New Books Network

Beth Derderian, Assistant Professor at Brandeis who studies museums and art politics in the Middle East. She talks about the Louvre Abu Dhabi as a case of museum franchising and market power. Short scenes and ethnography reveal shifts in how museums, artists, and exhibitions respond to capital and claims of inclusivity.

Peter E. Gordon, Harvard historian of German philosophy, discusses his new literary biography of Walter Benjamin. He explores Benjamin’s life in exile and tragic end. He explains the ‘pearl diver’ method of finding cultural fragments. He covers Benjamin’s marginality, Jewish identity, fraught relation to Marxism, and debates with Adorno about reproducibility and mass culture.

Danielle Bainbridge, Assistant Professor of Theatre at Northwestern who studies performance, archives, and the intersections of enslavement and disability. She traces conjoined twins Millie Christine McKoy and Chang and Eng Bunker through freak show circuits. The conversation probes archival practices, spectacle, bodily value, and the ethics of displaying disturbing historical images.

Caroline Tracey, author and researcher exploring salt lakes across North America and Central Asia. She mixes memoir with environmental reporting. Topics include how salt lakes form and why they are threatened. She discusses colonial water diversion, health impacts of drying lakes, Zuni Salt Lake restitution, and links between queer theory and salt-lake ecologies.

Camille Bégin, writer and food historian (author of Taste of the Nation), recounts a 2015 family trip to Chiang Mai that becomes entangled with haze, illness, and care. She discusses the sensory power of smoke, shifting from archival food history to personal memoir, the allure and politics of culinary tourism, and how meals anchor moments of crisis.

James Trapp, a professional translator of contemporary Chinese literature, discusses translating Zhou Meisen’s Property of the People. He traces the novel’s sprawling cast and intricate plotting. He talks about rendering Chinese political titles, cultural allusions, and finding the right English voice. He also describes editorial collaboration and unexpected twists he encountered while working on the book.

Cameron Sullivan, an Australian writer and copy editor, discusses his novel The Red Winter. He talks about reimagining the Beast of Gévaudan, building a grounded magic system, and weaving queer intimacy across centuries. Conversation covers historical research, footnotes as a narrative tool, class and spectacle in pre-revolutionary France, and balancing humor with horror.

Marty Friedman, multi-platinum guitarist and longtime Japan resident turned memoirist, discusses writing Dreaming Japanese with Jon Wiederhorn. He reflects on translating music into prose, J-pop mechanics and the idea of heta-uma. He explores Japanese notions of cuteness, industry work culture, managers, and his orchestral album Drama.

Tim Cresswell, professor of geography and poet, explores mobility and its politics. He contrasts the figures of the citizen and the vagabond. He discusses routes as infrastructure, speed and privilege, rhythms of work and resistance, friction and chokepoints, and what COVID lockdowns revealed about movement and inequality.

Isabelle Held, scholar of gender and LGBTQ+ history and author of Atomic Bombshells, traces how nylon, silicone, and plastic foams moved from military labs into clothing, cosmetics, and implants. She follows material journeys from wartime tech to bullet bras, padded falsies, and breast implants. The conversation maps links between chemical firms, surgeons, advertising, and performance cultures shaping postwar bodies.