New Books in Popular Culture

Content moderation on social media has become one of the most daunting challenges of our time. Nowhere is the need for action more urgent than in the fight against terrorism and extremism. Yet despite mass content takedowns, account suspensions, and mounting pressure on technology companies to do more, hate thrives online. Safe Havens for Hate: The Challenge of Moderating Online Extremism (Princeton University Press, 2025) looks at how content moderation shapes the tactics of harmful content producers on a wide range of social media platforms.Drawing on a wealth of original data on more than a hundred militant and hate organizations around the world, Dr. Tamar Mitts shows how differing moderation standards across platforms create safe havens that allow these actors to organize, launch campaigns, and mobilize supporters. She reveals how the structure of the information environment shapes the cross-platform activity of extremist organizations and movements such as the Islamic State, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and QAnon, and highlights the need to consider the online ecosystem, not just individual platforms, when developing strategies to combat extremism.Taking readers to the frontlines of the digital battleground where dangerous organizations operate, Safe Havens for Hate sheds critical light on how governments and technology companies grapple with the tension between censorship and free speech when faced with violence, hate, and extremism. 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/popular-culture

The Road (Akashic Books, 2025) is an illuminating selection of photographs spanning iconic punk rock guitarist Brian Baker's many years of global touring with Bad Religion, Dag Nasty, and other bands. The images are intelligent and arresting, reflecting time spent both inside and outside the bubble of backstages and tour buses. While touring is easily glamorized, all traveling musicians know that twenty-two hours of every day lack the lights, glitter, and other rock-and-roll trappings. For Baker, some of that time is spent photographing what interests him most in his surroundings. As revealed in The Road, his fascinations range from bizarre highway signage; to unsettling figurines, mannequins, and statuettes; to religious iconography that carries extra weight when one considers the ethos of a band called Bad Religion; to steaming cups of espresso and classic diner meals; to guitars, guitars, and more guitars; and so much more. The Road is designed in collaboration with award-winning photographer and curator Jennifer Sakai. Music lovers across the globe will revel in a Brian Baker's–eye view of the landscapes he inhabits, and gain insight into the sometimes disquieting and always beautiful imagery that seizes his attention and engages his obsessions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In the wake of Disco Demolition Night in 1979—a cultural bonfire that seemed to signal the end of disco—something unexpected began to rise from Chicago's underground. This episode traces the story of Frankie Knuckles, the Bronx-born DJ who became known as the “Godfather of House.” After the backlash against disco pushed the genre out of the mainstream, Knuckles found refuge in Chicago's Black, Latinx, and queer nightlife scenes, most famously at a club called the Warehouse. There, he pioneered a new sound: blending disco's heartbeat with gospel, soul, electronic drum machines, and experimental edits. What emerged was “house music,” named after the Warehouse itself, a genre that spoke directly to marginalized communities while later exploding into a global phenomenon. We'll explore how Knuckles's artistry and innovation not only kept dance floors alive after disco's so-called death but also transformed music history. By tracing the arc from the ruins of Disco Demolition to the rise of house, this episode reveals how moments of cultural rejection can spark radical creativity. Frankie Knuckles didn't just keep the party going—he built a new world of sound that would change the way the world dances. In this eighth episode of season two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares discuss the life and work of Frankie Knuckles with Micah Salkind, author of Do You Remember House?: Chicago's Queer of Color Undergrounds (Oxford University Press, 2018). Micah Salkind is the Director of Civic and Cultural Life at the Rhode Island Foundation. Prior, in his roles as Deputy Director and Special Projects Manager at the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture and Tourism, he managed large grants and strategic artist initiatives for the City, collaborating with non-profit cultural institutions as well as its emerging artists, designers, and creative entrepreneurs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In this episode of International Horizons, Interim Director Eli Karetny speaks with film scholar Nathan Abrams about the enduring relevance of Stanley Kubrick and what his work can teach us about our current era. From the nuclear absurdities of Dr. Strangelove to the cosmic rebirth of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick's films expose the fragile line between technological mastery and moral collapse. Abrams unpacks Kubrick's fascination with war, authority, and obedience, his roots in the New York Jewish intellectual tradition, and his exploration of mystical and mythic themes—from Kabbalah to The Odyssey. Together, they reveal how Kubrick's cinematic universe reflects our own: a world where human creativity, paranoia, and power intertwine in both terrifying and illuminating ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Charles J. Stivale (Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Wayne State University) and Dan Smith (Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University) join me to discuss: Deleuze, Gilles. 2025. On Painting. Edited by David Lapoujade, translated by Charles J. Stivale. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Although Charles is the translator of this New Book, he has been working with Dan for years on The Deleuze Seminars (website here). Dan is also the translator of Deleuze's Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, which Deleuze published shortly after giving this seminar. I thank Charles for bringing him in to contribute to our discussion! From the inside flap: “ ” Nathan Smith is a PhD candidate in Music Theory at Yale University nathan.smith@yale.edu Available for the first time in English: the complete and annotated transcripts of Deleuze's 1981 seminars on paintingFrom 1970 until 1987, Gilles Deleuze held a weekly seminar at the Experimental University of Vincennes and, starting in 1980, at Saint-Denis. In the spring of 1981, he began a series of eight seminars on painting and its intersections with philosophy. The recorded sessions, newly transcribed and translated into English, are now available in their entirety for the first time. Extensively annotated by philosopher David Lapoujade, On Painting illuminates Deleuze's thinking on artistic creation, significantly extending the lines of thought in his book Francis Bacon.Through paintings and writing by Rembrandt, Delacroix, Turner, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Klee, Pollock, and Bacon, Deleuze explores the creative process, from chaos to the pictorial fact. The introduction and use of color feature prominently as Deleuze elaborates on artistic and philosophical concepts such as the diagram, modulation, code, and the digital and the analogical. Through this scrutiny, he raises a series of profound and stimulating questions for his students: How does a painter ward off grayness and attain color? What is a line without contour? Why paint at all?Written and thought in a rhizomatic manner that is thoroughly Deleuzian—strange, powerful, and novel—On Painting traverses both the conception of art history and the possibility of color as a philosophical concept. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Why is there no metric system in the United States? Why is it that a country known for its openness to the future, its scientific innovations, and its preference for practicality has not adopted the most practical, scientific, and innovative system of measurement? Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America (Vanderbilt UP, 2025) by Dr. Hector Vera answers these questions by analyzing the political, economic, and international factors that determined the trajectory of the United States as a nation self-excluded from one of the most successful global technical languages. Using a historical-comparative approach and qualitative analysis of archival material, the book examines the trajectories of American scientists, engineers, politicians, and industrialists from 1787 to 1982, to detail what they wanted to attain and to explain what was actually possible to achieve given the political and economic conditions in which they lived. Yardstick Nation argues that in order to understand the unbreached distance between the United States and the metric system, we must consider the interaction between three structural elements: historical timing, state infrastructural power, and international economic integration. Dr. Vera's systematic look at when and why countries have adopted the metric system shows that its introduction is never casual. In the countries that voluntarily embraced the metric system, this was the result of either deep internal political transformations or momentous changes in the international economy. When the adoption of the metric system is politically driven, it comes as the result of a social revolution, independence war, national unification, or the draft of a new constitution. When it is propelled by economic factors, metrication is part of the efforts of economically stagnant countries to integrate into international markets. 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/popular-culture

Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) arrives at the perfect moment as artificial intelligence and other technologies promise to unleash another wave of major transformation. This book is a kaleidoscopic look at how eleven disruptive innovations—including the iPhone, transistor, disposable diapers, and Julia Child's The Art of French Cooking—reshaped industries and societies, propelling humanity toward new frontiers. It masterfully weaves together the fascinating stories behind history's most transformative disruptions—from ninth-century China to twenty-first-century Silicon Valley. Through the eleven pivotal innovations that it covers, including the printing press, mass-produced automobiles, the McDonald's revolutionary food system, and the iPhone, the author Dartmouth Business School Professor Scott D. Anthony reveals the hidden patterns behind world-changing breakthroughs from gunpowder to generative AI. These forces of disruption are repeatedly rewriting the rules of business, society, and human possibility. Through vivid storytelling and sharp analysis, Professor Anthony introduces the iconoclasts who dared to think differently—the Renaissance-era scientists, French-cooking enthusiasts, and corporate visionaries who saw opportunities others missed. This books shows how disruptions actually took place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Nothing captivates the human imagination like the vast unknowns of space. Ancient petroglyphs present renderings of the heavens, proof that we have been gazing up at the stars with wonder for thousands of years. Since then, mankind has systematically expanded our cosmic possibilities. What were once flights of fancy and dreams of science fiction writers have become nearly routine – a continuous human presence orbiting the Earth, probes flying beyond our solar system, and men walking on the moon. NASA and the Russian space program make traveling to the stars look easy, but it has been far from that. Space travel is a sometimes heroic, sometimes humorous, and always dangerous journey fraught with perils around every corner that most of us have never heard of or have long since forgotten.Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe (Doubleday, 2024) brings these unknown, offbeat, and obscure stories of space to life. From the showmanship and bravado of the earliest known space fatality, German Max Valier, to the first ever indictment under the Espionage Act on an Army officer who leaked secrets concerning the development of early U.S. rockets; and the story of a single loose bolt that defeated the Soviet Union's attempt to beat America to the moon.Author Joe Cuhaj also sheds light on the human aspects of space travel that have remained industry secrets – until now: how the tradition of using a musical playlist to wake astronauts up began, fascinating tales about inventions like the Fischer Space Pen, Omega watches, and even Tang breakfast drink.In addition to fun and entertaining space trivia, Space Oddities also features stories of the profound impact that space travel has had on challenges right here at home, like the effort by civil rights leaders and activists in the 1960s to bring the money from the space program back home to those in need on Earth; NASA's FLATs (First Lady Astronaut Training) program and the 13 women who were selected to become astronauts in 1960, but were denied a chance at flying even after successfully completing the rigorous astronaut training program; and, the animals who many times sacrificed their lives to prove that man could fly in space.Filled with rare and little-known stories, Space Oddities will bring the final frontier to the homes of diehard space readers and armchair astronauts alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money, work for justice, run marathons, sing in a choir, have children, travel the world? The things we care about in life—family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals—often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don't always know what we really want, or how to define success. Blending personal stories, philosophy, and psychology, this insightful and entertaining book offers invaluable advice about living well by understanding your values and resolving the conflicts that frustrate their fulfillment.Dr. Valerie Tiberius introduces you to a way of thinking about your goals that enables you to reflect on them effectively throughout your life. She illustrates her approach with vivid examples, many of which are drawn from her own life, ranging from the silly to the serious, from shopping to navigating prejudice. Throughout, the book emphasizes the importance of interconnectedness, reminding us of the profound influence other people have on our lives, our goals, and how we should pursue them. At the same time, the book offers strategies for coping with obstacles to realizing your goals, including gender bias and other kinds of discrimination. Whether you are changing jobs, rethinking your priorities, or reconsidering your whole life path, What Do You Want Out of Life?: A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters (Princeton UP, 2024) is an essential guide to helping you understand what really matters to you and how you can thoughtfully pursue it. Our guest is: Valerie Tiberius, who is the Paul W. Frenzel Chair in Liberal Arts and professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota. Her books include Well-Being as Value Fulfillment: How We Can Help Each Other to Live Well and The Reflective Life: Living Wisely with Our Limits. She lives in Minneapolis. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a dissertation and grad student coach, and a developmental editor for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. She is the producer of the Academic Life podcast, and writes the show's newsletter at christinagessler.substack.com. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: How We Show Up The Good-Enough Life Tell Me What You Want Taking A Break from Overworking and Underliving How Can Mindfulness Help Meditation For Beginners Making A Meaningful Life Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can help to support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 280+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. Thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Propagandhi formed in 1986 in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Canada and are now based in Winnipeg. Their outspoken influence and consistency in anti-fascist, animal-friendly, gay-positive, and pro-feminist ideas have inspired thousands of hardcore, thrash metal and punk rock music fans across four decades. Unscripted Moments: A Podcast About Propagandhi began in 2020 as a fan-made song-by-song podcast exploring each release by the band. The podcast also features bonus episodes about touring, recording and more with friends, fans and collaborators from throughout the bands musical career. Among the hundreds of episodes about the band's music are more than fifteen hours of candid interviews with past and present members of Propagandhi recorded between 2020 and 2025. The conversations vary widely in topic and discuss songwriting, touring stories, favourite cover songs and side projects, as well as personal hobbies and interests of the band members. These edited interviews with Chris Hannah, Jord Samolesky, John Samson Fellows, Todd Kowalski, David Guillas, and Sulynn Hago span the career of the band from their earliest demos through to the recording of their eighth album, At Peace, released in May 2025. Propagandhi has released music with G7 Welcoming Committee, Recess Records, Fat Wreck Chords, and Epitaph Records. The 200+ episodes of Unscripted Moments: A Podcast About Propagandhi have been downloaded more than half a million times and are available to stream everywhere podcasts are available. Greg Soden is the host of 'Unscripted Moments: A Podcast About Propagandhi' and a super-fan of the band, with whom he worked to put together this book of candid conversations over the last five years. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

