New Books in Intellectual History
Episodes
Morgan J. Robinson, "A Language for the World: The Standardization of Swahili" (Ohio UP, 2022)
19 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Morgan J. Robinson argues that the portability of Standard Swahili has contributed to its wide use not only across the African continent but also arou...
Mary Edwards, "Sartre’s Existential Psychoanalysis: Knowing Others" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
19 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thinking of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, it is hard to think of him without imagining him in very particular contexts. One will likely ima...
The Future of Traditionalism: A Discussion with Mark J. Sedgwick
18 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Twenty years ago, it seemed Traditionalism was an esoteric and irrelevant set of beliefs. Since then, powerful people sympathetic to its ideas have ov...
Jason Weiner, "Care and Covenant: A Jewish Bioethic of Responsibility" (Georgetown UP, 2023)
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Jewish tradition has important perspectives, history and wisdom that can contribute significantly to crucial contemporary healthcare deliberations...
Al Coppola, "The Theater of Experiment: Staging Natural Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2016)
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The first book-length study of the relationship between science and theater during the long eighteenth century in Britain, The Theater of Experiment:...
Yehuda Halper, "Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age Without Plato: Permitting and Forbidding Open-Inquiry in 12-15th Century Europe and North Africa" (Brill, 2021)
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age Without Plato: Permitting and Forbidding Open-Inquiry in 12-15th Century Europe and North Africa (Brill, 2021...
Jeremy Black, "Smollett's Britain" (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)
14 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Smollett's Britain (St. Augustine's Press, 2022), acclaimed British historian Jeremy Black examines the layers of craft and insight in Tobias Sm...
Robert T. Tally, Jr., "For a Ruthless Critique of All That Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism" (Zero Books, 2022)
14 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Robert T. Tally, Jr.'s book For a Ruthless Critique of All That Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (Zero Books, 2022) takes as its p...
Simon Mills, "A Commerce of Knowledge: Trade, Religion, and Scholarship Between England and the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1760" (Oxford UP, 2020)
13 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Simon Mills' book A Commerce of Knowledge: Trade, Religion, and Scholarship Between England and the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1760 (Oxford UP, 2020) tell...
Shana Rosenblatt Mauer, "Mordecai Richler's Imperfect Search for Moral Values" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
12 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From his debut as a novelist, Mordecai Richler challenged, provoked, enraged, entertained, and surprised readers. Criticizing him for his portrayals o...
Ashley Robertson Preston, "Mary Mcleod Bethune the Pan-Africanist" (UP of Florida, 2023)
12 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This book examines the Pan-Africanism of Mary McLeod Bethune through her work, which internationalized the scope of Black women's organizations to cre...
Michael Ruse, "Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us about Evolution" (Oxford UP, 2017)
11 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Darwinian Revolution--the change in thinking sparked by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms including human...
Jon Stewart, "A History of Nihilism in the Nineteenth Century: Confrontations with Nothingness" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nihilism - the belief that life is meaningless - is frequently associated with twentieth-century movements such as existentialism, postmodernism and D...
Stanley E. Porter and Alan E. Kurschner eds., "The Future Restoration of Israel: A Response to Supersessionism" (Pickwick, 2023)
08 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Future Restoration of Israel: A Response to Supersessionism (Pickwick, 2023)., a wide range of scholars write on the question of the promis...
Yoni Furas, "Educating Palestine: Teaching and Learning History Under the Mandate" (Oxford UP, 2020)
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Through the story of education and the teaching of history in Mandate Palestine, Yoni Furas reframes our understanding of the Palestinian and Zionist ...
Mike Rothschild, "Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories" (Melville House, 2023)
06 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories (Melville House, 2023), Mike Rothschild delves into the history of the ...
Daniel G Hummel, "The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation" (William B. Eerdmans, 2023)
05 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation (William B. Eerdmans, 2023), Daniel G. Humm...
Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey, "Cross-Border Cosmopolitans: The Making of a Pan-African North America" (UNC Press, 2023)
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Twentieth-century African American history cannot be told without accounting for the significant influence of Pan-African thought, just as the story o...
What Was Contemporary Art?
03 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Contemporary art in the early twenty-first century is often discussed as if the very idea of art that is contemporary is new. Yet all works of art wer...
Ruth Yun-Ju Chen, "Good Formulas: Empirical Evidence in Mid-Imperial Chinese Medical Texts" (U Washington Press, 2023)
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ruth Yun-Ju Chen is a historian of mid-imperial China (600–1400). Her research interests lie in the histories of medicine, publishing, and material ...
D. J. Taylor, "Orwell: The New Life" (Pegasus Books, 2023)
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A fascinating exploration of George Orwell--and his body of work--by an award-winning Orwellian biographer and scholar, presenting the author anew to ...
Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy, "Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2021)
30 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Anchored in the principles of free-market economics, neoliberalism emerged in the 1990s as the world's most dominant economic paradigm. It has been as...
Zhihua Yao, "Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy: On Knowing What There is Not" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
30 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Can we know what there is not? Zhihua Yao's Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy: On Knowing What There is Not (Bloomsbury, 2020) examines t...
Adom Getachew and Jennifer Pitts eds. "W. E. B. Du Bois: International Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
30 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
W. E. B. Du Bois was one of the most significant American political thinkers of the twentieth century. This volume collects 24 of his essays and speec...
Jonathan R. Topham, "Reading the Book of Nature: How Eight Best Sellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian Age" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
29 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Charles Darwin returned to Britain from the Beagle voyage in 1836, the most talked-about scientific books of the day were the Bridgewater Treatis...
Marzia Milazzo, "Colorblind Tools: Global Technologies of Racial Power" (Northwestern UP, 2022)
29 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Colorblind Tools: Global Technologies of Racial Power (Northwestern UP, 2022), Marzia Milazzo offers a transnational account of anti-Blackness an...
Archaeology and Nomadism in the Russian Empire: An interview with Ismael Biyashev
29 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the second half of the 19th century, both professional and amateur archaeologists, surveyors, and explorers of the “periphery” of the Russian ...
The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke
28 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2014, David Bromwich spoke at the Institute about his forthcoming book, The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke: From the Sublime and Beautifu...
Richard N. Langlois, "The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise" (Princeton UP, 2023)
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The twentieth century was the managerial century in the United States. An organizational transformation, from entrepreneurial to managerial capitalism...
Melissa Shew and Kimberly Garchar, "Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought" (Oxford UP, 2020)
25 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Shew and Kimberly Garchar's book Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought (Oxford UP, 2020) empowers its readers by explor...
Ismay Milford, "African Activists in a Decolonising World: The Making of an Anticolonial Culture, 1952-1966" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
25 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As wars of liberation in Africa and Asia shook the post-war world, a cohort of activists from East and Central Africa, specifically the region encompa...
50 Years after Martin Jay's "The Dialectical Imagination"
24 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After 50 years of the publication of The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950, ...
Yamin Levy, "The Mysticism of Andalusia: Exploring HaRambam's Mystical Tradition" (MHC Press, 2023)
23 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yamin Levy's The Mysticism of Andalusia: Exploring HaRambam's Mystical Tradition (MHC Press, 2023) is a groundbreaking book that delves into the mys...
Toril Moi, "Revolution of the Ordinary: Literary Studies After Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell" (U Chicago Press, 2017)
22 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s guest is Toril Moi, whose book Revolution of the Ordinary: Literary Studies After Wittgenstein, Austin and Cavell (University of Chicago P...
"Companionable Thinking: Spenser With..." Spencer Studies, Volume 37 (2023)
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Volume 37 of Spenser Studies is a special issue on the theme of “Companionable Thinking: Spenser With.” As guest editors of this collection of e...
Paul Hanebrink, "In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, 1890–1944" (Cornell UP, 2018)
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this important historical account of the role that religion played in defining the political life of a modern national society, Paul A. Hanebrink s...