Episodi

  • Sara Petrosillo, "Hawking Women: Falconry, Gender, and Control in Medieval Literary Culture" (Ohio State UP, 2023)
    Jan 20 2026
    Fantastic and informative talk with Sara Petrosillo of the University of Evansville about her new book, Hawking Women: Falconry, Gender, and Control in Medieval Literary Culture (Ohio State University Press, 2023). Listen all the way to the end for a great description of the process of hunting with birds! While critical discourse about falconry metaphors in premodern literature is dominated by depictions of women as unruly birds in need of taming, women in the Middle Ages claimed the symbol of a hawking woman on their personal seals, trained and flew hawks, and wrote and read poetic texts featuring female falconers. Sara Petrosillo's Hawking Women demonstrates how cultural literacy in the art of falconry mapped, for medieval readers, onto poetry and challenged patriarchal control. Examining texts written by, for, or about women, Hawking Women uncovers literary forms that arise from representations of avian and female bodies. Readings from Sir Orfeo, Chrétien de Troyes, Guillaume de Machaut, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, and hawking manuals, among others, show how female characters are paired with their hawks not to assert dominance over the animal but instead to recraft the stand-in of falcon for woman as falcon with woman. In the avian hierarchy female hawks have always been the default, the dominant, and thus these medieval interspecies models contain lessons about how women resisted a culture of training and control through a feminist poetics of the falconry practice. Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
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    51 min
  • Anne Sokolsky ed., "Bold Breaks: Japanese Women and Literary Narratives of Divorce" (U Hawaii Press, 2025)
    Jan 20 2026
    The various words for “divorce” in Japanese—rien, enkiri, fūfu wakare, rikon—reflect how the socially constructed institutions of marriage and family, along with their dissolutions, have been understood in Japanese history and jurisprudence. Employing a broad definition of divorce as the end of a romantic union sanctioned by law, social custom, or mutual agreement, Bold Breaks: Japanese Women and Literary Narratives of Divorce explores the shifting attitudes toward divorce in literature by women from the Heian (794–1185) to Heisei (1989–2019) periods. The collection features writing by renowned authors Tamura Toshiko (1884–1945), Uno Chiyo (1897–1996), and Tsushima Yūko (1947–2016), who used divorce as a literary device to enable their female protagonists to take bold steps toward new lives. A coda explores more contemporary views on marriage, divorce, and romantic love in the work of novelists Itoyama Akiko (1966–) and Kawakami Mieko (1976–) and poet Saihate Tahi (1986–). A wide-ranging introduction provides an overview of the historical, legal, and literary significance of divorce in Japan. The translated texts, appearing in English for the first time, are accompanied by essays introducing the authors and offering brief analyses. Bold Breaks will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese literature and culture, particularly those interested in gender issues and family social practices, and will enrich the growing conversation on marriage and divorce across cultures and eras. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
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    1 ora e 3 min
  • Jacque Lynn Foltyn and Laura Petican, "In Fashion: Culture, Commerce, Craft, and Identity" (Brill, 2022)
    Oct 17 2022
    There has been no greater surge in global fashion trends and expressions of personal style than in the contemporary era of social media fashion influencers. But what constitutes “being in fashion” amongst this multiplicity of interpretations? In this episode of Humanities Matter, Dr. Laura Petican, Professor of Sociology at the National University, San Diego, and Dr. Jacque Lynn Foltyn, Associate Professor and Director of University Galleries at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, explore various disciplinary, professional, and creative perspectives to expand their proposition that fashion is about self-presentation. In Fashion: Culture, Commerce, Craft, and Identity, published by Brill and edited by Drs. Petican and Foltyn, is a deep exploration of fashion representations; being fashionable, shopping, luxury, and vintage; fashion materials, craft, industry, and innovation; museum-worthy fashion; and fashioning cultural identities. Summary: A conversation on the cultural, commercial, and creative perspectives of what it means to be ‘in fashion’ in the modern world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
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    37 min
  • Ryan Donovan, "Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity" (Oxford UP, 2023)
    Jan 19 2026
    Broadway has body issues. What is a Broadway Body? Broadway has long preserved the ideology of the "Broadway Body": the hyper-fit, exceptionally able, triple-threat performer who represents how Broadway musicals favor certain kinds of bodies. Casting is always a political act, situated within a power structure that gives preference to the Broadway Body. In Broadway Bodies: A Critical History of Conformity (Oxford UP, 2023), author Ryan Donovan explores how ability, sexuality, and size intersect with gender, race, and ethnicity in casting and performance. To understand these intersectional relationships, he poses a series of questions: Why did A Chorus Line, a show that sought to individuate dancers, inevitably make dancers indistinguishable? How does the use of fat suits in musicals like Dreamgirls and Hairspray stigmatize fatness? What were the political implications of casting two straight actors as the gay couple in La Cage aux Folles in 1983? How did deaf actors change the sound of musicals in Deaf West’s Broadway revivals? Whose bodies does Broadway cast and whose does it cast aside? In answering these questions, Broadway Bodies tells a history of Broadway’s inclusion of various forms of embodied difference while revealing its simultaneous ambivalence toward non-conforming bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
