The University of Chicago Press Podcast
Episodes
Claire Virginia Eby, “Until Choice Do Us Part: Marriage Reform in the Progressive Era” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
23 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Clare Virginia Eby is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut. In Until Choice Do Us Part: Marriage Reform in the Progressive Era (Uni...
Andrew Hartman, “The War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
20 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Hartman is associate professor of history at Illinois State University. His book A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (...
M. Alper Yalcinkaya, “Learned Patriots: Debating Science, State, and Society in the 19th-Century Ottoman Empire” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
15 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What were Ottomans talking about when they talked about science? In posing and answering that question (spoiler: they were talking about people), M. A...
Kyle Mattes and David Redlawsk, “The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning” (U of Chicago Press 2014)
14 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Kyle Mattes and David Redlawsk are the authors of The Positive Case for Negative Campaigning (University of Chicago Press, 2014). Mattes is assistant ...
Beatrix Hoffman, “Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930” (U of Chicago, 2012)
28 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Disputes over the definitions or legality of ‘rights’ and ‘rationing’ in their various guises have animated much of the debate around the Unit...
Winnie Won Yin Wong, "Van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade" (U Chicago Press, 2014)
26 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Reading Winnie Wong's new book on image production in Dafen village will likely change the way you think about copying, China, and the relationship b...
Lawrence Jacobs, “Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation” (U Chicago Press, 2015)
18 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Lawrence Jacobs is the author (with James Druckman) of Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (University of Chicago Press, 2015). ...
J. Bronsteen, C. Buccafusco, and J. S. Masur, “Happiness and the Law” (U Chicago Press, 2014)
12 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In their new book Happiness and the Law (University of Chicago Press 2014), John Bronsteen, Christopher Buccafusco, and Jonathan S. Masur argue throug...
Hillel D. Braude, “Intuition in Medicine: A Philosophical Defense of Clinical Reasoning” (U Chicago Press, 2012)
12 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Can we define ‘clinical reasoning’? Is it the ability to marshal the best available evidence to come to adecision within a medical framework, or i...
Finis Dunaway, “Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images” (
11 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Oil-soaked birds in Prince William Sound. The “crying Indian” in a 1970s anti-littering ad. A lonely polar bear on an Arctic ice floe. Such enviro...
Eva Illouz, “Hard-Core Romance: Fifty Shades of Grey, Best-Sellers, and Society” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
27 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Eva Illouz is professor of sociology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and president of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her book Hard-Core R...
Christopher J. Phillips, “The New Math: A Political History” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
26 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Christopher J. Phillips‘ new book is a political history of the “New Math,” a collection of curriculum reform projects in the 1950s & 1960s that...
Joanna Kempner, “Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
21 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Migraine is real, and it is pervasive–at least 12% of Americans suffer some form of this spectrum disorder. Still, migraine remains a conflicted ill...
A. Mark Smith, “From Sight to Light: The Passage from Ancient to Modern Optics” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
21 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A. Mark Smith‘s new book is a magisterial history of optics over the course of two millennia. From Sight to Light: The Passage from Ancient to Moder...
Nick Wilding, "Galileo's Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and the Politics of Knowledge" (U Chicago Press, 2014)
16 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Wilding's new book is brilliant, thoughtful, and an absolute pleasure to read. Galileo's Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and The Politics of Knowled...
Robert P. Burns, “Kafka’s Law: ‘The Trial’ and American Criminal Justice” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
13 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Robert P. Burns of Northwestern University School of Law offers an insightful critique of the modern American criminal justice system in his...
Kimberly A. Hamlin, “From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women’s Rights in Gilded Age America” (U Chicago Press, 2014)
23 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Kimberly A. Hamlin is an associate professor in American Studies and history at Miami University in Oxford Ohio. Her book from Eve to Evolution: Darwi...
Joseph M. Gabriel, “Medical Monopoly: Intellectual Property Rights and the Origins of the Modern Pharmaceutical Industry” (U Chicago Press, 2013)
19 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Commercial interests are often understood as impinging upon the ethical norms of medicine. In his new book, Medical Monopoly: Intellectual Property Ri...
Matthew Stanley, “Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
10 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
“Show me how it doos.” Such were the words of a young James Clerk “Dafty” Maxwell (1831-79), an inquisitive child prone to punning who grew in...
