New Books in Communications

Jacob Bricca, "How Documentaries Work" (Oxford UP, 2023)

02 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Previous guest Jacob Bricca (Documentary Editing: Principles and Practice) is a professional film editor and director, specializing in documentaries....

The War on Learning: Gaining Ground in the Digital University

01 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Behind the lectern stands the professor, deploying course management systems, online quizzes, wireless clickers, PowerPoint slides, podcasts, and plag...

The Marketplace of Attention: How Audiences Take Shape in a Digital Age

30 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Feature films, television shows, homemade videos, tweets, blogs, and breaking news: digital media offer an always-accessible, apparently inexhaustible...

Mary Beltrán, "Latino TV: A History" (NYU Press, 2022)

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, our host Lucila Rozas discusses the book Latino TV: A History (2022) by Mary Beltrán. You’ll hear about: A brief trajectory ...

Josh Shepperd, "Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

26 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite uncertain beginnings, public broadcasting emerged as a noncommercial media industry that transformed American culture. In Shadow of the New D...

Lena Henningsen, "Cultural Revolution Manuscripts: Unofficial Entertainment Fiction from 1970s China" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021)

25 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Lena Henningsen’s Cultural Revolution Manuscripts: Unofficial Entertainment Fiction from 1970s China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) is a study of sho...

Svetlana Kochkina, "Frances Burney’s 'Evelina': The Book, its History, and its Paratext" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

25 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Evelina, the first novel by Frances Burney, published in 1778, enjoys lasting popularity among the reading public. Tracing its publication history thr...

Brian Cummings, "Bibliophobia: The End and the Beginning of the Book" (Oxford UP, 2022)

25 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bibliophobia: The End and the Beginning of the Book (Oxford UP, 2022) is a book about material books, how they are cared for, and how they are damage...

Thomas W. Lippman, "Get the Damn Story: Homer Bigart and the Great Age of American Newspapers" (Georgetown UP, 2023)

24 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the decades between the Great Depression and the advent of cable television, when daily newspapers set the conversational agenda in the United Stat...

Metadata

24 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When "metadata" became breaking news, appearing in stories about surveillance by the National Security Agency, many members of the public encountered ...

Academic Chat: "Detention" and Other Horror Videogames: Avatars, Memory and Trauma

24 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The host of this episode, Adina Zemanek, interviewed Chee-Hann Wu, who obtained her PhD in Drama and Theatre from the University of California, Irvine...

The Eternal Letter: Two Millennia of the Classical Roman Capital

23 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The fiftieth anniversary of Helvetica, the most famous of all sans serif typefaces, was celebrated with an excitement unusual in the staid world of ty...

Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web

22 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Online comment can be informative or misleading, entertaining or maddening. Haters and manipulators often seem to monopolize the conversation. Some co...

Lars de Wildt, "The Pop Theology of Videogames: Producing and Playing with Religion" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)

22 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Young people in the West are more likely to encounter religion in videogames than in places of worship like churches, mosques or temples. Lars de Wild...

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture

21 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Internet trolls live to upset as many people as possible, using all the technical and psychological tools at their disposal. They gleefully whip the m...

Works of Game: On the Aesthetics of Games and Art

20 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Games and art have intersected at least since the early twentieth century, as can be seen in the Surrealists' use of Exquisite Corpse and other games,...

David A. Banks, "The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America" (U California Press, 2023)

19 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America (U California Press, 2023) is the first book to explore how our cities gentrify b...

Myka Kennedy Stephens, "Integrated Library Planning: A New Model for Strategic and Dynamic Planning, Management, and Assessment" (ACRL, 2023)

19 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Many library project plans, from small projects to institution-wide strategic planning committees, follow a linear trajectory: create the plan, do the...

Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, "The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life" (U California Press, 2023)

18 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life (U of California Press, 2023), Benjamín Schultz‑Figueroa examines rarely seen b...

Alexandra Dane, "White Literary Taste Production in Contemporary Book Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

17 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite initiatives to 'diversify' the publishing sector, there has been almost no transformation to the historic racial inequality that defines the f...

Anna Piela, "Wearing the Niqab: Muslim Women in the UK and the US" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years the niqab has emerged as one of the most ubiquitous symbols of everything that is perceived to be wrong with Islam: barbarity, backw...

