Best China Books Review Podcasts (2024)

1
Jin Feng, "The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China" (Association for Asian Studies, 2024) 39:42

16d ago39:42

39:42

In 2009, Fudan University launched China’s first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs’ founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2…

1
Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg, "The Abrahamic Vernacular" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 49:23

9m ago49:23

49:23

Contemporary thought typically places a strong emphasis on the exclusive and competitive nature of Abrahamic monotheisms. This instinct is certainly borne out by the histories of religious wars, theological polemic, and social exclusion involving Jews, Christians, and Muslims. But there is also another side to the Abrahamic coin. Even in the midst …

1
Helen Freear-Papio and Candyce Crew Leonard, "The Theatre of Twenty-First Century Spain" (Vernon Press, 2022) 54:17

9m ago54:17

54:17

The interview featured an in-depth dialogue about The Theatre of Twenty-First Century Spain (Vernon Press, 2022), a bilingual collection that examines contemporary Spanish theater and its exploration of identity, anxieties and social urgencies. The editors, Helen Freear-Papio and Candyce Crew Leonard, shared their backgrounds, interests in Spanish …

1
James Mallery, "City of Vice: Transience and San Francisco's Urban History, 1848-1917" (U Nebraska Press, 2024) 1:05:11

9m ago1:05:11

1:05:11

San Francisco began its American life as a city largely made up of transient men, arriving from afar to participate in the gold rush and various attendant enterprises. This large population of men on the move made the new and booming city a hub of what "respectable" easterners considered vice: drinking, gambling, and sex work, among other activitie…

1
Melissa E. Anderson, "Inland Empire" (Fireflies Press, 2021) 57:30

8h ago57:30

57:30

"A woman in trouble" In her monograph Inland Empire (Fireflies Press, 2021), film critic Melissa Anderson explores meaning (or the impossibility thereof) in the David Lynch film of the same title. We talk everything from Laura Dern (a LOT of Laura Dern), to the Hollywood nightmare of trying to "make it in the movies," to the contradictions of film …

1
Michael Willrich, "American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century" (Basic Books, 2023) 1:11:58

9m ago1:11:58

1:11:58

In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others, anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush it, gover…

1
Stefanie Coché, "Psychiatric Institutions and Society: The Practice of Psychiatric Committal in the "Third Reich," the Democratic Republic of Germany, and the Federal Republic of Germany, 1941-1963" (Routledge ... 54:25

11h ago54:25

54:25

Stefanie Coché's Psychiatric Institutions and Society: the Practice of Psychiatric Commital in the “Third Reich,” the Democratic Republic of Germany, and the Federal Republic of Germany, 1941-1963 (London: Routledge, 2024; translated by Alex Skinner) probes how the serious and sometimes fatal decision was made to admit individuals to asylums during…

1
Yosefa Raz, "The Poetics of Prophecy: Modern Afterlives of a Biblical Tradition" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:15:56

9m ago1:15:56

1:15:56

Since the mid-1700s, poets and scholars have been deeply entangled in the project of reinventing prophecy. Moving between literary and biblical studies, Yosefa Raz's book The Poetics of Prophecy: Modern Afterlives of a Biblical Tradition (Cambridge UP, 2023) reveals how Romantic poetry is linked to modern biblical scholarship's development. On the …

1
Jacob Lee, "Masters of the Middle Waters: Indian Nations and Colonial Ambitions Along the Mississippi" (Harvard UP, 2019) 1:33:50

3h ago1:33:50

1:33:50

America’s waterways were once the superhighways of travel and communication. Coursing through a central line across the landscape, with tributaries connecting the South to the Great Plains and the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River meant wealth, knowledge, and power for those who could master it. In Masters of the Middle Waters: Indian Nations and …

1
Emily Wilbourne, "Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:07:06

9m ago1:07:06

1:07:06

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sou…

1
Toby Green, "A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2019) 49:04

10m ago49:04

49:04

All too often, the history of early modern Africa is told from the perspective of outsiders. In his book A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2019), Toby Green draws upon a range of underutilized sources to describe the evolution of West Africa over a period of four…

