New Books Network

In this episode, Amina Easat Daas and Claudia Radiven were in conversation with Peter Hopkins to discuss his work and most recent book, Everyday Islamophobia. The conversation ranged from UK counter-terror policy, to citizenship, the Far-Right, but largely on the mainstreaming of Islamophobia. Peter Hopkins is a Professor of Social Geography in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University. His interests centre upon issues of social inequality and justice with most of his research focusing upon the intersections of youth, migration and asylum, race and religion, and gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Marvel, DC and US Security: The Superhero Genre and Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century (Edinburgh UP, 2025) by Dr. Julian Schmid considers how the long-standing superhero genre has been reinvigorated in the twenty-first century as an interlocutor of security and surveillance discourses following the events of ‘9/11’. While superheroes have a long cultural history, Dr. Schmid argues that their contemporary representations in Hollywood films and TV shows create and deepen specific discourses on security, terrorism and violence. He shows how the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe, in particular, are important artefacts that can help us to understand how these discourses are popularised and ultimately normalised.The book offers a rich account of the emergence of superheroes against the backdrop of America’s history since its founding in 1776 and their rise to popularity through comic books since the 1930s. Analysing the connections between superheroes, foreign policy and security from ‘9/11’ to the present, it demonstrates the significance of superheroes for the construction of heroism and security in contemporary times.  This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Medieval Europe was preoccupied with magic. From the Carolingian Empire to Renaissance Italy and Tudor England, great rulers, religious figures, and scholars sought to harness supernatural power. They tried to summon spirits, predict the future, and even prolong life. Alongside science and religion, magic lay at the very heart of culture. In this beautifully illustrated account The Magic Books: A History of Enchantment in 20 Medieval Manuscripts (Yale UP, 2025), Anne Lawrence-Mathers explores the medieval fascination with magic through twenty extraordinary illuminated manuscripts. These books were highly sought after, commissioned by kings and stored in great libraries. They include an astronomical compendium made for Charlemagne’s son; The Sworn Book of Honorius, used by a secret society of trained magicians; and the highly influential Picatrix. This vivid new history shows how attitudes to magic and science changed over the medieval period—and produced great works of art as they did so. Anne Lawrence-Mathers is professor of history at University of Reading. She is the author of Medieval Meteorology and The True History of Merlin the Magician and coauthor of Magic and Medieval Society. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Amateur detectives come in many forms. Owning a bookstore or a bakery, running a charming country inn, working in a library—even owning a cat or a dog—puts a character into the category of potential sleuth. But few creators of amateur detectives can top S.J. Bennett, whose Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series turns Queen Elizabeth II herself into a solver of crimes. Today we are discussing The Queen Who Came in from the Cold (Crooked Lane Books, 2025) The first three books take place in 2016, when the queen is ninety years old. Even these days, those don’t qualify as historical fiction. But they set the tone of the series, which is at once respectful and warm, even charming. The mysteries are challenging, the queen’s role believable, and the family relationships well portrayed. Certain constraints on the queen also appear here. For example, she can solve mysteries, but she can’t be seen to solve them, because she is the queen. Similarly, she relies for help on other women, who serve as her private secretaries (a job that goes far beyond typing), because the men spend far too much time worrying about upsetting their monarch and far too little time trusting her to know what she needs and wants. Obviously, even if one is the queen of England, only so many mysterious deaths can take place nearby without raising eyebrows. So book 4, A Death in Diamonds, moves back in time to 1957 and a scandal possibly involving Prince Philip. The latest novel, The Queen Who Came In from the Cold (Crooked Lane Books, 2025), as the title suggests, takes place during the Cold War, specifically 1961, and involves Soviet spies and double agents, including the infamous Kim Philby. To say more would be to give too much away, but it’s yet another engrossing tale with a twist at the end that turns the entire story on its head. And yes, there are Corgis—racehorses, too! S.J. Bennett, the author of the Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series, has written over a dozen novels for both adults and children. She also teaches creative writing and, with her brother, hosted Prepublished, a podcast for aspiring writers. The Queen Who Came in from the Cold is her latest novel. C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and four other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Steadfast, appeared in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

