New Books in Intellectual History
Episodes
Asheesh Kapur Siddique, "The Archive of Empire: Knowledge, Conquest, and the Making of the Early Modern British World" (Yale UP, 2024)
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the span of two hundred years, Great Britain established, governed, lost, and reconstructed an empire that embraced three continents and two ocea...
Peter Wien, "Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East" (Routledge, 2017)
19 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Arab nationalism has been one of the dominant ideologies in the Middle East and North Africa since the early twentieth century. However, a clear defin...
Kathryn Taylor, "Ordering Customs: Ethnographic Thought in Early Modern Venice" (U Delaware Press, 2023)
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ordering Customs: Ethnographic Thought in Early Modern Venice (University of Delaware Press, 2023) explores how Renaissance Venetians sought to make ...
Melinda Cooper, "Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance" (Zone Books, 2024)
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the close of the 1970s, government treasuries and central banks took a vow of perpetual self-restraint. To this day, fiscal authorities fret over s...
Ruby Lowe on John Milton’s Definition of Free Speech
17 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
British poet John Milton published one of the earliest and still tremendously important defenses of free speech for our modern world. From his famous ...
Marcel Elias, "English Literature and the Crusades: Anxieties of Holy War, 1291-1453" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
16 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The period from the Mamlūk reconquest of Acre (1291) to the Ottoman siege of Constantinople (1453) witnessed the production of a substantial corpus o...
Jacqueline M. Burek, "Literary Variety and the Writing of History in Britain's Long Twelfth Century" (York Medieval Press, 2023)
16 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Histories of Britain composed during the "twelfth-century renaissance" display a remarkable amount of literary variety (Latin varietas). Furthermore,...
Trevor Wilson, "Alexandre Kojève and the Specters of Russian Philosophy" (Northwestern UP, 2024)
15 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Trevor Wilson about his new book, Alexandre Kojève and the Specters of Russian Philosophy (Northwestern Unive...
Marie-France Fortin, "The King Can Do No Wrong: Constitutional Fundamentals, Common Law History, and Crown Liability" (Oxford UP, 2024)
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
'The king can do no wrong' remains one of the most fundamental yet misunderstood tenets of the common law tradition. Confusion over the phrase's histo...
Peter Burke, "Ignorance: A Global History" (Yale UP, 2024)
14 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout history, every age has thought of itself as more knowledgeable than the last. Renaissance humanists viewed the Middle Ages as an era of dar...
Randall Fuller, "Bright Circle: Five Remarkable Women in the Age of Transcendentalism" (Oxford UP, 2024)
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In November 1839, a group of young women in Boston formed a conversation society "to answer the great questions" of special importance to women: "What...
Patricia Owens, "Erased: A History of International Thought Without Men" (Princeton UP, 2025)
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The academic field of international relations presents its own history as largely a project of elite white men. And yet women played a prominent role ...
Ada Palmer, "Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ada Palmer joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Inventing the Renaissance (U Chicago Press, 2025) and the ways history is written and used....
Frank Gerits, "The Ideological Scramble for Africa: How the Pursuit of Anticolonial Modernity Shaped a Postcolonial Order, 1945-1966" (Cornell UP, 2023)
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In The Ideological Scramble for Africa, Frank Gerits examines how African leaders in the 1950s and 1960s crafted an anticolonial modernization projec...
Iain D. Thomson, "Rethinking Death in and after Heidegger" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We are coming up on the centenary of Heidegger’s Being and Time, a text that radically reshaped the intellectual landscape. One of its most central...
William Sweet, "Before and After Democracy: Philosophy, Religion, and Politics" (Peeters, 2023)
12 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Recognized for his work on philosophy, religion and politics, Dr. Sweet talks at length about Before and After Democracy: Philosophy, Religion, and P...
Edward Simon, "The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues: A Visual History" (Cernunnos, 2024)
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A companion piece to Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology and Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology, Seven Sins and Seven Virtues (Abram...
Bruce Robbins, "Atrocity: A Literary History" (Stanford UP, 2025)
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mass violence did not always have a name. Like conquest, atrocity was not always seen as violating a moral norm or inviting indignation. Could the con...
Josef Stern, "Maimonides' "Guide of the Perplexed" in Translation: A History from the Thirteenth Century to the Twentieth" (U Chicago Press, 2019)
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There is a common misconception that the Jewish religion does not believe in an afterlife. While it’s true that Judaism is focused on actions, inten...
