The University of Chicago Press Podcast

Amy J. Binder and Jeffrey L. Kidder, "The Channels of Student Activism: How the Left and Right Are Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

02 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The past six years have been marked by a contentious political atmosphere that has touched every arena of public life, including higher education. Tho...

David Suisman, "Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America's Soldiers" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

25 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, Instrument of War: Music and the Making of the America's Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2024), David Suisman shows that t...

Katherine C. Epstein, "Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National Security State" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

24 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At the beginning of the twentieth century, two British inventors, Arthur Pollen and Harold Isherwood, became fascinated by a major military question: ...

David Shoemaker, "Wisecracks: Humor and Morality in Everyday Life" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What good is a good sense of humour especially when the humour may be ethically questionable? Although humour seems a valuable part of a good conversa...

Anthony Grasso, "Dual Justice: America's Divergent Approaches to Street and Corporate Crime" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

11 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The United States incarcerates its citizens for property crime, drug use, and violent crime at a rate that exceeds any other developed nation – and ...

Simeon Koole, "Intimate Subjects: Touch and Tangibility in Britain's Cerebral Age" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

04 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When, where, and who gets to touch and be touched, and who decides? What do we learn through touch? How does touch bring us closer together or push us...

Robert A. Schneider, "The Return of Resentment: The Rise and Decline and Rise Again of a Political Emotion" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

02 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The term “resentment,” often casually paired with words like “hatred,” “rage,” and “fear,” has dominated US news analysis since Novemb...

Seth Kimmel, "The Librarian's Atlas: The Shape of Knowledge in Early Modern Spain" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Librarian's Atlas: The Shape of Knowledge in Early Modern Spain (U Chicago Press, 2024) Seth Kimmel explores the material history of librari...

Wilko Graf von Hardenberg, "Sea Level: A History" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

News reports warn of rising sea levels spurred by climate change. Waters inch ever higher, disrupting delicate ecosystems and threatening island and c...

Jennifer Chudy, "Some White Folks: The Interracial Politics of Sympathy, Suffering, and Solidarity" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There is racial inequality in America, and some people are distressed over it while others are not. Some White Folks: The Interracial Politics of Sym...

Elizabeth Korver-Glenn and Sarah Mayorga, "A Good Reputation: How Residents Fight for an American Barrio" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

13 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Neighborhoods have the power to form significant parts of our worlds and identities. A neighborhood's reputation, however, doesn't always match up to ...

Emily M. Farris and Mirya R. Holman, "The Power of the Badge: Sheriffs and Inequality in the United States" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The image of the sheriff is deeply embedded in American culture – from pacifist Jimmy Stewart in Destry Rides Again and gun averse Roy Scheider in...

Andrew W. Kahrl, "The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America (U Chicago Press, 2024), Andrew W. Kahrl uncovers the history of in...

Jason A. Josephson Storm, "The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences" (U Chicago Press, 2017)

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A great many theorists have argued that the defining feature of modernity is that people no longer believe in spirits, myths, or magic. Jason Ā. Jose...

Amir Alexander, "Liberty's Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

21 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Seen from an airplane, much of the United States appears to be a gridded land of startling uniformity. Perpendicular streets and rectangular fields, a...

Zrinka Stahuljak, "Fixers: Agency, Translation, and the Early Global History of Literature" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Fixers: Agency, Translation, and the Early Global History of Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Dr. Zrinka Stahuljak challenges scho...

Kevin J. McMahon, "A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many scholars and members of the press have argued that John Roberts’ Supreme Court is exceptional. While some emphasize the approach to interpretin...

Melissa Osborne, "Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why do people go to college? In Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility (U Chicago Press, 2024), Melissa Osborne, an associat...

Morgane Cadieu, "On Both Sides of the Tracks: Social Mobility in Contemporary French Literature" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An analysis of social mobility in contemporary French literature that offers a new perspective on figures who move between social classes. Social clim...

Sharon M. Quinsaat, "Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Diaspora" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When people migrate and settle in other countries, do they automatically form a diaspora? In Insurgent Communities: How Protests Create a Filipino Di...

Mariana Craciun, "From Skepticism to Competence: How American Psychiatrists Learn Psychotherapy" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

08 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From Skepticism to Competence: How American Psychiatrists Learn Psychotherapy (U Chicago Press, 2024) offers an examination of how novice psychiatris...

Elizabeth A. Williams, "Appetite and Its Discontents: Science, Medicine, and the Urge to Eat, 1750-1950" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why do we eat? Is it instinct? Despite the necessity of food, anxieties about what and how to eat are widespread and persistent. In Appetite and Its D...

Susan Greenhalgh, "Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

31 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola (U Chicago Press, 2024) takes readers deep inside the secret world of corporate science, where powe...