How has China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs transformed itself into one of the most assertive diplomatic actors on the global stage? What explains the rise of “wolf warrior” practices, and how should we interpret Beijing’s evolving diplomatic identity? In this episode, Duncan McCargo speaks with Dylan Loh, an Associate Professor in the Public Policy and Global Affairs programme at Nanyang Technological University (Dr. Dylan M.H. Loh - Associate Professor | International Relations Scholar | Chinese Foreign Policy), about his award-winning new book China’s Rising Foreign Ministry: Practices and Representations of Assertive Diplomacy (Stanford University Press, 2024). Dylan Loh unpacks how Chinese diplomats craft narratives and balance assertiveness with professionalism, touching on institutional habitus, ritualised loyalty, and China’s bid for discourse power on platforms like X. This conversation offers timely insights for anyone interested in Chinese foreign policy, diplomacy, and the future of great-power relations. Host: Duncan McCargo is President’s Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University. Podcast Editing: Ishaan Krishnan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

I talked to Dr. Samuel Moore about his recent book, Publishing Beyond the Market: Open Access, Care, and the Commons, (U Michigan Press, 2025) Samuel Moore is the Scholarly Communication Specialist at Cambridge University Libraries, Associate Lecturer at Cambridge Digital Humanities, and College Research Associate at King's College, Cambridge. In his book, Sam argues that the move to open access should focus less on the free accessibility of research outputs and more on who controls the publications and infrastructures for scholarly communication. By deploying theoretical literature on science and technology studies, care ethics, and the commons, the book critically interrogates open access and reimagines a more ethical future for researcher-led publishing. A case study of Plan S – the multi-funder European policy for open access publishing – explores its tendency to rehearse all the failures of commercialisation. Through critical engagement with the open access landscape, the book reveals the shortcomings of market-centric and policy-based approaches to open access book and journal publishing, particularly their tendency to reinforce conservatism, commercialism, and private control of publishing. Going forward, the book explores the importance of collectivity and democratic governance within the transition to open access publishing. It suggests that developing a commons-based, scholar-led publishing landscape through a series of presses that are each managed by working academics could offer a productive counterpoint to marketised systems of open access and subscription publishing. In weaving themselves together in order to "scale small" these publishing initiatives would act as a counter-hegemonic project based on mutual reliance and care. By illustrating how these projects build toward a commons-based publishing future, and how they may complement other approaches to publishing within university presses and libraries, the book culminates in an argument for the infrastructures, policies, and forms of governance needed to nurture such a collective vision. Sam’s book, which I am glad to say is available as an open-access ebook alongside the paperback, is the subject of our conversation. Stephen Pinfield is Professor of Information Services Management at the University of Sheffield, UK, and Senior Research Fellow at the Research on Research Institute (RoRI). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with Nick Canby, visiting assistant professor at Brown University and a clinical psychologist specializing in meditation and psychedelics. Together, we dive into Nick’s research on the self — what is it and what it’s like to lose it. Along the way, we mention some of the downsides of experiencing oneness and the complications of defining a mental health disorder. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned in this episode: Previous episode on meditation challenges with Willoughby Britton and Jared Lindahl List of Publications from the Varieties of Contemplative Experience study Canby et al., "The Teacher Matters: The Role and Impact of Meditation Teachers in the Trajectories of Western Buddhist Meditators Experiencing Meditation-Related Challenges" Pierce's forthcoming volume, "Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice" Previous episode on madness and religious experience with Richard Saville-Smith Nick's clinical practice Nick's profile on Cheetah House Complete list of Nick's publications Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including downloading: Article summarizing Nick's dissertation research on "loss of self" experiences Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

As the world moves with increasing urgency to mitigate climate change and catalyze energy transitions to net zero, understanding the governance mechanisms that will unlock barriers to energy transitions is of critical importance. Governing Energy Transitions: A Study of Regime Complex Effectiveness on Geothermal Development in Indonesia and the Philippines (Cambridge UP, 2025) by Dr. Kathryn Chelminski examines how the clean energy regime complex-the fragmented, complex sphere of governance in the clean energy issue area characterized by proliferating and overlapping international institutions-can be effective in fostering energy transitions at the domestic level, particularly in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). Through comparative case studies of geothermal development in Indonesia and the Philippines, the chapters provide two different tales of energy transitions, demonstrating how domestic factors have hindered or facilitated progress. This book will be useful for students, researchers, and practitioners working in international relations, energy politics, political science, development studies, public policy, international law, and sociology. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Liberalism may feel as though it has been around forever - as the "dominant ideology of the modern west" - but not even its advocates and detractors can agree what it is. Political sophisticates ask whether it is classical-, social-, ordo- or neo-liberal while American main street associates it with socialism. Yet a new generation of "post-liberal" thinkers know liberalism well enough to want to give it upi or, in most cases, go back to a time - real or imagined - before it took hold.In the US, these political philosophers are mostly Catholic conservatives. In the UK, with one prominent exception, they are largely left-wing Anglicans. In both countries, they tend to be religious and yearn for pre-globalisation communitarian, familial and patriotic certainties.  "Where liberals believe political authority is derived from individuals consenting to be ruled, for post-liberals it comes from serving the common good," writes Matt Sleat in Post-Liberalism (Polity, 2025). His book explores the ideas of the likes of Chad Pecknold, Gladden Pappin, Sohrab Ahmari and post-liberalism's two standout thinkers: Adrian Vermeule and Patrick Deneen.Matt Sleat is Reader in Political Theory at the University of Sheffield.*The author's book recommendations were Power and Powerlessness: The Liberalism of Fear in the Twenty First Century by Edward Hall (OUP Oxford, 2025) and Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order by Paul Tucker (Princeton University Press, 2022). Click here to see the full reading list.Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who writes and podcasts at 242.news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Liberalism may feel as though it has been around forever - as the "dominant ideology of the modern west" - but not even its advocates and detractors can agree what it is. Political sophisticates ask whether it is classical-, social-, ordo- or neo-liberal while American main street associates it with socialism. Yet a new generation of "post-liberal" thinkers know liberalism well enough to want to give it upi or, in most cases, go back to a time - real or imagined - before it took hold.In the US, these political philosophers are mostly Catholic conservatives. In the UK, with one prominent exception, they are largely left-wing Anglicans. In both countries, they tend to be religious and yearn for pre-globalisation communitarian, familial and patriotic certainties.  "Where liberals believe political authority is derived from individuals consenting to be ruled, for post-liberals it comes from serving the common good," writes Matt Sleat in Post-Liberalism (Polity, 2025). His book explores the ideas of the likes of Chad Pecknold, Gladden Pappin, Sohrab Ahmari and post-liberalism's two standout thinkers: Adrian Vermeule and Patrick Deneen.Matt Sleat is Reader in Political Theory at the University of Sheffield.*The author's book recommendations were Power and Powerlessness: The Liberalism of Fear in the Twenty First Century by Edward Hall (OUP Oxford, 2025) and Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order by Paul Tucker (Princeton University Press, 2022). Click here to see the full reading list.Tim Gwynn Jones is an economic and political-risk analyst at Medley Advisors, who writes and podcasts at 242.news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

At Frost, a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts, the runners on the women’s cross country team have their sights set on the 1992 New England Division Three Championships and will push themselves through every punishing workout and skipped meal to achieve their goal. But Kristin, the team’s star, is hiding a secret about what happened over the summer, and her unpredictable behavior jeopardizes the girls’ chance to win. Team Captain Danielle is convinced she can restore Kristin’s confidence, even if it means burying her own past. As the final meet approaches, Kristin, Danielle, and the rest of the girls must transcend their individual circumstances and run the race as a team.Told from the perspective of the six fastest team members, We Loved to Run (Hogarth, 2025) deftly illuminates the intensity of female friendship and desire and the nearly impossible standards young women sometimes set for themselves. With startling honesty and boundless empathy, Stephanie Reents reveals how girls—even those in competition—find ways to love one another and turn feelings of powerlessness into shared strength and self-determination. Stephanie Reents is the author of The Kissing List, a collection of stories that was an Editors’ Choice in The New York Times Book Review, and I Meant to Kill Ye, a bibliomemoir chronicling her journey into the strange void at the heart of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. She has twice received an O. Henry Prize for her short fiction. Reents received a BA from Amherst College, where she ran on the cross country team all four years; a BA from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar; and an MFA from the University of Arizona. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Recommended Books: Marisa Crane, A Sharp Endless Need Charlotte Wood, Stone Yard Devotional Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Ezra-Nehemiah: Retrograde Revolution (Maggid, 2025) takes its readers on a literary tour of an era in which cohesiveness between Jews in Israel and the Diaspora is being tested, the parameters of Jewish identity are being re-assessed, political tact is being learned by necessity, and biblical literacy is at long last becoming the centerpiece of the Jewish community.  Tune in as we hear from Yael Leibowitz about her recent Maggid commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah! Yael Leibowitz is an Israeli educator and a Matan Kitvuni Fellow. She holds a Master’s degree in Judaic Studies from Columbia University and currently teaches at Matan Women’s Institute for Torah Learning and MIdreshet Lindenbaum College for Women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Shifting the focus of AIDS history away from the coasts to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, this impressive book uncovers how homonormative political strategies weaponized the AIDS crisis to fuel gentrification. During the height of the epidemic, white gay activists and politicians pursued social acceptance by assimilating to Midwestern cultural values. This approach, Dr. René Esparza argues in From Vice to Nice: Midwestern Politics and the Gentrification of AIDS (UNC Press, 2025), diluted radical facets of LGBTQ activism, rejected a politics of sexual dissidence, severed ties with communities of color, and ushered in the destruction of vibrant queer spaces.Drawing from archival research, oral histories, and urban studies from the 1970s through the 1990s, Dr. Esparza illustrates how the onset of the AIDS epidemic provided a pretext for further criminalization of perceived sexual deviance, targeting sex workers, “promiscuous” gay men, and transgender women. More than the criminalization of people and behaviors, this time period also saw increased targeting of urban venues such as bathhouses, adult bookstores, and public parks where casual, anonymous encounters occurred. Cleansing the city of land uses that undermined gentrification became a protective measure against AIDS, and the most marginalized bore the brunt of the ensuing surveillance and displacement. From Vice to Nice illuminates how, despite purporting seemingly progressive values, LGBTQ Midwestern politics of conformity leveraged the AIDS crisis to further instigate racial and sexual exclusion and fundamentally alter the urban landscape. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Embodied Ecology: Yoga and the Environment (Mandala Publishing, 2025), Hindu Studies scholar Christopher Key Chapple explores how Hindu and Yoga traditions can inform contemporary discourse about the problems of environmental degradation both in India and globally. What do Hinduism and Yoga philosophy have to say about ecology and the environment? Christopher Key Chapple provides an in-depth analysis of the traditional texts and ideas that relate to modern concerns and conversations in the environmental movement. Chapple explains what ancient Indian texts, including the Vedas and Upani?ads, tell us about the centrality of earth-awareness in early India. Chapple then also examines how contemporary eco-activists, such as Vandana Shiva, M.C. Mehta, and Sunderlal Bahuguna, are applying traditional teachings and methods to current environmental crises. Embodied Ecology highlights how Hindu and Yoga ideals can address pressing environmental problems including global consumerism, the proliferation of plastic waste, species extinctions, and climate change. Chapple offers insights on how Yoga ethics can help us create guidelines for the modern ills of over-consumption and how meditation practices can help foster a greater connection to the environment, as well as alleviate distress brought about by eco-anxiety. Under Chapple’s guide, students will gain familiarity with primary Hindu texts describing methods for understanding and connecting with the five primary elements and learn Yoga practices and lifestyle changes that can be applied to bring about positive change on both a global and individual level. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Silt Sand Slurry: Dredging, Sediment, and the Worlds We Are Making is a visually rich investigation into where, why, and how sediment is central to the future of America's coasts. It was written by Rob Homes, Brett Milligan, and Gena Wirth, with contributions by Sean Burkholder, Brian Davis, and Justine Holzman and published by Applied Research + Design Publishing in 2023. Sediment is an unseen infrastructure that shapes and enables modern life. Silt is scooped from sea floors to deepen underwater highways for container ships. It is diverted from river basins to control flooding. It is collected, sorted, managed, and moved to reshape deltas, marshes, and beaches. Anthropogenic action now moves more sediment annually than ‘natural’ geologic processes — yet this global reshaping of the earth’s surface is rarely-discussed and poorly-understood.In four thematic text chapters, four geographic visual studies, and a concluding essay the authors demonstrate why sediment matters now more than ever, given our contemporary context of sea level rise, environmental change, and spatial inequality. They do this through a documentation of the geography of dredging and sediment on the four coasts of the continental United States. The book explores the many limitations of current sediment management practices, such as short-sighted efforts to keep dynamic ecosystems from changing, failure to value sediment as a resource, and inequitable decision-making processes. In response to these conditions, the authors delineate an approach to designing with sediment that is adaptive, healthy, and equitable. In this episode, the host asked about the authors’ work with the DRC, which stands for the Dredge Research Collaborative, not the Dredge Research Collective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The Great Wave is perhaps the most famous piece of Japanese artwork: a roaring blue wave and three boats on the ocean. And far in the background is Mt. Fuji. And that’s actually what Hokusai’s famous woodprint is about: Mt. Fuji, volcano and Japan’s tallest mountain. Andrew Bernstein tells the story of Mt. Fuji–from its geographic origins as a violent volcano through to its present day status as Japan’s national symbol and a world heritage site—in his latest book Fuji: A Mountain In The Making(Princeton UP, 2025). Andrew is professor of history at Lewis & Clark College and the author of Modern Passings: Death Rites, Politics, and Social Change in Imperial Japan (University of Hawaii Press: 2006) You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Fuji. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

When the sun sets, things start to get interesting among wild animals. Wherever we live, whether in the city or suburbs or country, darkness conjures a hidden world of wildlife that most of us rarely glimpse. Foxes, wolves, and bears prowl while skunks, opossums, and porcupines lurk; fireflies send flashing signals to potential mates; raccoons rummage for food; owls and bats fly overhead. Wildlife biologist Sophia Kimmig is our guide to the startling behaviors of these and many more nocturnal creatures. Introducing us to night’s wild inhabitants, she reveals what life for them is like in this parallel world—how it looks, feels, and smells—and the ingenious ways some creatures thrive after sunset. Living Night: On the Secret Wonders of Wildlife After Dark (Experiment, 2025) helps us appreciate how essential darkness is: not just a time but a diverse habitat all to itself—one that we still know too little about, and that we must urgently protect for the benefit of the world’s flora and fauna that depend on the day–night cycle. Our guest is: Dr. Sophia Kimmig, who researches how wild animals adapt to changing habitat conditions at an institute of the Leibniz Society in Berlin. In lectures, journalism, and books, she pursues her goal of bringing people closer to the diversity and value of nature and creating acceptance for nature and species protection. She lives in Berlin. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an experienced writing coach and developmental editor for academics. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Doctors by Nature The Killer Whale Journals Endless Forms Facing Infinity The Light Between Apple Trees In the Garden Behind the Moon The Climate Change Scientist Bugs: A Day in the Life The Shark Scientist The Well-Gardened Mind Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Beginning in the 1970s, a series of government agencies established to carry out the federal “war on crime” offered financial and ideological support to the fledgling feminist movement against sexual violence. These entities promoted the carceral tactics of policing, prosecution, and punishment as the only viable means of controlling rape, and they expected anti-rape organizers to embrace them. Yet Black women anti-rape organizers viewed police as a source of violence within their communities, not a solution to it. Between the Street and the State: Black Women’s Anti-Rape Activism amid the War on Crime (U Pennsylvania, 2025) examines how Black anti-rape organizers critically engaged both the feminist movement against sexual violence and the federal War on Crime between 1974 and 1994. In Philadelphia, Washington, DC, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, and Atlanta, activists inflected Black women’s longstanding tradition of community-based caring labor with the Black feminist condemnation of patriarchal and state violence. Their multifaceted and adaptable brand of anti-rape advocacy was premised on sustaining the survival of Black women and girls individually and Black communities more broadly. In this way, Black anti-rape activists countered the growing emphasis within the feminist movement on controlling rape through carceral collaborations. They acted subversively, redirecting state funds and state-funded research premised on rape control to projects that offered care to Black victims. In public education, social welfare, and public health, they instituted preventative education and emotional healing as modes of justice. At times, they outspokenly resisted carceral legislation that displaced their caring labor with punitive programs of rape control. Spotlighting Black anti-rape organizers’ enduring commitment to care work shows that the cooptation of the feminist movement against sexual violence by law enforcement entities was never total. Between the Street and the State deepens our historical understanding of Black women’s tradition of anti-rape activism by attending to how their tactics shifted in response to the political realignments of the post–civil rights era. Guest: Caitlin Wiesner is an assistant professor of history at Mercy University who specializes in the history of gender, sexuality, race and crime control policy in the 20th century United States. She is also the author of “The War on Crime and the War on Rape: The LEAA and Philadelphia WOAR, 1974-1984," which appeared in the journal, Modern American History, in March 2024, as well as numerous book chapters and reviews. When she is not writing or in the classroom, Dr. Wiesner enjoys cooking (and eating) new foods and exploring the natural and historic wonders of her native New Jersey. Host: Michael Stauch is an associate professor of history at the University of Toledo and the author of Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The pivotal year of 1870 brought down the curtain on the redcoat garrison world at both the metropolitan and colonial ends of the empire . . . In fewer than forty years, less than a lifetime, Aotearoa had gone from being a Māori world in which rangatira dominated, to a colony in which the settler state was in control of the economy, politics and people’s social destiny. Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and across the British Empire (Bridget Williams Books, 2025) by Professor Charlotte Macdonald explores the lives of soldiers, sailors and their families stationed in Aotearoa New Zealand and across the British empire in the nineteenth century. Spanning the decades from 1840 to 1870, this major new history from Charlotte Macdonald places the New Zealand Wars within the wider framework of imperial power. It shows how conflict and resistance throughout the empire, from rebellion in India to the Morant Bay uprising in Jamaica, were connected to the colonial project in New Zealand. At the centre of this history are the thousands who served in the British military – from rank-and-file soldiers and bluejackets drawn from working-class Britain and Ireland, to officers from elite backgrounds who purchased their commissions. Their presence in New Zealand was vital to the imposition of imperial control, both during times of war and in the intervening years when the garrison underpinned a fragile settler economy and society. Through rich archival detail and personal accounts, Garrison World traces the structures, experiences and legacies of military occupation. Acknowledging the impact on Māori communities and whenua, the book offers a critical and unflinching account of how imperial authority was imposed – and often violently asserted. This is a compelling and significant contribution to understanding the reordering of power that shaped Aotearoa in the nineteenth century. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

We're pleased to welcome James A. Jacobs and James R. Jacobs, authors of Preserving Government Information: Past, Present, and Future (FreeGovInfo Press, 2025), to the New Books Network. In this book, Jacobs and Jacobs introduce the different US federal institutions tasked with managing and preserving government information in a range of media formats from paper to digital. They examine how preservation practices of the past affect the preservation of digitally published government information today, analyze publishing and preservation data to characterize the current gaps in preservation, and look to the future by charting a path to a distributed Digital  Preservation Infrastructure for government information while explaining key concepts in digital preservation along the way. Your host is Dr. Adam Kriesberg, Associate Professor at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network