New Books in Sociology
Episodes
Joe P. L. Davidson, "Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times" (MIT Press, 2026)
17 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There is no alternative. The End of History. Climate Apocalypse. It seems that our contemporary moment is defined by the idea that things can only g...
David Leupold, "The Death and Life of Southern Soviet Cities: Urban Futures and Their Afterlives" (Routledge, 2026)
15 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean, three decades after the demise of the USSR, to inhabit cities built for a future that has never arrived? In pursuit of the qu...
Aditya Deshbandhu, "The 21st Century in 100 Games" (Routledge, 2024)
09 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The 21st Century in 100 Games (Routledge India, 2024) is an interactive public history of the contemporary world. It creates a ludological retelling...
Dating Apps, Queer Stigma, and Digital Intimacy in Kazakhstan
08 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How queer men in Kazakhstan navigate dating apps in a context of stigma, surveillance, and limited legal protections. It shows how platforms like Grin...
Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)
08 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the New Books Network, I spoke with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their new edited volume, From the Margins: Migrant...
Eileen Otis, "Walmart: Made in China" (Stanford UP, 2026)
06 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Walmart: Made in China (Stanford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Eileen Otis tells the story of Walmart's expansion in China, making the case that it...
Radio ReOrient S14:10: Muslims in the Neoliberal Era, with William Barylo, hosted by Salman Sayyid and Amina Easat-Daas
05 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode hosts Salman Sayyid and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by William Barylo to discuss his most recent book ‘Muslims in the Neoliberal Er...
Alex Law, "The Roots of Sociology: Scottish Enlightenment and the Civilising Process" (Routledge, 2026)
02 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment have often been claimed for sociology. But, what does it mean to say these thinkers were sociologists, or...
Helen Veit, "Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History" (St Martin's Press, 2026)
01 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Are children naturally picky? It sure seems that way. Yet, amazingly, pickiness used to be almost nonexistent. Well into the 20th century, Americans s...
Chloe Chapin, "Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men" (Oxford UP, 2026)
31 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How did black suits become so ubiquitous? Why has men's business clothing been so plain for the last 250 years? How did a style adopted by the Foundin...
Julie J. Park, "Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)
31 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era (Harvard Education Press, 2026), Julie J. Park offers deft analysis of the ch...
Christos Lynteris, "How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
30 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, rats are nearly synonymous with plague, but this association is surprisingly recent. For centuries, plague devastated populations without be...
Ashley Rose Young, "Nourishing Networks: The Public Culture of Food in New Orleans" (Oxford UP, 2025)
29 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For much of the Crescent City's history, days began with the cries of roaming street vendors and the percussive thwack of butchers' meat cleavers echo...
Janet Hinson Shope and Richard Pringle, "Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
27 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors (Rutgers University Press, 2026) examines how personal knowledge about student sexual ...
Utku Balaban, "Industrial Islamism: How Authoritarian Movements Mobilize Workers" (U California Press, 2025)
20 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What explains the rise of religious populism in contemporary Turkish politics and society? How does industrialization help to explain change and con...
George Baylon Radics, "Emotional Filipinos: The American Myth of the 'Lazy Native' and Islamic Separatism in the Philippines" (U Georgia Press, 2026)
20 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In the first half of the twentieth century, the United States attempted to build a colony in the Philippines in its own image—one fraught with raci...
Mengqi Wang, "Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China's Housing Market" (Cornell UP, 2026)
19 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China's Housing Market (Cornell UP, 2026) is a study of the power that shapes the forms of the homes Chinese ci...
Evan N. Dawley, "Taiwan: A People′s History" (Reaktion Books, 2026)
18 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
While most English-language histories of Taiwan focus on its geopolitical role, Taiwan: A People’s History (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Evan N. Dawley ...
Robert Rouphail, "Cyclonic Lives in an Indian Ocean World: Environment, Disaster, and Identity in Modern Mauritius" (Ohio UP, 2026)
18 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In a world marked by increasingly destructive ecological and meteorological upheavals, Cyclonic Lives in an Indian Ocean World: Environment, Disaster...