Peter J. Bowler, "Evolution for the People: Shaping Popular Ideas from Darwin to the Present" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From Darwin's The Origin of Species to the twenty-first century, Peter Bowler reinterprets the long Darwinian Revolution by refocussing our attention ...
Our History with AI is (much) Longer than You Think (with Kevin LaGrandeur)
08 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the UConn Popcast, and when did we really start dreaming about the promise, and the danger, of artificial intelligence? When ChatGPT was relea...
Richard Rorty, "What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics" (Princeton UP, 2023)
08 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Chris Voparil about What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (Princeton UP, 2023), a book of Richard Rorty's writings he co-edit...
Zahi Zalloua, "The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment (Bloomsbury 2024) argues for ressentiment's generative negativity, prompting a shift fro...
Davide Panagia, "Sentimental Empiricism: Politics, Philosophy, and Criticism in Postwar France" (Fordham UP, 2024)
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Political Theorist Davide Panagia (UCLA) has two new books out focusing on the broader themes and ideas of film, aesthetics, and political theory. Se...
We Are Free to Change the World: A Conversation on Hannah Arendt with Lyndsay Stonebridge
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Madison’s Notes, we sit down with Lindsay Stonebridge, author of We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in ...
Vittorio Bufacchi, "Why Cicero Matters" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why Cicero Matters (Bloomsbury, 2023) shows us how the Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius, better known as Cicero, can help realize a ne...
Ayesha Jalal, "Muslim Enlightened Thought in South Asia" (Routledge, 2025)
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Ayesha Jalal’s latest work Muslim Enlightened Thought in South Asia (Routledge, 2024) readers are introduced to the “roshan khayali” (enlig...
Cyrus Ali Zargar, "The Ethics of Karbala: Myths, Modernity, and Virtues of Nobility" (Routledge, 2024)
03 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Ethics of Karbala: Myths, Modernity, and Virtues of Nobility (Routledge, 2024) investigates the relationship between sacred narratives and the de...
Sara Burdorff, "Maternity, Monstrosity, and Heroic (Im)mortality from Homer to Shakespeare" (Amsterdam UP, 2025)
02 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sara Burdorff joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Maternity, Monstrosity and Heroic (Im)mortality from Homer to Shakespeare (Amsterdam Univ...
Moritz Mihatsch and Michael Mulligan, "Shifting Sovereignties: A Global History of a Concept in Practice" (de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025)
02 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shifting Sovereignties: A Global History of a Concept in Practice (de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025) explores practical manifestations of sovereignty fro...
Amanda Lagji, "Postcolonial Fiction and Colonial Time: Waiting for Now" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)
01 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Postcolonial Fiction and Colonial Time: Waiting for Now (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) by Dr. Amanda Lagji reveals the fundamental, constitutive ...
Ramachandra Guha, "Speaking with Nature: The Origins of Indian Environmentalism" (Yale UP, 2024)
01 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From one of the world’s leading historians comes the first substantial study of environmentalism set in any country outside the Euro-American world....
Anand Venkatkrishnan, "Love in the Time of Scholarship: The Bhagavata Purana in Indian Intellectual History" (Oxford UP, 2024)
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Where is the "life" in scholarly life? Is it possible to find in academic writing, so often abstracted from the everyday? How might religion bridge th...
Tolkien, Philosopher of War: A Conversation with Graham McAleer
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we explore the profound philosophical and theological dimensions of J.R.R. Tolkien's work, particularly his views on war. In his book...
Peter Brian Barry, "George Orwell: The Ethics of Equality" (Oxford UP, 2023)
29 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
George Orwell is sometimes read as disinterested in (if not outright hostile) to philosophy. Yet a fair reading of Orwell's work reveals an author who...
Vera Keller, "Curating the Enlightenment: Johann Daniel Major and the Experimental Century" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
27 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did the research universities of the Enlightenment come into being? And what debt do they owe to scholars of the previous era? Focusing on the car...
Michael Sonenscher, "After Kant: The Romans, the Germans, and the Moderns in the History of Political Thought" (Princeton UP, 2023)
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this wide-ranging work, Michael Sonenscher traces the origins of modern political thought and ideologies to a question, raised by Immanuel Kant, ab...
Udo Hock, "The Mysterious Messages of the Other: On the Work of Jean Laplanches" (Psychosozial-Verlag, 2024)
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Udo Hock's Die rätselhaften Botschaften des Anderen. Zum Werk Jean Laplanches (The enigmatic messages of the other. On the work of Jean Laplanche)...
