New Books in Education

Jim Gaona Ellis, "Educators As Designers: The Hidden Architecture of Learning" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Caleb Zakarin, Jim Gaona Ellis) — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 23:58:22 +0000

An invitation to K-12 educators to reimagine their roles through the transformative lens of design In Educators as Designers, Jim Gaona Ellis draws on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the latest UDL guidelines to position teachers as creators, innovators, and problem-solvers, empowering them to craft classroom experiences that are not only accessible, but also inspiring, inclusive, and responsive to every student's unique needs. This timely and original book challenges readers to see themselves not just as implementers, but as architects capable of reshaping learning cultures and opportunities for all students. At the heart of this work is a practical toolkit that seamlessly bridges powerful design concepts--such as affordances, choice architecture, hostile design, and the design cycle--with everyday classroom realities. Gaona Ellis offers engaging vignettes, actionable strategies, and a concrete change management framework that honor teachers' expertise while guiding them to collaborate, ideate, and iterate solutions. The book doesn't shy away from addressing systemic inequities, instead arming educators with the language, habits, and mindset to foster learner agency, equity, and belonging--regardless of external constraints or shifting DEI mandates. More than a guide, this is an invitation to innovate, co-create, and lead. With storytelling at its core and a focus on practical impact, this book will inspire educators and school leaders to bring fresh clarity, delight, and possibility to their practice--one designed solution at a time.

Jim Gaona Ellis is an educator, consultant, and storyteller exploring the intersections of culture, belonging, and instructional design.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Hanna David, "Erika Landau’s Contribution to the History of Gifted Education: Family Characteristics of Gifted Children" (Springer, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of New Books Network, Željko Stanojević speaks with Dr. Hanna David about Erika Landau’s Contribution to the History of Gifted Education: Family Characteristics of Gifted Children (Springer, 2025), a study of gifted education, family background, gender differences, educational opportunity, and the legacy of one of Israel’s most influential pioneers in gifted education.

Drawing on quantitative research on gifted children aged 5–15 who attended the Erika Landau Institute for Gifted and Creative Children and Youths in Tel Aviv between 1968 and 2003, David examines how giftedness is identified, how family characteristics shape educational trajectories, and how institutional practices affect boys and girls differently. The book focuses on parents’ education, family size, birth order, siblings, admission examinations, and long-term patterns across several decades.

A central part of the conversation concerns gender inequality in gifted education. David discusses the persistent imbalance between boys and girls identified as gifted and asks whether conventional testing procedures fully capture the abilities needed to thrive in gifted programs. The book addresses affirmative-action standards in admissions, noting that girls who may score lower on entrance examinations can demonstrate strengths in social skills, persistence, fine motor development, and successful integration within highly able peer groups.

The interview also explores Erika Landau’s broader legacy. David evaluates both the importance and limitations of Landau’s work, combining historical reconstruction, empirical data, and critical assessment. The book examines Landau’s academic writings across several languages and asks what educators, psychologists, counselors, and researchers can still learn from her educational philosophy and institutional practice.

The discussion places gifted education within wider questions of equality, childhood development, educational psychology, family sociology, gender, and public policy. It raises a fundamental issue: who is recognized as gifted, by what criteria, and with what consequences? The book also offers a valuable historical record of gifted education in Israel and its changing social context.

Dr. Hanna David is affiliated with the Hebrew Literature Research Institute at Tel Aviv University. She is also an author in the European Hebrew Journal. Her peer-reviewed article “Haim Nachman Bialik in Vienna”, published in EHJ Volume 1, Issue 1 (2026), examines Bialik’s activities in Vienna in 1913, Hebrew cultural revival, Zionist cultural thought, the Hebrew book, and the intellectual background of the future Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

David will also speak at the European Hebrew Journal International Online Conference, New Discoveries and New Directions in Biblical, Hebrew, and Theological Studies. On 10 November 2026 at 14:00 CET, she will present “The Literary Work of A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, David Grossman, Yoram Kaniuk, Benjamin Tammuz and Zeruya Shalev in Israeli Cinema.” Her biography, abstract, academic profile, and session details are available on Hanna David’s conference landing page.