Regina G. Kunzel, "In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer Life" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid-twentieth century, American psychiatrists proclaimed homosexuality a mental disorder, one that was treatable and amenable to cure. Drawing ...

Le Lin, "The Fruits of Opportunism: Noncompliance and the Evolution of China's Supplemental Education Industry" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An in-depth examination of the regulatory, entrepreneurial, and organizational factors contributing to the expansion and transformation of China’s s...

Stuart Elden, "The Birth of Territory" (U Chicago Press, 2013)

17 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Territory is one of the central political concepts of the modern world and, indeed, functions as the primary way the world is divided and controlled p...

The Dissertation-To-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript (U Chicago Press, 2023)

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do you turn a dissertation into a book? Today’s book is: The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Ma...

Freeman's Challenge: The Murder That Shook America's Original Prison for Profit

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s book is: Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder That Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit (U Chicago Press, 2024), by Dr. Robin Bernste...

Toby Green, "A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

All too often, the history of early modern Africa is told from the perspective of outsiders. In his book A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Ris...

Carl Öhman, "The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

14 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die. These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but wh...

Jonathan Connolly, "Worthy of Freedom: Indenture and Free Labor in the Era of Emancipation" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

13 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Worthy of Freedom: Indenture and Free Labor in the Era of Emancipation (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Jonathan Connolly traces the normaliz...

Viren Murthy, "Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

13 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Recent proposals to revive the ancient Silk Road for the contemporary era and ongoing Western interest in China’s growth and development have led to...

Theresa McCulla, "Insatiable City: Food and Race in New Orleans" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A history of food in the Crescent City that explores race, power, social status, and labor. In Insatiable City: Food and Race in New Orleans (U Chic...

Monika Krause, "Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites (University of Chicago Press, 2021), Dr. Monika Krause asks about the concrete material rese...

Neil J. Young, "Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (U Chicago Press, 2024) is a fascinating and engaging historical tour of those who were gay and a...

David Alff, "The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

09 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Traversed by thousands of trains and millions of riders, the Northeast Corridor might be America’s most famous railway, but its influence goes far b...

Ellen Gough, "Making a Mantra: Tantric Ritual and Renunciation on the Jain Path to Liberation" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

06 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jainism originated in India and shares some features with Buddhism and Hinduism, but it is a distinct tradition with its own key texts, art, rituals, ...

Emily Zackin and Chloe N. Thurston, "The Political Development of American Debt Relief" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

25 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A political history of the rise and fall of American debt relief. Americans have a long history with debt. They also have a long history of mobilizing...

Aziz Rana, "The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In a pathbreaking retelling of the American experience, Aziz Rana shows that today’s reverential constitutional culture is a distinctively twentieth...

Financial Institutions and Enslavement

08 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this special episode, we talk to two authors about the role of financial institutions in enslavement. Sharon Ann Murphy, associate professor of his...

Matthew Kadane, "The Enlightenment and Original Sin" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

01 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Kadane, Professor of History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, talks about his just new book, The Enlightenment and Original Sin (Univer...

Carola Binder, "Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

27 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A sweeping history of the United States’ economy and politics, in Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy (U Chicago Press, 2024)...

Jesse McCarthy, "The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

26 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

‘The result is that, at the present time, the world is at an impasse.’ In 1956, Aimé Césaire pronounced the world to be at an impasse while reno...

Karen Sullivan, "Eleanor of Aquitaine, As It Was Said: Truth and Tales about the Medieval Queen" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

14 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Karen Sullivan of Bard College talks to Jana Byars about her recent book, Eleanor of Aquitaine, As It Was Said: Truth and Tales about the Medieval Qu...

Kevin Woodson, "The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

America's elite law firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms are known for grueling hours, low odds of promotion, and personnel practi...

Richard M. Jaffe, "Seeking Sakyamuni: South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

05 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Though fascinated with the land of their tradition’s birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the nineteenth ce...

Nicholas Popper, "The Specter of the Archive: Political Practice and the Information State in Early Modern Britain" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

26 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We are used to thinking of ourselves as living in a time when more information is more available than ever before. In The Specter of the Archive: Pol...

Alexander Statman, "A Global Enlightenment: Western Progress and Chinese Science" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

25 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander Statman's book A Global Enlightenment: Western Progress and Chinese Science (U Chicago Press, 2023) is a revisionist history of the idea ...

Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King, "America’s New Racial Battle Lines: Protect Versus Repair" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

21 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is happening to the politics of race in America?  In America’s New Racial Battle Lines: Protect Versus Repair (U Chicago Press, 2024), Roger...

