Podcasts about Bloomsbury

Sally Wenley reviews Twist by Colum McCann, published by Bloomsbury. RRP: $37

My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Michael Wendroff, author of the book What Goes Around. Michael Wendroff is the author of What Goes Around, a debut thriller published by Bloomsbury, which bestselling author Lisa Black calls a “brilliant debut,” and bestselling author J.D. Black says “Relentless and gritty, Wendroff expertly weaves a narrative that begs, ‘just one more page…'”   The book was inspired by what his mother said to him the second he was born: “Oh! How nice to see you–Again!”   Michael has an MBA in marketing from NYU, and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. He is a global marketing consultant.   His mother was an editor (watching his mother scribbling in red ink on manuscript pages at home on weekends prepared him for his own editor's comments!). She remarried a literary agent, so Michael was friendly with many authors, and even spent a vacation with Robert Ludlum. Watching Ludlum hand-write his 450 page novels on yellow legal pads didn't dissuade Michael from trying to write a novel (though he's thankful for his PC).   What Goes Around was launched in the USA, UK, and Australia by Bloomsbury (in hardcover, eBook and Audiobook), and foreign language rights have been sold in Italian, Japanese, and Hungarian. It is now into its third hardcover printing, and the paperback edition comes out in October 2025.   Fun fact: Michael's great-grandfather was brought over by Thomas Edison from the University of Copenhagen to work with him. He holds a number of patents, including for plastic buttons. Michael proudly wears button- down shirts whenever he can.   In my book review, I stated What Goes Around is a thriller that will keep you turning the pages long after you say 'just one more chapter.'   We quickly meet the two main detectives, Jack Ludlum and Jill Jarred. Jack attacks his job with brute strength. Jill uses her brains. The two do not get along but are thrust together to find the serial killer.   Jack and Jill find themselves in the middle of a white supremacist murder spree with too many possible suspects and too many motives. Each time they think they've found their 'man,' the tables turn again. And just when the reader is sure they know the ending, Michael gives it a twist you will never see coming.   This book has it all - danger, romance, and characters you will love. Thankfully, I have insider information that Michael is currently writing a prequel!   Subscribe to Online for Authors to learn about more great books! https://www.youtube.com/@onlineforauthors?sub_confirmation=1   Join the Novels N Latte Book Club community to discuss this and other books with like-minded readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3576519880426290   You can follow Author Michael Wendroff Website: https://michaelwendroff.com/ LinkedIn: @Michael Wendroff X: @mwendroff FB: @MichaelWendroffAuthor IG: @mwendroff   Purchase What Goes Around on Amazon: Paperback: https://amzn.to/4nBEobF Ebook: https://amzn.to/3JRnwPg   Teri M Brown, Author and Podcast Host: https://www.terimbrown.com FB: @TeriMBrownAuthor IG: @terimbrown_author X: @terimbrown1   Want to be a guest on Online for Authors? Send Teri M Brown a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/member/onlineforauthors   #michaelwendroff #whatgoesaround #thriller #terimbrownauthor #authorpodcast #onlineforauthors #characterdriven #researchjunkie #awardwinningauthor #podcasthost #podcast #readerpodcast #bookpodcast #writerpodcast #author #books #goodreads #bookclub #fiction #writer #bookreview *As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Camden's not just a postcode – it's a state of mind. From the quiet grace of Bloomsbury's squares to the glorious bedlam of Camden Market; from the high wildness of Hampstead Heath to the learned hush of Museum Mile – this is the borough that can keep you busy for a lifetime. In this episode, we go exploring: parks, markets, music, museums, canals, cafés, and everything in between.

Originally recorded for my other podcast Was It Chance? with my co-host Heather Vickery, this conversation with director, producer, educator, and author David Armstrong felt like a perfect fit for The Theatre Podcast as well. David shares stories from his remarkable 40-year career in theatre — including his years leading Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre, where he helped develop Hairspray before it became a Broadway smash. We dive into his new book, Broadway Nation: How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists Invented the Broadway Musical, and explore how marginalized voices shaped the art form we love today. From childhood performances in Cincinnati to mentoring future generations through his course at the University of Washington and his Broadway Nation podcast, David embodies what it means to take creative risks, honor history, and build the future of theatre. Make sure to check out Was It Chance? wherever you are listening now. Broadway Nation: How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists Invented the Broadway Musical ⁠— available everywhere books are sold (or through Bloomsbury for a discount!) Connect with The Theatre Podcast: Support the podcast on Patreon and watch video versions of the episodes: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/TheTheatrePodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter & Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@theatre_podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook.com/OfficialTheatrePodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TheTheatrePodcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Alan's personal Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@alanseales⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email me at feedback@thetheatrepodcast.com. I want to know what you think. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We sit down with David Armstrong — lifelong theater-maker, educator, and author of Broadway Nation: How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists Invented the Broadway Musical. David's 40-year career as a director, producer, choreographer, and writer has been steeped in creative risk, from his 18 years leading Seattle's Fifth Avenue Theatre (where Hairspray began!) to hosting the Broadway Nation podcast and now teaching Broadway history at the University of Washington. His passion for illuminating the overlooked creators of America's most iconic art form is both inspiring and overdue. We talk about the evolution of Broadway through marginalized voices, the political power of art that doesn't look political, and how risk-taking theaters like the Fifth Avenue became incubators for some of Broadway's greatest hits. David shares the creative leap that led to Hairspray, how collaboration with an audience shapes a show's success, and the “legacy chains” connecting generations of musical theater creators — from Otto Harbach to Lin-Manuel Miranda. He also gets candid about failure, what it really feels like when a show “almost” works, and why he still sees risk as essential to the creative process.

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/new-books-network

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/sociology

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/music

How is the world of work depicted on page and on screen? In Culture, Capital and Carnival: Modern Media and the Representation of Work Dr Will Kitchen, an Associate Lecturer at Arts University Bournemouth explores this question using a series of literary and media case studies. Drawing on Bakhtin's theories of the carnivalesque, the book assesses the possibilities of media texts, including histories, literature, films and sitcoms, to offer alternative visions of work. More critically, the analysis highlights media's role in reinforcing exploitation and alienation within its seemingly playful and positive engagements with work. Theoretically rich, but accessible for the general reader, the book is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding how media shapes our understanding of work today. 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

As the First World War drew to a close and regimes began to collapse across Europe, British officials plotted a daring campaign to send an unlikely band of maverick soldiers, diplomats and spies to the chaotic region around the Caspian Sea. Their mission: to block the advance of the Turks, to hold back the rising Bolsheviks and prevent a Turkish-inspired jihad overwhelming India, and to secure the vital supply of oil from Baku.It was an almost impossible task, but Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Nick Higham tells the gripping stories of the remarkable and enterprising characters at the centre of it all, who would be tested to the limit. There was Lionel Dunsterville, the inspiration for Kipling's Stalky and commander of the expedition; Ranald MacDonell, a Scottish aristocrat and diplomat who smuggled millions of roubles for the war effort; Edward Noel, a seemingly indestructible soldier who was held hostage for sixty-five days in horrific conditions; Toby Rawlinson, the younger brother of one of Britain's most senior generals and a brilliant inventor; and Reginald Teague-Jones, a spy who printed his own currency and would eventually emerge as an author at the age of ninety-nine.Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs and once-secret government archives, Mavericks brings to life a cast of eccentric heroes who survived against all odds to tell their extraordinary tales. This is a propulsive story of boldness and intrigue, set in a forgotten corner of the Great War where the rules were made to be broken. 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