The interview is hosted by Željko Stanojević, President of the Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of the European Hebrew Journal, and a New Books Network host in Biblical Studies.

Keywords and themes: gifted education, gifted children, Erika Landau, Hanna David, giftedness in Israel, educational psychology, gender and giftedness, family characteristics, parents’ education, siblings, birth order, giftedness testing, affirmative action, child development, Israeli education, gifted girls, gifted boys, Jewish studies.

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Michelle Adams, "The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North " (FSG, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 9 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Winner of the MAAH Stone Book Award Winner of the 2025 Avern Cohn Award A New York Times Notable Book of 2025, A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 selection A Christian Science Monitor 25 Best Books of 2025 The epic story of Detroit’s struggle to integrate schools in its suburbs—and the defeat of desegregation in the North. In 1974, the Supreme Court issued a momentous decision: In the case of Milliken v. Bradley, the justices brought a halt to school desegregation across the North, and to the civil rights movement’s struggle for a truly equal education for all. How did this come about, and why? In The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North (FSG, 2025), the esteemed legal scholar Michelle Adams tells the epic story of the struggle to integrate Detroit schools—and what happened when it collided with Nixon-appointed justices committed to a judicial counterrevolution. Adams chronicles the devoted activists who tried to uplift Detroit's students amid the upheavals of riots, Black power, and white flight—and how their efforts led to federal judge Stephen Roth’s landmark order to achieve racial balance by tearing down the walls separating the city and its suburbs. The “metropolitan remedy” could have remade the landscape of racial justice. Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that the suburbs could not be a part of the effort to integrate—and thus upheld the inequalities that remain in place today. Adams tells this story via compelling portraits of a city under stress and of key figures—including Detroit’s first Black mayor, Coleman Young, and Justices Marshall, Rehnquist, and Powell. The result is a legal and historical drama that exposes the roots of today’s backlash against affirmative action and other efforts to fulfill the country’s promise.

My guest today is Michelle Adams. Michelle Adams is the Henry M. Butzel Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. The former codirector of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, she served on the Biden administration’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court and as an expert commentator on the Netflix series Amend: The Fight for America and the Showtime series Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court. Her writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The Yale Law Journal, California Law Review, and elsewhere. She was born and grew up in Detroit.

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Chika Watanabe, "Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire" (Stanford UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 4 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000

We live in a fragile world. This much is evident as stories abound of natural disasters that wipe out communities in an instant. How can we survive the future on such a planet, amid intensifying climate change? This question is particularly poignant along the Ring of Fire, a tectonic belt in the Pacific region that routinely faces some of the most devastating disasters in the world. Based on ethnographic research spanning seven years, Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire (Stanford University Press, 2026) examines the work of preparedness training in Japan and Chile, two primary nations along the Ring of Fire that experience frequent and intense disasters. Experts from these countries have often collaborated to create some of the most advanced disaster preparedness systems in the world. Dr. Chika Watanabe traces how local city officials, NGOs, and members of neighborhood and grassroots organizations are, counterintuitively, using fun, playful methods to teach preparation for our darkest hours.

While there are many important studies of post-disaster response, much less is written about the future-orientation of disaster preparedness. This book shows how a transnational group of preparedness experts orient people toward potential disasters in gentle and hopeful ways, focusing on improvisation and repair. In a time of political and environmental destabilization globally, this book offers a unique look at how playful preparedness can reset relationships to environments, to the future, and to each other.

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.

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Deirdre Mayer Dougherty, "Race and Place: School Desegregation in Prince George's County, Maryland" (Rutgers UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 4 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Race and Place: School Desegregation in Prince George's County, Maryland (Rutgers University Press, 2025) considers the everyday experiences of community members throughout the process of school desegregation and how race, place, and truth came to matter in this process in Prince George's County, Maryland from 1945 through 1973. Organized around several successive policies that emerged in this time: school equalization, school choice, neighborhood schools, school construction, school closure, busing for racial integration, and school discipline, Dougherty shows how these policies contained and reinforced assumptions about place and created new racial truths about people and schooling.

