New Books in Biography & Memoir

David Schwartz, "David Cronenberg: Interviews" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)

24 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From his early horror movies, including Scanners, Videodrome, Rabid, and The Fly—with their exploding heads, mutating sex organs, rampaging parasite...

William Sites, "Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

24 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Poet and jazz band musician Sun Ra, born in 1914, is one of the most wildly prolific and unfailingly eccentric figures in the history of music. Renown...

The Future of the Apocalyptic Right in the U.S.: A Discussion with Benjamin R. Teitelbaum

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How did Steve Bannon come to believe the strange things he believes? The influential, former Trump aid, began as a Democrat-supporting Naval officer ...

Mary Norris, "Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen" (Norton, 2020)

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mary Norris, The New Yorker's Comma Queen and best-selling author of Between You & Me, has had a lifelong love affair with words. In Greek to Me: A...

Catherine Ehrlich, "Irma's Passport: One Woman, Two World Wars, and a Legacy of Courage" (She Writes Press, 2021)

21 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Irma's Passport: One Woman, Two World Wars, and a Legacy of Courage (She Writes Press, 2021), Catherine Ehrlich explores her Austrian grandparen...

Christopher Clarey, "The Master: The Brilliant Career of Roger Federer" (Twelve, 2021)

18 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

There have been other biographies of Roger Federer, but never one with this kind of access to the man himself, his support team, and the most prominen...

Timothy K. Blauvelt, "Clientalism and Nationality in an Early Soviet Fiefdom: The Trials of Nestor Lakoba" (Routledge, 2021)

18 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Timothy Blauvelt’s book Clientelism and Nationality in an Early Soviet Fiefdom: The Trials of Nestor Lakoba (Routledge, 2021), explores the comple...

Craig J. Reynolds, "Power, Protection and Magic in Thailand: The Cosmos of a Southern Policeman" (ANU Press, 2019)

15 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of New Books in Southeast Asian Studies we travel with Craig J. Reynolds to the mid-south of Thailand in the first half of the twe...

Anthony Tucker-Jones, "Churchill, Master and Commander: Winston Churchill at War 1895–1945" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

15 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

From his earliest days Winston Churchill was an extreme risk taker and he carried this into adulthood. Today he is widely hailed as Britain's greatest...

Stuart Elden, "The Early Foucault" (Polity Press, 2021)

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It was not until 1961 that Foucault published his first major book, History of Madness. He had already been working as an academic for a decade, teac...

Nauman Faizi, "God, Science, and Self: Muhammad Iqbal's Reconstruction of Religious Thought" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2021)

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In his brilliant and philosophically charged new book God, Science, and Self: Muhammad Iqbal's Reconstruction of Religious Thought (McGill-Queen's U...

J. M. West, "Madame Bessie Jones: Her Life and Times" (Local History Press, 2021)

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In J. M. West's Madame Bessie Jones: Her Life and Times (Local History Press, 2021), Jones emerges from the shadows of Carlisle (PA) history, first ...

Kenneth L. Caneva, "Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy: Contexts of Creation and Reception" (MIT Press, 2021)

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1847, Herman Helmholtz, arguably the most important German physicist of the nineteenth century, published his formulation of what became known as t...

Michele Alacevich, "Albert O. Hirschman: An Intellectual Biography" (Columbia UP, 2021)

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Despite the virtually unanimous agreement about his importance, describing Hirschman’s legacy and influence on others is not an easy task— arguabl...

Susan Jolliffe Napier, "Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art" (Yale UP, 2018)

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A thirtieth‑century toxic jungle, a bathhouse for tired gods, a red‑haired fish girl, and a furry woodland spirit—what do these have in common? ...

Nathaniel L. Moir, "Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare" (Oxford UP, 2021)

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Number One Realist: Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare (Oxford UP, 2021), Dr. Nathaniel L. Moir studies the thought of this overlo...

Jonathan Fenderson, "Building the Black Arts Movement: Hoyt Fuller and the Cultural Politics of the 1960s" (U Illinois Press, 2019)

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Building the Black Arts Movement: Hoyt Fuller and the Cultural Politics of the 1960s (U Illinois Press, 2019) explores the history of the Black Arts ...

Susan Gilson Miller, "Years of Glory: Nelly Benatar and the Pursuit of Justice in Wartime North Africa" (Stanford UP, 2021)

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When France fell to Hitler's armies in June 1940, a flood of refugees fleeing Nazi terror quickly overwhelmed Europe's borders and spilled across the ...

Michael Stewart Foley, "Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash" (Basic Books, 2021)

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Johnny Cash famously declared himself to be “The Man in Black”. He sang that he dressed in a “somber tone” for “the poor and the beaten down...

