Episodi

  • Ana Fernández-Aballí et al. eds., "Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education: Teaching Handbook for Use in Classrooms, Museums and Organizations" (U Groningen Press, 2025)

    Ana Fernández-Aballí et al. eds., "Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education: Teaching Handbook for Use in Classrooms, Museums and Organizations" (U Groningen Press, 2025)
    Apr 29 2026
    Heritage is a hot topic in public debates today. Many politicians invoke it to exclude marginal groups from belonging to the national story. Yet, in the new two-volume resource for educators Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education, contributors explore how heritage can be used for inclusive experiences in the classroom. The open-access Handbook and an Activity Book provide educators--from high school teachers to university professors to museum guides--with the necessary theoretical tools and practical exercises turn heritage into a vehicle for self-awareness, collective meaning-making and conflict resolution. By helping educators to identify and counter exclusionary narratives, by stimulating their interest in their own histories and those of their students, and by using creative performance techniques, the handbook and the activity book allow educators to make the best of the social and educational value of heritage. In this interview with two of the editors, we discuss the ambitions and experiences of REBELAH, the European Union funded project behind these resources, which brought together creative artists, community organizers and academics in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Hungary. Free, Open Access here. Ana Fernández-Aballí Altamirano is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen working on environmental education and epistemological diversity. Todd Weir is professor of the History of Christianity and Modern Culture at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on religion and secularism in modern Europe. Patricia Salvaia is a psychologist and Research Master’s student at the University of Groningen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
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    46 min
  • William R. Brody, "Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

    William R. Brody, "Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
    Apr 28 2026
    Today I’m speaking with William R. Brody about his book, Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026). Bill is an interventional radiologist who served as the President of Johns Hopkins University, from 1996 to 2009, and President of the Salk Institute from 2009 to 2015. When he became president of Johns Hopkins University, Bill set out to teach a course to juniors and seniors that would serve as a crash course for dealing with the messy realities of life. Through stories and anecdotes, Bill explores a variety of important concepts that regularly manifest in all aspects of life: from survivorship bias to why career-planning doesn’t often go as planned. Uncommon Sense is one of those books that one can only write after a lifetime of learning, teaching, and doing. Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
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    57 min
  • Emely Rumble, "Bibliotherapy in The Bronx" (Row House, 2025)

    Emely Rumble, "Bibliotherapy in The Bronx" (Row House, 2025)
    Apr 18 2026
    Bibliotherapy in The Bronx (Row House, 2025) by Emely Rumble, LCSW, is a groundbreaking exploration of the healing power of literature in the lives of marginalized communities. Drawing from her personal and professional experiences, Rumble masterfully intertwines storytelling with therapeutic insights to reveal how reading can be a potent tool for self-discovery, emotional transformation, and social change.In this transformative work, Rumble offers readers an intimate glimpse into her journey as a psychotherapist in the Bronx, where she has spent over 14 years using books to help clients navigate complex emotions, heal from trauma, and find their voices. Through vivid anecdotes and real-world case studies, she demonstrates how literature can serve as a bridge between personal pain and collective healing.Rich with practical tips, reflective exercises, and book recommendations, Bibliotherapy in The Bronx is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the power of words to change lives. Whether you're a therapist, educator, bibliophile, or simply someone seeking deeper understanding and growth, this book offers a compassionate, culturally affirming guide to the transformative potential of storytelling.Rumble's work is a testament to the enduring power of books to heal, empower, and liberate. In a time when the world feels increasingly divided, Bibliotherapy in The Bronx reminds us that the stories we tell—and the stories we read—can unite us in our shared humanity. -Raymond Williams, PhD is a political scientist, blogger, and book club administrator with an interest in American History and Politics. You can find Raymond on Instagram, Threads, and Twitter at @rtwilliams16. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
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    1 ora e 4 min
  • Amanda Anderson and Simon During, "Humanities Theory" (Oxford UP, 2026)

