Leuven University Press Podcast

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Interviews with authors of Leuven UP books.

  1. JAN 28

    Bram de Maeyer, "Building for Belgium: Belgian Embassies in a Globalising World (1945-2020)" (Leuven UP, 2025)

    Embassy buildings are the most tangible evidence of a state’s diplomatic presence abroad. State authorities have invested in the architectural conception of purpose-built embassies to flex their diplomatic muscle and project nationhood on foreign soil. While scholars have primarily focused on purpose-built embassies of (former) world powers, Building for Belgium: Belgian Embassies in a Globalising World (1945-2020) (Leuven UP, 2025) by Dr. Bram de Maeyer shifts the perspective by scrutinising the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ embassy-building programme from 1945 to 2020. Rather than a conventional political assessment of diplomatic relations, the book foregrounds the often-overlooked architectural lives of embassies and their social, economic, and political entanglements. By examining Belgian embassy projects across all continents, it reveals how the Belgian diplomatic corps has navigated diverse political regimes, geopolitical contexts, cultures, and building codes. More than the outcome of a deliberate policy, the embassy-building programme has been shaped by incidental decisions, private ambitions and personal tastes of Belgian diplomats, ministry officials and politicians. Building for Belgium not only sheds light on diplomatic architecture but also connects domestic conversations about architecture in Belgium with global state-building projects. Offering fresh insights into the politics of space, it will be of value to scholars and practitioners in architecture, urban studies, international relations, cultural heritage, and Belgian and European studies. 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

    37 min

  2. JAN 17

    Elwin Hofman et al. eds., "The Business of Pleasure: A History of Paid Sex in the Heart of Europe" (Leuven UP, 2022)

    Elwin Hofman joins Jana Byars to talk about the volume he edited with Magaly Rodríguez García & Pieter Vanhees, The Business of Pleasure: A History of Paid Sex in the Heart of Europe (Leuven UP, 2022). In 2022, the Belgian parliament made a landmark decision by approving the decriminalisation of sex work. This move positioned the small nation as the first country in Europe - and the second globally - to abandon the hypocrisy of tolerance. Yet this was not the first time paid sex in Belgium gained international notoriety. The bathhouses of the fifteenth-century 'frows of Flanders' were well-known throughout Europe. In the nineteenth century, Belgium faced international outrage as the alleged epicentre of white slavery. Although Belgians were then accused of forcing white women into prostitution, they were also free to include any suspect women in the prostitution registers of colonial Congo. Throughout the First and Second World Wars, both allied and German soldiers sought relief in Belgian brothels. The Business of Pleasure presents the compelling life stories of sex workers and their interactions with authorities, clients and pimps. Pushing beyond stereotypes, this history of commercial sex offers a nuanced understanding of the difficulties and opportunities associated with paid sex for women, men and trans persons past and present. Contributors: Elwin Hofman (Utrecht University), Magaly Rodríguez García (KU Leuven), Pieter Vanhees (former researcher KU Leuven), Jelle Haemers (KU Leuven), Amandine Lauro (Université libre de Bruxelles), Maarten Loopmans (KU Leuven), Ilias Loopmans (MA history student at University of Antwerp), Sonia Verstappen (former sex worker). English translation of 'Seks voor geld. Een geschiedenis van prostitutie in België', Elwin Hofman, Magaly Rodríguez García & Pieter Vanhees (red.), (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    50 min

  3. 11/24/2025

    Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré, "African Women’s Histories in European Narratives: The Afropolitan Krio Fernandino Diaspora (1850-1996)" (Leuven UP, 2025)

    Little is known about the African women who came to Europe from the 1870s onwards, nor do we dare to imagine them as wealthy, elegantly dressed individuals with refined tastes and fluent in several languages. The Krio Fernandino represented a multisited, multilocal, transnational, transcontinental and Afropolitan community that lived between Africa and Europe from the late 19th century onwards. African Women’s Histories in European Narratives: The Afropolitan Krio Fernandino Diaspora (1850-1996) (Leuven University Press, 2025) explains how the Krio Fernandino, and particularly their women, transcended the barriers of race and gender in colonial Africa and in Spain. Aixelà-Cabré highlights a fascinating journey across cultures and continents, unearthing a compelling narrative of African women's empowerment in their home continent and in Catalonia. This research highlights a women's history that resonates on regional, national and transcontinental levels; a genuine Euro-African and Afro-European legacy to be preserved for future generations. This book will be made open access within three years of publication thanks to JSTOR's Path to Open pilot. Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré is Senior Researcher in Anthropology at the IMF center of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research-CSIC. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    44 min

  4. 07/04/2025

    Pamela Karimi, "Women, Art, Freedom: Artists and Street Politics in Iran" (Leuven UP, 2024)

    Women, Art, Freedom: Artists and Street Politics in Iran offers an insightful look at the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran, sparked by the tragic murder of Jina Mahsa Amini at the hands of the “morality police” for violating hijab rules. Beyond its feminist undertones and the remarkable courage of the young protesters, what sets this uprising apart from previous ones is the abundant and diverse art it has inspired. This book, rather than merely analyzing the artworks that garnered attention on social media platforms, brings to light lesser-known grassroots artistic movements that played a crucial role within their immediate local communities. Engaging with primarily Iran-based artists, it uncovers their role in shaping guerrilla interventions and street occupations and in articulating distinct forms of peaceful civil disobedience. By drawing on a broad spectrum of historical and theoretical sources, this book further reveals the origins and inspirations of Iran’s protest art. Focusing mainly on the interconnections between the public sphere, women’s bodies, and feminist viewpoints, Women, Art, Freedom underscores the vital role of artists in championing global justice and equality.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 1m