Edward Dusinberre, "Distant Melodies: Music in Search of Home" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

04 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The first violinist of the Takács Quartet weaves scholarship on Edward Elgar, Antonin Dvořák, Bela Bartók and Benjamin Britten with a deeply perso...

Diane Winston, "Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan's Evangelical Vision" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

01 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After two years in the White House, an aging and increasingly unpopular Ronald Reagan looked like a one-term president, but in 1983 something changed....

Teresa Ghilarducci, "Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

30 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The issue of the future of Social Security, on which millions of Americans depend, produced great political theater at the State of the Union address....

Neil Gong, "Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics: Mental Illness and Homelessness in Los Angeles" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

27 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sociologist Neil M. Gong explains why mental health treatment in Los Angeles rarely succeeds, for the rich, the poor, and everyone in between. In 20...

Laurie L. Patton, "Who Owns Religion?: Scholars and Their Publics in the Late Twentieth Century" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Who Owns Religion?: Scholars and Their Publics in the Late Twentieth Century (U Chicago Press, 2019), scholar and noted university administrator ...

Alvita Akiboh, "Imperial Material: National Symbols in the US Colonial Empire" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

03 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This is an ambitious history of flags, stamps, and currency—and the role they played in US imperialism over the 20th century. In Imperial Material:...

Daniel Skinner et al., "The City and the Hospital: The Paradox of Medically Overserved Communities" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An enduring paradox of urban public health is that many communities around hospitals are economically distressed and, counterintuitively, medically un...

Tim Keogh, "In Levittown’s Shadow: Poverty in America’s Wealthiest Postwar Suburb" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

11 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There is a familiar narrative about American suburbs: after 1945, white residents left cities for leafy, affluent subdivisions and the prosperity they...

Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg, "Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

10 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An indispensable guide for telling fact from fiction on the internet—often in less than 30 seconds. The internet brings information to our fingertip...

Jake Berman, "The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

07 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Every driver in North America shares one miserable, soul-sucking universal experience—being stuck in traffic. But things weren’t always like this....

Mark Guarino, "Country and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

05 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The untold story of Chicago's pivotal role as a country and folk music capital. Chicago is revered as a musical breeding ground, having launched major...

Michael O'Malley, "The Beat Cop: Chicago's Chief O'Neill and the Creation of Irish Music" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

03 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Francis O’Neill (1848–1936) was a Chicago police officer and a folk music collector. Michael O’Malley connects these two seemingly unrelated act...

Sandro Galea, "Within Reason: A Liberal Public Health for an Illiberal Time" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

28 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A provocative chronicle of how US public health has strayed from its liberal roots. The Covid-19 response was a crucible of politics and public health...

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, "Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

20 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Professor of History at The New School, and author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s...

Karen C. Pinto, "Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration" (U Chicago Press, 2016)

16 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The history of Islamic mapping is one of the new frontiers in the history of cartography. Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration (University of Chic...

Alexandra Filindra, "Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

15 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st centur...

Thomas DeGloma, "Anonymous: The Performance of Hidden Identities" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

11 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, anonymity has rocked the political and social landscape. There are countless examples: An anonymous whistleblower was at the heart of...

Steven Rogers, "Accountability in State Legislatures" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Political Scientist Steven Rogers’ new book focuses on the deceptively complex question of how it is that voters do or don’t/can and can’t hold ...

Meredith Oda, "The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

25 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco (University of Chicago Press, 2019), Meredith Oda shows how city l...

Jenny Trinitapoli, "An Epidemic of Uncertainty: Navigating HIV and Young Adulthood in Malawi" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

20 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A decade-long study of young adulthood in Malawi demonstrates the impact of widespread HIV status uncertainty, laying bare the sociological implicatio...

Jonathan Kramnick, "Criticism and Truth: On Method in Literary Studies" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest is Jonathan Kramnick, the author of a new book, Criticism and Truth: On Method in Literary Studies (University of Chicago Press, 202...

Paul Crosthwaite et al., "Invested: How Three Centuries of Stock Market Advice Reshaped Our Money, Markets, and Minds" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

10 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who hasn’t wished for a surefire formula for riches and a ticket to the good life? For three centuries, investment advisers of all kinds, legit and ...

Guy Miron, "Space and Time Under Persecution: The German-Jewish Experience in the Third Reich" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The rapid and radical transformations of the Nazi Era challenged the ways German Jews experienced space and time, two of the most fundamental characte...

Emma K. Sutton, "William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Emma K. Sutton's William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician (U Chicago Press, 2023) is the first book to map William James's preoccupat...

Ran Zwigenberg, "Nuclear Minds: Cold War Psychological Science and the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ran Zwigenberg’s Nuclear Minds: Cold War Psychological Science and the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (U Chicago Press, 2023) explores early ...

