Darién J. Davis, "'Black Orpheus' and the Globalization of Afro-Brazilian Culture" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
“Black Orpheus” and the Globalization of Afro-Brazilian Culture (Rutgers UP, 2026) is the first historical study in English to examine the development, production, and reception of the 1958 film Black...
18 Feb 55min
Feminism and Critical Hindu Studies with Shreena Gandhi, Harshita Kamath, Sailaja Krishnamurt, and Shana Sippy
This episode features a conversation with the founding members of the Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, also known as the Auntylectuals. We began with each of them reflecting on their pathwa...
16 Feb 1h 1min
Alexis Lerner, "Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States (University of Toronto Press, 2025) is an empirically grounded ethnographic study of how graffiti and street art can be used as a political to...
16 Feb 46min
Hanna Garth, "Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement" (U California Press, 2026)
Food justice activists have worked to increase access to healthy food in low-income communities of color across the United States. Yet despite their best intentions, they often perpetuate food access ...
14 Feb 46min
Claire Morelon, "Streetscapes of War and Revolution: Prague, 1914–1920" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Prague entered the First World War as the third city of the Habsburg empire, but emerged in 1918 as the capital of a brand new nation-state, Czechoslovakia. In Streetscapes of War and Revolution: Prag...
13 Feb 42min
Javiera Barandiaran, "Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium" (MIT Press, 2026)
A sobering investigation of the rush for lithium for electric vehicles, the problematic history of lithium mining, and the consequences for sustainability. Consumers today are buying electric vehicle...
13 Feb 54min
Peer Schouten, "Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Peer Schouten, of the Danish Institute for International Studies, has written a breathtaking book. Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa (Cambridge, 2022). Schouten mapped more...
8 Feb 53min
Lisa Min et al. eds., "Redacted: Writing in the Negative Space of the State" (punctum books, 2024)
When it comes to the political, acts of redaction, erasure, and blacking out sit in awkward tension with the myth of transparent governance, borderless access, and frictionless communication. But shou...
3 Feb 1h 25min