Alan Bollard, "Economists in the Cold War: How a Handful of Economists Fought the Battle of Ideas" (Oxford UP, 2023)
25 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Economists in the Cold War: How a Handful of Economists Fought the Battle of Ideas (Oxford UP, 2023) is an account of the economic drivers and outco...
Richard Bourke, "Hegel’s World Revolutions" (Princeton UP, 2023)
25 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
G.W.F. Hegel was widely seen as the greatest philosopher of his age. Ever since, his work has shaped debates about issues as varied as religion, aesth...
Hélène Tessier, "Laplanche's Vocabulary" (PUF, 2024)
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Vocabulaire de Laplanche (PUF, 2024), edited by the renowned scholar and analyst, Hélène Tessier, several of the key readers of Jean Laplanche'...
Pierre Sokolsky, "The Clock in the Sun: How We Came to Understand Our Nearest Star" (Columbia UP, 2024)
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the surface of the Sun, spots appear and fade in a predictable cycle, like a great clock in the sky. In medieval Russia, China, and Korea, monks an...
Rafael Rachel Neis, "When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species" (U California Press, 2023)
20 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species (U California Press, 2023) investigates rabbinic treatises relating to an...
Melissa B. Reynolds, "Reading Practice: The Pursuit of Natural Knowledge from Manuscript to Print" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What do you do when you feel an itchy throat coming on? You probably head online, first to search for your symptoms and then to evaluate the informat...
August H. Nimtz and Kyle A. Edwards, "The Communist and the Revolutionary Liberal in the Second American Revolution" (Brill, 2024)
17 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The last decade has seen a resurgence of interest and urgency to questions of racial oppression and emancipation. We’ve now had about a decade of ac...
Mariam Motamedi Fraser, "Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences" (Manchester UP, 2024)
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Do dogs belong with humans? Scientific accounts of dogs' 'species story,' in which contemporary dog-human relations are naturalised with reference to ...
Arthur Bradley, "Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theater, Thaumaturgy" (Columbia UP, 2024)
15 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Staging Sovereignty: Theory, Theater, Thaumaturgy (Columbia University Press, 2024) explores the relationship between theater and sovereignty in mode...
Bernard J. Dobski, "Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc: Political Wisdom, Divine Justice, and the Origins of Modernity" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024)
13 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Political Theorist B.J. (Bernard J.) Dobski has a new book focusing on Mark Twain’s final published novel, Personal Reflections of Joan of Arc. As ...
Nitzan Lebovic, "Homo Temporalis: German Jewish Thinkers on Time" (Cornell UP, 2025)
13 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Homo Temporalis: German Jewish Thinkers on Time (Cornell UP, 2025) tells the story of a group of twentieth-century Jewish intellectuals who grappled ...
Nancy Reddy, "The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)
13 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Timely and thought-provoking, Nancy Reddy's The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom unpacks and debunks the bad id...
Chaya T. Halberstam, "Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice" (Oxford UP, 2024)
11 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What can early Jewish courtroom narratives tell us about the capacity and limits of human justice? By exploring how judges and the act of judging are ...
Matthew McManus, "The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism" (Routledge, 2024)
11 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism (Routledge, 2024), McManus presents a comprehensive guide to the liberal socialist tradition, stretchi...
Victoria Harms, "The Making of Dissidents: Hungary’s Democratic Opposition and its Western Friends, 1973-1998" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2024)
10 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Before Hungary’s transition from communism to democracy, local dissidents and like-minded intellectuals, activists, and academics from the West infl...
Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti, "Politicizing Political Liberalism: On the Containment of Illiberal and Antidemocratic Views" (Oxford UP, 2024)
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How should broadly liberal democratic societies stop illiberal and antidemocratic views from gaining influence while honouring liberal democratic valu...
Christopher Phelps and Robin Vandome, "Marxism and America: New Appraisals" (Manchester UP, 2021)
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If the United States has been so hostile to Marxism, what accounts for Marxism's recurrent attractiveness to certain Americans? Marxism and America: ...
Benjamin Meiches, "The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide" (U Minnesota Press, 2019)
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide (University of Minnesota Press, 2019),Benjamin Meiches takes a novel approach to the study of...
Joel Whitebook, "Freud: An Intellectual Biography" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We interview Dr. Joel Whitebook, philosopher and psychoanalyst about his book Freud: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge UP, 2017). Dr. Whitebook w...
Catherine Hezser, "Rabbinic Scholarship in the Context of Late Antique Scholasticism: The Development of the Talmud Yerushalmi" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
06 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Based on an understanding of scholasticism as a cross-cultural phenomenon, undertaken by rabbinic, Graeco-Roman, and Christian scholars in late antiqu...