As the First World War drew to a close and regimes began to collapse across Europe, British officials plotted a daring campaign to send an unlikely band of maverick soldiers, diplomats and spies to the chaotic region around the Caspian Sea. Their mission: to block the advance of the Turks, to hold back the rising Bolsheviks and prevent a Turkish-inspired jihad overwhelming India, and to secure the vital supply of oil from Baku.It was an almost impossible task, but Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Nick Higham tells the gripping stories of the remarkable and enterprising characters at the centre of it all, who would be tested to the limit. There was Lionel Dunsterville, the inspiration for Kipling's Stalky and commander of the expedition; Ranald MacDonell, a Scottish aristocrat and diplomat who smuggled millions of roubles for the war effort; Edward Noel, a seemingly indestructible soldier who was held hostage for sixty-five days in horrific conditions; Toby Rawlinson, the younger brother of one of Britain's most senior generals and a brilliant inventor; and Reginald Teague-Jones, a spy who printed his own currency and would eventually emerge as an author at the age of ninety-nine.Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs and once-secret government archives, Mavericks brings to life a cast of eccentric heroes who survived against all odds to tell their extraordinary tales. This is a propulsive story of boldness and intrigue, set in a forgotten corner of the Great War where the rules were made to be broken. 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/military-history

As the First World War drew to a close and regimes began to collapse across Europe, British officials plotted a daring campaign to send an unlikely band of maverick soldiers, diplomats and spies to the chaotic region around the Caspian Sea. Their mission: to block the advance of the Turks, to hold back the rising Bolsheviks and prevent a Turkish-inspired jihad overwhelming India, and to secure the vital supply of oil from Baku.It was an almost impossible task, but Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Nick Higham tells the gripping stories of the remarkable and enterprising characters at the centre of it all, who would be tested to the limit. There was Lionel Dunsterville, the inspiration for Kipling's Stalky and commander of the expedition; Ranald MacDonell, a Scottish aristocrat and diplomat who smuggled millions of roubles for the war effort; Edward Noel, a seemingly indestructible soldier who was held hostage for sixty-five days in horrific conditions; Toby Rawlinson, the younger brother of one of Britain's most senior generals and a brilliant inventor; and Reginald Teague-Jones, a spy who printed his own currency and would eventually emerge as an author at the age of ninety-nine.Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs and once-secret government archives, Mavericks brings to life a cast of eccentric heroes who survived against all odds to tell their extraordinary tales. This is a propulsive story of boldness and intrigue, set in a forgotten corner of the Great War where the rules were made to be broken. 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/central-asian-studies

How is the world of work depicted on page and on screen? In Culture, Capital and Carnival: Modern Media and the Representation of Work Dr Will Kitchen, an Associate Lecturer at Arts University Bournemouth explores this question using a series of literary and media case studies. Drawing on Bakhtin's theories of the carnivalesque, the book assesses the possibilities of media texts, including histories, literature, films and sitcoms, to offer alternative visions of work. More critically, the analysis highlights media's role in reinforcing exploitation and alienation within its seemingly playful and positive engagements with work. Theoretically rich, but accessible for the general reader, the book is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding how media shapes our understanding of work today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

As the First World War drew to a close and regimes began to collapse across Europe, British officials plotted a daring campaign to send an unlikely band of maverick soldiers, diplomats and spies to the chaotic region around the Caspian Sea. Their mission: to block the advance of the Turks, to hold back the rising Bolsheviks and prevent a Turkish-inspired jihad overwhelming India, and to secure the vital supply of oil from Baku.It was an almost impossible task, but Mavericks: Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Nick Higham tells the gripping stories of the remarkable and enterprising characters at the centre of it all, who would be tested to the limit. There was Lionel Dunsterville, the inspiration for Kipling's Stalky and commander of the expedition; Ranald MacDonell, a Scottish aristocrat and diplomat who smuggled millions of roubles for the war effort; Edward Noel, a seemingly indestructible soldier who was held hostage for sixty-five days in horrific conditions; Toby Rawlinson, the younger brother of one of Britain's most senior generals and a brilliant inventor; and Reginald Teague-Jones, a spy who printed his own currency and would eventually emerge as an author at the age of ninety-nine.Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs and once-secret government archives, Mavericks brings to life a cast of eccentric heroes who survived against all odds to tell their extraordinary tales. This is a propulsive story of boldness and intrigue, set in a forgotten corner of the Great War where the rules were made to be broken. 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/russian-studies

How is the world of work depicted on page and on screen? In Culture, Capital and Carnival: Modern Media and the Representation of Work Dr Will Kitchen, an Associate Lecturer at Arts University Bournemouth explores this question using a series of literary and media case studies. Drawing on Bakhtin's theories of the carnivalesque, the book assesses the possibilities of media texts, including histories, literature, films and sitcoms, to offer alternative visions of work. More critically, the analysis highlights media's role in reinforcing exploitation and alienation within its seemingly playful and positive engagements with work. Theoretically rich, but accessible for the general reader, the book is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding how media shapes our understanding of work today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

How is the world of work depicted on page and on screen? In Culture, Capital and Carnival: Modern Media and the Representation of Work Dr Will Kitchen, an Associate Lecturer at Arts University Bournemouth explores this question using a series of literary and media case studies. Drawing on Bakhtin's theories of the carnivalesque, the book assesses the possibilities of media texts, including histories, literature, films and sitcoms, to offer alternative visions of work. More critically, the analysis highlights media's role in reinforcing exploitation and alienation within its seemingly playful and positive engagements with work. Theoretically rich, but accessible for the general reader, the book is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding how media shapes our understanding of work today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

In this episode, Raj Balkaran speaks with Karen Pechilis, Jarrod Whitaker, and Valerie Stoker about A Cultural History of Hinduism (Bloomsbury, 2024), a landmark six-volume series that traces Hindu traditions from the ancient world to the present. Each volume is organized around eight core themes—Sources of Authority; Body and Mind; Social Organization; Identity and Difference; Politics and Power; Arts and Visual Culture; Lineages and Exemplars; and Global Contexts—allowing readers to compare developments across historical periods. Covering the Ancient, Classical, Post-Classical, Empires, Late Colonial, and Independence eras, the series brings together leading voices in Hindu studies. 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

Dr Ann's What's the Big Idea Walk takes you through Bloomsbury's squares – the cradle of modern thought. Where ideas were born, challenged, took shape, and still reverberate. A walk as stimulating as the minds that inspired it.