What does contemporary China's diverse and exciting fiction tell us about its culture, and the relationship between art and politics? The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters (Columbia Global Reports, 2022) by Megan Walsh takes us on a lively journey through a literary landscape like you've never seen before: a vast migrant-worker poetry movement, homoerotic romances by “rotten girls,” swaggering literary popstars, millionaire e-writers churning out the longest-ever novels, underground comics, the surreal works of Yu Hua, Yan Lianke, and Nobel-laureate Mo Yan, and what is widely hailed as a golden-age of sci-fi. Chinese online fiction is now the largest publishing platform in the world. Fueled by her passionate engagement with the arts and ideas of China's people, Walsh, a brilliant young critic, shows us why it's important to finally pay attention to Chinese fiction—an exuberant drama that illustrates the complex relationship between art and politics, one that is increasingly shaping the West as well. Turns out, writers write neither what their government nor foreign readers want or expect, as they work on a different wavelength to keep alive ideas and events that are censored by the propaganda machine. The Subplot vividly captures the way in which literature offers an alternative—perhaps truer—way to understanding the contradictions that make up China itself. 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/popular-culture

Since her death, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has become an endless source of fascination for a wide audience ranging from readers of The Bell Jar, her semiautobiographical novel, to her groundbreaking poetry as exemplified by Ariel. Beyond her writing, however, interest in Plath has also been fueled in part by the tragic nature of her death. As a result, a steady stream of biographies of Plath have appeared over the last fifty-five years that mainly focus on her death or contain projections of an array of points of view about the writer. Until now, little sustained attention has been paid to the influences on Plath's life and work. What movies did she watch? Which books did she read? How did media shape her worldview? In this meticulously researched biography The Making of Sylvia Plath (UP Mississippi, 2024), Carl Rollyson explores the intricate web of literature, cinema, spirituality, psychology, and popular culture that profoundly influenced Plath's life and writing. At the heart of this biography is a compelling exploration of William Sheldon's seminal work, Psychology and the Promethean Will, which Plath devoured in her quest for self-discovery and understanding. Through Plath's intense study of this work, readers gain unprecedented access to Plath's innermost thoughts, her therapeutic treatments, and the overarching worldview that fueled her creative genius.Through Sheldon as well as Plath's other influences, Rollyson offers a captivating survey of the symbiotic relationship between an artist and the world around her and offers readers new insights into the enigmatic mind of one of the most important writers of the twentieth century.   Jane Scimeca, Professor of History at Brookdale Community College Website here @janescimeca.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight (UP of Mississippi, 2021) is a celebration of jazz and the men and women who created and transformed it. In the twenty-one conversations contained in this engaging and highly accessible book, we hear from the musicians themselves, in their own words, direct and unfiltered. Peter Zimmerman's interviewing technique is straightforward. He turns on a recording device, poses questions, and allows his subjects to improvise, similar to the way the musicians do at concerts and in recording sessions. Topics range from their early days, their struggles and victories, to the impact the music has had on their own lives. The interviews have been carefully edited for sense and clarity, without changing any of the musicians' actual words. Peter Zimmerman tirelessly sought virtuosi whose lives span the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The reader is rewarded with an intimate look into the past century's extraordinary period of creative productivity. The oldest two interview subjects were born in 1920 and all are professional musicians who worked in jazz for at least five decades, with a few enjoying careers as long as seventy-five years. These voices reflect some seventeen hundred years of accumulated experience yielding a chronicle of incredible depth and scope. The focus on musicians who are now emeritus figures is deliberate. Some of them are now in their nineties; six have passed since 2012, when Zimmerman began researching The Jazz Masters. Five of them have already received the NEA's prestigious Jazz Masters award: Sonny Rollins, Clark Terry, Yusef Lateef, Jimmy Owens, and most recently, Dick Hyman. More undoubtedly will one day, and the balance are likewise of compelling interest. Artists such as David Amram, Charles Davis, Clifford Jordan, Valery Ponomarev, and Sandy Stewart, to name a few, open their hearts and memories and reveal who they are as people. This book is a labor of love celebrating the vibrant style of music that Dizzy Gillespie once described as “our native art form.” Zimmerman's deeply knowledgeable, unabashed passion for jazz brings out the best in the musicians. Filled with personal recollections and detailed accounts of their careers and everyday lives, this highly readable, lively work succeeds in capturing their stories for present and future generations. An important addition to the literature of music, The Jazz Masters goes a long way toward “setting the record straight.” Adam Bobeck is a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. His PhD is entitled “Object-Oriented Azadari: Shi'i Muslim Rituals and Ontology”. For more about his work, see www.adambobeck.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its global reach raises a perplexing question--what happens when anime is produced outside of Japan? Who actually makes anime, and how can this help us rethink notions of cultural production?  In Anime's Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan (U Minnesota Press, 2021), Stevie Suan examines how anime's recognizable media-form--no matter where it is produced--reflects the problematics of globalization. The result is an incisive look at not only anime but also the tensions of transnationality. Far from valorizing the individualistic "originality" so often touted in national creative industries, anime reveals an alternate type of creativity based in repetition and variation. In exploring this alternative creativity and its accompanying aesthetics, Suan examines anime from fresh angles, including considerations of how anime operates like a brand of media, the intricacies of anime production occurring across national borders, inquiries into the selfhood involved in anime's character acting, and analyses of various anime works that present differing modes of transnationality. Anime's Identity deftly merges theories from media studies and performance studies, introducing innovative formal concepts that connect anime to questions of dislocation on a global scale, creating a transformative new lens for analyzing popular media. Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Bradley Morgan's U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, 2025) celebrates fifty years of U2 with a career-spanning retrospective featuring more than 150 images that trace the band's journey from Dublin pubs to sold-out arena tours. Morgan delves into the history of U2, offering an intimate look at their formation and the evolution of their unique sound. From Boy and The Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby and beyond, the book captures how each album marked a creative turning point and cemented U2's place as musical pioneers. Through vivid photography and thoughtful storytelling, Morgan highlights the band's artistic growth and commitment to social activism. From Live Aid to Amnesty International, U2's impact on global causes is as significant as their musical legacy. Readers also gain a rare glimpse into the lives of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr., as individuals, collaborators, and lifelong friends behind one of the most influential bands in the world. A music journalist and media arts professional, Bradley Morgan is the director of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM's music film festival, manages partnerships for the station, and serves on the associate board of the Art Institute of Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center. He also interviews authors of music and pop culture books for the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Iceland punches well above its weight in the world of music, producing global icons like Björk, Sigur Rós, Of Monsters and Men, and Laufey, while at the same time nurturing a vibrant local scene. Icelandic Pop: Then, Today, Tomorrow, Next Week (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen explores how Iceland's unique social habits, institutions and everyday practices contribute to its thriving music culture.  Tracing the development of Icelandic popular music since the rock 'n' roll era, it examines key influences shaping the scene, from Reykjavík's musicians to national institutions like radio and concert venues. With engaging explanations of sociological factors, the book sheds light on why Iceland has become a powerhouse in music. An illuminating journey through Iceland's music history, this is a celebration of the artistry and cultural forces behind its global impact. 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/popular-culture