Jeffrey H. Jackson, "Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis" (Algonquin Books, 2020)

28 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Want to read a fantastic book about art, love, politics, and resistance during the Second World War? Jeffrey H. Jackson's Paper Bullets: Two Artists...

Midori Yamamura, "Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular" (MIT Press, 2015)

28 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Midori Yamamura’s Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular (MIT Press, 2015) is an in-depth examination of the famed artist’s early years in Japan a...

Andrew Porwancher, "The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton" (Princeton UP, 2021)

26 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton (Princeton UP, 2021), Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding fathe...

Henry K. Miller, "The First True Hitchcock: The Making of a Filmmaker" (U California Press, 2022)

25 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This untold origin story of the filmmaker explores its transatlantic history. Alfred Hitchcock called The Lodger "the first true Hitchcock movie," one...

Howard Philips Smith, "A Sojourn in Paradise: Jack Robinson in 1950s New Orleans" (UP of Mississippi, 2020)

24 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Robinson made his name as a much-sought-after fashion and celebrity photographer during the 1960s and early 1970s, and his work is well documente...

Kristin Waters, "Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought" (U Mississippi Press, 2021)

21 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Kristin Waters' book Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought (U Mississippi Press, 2021) tells a crucial, almost-forgotten story o...

Matthew C. Watson, "Afterlives of Affect: Science, Religion, and an Edgewalker’s Spirit" (Duke UP, 2020)

21 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Afterlives of Affect: Science, Religion, and an Edgewalker’s Spirit (Duke UP, 2020), Matthew C. Watson considers the life and work of artist an...

Glenn Cronin, "Disenchanted Wanderer: The Apocalyptic Vision of Konstantin Leontiev" (Northern Illinois UP, 2021)

18 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Although largely unknown in the West, the Russian novelist and political essayist Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontiev (1831-1891) has left a strong legacy...

Marion Thompson, "The Marion Thompson Wright Reader" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

18 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Marion Thompson Wright Reader, edited by Graham Russell Gao Hodges, the George Dorland Langdon, Jr. Professor of History and Africana and Latin A...

Vivian Kirkfield, "Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe" (Little Bee Books, 2020)

13 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Vivian Kirkfield about her book Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe (Little...

Timothy Brennan, "Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said" (FSG, 2021)

13 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Timothy Brennan is Professor of Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, and English at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of several semi...

Andrew J. Kunka, "The Life and Comics of Howard Cruse: Taking Risks in the Service of Truth" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

12 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of QUEER VOICES OF THE SOUTH, I talk with ANDREW J. KUNKA, who is a professor of English and division chair at the University of South...

Paul Halpern, "Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate" (Basic Books, 2021)

11 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today, the Big Bang is so entrenched in our understanding of the cosmos that to doubt it would seem crazy. But as Paul Halpern shows in Flashes of Cr...

Philip J. Deloria, "Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract" (U Washington Press, 2019)

10 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Mary Sully was many things: a Dakota woman, an artist, and an American living through a heyday of early celebrity culture in the United States. All o...

Olivier Delers and Martin Sulzer-Reichel, "Wim Wenders: Making Films that Matter" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

07 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Wim Wenders: Making Films That Matter (Bloomsbury, 2020) is the first book in 15 years to take a comprehensive look at Wim Wenders's extensive filmog...

D. Fairchild Ruggles, "Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar Al-Durr" (Oxford UP, 2020)

05 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Shajar al-Durr--known as "Tree of Pearls"--began her remarkable career as a child slave, given as property to Sultan Salih of Egypt. She became his co...

Stan BH Tan-Tangbau and Quyền Văn Minh, "Playing Jazz in Socialist Vietnam: Quyền Văn Minh and Jazz in Hà Nội" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)

04 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Quyền Văn Minh (b. 1954) is not only a jazz saxophonist and lecturer at the prestigious Vietnam National Academy of Music, but he is also one of th...

Carol Diehl, "Banksy: Completed" (MIT Press, 2021)

30 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Banksy is the world's most famous living artist, yet no one knows who he is. For more than twenty years, his wryly political and darkly humorous spray...

Andrew Roberts, "The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III" (Viking, 2021)

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon--a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The best-known modern interpre...

Lynn Stephen, "Stories That Make History: Mexico through Elena Poniatowska’s Crónicas" (Duke UP, 2021)

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Elena Poniatowska is a legendary Mexican journalist who has chronicled popular celebrities, politicians as well as important social movements in Mexic...

