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Interviews with Authors about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

  1. 17 HR AGO

    Jim Downs, "Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine" (Harvard UP, 2023)

    Jim Downs’ most recent book is Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine. Professor Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History at Gettysburg College. The book offers a new history of epidemiology by shifting focus to the people behind the data points—people who were enslaved, imprisoned, or in some circles overlooked by conventional histories of epidemiology. The book shifts across locations and empires from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century because it wants to show how the confluence of war, imperialism, and slavery really made modern epidemiology. This interview was a collaborative effort among Professor Laura Stark and students at Vanderbilt University in the course, “American Medicine & the World.” Please email Laura with any feedback on the interview or questions about how to design collaborative interview projects for the classroom. Read Laura's article, "Can New Media Save the Book?" email: laura.stark@vanderbilt.edu Jim Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History at Gettysburg College. Laura Stark is Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University’s Center for Medicine, Health, and Society. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    52 min

  2. 17 HR AGO

    Stephen F. Jones, "The First Social Democracy: The Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918–1921" (Harvard UP, 2026)

    Following the collapse of the Russian Empire, the small nation of Georgia established its independence in May 1918. Its leaders surprised the world by creating the first social democratic state. Based on a combination of parliamentarianism and direct democracy, it was a representative government of the peasants and workers themselves, with ballots in their hands. The First Social Democracy: The Democratic Republic of Georgia, 1918–1921 (Harvard University Press, 2026) is the definitive history of a government that should inspire social democrats today. Professor Stephen F. Jones chronicles how the founders of the new state navigated myriad challenges, including territorial threats from abroad, internal ethnic conflicts, and geopolitical rivalries between the imperial Ottomans, the British, and the Germans. In the midst of these existential challenges, Georgia’s social democrats set about writing a constitution to put the country on a distinctive path of genuine self-government—protecting democratic rights, promoting political pluralism, and championing equality. Professor Jones brings to life the passionate debates that shaped Georgia’s democracy during a moment of acute global instability. The Democratic Republic of Georgia was strangled in its crib. Just four days after the constitution was ratified, the capital fell to the Red Army. Under Soviet rule, the republic was lost to history. Soviet scholars were forbidden to research this Georgian story, and Western scholars had little interest in a small and peripheral state that was independent for only three years. Recovering a forgotten experiment in democratic citizenship and statecraft, Dr. Jones reminds us of those audacious times when Georgians created and defended political freedom against the rise of Soviet communism. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    1hr 5min

  3. 17 HR AGO

    The (Un)imagined Work of Linguistic Inclusion

    In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Emily Pacheco speaks with PhD candidate Brynn Quick (Macquarie University, Australia) about her 2025 paper, The (un)imagined work of determining patients’ English language proficiency. The conversation focuses on language policies in healthcare, the monolingual logic, and language access. Quick, B., Piller, I., & Lising, L. (2025). The (un)imagined work of determining patients’ English language proficiency. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2025.2594462 Abstract. This study investigates how Australian healthcare policies imagine communication between limited English proficiency (LEP) patients and healthcare providers to occur. This is done through a work as imagined (WAI) vs. work as done (WAD) analysis of 13 Australian medical policies from four levels of governance. Findings reveal that policies mostly conceptualise the work of determining if a patient needs a professional interpreter as an act of self-assessment that patients will do themselves. When policies direct healthcare staff to assess patients’ English language proficiency, they often instruct staff to ‘determine if the patient can understand English’, usually without clear instruction on how to do this. Finally, while communication is the goal that drives many of these policies, ‘successful’ communication is conceptualised as language-neutral, implicitly privileging English and erasing LEP patients’ language needs. These findings reflect a novel way of framing policies’ monolingual logic of WAI within the multilingual reality of WAD and mark an innovative contribution to the study of language access rights. For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    41 min

  4. 17 HR AGO

    Radha Lin Chaddah, "And the Ancestors Sing" (Rising Action, 2026)

    Starting in the late 1970s, three women navigate post Cultural Revolution China: Lulu, who’s forced to become a prostitute in Shanghai to save her mother and sister from starving, Lei who is sold in marriage for cigarettes and a few eggs, and Yan, Lei’s smart, beautiful daughter, whose kindness to the farmer master’s neurodivergent son allows her to get an education. Both Lei and Lulu must put aside their dreams and suffer indignity after indignity, Lei from her husband, and Lulu from her pimp, while Yan ultimately sacrifices her career to help her family. With a cast of unforgettable characters struggling through China’s transition to modernity, and grappling with the impact of mental illness, prostitution, and Aids, And the Ancestors Sing is a stunning gripping historical novel. Radha Lin Chaddah was born in London to an East Indian father and a Malaysian Chinese mother, and grew up in Kenya, the UK and the US, graduating from New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL. She majored in Biology at the University of Chicago, earned medical and law degrees at the University of Illinois, and a Master of Public Health at Harvard University. She completed Internal Medicine residency training, and later practiced, at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston. Radha and her family moved, over the course of twenty years, from Boston to NYC to Taipei to Shanghai to Beijing to Princeton, and finally to Philadelphia. Radha worked as a primary care physician in Boston, NYC and Beijing; worked with the China CDC to co-write the book, HIV/ AIDS: Beyond the Numbers; and provided mental healthcare to patients in several states as a telemedicine doctor upon settling in Philadelphia. When not reading and writing, Radha enjoys learning new Mandarin characters, tackling novice knitting projects, painting with watercolors and acrylics, catching a live, stand-up comedy show with her husband, Avery, trying out new recipes with their young adult daughters, Yani and Ayo, and, of course, jotting down story notes for her next writing project. You can visit Radha online at radhalinchaddah.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    22 min

  5. 17 HR AGO

    Wade Bishop et al., "A Critical Look at Information Science and Librarianship in a New Age" (Emerald Publishing, 2026)

    A Critical Look at Information Science and Librarianship in a New Age: Constellation of Insanity (Emerald, 2026) fosters a platform for information scientists to engage in reflection and contemplation regarding the profound questions of our era. By drawing insights from pioneers in the field whose contributions were once marginalized or, in some instances, overlooked within the realm of information science, chapter authors strive to re/center the field's focal point. Chapter authors draw from a diverse array of frameworks including critical theory, deconstruction, queer theory, borderlands, among others. What sets this book apart is its direct confrontation of the status quo and aggressively re/claims intellectual space for “others”. This is the only book to critique the entire discipline of Information Science from as many angles as possible in one volume and as far outside of the traditional organizations. Guest: Wade Bishop is a Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His research foci include research data management, data discovery, geographic information science, as well as the study of data occupations, education, and training. He has published many works evaluating the services and resources of academic and public libraries. He earned an MLIS from the University of South Florida School of Information and a PhD from Florida State University’s School of Information. Renate Chancellor is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Access, Ethics, & Belonging at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. She holds both a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Information Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and is affiliated with the Syracuse University Lender Center for Social Justice. Dr. Chancellor’s research is grounded in critical race theory and critical cultural information studies, with a focus on access, equity, ethics, belonging, and social justice in Library and Information Science (LIS). She is the author of seminal biographies of Black librarians, including E.J. Josey: Transformational Leader of the Modern Library Profession and Breaking Glass Ceilings: Clara Stanton Jones and the Detroit Public Librarypractices, which foreground Black leadership and institutional transformation in librarianship. Her current research explores information objects and fugitive epistemology, with particular attention to alternative knowledge systems and practices of resistance. Dr. Chancellor serves on the editorial boards of The Library Quarterly and Education for Information and is the recipient of numerous honors, including the ALISE Excellence in Teaching Award (2014) and the Norman Horrocks Leadership Award (2012). Joe Sánchez is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Information Studies at Queens College (CUNY). He studies the information worlds of BIPOC high school students, subcultures and information, and undergraduate research experiences for underrepresented students. He earned a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. He serves on the editorial board of Library Hi-Tech, the advisory board of the Library of Congress Literacy Awards Program, the American Library Association (ALA) Spectrum Doctoral Fellows Program, and ALA’s Committee on Accreditation. He is a Mellon Fellow and a Google/ALA Fellow in the Libraries Ready to Code Program and a Founder of the iSchool Inclusion Institute (i3). Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    41 min

  6. 17 HR AGO

    Lauren J.A. Bear, "Aphrodite in Pieces" (Ace, 2026)

    Aphrodite in Pieces gathers diverse myths featuring the goddess and unites them to create a comprehensive portrait. Beginning with her innocent days on the island of Cyprus, progressing to her disappointing welcome in the pantheon of Olympus, and culminating in her shattering experiences of the Trojan war, Aphrodite is depicted in all her aspects—calculating and vengeful, kind and forgiving, passionate and abandoned. A woman does not live her life independent of society. As it is above, so it is below. Sometimes Aphrodite is praised for her beauty, and other times, her pulchritude condemns her to be judged as a whore. As Aphrodite grows in wisdom, she finds compassion for women such as Helen of Troy who suffer a similar fate. The stories of Aphrodite remain pertinent today. In them, Lauren J.A. Bear finds reflections and connections between art, love, and beauty. Gabrielle Mathieu writes historically inspired fantasy with a dash of romance and a dollop of adventure. You can find out more about her books and upcoming interviews on authorgabrielle.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    32 min

  7. 17 HR AGO

    Abigail Ocobock, "Marriage Material: How an Enduring Institution Is Changing Same-Sex Relationships" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

    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 in our society amid historic changes to its meaning and practice. How does the continuing strength of marriage impact the relationships of same-sex couples after the legalization of same-sex marriage? Drawing on over one hundred interviews with LGBTQ+ people, Marriage Material: How an Enduring Institution Is Changing Same-Sex Relationships (University of Chicago Press, 2024) reveals the transformative impact marriage equality has had on same-sex relationships. Sociologist Dr. Abigail Ocobock looks to same-sex couples across a wide age range to illuminate the complex ways institutional mechanisms work in tandem to govern the choices and behaviors of individuals with different marriage experiences. Dr. Ocobock examines both the influence of marriage on the dynamics of same-sex relationships and how LGBTQ+ people challenge heteronormative assumptions about marriage, highlighting the complex interplay between institutional constraint and individual agency. Marriage Material presents a bold challenge to dominant scholarly and popular ideas about the decline of marriage, making clear that gaining access to legal marriage has transformed same-sex relationships, both for better and for worse. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    42 min

  8. 17 HR AGO

    Francis Young, "Fairies: A History" (John Wiley & Sons, 2026)

    Many people think they know what fairies are, what a fairy looks like, and how a fairy is expected to behave. Dr. Francis Young's Fairies: A History (Polity, 2026) demonstrates that the truth about belief in fairies is far stranger than clichéd images of tiny figures with wings and wands.Before the rise of the 'small winged fairy' in the nineteenth century, the category of fairies included a vast range of supernatural human-like creatures, from the elves of Scandinavia and the aos sí of Ireland to the vilas of the Balkans and the fadas of Iberia. Dr. Young traces the ancient origins of belief in such creatures and how it adapted to the rise of Christianity and then flourished in medieval Europe, before being transformed – but not destroyed – by the upheavals of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and even European colonial expansion, which made fairies a global phenomenon. He concludes this uniquely wide-ranging history by reflecting on the surprising ways in which fairy belief endures in our apparently disenchanted contemporary world.No one who reads this brilliant tour through the enchanted pathways of fairyland will ever look at the winged creatures of contemporary popular culture – or the woods at the bottom of their garden – in the same way again. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    40 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4
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2 Ratings

About

Interviews with Authors about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Information

  • Creator
    New Books
  • Years Active
    2011 - 2026
  • Episodes
    749
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © New Books Network
  • Show Website
    New Books Network

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