Theresa Keeley, "Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America" (Cornell UP, 2020)
06 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America (Cornell UP, 2020), Theresa Keeley analyzes ...
Matthew C. Godfrey, ed., "The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 7" (Church Historians Press, 2018)
05 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Smith, the nineteenth-century American prophet who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, can, at times, be considered an elu...
Amy Aronson, "Chrystal Eastman: A Revolutionary Life" (Oxford UP, 2019)
05 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Amy Aronson is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Fordham University and former editor at Working Woman and Ms. magazines. Her ...
Todd McGowan, "Universality and Identity Politics" (Columbia UP, 2020)
04 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The great political ideas and movements of the modern world were founded on a promise of universal emancipation. But in recent decades, much of the Le...
The Hyphen Unites: Avi Shlaim on Arab-Jewish Life
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Avi Shlaim is a celebrated "New Historian” whose earlier work established him as an influential historian of Middle Eastern politics and especially...
Stuart Elden, "The Early Foucault" (Polity Press, 2021)
03 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What were the key ideas and influences on Michel Foucault’s early career? In The Early Foucault (Polity Press, 2021), Stuart Elden, Professor of...
I. Augustus Durham, "Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius" (Duke UP, 2023)
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius (Duke UP, 2023), I. Augustus Durham examines melancholy and genius in black culture, letters, and me...
Camille Robcis, "Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews scholar and historian Camille Robcis. In her most recent book, Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy, and Radical...
Eric Storm, "Nationalism: A World History" (Princeton UP, 2024)
01 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The current rise of nationalism across the globe is a reminder that we are not, after all, living in a borderless world of virtual connectivity. In N...
Kent Michael Shaw, "Missiology Reimagined: The Missions Theology of the Nineteenth-Century African American Missionary" (Pickwick, 2024)
01 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Missiology Reimagined: The Missions Theology of the Nineteenth-Century African American Missionary (Pickwick, 2024), Kent Michael Shaw I examines...
Frederick Crews, "Freud: The Making of an Illusion" (Picador, 2018)
31 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The figure of Sigmund Freud has captivated the Western imagination like few others. One hundred and twenty-five years after the publication of Studies...
Nicholas R. Jones, "Cervantine Blackness" (Penn State UP, 2024)
30 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There is no shortage of Black characters in Miguel de Cervantes’s works, yet there has been a profound silence about the Spanish author’s compelli...
Harvey J. Kaye, "The British Marxist Historians" (Zero Book, 2022)
29 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The British Marxist Historians, originally published in 1995, remains the first and most complete study of the founders of one of the most influentia...
Emily Herring, "Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People" (Basic Books, 2024)
29 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People (Basic Books, 2024) is the first English-language biography of Henri B...
Robert Darnton, "Pirating and Publishing: The Book Trade in the Age of Enlightenment" (Oxford UP, 2021)
29 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the late-18th century, a group of publishers in what historian Robert Darnton calls the "Fertile Crescent" — countries located along the French b...
Kit Kowol, "Blue Jerusalem: British Conservatism, Winston Churchill, and the Second World War" (Oxford UP, 2024)
28 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We think we know all there is to know about Britain's Second World War. We don't. This radical re-interpretation of British history and British Conser...
Peter Salmon, "An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida" (Verso, 2020)
28 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Who is Jacques Derrida? For some, he is the originator of a relativist philosophy responsible for the contemporary crisis of truth. For the far right,...
AI: How We Got Here in Three Powerful Tales
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode is based upon three readings: Alan Turing’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence aka The Turing Test paper. Turing starts his paper by...
Larry S. Temkin, "Being Good in a World of Need" (Oxford UP, 2022)
25 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a world filled with both enormous wealth and pockets of great devastation, how should the well-off respond to the world's needy? This is the urgent...
Jess A. Goldberg, "Abolition Time: Grammars of Law, Poetics of Justice" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How can Black Atlantic literature challenge conventions and redefine literary scholarship? Abolition Time: Grammars of Law, Poetics of Justice (U Min...
Hartley Lachter, "Kabbalah and Catastrophe: Historical Memory in Premodern Jewish Mysticism" (Stanford UP, 2024)
21 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
While premodern kabbalistic texts were not chronicles of historical events, they provided elaborate models for understanding the secret divine plan gu...