Francis Cody, "The News Event: Popular Sovereignty in the Age of Deep Mediatization" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Not merely the act of representing events with words or images, a "news event" is the reciprocal relationship between the events being reported in the...

Peter Baldwin, "Athena Unbound: Why and How Scholarly Knowledge Should Be Free for All" (MIT Press, 2023)

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A clear-eyed examination of the open access movement: past history, current conflicts, and future possibilities. Open access (OA) could one day put th...

The Future of Politicized Narratives: A Discussion with Andreas Krieg

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The word "narrative" is now so frequently heard that some think it over used. Perhaps its ubiquity results from it being so relevant – what used to ...

Zhouxiang Lu, "A History of Competitive Gaming" (Routledge, 2022)

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Competitive gaming, or esports - referring to competitive tournaments of video games among both casual gamers and professional players - began in the ...

Payal Arora et al., "Feminist Futures of Work: Reimagining Labour in the Digital Economy" (Amsterdam UP, 2023)

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The future of work is at the centre of debates related to the emerging digital society. Concerns range from the inclusion, equity, and dignity of thos...

Ida Yoshinaga et al., "Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction" (MIT Press, 2022)

11 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Essays on speculative/science fiction explore the futures that feed our most cherished fantasies and terrifying nightmares, while helping diverse comm...

Brendan Keogh, "The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist: Why We Should Think Beyond Commercial Game Production" (MIT Press, 2023)

11 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The videogame industry, we're invariably told, is a multibillion-dollar, high-tech business conducted by large corporations in certain North American,...

Joshua St. Pierre, "Cheap Talk: Disability and the Politics of Communication" (U MIchigan Press, 2022)

09 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Cheap Talk: Disability and the Politics of Communication (U Michigan Press, 2022), Joshua St. Pierre flips the script on communication disability...

Ann Komaromi, "Soviet Samizdat: Imagining a New Society" (Cornell UP, 2022)

08 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Soviet Samizdat: Imagining a New Society (Cornell UP, 2022) traces the emergence and development of samizdat, a significant and distinctive phenomeno...

Robin James, "The Future of Rock and Roll: 97X WOXY and the Fight for True Independence" (UNC Press, 2023)

07 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1983, an Ohio radio station called WOXY launched a sonic disruption to both corporate rock and to its conservative home region, programming an omni...

Can Data Science Help Us Combat Disinformation?

05 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, the journal’s Features Editor Liberty Vittert and Editor in Chief Xiao-Li Meng discuss fake news, disinformation, and misinformatio...

Ian M. Cook, "Scholarly Podcasting: Why, What, How" (Routledge, 2022)

05 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Exploring what academic podcasting is and what it could be, Ian Cook's Scholarly Podcasting (Routledge, 2023) is the first to consider the why, wha...

Jen Ross, "Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies" (Routledge, 2022)

04 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of education? In Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies (Routledge, 2022), Jen Ross, a senior lecturer...

Life at the London Review of Books

04 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Anthony Wilks discusses his career heading up audio-visual projects for the London Review of Books. He tells the story of his winding career, in ad...

You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape

02 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Writer and educator Marcus Gilroy-Ware (After the Fact?, Filling the Void) speaks with Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner about their new book ...

Nick Enfield on Language, Influence, and Science Communications

01 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to this interview of Nick Enfield, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney for Language Research and the Sydney Initiative for Tr...

Efficient Academic Writing: A Discussion with Mushtaq Bilal

31 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Mushtaq Bilal is an academic, content creator, thought leader, and public intellectual. Mushtaq discusses how he built an audience of more than 185,00...

Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, "Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice" (Atria Books, 2023)

28 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the current period of social and political unrest, conversations about identity are becoming more frequent and more difficult. On subjects like cri...

Thomas Chen, "Made in Censorship: The Tiananmen Movement in Chinese Literature and Film" (Columbia UP, 2022)

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hello, world! This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. In this episode, our host Ignatius Suglo discusses the book Made in Censorsh...

Samantha Nogueira Joyce, "Afro-Brazilians in Telenovelas: Social, Political, and Economic Realities" (Lexington Books, 2022)

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Afro-Brazilians in Telenovelas: Social, Political, and Economic Realities (Lexington Books, 2022), Samantha Nogueira Joyce examines representatio...

