New Books Network

Gina Turrigiano, neuroscientist and MacArthur Fellow who studies brain plasticity and sleep, joins to explore addiction from biological, anthropological, and literary angles. Short takes cover whether addiction is a habit or disease. They discuss neural ruts and recovery, how drugs fill social and emotional voids, shared brain reward pathways across behaviors, and distinctions between dependence and compulsion.

Tom Wells, historian and author of The Kissinger Tapes, presents edited transcripts of Henry Kissinger’s secretly recorded phone calls. He walks through selecting revealing conversations. He highlights topics from Vietnam and Cambodia to China, Pakistan, Watergate, wiretaps, and Kissinger’s political maneuvering. Short, revealing snapshots that illuminate Kissinger’s tactics and era.

Matt Hooley, Dartmouth scholar of Indigenous literature, and Billy-Ray Belcourt, Cree poet, novelist, and essayist, discuss A Minor Chorus and the move from poetry to an experimental novel. They explore using a singular voice to carry communal desires, Indigenous forms and pseudo-oral history, queer mothering, grief and melancholia, and how romantic intimacy and craft shape beautiful sentences.

Cathryn J. Prince, author and Fordham journalism adjunct, profiles labor leader Pauline Newman. Conversation traces Newman’s immigrant sweatshop childhood, pioneering union organizing, the impact of the Triangle fire, her long relationship with Frida Miller, and decades of work on worker health, safety, and postwar labor rebuilding. Short, vivid stories reveal the people and struggles behind major labor reforms.

Marika Duczynski, a Gamilaraay and Mandandanji writer and Indigenous Heritage Curator, discusses community-led curation and repatriation. She explores cultural competence in colonial institutions. Conversation covers ICIP frameworks, culturally respectful care of collections, rights of response, and opening museum spaces as living, community-guided places.

Satya Shikha Chakraborty, Associate Professor of History who studies gender and colonial South Asia, explores ayahs — South Asian nannies/maids — and their role in shaping racialized domestic norms. She discusses archives, travel to Britain and abandonment, caste and medical advice, elite domestic modernity, and links to contemporary domestic labor. Multiple short, vivid historical threads illuminate caregiving and power.

Davy Ellison, director of training and Old Testament lecturer from Northern Ireland and author of Hope for a New David, argues the Psalter is a crafted narrative promising a renewed Davidic future. He traces a five-book shape, reads lament and restoration as stages, and highlights Psalms 110 and 132 as anchors for Zionic and royal hope.

Crystal Simone Smith, award-winning poet who remakes foundational texts through erasure, discusses her book Common Sense (1776): Addressed to Today's Citizens of America. She explains why she chose Paine's pamphlet and her redaction method. Listeners hear about form, performance, accessibility, tone, and how the work reframes who counts in America as the nation nears its 250th anniversary.

Crystal Simone Smith, award-winning poet who uses erasure and visual poetry, reworks Thomas Paine’s text into a mirror for today. She discusses why Common Sense invited redaction, her visual and performative design choices, how the erasures disrupt Paine’s exclusionary rhetoric, and the craft and revision process behind making the work speak to modern citizens.

Sarah Jaffe, journalist and labor reporter who studies work and social movements, explores how labeling work a “labor of love” lets employers justify low pay and exploitation. She traces this across teaching, care, retail, nonprofits, tech, creative fields, and sports. The conversation highlights precarity, emotional labor, unpaid internships, crunch culture, and why collective organizing matters.