Eloise Moss, "The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1918" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
17 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Hotels represent nations, hosting visiting monarchs, politicians, and diplomats. Hotels underpin global networks of travel and communication, on which...
Radio ReOrient S14:7: Surveilling Muslimness in Denmark, with Amani Hassani, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas
15 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode hosts Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by Amani Hassani, to discuss her most recent work around Islamophobia and Musli...
Amy D. McDowell, "Whispers in the Pews: Evangelical Uniformity in a Divided America" (NYU Press, 2026)
13 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Whispers in the Pews: Evangelical Uniformity in a Divided America (NYU Press, 2026) reveals how mundane social interactions in an evangelical church...
Rina Bliss, "What's Real About Race: Untangling Science, Genetics, and Society" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
13 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Rina Bliss teaches in the sociology department at Rutgers University, and has written on the social significance of genetic studies on intel...
Chiara Libiseller, "Reconceptualizing War: The Rise and Fall of Fashionable Concepts in Strategic Studies" (Oxford UP, 2026)
12 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The field of Strategic Studies, which studies the use and threat of force for political purposes, has seen the repeated rise of concepts to dominate d...
Zeina Al-Azmeh, "Syrian Intellectuals in Exile: The Dilemmas of Revolution and the Cost of Leaving" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
09 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Zeina Al-Azmeh’s Syrian Intellectuals in Exile: The Dilemmas of Revolution and the Cost of Leaving (Cambridge UP, 2026) captures a group of intell...
Steffen Mau et al., "The Trigger Points: Inequality and Political Polarization in Contemporary Society" (Policy Press, 2026)
08 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s political debates are fiercely polarized. But looking beyond the headlines, The Trigger Points: Inequality and Political Polarization in Co...
Fighting for a Foothold: How Government and Markets Undermine Black Middle-Class Suburbia
07 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Prince George’s County, Maryland, is a suburban jurisdiction in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and is home to the highest concentration of ...
Russell McCutcheon, "Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia, second edition" (Oxford UP, 2026)
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes th...
Siniša Malešević, "Nationalism as a Way of Life: The Rise and Transformation of Modern Subjectivities" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
While nationalism is a term that is often associated with instability, violence, extremism, terrorism, wars and even genocide, in fact most forms of n...
William I. Robinson, "Epochal Crisis: The Exhaustion of Global Capitalism" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
30 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Epochal Crisis: The Exhaustion of Global Capitalism (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the most recent book from Professor William Robinson, Distinguished Pr...
Vindhya Buthpitiya, "A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka" (U Washington Press, 2026)
29 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka (U Washington Press, 2026) by Dr. Vindhya Buthpitiya is a groundbreaking ...
Francisco Martínez, "The Future of Hiding: Secrecy, Infrastructure, and Ecological Memory in Estonia's Siberia" (Cornell UP, 2025)
28 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How can lives and things that are rendered invisible be crucial to identity, politics, and the future? Drawing on experimental ethnographic research i...
Heather Shay, "Identity Building Among Role-Playing Gamers: Slaying Goblins in the Real World" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
27 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Identity Building Among Role-Playing Gamers: Slaying Goblins in the Real World (Bloomsbury 2025), Heather Shay draws from 19 months of particip...
Ida Susser, "The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy: Taking to the Streets of Paris in the 21st Century" (Routledge, 2026)
25 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Written under the shadow of growing authoritarianism in the United States and Europe, this book is an effort to understand resistance movements of the...
Mujun Zhou, "The Death and Life of Chinese Civil Society" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
24 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In a society undergoing rapid transformation, how do people engage in debates around a foreign concept and in doing so, pursue contested political fut...
Berardino Palumbo, "Where Saints Show Respect: Mafia, Modernity, and Rituals of Power" (Berghahn Books, 2026)
22 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Where Saints Show Respect: Mafia, Modernity, and Rituals of Power is an anthropological exploration of how authority is produced not only through vio...
Abigail Ocobock, "Marriage Material: How an Enduring Institution Is Changing Same-Sex Relationships" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
It is no secret that marriage rates in the United States are at an all-time low. Despite this significant decline, the institution of marriage endures...