As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from the cardboard apples that lined supermarket shelves in the United States. Yet on a small patch of woods near her home in Santa Fe, Kumar discovered a wild apple tree—and the seeds of an odyssey were planted. Could the taste of a feral apple offer a doorway to the wild? In The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit, Kumar takes us on a dazzling and transformative journey to rediscover apples, unearthing a rich and complex history while illuminating how we can reimagine our relationship with nature.Apples are popular, but in our everyday lives we rarely encounter more than a handful of varieties: of the sixteen thousand apple varieties once celebrated in America, scarcely a fifth remain accessible. Kumar reveals the richness of a hidden world, bringing readers to the vibrant forests and orchards where historic trees still survive. These mature and wild orchards offer more than just fruit: they are havens for creatures from hummingbirds to bears and a living connection to generations past. She brilliantly weaves together science and childhood memories with the apple's storied history, from its roots in Kazakhstan to Spanish orchards in the Southwest and Thomas Jefferson's beloved Monticello fruitery. Kumar shows how—if we follow untamed paths—the tang and texture of an apple can lead us back to the wild. Our guest is: Priyanka Kumar, who is the author of Conversations with Birds, and The Light Between Apple Trees. Her essays appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Orion, and Sierra magazine. She holds an MFA, and has taught at the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Southern California. Her feature documentary, The Song of the Little Road, is in the permanent collection of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and her awards include an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, a New Mexico/New Visions Governor's Award, an International Center for Jefferson Studies Fellowship, and an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Fellowship. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a writing coach and freelance editor. She is the producer of the Academic Life podcast, and writes the show's newsletter. Playlist for listeners: Big Box USA In The Garden Behind the Moon Disabled Ecologies Endless Forms The Well-Gardened Mind Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 275+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Maggie Gram is a writer, cultural historian, and designer. She leads an experience-design team at Google. She has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and Harvard University, and she has written for N+1 and the New York Times. She lives in New York. The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History (Basic Books, 2025) Recommended Books: Henry Dreyfuss, Designing for People Dolly Alderton, Ghosts Rob Franklin, Great Black Hope Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Women and Global Documentary: Practices and Perspectives in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025), edited by Najmeh Moradiyan-Rizi and Shilyh J. Warren, answers the urgent need to re-evaluate not only the significance of women's documentary practices and their contributions to feminist world-building, but also the state of documentary studies as it engages with political, aesthetic, and industrial developments arising as a result of an increasing numbers of women's documentaries.  Bringing together a range of diverse practitioners and authors, the volume analyzes alternative and emergent networks of documentary production and collaboration within a global context. The chapters investigate filmmaking practices from regions such as East Africa, Latin America, South Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. They also examine decolonial practices in the Global North based on Indigenous filmmaking and feminist documentary institutions such as Women Make Movies. In doing so, they assess the global, institutional, political, and artistic factors that have shaped women's documentary practices in the 21st century, and their implications for scholarly debates regarding women's authorship, political subjectivity, and documentary representation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

We're thrilled to announce that our episode “S2.E2. Lost Women of Disco” has been named a finalist in the Best Indie Podcast category at the 2025 Signal Awards! This powerful episode dives deep into the untold stories of the trailblazing women who shaped the culture we now call “disco”, but were overshadowed by history. We are re-releasing this episode, which originally aired on July 22, 2025, to highlight this recognition and to celebrate the forgotten legacy of these groundbreaking artists. Thank you to our listeners and the Signal Awards for this incredible honor. If you haven't tuned in yet, now's the perfect time to discover the voices that helped define a generation. *** *** Women have been central to the evolution of dance music culture since its earliest days, yet their contributions have often been overlooked. From Régine Zylberberg's pioneering work in creating the modern discotheque in 1950s Paris to Sharon White's trailblazing presence at New York's legendary venues in the 1970s, female DJs have shaped dance floors worldwide. Sharon White broke barriers as a Black queer radio DJ, finding her way into the booth at the Paradise Garage in 1975. She became the first female DJ to play at the revered Saint club and spun records at Studio 54. Her influence can be seen in later pioneers like London's Smokin' Jo, who emerged from the British acid house scene to become one of England's most celebrated DJs and the only woman to be awarded DJ of the Year in DJ Magazine's Top 100. In the second episode of Season Two of Soundscapes NYC, hosts Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares welcome DJ, academic, and journalist Lulu Le Vay to explore the often-untold stories of women in dance music culture. Le Vay, who holds a PhD in Sociology from Goldsmiths and performs as DJ Lulu Levan, represents a new generation of "PhDJs" combining academic inquiry with dance floor experience. From writing for publications like The Face, i-D, and The Guardian to spinning at festivals like Lovebox and Bestival, she documents club culture from multiple perspectives. Currently working on a documentary about women DJs with director Sonja Phillips, Le Vay is also part of Love Underground, a new collaboration with producer Tommy D whose new single "The Journey Part 1" is out on Chillifunk records. Through her podcast Where Love Lives and her work preserving dance music history, Le Vay continues to celebrate the women who built the foundations of club culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

