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We have a cracker of an episode for you today. We are joined by Dr. Lisa Portolan, an Australian author, cultural commentator, and expert on modern relationships, specialising in love, sex, intimacy, gender, and dating culture. She is widely recognised for her insights into how technology and social change are reshaping the way we date, form relationships, and experience connection. Her work explores topics such as dating apps, emotional labour, heterofatalism, gender dynamics, and the future of intimacy in a digital world. Lisa holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from Western Sydney University, where her research focused on how dating apps have transformed intimacy and desire. LINKS Follow Jadé on Instagram @jadetunchy and TikTok Follow Lachie on Instagram @lachiebrycki and TikTok Follow Lisa on Instagram @lisaportolan Email us at madaboutyou@novapodcasts.com.au Follow Nova Podcasts on Instagram for videos from the podcast and behind-the-scenes content – @novapodcastsofficial. CREDITSHosts: Jadé and Lachie BryckiExecutive Producer: Xander CrossManaging Producer: Ricardo BardonDigital Content Producer: Matt Mullholland Find more great podcasts like this at novapodcasts.com.auSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy. While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China's control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray's fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here. Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master's Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/technology
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy. While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China's control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray's fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here. Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master's Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. 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
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy. While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China's control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray's fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here. Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master's Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. 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
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy. While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China's control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray's fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here. Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master's Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy. While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China's control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray's fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here. Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master's Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy. While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China's control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray's fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here. Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master's Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing passenger car markets in the Nordic region and Central Asia through superior technology, lower price points, and patient policy. While European markets face limited model availability due to protectionism and strategic caution, Central Asian nations have seen an immediate and total transformation of their transport infrastructure with far higher and lower end Chinese EVs than in Europe - and dramatic new challenges in electrification capacity. Based in Copenhagen, with 20+ experience in the regions, Gray is speaking freshly with us after two recent months in Tajikistan and China. He compares EV and soft power growth in Scandinavia vs Central Asia, and explains that modern EVs act as geopolitical infrastructure, shifting the focus from simple manufacturing to long-term digital service ecosystems, data control, and entry into more vertical industries. As the West maintains protective barriers, China's control over the battery supply chain and hybrid innovations will likely force a global shift in both consumer and freight industries. Listeners can find Gray's fact-finding recap of Chinese EVs in Tajikistan here. Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master's Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society
First up, I sit down with professor Abboud Hamayel to discuss the misuse of history, in particular archaeology as a tool of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Abboud also deconstructs the performative solidarity of pity, the entangled histories that make Palestine a lens through which to frame our own struggles, the jealousy of the settler, and stepping outside of colonial time. Next up, Metas censorship of LGBTQ voices brings together digital activists, legal experts and LGBTQ communities to combat invisibilization. We discuss the problematic dependency on social media platforms, how this can spur the creation of alternative comms and organizing methods, digital legal frameworks in the EU vs the US, and more. Abboud Hamayel is a Palestinian intellectual, lecturer, and political analyst. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University, near Ramallah. Caspar Pistersis the head of communication for Amsterdams wonderful & notorious Club Church. With a background in journalism, currently Caspar does communications for the Dutch HIV organization. Martha Dimitratou is the founder and Executive Director of Repro Uncensored, a global nonprofit documenting and challenging systemic online censorship, AI-driven harms, and the influence of Big Tech on access to information, freedom of expression, and democratic participation. Repro Uncensoreds research and investigations have been featured by hundreds of media outlets worldwide. Through Repro Uncensored, she also develops cultural initiatives and movement-building projects that bring together art, technology, digital rights, and social justice. Lotje Beekis a policy advisor at the Dutch digital rights organization Bits of Freedom, focusing on Big Tech and online platforms. She mainly works on digital rights within European platform regulation. In that context, she advocates for the effective enforcement of the Digital Services Act. Successfully so: Bits of Freedom recently won a court case against Meta Platforms based on that law. The News That Didn't Make the News. Each week, co-hosts Mickey Huff and Eleanor Goldfield conduct in depth interviews with their guests and offer hard hitting commentary on the key political, social, and economic issues of the day with an emphasis on critical media literacy. The post Project Censored – History Outside Colonial Time / Fighting LGBTQ Invisibilization appeared first on KPFA.
Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain (U Chicago Press, 2026) examines how imperial precedents and racial ideologies shaped the medical treatments that the British state offered to several million Black and brown servicemen during World War I. In recovering the voices and experiences of these soldiers, Hilary R. Buxton illustrates how they navigated the institutional culture of the imperial military and how they helped to shape health and welfare systems well beyond the interwar period. The Great War was the first time that troops and volunteers from nearly all reaches of the Empire participated in the war effort side-by-side. Despite official attempts at segregation, colonial troops met in trenches, mobile camps, casualty clearing stations, hospital ships, and convalescent homes. Just as importantly, those organizing treatment encountered men of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures from across and beyond the British Empire. For British officials, this moment offered an opportunity to remake colonial efficiency and medical knowledge. Yet, as Buxton shows, colonial servicemen were not passive subjects in a wartime laboratory: they were vocal participants who demanded a say in the therapies prescribed to them, the rations they required, the psychiatric care they received, and the prosthetics with which they were fitted. Together, these encounters profoundly remade colonial relations, reshaping imperial science, administration, and colonial understandings of subjecthood.Disabled Empire pushes literature on the war and medicine outside its national, Eurocentric focus to confront the colonial logic of global health inequity. Hilary R. Buxton is assistant professor of history at Kenyon College. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain (U Chicago Press, 2026) examines how imperial precedents and racial ideologies shaped the medical treatments that the British state offered to several million Black and brown servicemen during World War I. In recovering the voices and experiences of these soldiers, Hilary R. Buxton illustrates how they navigated the institutional culture of the imperial military and how they helped to shape health and welfare systems well beyond the interwar period. The Great War was the first time that troops and volunteers from nearly all reaches of the Empire participated in the war effort side-by-side. Despite official attempts at segregation, colonial troops met in trenches, mobile camps, casualty clearing stations, hospital ships, and convalescent homes. Just as importantly, those organizing treatment encountered men of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures from across and beyond the British Empire. For British officials, this moment offered an opportunity to remake colonial efficiency and medical knowledge. Yet, as Buxton shows, colonial servicemen were not passive subjects in a wartime laboratory: they were vocal participants who demanded a say in the therapies prescribed to them, the rations they required, the psychiatric care they received, and the prosthetics with which they were fitted. Together, these encounters profoundly remade colonial relations, reshaping imperial science, administration, and colonial understandings of subjecthood.Disabled Empire pushes literature on the war and medicine outside its national, Eurocentric focus to confront the colonial logic of global health inequity. Hilary R. Buxton is assistant professor of history at Kenyon College. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain (U Chicago Press, 2026) examines how imperial precedents and racial ideologies shaped the medical treatments that the British state offered to several million Black and brown servicemen during World War I. In recovering the voices and experiences of these soldiers, Hilary R. Buxton illustrates how they navigated the institutional culture of the imperial military and how they helped to shape health and welfare systems well beyond the interwar period. The Great War was the first time that troops and volunteers from nearly all reaches of the Empire participated in the war effort side-by-side. Despite official attempts at segregation, colonial troops met in trenches, mobile camps, casualty clearing stations, hospital ships, and convalescent homes. Just as importantly, those organizing treatment encountered men of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures from across and beyond the British Empire. For British officials, this moment offered an opportunity to remake colonial efficiency and medical knowledge. Yet, as Buxton shows, colonial servicemen were not passive subjects in a wartime laboratory: they were vocal participants who demanded a say in the therapies prescribed to them, the rations they required, the psychiatric care they received, and the prosthetics with which they were fitted. Together, these encounters profoundly remade colonial relations, reshaping imperial science, administration, and colonial understandings of subjecthood.Disabled Empire pushes literature on the war and medicine outside its national, Eurocentric focus to confront the colonial logic of global health inequity. Hilary R. Buxton is assistant professor of history at Kenyon College. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain (U Chicago Press, 2026) examines how imperial precedents and racial ideologies shaped the medical treatments that the British state offered to several million Black and brown servicemen during World War I. In recovering the voices and experiences of these soldiers, Hilary R. Buxton illustrates how they navigated the institutional culture of the imperial military and how they helped to shape health and welfare systems well beyond the interwar period. The Great War was the first time that troops and volunteers from nearly all reaches of the Empire participated in the war effort side-by-side. Despite official attempts at segregation, colonial troops met in trenches, mobile camps, casualty clearing stations, hospital ships, and convalescent homes. Just as importantly, those organizing treatment encountered men of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures from across and beyond the British Empire. For British officials, this moment offered an opportunity to remake colonial efficiency and medical knowledge. Yet, as Buxton shows, colonial servicemen were not passive subjects in a wartime laboratory: they were vocal participants who demanded a say in the therapies prescribed to them, the rations they required, the psychiatric care they received, and the prosthetics with which they were fitted. Together, these encounters profoundly remade colonial relations, reshaping imperial science, administration, and colonial understandings of subjecthood.Disabled Empire pushes literature on the war and medicine outside its national, Eurocentric focus to confront the colonial logic of global health inequity. Hilary R. Buxton is assistant professor of history at Kenyon College. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/medicine
Disabled Empire: The Colonial Body in First World War Britain (U Chicago Press, 2026) examines how imperial precedents and racial ideologies shaped the medical treatments that the British state offered to several million Black and brown servicemen during World War I. In recovering the voices and experiences of these soldiers, Hilary R. Buxton illustrates how they navigated the institutional culture of the imperial military and how they helped to shape health and welfare systems well beyond the interwar period. The Great War was the first time that troops and volunteers from nearly all reaches of the Empire participated in the war effort side-by-side. Despite official attempts at segregation, colonial troops met in trenches, mobile camps, casualty clearing stations, hospital ships, and convalescent homes. Just as importantly, those organizing treatment encountered men of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures from across and beyond the British Empire. For British officials, this moment offered an opportunity to remake colonial efficiency and medical knowledge. Yet, as Buxton shows, colonial servicemen were not passive subjects in a wartime laboratory: they were vocal participants who demanded a say in the therapies prescribed to them, the rations they required, the psychiatric care they received, and the prosthetics with which they were fitted. Together, these encounters profoundly remade colonial relations, reshaping imperial science, administration, and colonial understandings of subjecthood.Disabled Empire pushes literature on the war and medicine outside its national, Eurocentric focus to confront the colonial logic of global health inequity. Hilary R. Buxton is assistant professor of history at Kenyon College. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on the battlefield by 1440; later in that century Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for a faster-firing, more portable handgun that could be hidden beneath a cloak. As the gun proliferated in society, it became both a means of self-defence and a threat to civic order. In The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires (Princeton University Press, 2026), historian Catherine Fletcher explores the emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy and beyond, describing the social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun from innovative military technology to widely used personal accessory. Fletcher shows that as guns became smaller and the new wheellock mechanism made concealed carry possible, Italian states increasingly tried to control their use—even as they viewed firearms as necessary for their militias. In the end, Fletcher reports, the importance of civic defence trumped the concern for social order. As guns became ever more acceptable, stories of how firearms aided Europeans' overseas conquests created a new and more positive image for a weapon once considered the devil's work. Debates over the regulation of firearms five centuries ago—which included arguments over the restriction of gun ownership, the use of guns for self-defence and the regulation of an armed militia—in many ways anticipate discussions about gun control today. Fletcher's groundbreaking account sheds new light on how governments weighed the competing priorities of defence and social order as they set out to build empires. Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of several books on early modern Italy, including The Roads to Rome, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance and The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de' Medici. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on the battlefield by 1440; later in that century Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for a faster-firing, more portable handgun that could be hidden beneath a cloak. As the gun proliferated in society, it became both a means of self-defence and a threat to civic order. In The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires (Princeton University Press, 2026), historian Catherine Fletcher explores the emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy and beyond, describing the social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun from innovative military technology to widely used personal accessory. Fletcher shows that as guns became smaller and the new wheellock mechanism made concealed carry possible, Italian states increasingly tried to control their use—even as they viewed firearms as necessary for their militias. In the end, Fletcher reports, the importance of civic defence trumped the concern for social order. As guns became ever more acceptable, stories of how firearms aided Europeans' overseas conquests created a new and more positive image for a weapon once considered the devil's work. Debates over the regulation of firearms five centuries ago—which included arguments over the restriction of gun ownership, the use of guns for self-defence and the regulation of an armed militia—in many ways anticipate discussions about gun control today. Fletcher's groundbreaking account sheds new light on how governments weighed the competing priorities of defence and social order as they set out to build empires. Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of several books on early modern Italy, including The Roads to Rome, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance and The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de' Medici. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history