Gwyneth Lonergan, "Borders, Citizenship, and Pregnancy: Migrant Women’s Experiences of Pregnancy and Maternity Care in the UK" (Bristol UP, 2025)
16 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Using the analytical framework of reproductive justice, Borders, Citizenship, and Pregnancy: Migrant Women’s Experiences of Pregnancy and Maternity...
Lia Kent, "The Unruly Dead: Spirits, Memory, and State Formation in Timor-Leste" (U Wisconsin Press, 2024)
16 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
“What might it mean to take the dead seriously as political actors?” asks Lia Kent in this exciting new contribution to critical human rights scho...
Larry M. Bartels and Katherine J. Cramer, "The Politics of Social Change: From the Sixties to the Present Through the Eyes of a Generation" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
15 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Few time periods have been as defined by waves of monumental social change as the United States during the 1960s. Even today, almost sixty years later...
Yingyi Ma, "Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education" (Columbia UP, 2020)
15 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education (Columbia UP, 2020), sociologist Yingyi Ma ...
Beans Velocci, "Sex Isn't Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary" (Duke UP, 2026)
11 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Sex Isn’t Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary (Duke UP, 2026), Beans Velocci traces the history of current high stakes attempts ...
Cedric de Leon, "Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity" (U California Press, 2025)
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Our guest today is Cedric de Leon, author of Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity (U California Press, ...
Melissa Butcher, "The Trouble with Freedom: Love, Hate and America’s Future" (Manchester UP, 2026)
07 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As Melissa Butcher puts it in her book The Trouble with Freedom: Love, Hate and America’s Future (Manchester UP, 2026) when asked to rank the imp...
Ho-fung Hung, "The China Question: Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
06 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
"The contempt and naive idealization of China are two sides of the same coin. The latter cannot be an antidote to the former." So argues Ho-Fung Hung...
Alex Diamond, "Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
06 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Colombian village of Briceño might, at first glimpse, look like many communities in the rural Global South. Many of the people living there rely ...
Kristina Jonutytė, "Between the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia" (Cornell UP, 2026)
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Between the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia (Cornell UP, 2026) by Dr. Kristina Jonut...
Caste and Tech with Murali Shanmugavelan and Sareeta Amrute
30 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features a conversation with Murali Shanmugavelan and Sareeta Amrute about how caste structures IT workspaces and communication infrastru...
Derek Krueger "Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and the Love of God in Medieval Constantinople" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
30 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Derek Krueger Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and Love of God in Medieval Constantinople (Cambridge UP, 2026) The Byzantine Abbot Syme...
Kristin Ciupa, "The Political Economy of Oil in Venezuela: Class Conflict, the State, and the World Market" (Brill, 2026)
29 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Political Economy of Oil in Venezuela: Class Conflict, the State, and the World Market (Brill, 2026) is the latest book from Dr. Kristin Ciup...
Zheng Liu, "Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China" (Columbia UP, 2026)
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In recent decades, self-proclaimed “independent bookstores” have arisen across China. In the West, such retailers represent an alternative to corp...
Thomas Hegghammer and Diego Gambetta eds., "Fight, Flight, Mimic: Identity Mimicry in Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2024)
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Time spent and words spent—what does each signal? Deceptive mimicry—the manipulation of individual or group identity—includes passing off as a ...
The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Most employers in the United States routinely conduct criminal background checks on job applicants, weeding out those with criminal convictions—a...
Sarah Jaffe, "Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone" (Bold Type Books, 2021)
25 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone (Bold Type Books, 2021), Sarah Jaffe argues that...
Ken Chitwood, "Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism Among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam" (U Texas Press, 2025)
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Ken Chitwood's Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam (University of Texas Press, 2025), uses rich ethnog...
Deirdre Flynn and Mary McGill eds., "Irish Digital Cultures: Identity, Contexts, Space" (Routledge, 2025)
22 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Irish Digital Cultures: Identity, Contexts, Space (Routledge, 2025) explores how questions of Ireland and Irishness are represented in online enviro...