Dierdre Mayer Dougherty is an Associate Professor of Educational Studies at Knox College.

Max Jacobs is a PhD student in Education at Rutgers Universty.

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The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 3 Sep 2026 04:00:00 +0000

The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars (Princeton UP, 2023) is an essential handbook for writing fundable grants. This easy-to-use guide features writing samples, a glossary of important terms, answers common questions, and explains pitfalls to avoid. Dr. Betty Lai focuses on skills that are universal to all grant writers, not just specific skills for one type of grant or funder. She explains how to craft phenomenal pitches and align them with your values, structure timelines and drafts, communicate clearly in prose and images, solicit feedback to strengthen your proposals, and much more. This incisive book walks you through every step along the way, from generating ideas to finding the right funder, determining which grants help you create the career you want, and writing in a way that excites reviewers and funders.

This episode explores: how to align your values and interests with a grant opportunity;

why most of us will end up needing a grant; things you can learn from a grant proposal that succeeded, and from one that didn’t; what your grant reviewer really needs from you and why; and how to use the funder’s guidelines and terminology to your advantage.

Guest: Dr. Betty S. Lai is an associate professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, among others. Her work has been recognized with awards from the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Foundation.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is the producer of the both Academic Life podcast and the show’s weekly newsletter. She is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics.

Listeners to this episode may be interested in:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 325+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

This episode was originally published on Feb 2, 2023.

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Educating for an Uncertain Future in Interwar Poland

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In the two decades between the First and Second World Wars, Jewish parents in Poland faced a proliferation of choices when it came to educating their children. Each choice offered a vision of what future Polish Jews desired, what they expected, and the gap between the two. State schools taught in Polish (sometimes with a schedule to accommodate traditional religious observance), secularist Yiddish schools with strong ties to Jewish socialism and the labor movement, Hebraist schools promoting political and cultural Zionism, and religious schools that retained--or innovated upon--traditionalist educational models reflected different opinions for what Jewish children in interwar Poland would need in the present to secure their future.

In this lecture, Elena Hoffenberg draws upon materials held by YIVO to explore how projections about the future in terms of work, culture, and politics guided parents, educational activists, and young people themselves. Choices as reflections of competing political and religious commitments, as well as material constraints, to better understand what Polish Jews expected for their individual and communal futures.

This lecture originally took place on March 2, 2026.

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Stefan Collini, "Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Stefan Collini

The study and teaching of English literature is generally regarded as one of the central disciplines in the modern university, yet for much of its history it struggled to gain academic legitimacy and was frequently derided as 'a soft option'. Its early professors responded by emphasizing its scholarly character, foregrounding philology and literary history in ways that marked the syllabus far into the twentieth century.

Stefan Collini provides here the first full account of the discipline's development from its late-eighteenth-century beginnings up to the early 1960s. Paying special attention to institutional settings, he challenges numerous assumptions about the character of universities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the detailed exploration of syllabuses, exam papers, and other institutional records, the impact of literary criticism is revealed to be later and more partial than is commonly assumed. Rather than seeing the early teaching of English literature as 'a substitute for religion' or 'a means to soften class conflict', Collini emphasizes the role of ideals of learnedness and scholarship, as well as of external factors such as opportunities for employment in the civil service and secondary school-teaching. There are full discussions of the parts played by such figures as John Churton Collins, A.C. Bradley, George Saintsbury, and Walter Raleigh, together with sceptical analyses of the decisive significance usually attributed to Matthew Arnold, T.S. Eliot, I.A. Richards, and F.R. Leavis. Separate chapters are devoted to neglected aspects of the story such as the role of Classics, the importance of the subject for women's higher education, and the connections with English teaching in schools.