In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on the battlefield by 1440; later in that century Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for a faster-firing, more portable handgun that could be hidden beneath a cloak. As the gun proliferated in society, it became both a means of self-defence and a threat to civic order. In The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires (Princeton University Press, 2026), historian Catherine Fletcher explores the emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy and beyond, describing the social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun from innovative military technology to widely used personal accessory. Fletcher shows that as guns became smaller and the new wheellock mechanism made concealed carry possible, Italian states increasingly tried to control their use—even as they viewed firearms as necessary for their militias. In the end, Fletcher reports, the importance of civic defence trumped the concern for social order. As guns became ever more acceptable, stories of how firearms aided Europeans' overseas conquests created a new and more positive image for a weapon once considered the devil's work. Debates over the regulation of firearms five centuries ago—which included arguments over the restriction of gun ownership, the use of guns for self-defence and the regulation of an armed militia—in many ways anticipate discussions about gun control today. Fletcher's groundbreaking account sheds new light on how governments weighed the competing priorities of defence and social order as they set out to build empires. Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of several books on early modern Italy, including The Roads to Rome, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance and The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de' Medici. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on the battlefield by 1440; later in that century Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for a faster-firing, more portable handgun that could be hidden beneath a cloak. As the gun proliferated in society, it became both a means of self-defence and a threat to civic order. In The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires (Princeton University Press, 2026), historian Catherine Fletcher explores the emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy and beyond, describing the social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun from innovative military technology to widely used personal accessory. Fletcher shows that as guns became smaller and the new wheellock mechanism made concealed carry possible, Italian states increasingly tried to control their use—even as they viewed firearms as necessary for their militias. In the end, Fletcher reports, the importance of civic defence trumped the concern for social order. As guns became ever more acceptable, stories of how firearms aided Europeans' overseas conquests created a new and more positive image for a weapon once considered the devil's work. Debates over the regulation of firearms five centuries ago—which included arguments over the restriction of gun ownership, the use of guns for self-defence and the regulation of an armed militia—in many ways anticipate discussions about gun control today. Fletcher's groundbreaking account sheds new light on how governments weighed the competing priorities of defence and social order as they set out to build empires. Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of several books on early modern Italy, including The Roads to Rome, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance and The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de' Medici. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here
In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on the battlefield by 1440; later in that century Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for a faster-firing, more portable handgun that could be hidden beneath a cloak. As the gun proliferated in society, it became both a means of self-defence and a threat to civic order. In The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires (Princeton University Press, 2026), historian Catherine Fletcher explores the emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy and beyond, describing the social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun from innovative military technology to widely used personal accessory. Fletcher shows that as guns became smaller and the new wheellock mechanism made concealed carry possible, Italian states increasingly tried to control their use—even as they viewed firearms as necessary for their militias. In the end, Fletcher reports, the importance of civic defence trumped the concern for social order. As guns became ever more acceptable, stories of how firearms aided Europeans' overseas conquests created a new and more positive image for a weapon once considered the devil's work. Debates over the regulation of firearms five centuries ago—which included arguments over the restriction of gun ownership, the use of guns for self-defence and the regulation of an armed militia—in many ways anticipate discussions about gun control today. Fletcher's groundbreaking account sheds new light on how governments weighed the competing priorities of defence and social order as they set out to build empires. Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of several books on early modern Italy, including The Roads to Rome, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance and The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de' Medici. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies
In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on the battlefield by 1440; later in that century Leonardo da Vinci sketched a design for a faster-firing, more portable handgun that could be hidden beneath a cloak. As the gun proliferated in society, it became both a means of self-defence and a threat to civic order. In The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires (Princeton University Press, 2026), historian Catherine Fletcher explores the emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy and beyond, describing the social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun from innovative military technology to widely used personal accessory. Fletcher shows that as guns became smaller and the new wheellock mechanism made concealed carry possible, Italian states increasingly tried to control their use—even as they viewed firearms as necessary for their militias. In the end, Fletcher reports, the importance of civic defence trumped the concern for social order. As guns became ever more acceptable, stories of how firearms aided Europeans' overseas conquests created a new and more positive image for a weapon once considered the devil's work. Debates over the regulation of firearms five centuries ago—which included arguments over the restriction of gun ownership, the use of guns for self-defence and the regulation of an armed militia—in many ways anticipate discussions about gun control today. Fletcher's groundbreaking account sheds new light on how governments weighed the competing priorities of defence and social order as they set out to build empires. Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of several books on early modern Italy, including The Roads to Rome, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance and The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de' Medici. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies
Mark Twain's Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he is viewed as an emblem both of Twain's alleged racism and of his opposition to racism; a diminished character inflected by minstrelsy and a powerful challenge to minstrel stereotypes; a reason for banning Huckleberry Finn and a reason for teaching it; an embarrassment and a source of pride for Black readers.In Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade (Yale UP, 2025) eminent Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin probes these controversies, exploring who Jim was, how Twain portrayed him, and how the world has responded to him. Fishkin also follows Jim's many afterlives: in film, from Hollywood to the Soviet Union; in translation around the world; and in American high school classrooms today. The result is Jim as we have never seen him before—a fresh and compelling portrait of one of the most memorable Black characters in American fiction. Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, professor of English, and professor (by courtesy) of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, and editor of the twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She lives in Stanford, CA. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