Elena Conis, “Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization” (University of Chicago, 2014)
02 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The 1960s marked a “new era of vaccination,” when Americans eagerly exposed their arms and hind ends for shots that would prevent a range of every...
Martin Shuster, “Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism and Modernity” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
02 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The work of Theodore Adorno is well established as a crucial resource for understanding the complexities of contemporary capitalism, playing a foundat...
Anne Knowles, Mastering Iron (U of Chicago Press, 2013) and Geographies of the Holocaust (Indiana UP, 2014)
30 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Last month on New Books in Geography, historian Susan Schulten discussed the development of thematic maps in the nineteenth century. Such maps focused...
Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, “The Politics of Information: Problem Definition and the Course of Public Policy in America ( U Chicago Press, 2014)
19 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones are the authors of The Politics of Information: Problem Definition and the Course of Public Policy in America ...
Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain, “Life on Display: Revolutionizing U.S. Museums of Science and Natural History in the Twentieth Century” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
16 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In lucid prose that’s a real pleasure to read, Karen Rader and Victoria Cain‘s new book chronicles a revolution in modern American science educati...
Erik Braun, “The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
08 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Erik Braun‘s recent book, The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw (University of Chicago Press, 2013), ...
Carl H. Nightingale, “Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities” (U of Chicago Press, 2012)
02 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
We often think of South Africa or America when we hear the word ‘segregation.’ Or — a popular view — that social groups have always chosen to ...
Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Lubienski, “The Public School Advantage” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
15 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Conventional thinking tells us that private school education is better than public schooling in the US. Why else would parents pay the hefty price tag...
Susan Schulten, “Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-Century America” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
12 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Our everyday lives are saturated with maps. We use maps on our smart phones to help us navigate from place to place. Maps in the newspaper and online ...
Daniel Margocsy, “Commercial Visions: Science, Trade, and Visual Culture in the Dutch Golden Age” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
09 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Margocsy‘s beautiful new book opens with a trip to Amsterdam by Baron Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, and closes with a shopping spree by Pet...
Carolyn L. Kane, “Chromatic Algorithms: Synthetic Color, Computer Art, and Aesthetics after Code” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
03 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Carolyn L. Kane’s new book traces the modern history of digital color, focusing on the role of electronic color in computer art and media aesthetics...
Scott Samuelson, “The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone” (U of Chicago Press, 2014)
02 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Philosophy does not have to be stuck in the clouds. It can have relevance in everyday life, for everyday people, and Scott Samuelson attempts to do ju...
John Tresch, “The Romantic Machine: Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon” (U Chicago Press, 2014)
30 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
After the Second World War, the Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukacs described National Socialism as a triumph of irrationalism and a “destruction of reas...
Andrea Louise Campbell, “Trapped in America’s Safety Net: One Family’s Struggle” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
13 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Andrea Louise Campbell is the author of Trapped in America’s Safety Net: One Family’s Struggle (University of Chicago Press, 2014). Campbell is pr...
Beth Linker, “War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
23 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Beth Linker is the author of War’s Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America (University of Chicago Press, 2011). As she reveals, the story of i...
Michael Osborne, “The Emergence of Tropical Medicine in France” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
11 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In The Emergence of Tropical Medicine in France (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Michael Osborne offers a new way to think about and practice the ...
John Tresch, “The Romantic Machine: Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
05 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
John Tresch‘s beautiful new book charts a series of transformations that collectively ushered in a new cosmology in the Paris of the early-mid ninet...
Daryn Lehoux, “What Did the Romans Know?: An Inquiry into Science and Worldmaking” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
16 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Daryn Lehoux‘s new book will forever change the way you think about garlic and magnets. What Did the Romans Know?: An Inquiry into Science and World...
Mary Terrall, “Catching Nature in the Act” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
04 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Terrall‘s new book is a beautifully-written, carefully-researched, and compellingly-argued account of the practices of natural history in the e...
Omar W. Nasim, “Observing by Hand: Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
02 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Omar W. Nasim‘s new book, a series of fascinating characters sketch, paint, and etch their way toward a mapping of the cosmos and the human mind....