In this episode, Raj Balkaran speaks with Karen Pechilis, Jarrod Whitaker, and Valerie Stoker about A Cultural History of Hinduism (Bloomsbury, 2024), a landmark six-volume series that traces Hindu traditions from the ancient world to the present. Each volume is organized around eight core themes—Sources of Authority; Body and Mind; Social Organization; Identity and Difference; Politics and Power; Arts and Visual Culture; Lineages and Exemplars; and Global Contexts—allowing readers to compare developments across historical periods. Covering the Ancient, Classical, Post-Classical, Empires, Late Colonial, and Independence eras, the series brings together leading voices in Hindu studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Raj Balkaran speaks with Karen Pechilis, Jarrod Whitaker, and Valerie Stoker about A Cultural History of Hinduism (Bloomsbury, 2024), a landmark six-volume series that traces Hindu traditions from the ancient world to the present. Each volume is organized around eight core themes—Sources of Authority; Body and Mind; Social Organization; Identity and Difference; Politics and Power; Arts and Visual Culture; Lineages and Exemplars; and Global Contexts—allowing readers to compare developments across historical periods. Covering the Ancient, Classical, Post-Classical, Empires, Late Colonial, and Independence eras, the series brings together leading voices in Hindu studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

In this episode, Raj Balkaran speaks with Karen Pechilis, Jarrod Whitaker, and Valerie Stoker about A Cultural History of Hinduism (Bloomsbury, 2024), a landmark six-volume series that traces Hindu traditions from the ancient world to the present. Each volume is organized around eight core themes—Sources of Authority; Body and Mind; Social Organization; Identity and Difference; Politics and Power; Arts and Visual Culture; Lineages and Exemplars; and Global Contexts—allowing readers to compare developments across historical periods. Covering the Ancient, Classical, Post-Classical, Empires, Late Colonial, and Independence eras, the series brings together leading voices in Hindu studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

In this episode, Raj Balkaran speaks with Karen Pechilis, Jarrod Whitaker, and Valerie Stoker about A Cultural History of Hinduism (Bloomsbury, 2024), a landmark six-volume series that traces Hindu traditions from the ancient world to the present. Each volume is organized around eight core themes—Sources of Authority; Body and Mind; Social Organization; Identity and Difference; Politics and Power; Arts and Visual Culture; Lineages and Exemplars; and Global Contexts—allowing readers to compare developments across historical periods. Covering the Ancient, Classical, Post-Classical, Empires, Late Colonial, and Independence eras, the series brings together leading voices in Hindu studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Modern Nigeria: Understanding Modern Nations (Bloomsbury, 2024) is a collaborative effort that explores Nigeria's historical context and emphasises the importance of Nigeria's diverse historical roots to understanding its current identity with the aim of highlighting the necessity for modern Nigerians to recognise their uniqueness and engage in societal contributions. The book dwells on the aspects of the Nigerian historical culture that enhance social cohesion in the nation, which could be imbibed in the present-day Nigeria. These include histories of various empires and kingdoms to provide background for appreciating Nigeria's modern identity. Presenting the backgrounds of the Nigerian History, the authors project how people co-existed in spite of ethnic differences. They reinforced this point by stating that knowledge of history is vital for modern Nigerians to understand their uniqueness and potential for future development (pp. xiv-xv). Among other things, the book dwells on the socioeconomic and political characteristics of Nigeria including the election dynamics and leadership impacts on citizens' lives. Among other things, the book highlights aspects of the Nigeran popular culture, including music and sports, relationship and marriage. The book also stresses the role of morality in Nigeria's socio-economic landscape, the contributions of Nigerian, including the political actors, young and adult in Nigeria of different callings, including musicians, to culture and society. ****************************************************************************** Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing aworld where knowledge is assessesible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links @ (22) Olugbodi Mariam | LinkedIn, Mariam Olugbodi (0000-0001-5027-6644) - ORCID and User:Margob28 - Meta 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

The world needs to adapt to climate change – but how? What are the key problems and hard choices that lie ahead for the global community? Sink or Swim: How the world needs to adapt to a changing climate (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Susannah Fisher reveals all.Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes and flooding caused by climate change are already impacting people and nature. Adaptation until now has been incremental with governments and institutions tinkering around the edges of current systems. This will not be enough.Sink Or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate (Bloomsbury, 2025) explores the hard choices that lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast? How can global food supplies be managed when parts of the world are hit by simultaneous droughts? How can conflict be handled when there isn't enough water?Drawing on cutting edge research, interviews with experts, and practical examples from across the world, Dr. Fisher tells the story of the tough choices on adaptation that lie ahead, and looks at ways we can still have a liveable planet later in this century and beyond. Will we choose to sink or swim? 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

The world needs to adapt to climate change – but how? What are the key problems and hard choices that lie ahead for the global community? Sink or Swim: How the world needs to adapt to a changing climate (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Susannah Fisher reveals all.Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes and flooding caused by climate change are already impacting people and nature. Adaptation until now has been incremental with governments and institutions tinkering around the edges of current systems. This will not be enough.Sink Or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate (Bloomsbury, 2025) explores the hard choices that lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast? How can global food supplies be managed when parts of the world are hit by simultaneous droughts? How can conflict be handled when there isn't enough water?Drawing on cutting edge research, interviews with experts, and practical examples from across the world, Dr. Fisher tells the story of the tough choices on adaptation that lie ahead, and looks at ways we can still have a liveable planet later in this century and beyond. Will we choose to sink or swim? 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/world-affairs

Modern Nigeria: Understanding Modern Nations (Bloomsbury, 2024) is a collaborative effort that explores Nigeria's historical context and emphasises the importance of Nigeria's diverse historical roots to understanding its current identity with the aim of highlighting the necessity for modern Nigerians to recognise their uniqueness and engage in societal contributions. The book dwells on the aspects of the Nigerian historical culture that enhance social cohesion in the nation, which could be imbibed in the present-day Nigeria. These include histories of various empires and kingdoms to provide background for appreciating Nigeria's modern identity. Presenting the backgrounds of the Nigerian History, the authors project how people co-existed in spite of ethnic differences. They reinforced this point by stating that knowledge of history is vital for modern Nigerians to understand their uniqueness and potential for future development (pp. xiv-xv). Among other things, the book dwells on the socioeconomic and political characteristics of Nigeria including the election dynamics and leadership impacts on citizens' lives. Among other things, the book highlights aspects of the Nigeran popular culture, including music and sports, relationship and marriage. The book also stresses the role of morality in Nigeria's socio-economic landscape, the contributions of Nigerian, including the political actors, young and adult in Nigeria of different callings, including musicians, to culture and society. ****************************************************************************** Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing aworld where knowledge is assessesible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links @ (22) Olugbodi Mariam | LinkedIn, Mariam Olugbodi (0000-0001-5027-6644) - ORCID and User:Margob28 - Meta Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies

The world needs to adapt to climate change – but how? What are the key problems and hard choices that lie ahead for the global community? Sink or Swim: How the world needs to adapt to a changing climate (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Susannah Fisher reveals all.Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes and flooding caused by climate change are already impacting people and nature. Adaptation until now has been incremental with governments and institutions tinkering around the edges of current systems. This will not be enough.Sink Or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate (Bloomsbury, 2025) explores the hard choices that lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast? How can global food supplies be managed when parts of the world are hit by simultaneous droughts? How can conflict be handled when there isn't enough water?Drawing on cutting edge research, interviews with experts, and practical examples from across the world, Dr. Fisher tells the story of the tough choices on adaptation that lie ahead, and looks at ways we can still have a liveable planet later in this century and beyond. Will we choose to sink or swim? 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/environmental-studies

