New Books Network

Michael Allan, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Cinema Studies, explores the Lumière Brothers’ 1896-97 voyages and Alexandre Promio’s films across North Africa and the Middle East. He traces how specific sites shape film techniques like framing and tracking shots. The conversation highlights archives, regional reception, language around cinema, and how early film complicates national film histories.

Sarah Berman, Director of Jewish Culture and Programming at Central Synagogue and editor of a new inclusive Haggadah. She discusses the book’s vivid Siona Benjamin artwork, four pathway reimaginings of Magid, additions like Miriam’s cup, and design choices that balance tradition with accessible, customizable ritual.

Nikita Kaur Simpson, a medical anthropologist who studied the Gaddi people of the Western Himalayas. She explores the local concept of “tension” and how it links bodily symptoms to rapid social change. Short, vivid stories show gendered, household, and structural dimensions of distress. The conversation traces fieldwork methods, cultural metaphors, and how tension circulates across lives.

Kristin Ciupa, Associate Professor of Sociology and author of a new book on Venezuela’s oil political economy. She traces Venezuela’s shift from agrarian exportism to oil dependence. She examines state–oil capital rent relations, nationalization and PDVSA, the Chávez era’s rent distribution, and recent decline, sanctions, and shifting prospects for privatization and foreign investment.

Christopher Wright Mitchell, an Old Testament scholar with a PhD in Hebrew and Semitic studies and editor for the Concordia Commentary series. He discusses the Song of Songs as Solomon’s lyrical masterpiece. Short takes cover why he studied it, his both-and interpretive approach seeing human and divine love, Solomon’s complex portrayal, and chapter 8’s theological significance.

Emmanuel Ofuasia, Nigerian philosopher and scholar of African metaphysics and process thought. He traces links from Kemet to Yorùbá and develops a process-relational reading of African metaphysics. He discusses trivalent Izumezu logic, Iwa as both moral and ontological being, and implications for relational subjects, plant sentience, and decolonizing African intellectual history.

David Ost, political scientist and longtime scholar of Eastern European right-wing politics, outlines 'Red Pill Politics' as a way to understand today’s exclusionary populism. He contrasts classic fascism with contemporary electoral populism. He explains who these movements target, how economic appeals win support, and what strategies could blunt their rise.

Nick Juravich, assistant professor of history and labor studies at UMass Boston, explores how paraprofessionals transformed U.S. schools. He traces their rise in the late 1960s, ties to Black and Latino community struggles, and roles in classrooms and unions. The conversation highlights origins, union choices, political coalition shifts, and connections to today’s education labor movements.

Brian Hochman, Georgetown professor of American Studies and editor of The Church Committee Report. Matthew Guariglia, historian and EFF policy analyst on surveillance and civil liberties. They discuss the Church Committee’s uncovering of CIA and FBI abuses, MKUltra and toxic experiments, NSA surveillance exposure, and the report’s lasting effects on oversight and reform.

Ainehi Edoro, Mellon-Morgridge assistant professor and founding editor of Brittle Paper, discusses how forests in African fiction act as living, agentive spaces. She explores forests as sites of worldbuilding, fragmentation as a creative strategy, and how forest-thinking rewrites literary history to imagine new political and ecological futures.