Orsi Husz, "Bankminded: Banks As Intimate Agents of Everyday Life in Welfare State Sweden" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2025)
22 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s world, it is almost impossible to go through the day without interacting with a bank—whether through a salary payment, a debit card, a ...
Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Who gets to live a life with dignity? Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stabil...
The Collective Cure: Upstream Solutions for Better Public Health
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A powerful blend of deeply human stories and rigorous research, The Collective Cure: Upstream Solutions for Better Public Health (Beacon ...
Sunmin Kim, "The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth-Century Immigration Debate" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when theories of racial hierarchies interact with reality? How are they contested, refuted and changed in light of that encounter? What r...
Joseph Weiss, "Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada" (UNC Press, 2026)
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Since the early 2000s, the Canadian government has attempted reconciliation with Indigenous Nations through varied efforts: treaty processes, gover...
Upper Caste Liberalism with Ravikant Kisana
16 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features a conversation with Ravikant Kisana, Dean of the School of Liberal Education and Languages at Galgotias University in India, abo...
What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mothers and fathers use their time differently, with women spending roughly twice as many hours on family labor as men. But what about the gendered di...
Biko Koenig, "Worker Centered: Allyship & Action in the Contemporary Labor Movement" (Oxford UP, 2024)
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Worker Centered: Allyship & Action in the Contemporary Labor Movement (Oxford UP, 2024) is a close-to-the-ground, ethnographic narrative o...
Sari Hanafi, "Against Symbolic Liberalism: A Plea for Dialogical Sociology" (Liverpool UP, 2025)
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In an era of deepening polarization, Sari Hanafi examines how social scientists often reproduce the very injustices they seek to challenge, taking ent...
Tamara Kay, "Sesame Street Around the World: Culture, Politics, and Transnational Organizational Partnerships" (Oxford UP, 2025)
07 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Given the sometimes extraordinary politicization of culture, it is surprising that Sesame Street has gained acceptance and legitimacy in more than fif...
Eleanor Gordon et al., "Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939" (Oxford UP, 2025)
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939 (Oxford UP, 2025) by Professor Eleanor Gordon, Professor Katie Barclay, and D...
Michael James Roberts et al., "Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing" (San Diego State UP, 2024)
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024), Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and Dav...
Jennifer Randles, "Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood" (U California Press, 2026)
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us take diapers for granted. Yet diaper insecurity is a common, often hidden consequence of poverty in the US, where nearly half of American f...
Nicole E. Trujillo-Pagán, "Detroit Never Left: Black Space, White Borders, Latino Crossings" (NYU Press, 2025)
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Detroit seemed to experience an explosive rebirth following its bankruptcy, the largest in US municipal history. It was as if the slate had been wiped...
Miguel Sicart, "Playing Software: Homo Ludens in Computational Culture" (MIT Press, 2023)
02 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The play element at the heart of our interactions with computers—and how it drives the best and the worst manifestations of the information age. Whe...
Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)
28 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Elliot Dolan-Evans examines the impact of ...
Alice Wiemers, "Village Work: Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana" (Ohio UP, 2021)
28 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Most development histories focus on large-scale projects and multi-year plans. But how would we understand development differently if we chose a diffe...
The Shtetl: Myth and Reality with Samuel Kassow
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Even those who do not know much Yiddish have probably heard the word “shtetl,” but what does that word mean exactly? Can we just say that it was a...
A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A Light in the Tower argues that excellent education and radical support for mental health struggles can coexist, and provides detailed advice for ho...
Zalman Newfield, "Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism" (Temple UP, 2026)
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphe...
Michelle Jackson, "The Division of Rationalized Labor" (Harvard UP, 2025)
21 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How have jobs changed in the last 150 years? In The Division of Rationalized Labor (Harvard UP, 2025) Michelle Jackson, an Associate Profess...
Jessica Martin, "Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
21 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Is the home still a site for feminist resistance? In Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity Jessica Marti...
The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In an age of growing wealth disparities, politicians on both sides of the aisle are sounding the alarm about the fading American Dream. Yet despite al...
Agustín Santella and Adrián Piva, "Marxism, Social Movements and Collective Action" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Marxists have an obvious interest in understanding social movements. Less obvious, even with the voluminous theoretical archives at hand, is how to pu...