This is the story of a song. Yet, it is a song that binds nearly every strand of 20th-century American popular music. “Hey Joe” was written sometime in the early 1960s by a man named Billy Roberts, an obscure singer and guitarist from South Carolina who moved to New York City, drawn by the burgeoning folk music scene in Greenwich Village. It was a time when new, original material was scarce, leading other singers to quickly adapt songs of quality in the spirit of folk music's oral traditions. Thus began the long journey of “Hey Joe” from New York coffeehouses to the bars on L.A.'s Sunset Strip to the ears of a young guitarist named Jimi Hendrix who launched his career with his radical, electrified interpretation. Extensively researched, That Gun in Your Hand: The Strange Saga of ‘Hey Joe' and Popular Music's History of Violence (Anvil Press, 2025) also presents previously unpublished information about the life of Billy Roberts, a shadowy figure whose 2017 death went unreported by all news outlets. With a Foreword by Lenny Kaye. Jason Schneider has written for Exclaim!, The Globe & Mail, The Toronto Star, Paste, American Songwriter, Relix, Shindig and many other media outlets. He is the co-author of Have Not Been The Same: the CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995, and his other books include Whispering Pines: the Northern Roots of American Music, and the novel 3,000 Miles. He currently lives in Kitchener, Ontario. Jason Schneider on Bluesky. Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America (Backbeat Books, 2021), Frank Zappa's America (LSU Press, 2025), and U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, 2025). He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and is the director of its music film festival. Bradley Morgan on Facebook and Bluesky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

What is a good life? Traditionally, philosophers have seen it as an equation: The Good Life = Happiness + Meaning. But, if it's really that simple, why don't more of us achieve that truly "good" life?  In The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It (Balance, 2024), Lorraine Besser, Professor of Philosophy at Middlebury College, offers insights drawn from both psychological research and philosophical analysis that provides new insights into a third aspect of happiness, psychological richness. According to Besser it is exposure to "the interesting" that leads to psychologically rich experiences. Put simply, "The Interesting" is an experience that captivates you, engages you, helps you let go of whatever is holding you back from fully engaging in the world around you. It's different for everyone, and everyone can obtain and strengthen the skills necessary to access it. In this interview, Besser relates key insights from her book, while discussing linkages to other areas of research including the notion of human capabilities developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, approaches to measuring societal well being such as Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Index, the influence of technology on our ability to achieve psychologically rich lives, and potential normative implications of her research for policy. Professor Besser is interviewed by Thomas McInerney (Loyola University Chicago School of Law; Stockholm Environment Institute). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Originating in Norse and Celtic mythologies, elves and fairies are a firmly established part of Western popular culture. Since the days of the Vikings and Arthurian legend, these sprites have undergone huge transformations. From J. R. R. Tolkien's warlike elves, based on medieval legend, to little flower fairies whose charms even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle succumbed to, they permeate European art and culture. In Elves and Fairies: A Short History of the Otherworld (Yale University Press, 2025), Dr. Matthias Egeler explores these mythical creatures of Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and England, and their continental European cousins. Dr. Egeler goes on a journey through enchanted landscapes and literary worlds. He describes both their friendly and their dangerous, even deadly, sides. We encounter them in the legends of King Arthur's round table and in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, in the terrible era of the witch trials, in magic's peaceful conquest of Victorian bourgeois salons, in the child-friendly form of Peter Pan, and even as helpers in the contemporary fight against environmental destruction. 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/popular-culture

Popular music history collides with data analytics, charts, and numbers in this insightful and surprising look at the greatest hits and musicians, fads, forgotten artists, and much more. Data analyst and musician Chris Dalla Riva reframes everything you thought you knew about music. Did you know that hit songs in the late 1950s were regularly about gruesome death? That a US vice president wrote a number one hit? That while TikTok has spawned countless hits, it's made artists more anonymous than ever before? That pop songs have shaped race relations in the United States? That the key change died around 2003? And that's just the beginning. Coupling hard data with engaging anecdotes, Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves (Bloomsbury, 2025) is both a takedown and celebration of popular music and provides new ways to think about your favorite songs, genres, and artists from the last 6 decades using unexpected statistics and playful visualizations. This entertaining history is filled with the most popular musicians of all time from The Beatles and The Bee Gees to Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, and beyond. Whether you danced the twist or the dougie at your senior prom, you're sure to never listen to music again in the same way. Chris Dalla Riva lives at the intersection of music and data. Playing in bands and recording music since his teenage years, Dalla Riva is currently a Senior Product Manager at Audiomack where he focuses on data analytics and personalization. Gregory McNiff is a Managing Director in the New York office of the Blueshirt Group, an IR firm focused on technology. Greg holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an M. Litt. in Shakespeare Studies from the University of St. Andrews and a B.A. in Classical Languages from Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

John R. Davis's Keep Your Ear to the Ground (Georgetown University Press, 2025) is the first history of the fanzines that emerged from Washington, DC's highly influential punk community DIY culture has always been at the heart of DC's thriving punk community. As Washington, DC's punk scene emerged in the mid-1970s, so did the periodicals--"fanzines"--that celebrated it. Before the rise of the internet, fanzines were a potent way for fans to communicate and to revel in the joy of fandom. These zines were more than just publications; they were a distillation of punk's allure, connecting the city to the broader punk community. Fanzines remain a meaningful, tactile, creative medium for punk fans to connect with like-minded people outside the corporate-controlled world. In Keep Your Ear to the Ground, the archivist and musician John R. Davis unveils the development of punk fanzines and their role in supporting DC's hardcore and punk scene from the 1970s into the twenty-first century. He sheds new light on DC's scene and highlights some of its key personalities, including many who are often left out of punk history, with high-quality images of rare zines and insights from numerous interviews with zine creators and musicians. This book vividly weaves together the origin of zines and their importance in underground communities. For punk enthusiasts, zine creators, American studies scholars, and anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, Keep Your Ear to the Ground traces how the unique environment of Washington, DC, helped zines thrive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