1
Sino-Pacific Relations: A Discussion with Rodolfo Maggio 25:19

10m ago25:19

25:19

The 2024 Solomon Islands elections were surprisingly peaceful. The deepening economic inequalities, widespread corruption, rogue demagogues manipulating the mob, and other aspects such as the heated debate about the increasing presence and influence of China, did not result in the kind of riots that hit this Pacific Island country twice in the prev…

1
Paula Bialski on Middletech, Software Work, and the Culture of Good Enough 1:11:31

10m ago1:11:31

1:11:31

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with Paula Bialski, an Associate Professor for Digital Sociology at the University of St. Gallen in St. Gallen, Switzerland, about her recent book, Middle Tech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough (Princeton UP, 2024). The pair talk about the art of ethnographic study of software work, and how, maybe,…

1
A Book Unbound 42:54

10m ago42:54

42:54

What would it be like if scholars presented their research in sound rather than in print? Better yet, what if we could hear them in the act of their research and analysis, pulling different historical sounds from the archives and rubbing them against one another in an audio editor? In today’s episode, we get to find out what such an innovative scho…

1
Charly Palmer and Karida Brown, "The New Brownies' Book: A Love Letter to Black Families" (Chronicle Books, 2023) 50:19

10m ago50:19

50:19

In 1920, W. E. B. Du Bois and the NAACP founders published The Brownies’ Book: A Monthly Magazine for Children of the Sun. A century later, The New Brownies' Book: A Love Letter to Black Families (Chronicle Books, 2023) recreates the very first publication created for Black youth in 1920 into a sensational anthology. Expanding on the mission of the…

1
Auto Focus 28:45

10m ago28:45

28:45

A great movie that is very difficult movie to recommend because of its subject matter, Paul Schrader’s Auto Focus (2002), the story of TV-star Bob Crane, is another of Schrader’s portraits of a man whose self-destruction we watch with admiration for the writing and unease at what we’re seeing. It’s a combination of The Lost Weekend, Reefer Madness,…

1
Jill A. Fisher, "Adverse Events: Race, Inequality, and the Testing of New Pharmaceuticals" (NYU Press, 2020) 49:12

3h ago49:12

49:12

Imagine that you volunteer for the clinical trial of an experimental drug. The only direct benefit of participating is that you will receive up to $5,175. You must spend twenty nights literally locked in a research facility. You will be told what to eat, when to eat, and when to sleep. You will share a bedroom with several strangers. Who are you, a…

1
Emily J. Lordi, "The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 1960s" (Duke UP, 2020) 57:36

10m ago57:36

57:36

Soul is one of those concepts that is often evoked, but rarely satisfactorily defined. In The Meaning of Soul: Black Music and Resilience Since the 1960s (Duke University Press 2020), Emily J. Lordi takes on the challenge of explaining “soul,” through a book that zooms in and out between sweeping ideas about suffering and resilience in Black cultur…

1
Jonathan Marc Gribetz, "Reading Herzl in Beirut: The PLO Effort to Know the Enemy" (Princeton UP, 2024) 28:08

1d ago28:08

28:08

How the Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center informed the PLO's relationship to Zionism and Israel In September 1982, the Israeli military invaded West Beirut and Israel-allied Lebanese militiamen massacred Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Meanwhile, Israeli forces also raided the Palestine Liberation Organization R…

1
Mark Peterson, "The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power" (Princeton UP, 2019) 2:23:07

12m ago2:23:07

2:23:07

In the vaunted annals of America’s founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary “city upon a hill” and the “cradle of liberty” for an independent United States. Wresting this iconic urban center from these misleading, tired clichés, The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power (Princeton University Press, 2019), highli…

1
Pamela Hutchinson, "The Red Shoes" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 51:41

12m ago51:41

51:41

Endlessly fascinating, dark and bright, The Red Shoes (1948) employs every branch of the cinematic arts to sweep the audience off its feet, invigorated by the transcendence of art itself, only to leave them with troubling questions. Representing the climax of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's celebrated run of six exceptional feature films, t…