Mark Twain's Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he is viewed as an emblem both of Twain's alleged racism and of his opposition to racism; a diminished character inflected by minstrelsy and a powerful challenge to minstrel stereotypes; a reason for banning Huckleberry Finn and a reason for teaching it; an embarrassment and a source of pride for Black readers.In Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade (Yale UP, 2025) eminent Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin probes these controversies, exploring who Jim was, how Twain portrayed him, and how the world has responded to him. Fishkin also follows Jim's many afterlives: in film, from Hollywood to the Soviet Union; in translation around the world; and in American high school classrooms today. The result is Jim as we have never seen him before—a fresh and compelling portrait of one of the most memorable Black characters in American fiction. Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, professor of English, and professor (by courtesy) of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, and editor of the twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She lives in Stanford, CA. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here 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
Mark Twain's Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he is viewed as an emblem both of Twain's alleged racism and of his opposition to racism; a diminished character inflected by minstrelsy and a powerful challenge to minstrel stereotypes; a reason for banning Huckleberry Finn and a reason for teaching it; an embarrassment and a source of pride for Black readers.In Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade (Yale UP, 2025) eminent Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin probes these controversies, exploring who Jim was, how Twain portrayed him, and how the world has responded to him. Fishkin also follows Jim's many afterlives: in film, from Hollywood to the Soviet Union; in translation around the world; and in American high school classrooms today. The result is Jim as we have never seen him before—a fresh and compelling portrait of one of the most memorable Black characters in American fiction. Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, professor of English, and professor (by courtesy) of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, and editor of the twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She lives in Stanford, CA. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Mark Twain's Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he is viewed as an emblem both of Twain's alleged racism and of his opposition to racism; a diminished character inflected by minstrelsy and a powerful challenge to minstrel stereotypes; a reason for banning Huckleberry Finn and a reason for teaching it; an embarrassment and a source of pride for Black readers.In Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade (Yale UP, 2025) eminent Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin probes these controversies, exploring who Jim was, how Twain portrayed him, and how the world has responded to him. Fishkin also follows Jim's many afterlives: in film, from Hollywood to the Soviet Union; in translation around the world; and in American high school classrooms today. The result is Jim as we have never seen him before—a fresh and compelling portrait of one of the most memorable Black characters in American fiction. Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, professor of English, and professor (by courtesy) of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, and editor of the twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She lives in Stanford, CA. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
"Self-Made" success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four centuries ago, our foundational stories actually disparaged ambitious upstarts as dangerous and selfish threats to a healthy society. In Pamela Walker Laird's fascinating history of why and how storytellers forged this American myth, she reveals how the goals for self-improvement evolved from serving the community to supporting individualist dreams of wealth and esteem. Simplistic stories of self-made success and failure emerged that disregarded people's advantages and disadvantages and fostered inequality. Fortunately, Self-Made also recovers long-standing, alternative traditions of self-improvement to serve the common good. These challenges to the myth have offered inspiration, often coming, surprisingly, from Americans associated with self-made success, such as Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and Horatio Alger. Here are real stories that show that no one lives – no one succeeds or fails – in a vacuum. Pamela Walker Laird is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Colorado Denver. Laird's publications include her newest book, Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth (Cambridge University Press, 2025); Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin (Harvard University Press, 2006), which won the 2006 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history and is available in Chinese; and Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), a Choice Outstanding Academic Book. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos 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
"Self-Made" success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four centuries ago, our foundational stories actually disparaged ambitious upstarts as dangerous and selfish threats to a healthy society. In Pamela Walker Laird's fascinating history of why and how storytellers forged this American myth, she reveals how the goals for self-improvement evolved from serving the community to supporting individualist dreams of wealth and esteem. Simplistic stories of self-made success and failure emerged that disregarded people's advantages and disadvantages and fostered inequality. Fortunately, Self-Made also recovers long-standing, alternative traditions of self-improvement to serve the common good. These challenges to the myth have offered inspiration, often coming, surprisingly, from Americans associated with self-made success, such as Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and Horatio Alger. Here are real stories that show that no one lives – no one succeeds or fails – in a vacuum. Pamela Walker Laird is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Colorado Denver. Laird's publications include her newest book, Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth (Cambridge University Press, 2025); Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin (Harvard University Press, 2006), which won the 2006 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history and is available in Chinese; and Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), a Choice Outstanding Academic Book. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
"Self-Made" success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four centuries ago, our foundational stories actually disparaged ambitious upstarts as dangerous and selfish threats to a healthy society. In Pamela Walker Laird's fascinating history of why and how storytellers forged this American myth, she reveals how the goals for self-improvement evolved from serving the community to supporting individualist dreams of wealth and esteem. Simplistic stories of self-made success and failure emerged that disregarded people's advantages and disadvantages and fostered inequality. Fortunately, Self-Made also recovers long-standing, alternative traditions of self-improvement to serve the common good. These challenges to the myth have offered inspiration, often coming, surprisingly, from Americans associated with self-made success, such as Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and Horatio Alger. Here are real stories that show that no one lives – no one succeeds or fails – in a vacuum. Pamela Walker Laird is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Colorado Denver. Laird's publications include her newest book, Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth (Cambridge University Press, 2025); Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin (Harvard University Press, 2006), which won the 2006 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history and is available in Chinese; and Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), a Choice Outstanding Academic Book. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