For centuries, the ocean was seen as a place of danger and work, but by the late nineteenth century, northeastern shores of the United States became therapeutic destinations for the sick and weary. Doctors in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities began prescribing time at the beach as a remedy for ailments such as tuberculosis, rickets, and exhaustion. In the decades that followed, seaside towns became health havens complete with hospitals that served urban families and children.Dr. Meghan Crnic's The Beach Cure: A History of Healing on Northeastern Shores (U Washington Press, 2025) explores how physicians, tourists, and families transformed the coastline into a medical and cultural landscape. Dr. Crnic traces how beliefs in “marine medication”—the healing power of the sun, sea air, and saltwater—shaped the development of northeastern coastal tourist destinations and health institutions in Atlantic City, Coney Island, and beyond. Despite advances in germ theory and the rise of laboratory science, the conviction that nature can restore health and well-being persisted and continues to resonate with beachgoers today.This book uncovers the profound ways in which Americans tied health to place, showing how the underlying belief in nature's therapeutic powers brought people to the seashore as a precursor to the beach becoming a destination for leisure and recreation. The Beach Cure offers fresh insight into the history of environmental health, urging readers to reflect on how landscapes shape well-being. 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/popular-culture

It's The Pop Culture Professors, and we review Taylor Swift's new album “The Life of a Showgirl.” We consider the album's themes: love, nostalgia, how hard it is to be famous, and how the internet is bad. We set the songs in the context of Taylor's wider career and public persona. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats (Da Capo Press, 2025) Audrey Golden traces the history of the iconic band The Raincoats staring of the founding by Art students Gina Birch and Ana da Silva in 1977. Since the release of their seminal early records, the band has been revered by punk, queer, feminist, and indie pop artists alike.The Raincoats reimagined the nature of experimental music and DIY design, and went on to inspire Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and an entire generation of Riot Grrrl and queercore musicians. Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats tells this story, which resonates at the heart of late twentieth century radical art, in three distinct lives of the band. In The Raincoats' first life, they recorded three full-length albums now regarded as classics and were the first punk band to play behind the Iron Curtain in Warsaw. Nearly a decade later in 1992, the band's second life took off when Kurt Cobain's love of the band catalyzed their renaissance, and The Raincoats became renowned as 'godmothers of grunge and Riot Grrrl' only to go on hiatus again in 1996. In 2001, The Raincoats reemerged in a third and ongoing iteration marked by performances in art museums such as New York's MoMA, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and London's National Portrait Gallery. The Raincoats have and continue to be a singular phenomenon and influence for so many. Featuring exclusive interviews and never-before-seen images from The Raincoats' archive, Shouting Out Loud is the first biography of this pioneering group of women who paved the way for hundreds of artists who have followed in their footsteps and the must-have account of a legendary band that holds a vital place in twentieth and twenty-first century sonic history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Vanilla is one of the most expensive of flavorings—so valuable that it was smuggled or stolen by pirates in the early days—and yet it is everywhere. It is a key ingredient in dishes ranging from crème brûlée to Japanese purin. It is the quintessential ice cream flavor in the United States. In Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean (Yale UP, 2025) Dr. Eric T. Jennings explains how the world's only edible orchid, originally endemic to Central America, became embedded in the international culinary and cultural landscape. In tracing vanilla's rise, Dr. Jennings describes how in the 1840s an enslaved boy named Edmond Albius discovered a way to pollinate vanilla orchids with a toothpick or needle—an ingenious process that is still in use. This method transformed the vanilla sector by enabling the plant to be grown outside of its natural range. Dr. Jennings also looks at how the vanilla craze led to the search for now‑pervasive substitutes, and how a vanilla lobby has fought back. He further unravels how vanilla—the world's most expensive crop and once considered its most refined fragrance—came to mean “bland.” This tale of botany, production techniques, consumption habits, and colonial rivalry connects the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, revealing how vanilla has become a potent symbol of the modern global village. 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/popular-culture

Kathleen Casey joins Jana Byars to talk about The Things She Carried: A Cultural History of the Purse in America (Oxford UP, 2025). Purses and bags have always been much more than a fashion accessory. For generations of Americans, the purse has been an essential and highly adaptable object, used to achieve a host of social, cultural, and political objectives. In the early 1800s, when the slim fit of neoclassical dresses made interior pockets impractical, upper-class women began to carry small purses called reticules, which provided them with a private place in a world where they did not have equal access to public space. Although many items of apparel have long expressed their wearer's aspirations, only the purse has offered carriers privacy, pride, and pleasure. This privacy has been particularly important for those who have faced discrimination because of their gender, class, race, citizenship, or sexuality. The Things She Carried reveals how bags, sacks, and purses provided the methods and materials for Americans' activism, allowing carriers to transgress critical boundaries at key moments. It explores how enslaved people used purses and bags when attempting to escape and immigrant factory workers fought to protect their purses in the workplace. It also probes the purse's nuanced functions for Black women in the civil rights movement and explores how LGBTQ people used purses to defend their bodies and make declarations about their sexuality. Kathleen Casey closely examines a variety of sources--from vintage purses found in abandoned buildings and museum collections to advertisements, photograph albums, trade journals, newspaper columns, and trial transcripts. She finds purses in use at fraught historical moments, where they served strategic and symbolic functions for their users. The result is a thorough and surprising examination of an object that both ordinary and extraordinary Americans used to influence social, cultural, economic, and political change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The Royal We (Akashic Books, 2025) is a poetic survey of a time set in a magical city that once was and is no more. It is a memoir written by Roddy Bottum, a musician and artist, that documents through prose his coming of age and out of the closet in 1980s San Francisco, a charged era of bicycle messengers, punk rock, street witches, wheatgrass, and rebellion. The book follows his travels from Los Angeles, growing up gay with no role models, to San Francisco, where he formed Faith No More and went on to tour the world relentlessly, surviving heroin addiction and the plight of AIDS, to become a queer icon. The book is an elevated wallop of tongue and insight, much more than a tell-all. There are personal tales of historical pinnacles like Kurt and Courtney, Guns N' Roses, and recaps of gold records and arena rock—but it's the testimonies of tragedy and addiction and preposterous life-spins that make this work so unique and intriguing. Bottum writes about his dark and harrowing past in a clear-eyed voice that is utterly devoid of self-pity, and his emboldened and confident pronouncements of achievement and unorthodox heroism flow in an unstoppable train that's both captivating and inspirational. A remarkable portrayal of a creative individual in emergence, a gay man figuring out how to be a gay man, and a detailed look at the nuance of 1980s pre–tech boom San Francisco, The Royal We will be greatly appreciated by people who loved Kathleen Hanna's Rebel Girl, Patti Smith's Just Kids, Hua Hsu's Stay True, and other memoirs about the artist's life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