    Amanda Anderson and Simon During, "Humanities Theory" (Oxford UP, 2026)
    Apr 17 2026
    Humanities Theory (Oxford UP, 2026) pioneers a new topic: the theory of the humanities. It is an urgent topic right now because the humanities face a suite of forceful new challenges and are in a period of significant change. For these reasons, it has become important to analyse and understand what the humanities are as a whole, beyond disciplinary divisions and yet without resorting to simplistic notions of their worth. Remarkably little attention has been paid to this topic. Most discussions of the humanities have been polemical if not defensive. This book argues that there exists a global humanities world which not only transcends disciplinary divisions but joins the professional academic humanities to a thriving amateur public humanities. This world has no essence, it is plural. Nevertheless, powerful, if contested, ethical orientations run through it and help shape it, including a will to truthfulness, a will to openness and generosity, a will to examine values.In their essays Simon During and Amanda Anderson each bring different emphases to their shared orientation towards a large plural humanities world:During analyses how key disciplines—sociology, philosophy and history—might be used to think about the humanities as a whole and, on this basis, offers some predictions of the future awaiting the humanities.Anderson analyzes media representations of the humanities and considers the general conceptual frameworks through which the humanities focus on value and proffer critique. She analyses a series of examples of contemporary critical engagements in the humanities to press a case for value pluralism in the humanities and the university more broadly. Amanda Anderson is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English and Humanities and Director of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University. She is the author, most recently, of Psyche and Ethos: Moral Life after Psychology (Oxford, 2018) and Bleak Liberalism (Chicago, 2016). She previously served as the Director of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell and serves on the advisory board of the international Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI). Simon During, educated in New Zealand and at Cambridge, has taught at the University of Melbourne and Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of pioneering work in post-colonialism, cultural studies, and the history of entertainment but in recent years has concentrated on thinking about literature and the humanities under their difficult contemporary conditions 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
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    1 ora e 8 min
  • Yingyi Ma, "Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education" (Columbia UP, 2020)

    Yingyi Ma, "Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education" (Columbia UP, 2020)
    Apr 15 2026
    In Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education (Columbia UP, 2020), sociologist Yingyi Ma offers a multifaceted analysis of a new wave of international Chinese students—mostly self-funded—who have transformed American higher education over the past decade. This privileged yet diverse group of young people, emerging from a rapidly changing China, must navigate the complications and confusions of their formative years while bridging the world’s two most powerful countries. How do these students come to study in the United States? What does that experience mean to them? And what does American higher education need to know—and do—in order to continue attracting these students and supporting them adequately? Drawing on research conducted in both Chinese high schools and American colleges and universities, Ma’s book offers illuminating insights into the experiences that define this new wave of students: above all, a duality of ambition and anxiety rooted in the transformative social changes of contemporary China. These students and their families are ambitious in seeking to navigate two very different educational systems and societies. Yet, at the same time, the complexity and pressure of these systems generate profound anxiety—from the challenges of applying to colleges, to studying and socializing on campus, to deciding what comes next after graduation. Ambitious and Anxious also offers valuable policy implications for American colleges and universities, touching on recruitment, student life, faculty support, and career services. About the Author Yingyi Ma is Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where she also serves as Director of the Asian/Asian American Studies Program. She is a Fellow of the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on United States–China Relations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
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    55 min
  • The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want