Drawing on extensive use of institutional archives and records as well as the writings of contemporary participants, the book offers a vivid and wide-ranging history of English-as-discipline and its centrality across academic, literary, cultural, and educational life over the past two year hundred years, as well as a resounding testament to its continued importance and relevance today.

Stefan Collini, Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History and English Literature, University of Cambridge. Stefan Collini was educated at Cambridge and Yale. Following a Research Fellowship at St John's College, Cambridge, he was Lecturer, then Reader, in Intellectual History at the University of Sussex 1974-86; Lecturer, then Reader, then Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at the University of Cambridge 1986-2014. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, and Guardian.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.

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Taking The Scenic Route To High Quality Education For Indigenous Students

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Dr Agnes Bodis talks to Hannah Madin and Catherine White. Hannah is a Teaching and Learning Officer at the Department of Education in the Northern Territory (Australia), and Catherine White is a Teaching and Learning Coach in secondary education.

We are zooming in on learning English as an additional language or dialect in remote communities in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT). There are numerous Aboriginal languages spoken there as well as dialects of English. However, the language of schooling remains Standard Australian English.

We discuss this mismatch between first or home languages, language of education, and teacher preparedness. Hannah and Catherine outline a collaborative project by the NT Department of Education to remove these barriers to learning in the school context. The project is called “Roadmap to Stage 1 Essential English and Mathematics” and includes not only the creation of teaching support materials, but the creation of an online Community of Practice, a professional learning program and school visits.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Lauren Stara, "Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects (Bloomsbury, 2025) is a book designed for librarians, trustees, local government officials, architects, and interior designers who are designing or planning to build, renovate, or reconfigure library spaces. Most librarians embark upon a library building project with little experience in space planning, architecture, or construction. Written by a registered architect and professional librarian, this is a guidebook for librarians embarking on a library building project. It includes a brief history of library facilities, placing them in the context of public buildings. An introduction to library planning principles and a discussion of library design concepts and trends are presented, including the impact of the 2020 pandemic on library design. Sections on working with architects, building design/construction terminology and the basics of reading architectural drawings provide insight into unfamiliar jargon and visual communication. Extensive illustrations and photographs show examples of library layouts and furniture and equipment, and the final chapter addresses the challenges inherent in a major building project. As library services change, buildings must adapt to accommodate and provide these new innovations. Buildings are living things, and this book will offer guidance to those embarking on a project of any scale or size.

Guest: Lauren Stara is a registered architect and a librarian, specializing in library building design. Her past library experience includes everything from front desk clerk to director. As a Library Building Specialist for the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, Lauren administers grant funds and provides technical assistance and advice from initial planning through construction of public library projects. She writes, consults, and speaks on library design, service design, and future trends in libraries and is coauthor of Responding to Rapid Change in Libraries: A User Experience Approach (2020).

Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Chad Wellmon, "After the University: Higher Education and the Future of Intellectual Work" (JHU Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 9 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

What is a university for? Is it a sanctuary for disciplined study, or has it become something else entirely? In After the University: Higher Education and the Future of Intellectual Work (JHU Press, 2026), Chad Wellmon traces the long and often uneasy relationship between higher learning and the institutions that claim to protect it. Moving from the guilds of medieval Paris and the knowledge factories of Enlightenment-era Göttingen to the research empires of Berlin and Berkeley, Wellmon shows how the modern university has repeatedly reshaped itself to serve shifting social and political demands.

Across centuries, the goods of disciplined study—the joy of reading, the virtues of intellectual rigor, and the possibility of self-formation—have been overshadowed by the pursuit of external rewards such as money, prestige, and power. Part institutional history and part philosophical reflection, After the University examines how today's institutions defend themselves not in the name of learning but in the language of productivity, innovation, and economic utility. Drawing on his experiences as a scholar, teacher, administrator, and witness to crises such as white supremacist marches and the COVID-19 pandemic, Wellmon illustrates how universities justify themselves through the outputs of graduates, research discoveries, and workforce training while leaving unmentioned the very practices that once defined them.