  5. 02/16/2025

    Raphael Chijioke Njoku, "Queen Elizabeth II and the Africans: Narrating Decolonization, Postwar Commonwealth, and Africa’s Development, 1947-2022" (Leuven UP, 2024)

    The road to Queen Elizabeth II’s implementation of African reforms was rough, especially in the first two decades following her ascension to the throne. In Queen Elizabeth II and the Africans (Leuven UP, 2024), Raphael Chijioke Njoku examines Queen Elizabeth II’s role in the African decolonization trajectories and the postcolonial state’s quest for genuine political and economic liberation since 1947. By locating Elizabeth at the center of Anglophone Africa’s independence agitations, the account harnesses the African interests to tease out the monarch’s dilemma of complying with Whitehall’s decolonization schemes while building an inclusive and unified Commonwealth in which Africans could play a vital role. Njoku argues that to gratify British lawmakers in her complex and marginal place within the British parliamentary system of conservative versus reformist, Elizabeth’s contribution fell short of African nationalists’ expectations on account of her silence and inaction during the African decolonization raptures. Yet ultimately, the author concludes, she helped build an inclusive and unified organization in which Africans could assert and appropriate political and economic autarky. Kanayo Nomeh, Ph.D. Candidate in International Relations at Florida International University, specializing in Africa's diaspora relations, superpowers and geopolitical rivalry, and African-China sociopolitical dynamics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 6m

  6. 12/30/2024

    Ágnes Györke and Tamás Juhász, "Urban Culture and the Modern City: Hungarian Case Studies" (Leuven UP, 2024)

    When consulting key works on urban studies, the absence of Central and Eastern European towns is striking. Cities such as Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and Trieste, where such notable figures as Freud, Ferenczi, Kafka, and Joyce lived and worked, are rarely studied in a translocal framework, as if Central and Eastern Europe were still a blind spot of European modernity.  Urban Culture and the Modern City: Hungarian Case Studies (Leuven UP, 2024) expands the scope of literary urban studies by focusing on Budapest and Hungarian small towns, offering in-depth analyses of the intriguing link between literature, the arts, and material culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. The case studies situate Hungarian urban culture within the global flow of ideas as they explore the period of modernism, the mid-century, and the post-1989 era in a context that moves well beyond the borders of the country. Ágnes Györke is associate professor at Károli Gáspár University’s Department of Literary and Cultural Studies in English and principal investigator of the Cosmopolitan Ethics and the Modern City research group. Tamás Juhász is associate professor at Károli Gáspár University where he teaches modern British and American literature, cultural theory and Central European film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    57 min

  7. 05/02/2024

    Peter J. Freeth and Rafael Treviño, "Beyond the Translator’s Invisibility: Critical Reflections and New Perspectives" (Leuven UP, 2024)

    The question of whether to acknowledge a text as a translation and thereby bring attention to the translator’s role has been a central topic in discussions on translation throughout history. While the concept of translator visibility has gained significant prominence in translation studies, it has been criticized for its vagueness, adaptability, and focus on literary contexts. Peter J. Freeth and Rafael Treviño’s Beyond the Translator’s Invisibility: Critical Reflections and New Perspectives (Leuven University Press, 2024) draws on concepts from sociology, the digital humanities, and interpreting studies to address these criticisms and expand the theoretical understanding of translator visibility. It aims to develop and apply theoretical frameworks that go beyond the existing limitations. Beyond the Translator’s Invisibility employs empirical case studies covering various topics, including social media research, reception studies, institutional translation, and literary translation. These case studies demonstrate the significance of understanding the translator’s visibility as a multifaceted concept. By examining the diverse ways translators and translation are made visible, the volume introduces much-needed nuance to a concept that has been pervasive, polarizing, and imprecise within translation studies. In this episode, Ibrahim Fawzy interviews Peter J. Freeth and Rafael Treviño about the process of co-editing this book. Ibrahim Fawzy is a literary translator and academic based in Egypt. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, and disability studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    50 min

  8. 09/13/2023

    Jo Shaw and Ben Fletcher-Watson, "The Art of Being Dangerous: Exploring Women and Danger through Creative Expression" (Leuven UP, 2021)

    The idea that women are dangerous - individually or collectively - runs throughout history and across cultures. Behind this label lies a significant set of questions about the dynamics, conflicts, identities and power relations with which women live today. The Art of Being Dangerous: Exploring Women and Danger through Creative Expression (Leuven UP, 2021) offers many different images of women, some humorous, some challenging, some well-known, some forgotten, but all unique. In a dazzling variety of creative forms, artists and writers of diverse identities explore what it means to be a dangerous woman. With almost 100 evocative images, this collection showcases an array of contemporary art that highlights the staggering breadth of talent among today's female artists. It offers an unparalleled gallery of feminist creativity, ranging from emerging visual artists from the UK to multi-award-winning writers and translators from the Global South. This book emerges from the Dangerous Women Project. For more information, visit dangerouswomenproject.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    26 min
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Interviews with authors of Leuven UP books.

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