The world needs to adapt to climate change – but how? What are the key problems and hard choices that lie ahead for the global community? Sink or Swim: How the world needs to adapt to a changing climate (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Susannah Fisher reveals all.Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes and flooding caused by climate change are already impacting people and nature. Adaptation until now has been incremental with governments and institutions tinkering around the edges of current systems. This will not be enough.Sink Or Swim: How the World Needs to Adapt to a Changing Climate (Bloomsbury, 2025) explores the hard choices that lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast? How can global food supplies be managed when parts of the world are hit by simultaneous droughts? How can conflict be handled when there isn't enough water?Drawing on cutting edge research, interviews with experts, and practical examples from across the world, Dr. Fisher tells the story of the tough choices on adaptation that lie ahead, and looks at ways we can still have a liveable planet later in this century and beyond. Will we choose to sink or swim? 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/food

Welcome to the Psychedelic Conversations Podcast!In this episode of Psychedelic Conversations, we sit down with Dr. Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes at the renowned "Breaking Convention" event in the UK. Together, we explore his pioneering work at the University of Exeter, where he co-founded psychedelic studies programs and lectures on philosophy. We discuss his journey into the philosophy of mind, panpsychism, and animism—challenging the dominant materialist worldview by proposing that consciousness pervades all of nature. Dr. Sjöstedt-Hughes shares insights on how psychedelics intersect with ancient philosophical traditions, ecology, and the broader psychedelic renaissance. We also touch on the evolution of public and academic attitudes toward psychedelics and the role of interdisciplinary research in shaping the future. Join us for a thought-provoking conversation that bridges counterculture, science, and spirituality in the growing psychedelic landscape.About Peter:Peter is an Anglo-Scandinavian philosopher of mind who specializes in the thought of Whitehead, Nietzsche, and Spinoza, and in fields pertaining to panpsychism and altered states of mind. Following his degree in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick, he became a Philosophy lecturer in London for six years after which he pursued his PhD at The University of Exeter – where he is now a research fellow and lecturer. Peter is the author of Noumenautics (2015), Modes of Sentience (2021), co-editor of Bloomsbury's Philosophy and Psychedelics (2022), the TEDx Talker on ‘psychedelics and consciousness‘, and he is inspiration to the inhuman philosopher Marvel Superhero, Karnak. He is creator, with Prof. Christine Hauskeller, of the Philosophy of Psychedelics Exeter Research Group.Connect with Peter:Website: https://www.philosopher.eu/Email: P.Sjostedt-Hughes@exeter.ac.ukTwitter: https://twitter.com/PeterSjostedtHFilmed by Rua Acorn, creator of @thegoodtimes and founder of Modular Media®:https://www.modularmedia.co/Thank you so much for joining us! Psychedelic Conversations Podcast is designed to educate, inform, and expand awareness.For more information, please head over to https://www.psychedelicconversations.comPlease share with your friends or leave a review so that we can reach more people and feel free to join us in our private Facebook group to keep the conversation going. https://www.facebook.com/groups/psychedelicconversationsThis show is for information purposes only, and is not intended to provide mental health or medical advice.About Susan Guner:Susan Guner is a holistic psychotherapist with a mindfulness-based approach grounded in Transpersonal Psychology, focusing on trauma-informed, community-centric processes that offer a broader understanding of human potential and well-being.Connect with Susan:Website: https://www.psychedelicconversations.com/Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/susan.gunerLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-guner/Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/susangunerTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/susangunerBlog: https://susanguner.medium.com/Podcast: https://anchor.fm/susan-guner#PsychedelicConversations #SusanGuner #PeterSjöstedtHughes #BreakingConvention #PsychedelicPodcast #PsychedelicScience #PlantMedicines #PsychedelicResearch #Entheogens

Using artworks by Berthe Morisot, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others, The Art of Parisian Chic: Modern Women and Modern Artists in Impressionist Paris (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Justine De Young explores how women and artists in Impressionist Paris (1855-1885) crafted their public images to exploit and resist stereotypes.French societal expectations and beauty ideals shaped how women were seen and how they chose to present themselves in public – whether on the street, in a photograph, or in a portrait on the walls of the annual Paris Salon. On Paris's broad new boulevards and in its public parks and theaters, women dressed to impress anonymous strangers as well as their friends. They even circulated aspirational photographs of themselves. Looking at a rich array of visual sources – from portraits to modern-life paintings, and from photographs to fashion plates – Dr. De Young reveals how women were seen, how they aspired to be seen, and how they navigated public life in Second Empire and Belle Époque Paris.This book considers how fashionable feminine “types” made famous in books, caricatures, and paintings created a visual lexicon and stylistic guide for women. Men and women alike relied on these types – cocotte (mistress), jeune veuve (young widow), amazone (independent equestrienne), demoiselle de magasin (shopgirl), and Parisienne (chic Parisian woman) – to judge the class, character, morality, and worth of strangers. With a rich set of illustrations from the Impressionist canon and beyond, The Art of Parisian Chic shows how modern women used fashion and these stereotypes to construct and reinvent their identities. 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

Emma Mason is Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at Warwick University in England. She's the author and editor of several books, primarily on nineteenth-century English literature, most recently a study titled Christina Rosetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith, and she edits, with Mark Knight, the book series New Directions in Religion and Literature for Bloomsbury …

Using artworks by Berthe Morisot, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others, The Art of Parisian Chic: Modern Women and Modern Artists in Impressionist Paris (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Justine De Young explores how women and artists in Impressionist Paris (1855-1885) crafted their public images to exploit and resist stereotypes.French societal expectations and beauty ideals shaped how women were seen and how they chose to present themselves in public – whether on the street, in a photograph, or in a portrait on the walls of the annual Paris Salon. On Paris's broad new boulevards and in its public parks and theaters, women dressed to impress anonymous strangers as well as their friends. They even circulated aspirational photographs of themselves. Looking at a rich array of visual sources – from portraits to modern-life paintings, and from photographs to fashion plates – Dr. De Young reveals how women were seen, how they aspired to be seen, and how they navigated public life in Second Empire and Belle Époque Paris.This book considers how fashionable feminine “types” made famous in books, caricatures, and paintings created a visual lexicon and stylistic guide for women. Men and women alike relied on these types – cocotte (mistress), jeune veuve (young widow), amazone (independent equestrienne), demoiselle de magasin (shopgirl), and Parisienne (chic Parisian woman) – to judge the class, character, morality, and worth of strangers. With a rich set of illustrations from the Impressionist canon and beyond, The Art of Parisian Chic shows how modern women used fashion and these stereotypes to construct and reinvent their identities. 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/gender-studies