Julia Serano, "Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back" (Seal Press, 2022)

20 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I interview Julia Serano about her new book, Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us and How We Can Fight Back (Seal, 2022). Serano is an activi...

Kathryn J. McGarr, "City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Kathryn McGarr’s City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington (U Chicago Press, 2022) explores foreign policy jour...

Landon Jones, "Celebrity Nation: How America Evolved into a Culture of Fans and Followers" (Beacon, 2023)

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Writer and editor Landon (Lanny) Jones, a former PEOPLE magazine editor, reveals how the cult of celebrity has shaped our politics, culture, and pers...

Misinformed: The Covid Lab Leak Theory and the Politics of Misinformation

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The COVID-19 lab leak theory went from being dismissed as mere misinformation, to now a credible matter of debate amongst media, scientific, and intel...

Michelle R. Warren, "Holy Digital Grail: A Medieval Book on the Internet" (Stanford UP, 2022)

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Medieval books that survive today have been through a lot: singed by fire, mottled by mold, eaten by insects, annotated by readers, cut into fragments...

Anne Kaun and Fredrik Stiernstedt, "Prison Media: Incarceration and the Infrastructures of Work and Technology" (MIT Press, 2023)

13 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Prisons are not typically known for cutting-edge media technologies. Yet from photography in the nineteenth century to AI-enhanced tracking cameras to...

Sarah Atkinson and Helen W. Kennedy, "Secret Cinema and the Immersive Experience Industry" (Manchester UP, 2022)

13 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of media? In Secret Cinema and the Immersive Experience Industry (Manchester UP, 2022), Sarah Atkinson, a Professor of Screen Me...

John Klaess, "Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City" (Duke UP, 2022)

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City (Duke UP, 2022), John Klaess tells the story of rap's emergence on New York City's air...

Mark Carrigan and Lambros Fatsis, "The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociology in an Era of Social Media" (Bristol UP, 2021)

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As social media is increasingly becoming a standard feature of sociological practice, this timely book The Public and Their Platforms: Public Sociolo...

Karen Schrier, "We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics" (Oxford UP, 2021)

11 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ethics and civics have always mattered, but perhaps they matter now more than ever before. Recently, with the rise of online teaching and movements li...

Leah Phillips, "Female Heroes in Young Adult Fantasy Fiction: Reframing Myths of Adolescent Girlhood" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

11 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The heroic romance is one of the West's most enduring narratives, found everywhere, from religion and myth to blockbuster films and young adult litera...

Nina Hall, "Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era: Think Global, Act Local" (Oxford UP, 2022)

08 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era (Oxford UP, 2022) explores the role of digital advocacy organizations, a major new addition to the interna...

Jason C. Cash and Craig T. Olsen, "The World of Final Fantasy VII: Essays on the Game and Its Legacy" (McFarland, 2023)

07 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Final Fantasy VII altered the course of video game history when it was released in 1997 on Sony's PlayStation system. It converted the Japanese role-p...

Samantha Pickette, "Peak TV's Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy" (Lexington, 2022)

07 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy (Lexington Books, 2022), Samantha...

Material Witness: Media, Forensics, Evidence

06 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Susan Schuppli is Director of the Centre for Research Architecture in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. In her b...

Laetitia Nanquette, "Iranian Literature After the Islamic Revolution: Production and Circulation in Iran and the World" (Edinburgh UP, 2021)

06 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Iranian Literature After the Islamic Revolution: Production and Circulation in Iran and the World (Edinburgh UP, 2021), Dr. Laetitia Nanquette ex...

Henrik Örnebring and Michael Karlsson, "Journalistic Autonomy: The Genealogy of a Concept" (U Missouri Press, 2022)

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Journalists around the world agree that autonomy is central to their work, but what exactly is it journalists should be autonomous from, and for what ...

Co-Illusion: Dispatches from the End of Communication

04 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Co-Illusion, writer and critic David Levi Strauss, tracks the rise of Donald Trump and the media landscape that warped around him. In this intervi...

Helen Sword, "Writing with Pleasure" (Princeton UP, 2023)

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to this interview of Helen Sword, professor emerita in the School of Humanities and the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at the Univer...