"Self-Made" success is now an American badge of honor that rewards individualist ambitions while it hammers against community obligations. Yet, four centuries ago, our foundational stories actually disparaged ambitious upstarts as dangerous and selfish threats to a healthy society. In Pamela Walker Laird's fascinating history of why and how storytellers forged this American myth, she reveals how the goals for self-improvement evolved from serving the community to supporting individualist dreams of wealth and esteem. Simplistic stories of self-made success and failure emerged that disregarded people's advantages and disadvantages and fostered inequality. Fortunately, Self-Made also recovers long-standing, alternative traditions of self-improvement to serve the common good. These challenges to the myth have offered inspiration, often coming, surprisingly, from Americans associated with self-made success, such as Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, and Horatio Alger. Here are real stories that show that no one lives – no one succeeds or fails – in a vacuum. Pamela Walker Laird is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Colorado Denver. Laird's publications include her newest book, Self-Made: The Stories that Forged an American Myth (Cambridge University Press, 2025); Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin (Harvard University Press, 2006), which won the 2006 Hagley Prize for the best book in business history and is available in Chinese; and Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), a Choice Outstanding Academic Book. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics.It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which employ symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters wore Spartan helmets in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These juxtapositions may appear incongruous to people who associate the ancient world with enlightened political ideals and sophisticated philosophical inquiry. But, as Dozier points out in this thought-provoking book, it's hard to imagine a historical period better suited to rhetorical use by white nationalists. Indeed, some of the most widely admired voices from ancient literature and philosophy endorsed ideas that modern white supremacists promote, and the social and political realities of the ancient world provide models for political systems that white supremacists would like to establish today. Part introduction to contemporary white nationalist thought, part exploration of ancient racism and xenophobia, and part intellectual history of the political entanglements of academic study of the past, this book reveals that contemporary white nationalist intellectuals know much more about history than many people assume—and they deploy this knowledge with disturbing success. Curtis Dozier is associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College. He is the director of the internationally recognized website Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics, which documents appropriations of Greco-Roman antiquity by hate groups. He lives in Poughkeepsie, NY. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. 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
Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics.It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which employ symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters wore Spartan helmets in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These juxtapositions may appear incongruous to people who associate the ancient world with enlightened political ideals and sophisticated philosophical inquiry. But, as Dozier points out in this thought-provoking book, it's hard to imagine a historical period better suited to rhetorical use by white nationalists. Indeed, some of the most widely admired voices from ancient literature and philosophy endorsed ideas that modern white supremacists promote, and the social and political realities of the ancient world provide models for political systems that white supremacists would like to establish today. Part introduction to contemporary white nationalist thought, part exploration of ancient racism and xenophobia, and part intellectual history of the political entanglements of academic study of the past, this book reveals that contemporary white nationalist intellectuals know much more about history than many people assume—and they deploy this knowledge with disturbing success. Curtis Dozier is associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College. He is the director of the internationally recognized website Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics, which documents appropriations of Greco-Roman antiquity by hate groups. He lives in Poughkeepsie, NY. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics.It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which employ symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters wore Spartan helmets in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These juxtapositions may appear incongruous to people who associate the ancient world with enlightened political ideals and sophisticated philosophical inquiry. But, as Dozier points out in this thought-provoking book, it's hard to imagine a historical period better suited to rhetorical use by white nationalists. Indeed, some of the most widely admired voices from ancient literature and philosophy endorsed ideas that modern white supremacists promote, and the social and political realities of the ancient world provide models for political systems that white supremacists would like to establish today. Part introduction to contemporary white nationalist thought, part exploration of ancient racism and xenophobia, and part intellectual history of the political entanglements of academic study of the past, this book reveals that contemporary white nationalist intellectuals know much more about history than many people assume—and they deploy this knowledge with disturbing success. Curtis Dozier is associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College. He is the director of the internationally recognized website Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics, which documents appropriations of Greco-Roman antiquity by hate groups. He lives in Poughkeepsie, NY. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history
Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics.It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which employ symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters wore Spartan helmets in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These juxtapositions may appear incongruous to people who associate the ancient world with enlightened political ideals and sophisticated philosophical inquiry. But, as Dozier points out in this thought-provoking book, it's hard to imagine a historical period better suited to rhetorical use by white nationalists. Indeed, some of the most widely admired voices from ancient literature and philosophy endorsed ideas that modern white supremacists promote, and the social and political realities of the ancient world provide models for political systems that white supremacists would like to establish today. Part introduction to contemporary white nationalist thought, part exploration of ancient racism and xenophobia, and part intellectual history of the political entanglements of academic study of the past, this book reveals that contemporary white nationalist intellectuals know much more about history than many people assume—and they deploy this knowledge with disturbing success. Curtis Dozier is associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College. He is the director of the internationally recognized website Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics, which documents appropriations of Greco-Roman antiquity by hate groups. He lives in Poughkeepsie, NY. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Curtis Dozier's The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate (Yale University Press, 2026) explores how white nationalist thought leaders use ancient Greece and Rome to claim historical precedent for their violent and oppressive politics.It is difficult to ignore the resurgence of white nationalist movements in the United States, many of which employ symbols and slogans from Greco-Roman antiquity. A long-established neo-Nazi website incorporates an image of the Parthenon into its logo, and rioters wore Spartan helmets in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These juxtapositions may appear incongruous to people who associate the ancient world with enlightened political ideals and sophisticated philosophical inquiry. But, as Dozier points out in this thought-provoking book, it's hard to imagine a historical period better suited to rhetorical use by white nationalists. Indeed, some of the most widely admired voices from ancient literature and philosophy endorsed ideas that modern white supremacists promote, and the social and political realities of the ancient world provide models for political systems that white supremacists would like to establish today. Part introduction to contemporary white nationalist thought, part exploration of ancient racism and xenophobia, and part intellectual history of the political entanglements of academic study of the past, this book reveals that contemporary white nationalist intellectuals know much more about history than many people assume—and they deploy this knowledge with disturbing success. Curtis Dozier is associate professor of Greek and Roman studies at Vassar College. He is the director of the internationally recognized website Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics, which documents appropriations of Greco-Roman antiquity by hate groups. He lives in Poughkeepsie, NY. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026), Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous, African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control and movement. Deere demonstrates how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and who is excluded—becomes an essential component of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity. Don Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. 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
