Randy Laist and Brian Dixon, "Figures of Freedom: Representations of Agency in a Time of Crisis" (Fourth Horseman, 2024)

Contemporary veterans belong to an exclusive American group. Celebrated by most of the country, they are nevertheless often poorly understood by the same people who applaud their service. Following the introduction of an all-volunteer force after the war in Vietnam, only a tiny fraction of Americans now join the armed services, making the contemporary soldier, and the veteran by extension, increasingly less representative of mainstream society. Veterans have come to comprise their own distinct tribe--modern praetorians, permanently set apart from society by what they have seen and experienced. In an engrossing narrative that considers the military, economic, political, and social developments affecting military service after Vietnam, Michael D. Gambone investigates how successive generations have intentionally shaped their identity as veterans. The New Praetorians: American Veterans, Society, and Service from Vietnam to the Forever War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) also highlights the impact of their homecoming, the range of educational opportunities open to veterans, the health care challenges they face, and the unique experiences of minority and women veterans. This groundbreaking study illustrates an important and often neglected group that is key to our understanding of American social history and civil-military affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

31 Maj 47min

At the turn of the common era, the Jewish communities of Roman Palestine saw the organization of a small group of literate Jewish men who devoted their lives to the interpretation and teaching of their sacred ancestral texts. In How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2025), Krista Dalton shows that these early rabbis were not an insular specialist group but embedded in a landscape of Jewish piety. Drawing on the writings of rabbis in Roman Palestine from the second through fifth centuries CE, Dalton illuminates the significance of social relationships in the production of rabbinic expertise. She traces the social interactions—everyday instances of mutual exchange, from dinner parties to tithes and patronages—that fostered the perception of rabbis as experts. Dalton shows how the knowledge derived from the rabbis’ technical skills was validated and recognized by others. Rabbis socialized and noshed with neighbors and offered advice and legal favors to friends. In exchange for their expert judgments, they received invitations, donations, appointments, and recognition. She argues that their status as Torah experts did not arise by virtue of being scholars but from their ability to persuade others that their mobilization of Jewish cultural resources was beneficial. Dalton describes the relational processes that made rabbinic expertise possible as well as the accompanying tensions; social interactions shaped the rabbis’ domain of knowledge while also imposing expectations of reciprocity that had to be managed. Dalton’s authoritative analysis demonstrates that a focus on friendship and exchange provides a fuller understanding of how rabbis claimed and defended their distinct expertise. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Krista Dalton is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Kenyon College and an editor-in-chief at Ancient Jew Review Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

28 Maj 52min

When did the West lose its way? In 1889, when the US government carved five states out of the spawling Dakota Territory, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and North and South Dakota, all created state constitutions that enshrined certain progressive values into their structre of government. These included the right for women to vote, the power to curtail monopolies, and the ban on child labor. They also maintained a community ethos, as represented by the state ownership of running water and state-owned banks. Yet, in the 2024 presidential electinon, all five states gave their electoral votes to the hyper-individualistic conservatism of Donald Trump's Republcian Party. In The Spirit of 1889: Restoring the Lost Promise of the High Plains and Northern Rockies (UP of Kansas, 2024), longtime western journalist and educator Samuel Western traces the roots of this shift, and charts a pathway into a new, community oriented, future. Rather than purely extractive industries, Western argues for a socially and ecologically sustainable stewardship agriculture, and points to several examples from across the contemporary West where this practice is already taking place. A fascinating look at our current political moment, The Spirit of 1889 is an example of how even the most entrenched political values can blow away when the cultural winds change. Samuel Western's Substack: https://samuelwestern.substack... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

27 Maj 44min

We have long lacked a biography of Erving Goffman. Partly this can be explained by Goffman’s direction for his papers not to be opened to researchers after his death. This meant those who may wish to write Goffman’s biography had a lack of material to draw upon. Dmirti Shalin, author of Erving Manuel Goffman: Biographical Sources of Sociological Imagination (2025, Routledge), has overcome this by developing the Erving Goffman Archives, a collection of correspondence, family histories, syllabi and reminisces which allows for this book to exist as the first true biography of the great scholar. In providing the details of Goffman’s life, Shalin has provided new ways of looking at Goffman, showing how factors like his upbringing in a family of Russian Jewish immigrants, his relationship with, and the sad suicide of, his wife, his interactions with colleagues and his everyday interactions shaped his sociology. Along the way we are encouraged to look anew at Goffman’s work on topics such as the presentation of self, mental health, gambling and gender. In doing so, we learn much about Goffman not just as a scholar, but as a man. In our conversation we cover the whole of Goffman’s life, moving from his youth and onto the significant points in his career and their impact upon his sociology. We also discuss the archive and how it came to be and discuss what Goffman’s legacy maybe for the future of democratic politics. Your host, Matt Dawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow and the author of G.D.H. Cole and British Sociology: A Study in Semi-Alienation (2024, Palgrave Macmillan), along with other texts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

25 Maj 2h 39min

There exist problematic attitudes and beliefs about dwarfism that have rarely been challenged, but continue to construct people with dwarfism as an inferior group within society. Midgetism: The Exploitation and Discrimination of People with Dwarfism (Routledge, 2023) introduces the critical term 'midgetism', which the author has coined, to demonstrate that the socio-cultural discrimination people with dwarfism experience is influenced by both heightism and disablism. As a result, it unpacks and challenges the problematic social assumptions that reinforce midgetism within society, including the acceptability of 'midget entertainment' and 'non-normate space', to demonstrate how particular spaces can either aid in reinforcing or challenge midgetism. Drawing on the tripartite model of disability, this book demonstrates how midget entertainment is framed as a non-normative positivism, which makes it an acceptable form of employment. Using autocritical discourse analysis, the book exposes, examines and responds to excuses that are used to reinforce midgetism, thus critiquing the numerous beliefs influenced by cultural representations of dwarfism, such as people with dwarfism being acceptable figures of entertainment. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, social history, sociology and cultural geography. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

24 Maj 15min

In Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo's Pink Economies (Duke UP, 2025), Michelle H. S. Ho traces the genders manifesting alongside Japanese popular culture in Akihabara, an area in Tokyo renowned for the fandom and consumption of anime, manga, and games. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in josō and dansō cafe-and-bars, establishments where male-to-female and female-to-male crossdressing is prevalent, Ho shows how their owners, employees, and customers creatively innovate what she calls emergent genders—new practices, categories, and ways of being stemming from the simultaneous fracturing, contestations, and (re)imaginations of older forms of gender and sexual variance in Japan. Such emergent genders initiate new markets for alternative categories of expression and subjectivity to thrive in a popular cultural hub like Akihabara instead of Tokyo’s gay and lesbian neighborhood of Shinjuku Ni-chōme. By rethinking identitarian models of gender and sexuality, reconfiguring the significance of capitalism for trans studies and queer theory, and decentering theoretical frameworks incubated in a predominantly United States academic context, Ho offers new ways of examining how trans and gender nonconforming individuals may survive and flourish under capitalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

23 Maj 39min

The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir (Wipf and Stock, 2024) is a narrative of a Christian family in Bethlehem in the West Bank. Based on diary entries and interviews from 2000 to 2023, the Dutch author--an anthropologist and peace activist--chronicles the spontaneous reactions of his Palestinian children and wife navigating the challenges posed by curfews and checkpoints. Problems of Palestinian school life are shown from the perspective of teachers and students. Against the background of Israeli occupation and settlement building, the intricacies of Palestinian culture in its daily rhythms and domestic spaces come to life. Throughout the pages, the key Palestinian concept of sumud, or steadfastness, is explored. The memoir details acts of creative nonviolent resistance, individual protests, affirmations of cultural identity, and inspiring examples of Muslim-Christian community. The book also reveals unexpected connections between Palestinian culture in the Bethlehem area and broader Christian values and traditions. An afterword reflects upon implications of Israel's war in Gaza. Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Blusky and IG: @robbyref Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

23 Maj 1h 1min

Secularism and Islam in Bangladesh: 50 Years After Independence (Routledge, 2025) comprehensively analyses the syncretistic form of Bengali Islam and its relationship with secularism in Bangladesh from pre-British to contemporary times. It focuses on the importance of understanding the dynamics between religion and secularism within specific cultural contexts. Arguing that extremist interpretations of Islam, which aim to establish a theocratic state, have not been able to influence the pluralistic religious and cultural life of Bangladesh substantially, the book shows that religious and cultural pluralism will continue to thrive despite the apparent threat posed by increasing religiosity among Bangladeshi Muslims. This book is a timely and significant contribution to the discourse on secularism and Islam, with relevance beyond Bangladesh and the wider Islamic world. It will appeal to scholars and researchers working in the fields of South Asian Studies, Asian Religions, and the Sociology of Religion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

22 Maj 37min