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    1 ora e 13 min
  • Min Joo Lee, "Finding Mr. Perfect: K-Drama, Pop Culture, Romance, and Race" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
    Jan 18 2026
    Finding Mr. Perfect: K-Drama, Pop Culture, Romance, and Race (Rutgers UP, 2025) by Dr. Min Joo Lee explores the romantic relationships between Korean men and women who were inspired by romantic Korean televisual depictions of Korean masculinity to travel to Korea as tourists. Dr. Lee argues that disparate racialized erotic desires of Korean pop culture fans, foreign tourists to Korea, Korean men, and the Korean nation converge to configure the interracial and transnational relationships between these tourists and Korean men. Lee observes how racial prejudices are developed and manifested through interracial and transnational intimate desires and encounters. This book is the first to examine the interracial relationships between Hallyu tourists and Korean men. Furthermore, it is the first to analyze Korea as a popular romance tourist destination for heterosexual women. Finding Mr. Perfect illuminates South Korean popular culture’s transnational fandom and tourism as a global phenomenon where fantasies and realities converge to have a tangible impact on individual lives. 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/gender-studies
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    31 min
  • Lottie Whalen, "Radicals & Rogues: The Women Who Made New York Modern" (Reaktion, 2023)
    Jan 16 2026
    Radicals & Rogues: The Women Who Made New York Modern (Reaktion, 2023) is the story of a group of women whose experiments in art and life set the tone for the rise of New York as the twentieth-century capital of modern culture. Across the 1910s and ’20s, through provocative creative acts, shocking fashion, political activism, and dynamic social networks, these women reimagined modern life and fought for the chance to realize their visions. Taking the reader on a journey through the city’s salons and bohemian hangouts, Radicals and Rogues celebrates the tastemakers, collectors, curators, artists, and poets at the forefront of the early avant-garde scene. Focusing on these trailblazers at the center of artistic innovation—including Beatrice Wood, Mina Loy, the Stettheimer sisters, Clara Tice, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Marguerite Zorach, and Louise Arensberg—Lottie Whalen offers a lively new history of remarkable women in early twentieth-century New York City. New Books in Women’s History Podcast Jane Scimeca, Professor of History at Brookdale Community College website @janescimeca.bsky.social  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
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    38 min
  • Everything Is Fine, I'll Just Work Harder: Confessions of a Former Badass
    Jan 16 2026
    In Everything Is Fine, I’ll Just Work Harder: Confessions of A Former Badass (Street Noise Books, 2025), Professor Cara Gormally draws us into the familiar academic world of chronic busyness. In panel after panel, Cara brings us into a life numbed by overwork. Then, as this graphic memoir shows us, during an ordinary early-morning run, Cara’s watch dings with a Facebook friend request. Their rapist wants to “friend” them. Cara always had a long to-do list; always had many projects; always was busy. But as their rapist continued to send friend requests and tried to reconnect with them, they began to lose their grip on their work, projects, and relationships. But then Cara connects with a therapist who guides them through a long but powerful process of healing. And Cara works to desensitize, reprocess, excavate and relive the old wounds in order to move past them and heal. This episode explores: Cara’s path to academia; how she discovered her love of science; how art and writing can help us heal; the work of going to therapy; what radical self-acceptance is; why overwork can be a sign of a trauma response; the risks and rewards of changing; and the importance of writing communities. This episode does not discuss sexual assault. Our guest is: Dr. Cara Gormally (they/them), who is a professor at Gallaudet University, in Washington, D.C. Their interdisciplinary research focuses on questions related to making science relevant and accessible to increase students' belonging in STEM. Their new book is Everything Is Fine, I’ll Just Work Harder: Confessions of a Former Badass. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Being Well in Academia How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters Tw-Eats: A Little Book with Big Feelings Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection Parenting and Personal Life in Academia What is burnout and how do you recover from it? What Do You Want Out of Life? Make Your Art No Matter What Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You help support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. 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/gender-studies
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    40 min
  • Sam Fullerton, "Sexual Politics in Revolutionary England" (Manchester UP, 2026)
    Jan 15 2026
    Samuel Fullerton joins Jana Byars to talk about Sexual Politics in Revolutionary England (Manchester UP 2024) to celebrate its paperback release. It recounts a dramatic transformation in English sexual polemic that unfolded during the kingdom's mid-seventeenth-century civil wars. In early Stuart England, explicit sexual language was largely confined to manuscript and oral forms by the combined regulatory pressures of ecclesiastical press licensing and powerful cultural notions of civility and decorum. During the early 1640s, however, graphic sex-talk exploded into polemical print for the first time in English history. Over the next two decades, sexual politics evolved into a vital component of public discourse, as contemporaries utilized sexual satire to reframe the English Revolution as a battle between licentious Stuart tyrants and their lecherous puritan enemies. By the time that Charles II regained the throne in 1660, this book argues, sex was already a routine element of English political culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
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    54 min