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026), Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous, African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control and movement. Deere demonstrates how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and who is excluded—becomes an essential component of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity. Don Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026), Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous, African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control and movement. Deere demonstrates how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and who is excluded—becomes an essential component of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity. Don Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026), Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous, African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control and movement. Deere demonstrates how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and who is excluded—becomes an essential component of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity. Don Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/caribbean-studies
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026), Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous, African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control and movement. Deere demonstrates how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and who is excluded—becomes an essential component of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity. Don Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary Continental Philosophy. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
Read more from VPM News: Cultural study to examine 2 historic African American burial sites in Richmond Hanover sheriff's office renews fight to withhold names from FOIA request Other links: Richmond police won't release Flock data, audits they claim show compliance with state law (Richmond Times-Dispatch)* Council OKs new tax deferral program letting homeowners delay impact of higher assessments (The Richmonder) What can consumers expect from the proposed Dominion deal? (Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO) Judge approves settlement over rejected Virginia student voter registrations (Virginia Mercury) State to reorganize nursing scholarship programs after more than $10 million in funding was left unused (Cardinal News) *This outlet uses a paywall. Our award-winning work is made possible with your donations. Visit vpm.org/donate to support local journalism.
Athenian Democracy provides innovative readings of ancient theorists to reveal both the complexity of democracy's achievements and its limits. In Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists (U Notre Dame Press, 2026), noted political scientist Arlene W. Saxonhouse offers fresh and provocative explorations of ancient political theorists, lending new insights about democracy's foundations and principles. These insights are more relevant than ever in a moment when the viability of democratic regimes is under scrutiny. Saxonhouse provides an in-depth discussion of the modern mythmakers (Hobbes, Paine, Hamilton, Mill, and Arendt, among others) who, in praising or excoriating Athenian democracy, have in fact distorted it to support their own assessments of democracy. She then offers detailed reinterpretations of the writings on democracy of four ancient theorists who had directly experienced life in the first democratic regime: Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. Saxonhouse argues that the mythmaking that often attends our views of Athenian democracy—whether as a flawed, slaveholding regime that fostered factions and oppressed women or as an ideal regime of egalitarian and participatory democracy—blinds us to the deeper understanding of democracies that these ancient theorists can offer. Arlene W. Saxonhouse is the Caroline Robbins Collegiate Professor of Political Science, Emerita, at the University of Michigan. She is the author of numerous books and articles dealing with ancient Greek political thought, including Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens and Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
John Dewey is among history's most celebrated thinkers on democracy and education, yet he has often been underappreciated and misunderstood as a philosopher. This book paints a fresh portrait of Dewey as not only a reformer of schooling but also a profound theorist of human development, whose vision of the centrality of education to democracy, philosophy, and flourishing can still inspire us today. What can we learn from this great thinker as we face challenges such as widespread drudgery and disaffection, estrangement among individuals and groups, and a crisis of democracy? This book supplies the answers, offering a bold new account of Dewey as an educational theorist who is essential for our troubled times. Revealing the true scope of Dewey's educational vision, this book provides a new perspective on a neglected aspect of the philosophical tradition. Natalia Rogach Alexander's Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey (Columbia University Press, 2025) presents an alternative canon—running from Plato to Rousseau to Du Bois—that recasts philosophy in terms of education and, in so doing, opens new pathways for social critique and the liberation of human potential. Natalia Rogach Alexander is a lecturer in philosophy at Columbia University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. 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
Athenian Democracy provides innovative readings of ancient theorists to reveal both the complexity of democracy's achievements and its limits. In Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists (U Notre Dame Press, 2026), noted political scientist Arlene W. Saxonhouse offers fresh and provocative explorations of ancient political theorists, lending new insights about democracy's foundations and principles. These insights are more relevant than ever in a moment when the viability of democratic regimes is under scrutiny. Saxonhouse provides an in-depth discussion of the modern mythmakers (Hobbes, Paine, Hamilton, Mill, and Arendt, among others) who, in praising or excoriating Athenian democracy, have in fact distorted it to support their own assessments of democracy. She then offers detailed reinterpretations of the writings on democracy of four ancient theorists who had directly experienced life in the first democratic regime: Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. Saxonhouse argues that the mythmaking that often attends our views of Athenian democracy—whether as a flawed, slaveholding regime that fostered factions and oppressed women or as an ideal regime of egalitarian and participatory democracy—blinds us to the deeper understanding of democracies that these ancient theorists can offer. Arlene W. Saxonhouse is the Caroline Robbins Collegiate Professor of Political Science, Emerita, at the University of Michigan. She is the author of numerous books and articles dealing with ancient Greek political thought, including Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens and Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science
What does podcasting offer us?...Today, Abbie and Simone podcast about podcasting! Inspired by Simone's recently published book- Podcasting as a Research Method- this conversation explores both Abbie and Simone's experiences with podcasting, what they have learned along the way, and why this medium has their hearts....Simone Eringfeld is a researcher, polar guide, writer, and podcaster who prefers to maximize her time spent with penguins.She is a PhD researcher in Polar Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, where she studies Antarctica's changing soundscapes and approach listening as an embodied and epistemological practice. Her work draws on field experience in the Arctic and Antarctica, where I've contributed to expedition and science teams as a polar guide and field recordist.She is the author of Podcasting as a Research Method, a book that rethinks podcasting not just as a tool for science communication, but as a site of inquiry — where knowledge emerges through dialogue, voice, and relational engagement. Across my research, I'm particularly interested in creative methodologies, including sound-based approaches.Her background is interdisciplinary by design. I hold a Master's degree in Education from the University of Cambridge, where I produced award-winning research on the impact of COVID-19 on higher education. Before that, I completed three full-time Bachelor's degrees simultaneously (Philosophy, Literary & Cultural Studies, and International Relations).Alongside academia, she is the founder of The Smart Rebel, where I coach gifted, neurodivergent individuals and entrepreneurs to translate their intensity and complexity into meaningful, sustainable work....Stories Lived. Stories Told. is created, produced & hosted by Abbie VanMeter.Stories Lived. Stories Told. is an initiative of the CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution....Music for Stories Lived. Stories Told. is created by Rik Spann....CMM Institute SubstackCMM Institute Events Page…Explore all things Stories Lived. Stories Told. here.Explore all things CMM Institute here.