Alison Pearlman, “Smart Casual: The Transformation of Gourmet Restaurant Style in America” (University of Chicago, 2013)
29 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When you imagine a gourmet experience, what comes to mind? An elegant restaurant, perhaps, with a single candle flickering at the center of a luminous...
Marwa Elshakry, “Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
23 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The work of Charles Darwin, together with the writing of associated scholars of society and its organs and organisms, had a particularly global reach ...
Richard Yeo, “Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
14 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
During the Great Fire of London in September 1666, Samuel Pepys went out to the garden and dug some holes. There he placed his documents, some wine, a...
Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer, “The Religious Question in Modern China” University of Chicago Press, 2011
28 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Social phenomena that some people like to call ‘religion’ has long shaped Chinese culture. In the twentieth century, defining the boundaries of wh...
Jamie Cohen-Cole, “The Open Mind” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
26 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jamie Cohen-Cole‘s new book explores the emergence of a discourse of creativity, interdisciplinarity, and the “open mind” in the context of Cold...
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare, “Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa” (University of Chicago Press, 2014)
10 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare‘s wonderful new book is a thoughtful, provocative, and balanced account of the intersecting histories and practices of drug r...
Nicholas Carnes, “White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
31 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Nicholas Carnes is the author of White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Carn...
Sarah Anzia, “Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups” (University of Chicago Press 2013)
24 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Anzia is the author of Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups (University of Chicago Press, 2013). Anzia is assistan...
Matthew C. Hunter, “Wicked Intelligence” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
23 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The pages of Matthew C. Hunter‘s wonderful new book are full of paper fish, comets, sleepy-eyed gazes, drunk ants, and a cast full of fascinating (a...
John R. Gillis, “The Human Shore: Seacoasts in History” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
26 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Americans are moving to the ocean. Every year, more and more Americans move to–or are born in– the coasts and fewer and fewer remain in–or are b...
Michael Pettit, “The Science of Deception: Psychology and Commerce in America” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
19 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Parapsychology. You may have heard of it. You know, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis. Spoon-bending and that sort of thing. If you...
John L. Modern, “Secularism in Antebellum America” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
06 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The notion of secularism is something that has a ubiquitous presence in contemporary society. And while there is a general everyday use of this term, ...
Hallam Stevens, “Life Out Of Sequence: A Data-Driven History of Bioinformatics” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
31 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Hallam Stevens‘s new book is a rich and fascinating ethnographic and historical account of the transformations wrought by integrating statistical an...
Robert J. Richards, “Was Hitler a Darwinian?: Disputed Questions in the History of Evolutionary Theory” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
21 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In his new collection of wonderfully engaging and provocative set of essays on Darwin and Darwinians, Robert J. Richards explores the history of biol...
Joshua Mitchell, “Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in a Democratic Age” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
20 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Joshua Mitchell is the author of Tocqueville in Arabia: Dilemmas in a Democratic Age (University of Chicago Press 2013). Mitchell is professor of poli...
Angela N. H. Creager, “Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
07 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Angela Creager‘s deeply researched and elegantly written new book is a must-read account of the history of science in twentieth-century America. Lif...
Natalie Masuoka and Jane Junn, “The Politics of Belonging: Race, Public Opinion, and Immigration” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
06 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
On the podcast over the last few months, we’ve heard from Phil Krestedemas, Ron Schmidt, Shannon Gleeson about various aspects of immigration and im...
Conevery Bolton Valencius, “The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
28 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The story begins with Davy Crockett and his hunting dogs chasing a bear in 1826. The bear gets caught in an earthquake crack, an effect of the great M...
William G. Howell et al., “The Wartime President” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
09 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
William G. Howell, Saul P. Jackman, and Jon C. Rogowski are the authors of The Wartime President: Executive Influence and the Nationalizing Politics o...
Daniel Sherman, "French Primitivism and the Ends of Empire, 1945-1975" (U Chicago Press, 2011)
05 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The "primitivist idea" has played an important role in art and culture from at least the late nineteenth century. From Paul Gauguin to Pablo Picasso, ...
Matthew L. Basso, “Meet Joe Copper: Maculinity and Race on Montana’s World War II Home Front” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
09 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In the United States, World War II is now called “The Good War,” as opposed to bad ones, I suppose, like Vietnam. Moreover, the Americans who foug...