Alexis Lerner, "Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States (University of Toronto Press, 2025) is an empirically grounded ethnographic study of how gr...
Sourit Bhattacharya, "Postcolonialism Now: Literature, Reading, Decolonising" (Orient BlackSwan, 2024)
13 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Postcolonialism Now: Literature, Reading, Decolonising (Orient BlackSwan, 2024) by Sourit Bhattacharya introduces a new method of decolonial read...
Peer Schouten, "Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
08 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Peer Schouten, of the Danish Institute for International Studies, has written a breathtaking book. Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Cen...
Linda Connolly and Tina O’Toole, "Documenting Irish Feminisms: The Second Wave" (Arlen House, 2022)
08 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Linda Connolly is a professor of sociology at Maynooth University, with research focusing on gender, Irish society, family studies, migration, and Iri...
Olivier Esteves, "France, You Love It but Leave It: The Silent Flight of French Muslims" (Polity, 2025)
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Their names are Mohamed, Samira, sometimes Matthieu or Sophie. They were born and bred in France and are highly qualified, but they have decided to go...
Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Rural students are unlikely to pursue degrees from private, selective schools. Why? And what happens to the handful of rural students who do attend el...
Nina Bandelj, "Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting" (Princeton UP, 2026)
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Parents are exhausted. When did raising children become such all-consuming, never-ending, incredibly expensive, and emotionally absorbing effort? In t...
P. C. Saidalavi, "Seeking Allah's Hierarchy: Caste, Labor, and Islam in India" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Why Muslims in South India observe hierarchical intra-communal relationships despite the egalitarianism of their religionIn Seeking Allah’s Hierarc...
David McCrone, "Changing Scotland: Society, Politics and Identity" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Scotland is a nation that has undergone significant changes over the last 50 years or so. This is, of course, true of much of the Western world but, a...
Jason Roberts, "We Stay the Same: Subsistence, Logging, and Enduring Hopes for Development in Papua New Guinea" (U Arizona Press, 2024)
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
An ethnography of indigenous lives amidst subsistence labor, large-scale logging, and unrealized schemes, We Stay the Same: Subsistence, Logging, and...
The Caste Question with Suraj Yengde and Anupama Rao
01 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
TCP’s inaugural episode features Suraj Yengde and Anupama Rao, two scholars whose academic work and activism have helped to set the parameters of th...
Maurice Rafael Magaña, "Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico" (U California Press, 2020)
01 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico (U California Press, 2020), based on a decade of ethnographic fiel...
Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, "By the Power Vested in Me: How Experts Shape Same-Sex Marriage Debates" (Columbia UP, 2025)
30 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In both the United States and France, each side of the legal battle over same-sex marriage and parenthood relied heavily on experts. Despite the simil...
163* The Drama of Celebrity with Sharon Marcus (JP)
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As Oscar Season rolls around, Recall This Book looks back to John's 2019 discussion with Columbia University professor Sharon Marcus about The Drama ...
Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Despite reform efforts that have grown in scope and intensity over the last two decades, the machine of American mass incarceration continues to flour...
Kimberley Johnson, "Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis" (Cornell UP, 2025)
25 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis (Cornell UP, 2025) by Dr. Kimberley Johnson is about how the Black Power movement res...
Lauren D. Sawyer, "Growing Up Pure: White Girls, Queer Teens, and the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture" (NYU Press, 2025)
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Gaining mass popularity in the mid-1990s with the True Love Waits rally on the Washington Mall, purity culture began as an urge from evangelical conse...
Robert Dorschel, "The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism" (MIT Press, 2025)
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Who are the people staffing the digital economy? In The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism (MIT Press, 2025) Rob...
Emily Hund, "The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media" (Princeton UP, 2023)
19 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Before there were Instagram likes, Twitter hashtags, or TikTok trends, there were bloggers who seemed to have the passion and authenticity that tradit...
Ryan Donovan, "Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity" (Oxford UP, 2023)
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Broadway has body issues. What is a Broadway Body? Broadway has long preserved the ideology of the "Broadway Body": the hyper-fit, exceptionally able,...