Athenian Democracy provides innovative readings of ancient theorists to reveal both the complexity of democracy's achievements and its limits. In Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and Ancient Theorists (U Notre Dame Press, 2026), noted political scientist Arlene W. Saxonhouse offers fresh and provocative explorations of ancient political theorists, lending new insights about democracy's foundations and principles. These insights are more relevant than ever in a moment when the viability of democratic regimes is under scrutiny. Saxonhouse provides an in-depth discussion of the modern mythmakers (Hobbes, Paine, Hamilton, Mill, and Arendt, among others) who, in praising or excoriating Athenian democracy, have in fact distorted it to support their own assessments of democracy. She then offers detailed reinterpretations of the writings on democracy of four ancient theorists who had directly experienced life in the first democratic regime: Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. Saxonhouse argues that the mythmaking that often attends our views of Athenian democracy—whether as a flawed, slaveholding regime that fostered factions and oppressed women or as an ideal regime of egalitarian and participatory democracy—blinds us to the deeper understanding of democracies that these ancient theorists can offer. Arlene W. Saxonhouse is the Caroline Robbins Collegiate Professor of Political Science, Emerita, at the University of Michigan. She is the author of numerous books and articles dealing with ancient Greek political thought, including Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens and Fear of Diversity: The Birth of Political Science in Ancient Greek Thought. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
John Dewey is among history's most celebrated thinkers on democracy and education, yet he has often been underappreciated and misunderstood as a philosopher. This book paints a fresh portrait of Dewey as not only a reformer of schooling but also a profound theorist of human development, whose vision of the centrality of education to democracy, philosophy, and flourishing can still inspire us today. What can we learn from this great thinker as we face challenges such as widespread drudgery and disaffection, estrangement among individuals and groups, and a crisis of democracy? This book supplies the answers, offering a bold new account of Dewey as an educational theorist who is essential for our troubled times. Revealing the true scope of Dewey's educational vision, this book provides a new perspective on a neglected aspect of the philosophical tradition. Natalia Rogach Alexander's Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey (Columbia University Press, 2025) presents an alternative canon—running from Plato to Rousseau to Du Bois—that recasts philosophy in terms of education and, in so doing, opens new pathways for social critique and the liberation of human potential. Natalia Rogach Alexander is a lecturer in philosophy at Columbia University. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
What would the Enlightenment look like if we viewed it through the eyes of the philosophers as they were facing death? Joanna Stalnaker turns our usual perspective on the Enlightenment on its head, bringing to light a set of works written at the end of the Old Regime and at the end of their authors' lives. These works, all written before the French Revolution, cast a retrospective glance over the intellectual movement their authors participated in, and over the authors' own lives and works. Stalnaker shows that the beauty of these works stems from their authors' efforts to give literary form to the materiality and fragility of their dying bodies. As they reflected on writing as a means of reaching posterity, Enlightenment philosophers embraced the possibility that neither their names nor their writings would survive long beyond the decomposition of their bodies. They inscribed the silence and nothingness of death into their last works. Stalnaker's book The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death (Yale UP, 2025) unsettles reigning interpretations of the Enlightenment as a precursor to our modernity and shows its protagonists at their moments of fragility and doubt, capturing their sense of an ending rather than the confidence in a glowing future so often attributed to them. Joanna Stalnaker is professor of French at Columbia University. She is the author of a prizewinning first book, The Unfinished Enlightenment: Description in the Age of the Encyclopedia. She lives in New York City. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the great writers on Central Europe after the first world war and on the dying of the old orders with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As a German speaking Jew from Brody in the north-eastern edge of that Empire, which was then in Galicia, next in Poland and is now in Ukraine, Roth (1894 - 1939) was to spend his short life moving first to Lviv then to Vienna and finally to Paris via Berlin without ever finding a settled home. Roth explored the loss of homeland and anticipated the dangers of the new nationalism through his journalism and in his novels including Radetzky March, Job, Rebellion and Flight Without End, and his books were among the first the Nazis burned.With Helen Chambers Emeritus Professor of German at the University of St AndrewsDeborah Holmes Associate Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of SalzburgAnd Jon Hughes Reader in German and Cultural Studies at Royal Holloway, University of LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:Jon Hughes, Facing Modernity: Fragmentation, Culture and Identity in Joseph Roth's Writing in the 1920s (MHRA, 2006) Heinz Lunzer and Victoria Lunzer-Talos, Joseph Roth: Leben und Werk in Bildern (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1994)Keiron Pim, Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth (Granta, 2022)Joseph Roth (trans. Deborah Holmes, ed. Helen Constantine), Vienna Tales (Oxford University Press, 2014)Joseph Roth (trans. and ed. Michael Hofmann), A Life in Letters (Granta, 2012)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Collected Shorter Fiction (Granta, 2001)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Rebellion (Granta, 2000)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Radetzky March (Granta, 2022)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Legend of the Holy Drinker (Granta, 2022)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Wandering Jews (Granta, 2001)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933 (Granta, 2022)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Hotel Years: Wanderings in Europe Between the Wars (Granta, 2015)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), Reports from a Parisian Paradise: Essays from France 1925-1939 (Granta, 2004)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The Emperor's Tomb (Granta, 2013)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The String of Pearls (Granta, 1999)Joseph Roth (trans. Michael Hofmann), The White Cities: Reports From France 1925-1939 (Granta, 2013)Joseph Roth (trans. David Le Vay), Weights and Measures (Pushkin Press, 2024)Joseph Roth (trans. Daved Le Vay and Beatrice Musgrave), Flight Without End (Pushkin Press, 2024)Joseph Roth (trans. Ruth Martin), The Coral Merchant: Essential Stories (Pushkin Press, 2020)Joseph Roth (trans Will Stone), On the End of the World (Pushkin Press, 2019)Joseph Roth (trans. Dorothy Thompson), Job: The Story of a Simple Man (Granta, 2022)Wilhelm Von Sternburg, Joseph Roth: Eine Biographie (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2009)In Our Time is a BBC Studios ProductionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.
In Australia, no wedding or school dance is complete without the Nutbush, Australia's unofficial national dance. The Nutbush – a simple line dance to the song “Nutbush City Limits,” by Ike and Tina Turner – has become as stereotypically Australian as kangaroos, boomerangs, and Vegemite.And yet, hardly anyone outside of Australia even knows the Nutbush exists. Here at Decoder Ring, we certainly didn't – until we started getting emails from Australians asking us to investigate its origins. How did an American song become the soundtrack for an Australian national tradition? Who invented the iconic steps, and why does every Australian know them?Our producer Max Freedman put on his dancing shoes to get some answers. The global, century-spanning story of the Nutbush involves Australia, Tennessee, Denmark, primary schools, gay discos, and demonstrates that even the goofiest cultural touchstones can go surprisingly deep.In this episode you'll hear from culture journalists David Mack and Angus Kidman; Nutbush researchers Panizza Allmark and Jon Stratton; dance historians Erica Okamura and Richard Powers; Dr. Fiona Chatteur, Jeremy Santolin, and Brian Kerr.This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman and edited by Evan Chung, our supervising producer. 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.