Marga Vicedo, “The Nature and Nurture of Love” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
19 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Between WWII and the 1970s, prominent researchers from various fields established and defended a view that emotions are integral to the self, and that...
Adam R. Shapiro, “Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Anti-Evolution Movement in American Schools” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
27 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
During the 1924-25 school year, John Scopes was filling in for the regular biology teacher at Rhea County Central High School in Dayton, Tennessee. Th...
Michael Ruse, “The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
08 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet (University of Chicago Press, 2013), Michael Ruse offers a fascinating history of the Gaia Hypothesi...
Alisha Rankin, “Panaceia’s Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany” (U. Chicago Press, 2013)
18 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Dorothea was a widow who treated Martin Luther, the Duke of Saxony, and throngs of poor peasants with her medicinal waters. Anna was the powerful wife...
Gretchen Soderlund, “Sex Trafficking, Scandal, and the Transformation of Journalism: 1885-1917” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
27 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Sex Trafficking, Scandal, and the Transformation of Journalism: 1885-1917 (University of Chicago Press, 2013), the new book from the University of Ore...
Mary Louise Roberts, “What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
24 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Tracking soldiers from the villages and towns of Northern France, to the “Silver Foxhole” of Paris, to tribunals that convicted a disproportionate...
Helen Longino, “Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
15 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What explains human behavior? It is standard to consider answers from the perspective of a dichotomy between nature and nurture, with most researchers...
Thane Rosenbaum, “Payback: The Case for Revenge” (Chicago UP, 2013)
08 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
All humans have an emotionally-driven sense of fairness. We get treated unfairly and we get mad. It’s no wonder, then, that our laws–and those of ...
Stephen T. Asma, “Against Fairness” (University of Chicago, 2013)
05 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Modern liberalism is built on the principle of equality and its corollary, the principle of fairness (treating equals equally). But have we taken the ...
Nicholas Popper, Walter Ralegh’s History of the World and the Historical Culture of the Late Renaissance (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
01 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Nicholas Popper‘s new book is a thoughtfully crafted and rich contribution to early modern studies, to the history of history, and to the history of...
Nathan Hesselink, “SamulNori: Contemporary Korean Drumming and the Rebirth of Itinerant Performance Culture” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
28 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The name of the group is deceptively simple: Samul (“four objects”) + Nori (“folk entertainment”) = SamulNori. Nathan Hesselink‘s new book t...
Sean Cocco, “Watching Vesuvius: A History of Science and Culture in Early Modern Italy” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
28 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The story starts on a high-speed train and ends with six men in a crater, with hundreds of years and a number of explosions in between. Sean Cocco‘s...
Lawrence M. Principe, “The Secrets of Alchemy” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
18 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What is alchemy? Who were the alchemists, what did they believe and do and dream, and what did they accomplish? Lawrence M. Principe‘s new book expl...
John E. Murray, “The Charleston Orphan House” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
26 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
There were always and will always be orphans. The question is what to do with them. In his terrific new book The Charleston Orphan House: Children’s...
E. C. Spary, “Eating the Enlightenment: Food and the Sciences in Paris, 1670-1760” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
18 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
By focusing on food and eating from the dinner table to the laboratory, E. C. Spary‘s new book shows how an increasingly public culture of knowledge...
Amir Eshel, “Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past” (University of Chicago Press, 2013)
22 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In his very recent work, Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past(University of Chicago Press, 2013), Amir Eshel presents us with ...
Michael D. Gordin, “The Pseudo-Science Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
15 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
“No one in the history of the world has ever self-identified as a pseudoscientist.” From the very first sentence, Michael D. Gordin’s new book i...
Katy Price, “Loving Faster Than Light: Romance and Readers in Einstein’s Universe” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
09 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
You were amused to find you too could fear “The eternal silence of the infinite spaces.” The astronomy love poems of William Empson, from which th...
Michael Gordin, “The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
19 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
When I agreed to host New Books and Science Fiction and Fantasy there were a number of authors I hoped to interview, including Michael Gordin. This mi...
Sally Smith Hughes, “Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
03 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech (University of Chicago Press, 2011) tells many stories of many things. It is the story of a handful of people who...
Daniela Bleichmar, “Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
26 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Daniela Bleichmar‘s new book is a story about 12,000 images. In Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenme...