    The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want
    Apr 13 2026
    In this episode, Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Alex Rivera Cartagena discuss the looming social, cultural, and knowledge catastrophe described in The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025). They explore how narratives around artificial intelligence are shaped by powerful tech companies, often obscuring the real limitations, risks, and social costs of these systems. Their conversation challenges many common assumptions about AI’s inevitability and neutrality, examining how the hype surrounding it threatens university life, just labor practices, and resource allocation. They also bring to light practical ways that individuals, communities, and institutions can resist misleading claims and advocate for more accountable technologies. They argue on behalf of a critical roadmap for rethinking our relationship with AI—one grounded not in hype and speculation, but in democratic values and collective action. This is the first of two episodes about The AI Con. The second, in Spanish, will appear on the New Books Network en español. This conversation is sponsored in part by the Teagle Foundation and the “STEM to STEAM” program, which stresses the importance of reading and integrating humanistic perspectives in the sciences. Quotes, organizations, books, scholars, and articles mentioned in this conversation: Instituto Nuevos Horizontes Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez Elogio a las cercanías: crítica a la cultura tecnológica actual, Héctor José Huyke. The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking, Shannon Vallor. The Costs of Connection and "Rethinking Big Data's Relation to the Contemporary Subject," by Nick Couldry and Ulises Ali Mejias. DukeGPT Wendy Brown Ivan Illich "Has such promise but is so empty." -Alex Rivera Cartagena "We know that they don't understand." -Emily M. Bender "The real privilege is not using this technology; it is avoiding it." -Alex Rivera Cartagena "AI flattens relationships into the words we exchange instead of the things we do." -Emily M. Bender "It's not about the text specifically but the idea the text enables." -Alex Hanna "It doesn't make us think about process." -Alex Hanna "The groups that are already formed can be very powerful pathways for political education and for ensuring there's an integration of society and tech that works for people." -Alex Hanna "The very idea of intelligence is that you can rank people based on one property...that same racist eugenicist concept." -Emily M. Bender "The imposition of technology is presented as philanthropy." -Emily M. Bender "Metaphor of data colonialism" -Alex Hanna "How do we get there without a natural disaster?" -Emily M. Bender Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
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    52 min
  • Gabriel S. Estrada, "Queer Indigenous Cinemas: Sovereign Genders from Seven Directions" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

    Gabriel S. Estrada, "Queer Indigenous Cinemas: Sovereign Genders from Seven Directions" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
    Apr 13 2026
    In Queer Indigenous Cinemas, scholar Gabriel S. Estrada offers an analysis of queer Indigenous media from the Americas, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. This groundbreaking work uses Indigenous directional space and sovereign mapping methods to uncover the emotional, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of queer Indigenous lives. The book's seven chapters--each one of the directions--look closely at media such as cinema and streaming videos that draw on Indigenous concepts from diverse nations such as Diné, Caxcan, Kanaka Maoli, and Nehiyawak. Gabriel S. Estrada is a Caxcan/Xicanx professor in religious studies at California State University Long Beach, where ze teaches queer spirituality, Indigenous graduate classes, and Nahuatl literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
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    1 ora e 34 min
  • Flower Darby, "The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes" (U Oklahoma Press, 2026)

    Flower Darby, "The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes" (U Oklahoma Press, 2026)
    Apr 12 2026
    The happier the teacher, the better the learning experience--for instructor and student alike. With this equation at its core, The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes (U Oklahoma Press, 2026) provides practical guidance for making distance learning infinitely more enjoyable and effective, and for improving the online teaching experience in asynchronous classes that often take place in Learning Management Systems (LMSs) like Canvas or Blackboard Learn, and where instructors and students rarely interact in real time, contributing to low completion rates. One of the most pervasive challenges in distance learning is the absent online instructor; and one clear reason for this problem is the often unsatisfying nature of teaching online. A leading voice on online education, Flower Darby draws on the sciences of learning, emotion, and motivation, three decades of her own teaching, extensive research on online student experience, and the stories of joyful online teachers to present concrete tips for making online teaching more rewarding. The key, Darby suggests, is learning to love teaching online. To that end, her book offers instructors accessible, inspiring, common-sense hacks for connecting with students, finding passion, navigating the structural inequities of higher ed, and more--all with a focus on building rapport and relationships, the central ingredients of happiness and satisfaction. These time-tested strategies and hard-won insights promise to help online teachers find meaning, purpose, and, yes, joy in their work--and, consequently, to fulfill the enormous, largely untapped potential of online education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education
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    29 min