Mesfin Tadesse and Ianet Bastyan, "Lucy's People: An Ethiopian Memoir" (Yerada Lij, 2021)

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lucy's People: An Ethiopian Memoir (Yerada Lij,2021) is the inspiring story of a country and a life. Young engineer Mesfin grows up under Emperor H...

Bill Schutt, "Pump: A Natural History of the Heart" (Algonquin Books, 2021)

28 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this lively, unexpected look at the hearts of animals—from fish to bats to humans—American Museum of Natural History zoologist Bill Schutt tell...

Carolyn Eastman, "The Strange Genius of Mr. O.: The World of the United States' First Forgotten Celebrity" (UNC Press, 2021)

23 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Strange Genius of Mr. O.: The World of the United States' First Forgotten Celebrity (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture an...

F. Bruce Gordon, "Zwingli: God's Armed Prophet" (Yale UP, 2021)

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Zwingli: God's Armed Prophet (Yale, 2021) is a major new biography of Huldrych Zwingli--the warrior preacher who shaped the early Reformation. Zwi...

Michael K. Bourdaghs, "A Fictional Commons: Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literature" (Duke UP, 2021)

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Modernity arrived in Japan, as elsewhere, through new forms of ownership. In A Fictional Commons: Natsume Soseki and the Properties of Modern Literat...

Paul Kidder, "Minoru Yamasaki and the Fragility of Architecture" (Routledge, 2021)

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Few figures in the American arts have stories richer in irony than does architect Minoru Yamasaki. While his twin towers of New York’s World Trade C...

Marcia Pally, "From This Broken Hill I Sing to You: God, Sex, and Politics in the Work of Leonard Cohen" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Leonard Cohen's troubled relationship with God is here mapped onto his troubled relationships with sex and politics. Analysing Covenantal theology and...

Izabela Wagner, "Bauman: A Biography" (Polity, 2020)

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Global thinker, public intellectual, and world-famous theorist of ‘liquid modernity’, Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) was a scholar who, despite forced...

Julian E. Zelizer, "Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement" (Yale UP, 2021)

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” So said Polish-born American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) of his involvement...

Alex Panasenko, "The Long Vacation: A Memoir" (Iris Press, 2020)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

NB: This interview contains material about wartime experiences that may be upsetting to some listeners.  When Alex Panasenko was born in 1933, his n...

Aaron Weinacht, "Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Ayn Rand: Russian Nihilism Travels to America" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Nikolai Chernyshevskii and Ayn Rand: Russian Nihilism Travels to America (Lexington, 2021) argues that the core commitments of the nihilist movement...

"Bambi" isn't about what you think it's about: Jack Zipes explains

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Most of us think we know the story of Bambi—but do we? The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest (Princeton UP, 2022) is an all-new, i...

Hassan Abbas, "The Prophet's Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib" (Yale UP, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ali ibn Abi Talib is arguably the single most important spiritual and intellectual authority in Islam after prophet Mohammad. Through his teachings an...

Anna Machcewicz, "Civility in Uncivil Times: Kazimierz Moczarski's Quiet Battle for Truth, from the Polish Underground to Stalinist Prison" (Peter Lang, 2020)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Civility in Uncivil Times: Kazimierz Moczarski’s Quiet Battle for Truth, from the Polish Underground to Stalinist Prison (Peter Lang, 2020), An...

Cassandra Lane, "We Are Bridges: A Memoir" (Feminist Press, 2021)

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Cassandra Lane finds herself pregnant at thirty-five, the knowledge sends her on a poignant exploration of memory to prepare for her entry into m...

Diana Kelly, "The Red Taylorist: The Life and Times of Walter Nicholas Polakov" (Emerald, 2020)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this podcast Diana Kelly, author of The Red Taylorist: The Life and Times of Walter Nicholas Polakov (Emerald, 2020), tells us of the advantage...

Fiona Hill, "There Is Nothing for You Here: Opportunity in an Age of Decline" (Mariner Books, 2021)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to the remarkable Fiona Hill about her new memoir There Is Nothing for You Here: Opportunity in an Age of Decline (Mariner Books, 2...

Dave Zirin, "The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World" (New Press, 2021)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, amid an epidemic of police shootings of African Americans, the celebrated NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a series of quiet protests o...

Philip Larratt-Smith and Juliet Mitchell, "Louise Bourgeois, Freud's Daughter" (Yale UP, 2021)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From 1952 to 1985, Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) underwent extensive Freudian analysis that probed her family history, marriage, motherhood, and artist...

Tim Hartman, "Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity" (Fortress Press, 2022)

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kwame Bediako was one of the great African theologians of his generation. Challenging the assumption that Christianity is a Western religion, he prese...