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.Further ViewingHow to do ‘The Nutbush' - Australian Line Dance Dancin' the Madison on “The Buddy Deane Show” (1960)Alley Cat Tutorial — Spark Physical EducationThe Nutbush on Countdown (December 5, 1976)Tina Turner — Nutbush City Limits, The Midnight Special (1973)Tina Turner — Are You Breaking My Heart, Countdown (1980)Tina Turner: How “The Best” Became Rugby League's Anthem | ABC NewsTina Turner's Electrifying 1993 NRL Grand Final PerformanceSources for This EpisodeAllmark, Panizza, and Jon Stratton. “Doing the Nutbush: How Australia Got Its Very Own Line Dance.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 39, no. 1, 2025, pp. 79–94.Allmark, Panizza, and Jon Stratton. “The Nutbush Dance Reframed: Further Analysis Related to ‘Doing the Nutbush.'” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 39, no. 1, 2025, pp. 95–103.Andrews, Shirley. Take Your Partners: Traditional Dancing in Australia. 3rd ed., Hyland House, 1979.Bloomfield, Anne. “Health or Art? The Case for Dance in the Curriculum of British State Schools 1909–1919.” History of Education, vol. 36, no. 6, 2007, pp. 681–696.Bloomfield, Anne. “The Quickening of the National Spirit: Cecil Sharp and the Pioneers of the Folk-Dance Revival in English State Schools (1900–26).” History of Education, vol. 30, no. 1, 2001, pp. 59–75.Gbogbo, Mawunyo. “Tina Turner and Her Australian Connections: How The Best Became Rugby League's Anthem and Why Is the Nutbush Mandatory at Gatherings?” ABC News, 24 May 2023.Jones, Benjamin T. “Australian Politics Explainer: The White Australia Policy.” The Conversation, 9 Apr. 2017.Kidman, Angus. “Tina Turner: How Australia Saved Her Career.” Angus Kidman, 13 Aug. 2023.Meiners, Jeff. So We Can Dance? In Pursuit of an Inclusive Dance Curriculum for the Primary School Years in Australia. 2017. University of South Australia, Doctor of Education thesis.Spencer, Eliza. “Australia and the Nutbush: The Quest for the Origin of a Cultural Phenomenon Goes On.” The Guardian, 5 May 2024.Ward, Mary. “The Mysterious Allure of the Nutbush and Why the Dance Is Uniquely Australian.” Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 2023.Zhuang, Yan. “Australia Remembered Tina Turner with a Dance.” New York Times, 25 May 2023.Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In Australia, no wedding or school dance is complete without the Nutbush, Australia's unofficial national dance. The Nutbush – a simple line dance to the song “Nutbush City Limits,” by Ike and Tina Turner – has become as stereotypically Australian as kangaroos, boomerangs, and Vegemite.And yet, hardly anyone outside of Australia even knows the Nutbush exists. Here at Decoder Ring, we certainly didn't – until we started getting emails from Australians asking us to investigate its origins. How did an American song become the soundtrack for an Australian national tradition? Who invented the iconic steps, and why does every Australian know them?Our producer Max Freedman put on his dancing shoes to get some answers. The global, century-spanning story of the Nutbush involves Australia, Tennessee, Denmark, primary schools, gay discos, and demonstrates that even the goofiest cultural touchstones can go surprisingly deep.In this episode you'll hear from culture journalists David Mack and Angus Kidman; Nutbush researchers Panizza Allmark and Jon Stratton; dance historians Erica Okamura and Richard Powers; Dr. Fiona Chatteur, Jeremy Santolin, and Brian Kerr.This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman and edited by Evan Chung, our supervising producer. 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.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.Further ViewingHow to do ‘The Nutbush' - Australian Line Dance Dancin' the Madison on “The Buddy Deane Show” (1960)Alley Cat Tutorial — Spark Physical EducationThe Nutbush on Countdown (December 5, 1976)Tina Turner — Nutbush City Limits, The Midnight Special (1973)Tina Turner — Are You Breaking My Heart, Countdown (1980)Tina Turner: How “The Best” Became Rugby League's Anthem | ABC NewsTina Turner's Electrifying 1993 NRL Grand Final PerformanceSources for This EpisodeAllmark, Panizza, and Jon Stratton. “Doing the Nutbush: How Australia Got Its Very Own Line Dance.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 39, no. 1, 2025, pp. 79–94.Allmark, Panizza, and Jon Stratton. “The Nutbush Dance Reframed: Further Analysis Related to ‘Doing the Nutbush.'” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 39, no. 1, 2025, pp. 95–103.Andrews, Shirley. Take Your Partners: Traditional Dancing in Australia. 3rd ed., Hyland House, 1979.Bloomfield, Anne. “Health or Art? The Case for Dance in the Curriculum of British State Schools 1909–1919.” History of Education, vol. 36, no. 6, 2007, pp. 681–696.Bloomfield, Anne. “The Quickening of the National Spirit: Cecil Sharp and the Pioneers of the Folk-Dance Revival in English State Schools (1900–26).” History of Education, vol. 30, no. 1, 2001, pp. 59–75.Gbogbo, Mawunyo. “Tina Turner and Her Australian Connections: How The Best Became Rugby League's Anthem and Why Is the Nutbush Mandatory at Gatherings?” ABC News, 24 May 2023.Jones, Benjamin T. “Australian Politics Explainer: The White Australia Policy.” The Conversation, 9 Apr. 2017.Kidman, Angus. “Tina Turner: How Australia Saved Her Career.” Angus Kidman, 13 Aug. 2023.Meiners, Jeff. So We Can Dance? In Pursuit of an Inclusive Dance Curriculum for the Primary School Years in Australia. 2017. University of South Australia, Doctor of Education thesis.Spencer, Eliza. “Australia and the Nutbush: The Quest for the Origin of a Cultural Phenomenon Goes On.” The Guardian, 5 May 2024.Ward, Mary. “The Mysterious Allure of the Nutbush and Why the Dance Is Uniquely Australian.” Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 2023.Zhuang, Yan. “Australia Remembered Tina Turner with a Dance.” New York Times, 25 May 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In Australia, no wedding or school dance is complete without the Nutbush, Australia's unofficial national dance. The Nutbush – a simple line dance to the song “Nutbush City Limits,” by Ike and Tina Turner – has become as stereotypically Australian as kangaroos, boomerangs, and Vegemite.And yet, hardly anyone outside of Australia even knows the Nutbush exists. Here at Decoder Ring, we certainly didn't – until we started getting emails from Australians asking us to investigate its origins. How did an American song become the soundtrack for an Australian national tradition? Who invented the iconic steps, and why does every Australian know them?Our producer Max Freedman put on his dancing shoes to get some answers. The global, century-spanning story of the Nutbush involves Australia, Tennessee, Denmark, primary schools, gay discos, and demonstrates that even the goofiest cultural touchstones can go surprisingly deep.In this episode you'll hear from culture journalists David Mack and Angus Kidman; Nutbush researchers Panizza Allmark and Jon Stratton; dance historians Erica Okamura and Richard Powers; Dr. Fiona Chatteur, Jeremy Santolin, and Brian Kerr.This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman and edited by Evan Chung, our supervising producer. 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.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.Further ViewingHow to do ‘The Nutbush' - Australian Line Dance Dancin' the Madison on “The Buddy Deane Show” (1960)Alley Cat Tutorial — Spark Physical EducationThe Nutbush on Countdown (December 5, 1976)Tina Turner — Nutbush City Limits, The Midnight Special (1973)Tina Turner — Are You Breaking My Heart, Countdown (1980)Tina Turner: How “The Best” Became Rugby League's Anthem | ABC NewsTina Turner's Electrifying 1993 NRL Grand Final PerformanceSources for This EpisodeAllmark, Panizza, and Jon Stratton. “Doing the Nutbush: How Australia Got Its Very Own Line Dance.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 39, no. 1, 2025, pp. 79–94.Allmark, Panizza, and Jon Stratton. “The Nutbush Dance Reframed: Further Analysis Related to ‘Doing the Nutbush.'” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 39, no. 1, 2025, pp. 95–103.Andrews, Shirley. Take Your Partners: Traditional Dancing in Australia. 3rd ed., Hyland House, 1979.Bloomfield, Anne. “Health or Art? The Case for Dance in the Curriculum of British State Schools 1909–1919.” History of Education, vol. 36, no. 6, 2007, pp. 681–696.Bloomfield, Anne. “The Quickening of the National Spirit: Cecil Sharp and the Pioneers of the Folk-Dance Revival in English State Schools (1900–26).” History of Education, vol. 30, no. 1, 2001, pp. 59–75.Gbogbo, Mawunyo. “Tina Turner and Her Australian Connections: How The Best Became Rugby League's Anthem and Why Is the Nutbush Mandatory at Gatherings?” ABC News, 24 May 2023.Jones, Benjamin T. “Australian Politics Explainer: The White Australia Policy.” The Conversation, 9 Apr. 2017.Kidman, Angus. “Tina Turner: How Australia Saved Her Career.” Angus Kidman, 13 Aug. 2023.Meiners, Jeff. So We Can Dance? In Pursuit of an Inclusive Dance Curriculum for the Primary School Years in Australia. 2017. University of South Australia, Doctor of Education thesis.Spencer, Eliza. “Australia and the Nutbush: The Quest for the Origin of a Cultural Phenomenon Goes On.” The Guardian, 5 May 2024.Ward, Mary. “The Mysterious Allure of the Nutbush and Why the Dance Is Uniquely Australian.” Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May 2023.Zhuang, Yan. “Australia Remembered Tina Turner with a Dance.” New York Times, 25 May 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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