New Books in Literary 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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2401
Michael Muhammad Knight, “Tripping with Allah: ...
Michael Muhammed Knight writes this book from a first-person perspective, as a piece of creative non-fiction. The book includes a liberal amount of swearing and sexual references, and Knight’s writing style is raw, sometimes jarring,
62 min
2402
Susan Rubenstein DeMasi, “Henry Alsberg: The Dr...
Over the course of a long and adventurous life, Henry Alsberg was guided by the constancy of his passion for radical causes. This focus, as Susan Rubenstein DeMasi makes clear in Henry Alsberg: The Driving Force Behind the New Deal Federal Writers’ Pro...
54 min
2403
Augustine’s “Confessions,” a new translation by...
Sarah Ruden holds a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Harvard University and an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. She has taught Latin, English, and writing at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Cape Town and has been a tutor for the Sout...
63 min
2404
Britt Rusert, “Fugitive Science: Empiricism and...
Traversing the archives of early African American literature, performance, and visual culture, Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African American Culture (New York University Press, 2017), uncovers the dynamic experiments of a group of ...
43 min
2405
Carlo Rotella and Michael Ezra, eds. “The Bitte...
“Boxing has always attracted writers because it issues a standing challenge to their powers of description and imagination, and also a warning–really a promise–that no matter how many layers of meaning you peel away there will always be others beneath ...
48 min
2406
Sarah Ruden, “The Face of Water: A Translator o...
On this program, we talk to Sarah Ruden about her new book, The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible (Pantheon, 2017). Novelist J. M. Coetzee praised the book, saying, “If you seriously want to know what the Bible says but don...
58 min
2407
Roy Bing Chan, “The Edge of Knowing: Dreams, Hi...
Roy Bing Chan‘s new book explores twentieth-century Chinese literature that emphasizes sleeping and dreaming as a way to reckon with the trauma of modernity, from the early May Fourth period through the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s....
67 min
2408
Territory-A Literary Project about Maps: Discus...
As our name makes clear, the New Books Network focuses on books. And as a host who looks at contemporary literature, I have the pleasure of interviewing authors with new books, ones often published by smaller presses without the huge PR machines of lar...
52 min
2409
William Kolbrener, “The Last Rabbi: Joseph Solo...
In The Last Rabbi: Joseph Soloveitchik and Talmudic Tradition (Indiana University Press, 2016), William Kolbrener, professor of English at Bar Ilan University in Israel, explores the life and thought of Joseph Soloveitchik,
31 min
2410
Allison E. Fagan, “From the Edge: Chicana/Chica...
What is a book? The answer, at first glance, may seem apparent: printed material consisting of a certain amount of pages. However, when a printed item goes under the scrutiny of readers, writers, editors, scholars, etc.,
41 min
2411
Rebecca Gould, “Writers and Rebels: Literature ...
Rebecca Gould‘s Writers and Rebels: Literature of Insurgency in the Caucasus (Yale University Press, 2016) is the first existing comparative study of Chechen, Dagestani and Georgian literatures and a major contribution to the study of the cultures of t...
64 min
2412
Benjamin Fondane, “Existential Monday” (NYRB Cl...
Benjamin Fondane, a Franco-Romanian writer and contributor to the development of existential philosophy in the 1930s and 40s, is in the process of being rediscovered. His work has gained a new relevance in the contemporary period due in part to the way...
70 min
2413
Audrey Truschke, “Culture of Encounters: Sanskr...
Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016),
49 min
2414
Steve Aldous, “The World of Shaft: A Complete G...
Who’s the black private dick That’s a sex machine to all the chicks? (Shaft) Ya damn right Who is the man that would risk his neck For his brother man? (Shaft) Can you dig it? Who’s the cat that won’t cop out When there’s danger all about?
42 min
2415
Carrie J. Preston, “Learning to Kneel: Noh, Mod...
Carrie J. Preston‘s new book tells the story of the global circulation of noh-inspired performances, paying careful attention to the ways these performances inspired twentieth-century drama, poetry, modern dance, film, and popular entertainment.
69 min
2416
Joseph Lumbard, “The Study Quran: A New Transla...
The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary (HarperOne, 2015) represents years of effort from a team of dedicated translators and editors (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Joseph Lumbard, Maria Dakake, Caner Dagli, and Mohammad Rustom).
54 min
2417
Stephen H. Grant, “Collecting Shakespeare: The ...
Henry and Emily Folger were linked together not just by their love for one another, but their shared passion for the works of William Shakespeare. In Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014),
52 min
2418
Laurence A. Rickels, “The Psycho Records” (Wall...
Reading Laurence Rickels‘ The Psycho Records (Wallflower Press, 2016) gave me the urge to ask random strangers questions like: Are you haunted by Alfred Hitchcock’s famous shower scene? How do you feel about Norman Bates and other cinematic killers pat...
52 min
2419
Sarah Hammerschlag, “Broken Tablets: Levinas, D...
In Broken Tablets: Levinas, Derrida, and the Literary Afterlife of Religion (Columbia University Press, 2016), Sarah Hammerschlag, Associate Professor of Religion and Literature at the University of Chicago Divinity School,
31 min
2420
Christopher Pizzino, “Arresting Development: Co...
There’s a common myth about the history of comic books and strips. It’s the idea that the medium languished for decades as a sort of time-wasting hobby for children, but now has redeemed itself and can be appreciated even by the literary.
31 min
2421
Gleb Tsipursky, “Socialist Fun: Youth, Consumpt...
Socialist Fun: Youth, Consumption, and State-Sponsored Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1945-1970 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016) offers a compelling investigation of Soviet leisure culture. Gleb Tsipursky undertakes an unexpected approach t...
54 min
2422
Meredith K. Ray, “Margherita Sarrocchi’s Letter...
Meredith K. Ray’s new book contextualizes and translates a range of seventeenth-century letters, mostly between Margherita Sarrocchi (1560-1617) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), that collectively offer a fascinating window into the correspondence of tw...
59 min
2423
Glyne Griffith, “The BBC and the Development of...
The BBC radio program “Caribbean Voices” aired for fifteen years and introduced writers like George Lamming, Louise Bennett, Sam Selvon and others to listeners on both sides of the Atlantic. Glyne Griffith’s The BBC and the Development of Anglophone Ca...
48 min
2424
Andre Carrington, “Speculative Blackness: The F...
Have you ever watched a futuristic movie and wondered if there will actually be any black people in the future? Have you ever been surprised, disappointed, or concerned with the lack of diversity demonstrated in many science fiction stories?
64 min
2425
Benjamin Schreier, “The Impossible Jew: Identit...
What is Jewish about Jewish American literature? While the imaginative possibilities are numerous many scholars approach literary products with an established notion of a Jewish identity before they reach their subjects.
44 min