Álvaro Santana-Acuña, "Ascent to Glory: How One Hundred Years of Solitude Was Written and Became a Global Classic" (Columbia UP, 2020)

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a revered classic today fifty five years after it was first published in 1967. Today I talked to Alvaro Santana Acuñ...

Andrew Roberts, "The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III" (Viking, 2021)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Following upon the success of his magisterial account of Winston Churchill, Andrew Roberts returns with an outstanding biography of George III: T...

Sean Brennan, "The Priest Who Put Europe Back Together: The Life of Rev. Fabian Flynn, CP" (Catholic U of America Press, 2018)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Philp Fabian Flynn led a remarkable life, bearing witness to some of the most pivotal events of the twentieth century. Flynn took part in the invasion...

Noah Isenberg ed., Shelley Frisch, trans., "Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna" (Princeton UP, 2021)

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance repor...

Rani Jaeger, "Abraham the Hebrew Believer: Secularism and Religion in the Work of Avraham Shlonsky (1900-1973)"

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How can it be that deeply religious poetry is being written by a committed socialist, literary revolutionary and modernist? How sacredness appears in ...

John D. French, "Lula and His Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil" (UNC Press, 2020)

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Known around the world simply as Lula, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva was born in 1945 to illiterate parents who migrated to industrializing São Paulo. H...

Peter Cole, "Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly" (PM Press, 2021)

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early twentieth century, when many US unions disgracefully excluded black and Asian workers, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) warmly w...

Hadassah Lieberman, "Hadassah: An American Story" (Brandeis UP, 2021)

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Born in Prague to Holocaust survivors, Hadassah Lieberman and her family immigrated in 1949 to the United States. She went on to earn a BA from Boston...

Brandy Schillace, "Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Brandy Schillace about her book Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transpla...

Vladimir Alexandrov, "To Break Russia's Chains: Boris Savinkov and His Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks" (Pegasus, 2021)

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The latest book by Vladimir Alexandrov is a brilliant examination of the enigmatic Russian revolutionary, Boris Savinkov. Although now largely forgott...

Charlie Louth on Rainer Maria Rilke

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Charlie Louth’s illuminating recent book, Rilke: The Life of the Work (Oxford University Press, 2021) examines why Rilke’s poems have exercised ...

David Barak-Gorodetsky, "Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interview David Barak-Gorodetzky about his new book, Judah Magnes: The Prophetic Politics of a Religious Binationalist (U Nebrask...

Ruth Gamble, "The Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje: Master of Mahamudra" (Shambala, 2020)

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A scholarly yet accessible biography of the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje, one of the great historical figures of Tibetan Buddhism.  Known for his mas...

Stephen Cushman, "The Generals' Civil War: What Their Memoirs Can Teach Us Today" (UNC Press, 2021)

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades following the American Civil War, several of the generals who had laid down their swords picked up their pens and published accounts of...

Joel Whitebook, "Freud: An Intellectual Biography" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We interview Dr. Joel Whitebook, philosopher and psychoanalyst about his book Freud: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge UP, 2017). Dr. Whitebook w...

Karla Huebner, "Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2020)

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Karla Huebner’s Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020) follows the life and career Czech artist To...

Tamihana Te Rauparaha, "Record of the Life of the Great Te Rauparaha" (Auckland UP, 2021)

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Te Rauparaha is most well known today as the composer of the haka ‘Ka mate’, made famous the world over by the All Blacks. A major figure in ninet...

David Lester, "Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel" (Beacon Press, 2021)

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Who is the most fascinating historical figure that you have never heard of? David Lester and Marcus Rediker make a good case that it was Benjamin Lay....

Andrea Warner, "Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography" (Graystone Books, 2018)

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Andrea Warner's Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography (Graystone Books, 2018) tells the story, often in Buffy's own words, of the life of th...

Samantha Durbin, "Raver Girl: Coming of Age in the 90s" (She Writes Press, 2021)

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A ’90s time capsule buried inside a coming-of-age memoir set against the neon backdrop of the San Francisco Bay Area's rave scene, Raver Girl (She...

Machiko Ōgimachi, "In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan" (Columbia UP, 2021)

04 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early eighteenth century, the noblewoman Ōgimachi Machiko composed a memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, the powerful samurai for whom she had ser...

Hasana Sharp, “Flourishing Through Spinoza” (Open Agenda, 2021)

02 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Flourishing Through Spinoza is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Hasana Sharp, Associate Professor of Philosophy at ...