1
Alfred Peredo Flores, "Tip of the Spear: Land, Labor, and US Settler Militarism in Guåhan, 1944–1962" (Cornell UP, 2023) 49:44

12m ago49:44

49:44

In Tip of the Spear: Land, Labor, and US Settler Militarism in Guåhan, 1944–1962 (Cornell University Press, 2023), Dr. Alfred Peredo Flores argues that the US occupation of the island of Guåhan (Guam), one of the most heavily militarised islands in the western Pacific Ocean, was enabled by a process of settler militarism. During World War II and th…

1
Kristen R. Ghodsee, "Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women's Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War" (Duke UP, 2019) 1:11:29

2d ago1:11:29

1:11:29

Last week, I had the privilege to talk with Dr. Kristen R. Ghodsee about her most recent book Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women's Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War (Duke University Press, 2019) and the behind-the-scene details of its making. Ghodsee is a professor in Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pe…

1
Carl Öhman, "The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 41:02

12m ago41:02

41:02

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die. These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but what about our afterlives? Thanks to the digital trails that we leave behind, our identities can now be reconstructed after our death. In fact, AI technology is already enabling us to “interact” with the …

1
Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea: Image-Making in Eurasian Nomadic Societies, 700 BCE-500 CE 1:12:58

12m ago1:12:58

1:12:58

Numerous Iron-Age nomadic alliances flourished along the 5000-mile Eurasian steppe route. From Crimea to the Mongolian grassland, nomadic image-making was rooted in metonymically conveyed zoomorphic designs, creating an alternative ecological reality. The nomadic elite nucleus embraced this elaborate image system to construct collective memory in r…

1
Kevin Leo Nadal, "Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System" (Lexington Book, 2020) 38:54

12m ago38:54

38:54

Throughout US history, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have been pathologized, victimized, and criminalized. Reports of lynching, burning, or murdering of LGBTQ people have been documented for centuries. Prior to the 1970s, LGBTQ people were deemed as having psychological disorders and subsequently subject to electrosh…

1
Kristin J. Jacobson, "The American Adrenaline Narrative" (U Georgia Press, 2020) 57:56

12m ago57:56

57:56

Kristin J. Jacobson In her new book, The American Adrenaline Narrative (University of Georgia Press), Kristin Jacobson considers the nature of perilous outdoor adventure tales, their gendered biases, and how they simultaneously promote and hinder ecological sustainability. To explore these themes, Jacobson defines and compares adrenaline narratives…

1
Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz and Sara A. Howard, "Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations in Librarianship" (Litwin Books, 2024) 53:54

2d ago53:54

53:54

This interview with Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz about Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations on Identity and Libraries and Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations on Archives and Practice (available in 2024 from the Litwin Books Series on Gender and Sexuality in Library and Information Studies) explores how queerness is centered within library and archival theory an…

1
Guide the Reader toward Your Way of Thinking 1:06:04

12m ago1:06:04

1:06:04

Listen to this interview of Istvan David, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computing and Software, Faculty of Engineering, McMaster University, Canada; and, Houari Sahraoui, Full Professor, Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, University of Montreal, Canada. We talk about their coauthored paper "Digital Twin…

1
Mónica A. Jiménez, "Making Never-Never Land: Race and Law in the Creation of Puerto Rico" (UNC Press, 2024) 1:27:14

12m ago1:27:14

1:27:14

Myths about the powers held by the United States are often supported by the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which derives its logic from the interpretation of a document that the US itself developed. Therefore, when pressure is placed on a specific legal precedent, the shallowness of its validity is revealed. Dr. Mónica A. Jiménez accomplishes t…

1
Matt Houlbrook et al., "Men and Masculinities in Modern Britain: A History for the Present" (Manchester UP, 2024) 44:21