Using artworks by Berthe Morisot, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others, The Art of Parisian Chic: Modern Women and Modern Artists in Impressionist Paris (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Justine De Young explores how women and artists in Impressionist Paris (1855-1885) crafted their public images to exploit and resist stereotypes.French societal expectations and beauty ideals shaped how women were seen and how they chose to present themselves in public – whether on the street, in a photograph, or in a portrait on the walls of the annual Paris Salon. On Paris's broad new boulevards and in its public parks and theaters, women dressed to impress anonymous strangers as well as their friends. They even circulated aspirational photographs of themselves. Looking at a rich array of visual sources – from portraits to modern-life paintings, and from photographs to fashion plates – Dr. De Young reveals how women were seen, how they aspired to be seen, and how they navigated public life in Second Empire and Belle Époque Paris.This book considers how fashionable feminine “types” made famous in books, caricatures, and paintings created a visual lexicon and stylistic guide for women. Men and women alike relied on these types – cocotte (mistress), jeune veuve (young widow), amazone (independent equestrienne), demoiselle de magasin (shopgirl), and Parisienne (chic Parisian woman) – to judge the class, character, morality, and worth of strangers. With a rich set of illustrations from the Impressionist canon and beyond, The Art of Parisian Chic shows how modern women used fashion and these stereotypes to construct and reinvent their identities. 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/art

The contemporaneous movements for human rights that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers waged during the 1960s are analysed in a comparative fashion here for the very first time. The book also examines the extra-legal measures that both the KGB and FBI employed to destroy them.The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of Human Rights Movements (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Meredith Roman innovatively compares Soviet human rights activists' exposure of the workings of the Soviet police state with the miniature, city-level surveillance police states that the Black Panthers exposed as operating across the United States. It illuminates the legal tactics of counter-surveillance that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers employed as a means of restraining acts of state-sanctioned violence. The book also highlights how the U.S. production of knowledge about Soviet 'dissidents' reified white supremacist, anti-communist notions of dissent, human rights, and state violence that facilitated the repression of the Black Panthers and the mass incarceration of African Americans as criminals.Dr. Roman disrupts the enduring Cold War binaries of authoritarianism-democracy and oppression-freedom that obscure our understanding of the complex, overlapping histories of these two superpowers. Dr. Roman convincingly argues that the Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers' vast documentation of domestic human rights abuses and the repressive measures that they faced for mobilizing to end them serve as an important societal reminder; they reaffirm that genuine democracy and the safeguarding of human rights are incompatible with authoritarian practices, the conditions of racial capitalism, and the ideology of national security. 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/african-american-studies

The contemporaneous movements for human rights that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers waged during the 1960s are analysed in a comparative fashion here for the very first time. The book also examines the extra-legal measures that both the KGB and FBI employed to destroy them.The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of Human Rights Movements (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Meredith Roman innovatively compares Soviet human rights activists' exposure of the workings of the Soviet police state with the miniature, city-level surveillance police states that the Black Panthers exposed as operating across the United States. It illuminates the legal tactics of counter-surveillance that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers employed as a means of restraining acts of state-sanctioned violence. The book also highlights how the U.S. production of knowledge about Soviet 'dissidents' reified white supremacist, anti-communist notions of dissent, human rights, and state violence that facilitated the repression of the Black Panthers and the mass incarceration of African Americans as criminals.Dr. Roman disrupts the enduring Cold War binaries of authoritarianism-democracy and oppression-freedom that obscure our understanding of the complex, overlapping histories of these two superpowers. Dr. Roman convincingly argues that the Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers' vast documentation of domestic human rights abuses and the repressive measures that they faced for mobilizing to end them serve as an important societal reminder; they reaffirm that genuine democracy and the safeguarding of human rights are incompatible with authoritarian practices, the conditions of racial capitalism, and the ideology of national security. 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

The contemporaneous movements for human rights that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers waged during the 1960s are analysed in a comparative fashion here for the very first time. The book also examines the extra-legal measures that both the KGB and FBI employed to destroy them.The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of Human Rights Movements (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Meredith Roman innovatively compares Soviet human rights activists' exposure of the workings of the Soviet police state with the miniature, city-level surveillance police states that the Black Panthers exposed as operating across the United States. It illuminates the legal tactics of counter-surveillance that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers employed as a means of restraining acts of state-sanctioned violence. The book also highlights how the U.S. production of knowledge about Soviet 'dissidents' reified white supremacist, anti-communist notions of dissent, human rights, and state violence that facilitated the repression of the Black Panthers and the mass incarceration of African Americans as criminals.Dr. Roman disrupts the enduring Cold War binaries of authoritarianism-democracy and oppression-freedom that obscure our understanding of the complex, overlapping histories of these two superpowers. Dr. Roman convincingly argues that the Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers' vast documentation of domestic human rights abuses and the repressive measures that they faced for mobilizing to end them serve as an important societal reminder; they reaffirm that genuine democracy and the safeguarding of human rights are incompatible with authoritarian practices, the conditions of racial capitalism, and the ideology of national security. 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/russian-studies

The contemporaneous movements for human rights that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers waged during the 1960s are analysed in a comparative fashion here for the very first time. The book also examines the extra-legal measures that both the KGB and FBI employed to destroy them.The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of Human Rights Movements (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Meredith Roman innovatively compares Soviet human rights activists' exposure of the workings of the Soviet police state with the miniature, city-level surveillance police states that the Black Panthers exposed as operating across the United States. It illuminates the legal tactics of counter-surveillance that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers employed as a means of restraining acts of state-sanctioned violence. The book also highlights how the U.S. production of knowledge about Soviet 'dissidents' reified white supremacist, anti-communist notions of dissent, human rights, and state violence that facilitated the repression of the Black Panthers and the mass incarceration of African Americans as criminals.Dr. Roman disrupts the enduring Cold War binaries of authoritarianism-democracy and oppression-freedom that obscure our understanding of the complex, overlapping histories of these two superpowers. Dr. Roman convincingly argues that the Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers' vast documentation of domestic human rights abuses and the repressive measures that they faced for mobilizing to end them serve as an important societal reminder; they reaffirm that genuine democracy and the safeguarding of human rights are incompatible with authoritarian practices, the conditions of racial capitalism, and the ideology of national security. 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/sociology

Why are BDSM practitioners so happy? It turns out, BDSM isn't just about whips and chains.With engaging stories and a warm, conversational tone, Bound by BDSM: Unexpected Lessons for Building a Happier Life (Bloomsbury Acacdemic, 2025) by Dr. Alicia M. Walker and Dr. Arielle Kuperberg reveals how BDSM practitioners use clear boundaries, enthusiastic consent, open dialogue, and a strong community to create fulfilling relationships and build richer, more intentional lives. Drawing on research from the largest scientific study of BDSM ever conducted, Alicia Walker and Arielle Kuperberg demonstrate that the BDSM community's approach to trust and vulnerability offers a valuable model for building intimacy and fostering authentic connections. BDSM also allows practitioners to exercise their creativity and break the mold - whether it comes to trying out new practices in the bedroom or bending ideas about gender.Whether you're vanilla, kinky, or just here for the life advice, this book -packed with humor and insight-is a refreshingly open-minded guide to building stronger relationships, deeper intimacy, and a more intentional approach to connection. 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 what it means for college students to belong 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 (johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu). 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

