New Books Network

Teddy Jones, a former nurse-educator turned novelist, revisits her Texas-set heroine Frankie in this tale spanning 1925 to 2000. The conversation follows Frankie’s flight from abuse into bootlegging, grooming and addiction, her recovery in a hospital laundry, and the moral work of nursing and redemption. Dual timelines and archival research shape the vivid historical texture.

Peter Mauch, an academic historian of Asia and military specialist, discusses Tojo Hideki as a skilled military statesman rather than just a villain. He traces Tojo’s rise in the Kwantung Army, his consolidation of power, wartime administration, resource struggles, and the collapse that led to his trial and execution. The conversation highlights research challenges and Mauch’s next project on Hirohito.

Christina Schwenkel, a socio-cultural anthropologist at UC Riverside who studies urban Vietnam and sensory ethnography. She explores how pandemic-era soundcraft reshaped public health: loudspeakers, alerts, and songs as tools of care and control. Short, vivid stories look at quarantine listening, frontline sonic labor, and how music and messaging remade everyday urban life.

Tyesha Maddox, historian and author of A Home Away From Home, explores Caribbean American mutual aid societies and their role in building community. She discusses archival discoveries, the central role of women in these organizations, connections to African and Caribbean traditions, and how aid groups evolved into political actors. The conversation highlights migration, kinship networks, and transnational Black politics.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor's Professor of History at UC Irvine and leading scholar of modern China, offers a lively primer on puzzling questions about the PRC. He traces links between leaders, explores censorship tactics and creative workarounds, and examines music, nationalism, and soft power. Short, sharp conversations unpack Tiananmen taboos, local politics, and why academic freedom matters.

Arthur W. Gullachsen, a military historian and professor at the Royal Canadian Military College, digs into the 12. SS-Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend in Normandy. He traces its frantic counterattacks and rapid attrition across Operations Martlet, Epsom, Windsor and Charnwood. Short takes cover German losses, why maneuver failed in bocage and how artillery and airpower shaped the fighting.

Jeanne-Marie Jackson, Professor of English at Johns Hopkins and director of a humanities institute, explores J. E. Casely Hayford’s legal-literary imagination. She traces his formation in the Gold Coast and Britain. Short, vivid discussions cover his institutions, public persona, textual vs oral traditions, law as literary practice, and how close reading functioned as legislative power.

Hans A. Harmakaputra, Indonesian-born scholar of Christian-Muslim relations and comparative theology, discusses Christian strategies of resistance, identity formation, and belonging in post-Reformation Indonesia. He traces conservative Islam's rise, legal and social flashpoints like the Ahok and Yasmin cases, and grassroots reconciliation and creative church responses. The conversation highlights methods and case studies from his 2026 book.

Mark Pennington, professor of political economy at King’s College London, explores Foucault through a liberal political economy lens. He probes decentralized surveillance, cultural forms of power, skepticism of technocratic expert rule, tensions between self-creation and rights-based freedom, and the risks of crisis-driven controls in public health, environment, and crime governance.

Murali Shanmugavelan, researcher of caste, media, and tech, and Sareeta Amrute, anthropologist of race, caste, and global tech labor, discuss how caste shapes IT workplaces and digital infrastructures. They probe myths of tech neutrality, how AI and platforms erase nondominant practices, moderation gaps around caste hate, and why legal and organizational change alone are insufficient.