David Sepkoski, “Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline” (University of Chicago, 2012)
20 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline (University of Chicago Press, 1012), David Sepkoski tells a s...
Jason Josephson, “The Invention of Religion in Japan” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
13 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In 1853, the Japanese were required to consider what the word religion meant when western powers compelled the Tokugawa government to ensure freedom o...
Laura Stark, “Behind Closed Doors: IRBs and the Making of Ethical Research” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
27 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Laura Stark‘s lucid and engaging new book explores the making and enacting of the rules that govern human subjects research in the US. Using a thoug...
Denise Phillips, “Acolytes of Nature: Defining Natural Science in Germany, 1770-1850” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
19 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Denise Phillip’s meticulously researched and carefully argued new book deeply excavates a period in which many of the basic components that we take ...
Ben Cawthra, “Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography in Jazz” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
18 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Ben Cawthra‘s Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography and Jazz (University of Chicago, 2011) discusses the way images of jazz and the musicians w...
Helene Mialet, “Hawking Incorporated: Stephen Hawking and the Anthropology of the Knowing Subject” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
04 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
“By error or by chance, I think I have discovered an angel.” First things first: Hawking Incorporated: Stephen Hawking and the Anthropology of the...
J. Hillis Miller, “The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
23 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In his recent book, The Conflagration of Community: Fiction Before and After Auschwitz (University of Chicago Press, 2011), J. Hillis Miller sets outs...
Anne M. Blackburn, “Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka,” (The University of Chicago Press, 2010)
23 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In this important contribution to both the study of South Asian Buddhism as well the burgeoning field of Buddhist modernity, Anne Blackburn‘s Locati...
Andrew S. Berish, “Lonesome Roads and Streets of Dreams: Place, Mobility, and Race in Jazz of the 1930s and ’40s” (University of Chicago, 2012)
23 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
American history is all about movement: geographical, cultural, ideological. Economic depression and war make the 1930s and ’40s a dramatic example ...
John Burnham, “After Freud Left: A Century of Psychoanalysis in America” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
31 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps most of us interested in psychoanalysis in the United States have the idea that, in 1909, when Freud lectured at Clark University, his first a...
Wendy Steiner, “The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art” (University of Chicago Press, 2010)
16 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
As the last of what Wendy Steiner refers to as “a loose trilogy” with her earlier works, The Scandal of Pleasure (1995) and Venus in Exile (2001),...
Ronit Ricci, “Islam Translated: Literature, Conversion, and the Arabic Cosmopolis of South and Southeast Asia” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
28 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Muslims have been historically connected in various ways. Networks have fostered the spread of Islam through commerce and trade, Sufi brotherhoods and...
Bob Riesman, “I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
13 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Big Bill Broonzy was a master storyteller. From his name, he was born Lee Conly Bradley, to his age, he typically added a decade, to the facts of his ...
Jim Endersby, “Imperial Nature: Joseph Hooker and the Practices of Victorian Science” (University of Chicago Press, 2008)
23 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
I love reading, I love reading history, and I especially love reading history books written by authors who understand how to tell a good story. In add...
Barry Kernfeld, “Pop Song Piracy: Disobedient Music Distribution Since 1929” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
17 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever illegally downloaded a song from the internet? How about illicitly burned copies of a CD? Made a “party tape?” Bought a bootleg albu...
Leo Bersani and Adam Phillips, “Intimacies” (University of Chicago Press, 2008)
19 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In Intimacies and in this interview, Leo Bersani asks “does knowledge of the Other create a foundation for intimacy?” Troubling certain psychoanal...
Peter-Paul Verbeek, “Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
15 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
“Guns don’t kill people; people do.” That’s a common refrain from the National Rifle Association, but it expresses a certain view of our relat...
Mark Rowe, “Bonds of the Dead: Temples, Burial, and the Transformation of Contemporary Japanese Buddhism” (University of Chicago Press, 2011)
15 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Rowe‘s new book Bonds of the Dead: Temples, Burial, and the Transformation of Contemporary Japanese Buddhism (University of Chicago Press, 2011...
Ellen Lewin, “Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America” (University of Chicago, 2009)
02 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
When anthropologist Ellen Lewin gave a preliminary report on her research on gay fathers, a member of the audience asked how she could write about suc...