Jessi Streib, "The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay After College" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

23 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Are jobs fair? In The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay after College (U Chicago Press, 2023), Jessi Streib, an associate Professor of...

Charisse Burden-Stelly, "Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early twentieth century, two panics emerged in the United States. The Black Scare was rooted in white Americans’ fear of Black Nationalism an...

Brigid Cohen, "Musical Migration and Imperial New York: Early Cold War Scenes" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

15 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The heart of Brigid Cohen’s Musical Migration and Imperial New York: Early Cold War Scenes (University of Chicago Press, 2022) are the connections...

David Myer Temin, "Remapping Sovereignty: Decolonization and Self-Determination in North American Indigenous Political Thought" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Accounts of decolonization routinely neglect Indigenous societies in North America and Australasia, yet Native communities have made unique contributi...

Eric M. Patashnik, "Countermobilization: Policy Feedback and Backlash in a Polarized Age" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

12 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The most successful policies not only solve problems. They also build supportive coalitions. Yet, sometimes, policies trigger backlash and mobilize op...

Tamson Pietsch, "The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A globe-trotting and scandal-ridden story of American empire and higher education, The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of K...

Daniele Lorenzini, "The Force of Truth: Critique, Genealogy, and Truth-Telling in Michel Foucault" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

01 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A groundbreaking examination of Michel Foucault’s history of truth. Many blame Michel Foucault for our post-truth and conspiracy-laden society. In t...

Dara Z. Strolovitch, "When Bad Things Happen to Privileged People: Race, Gender, and What Makes a Crisis in America" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

29 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A deep and thought-provoking examination of crisis politics and their implications for power and marginalization in the United States.  From the clim...

Allison M. Prasch, "The World Is Our Stage: The Global Rhetorical Presidency and the Cold War" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

19 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Allison M. Prasch, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Politics, and Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has a new book that focuses on the w...

Katherine Jensen, "The Color of Asylum: The Racial Politics of Safe Haven in Brazil" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, as Syrians desperate to escape a brutal war fled the country, Brazil took the remarkable step of instituting an open-door policy for all Syri...

E. Summerson Carr, "Working the Difference: Science, Spirit, and the Spread of Motivational Interviewing" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

14 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a professional practice, a behavioral therapy, and a self-professed conversation style that encourages clients to ta...

Michelle Karnes, "Medieval Marvels and Fictions in the Latin West and Islamic World" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

30 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Marvels like enchanted rings and sorcerers’ stones were topics of fascination in the Middle Ages, not only in romance and travel literature but also...

Edgar Garcia, "Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

16 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s guest is Edgar Garcia. Garcia’s new book Emergency: Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2022). Emer...

Neil Tarrant, "Defining Nature's Limits: The Roman Inquisition and the Boundaries of Science" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

13 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looking at the longer history of censorship, considering a five-hundred-year continuity of goals and ...

Dong Li, "The Orange Tree" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dong Li’s The Orange Tree (U Chicago Press, 2023) is a collection of narrative poems that braids forgotten legends, personal sorrows, and politic...

Ryan Tucker Jones, "Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

09 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Soviet Union killed over six hundred thousand whales in the twentieth century, many of them illegally and secretly. That catch helped bring many w...

Shai M. Dromi and Samuel D. Stabler, "Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Where does morality fit into contemporary social science? In Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science (U Chicago Press, 2023), Sha...

Gennifer Weisenfeld, "Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

05 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Airplanes, gas masks, and bombs were common images in wartime Japan. Yet amid these emblems of anxiety, tasty caramels were offered to children with p...

Bonnie Gordon, "Voice Machines: The Castrato, the Cat Piano, and Other Strange Sounds" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

31 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Italian courts and churches began employing castrato singers in the late sixteenth century. By the eighteenth century, the singers occupied a celebrit...

Erica O. Turner, "Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

25 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For the past five years, American public schools have enrolled more students identified as Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Asian than white. At th...

Jennifer Keys Adair and Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove, "Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism, and Learning in the Early Grades" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

18 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Early childhood can be a time of rich discovery, a period when educators have an opportunity to harness their students’ fascination to create unique...

Sarah Muir, "Routine Crisis: An Ethnography of Disillusion" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

11 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Argentina, once heralded as the future of capitalist progress, has a long history of economic volatility. In 2001–2002, a financial crisis led to it...

Wendy A. Woloson, "Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

09 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why are our lives filled with so much stuff? In Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America (U Chicago Press, 2023), Wendy Woloson, Professor and C...

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...

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...

Nick Witham, "Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this lively and far-reaching text, Nick Witham (University College London) tells the stories of five postwar historians who changed the way ordina...