Anthony Ianni, "Centered: Autism, Basketball, and One Athlete's Dreams" (Red Lightning Books, 2021)

02 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

"They don't know me. They don't know what I'm capable of." Diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder, a form of autism, as a toddler, Anthony Ia...

John D. Gazzelli. "Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, KCB: The Planner Who Saved Europe" (Palmetto, 2021)

02 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I spoke to John D. Gazzelli about his book Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, KCB: The Planner Who Saved Europe (Palmetto, 2021). Histo...

Tobias Hof, "Galeazzo Ciano: The Fascist Pretender" (U Toronto Press, 2021)

02 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

He was the son of a prominent politician, Benito Mussolini’s son-in-law, and viewed by many as the Duce’s likely successor, only to die before a ...

Dyron B. Daughrity, "Worldly Christian: The Life and Times of Stephen Neill" ( Lutterworth Press, 2022)

29 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bishop Stephen Neill was one of the most prolific, accomplished, and fascinating Christian leaders of the global church in the twentieth century. Priv...

Silvia Marina Arrom, "La Güera Rodrígue: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine" (U California Press, 2021)

26 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In La Guera Rodriguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine (U California Press, 2021), Silvia Marina Arrom traces the legends of ...

Stephanie N. Brehm, "America's Most Famous Catholic (According to Himself): Stephen Colbert and American Religion in the 21st Century" (Fordham UP, 2019)

25 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For nine years, Stephen Colbert’s persona “Colbert”?—a Republican superhero and parody of conservative political pundits--informed audiences o...

Ethan Kleinberg, "Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought" (Stanford UP, 2021)

25 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interview Ethan Kleinberg, professor of history and letters at Wesleyan University, about his new book, Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmu...

Daniel Andrés López, "Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute" (Haymarket Books, 2020)

23 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Hungarian Marxist philosopher George Lukács has long occupied a complicated place in the Marxist canon of thinkers, both his lived and theoretica...

Robert McCrum, "Shakespearean: On Life and Language in Times of Disruption" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)

22 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When inspiration struck Robert McCrum to write a book about the Bard, it came while watching one of the playwright’s plays in Central Park, New York...

Justin Beal, "Sandfuture" (MIT Press, 2021)

22 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sandfuture (MIT Press, 2021) is a book about the life of the architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986), who remains on the margins of history despite ...

John Roy Price, "The Last Liberal Republican: An Insider's Perspective on Nixon's Surprising Social Policy" (UP of Kansas, 2021)

22 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

History is told, it is said, by the victors. And so it is in regard to Richard Nixon. We all know how his presidency ended. What too few of us recall...

Lindsey Stewart, "The Politics of Black Joy: Zora Neale Hurston and Neo-Abolitionism" (Northwestern UP, 2021)

20 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What can southern Black joy teach us about agency? What role does refusal have in liberation? What more might there be to root work than resistance? I...

Roger K. Thomas, "Counting Dreams: The Life and Writings of the Loyalist Nun Nomura Bōtō" (Cornell UP, 2021)

19 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Counting Dreams: The Life and Writings of the Loyalist Nun Nomura Bōtō (Cornell UP, 2021) tells the story of Nomura Bōtō, a Buddhist nun, writer,...

Elizabeth McCain, "A Lesbian Belle Tells: OUTrageous Southern Stories of Family, Loss, and Love" (Crystal Heart Imprints, 2020)

18 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Settle back for a wild ride through a Southern lesbian's life of soul-searching, rule-breaking, and truth-telling. This belle's kind of coming out was...

Dov Zakheim, "The Prince and the Emperors: The Life and Times of Rabbi Judah the Prince" (Maggid, 2021)

15 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rabbi Judah the Prince transformed the Mishnah into a text, and now Dov Zakheim, culling from a fascinating array of sources, has brought to life the ...

Leslie Barnes and Joseph Mai, "The Cinema of Rithy Panh: Everything Has a Soul" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

15 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode I chatted with Leslie Barnes and Joseph Mai, two scholars of film, about their new anthology The Cinema of Rithy Panh: Everything Has...

Onora O’Neill, “Kant, Applied” (Open Agenda, 2021)

15 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Kant, Applied is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Onora O’Neill, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Universi...

Jan Matti Dollbaum et al., "Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future?" (Oxford UP, 2021)

12 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone has heard of Alexei Navalny, the leader of Russia's opposition to Putin's rule. But what do we really know of him? Navalny: Putin's Nemesis...

Helena de Bres, "Artful Truths: The Philosophy of Memoir" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

11 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What is a memoir? What makes a memoir both nonfictional and literary? What are the memoirist’s moral obligations to the people they write about besi...