecca Lemov‘s beautifully written Database of Dreams: The Lost Quest to Catalog Humanity (Yale University Press, 2015) is at once an exploration of mid-century social science through paths less traveled and the tale of a forgotten future.
54 min
2461
David J. Meltzer, “The Great Paleolithic War: H...
David J. Meltzer‘s new book is a meticulous study of the controversy over human antiquity in America, a dispute that transformed North American archaeology as a practice and discipline, tracing it from 1862-1941.
62 min
2462
David Grazian, “American Zoo: A Sociological Sa...
Urban zoos are both popular and imperiled. They are sites of contestation, but what are those contests about? In his new book, American Zoo: A Sociological Safari(Princeton, 2015), ethnographer David Grazian tracks the competing missions of zoos as sit...
41 min
2463
Tran Ngoc Angie, “Ties that Bind: Cultural Iden...
Labour consciousness is not just class-based; it also emerges out of cultural identities, as Tran Ngoc Angie argues powerfully in Ties that Bind: Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam’s Labor Resistance (Cornell University Press, 2013).
61 min
2464
Eric Dietrich, “Excellent Beauty: The Naturalne...
Although there are many deep criticisms of a scientific view of humanity and the world, a persistent theme is that the scientific worldview eliminates mystery, and in particular, the wonders and mysteries of the world’s religions.
65 min
2465
Emma Jackson, “Young Homeless People and Urban ...
What is the experience of young homeless people? What does this experience tell us about space, place and society? In Young Homeless People and Urban Space: Fixed in Mobility (Routledge, 2015), Dr. Emma Jackson,
34 min
2466
Heather Kopelson, “Faithful Bodies: Performing ...
Heather Miyano Kopelson explores how religion, primarily expressed through bodily action, contributed to colonial notions of difference in her recent book Faithful Bodies: Performing Religion and Race in the Puritan Atlantic (NYU Press, 2014).
51 min
2467
Brian Epstein, “The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Fo...
The social sciences are about social entities – things like corporations and traffic jams, mobs and money, parents and war criminals. What is a social entity? What makes something a social entity? Traditional views hold that these things can be fully e...
69 min
2468
Phillip Penix-Tadsen, “Cultural Code: Video Gam...
Symbols have meanings that change depending upon the cultural context. But how do we discuss symbols, their meanings, and their cultural contexts without an adequate vocabulary? Phillip Penix-Tadsen, assistant professor of Spanish at the University of ...
44 min
2469
Krista A. Thompson, “Shine: The Visual Economy ...
Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice (Duke University Press, 2015) is a gorgeous book. It’s about light and the practices of self representation in diasporic and Caribbean communities. Krista A.
42 min
2470
Deirdre de la Cruz, “Mother Figured: Marian App...
There is no female religious figure so widely known and revered as the Virgin Mary. Filipino Catholics are especially drawn to Mama Mary and have a strong belief in her power, including her ability to appear to her followers.
68 min
2471
Christopher Bondy, “Voice, Silence, and Self: N...
“You are a member of a minority group but do not know it. How is this possible?” Christopher Bondy’s new book explores this question in a study of the making of burakumin identity in the schools and communities of young people in modern Japan. Voice,
65 min
2472
Agnieszka Joniak-Luthi, “The Han: China’s Diver...
Agnieszka Joniak-Luthi‘s new book opens with a series of questions that animate the study. They include but are not limited to: What does being Han mean to those classified as Hanzu? What are the narratives of Han-ness today?
56 min
2473
Sara Shneiderman, “Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangm...
Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) by Sara Shneiderman is the first comprehensive ethnography of the Thangmi, a Himalayan community who move between Nepal,
57 min
2474
David Wright, “Understanding Cultural Taste: S...
What is cultural taste? How is it formed, imagined and patterned? In Understanding Cultural Taste: Sensation, Skill and Sensibility (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), David Wright, Associate Professor at the University of Warwick,
37 min
2475
Tam Ngo and Justine B. Quijada, eds., “Atheist ...
Secularism has emerged as a central category of twenty-first century political thought and critical theory. Following the lead of anthropologist Talal Asad, there is a growing literature that traces the complicated relationship between state policies o...
74 min