On July 12, 1979, Chicago's Comiskey Park erupted into chaos during what was supposed to be a quirky baseball promotion. Shock radio jock Steve Dahl's “Disco Demolition Night” incentivized listeners to bring disco records to a White Socks doubleheader, where, between games Dahl promised to blow them up in center field. Instead, the event descended into a riot, forcing the team to forfeit. On the surface, the incendiary event looked like a wild publicity stunt gone wrong — but in hindsight, it was tantamount to a book burning. In retrospect, the destruction of thousands of disco records was a symbolic rejection of the social meanings the sounds held, particularly for queer communities of color. The night marked not just the literal destruction of vinyl but a cultural turning point when disco's dazzling reign collapsed under backlash. Or did it? In this episode, we explore how a stadium stunt revealed the deeper racial, sexual, and generational tensions shaping American music at the dawn of the 1980s. In episode seven, host Ryan Purcell and Kristie Soares talk with Gillian Frank is a historian of gender, sexuality, religion, and politics in the twentieth-century United States at Trinity College, Dublin. He is a managing editor of NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality and co-host of the podcast Sexing History, which explores how the past shapes contemporary debates about sex. Frank's scholarship has appeared in leading academic journals and edited volumes, and he has held research fellowships at Princeton and other institutions. His current book project examines the history of child adoption and foster care in the U.S., tracing how religion, race, and politics shaped family formation in modern America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The structural and symbolic purposes of ruins in literary texts have a long history, yet few scholars explore their importance within J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. From the ruins of Erebor and the relics of Gondolin appearing in The Hobbit to the various images of Amon Sûl, Moria, and Osgiliath in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien constructs a distinct mood-one that captures characters' awareness of the glories of the past and a desire to emulate them. The scholars who do engage Tolkien's relics and ruins tend to limit the scope to Tolkien's debt to the Middle Ages. While such scholarship begins important conversations, the full story of Tolkien's relics and ruins is left untold. Tolkien's Medievalism in Ruins: The Function of Relics and Ruins in Middle-earth (Bloomsbury, 2025) takes corrective action and expands this historical and critical literary scope. This collection seeks to promote a more comprehensive approach to Tolkien's legendarium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

It's The Pop Culture Professors, and we conclude our analysis of the FX series Alien: Earth with episode 7, “Emergence” and episode 8, “The Real Monsters.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Swiz (Akashic Books, 2025). Swiz was a Washington DC hardcore punk band that existed from April of 1987 through August of 1990, cutting their teeth and carving their place in the scene that birthed trailblazers and contemporaries like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Dag Nasty, Fugazi, Ian MacKaye, Dave Grohl, and Henry Rollins. Featuring original Dag Nasty singer Shawn Brown, Swiz's faster, darker, and more aggressive take on the D.C. sound ran counter to the melodic, experimental, and poppy direction the scene had been leaning toward in the years before Nirvana broke the underground. In the thirty-five years since their demise, Swiz's popularity and infamy have only grown. This first in-depth look into the band is timed perfectly to coincide with the 2025 release of their remastered musical catalog by Dischord Records. The volume is penned by all of the band members, combining historical interviews and personal journals, with present-day conversations, anecdotes, recollections, and reflections yielding new poetry and prose. The writing is complemented by over one hundred unpublished images. This mix of styles touches on band facts and timelines while also spotlighting the negative space around the band: personal and interpersonal moments of its members and the broader community and culture in which they were immersed. Swiz is a deep dive into the band and its members, a celebration of warped memory, and a unique snapshot of a time and scene that continues to inspire musicians, artists, and fans alike. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Only 35 years old, Taylor Swift has already had a long career and is a pop culture icon. Her music and career are reported on by the world's press, and her most devoted fans dissect her every move looking for hidden meanings and clues about her next album and her life. Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans (Routledge, 2025) edited by Christa Anne Bentley, Kate Galloway, and Paula Clare Harper positions Swift as a prismatic figure for the musical world of the 21st century. Necessarily a first look at Swift's career and songs since she presumably has many more years to make music, the authors in this collection analyze Swift's songs and vocal choices, how she negotiates the fraught politics around her identity, and how fans and others understand her and her music. Including contributions by scholars, practitioners, and journalists, this book offers a serious consideration of one of today's most popular music stars that shows why and how she matters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In Don't Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen (Feral House, 2025), Sahan Jayasuriya brings readers into the world of 1980s hardcore in the Midwest. Amidst this explosion of American punk and experimental music, a band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, emerged with a groundbreaking sound. Die Kreuzen, a group that defied genre boundaries, fused punk and metal influences to create something entirely new. Were they punk? Were they metal? Die Kreuzen recorded what fans and critics hail as a defining album of hardcore punk, only to reinvent their sound with each subsequent release. They toured the world, made little money, and eventually broke up. Yet, this seemingly brief stint in music history has rendered Die Kreuzen legendary. But why? For the first time, band members Keith Brammer, Brian Egeness, Dan Kubinski, and Eric Tunison--alongside their friends, collaborators, and famous fans--reveal the inside story of Die Kreuzen. This book features rare images and artwork, with contributions from music icons like Thurston Moore, Steve Albini, Neko Case, Lou Barlow, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In a world increasingly dominated by visual and electronic noise, Robert Waxler and David Beckman's You Say, I Say: Staying Alive with Literature, Language, and Friendship (Rivertown Books, 2025) captures the enduring power of literature-not to resolve the great questions of human existence, but to help us explore those questions in ways that are eye-opening, life-changing, and profound. In September, 1962, two 18-year-old freshmen at Brown University named Bob Waxler and David Beckman first crossed paths. They quickly discovered they had a lot in common, especially an abiding fascination with language, literature, and the life of art. Four years later, as college seniors, they collaborated on a small book of poems, which brought them a flurry of attention, then faded into memory as the two friends began separate life journeys-Bob becoming a professor of literature at a Massachusetts college, David working as an advertising and promotion writer in New York with sidelines as a poet, playwright, and actor. In 2014, an article in the Brown alumni journal rekindled their connection. It sparked an exchange of emails that gradually blossomed into this book-an extended dialogue between two old friends on poetry, life, the passage of time, and the power of the written word. In You Say, I Say, Waxler and Beckman trade observations, opinions, questions, and arguments about the ways in which literature transforms, challenges, disturbs, and inspires us. Spurred by lifetimes largely dedicated to "deep reading," they debate the meaning and value of works ranging from Dante's Inferno and Shakespeare's King Lear to Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilych; the poems of Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, and Keats; and the works of T.S. Eliot, Kafka, Beckett and Joyce. They often uncover new and surprising facets of classic works in the glare of post-modern experience. And they even exchange a couple of new poems-their own work-triggering reflections on the creative process and its many unexpected twists. Along the way, Waxler and Beckman delve into questions that have haunted generations of readers and critics. And they reveal, directly and indirectly, how encounters with literature have shaped their intellects and their lives.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