Jan Recker, "Scientific Research in Information Systems: A Beginner's Guide" (Springer, 2021)

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to this interview of Jan Recker, Professor for Information Systems and Digital Innovation at the University of Hamburg, Germany and author of ...

James Charney, "Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The study of classic and contemporary films can provide a powerful avenue to understand the experience of mental illness. In Madness at the Movies: U...

Free Speech 69: Campus Misinformation with Bradford Vivian

02 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

State censorship and cancel culture, trigger warnings and safe spaces, pseudoscience, First Amendment hardball, as well as orthodoxy and groupthink: u...

Mauro Porto, "Mirrors of Whiteness: Media, Middle-Class Resentment, and the Rise of the Far Right in Brazil" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023)

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Mirrors of Whiteness: Media, Middle-Class Resentment, and the Rise of the Far Right in Brazil (U Pittsburgh Press, 2023), Mauro P. Porto examines...

Brahim El Guabli, "Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship After State Violence" (Fordham UP, 2023)

30 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Moroccan Other-Archives: History and Citizenship After State Violence (Fordham UP, 2023) investigates how histories of exclusion and silencing are wr...

John Bond, "The Little Guide to Getting Your Journal Article Published: Simple Steps to Success" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)

30 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Writing and publishing are at the heart of most academic and research pursuits. Many potential authors, however, feel lost in the seemingly Everest cl...

Macs Smith, "Paris and the Parasite: Noise, Health, and Politics in the Media City" (MIT Press, 2021)

29 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The social consequences of anti-parasitic urbanism, as efforts to expunge supposedly biological parasites penalize those viewed as social parasites. A...

Eric Hoenes del Pinal et al., "Mediating Catholicism: Religion and Media in Global Catholic Imaginaries" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

29 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Mediating Catholicism: Religion and Media in Global Catholic Imaginaries (Bloomsbury, 2022), the authors and the three editors (Eric Hones del Pi...

Jonathan E. Abel, "The New Real: Media and Mimesis in Japan from Stereographs to Emoji" (U of Minnesota Press, 2023)

28 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jonathan Abel’s The New Real: Media and Mimesis in Japan from Stereographs to Emoji (U of Minnesota Press, 2023) is a history of our relationships...

Computer Graphics

27 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of High Theory, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan talks with us about computer graphics. Emerging from tools for sailing and warmaking, like...

Helle Strandgaard Jensen, "Sesame Street: A Transnational History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

26 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Sesame Street: A Transnational History (Oxford UP, 2023), author Helle Strandgaard Jensen tells the story of how the American television show bec...

Experiments in Open Peer Review

24 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The authors of Data Feminism (2020), Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein, along with Catherine Ahearn, Content Lead at PubPub, discuss the value an...

Strong Ideas from MIT Libraries and the MIT Press

23 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Gita Manaktala, Editorial Director at the MIT Press, and Ellen Finnie, Co-Interim Associate Director for Collections at MIT Libraries...

Thomas Aiello, "Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate" (U Georgia Press, 2023)

22 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Thomas Aiello joins E. James West to discuss Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott News...

Adi Kuntsman and Liu Xin, "Digital Politics, Digital Histories, Digital Futures: New Approaches for Historicising, Politicising and Imagining the Digital" (Emerald, 2023)

21 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What is digital politics? What new creative and experimental tools can we use to study digital politics historically and analyse and create future ima...

Jonathan Gray, "Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste" (NYU Press, 2021)

20 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, our host Sim Gill discusses the book Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste (2021) by Jonathan Gray. You’...

Michael K. Johnson, "Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and Genre" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

20 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Western as a genre is alive and vibrant, argues University of Maine - Farmington professor of English literature Michael K. Johnson. In Speculati...

How Attention Works: Finding Your Way in a World Full of Distraction

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Stefan Van der Stigchel discusses how we filter out what is irrelevant so we can focus on what we need to know. We are surrounded by a world rich with...

The Making of "Ways of Hearing"

18 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bonus to the Ways of Hearing podcast and book A behind-the-scenes conversation with the creators of Ways of Hearing, the podcast and book. Hosted by...

Di Luo, "Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945" (Brill, 2022)

16 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945 (Brill, 2022) focuses on the role of literacy in building a modern nation-st...

Tiger C. Roholt, "Distracted from Meaning: A Philosophy of Smartphones" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

15 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Social scientists have long studied the ways in which smartphone use can distract us from the proper performance of means-ends tasks, such as driving ...