7h ago44:21

44:21

What does the history of men tell us about life today? In Men and Masculinities in Modern Britain: A History for the Present (Manchester UP, 2024), the editors Matt Houlbrook, a Professor of Cultural History at the University of Birmingham, Katie Jones, an independent scholar living in Birmingham, and Ben Mechen, an Associate Lecturer in Modern Bri…

1
Don Tate, Children's Book Illustrator and Author 49:23

7h ago49:23

49:23

Don Tate is the award-winning author and/or illustrator of numerous picture book biographies, including Pigskins to Paintbrushes: The Story of Football-Playing Artist Ernie Barnes (Abrams) and William Still and His Freedom Stories: The Father of the Underground Railroad (Peachtree) and more recently, Jerry Changed the Game!: How Engineer Jerry Laws…

1
Form is the Air Your Content Breathes 1:03:07

7h ago1:03:07

1:03:07

Listen to this interview of Görkem Giray, IT executive and part-time educator in the domain of computer science. We talk about his paper A software engineering perspective on engineering machine learning systems: "A software engineering perspective on engineering machine learning systems: State of the art and challenges" (JSS 2021). Görkem Giray : …

1
Zana Gulmohamad, "The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite" (Bloomsbury, 2022) 1:08:53

7h ago1:08:53

1:08:53

How is foreign policy made in Iraq? Based on dozens of interviews with senior officials and politicians, The Making of Foreign Policy in Iraq: Political Factions and the Ruling Elite (Bloomsbury, 2021) provides a clear analysis of the development of domestic Iraqi politics since 2003. Dr. Zana Gul explains how the federal government of Iraq and Kur…

1
Jonathan Connolly, "Worthy of Freedom: Indenture and Free Labor in the Era of Emancipation" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 1:07:34

7h ago1:07:34

1:07:34

In Worthy of Freedom: Indenture and Free Labor in the Era of Emancipation (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Jonathan Connolly traces the normalization of indenture from its controversial beginnings to its widespread adoption across the British Empire during the nineteenth century. Initially viewed as a covert revival of slavery, indenture caused…

1
Huan Jin, "The Collapse of Heaven: The Taiping Civil War and Chinese Literature and Culture, 1850-1880" (Harvard UP, 2024) 1:08:36

7h ago1:08:36

1:08:36

The Collapse of Heaven: The Taiping Civil War and Chinese Literature and Culture, 1850-1880 (Harvard UP, 2024) investigates a long-neglected century in Chinese literature through the lens of the Taiping War (1851–1864), one of the most devastating civil wars in human history. With the war as the pivot, Huan Jin examines the manifold literary and cu…

1
Olga Gershenson, "New Israeli Horror: Local Cinema, Global Genre" (Rutgers UP, 2024) 47:26

7h ago47:26

47:26

Before 2010, there were no Israeli horror films. Then distinctly Israeli serial killers, zombies, vampires, and ghosts invaded local screens. The next decade saw a blossoming of the genre by young Israeli filmmakers. New Israeli Horror: Local Cinema, Global Genre (Rutgers UP, 2024) is the first book to tell their story. Through in-depth analysis, e…

1
Viren Murthy, "Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2023) 1:28:22

7h ago1:28:22

1:28:22

Recent proposals to revive the ancient Silk Road for the contemporary era and ongoing Western interest in China’s growth and development have led to increased attention to the concept of pan-Asianism. Most of that discussion, however, lacks any historical grounding in the thought of influential twentieth-century pan-Asianists. In Pan-Asianism and t…

1
Mark L. Haas, "Frenemies: When Ideological Enemies Ally" (Cornell UP, 2022) 47:06

7h ago47:06

47:06

Alliances among ideological enemies confronting a common foe, or "frenemy" alliances, are unlike coalitions among ideologically-similar states facing comparable threats. Members of frenemy alliances are perpetually torn by two powerful opposing forces. Frenemies: When Ideological Enemies Ally (Cornell University Press, 2022) shows that shared mater…

1
AI and Music: The Future is Here (featuring "There I Ruined It") 1:00:34

7h ago1:00:34

1:00:34

It’s the UConn Popcast, and recently UConn’s Center for the Study of Popular Music hosted a panel discussion on Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Music. The panel featured Dr. Mitchell Green, Professor of Philosophy, University of Connecticut; Dustin Ballard, a musician and creator of the social media channel “There I Ruined It”; and Dr. Aa…

1
Falk Fuhrmann 'Investigative Anthropology, Cultural Empathy and Brand Strategy in China' 37:56

1d ago37:56

37:56

Series Four This episode of The New Abnormal podcast features Falk Fuhrmann, Executive Director at Shanghai HuiLue Business Consulting Co, and Visiting Professor teaching International Brand Communication & Innovation, Consumer Behaviour & Insights, at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. He also is an award-winning creative strategist with more t…

1
James D. Fisher, "The Enclosure of Knowledge: Books, Power and Agrarian Capitalism in Britain, 1660–1800" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 56:20

1d ago56:20

56:20

The rise of agrarian capitalism in Britain is usually told as a story about markets, land and wages. The Enclosure of Knowledge: Books, Power and Agrarian Capitalism in Britain, 1660–1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. James Fisher reveals that it was also about books, knowledge and expertise. It argues that during the early modern perio…

1
Politics in Action 2024: Singapore Update 25:39

1d ago25:39

25:39

Politics in Action is an annual forum in which invited experts provided an analysis of the current political situation in Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam, and discussed the broader implications of events in these countries for the region. After the event, each of the six speakers sat for a podcast to chat with Dr Natali Pe…

1
The "Massachusetts Review" Magazine: A Discussion with Jim Hicks and Shailja Patel 34:51

1d ago34:51

34:51

Jim Hicks is the Executive Editor of the Massachusetts Review, a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at UMass Amherst, and a translator of literature from Italian, French, Spanish, and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. His latest book is Lessons from Sarajevo: A War Stories Primer. Shailja Patel is the Public Affairs Editor of the Massachusetts Revie…

1
Maya Wind, "Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom" (Verso, 2024) 48:30

1d ago48:30

48:30

Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth by documenting how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights. In Towers of Ivory an…

1
Tea Krulos, "American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness" (Feral House, 2020) 57:34

1d ago57:34

57:34

The mainstream news media struggles to understand the power of social media. In contrast, conspiracy advocates, malicious political movements, and even foreign governments have long understood how to harness the power of fear and the fear of power into lucrative outlets for outrage and money. But what happens when the messengers of “inside knowledg…

1
Heidi Honeycutt, "I Spit on Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies" (Headpress, 2024) 49:32

4d ago49:32

49:32

I Spit On Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies (Headpress, 2024) by Heidi Honeycutt is the first book-length history of female horror directors from the late 1800s to present day. Having conducted hundreds of interviews and watched thousands of horror films, Honeycutt defines the political and cultural forces that shape the …

1
Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge UP, 2023) 46:56

1d ago46:56

46:56

Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge UP, 2023) focuses on the intersections of three entities otherwise deemed marginal in historical scholarship: the Jazira region, the borderlands of today’s Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; the mobile peoples within this region, from nomadic pastoralists to deportees and…

1
Walaa Quisay, "Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West" (Edinburgh UP, 2023) 1:40:00

1d ago1:40:00

1:40:00

In this very exciting book that I couldn’t put down - Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West: Orthodoxy, Spirituality, and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) - Walaa Quisay explores the trend of white male convert neo-traditionalist scholars in the West and their relationship with young seekers of sacred knowledge. She highlights the mean…

1
Anri Yasuda, "Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese Literature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890-1930" (Columbia UP, 2024) 39:44

1d ago39:44

39:44

The notion of beauty is inherently elusive: aesthetic judgments are at once subjective and felt to be universally valid. In Beauty Matters: Modern Japanese Literature and the Question of Aesthetics, 1890-1930 (Columbia UP, 2024), Anri Yasuda demonstrates that by exploring the often conflicting yet powerful pull of aesthetic sentiments, major author…

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