An immersive journey into the author's lifelong attachment to video games, revealing how they shape us, shatter us, and give us the courage to start again Of Floating Isles: On Growing Pains and Video Games (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025) is a captivating collection of personal essays that unpack the mystifying and often intimate roles that video games play in our lives. Interweaving memoir with cultural critique, Kawika Guillermo explores the subtle yet transformative influences of video games in shaping them as a queer and mixed-race grandson of two preachers; as a traveller, immigrant, and games scholar; and as a father, caregiver, and mourner. Through a mixture of fanciful musing, rigorous inquiry, and unflinching self-reflection, Of Floating Isles reframes the gamer's retreat from others not as social isolation, but as a quest for a different community, one where they feel seen, heard, and understood. This deep-seated longing to belong, Guillermo suggests, forms the imaginative worlds of video games and the floating isles they conjure. By exploring their own lifelong attachment to video games, Guillermo shows how games can spark rage, confusion, and the desire to escape, but these emotions are not necessarily bad - they are the growing pains that many young people must work through. So too can games provide reflective realms to dwell, to imagine, and to build spaces for queer, trans, racialized, and neurodiverse groups. Envisioning games as forms of poetic interaction, Of Floating Isles boldly conveys their truth-telling powers: their ability to offer guidance in times of loss and hardship, and their power to reveal the oppressive mechanisms of our "real" world. Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master's degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the HNU University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, hosts the German local radio show Replay Value and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter DiGRA D-A-CH Game Studies Watchlist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Twice Blessed (Fordham University Press, 2025) is a memoir that explores the depths of love, resilience, and the true meaning of family. Stefanie Mercado Altman, Claire Altman, and Stan Altman share an inti­mate and inspiring story about the bonds that define us, from adoption to caregiving and beyond. When Stefanie was adopted by Claire and Stan, their family was built on love and trust rather than biology. As they navigated the joys and struggles of parenting, they faced challenges that tested their resilience, including Stefanie's search for identity and connection with her birth mother, Rosa, a gifted artist whose struggles with AIDS cast a long shadow.From the highs of new beginnings to the heartbreak of loss, Twice Blessed captures the com­plexities of relationships and the sacrifices made in the name of love. The story unfolds with warmth, humor, and honesty, offering a powerful perspective on what it means to belong. Through Stefanie's journey of self-discovery and the family's steadfast devotion, the book paints a vivid portrait of compassion and perseverance.To learn more about Twice Blessed visit TwiceBlessed.org.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Why can't we seem to agree on facts? In this succinct volume, sociologist Joel Best turns his inimitable eye toward the social construction of what we think is true. He evaluates how facts emerge from our social worlds—including our beliefs, values, tastes, and norms—and how they align with those worlds' standards. He argues that by developing a sociological perspective toward what we think we know, we can better parse the use of facts and untruths around us.Just the Facts: Untangling Contradictory Claims (U California Press, 2025) by Joel Best examines how facts are created and supported through science, government, law, and journalism, revealing that facts are actually claims. These claims are malleable and can change over time through fact-checking, revision, and sometimes rejection. Best guides us through these processes so that we can question our assumptions and understand why disputes happen in the first place. In a time of increasing social and political divide, Just the Facts urges us to resist defensiveness over our facts and approach disputes in critical new ways. Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is a Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His general area of study is at the intersection of space, behavior, and identity. He is currently conducting research about: escape rooms, the use of urban design in downtown historical neighborhoods of rural communities, and a study on belongingness in college and university. To learn more about Michael O. Johnston you can go to his personal website, Google Scholar, Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social), Twitter (@ProfessorJohnst), or by email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Revolution: Prince, the Band, the Era (Backbeat Books, 2025) is a detailed exploration into the era of Prince's most prolific and groundbreaking music made with considerable inspiration and performed by a unique cadre of musicians he gathered and relentlessly drove to be the sonic, visual, and ideological reflection of his evolving vision. Although being the most self-contained, versatile, and prolific artist of his era, Prince reveled in the band, a multi-racial, intergender unit that acted as both family and loyal acolytes that embodied his ethos, expressed his pathos, and lifted him to rarified heights of pop dominance. This is the story of the genre-shifting, multi-media, trailblazing Prince & the Revolution from their humble inception to their precipitous rise in celebrated hit singles, albums, films, and tours to their controversial and shocking demise. James Campion is a columnist, essayist, and associate editor for the pop culture magazine The Aquarian Weekly, where he's reported on and interviewed rock stars and reviewed concerts and albums for thirty years. He has also authored three previous books on music: Shout It Out Loud: The Story of KISS's Destroyer and the Making of an American Icon (2015), Accidentally Like a Martyr: The Tortured Art of Warren Zevon (2018), and Take a Sad Song: The Emotional Currency of Hey Jude (2022). James Campion's website. Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America (Backbeat Books, 2021) and Frank Zappa's America (LSU Press, 2025). He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and is the director of its music film festival. His forthcoming book is U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, October 2025). Bradley Morgan on Facebook and Bluesky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture