Episodes

  • Zheng Liu, "Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China" (Columbia UP, 2026)

    Zheng Liu, "Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China" (Columbia UP, 2026)
    Mar 28 2026
    In recent decades, self-proclaimed “independent bookstores” have arisen across China. In the West, such retailers represent an alternative to corporations and chains. In China, by contrast, they differentiate themselves from not only the state-owned Xinhua Bookstore but also other privately owned shops through an emphasis on intellectual independence and the free exchange of ideas. Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China (Columbia UP, 2026) by Dr. Zheng Liu takes readers inside the world of independent bookselling in China, showing how a wide range of figures navigate the challenges of book retailing in the digital age amid rapidly shifting social, political, and economic dynamics. Drawing on more than a decade of immersive research—including interviews, observations, and extensive documentary analysis—Dr. Liu unveils how these bookstores carve out a unique identity and market position. She develops the concept of “culturally adapted strategy” to explain how independent bookstores—as both dedicated cultural institutions and resilient business enterprises—balance economic imperatives with a deep commitment to intellectual autonomy. Dr. Liu challenges the tendency to understand nonstate cultural institutions in China in terms of resistance, arguing that independent bookstores engage with politics as a strategic means of differentiation from the competition. Richly detailed and compellingly written, Cultural Mavericks sheds new light on the interplay among culture, commerce, and politics in China, offering timely insights into the evolving dynamics of China’s book industry and wider cultural economy. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
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    1 hr
  • Thomas Hegghammer and Diego Gambetta eds., "Fight, Flight, Mimic: Identity Mimicry in Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Thomas Hegghammer and Diego Gambetta eds., "Fight, Flight, Mimic: Identity Mimicry in Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Mar 28 2026
    Time spent and words spent—what does each signal? Deceptive mimicry—the manipulation of individual or group identity—includes passing off as a different individual, as a member of a group to which one does not belong, or, for a group, to ‘sign’ its action as another group. Mimicry exploits the reputation of the model it mimics to avoid capture (flight), to strike undetected at the enemy (fight), or to hide behind or besmirch the reputation of the model group (‘false-flag’ operations). Fight, Flight, Mimic: Identity Mimicry in Conflict (Oxford UP, 2024) offers a theory and game-theoretic model of mimicry, an overview of its use through history, and a deep empirical exploration of its modern manifestations through several case studies by leading social scientists. The chapters cover mimicry in the context of the Northern Ireland conflict, terrorism campaigns in 1970s Italy, the height of the Iraq insurgency, the Rwandan genocide, the Naxalite rebellion in India, and jihadi discussion forums on the Internet. Thomas Hegghammer is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Lucas Tse is Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America

    The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America
    Mar 26 2026
    Most employers in the United States routinely conduct criminal background checks on job applicants, weeding out those with criminal convictions—and thus denying opportunities to those who need them most. In The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America (Princeton UP, 2025), Melissa Burch sheds light on one of the most significant forces of social and economic marginalization of our time—discrimination on the basis of criminal records. Chronicling the daily interactions of hiring managers, workforce development professionals, and job-seekers with felony convictions in Southern California, Dr. Burch shows that this discrimination is not simply a matter of employer bias. Hiring is shaped by a set of institutions, organizations, and industries that promote the erroneous idea that people with criminal records are dangerous to employ. This “criminal record complex,” as Dr. Burch names it, encourages exclusion and undermines employers’ common-sense ways of assessing candidates. In vivid and intimate detail, Dr. Burch reveals both the futility and devastating human consequences of discriminatory policies.Dr. Burch places today’s routine practice of background screening within racialized notions of risk originating in early capitalist development, tracing how, over decades, criminal background checks became a convenient catch-all, leveraged by entities with a direct interest in growing the practice. Despite this reach, however, Dr. Burch discovers that small business owners tend to put less value on background checks, trusting their own judgment. Approaching the issue from both personal and policy perspectives, The Criminal Record Complex upends what we thought we knew about the causes of criminal record discrimination. It suggests that our best hope for creating safe workplaces lies not in the false promise of background screening, but in building the kinds of economies and communities that support true safety. Our guest is: Dr. Melissa Burch, who is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and Director of the Afterlives of Conviction Project. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a writing coach and editor for academics. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine Carceral Apartheid Freemans Challenge Hands Up Don't Shoot The Names of all the Flowers The Journal of Higher Education in Prison Black Boy Out of Time Secrets of the Killing State Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
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    54 mins
  • Sarah Jaffe, "Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone" (Bold Type Books, 2021)

    Sarah Jaffe, "Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone" (Bold Type Books, 2021)
    Mar 25 2026
    In Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone (Bold Type Books, 2021), Sarah Jaffe argues that modern culture encourages workers to see their jobs as a “labor of love.” This idea tells people that passion and dedication should motivate them more than pay or working conditions. Jaffe shows that this belief often allows employers to justify low wages, long hours, and poor treatment. Through stories of workers across many fields, such as teachers, domestic workers, nonprofit employees, artists, athletes, and tech workers, the book demonstrates how devotion to work is used to normalize exploitation. Jaffe calls for a reevaluation of the relationship between work, identity, and personal fulfillment, suggesting that workers should organize collectively and demand fair compensation and conditions instead of relying on passion alone. Sarah Jaffe is a journalist and labor reporter who writes about work, inequality, and social movements. Her work has appeared in major publications such as The Nation, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. Jaffe has long reported on labor struggles and worker organizing, including movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for $15 campaign. She is also the author of Necessary Trouble and most recently From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in A World on Fire. She is co-host of the labor podcast Belabored. Her writing focuses on how economic systems shape everyday life and workers’ experiences. My co-producer on this episode is Kelly Knight, a graduate student in the MA program in Communication at Oakland University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Ken Chitwood, "Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism Among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam" (U Texas Press, 2025)

    Ken Chitwood, "Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism Among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam" (U Texas Press, 2025)
    Mar 23 2026
    Ken Chitwood's Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam (University of Texas Press, 2025), uses rich ethnographic fieldwork across multiple cities and the digital space to capture the complex lived realities of Puerto Rican Muslims both on the island and in the United States. The study is attuned to the archipelago’s context that accents Puerto Rican Islam, such as through histories that link it to Andalusian Spain, and culture, especially through foodscapes. Puerto Rico also has a diverse Arab Muslim diasporic population, especially Palestinians. Due to this diversity of Muslim experiences, throughout the book there emerge conversations about the boundaries of Islam in relation to culture, ethnicity, and theology. At times, when these varied communities share ritual and communal space together, questions of authenticity unfold, such as over language or notions of piety. Despite moments of tension around tribalism and questions of legitimacy, we learn that often Islam for both these communities is understood through their experiences of colonialism, and so anti-colonial registers of Islam influence the solidarity building and social justice organizing that unites Puerto Rican and Palestinian Muslims. The book also has an accompanying Spotify playlist that you definitely should check out. This book will be of interest to anyone working on Islam in South America and/or North America, and Arab and Palestinian diasporic studies, and food studies. Ken Chitwood is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer with the Department for the Study of Religion at Universität Bayreuth and Affiliate of the University of Southern California's Center for Religion and Civic Culture. Shobhana Xavier is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Queen’s University. More details about her research and scholarship may be found here. She may be reached at shobhana.xavier@queensu.ca. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Orsi Husz, "Bankminded: Banks As Intimate Agents of Everyday Life in Welfare State Sweden" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2025)

    Orsi Husz, "Bankminded: Banks As Intimate Agents of Everyday Life in Welfare State Sweden" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2025)
    Mar 22 2026
    In today’s world, it is almost impossible to go through the day without interacting with a bank—whether through a salary payment, a debit card, a credit card, or a digital ID used to access public services online. Yet this intimate relationship between households and banks is relatively recent. In this episode of the New Books Network, I speak with Orsi Husz, Professor at Uppsala University, about her book Bankminded: Banks as Intimate Agents of Everyday Life in Welfare State Sweden. The book traces how, from the late 1950s onwards, banks gradually became embedded in the everyday routines of ordinary people. Through wage accounts, credit cards, financial advice, and identity documents, financial institutions reshaped how households handled money—and how they thought about finance itself. Drawing on rich archival research, Husz shows that this transformation was not simply a story of technology or markets. It involved cultural shifts around class, gender, morality, and identity, as well as the surprising role of the welfare state in expanding everyday banking. The result was what she calls the “bankification” of everyday life—a process that laid the groundwork for the financialised world we inhabit today. If you are interested in the history of banking, the culture of finance, or how modern financial habits emerged, this conversation offers a fascinating perspective on a transformation that most of us now take for granted. You can download the book for free (Open Access) here Listen to the episode to learn how banks became an intimate part of everyday life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
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    46 mins
  • Deirdre Flynn and Mary McGill eds., "Irish Digital Cultures: Identity, Contexts, Space" (Routledge, 2025)

    Deirdre Flynn and Mary McGill eds., "Irish Digital Cultures: Identity, Contexts, Space" (Routledge, 2025)
    Mar 22 2026
    Irish Digital Cultures: Identity, Contexts, Space (Routledge, 2025) explores how questions of Ireland and Irishness are represented in online environments, and what these phenomena say about contemporary Irish identities both within the country and globally. It will interest Irish Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Race, Gender, Identity, and New Media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
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    42 mins
  • Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)

    Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)
    Mar 20 2026
    Who gets to live a life with dignity? Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and opportunity. For many migrant families, this search centers on access to strong, caring, and equitable educational systems that enable children to flourish. Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life (Stanford UP, 2025) follows the lives of 16 migrant families from Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as they navigate the promises and challenges of the American education system. Drawing on immersive ethnographic research in homes and schools from 2018 to 2021, Gabrielle Oliveira offers an intimate portrait of these families' experiences. She weaves together stories of parental sacrifice, children's educational and migration journeys, and educators' responses to trauma—all shaped by the additional disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Oliveira highlights the perseverance of families confronting the overlapping crises of border detention, family separation, and a public health emergency. These experiences forced them to reimagine education and what it means to build a future in the U.S. By examining how migrant children engage in classrooms, how teachers understand their needs, and how hope evolves, this book offers vital insights into the intersections of schooling and immigration. It calls for more responsive educational practices and policies that affirm the dignity and potential of all migrant children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology
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    28 mins