Streaming video is not new to the library environment, but recent years have seen an exponential growth in the number of platforms and titles available for streaming. For libraries, this has meant an increasingly complex acquisitions landscape, with more vendors occupying the marketplace and larger portions of the budget dedicated to streaming. Users increasingly expect video content to be available online and on demand, and streaming video is increasingly integrated into coursework. In Streaming Video Collection Development and Management (Bloomsbury, 2025), Michael Fernandez and Amauri Serrano outline the myriad challenges of managing streaming video content across all stages of the electronic resources lifecycle, from initial collection decisions to the user's experience of accessing the content. At every step, they provide practical advice on how to handle these challenges regardless of the size and budget of the institution. Librarians at community colleges, research institutions, specialized schools, and public libraries will find this a valuable and engaging guide. Michael Fernandez is the Head of Technical Services at Boston University, where he oversees a department tasked with managing electronic resources, cataloging, and processing physical collections. Previously he has held e-resource positions at Yale University and American University. He has published and presented on topics in e-resource management and currently serves as assistant editor for Library Resources & Technical Services in addition to being on the editorial board for The Serials Librarian. Amauri Serrano is the Head of Collection Strategy at Yale University Library, USA, where she leads and coordinates the library's holistic collection development and management strategy in all formats and is responsible for the collections budget. She was previously Central Collection Development Librarian at Yale and a humanities librarian at Florida State University and Appalachian State University. She has published book chapters and given presentations on collection development in the humanities, user outreach, and library instruction. 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

Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that coaxes change in the queer individual. In Singapore, Christian discourses of sex and sexuality have materialised in the form of testimonials that detail the pain and suffering of homosexuality, and how Christianity has been a salve for the tribulations experienced by the storytellers. This book freshly engages with Michel Foucault's posthumous and final volume of The History of Sexuality by revitalising his work on biblical metanoia to understand it as a form of neo-homophobia. Drawing on Foucauldian critical theory and approaches in discourse studies, it shows how language is at the centre of this particular iteration of neo-homophobia, one that no longer finds value in overt expressions of hate and disdain for those with non-normative sexualities, but relies extensively on seemingly neutral calls for change and transformation in personal lives.Queer Correctives takes Singapore as a case study to examine neo-homophobic phenomena, but its themes of change and transformation embedded in discourse will be relevant for scholars interested in contemporary iterations of Foucault's concepts of discipline and technologies of the self. Together with interview data from religious sexual minorities in Singapore, it captures a burgeoning form of homophobic discursive practices that eludes mainstream criticism to harm through change and transformation. About Vincent Pak: Vincent Pak is Assistant Lecturer at The University of Hong Kong. His work is located in the fields of sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology, where he's interested in matters of gender, sexuality, and race. His monograph, Queer Correctives, considers the emergence of neo-homophobia in Singapore. About Pavan Mano: Pavan Mano is Lecturer in Global Cultures in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at King's College London. He works at the intersections of critical & literary theory, politics and culture. His first monograph, Straight Nation (Manchester UP, 2025), interrogates postcolonial nationalism and the governance of sexuality in Singapore. 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

Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that coaxes change in the queer individual. In Singapore, Christian discourses of sex and sexuality have materialised in the form of testimonials that detail the pain and suffering of homosexuality, and how Christianity has been a salve for the tribulations experienced by the storytellers. This book freshly engages with Michel Foucault's posthumous and final volume of The History of Sexuality by revitalising his work on biblical metanoia to understand it as a form of neo-homophobia. Drawing on Foucauldian critical theory and approaches in discourse studies, it shows how language is at the centre of this particular iteration of neo-homophobia, one that no longer finds value in overt expressions of hate and disdain for those with non-normative sexualities, but relies extensively on seemingly neutral calls for change and transformation in personal lives.Queer Correctives takes Singapore as a case study to examine neo-homophobic phenomena, but its themes of change and transformation embedded in discourse will be relevant for scholars interested in contemporary iterations of Foucault's concepts of discipline and technologies of the self. Together with interview data from religious sexual minorities in Singapore, it captures a burgeoning form of homophobic discursive practices that eludes mainstream criticism to harm through change and transformation. About Vincent Pak: Vincent Pak is Assistant Lecturer at The University of Hong Kong. His work is located in the fields of sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology, where he's interested in matters of gender, sexuality, and race. His monograph, Queer Correctives, considers the emergence of neo-homophobia in Singapore. About Pavan Mano: Pavan Mano is Lecturer in Global Cultures in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at King's College London. He works at the intersections of critical & literary theory, politics and culture. His first monograph, Straight Nation (Manchester UP, 2025), interrogates postcolonial nationalism and the governance of sexuality in Singapore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that coaxes change in the queer individual. In Singapore, Christian discourses of sex and sexuality have materialised in the form of testimonials that detail the pain and suffering of homosexuality, and how Christianity has been a salve for the tribulations experienced by the storytellers. This book freshly engages with Michel Foucault's posthumous and final volume of The History of Sexuality by revitalising his work on biblical metanoia to understand it as a form of neo-homophobia. Drawing on Foucauldian critical theory and approaches in discourse studies, it shows how language is at the centre of this particular iteration of neo-homophobia, one that no longer finds value in overt expressions of hate and disdain for those with non-normative sexualities, but relies extensively on seemingly neutral calls for change and transformation in personal lives.Queer Correctives takes Singapore as a case study to examine neo-homophobic phenomena, but its themes of change and transformation embedded in discourse will be relevant for scholars interested in contemporary iterations of Foucault's concepts of discipline and technologies of the self. Together with interview data from religious sexual minorities in Singapore, it captures a burgeoning form of homophobic discursive practices that eludes mainstream criticism to harm through change and transformation. About Vincent Pak: Vincent Pak is Assistant Lecturer at The University of Hong Kong. His work is located in the fields of sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology, where he's interested in matters of gender, sexuality, and race. His monograph, Queer Correctives, considers the emergence of neo-homophobia in Singapore. About Pavan Mano: Pavan Mano is Lecturer in Global Cultures in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at King's College London. He works at the intersections of critical & literary theory, politics and culture. His first monograph, Straight Nation (Manchester UP, 2025), interrogates postcolonial nationalism and the governance of sexuality in Singapore. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that coaxes change in the queer individual. In Singapore, Christian discourses of sex and sexuality have materialised in the form of testimonials that detail the pain and suffering of homosexuality, and how Christianity has been a salve for the tribulations experienced by the storytellers. This book freshly engages with Michel Foucault's posthumous and final volume of The History of Sexuality by revitalising his work on biblical metanoia to understand it as a form of neo-homophobia. Drawing on Foucauldian critical theory and approaches in discourse studies, it shows how language is at the centre of this particular iteration of neo-homophobia, one that no longer finds value in overt expressions of hate and disdain for those with non-normative sexualities, but relies extensively on seemingly neutral calls for change and transformation in personal lives.Queer Correctives takes Singapore as a case study to examine neo-homophobic phenomena, but its themes of change and transformation embedded in discourse will be relevant for scholars interested in contemporary iterations of Foucault's concepts of discipline and technologies of the self. Together with interview data from religious sexual minorities in Singapore, it captures a burgeoning form of homophobic discursive practices that eludes mainstream criticism to harm through change and transformation. About Vincent Pak: Vincent Pak is Assistant Lecturer at The University of Hong Kong. His work is located in the fields of sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology, where he's interested in matters of gender, sexuality, and race. His monograph, Queer Correctives, considers the emergence of neo-homophobia in Singapore. About Pavan Mano: Pavan Mano is Lecturer in Global Cultures in the Department of Interdisciplinary Humanities at King's College London. He works at the intersections of critical & literary theory, politics and culture. His first monograph, Straight Nation (Manchester UP, 2025), interrogates postcolonial nationalism and the governance of sexuality in Singapore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Episode 143: Do They Still Have Bulletin Boards?     Our discussion of Alyx Chandler's poems has us considering the liminal space between girlhood and womanhood, summer and fall, print and digital cultures, good bug and bad, Slushies. With these poems, we're swooning over summer's lushness, marveling over kudzu's inexorable march, and thinking back to steamy afternoons running through sprinklers with skinned knees. Set at the end of girlhood, these poems makes us think of the Melissa Febos book of the same name. Jason is charmed by the poet's hypotactic syntax and her control of the line. Be sure to take a look at the poems' format at PBQmag.org.     As our own summers wrap up, Lisa saves monarch caterpillars while Sam smushes lantern flies. Kathy shares her new secret for a solid eight hours of sleep. Looking to the future, we're celebrating forthcoming chapbooks and books. Dagne's chapbook “Falldown Lane” from Whittle, Jason's book “Teaching Writing Through Poetry,”  and Kathy's “Teaching Writing Through Journaling,” both from a new series Kathy is editing at Bloomsbury. As always, thanks for listening.      At the table: Dagne Forrest, Samantha Neugebauer, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Lisa Zerkle          Author bio: Alyx Chandler (she/her) is a poet from the South who now teaches in Chicago. She received her MFA in poetry at the University of Montana, where she was a Richard Hugo Fellow and taught poetry. In 2025, she won the Three Sisters Award in Poetry with Nelle Literary Journal, received a Creative Catalyst grant from the Illinois Arts Council, and was awarded for residencies at Ragdale and Taleamor Park. She is a poet in residence at the Chicago Poetry Center and facilitates workshops for incarcerated youth with Free Verse Writing Project. Her poetry can be found in the Southern Poetry Anthology, EPOCH, Greensboro Review, and elsewhere.    Author website: alyxchandler.com    Instagram @alyxabc    Love Affair with a Sprinkler   I've only got so many days    left to wet this face to rouse enough   growl to go back  where I came from    to build a backbone  hard as sheet metal   from the engine of  dad's favorite truck   the one I can  never remember    though it carried me  everywhere I needed to go    and of course where I didn't   short-shorts trespassing  abandoned kudzu homes    scraped legs inching   up water towers   creeping down stone church rooftops   girlhood a fresh-cut lawn where secrets coiled   like a water hose  stuck in kinks   spouting knots  writhing in grass    begging to spit at every pepperplant    sate all thirst I want to drown   to be snake-hearted again my stride full   of spunk and gall half-naked in an    embrace with the  spray of irrigation jets    their cold drenching my kid-body good    and sopping-wet  in hose-water rivulets   under its pressure  I shed regret   molt sunburn squeal hallelujah    in a hot spell— such a sweet relief    I'd somehow  after so many years   forgotten. Once I Lived in a Town    where grocery stores dispensed  ammunition from automated machines,    all you needed was an ID and license, the sign advertised, but there are ways    around that, a cashier told me, snuff a bulge  half-cocked in his cheek. But my target?    The choose-your-own-adventure  bulletin board. If you were brave,   you'd let some guy named John shoot  you with their dad's old Nikon film   camera. Girls only. No tattoos, the ink of the red-lettered flyer bled. Those days    I craved someone—anyone—to lock and load my rough-hewn beauty like    a cold weapon. Ripen the fruit of  my teenage face. Save me. Instead I   washed the ad in my too-tight jeans, let it dye my pocket grapefruit pink.    Once I lived in a town where daily I wore a necklace with a dragonfly wing    cured in resin, gifted from a lover,  a lifelong bug hater. Love can live in    the crevice of disgust, I found, but  lost it within the swaths of poison oak    where I shot my first bullet into wide- open sky and felt death echo its curious    desire, automatic as the gun's kickback.  My legs mottled in pocked rash. Then a    hole I didn't know existed. A souring.  Bitter and salt the only taste craved,    a rotten smell in the fried fatback I ate.  Once I lived in a town where the first    boy I kissed in the wreathed doorway of my childhood home left Earth too   soon from a single shot. I can't ask: is this what the military taught him? I only   know the cruel way high school relationships  end, 5-word text then never again. His fine-   line dragon doodles and i-love-you notes  still in my Converse shoe box in an attic,   twelve years untouched. I once lived in  a town where obits never contained   the word “suicide”—everyone is a child of Christ, and I mean everyone, our pastor   used to say, a joke staining his sincerity.  God, how I undercompensate, use safety   pins for my grief when I need weapons-grade  resistance, a cast-iron heart. Once I lived   in a town where I found a primed handgun under the bed of a boy I cheated with.   Delirious, I buried it in a dumpster until he cried that it was his great-grandfather's,   an heirloom he couldn't forget or forgive and after that I never saw him again. I didn't   have the language to ask him what I needed to know, Prozac newly wired in my brain,   a secret I could barely contain. Once I  crushed my trigger finger between the   door of who I wanted to be and who I actually was; I let that town press me    like a camellia between a book, inadequate  as a cartoon-decorated band aid trying to   stop the blood flow from a near-miss bullet. The Brooder   beneath nest boxes a squawk sinks out  so docile it turns me over both startles and   settles me this sudden birdbrain  how domestication is a brawl    inside me: the cockatrice papering my chicken heart with pockets of wire  I peel back its cuticle remove the bloom   to clean the coop   and find a little yolkless moon  an eyeball I push open and memorize then chuck over my roof   until a hen digs a crack with her beak breaks speckled curtains    of turquoise consumes her newest creation without pity or pause  

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/new-books-network

Olivia Wolfgang-Smith is the author of the novels Mutual Interest (2025) and Glassworks, which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Apple, and Good Housekeeping. She is a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction and lives in Brooklyn with her partner. Recommended Books: Hugh Ryan, When Brooklyn Was Queer Michael Koresky, Sick and Dirty Damon Runyon, Guys and Dolls and Other Writings Anna North, Bog Queen 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

When an actor opens their mouth to sing in a movie, chances are high that the voice you hear will be their own. Even in music biopics, movie stars without much singing experience regularly go to great lengths to impersonate the most beloved vocalists of our time. Why not simply play Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen's actual recordings, the reasons why we care about them in the first place? When the world is full of beautiful singing voices, why force Pierce Brosnan to bray his way through Mamma Mia? What you hear when an actor unhinges their jaw is a matter that Hollywood has been negotiating since the dawn of sound. So in this episode, we'll learn about the “ghost singers” of classic Hollywood musicals, find out why they went extinct, and why today's music biopics so often fudge the music. Then we leave Hollywood for Bollywood, where the rise of the celebrity “playback singer” shows what can happen when good singing is the highest priority. In this episode, you'll hear from Slate's pop music critic Jack Hamilton; musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical; Stephen Cole, co-author of a memoir by the ghost singer Marni Nixon; Isaac Butler, longtime Slate contributor and scholar of American acting; and Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has written several books on Hindi cinema and curates Indian films for the UK's Channel 4. If you want to listen to any of the songs you heard in this episode in full, you can find them all on this Spotify playlist. This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.  If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Basinger, Jeanine. The Movie Musical! Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. Beaster-Jones, Jayson. Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Hindi Film Song, Oxford University Press, 2015. Butler, Isaac. The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act, Bloomsbury, 2022. Hamilton, Jack. “The Problem With Music Biopics Is Bigger Than Just the Cliches,” Slate, May 17, 2024.  Kabir, Nasreen Munni. Lata Mangeshkar ...in Her Own Voice, Niyogi Books, 2009. Nixon, Marni with Stephen Cole. I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story, Billboard Books, 2006. Robbins, Allison. “‘Experimentations by Our Sound Department': Playback Stars in 1930s Hollywood.” Star Turns in Hollywood Musicals, edited by Chabrol Marguerite and Toulza Pierre-Olivier, Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2017. Srivastava, Sanjay. “Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans: The Idea of Lata Mangeshkar,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 39, no. 20, 2004. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When an actor opens their mouth to sing in a movie, chances are high that the voice you hear will be their own. Even in music biopics, movie stars without much singing experience regularly go to great lengths to impersonate the most beloved vocalists of our time. Why not simply play Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen's actual recordings, the reasons why we care about them in the first place? When the world is full of beautiful singing voices, why force Pierce Brosnan to bray his way through Mamma Mia? What you hear when an actor unhinges their jaw is a matter that Hollywood has been negotiating since the dawn of sound. So in this episode, we'll learn about the “ghost singers” of classic Hollywood musicals, find out why they went extinct, and why today's music biopics so often fudge the music. Then we leave Hollywood for Bollywood, where the rise of the celebrity “playback singer” shows what can happen when good singing is the highest priority. In this episode, you'll hear from Slate's pop music critic Jack Hamilton; musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical; Stephen Cole, co-author of a memoir by the ghost singer Marni Nixon; Isaac Butler, longtime Slate contributor and scholar of American acting; and Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has written several books on Hindi cinema and curates Indian films for the UK's Channel 4. If you want to listen to any of the songs you heard in this episode in full, you can find them all on this Spotify playlist. This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.  If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Basinger, Jeanine. The Movie Musical! Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. Beaster-Jones, Jayson. Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Hindi Film Song, Oxford University Press, 2015. Butler, Isaac. The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act, Bloomsbury, 2022. Hamilton, Jack. “The Problem With Music Biopics Is Bigger Than Just the Cliches,” Slate, May 17, 2024.  Kabir, Nasreen Munni. Lata Mangeshkar ...in Her Own Voice, Niyogi Books, 2009. Nixon, Marni with Stephen Cole. I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story, Billboard Books, 2006. Robbins, Allison. “‘Experimentations by Our Sound Department': Playback Stars in 1930s Hollywood.” Star Turns in Hollywood Musicals, edited by Chabrol Marguerite and Toulza Pierre-Olivier, Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2017. Srivastava, Sanjay. “Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans: The Idea of Lata Mangeshkar,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 39, no. 20, 2004. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When an actor opens their mouth to sing in a movie, chances are high that the voice you hear will be their own. Even in music biopics, movie stars without much singing experience regularly go to great lengths to impersonate the most beloved vocalists of our time. Why not simply play Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen's actual recordings, the reasons why we care about them in the first place? When the world is full of beautiful singing voices, why force Pierce Brosnan to bray his way through Mamma Mia? What you hear when an actor unhinges their jaw is a matter that Hollywood has been negotiating since the dawn of sound. So in this episode, we'll learn about the “ghost singers” of classic Hollywood musicals, find out why they went extinct, and why today's music biopics so often fudge the music. Then we leave Hollywood for Bollywood, where the rise of the celebrity “playback singer” shows what can happen when good singing is the highest priority. In this episode, you'll hear from Slate's pop music critic Jack Hamilton; musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical; Stephen Cole, co-author of a memoir by the ghost singer Marni Nixon; Isaac Butler, longtime Slate contributor and scholar of American acting; and Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has written several books on Hindi cinema and curates Indian films for the UK's Channel 4. If you want to listen to any of the songs you heard in this episode in full, you can find them all on this Spotify playlist. This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.  If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Basinger, Jeanine. The Movie Musical! Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. Beaster-Jones, Jayson. Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Hindi Film Song, Oxford University Press, 2015. Butler, Isaac. The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act, Bloomsbury, 2022. Hamilton, Jack. “The Problem With Music Biopics Is Bigger Than Just the Cliches,” Slate, May 17, 2024.  Kabir, Nasreen Munni. Lata Mangeshkar ...in Her Own Voice, Niyogi Books, 2009. Nixon, Marni with Stephen Cole. I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story, Billboard Books, 2006. Robbins, Allison. “‘Experimentations by Our Sound Department': Playback Stars in 1930s Hollywood.” Star Turns in Hollywood Musicals, edited by Chabrol Marguerite and Toulza Pierre-Olivier, Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2017. Srivastava, Sanjay. “Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans: The Idea of Lata Mangeshkar,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 39, no. 20, 2004. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When an actor opens their mouth to sing in a movie, chances are high that the voice you hear will be their own. Even in music biopics, movie stars without much singing experience regularly go to great lengths to impersonate the most beloved vocalists of our time. Why not simply play Johnny Cash or Bruce Springsteen's actual recordings, the reasons why we care about them in the first place? When the world is full of beautiful singing voices, why force Pierce Brosnan to bray his way through Mamma Mia? What you hear when an actor unhinges their jaw is a matter that Hollywood has been negotiating since the dawn of sound. So in this episode, we'll learn about the “ghost singers” of classic Hollywood musicals, find out why they went extinct, and why today's music biopics so often fudge the music. Then we leave Hollywood for Bollywood, where the rise of the celebrity “playback singer” shows what can happen when good singing is the highest priority. In this episode, you'll hear from Slate's pop music critic Jack Hamilton; musicologist Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Hollywood Musical; Stephen Cole, co-author of a memoir by the ghost singer Marni Nixon; Isaac Butler, longtime Slate contributor and scholar of American acting; and Nasreen Munni Kabir, who has written several books on Hindi cinema and curates Indian films for the UK's Channel 4. If you want to listen to any of the songs you heard in this episode in full, you can find them all on this Spotify playlist. This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepherd. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.  If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Basinger, Jeanine. The Movie Musical! Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. Beaster-Jones, Jayson. Bollywood Sounds: The Cosmopolitan Mediations of Hindi Film Song, Oxford University Press, 2015. Butler, Isaac. The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act, Bloomsbury, 2022. Hamilton, Jack. “The Problem With Music Biopics Is Bigger Than Just the Cliches,” Slate, May 17, 2024.  Kabir, Nasreen Munni. Lata Mangeshkar ...in Her Own Voice, Niyogi Books, 2009. Nixon, Marni with Stephen Cole. I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story, Billboard Books, 2006. Robbins, Allison. “‘Experimentations by Our Sound Department': Playback Stars in 1930s Hollywood.” Star Turns in Hollywood Musicals, edited by Chabrol Marguerite and Toulza Pierre-Olivier, Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2017. Srivastava, Sanjay. “Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans: The Idea of Lata Mangeshkar,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 39, no. 20, 2004. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices