The Economist is a curious publication. It always takes a point of view (as opposed to the all-the-news-that’s-fit-to-print approach). It maintains a uniform voice (editors and writers are typically handpicked from the same elite British universities, and rarely are there author bylines). And it has lasted a long time, originating back in London’s free-trade debates of the 1840s and continuing to be one of the most widely read magazines in the world. The Economist was a guiding hand in debates o...
May 06, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 727
Punjab was the arena of one of the first major armed conflicts of post-colonial India. During its deadliest decade, as many as 250,000 people were killed. This book makes an urgent intervention in the history of the conflict, which to date has been characterized by a fixation on sensational violence—or ignored altogether. In her book Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict: The Wheat Fields Still Whisper (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Mallika Kaur unearths the stories of three people who...
May 05, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 100
Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. Brophy, is the first edited collection of scholarly essays devoted solely to the histories and legacies of this subject on North American campuses and in their Atlantic contexts. Gathering together contributions from scholars, activists, and administrators, the volume combines two broad bodies of work: (1) historically based interdisciplinary resear...
Apr 28, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 193
From moral panics about immigration and gun control to anxiety about terrorism and natural disasters, Americans live in a culture of fear. While fear is typically discussed in emotional or poetic terms—as the opposite of courage, or as an obstacle to be overcome—it nevertheless has very real consequences in everyday life. Persistent fear negatively effects individuals’ decision-making abilities and causes anxiety, depression, and poor physical health. Further, fear harms communities and society ...
Apr 22, 2020•52 min•Ep. 138
North America is in the grips of a drug epidemic; with the introduction of fentanyl, the chances of a fatal overdose are greater than ever, prompting many to rethink the war on drugs. Public opinion has slowly begun to turn against prohibition, and policy-makers are finally beginning to look at addiction as a health issue as opposed to one for the criminal justice system. While deaths across the continent continue to climb, In Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s ...
Apr 08, 2020•53 min•Ep. 92
Arthur Asseraf’s Electric News in Colonial Algeria (Oxford University Press, 2019) examines the workings of the “news ecosystem” in Algeria from the 1880s to the beginning of the Second World War. The study of a society divided between a dominant (European) settler minority and an Algerian Muslim majority, the book tracks the development and impact of new information technologies—the printing press, telegraph, cinema, radio (and later television)—in Algeria from the late-nineteenth through the m...
Apr 03, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 75
Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy (MIT Press, 2020), Matt Cook...
Mar 30, 2020•53 min•Ep. 46
We often think of censorship as governments removing material or harshly punishing people who spread or access information. But Margaret E. Roberts’ new book Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall (Princeton University Press, 2020) reveals the nuances of censorship in the age of the internet. She identifies 3 types of censorship: fear (threatening punishment to deter the spread or access of information); friction (increasing the time or money necessary to access inform...
Mar 27, 2020•48 min•Ep. 415
In her book, Becoming the News: How Ordinary People Respond to the Media Spotlight (Columbia University Press, 2017), Ruth Palmer argues that understanding the motivations and experiences of those who have been featured in news stories – voluntarily or not – sheds new light on the practice of journalism and the importance many continue to place on the role of the mainstream media. Palmer charts the arc of the experience of “making” the news, from the events that brought an ordinary person to jou...
Mar 18, 2020•59 min•Ep. 47
Today we are joined by Travis Bell, Janelle Applequist, and Christian Dotson-Pierson to discuss their new book CTE, Media, and the NFL: Framing a Public Health Crisis as a Football Epidemic (Lexington Books, 2019). In our conversation, we discussed public misconceptions about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, the media’s problematic connection of CTE with the NFL and concussions, and the league’s efforts to produce alternative histories of CTE. In CTE, Media, and the NFL, Bell, Applequist and Do...