Cinegogía: An Open Access Resource for Teaching and Studying Latin American Cinema

14 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Cinegogía is an open-access website devoted to the teaching and study of Latin American cinemas. Bridget Franco, an associate professor of Spanish a...

Natasha Rogoff, "Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)

12 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the timing appeared perfect to bring Sesame Street to millions of children living in the fo...

Thomas M. Lekan, "Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti" (Oxford UP, 2020)

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did the Serengeti become an internationally renowned African conservation site and one of the most iconic destinations for a safari? In Our Gigan...

Discussions on Open Access: Open Science Tools

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Jess Polka, executive director of ASAPbio, and Sam Klein of the MIT Press/MIT Media Lab’s Knowledge Futures Group (KFG) and Harvard University’s B...

Michelle McSweeney, "OK" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

11 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"OK" as a word accepts proposals, describes the world as satisfactory (but not good), provides conversational momentum, or even agrees (or disagrees)....

The Future of Dictatorship: A Discussion with Sergei Guriev

10 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Most dictators no longer rule by fear but by spin instead. That’s the contention of Sergei Guriev who has co-authored (with Daniel Treisman) Spin D...

Amahl Bishara, "Crossing a Line: Laws, Violence, and Roadblocks to Palestinian Political Expression" (Stanford UP, 2022)

09 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Palestinians living on different sides of the Green Line make up approximately one-fifth of Israeli citizens and about four-fifths of the population o...

Gwen Burnyeat, "The Face of Peace: Government Pedagogy Amid Disinformation in Colombia" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

09 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas sought to end fifty years of war and won President Juan Manuel Santos the Nobel Peace Prize...

Discussions on Open Access: Frankenbook and OA Publishing

09 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the first of four episodes in the MITP Open Access series, Travis Rich, PubPub co-founder and project lead, speaks with Edward Finn, founding dire...

Nishant Kumar, "Religious Offense and Censorship of Publications: An Enquiry Through the Prism of Indian Laws and the Judiciary" (Routledge, 2022)

08 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nishant Kumar's Religious Offense and Censorship of Publications: An Enquiry Through the Prism of Indian Laws and the Judiciary (Routledge, 2022) an...

Johnny Walker, "Rewind, Replay: Britain and the Video Boom, 1978-92" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)

07 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nostalgia for the 1980s is in the air. From Stranger Things to the relaunch of 80s franchises like Top Gun, the American entertainment industry cas...

Patrick Bixby, "Nietzsche and Irish Modernism" (Manchester UP, 2022)

05 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Patrick Bixby's book Nietzsche and Irish Modernism (Manchester UP, 2022) demonstrates how the ideas of the controversial German philosopher played ...

Has Peer Review Hit a Point of No Return?

04 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Vivian Berghahn joins to discuss what is broken with the peer review system in general, how it impacts book publishing, and some creative solutions f...

Frenchy Lunning, "Cosplay: The Fictional Mode of Existence" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

04 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Cosplay, a portmanteau of “costume” and “play,” emerged from geeky Japanese subcultures to become a popular hobby, and even profession, around...

Jason Gilmore and Charles Rowling, "Exceptional Me: How Donald Trump Exploited the Discourse of American Exceptionalism" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

03 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m sitting down with Dr. Jason Gilmore, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Utah State University to discuss his recently publ...

Control Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management

03 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

JoAnne Yates, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management, Emerita and Professor of Managerial Communication and Work and Organization Studies at MIT’...

Rhea Myers, "Proof of Work: Blockchain Provocations 2011-2021" (MIT Press, 2023)

03 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

NFT, BTC, DAO, ETH, WAGMI, HODL. It would have been hard to avoid these acronyms only a year ago. The hype around cryptocurrencies and blockchain art ...

Ross Clare, "Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fiction: Amazing Antiquity" (Liverpool UP, 2022)

03 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fiction: Amazing Antiquity (Liverpool UP, 2022) by Dr. Ross Clare introduces and analyses the reception ...

Monica Liu, "Seeking Western Men: Email-Order Brides Under China's Global Rise" (Stanford UP, 2022)

02 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Commercial dating agencies that facilitate marriages across national borders comprise a $2.5 billion global industry. Ideas about the industry are rif...