Kevin D. Pham, "The Architects of Dignity: Vietnamese Visions of Decolonization" (Oxford UP, 2024)
21 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In The Architects of Dignity: Vietnamese Visions of Decolonization (Oxford UP, 2024), Kevin D. Pham introduces Vietnamese political thought to deba...
Ariel Evan Mayse, "Laws of the Spirit: Ritual, Mysticism, and the Commandments in Early Hasidism" (Stanford UP, 2024)
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The compelling vision of religious life and practice found in Hasidic sources has made it the most enduring and successful Jewish movement of spiritua...
Stephen Jackson, "The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools" (Routledge, 2022)
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools (Routledge, 2022) traces the historical development of the World History course as it has been t...
Kenny Cupers, "The Earth That Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design" (U Texas Press, 2024)
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Earth That Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Kenny Cupers traces the rise of plan...
Zygmunt Bauman, "Theory and Society" (Polity, 2024)
16 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The publication of Theory and Society in 2024 bought to conclusion a three volume collection of The Selected Writings of Zygmunt Bauman. Preceded by...
Margaret Ziolkowski, "Mega-Dams in World Literature: Literary Responses to Twentieth-Century Dam Building" (U of Wyoming Press, 2024)
15 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Margaret Ziolkowski’s Mega-Dams in World Literature: Literary Responses to Twentieth-Century Dam Building (University of Wyoming Press, 2022) rev...
Renée Bergland, "Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science" (Princeton UP, 2024)
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin were born at a time when the science of studying the natural world was known as natural philosophy, a pastime for p...
David J. Collins, SJ, "Disenchanting Albert the Great: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Magician" (Penn State UP, 2024)
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David J Collins, SJ joins Jana Byars to talk about Disenchanting Albert the Great: the Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Magician (Penn State Press, ...
Samuel Hodgkin, "Persianate Verse and the Poetics of Eastern Internationalism" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At the height of literary nationalisms in the twentieth century, leftist internationalists from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and the Soviet East ...
Marissa Greenberg and Rachel Trubowitz, "Milton's Moving Bodies" (Northwestern UP, 2024)
10 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, I am excited to talk to Marissa Greenberg and Rachel Trubowitz about the new collection of essays they have edited. Milton’s Moving Bodies ...
Caroline Winterer, "How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution in America" (Princeton UP, 2024)
10 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In How the New World Became Old: The Deep Time Revolution in America (Princeton UP, 2024), Caroline Winterer, William Robertson Coe Professor of His...
Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, "Did It Happen Here?: Perspectives on Fascism and America" (W. W. Norton, 2024)
08 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today I’m speaking with Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins about the new, edited volume, Did It Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America (W.W. Norto...
Bug
07 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of High Theory, Marcello Vitali-Rosati tells us about bugs! A bug can be a small insect, an illness, a spy device, or a digital malfun...
Nicola Kristin Karcher and Markus Lundström, "Nordic Fascism: Fragments of an Entangled History" (Routledge, 2022)
07 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nordic Fascism: Fragments of an Entangled History (Routledge, 2022) is the first comprehensive history in English of fascism in the Nordic countrie...
Larry Alan Busk, "The Right-Wing Mirror of Critical Theory: Studies of Schmitt, Oakeshott, Hayek, Strauss, and Rand" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What really separates emancipatory thinking from its opposite? The prevailing Left defines itself against neoliberalism, conservative traditionalism, ...
George Steinmetz, "The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire" (Princeton UP, 2024)
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is only in recent years that sociologists and historians of the social sciences have given empire the attention it deserves in histories of the dis...
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, "Women and the Reformations: A Global History" (Yale UP, 2024)
06 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Reformations, both Protestant and Catholic, have long been told as stories of men. But women were central to the transformations that took place i...
Simin Fadaee, "Global Marxism: Decolonisation and Revolutionary Politics" (Manchester UP, 2024)
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For much of the twentieth century, the ideas of Karl Marx provided the backbone for social justice around the world. But today the legacy of Marxism i...
Geneviève Rousselière, "Sharing Freedom: Republicanism and Exclusion in Revolutionary France" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The French have long self-identified as champions of universal emancipation, yet the republicanism they adopted has often been faulted for being exclu...
Theara Thun, "Epistemology of the Past: Texts, History, and Intellectuals of Cambodia, 1855–1970" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)
02 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Cambodian history most people have heard of the great Khmer empire of Angkor, and the radical communist regime of the Khmer Rouge. But who has hear...
Ibn al-Muqaffaʿs "Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice"
02 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, translated by Michael Fishbein and James E. Montgomery, with a foreword by Marina...