Mar 16, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 156
Since the 1940s, America’s relations with the rest of the world have been guided by the idea of promoting the free flow of information. It’s an idea that seems benign, perhaps even difficult to argue against—who could possibly oppose the freedom of information? But, as Diana Lemberg shows in her exciting new book, Barriers Down: How American Power and Free-Flow Policies Shaped Global Media (Columbia University Press, 2019), the idea wasn’t always benign and many fought against its implementation...
Feb 28, 2020•48 min•Ep. 696
How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Phillipa Chong, assistant professor in sociology at McMaster University, provides a unique sociological analysis of how critics confront the different types of uncertainty associated with their practice. The book explores how reviewers get matched to books, the ethics and etiquette of negative reviews and ‘punching up’, along with professional identities a...
Feb 25, 2020•41 min•Ep. 154
If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years working on a PhD, or if you’re a faculty member whose career has basically consisted of higher ed, switching isn’t so easy. PhD holders are mostly trained to work as professors, and making easy connections to other careers is no mean feat. Because the people you know were generally trained to do the same s...
Jan 30, 2020•38 min•Ep. 103
The old mantra “if it bleeds it leads” is alive and well in today’s media landscape. In fact, social media and up-to-the-second news have made it easier than ever to ingest a constant stream of information about the world. In her book, You Are What You Read: Why Changing Your Media Diet Can Change The World (Unbound, 2019), Jodie Jackson argues that this type of news consumption leads to feelings of anger and helplessness. The book, and this conversation, outline how solutions journalism provide...
Jan 27, 2020•41 min•Ep. 48
Judi Rever’s In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (Random House, 2018) is investigative journalism at its finest. Through great personal risk to so many of those involved, Rever and her sources tell a story far different from the one most people who are familiar with the Rwandan Genocide would recognize. Synthesizing field research; testimonies from refugees, defectors and dissenters, and governmental and intergovernmental officials; and analysis of primary documents, Re...
Jan 14, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 108
The red Zagat guide to restaurants was a fixture to a generation of New York diners before Google bought the brand and stopped publishing copies of the book. In time for the 40th Anniversary, new owners The Infatuation, and Editor in Chief Hillary Reinsberg released a new version and it is selling well and attracting renewed interest in the brand. Host Allen Salkin talks to Reinsberg about Zagat 2020 New York City Restaurants: Special 40th Anniversary Edition (Zagat, 2019) and asks Reinsberg if ...
Jan 06, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 51
Katya Cengel’s From Chernobyl with Love: Reporting from the Ruins of the Soviet Union (University of Nebraska Press, 2019) is an engaging memoir of a Western newspaper reporter’s youthful experiences in Latvia and Ukraine, in the turbulent years from the late 1990’s through the early 2000’s. Interspersed with lively anecdotes, the author brings a unique perspective on the struggles of the post-Soviet era, from the day-to-day vicissitudes of “getting by,” to the broader struggles and dynamics tha...
Dec 11, 2019•58 min•Ep. 109
From Pizzagate to Jeffrey Epstein, conspiracies seem to be more prominent than ever in American political discourse. What was once confined to the pages of supermarket tabloids is now all over our media landscape. Unlike the 9/11 truthers or those who questioned the moon landing, these conspiracies are designed solely to delegitimize a political opponent — rather than in service of finding the truth. As you might imagine, this is problematic for democracy. Democracy scholars Russell Muirhead and...
Dec 09, 2019•39 min•Ep. 59
We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics, and diagrams ubiquitous―and easier to share than ever. We associate charts with science and reason; the flashy visuals are both appealing and persuasive. Pie charts, maps, bar and line graphs, and scatter plots (to name a few) can better inform us, revealing patterns and trends hidden behind the numbers we encounter in our lives. In short, g...
Dec 03, 2019•58 min•Ep. 42
The First Amendment and a strong Fourth Estate are essential to a healthy democracy. David McCraw spends his days making sure that journalists can do their work in the United States and around the world. This includes responding to libel suits and legal threats, reviewing stories that are likely to be the subject of a lawsuit, helping reporters who run into trouble abroad, filing Freedom of Information Act requests, and much more. Today we talk to McCraw, the Deputy General Counsel of the New Yo...
Nov 18, 2019•37 min•Ep. 47
As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books in that most of them are what you might called "fundamental research." Their authors--dedicated researchers one and all--provide the scholarly stuff upon which many non-fiction trade books are based. So when you are reading, say, a popular history, you are often reading UP books at one remove. Of course, some UP books are also bestsellers, ...
Nov 03, 2019•39 min•Ep. 45
The dominance of the London press in the British national media has long overshadowed the presence of local newspapers in Great Britain and the roles they played in their communities. As Andrew Hobbs demonstrates in his book A Fleet Street In Every Town: The Provincial Press in England, 1855-1900 (Open Book Publishers, 2018), this presence was extremely vibrant during the second half of the 19th century, when expanding literacy and the end of the “takes on knowledge in the 1850s and 1860s. Focus...
Oct 24, 2019•47 min•Ep. 633
The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that developing expertise requires -- do not necessarily make us good teachers. Jessamyn Neuhaus’s Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers (West Virginia University Press, 2019) helps us to identify and embrace that geekiness in us and then offers practical, step-by-step guidelines for how t...
Oct 24, 2019•31 min•Ep. 81
The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that developing expertise requires -- do not necessarily make us good teachers. Jessamyn Neuhaus’s Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers (West Virginia University Press, 2019) helps us to identify and embrace that geekiness in us and then offers practical, step-by-step guidelines for how t...
Oct 24, 2019•31 min•Ep. 81
How have memes changed politics? In Internet Memes and Society: Social, Cultural, and Political Contexts(Routledge, 2019), Anastasia Denisova, a lecturer in journalism at the University of Westminster, gives both a history of internet memes as well as an analysis of key case studies of their impact on politics and society. Offering a rich and detailed engagement with Russian and American politics, as well as a nuanced and even-handed assessment of specific and well-known memes. In the current co...
Sep 20, 2019•33 min•Ep. 135
In the summer of 1928, William Alexander Scott began a small four-page weekly with the help of his brother Cornelius. By 1932 the Atlanta World had become a daily paper and the basis of Scott's vision for a massive Southern newspaper chain - the Southern Newspaper Syndicate, later renamed as the Scott Newspaper Syndicate. At its peak, more than 240 papers were associated with the Syndicate, making it one of the largest black press institutions in the country. However, the extent of the Syndicate...
Sep 19, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 178
Crying the News: A History of America’s Newsboys (Oxford University Press, 2019) looks at the legion of children and teenagers who sold newspapers on city streets, moving trains, and even Civil War battlefields in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Author Vincent DiGirolamo, a history professor at Baruch College, is featured in this New Books Network/Gotham Center for New York City History podcast interview with Beth Harpaz, editor of the City University of New York website SUM. A major theme of...
Sep 04, 2019•30 min•Ep. 590
During the American Revolution, printed material, including newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, and broadsides, played a crucial role as a forum for public debate. In Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), Joseph M. Adelman, Associate Professor of History at Framingham State University, argues that printers—artisans who mingled with the elite but labored in a manual trade—used their commercial and political connectio...
Aug 23, 2019•1 hr•Ep. 579
How do women experience gender inequality in film and television production industries? In Women, Inequality and Media Work (Routledge, 2019), Dr Anne O’Brien, lecturer in the Department of Media Studies at Maynooth University, answers this question with a case study of the Irish media industry. Blending a critical engagement with feminist and media theory with a wealth of empirical material, the book looks at the barriers to women in media occupations. The book highlights the subjectivities wit...
Aug 02, 2019•42 min•Ep. 131
The American press is older than the United States itself. Ever since its catalytic role in the American Revolution, journalism has evolved to meet changing political, economic, and technological demands. Gregory Borchard traces this history in A Narrative History of the American Press (Routledge, 2018). He calls for a better understanding of journalism's past, at a time of acute concern about its future. Borchard is a professor at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at the...
Jul 18, 2019•54 min•Ep. 46