Despite this transformation, Wellmon argues that the university's current state of turmoil exposes a new, enticing possibility: recognizing the practices of disciplined study as goods worth valuing in and of themselves rather than simply as means to other ends. With insight and urgency, After the University asks whether our institutions can still nurture intellectual desire—or whether we must find new homes for the life of the mind.

Soumyadeep Guha is a fourth-year PhD student in the History Department at Binghamton University, New York. He is interested in historical research focusing on themes such as Agrarian/Environmental History, History of Science and Tech, Global History, and their intersections.

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Katharina Stevens, "The Ethics of Argumentation" (Routledge, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Ethics of Argumentation (Routledge, 2025) offers a new approach to the theory of argumentation that conceptualizes argumentation as a fundamentally ethical activity whose norms are grounded in, and must be selected according to, moral reasons. Current normative approaches to argumentation do not treat ethics as an integral part of argumentation theory. This is at least in part due to a methodological commitment not to address internal states of the arguers, such as intentions and beliefs, which makes moral theorizing about argumentation difficult. This book presents three arguments for why ethics ought to be a central element in normative theorizing about argumentation. First, it shows that ethics is needed for providing normative argumentation theory with its foundation and for offering arguers reliable guidance for decision-making both about which norms ought to govern their arguing and how they should shape each argument they make. Second, it addresses some of the most persistent problems faced by currently dominant normative approaches to argumentation, most notably that they are only reliable under the assumption that unrealistic background conditions are fulfilled. Finally, it provides the groundwork for a systematic ethics of argumentation. It does so by showing how a function of argumentation can be justified via moral reasons and by providing the outlines for both an applied ethics of (meta-level) normative argument design and an applied role-ethics of object-level arguing. The Ethics of Argumentation (Routledge, 2025) is essential reading for researchers and graduate students in a wide range of disciplines-including philosophy, communication studies, linguistics, and rhetoric-who are interested in argumentation, critical thinking and social epistemology"

Katharina Stevens is a philosopher and argumentation theorist working at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. She is one of the editors of the journal Informal Logic and one of the directors of the Critical Thinking and Citizen Engagement Lab at the University of Lethbridge.

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Posen Library: Jewish Studies Teaching Modules

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 1 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Bring the breadth of Jewish history and civilization into your classroom with ready-to-use teaching modules curated by experts.

The Posen Library is an educational resource grounded in primary sources and made broadly accessible through the creation and curation of engaging contextual material. Its goal is to highlight the varieties of Jewish culture and civilization across time and space for English-speaking audiences and to be the first stop for those, in university settings and beyond, who are interested in teaching about the significant breadth of Jewish experiences.

Originally conceived as a 10-volume print anthology, the Posen Library’s free digital platform makes the published content globally accessible. Content from print volumes is added to the site as the volumes are published by Yale University Press. Nine out of the ten volumes have been published to date.

The Jewish Studies Curriculum Initiative comprises teaching modules centered around core teaching topics. Each module consists of an overview and curricular material that can be used in four class meetings, focusing on 20–25 primary sources (texts, images, and other media) with interpretive content and supplementary resources for both students and instructors. Posen Library curricula offer flexibility and are designed to be easily integrated into coursework in a variety of ways—perfect for launching a new class or refreshing a syllabus to include new perspectives and voices.

Sarah Bunin Benor is Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Linguistics at Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles.

Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah is assistant professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the Senior Scholar for Pedagogy at the Posen Library.

Geraldine Gudefin is a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore.

Mentioned in this episode:

Posen Library Teaching modules: here
Jewish Studies Curriculum Initiative Fellowship: here
Sarah Bunin Benor’s “Jewish Culture around the world” Module: here
Lila Corwin Berman’s “Who Is American? Citizenship, Law, and Jewish History in the United States” Module: here
Geraldine Gudefin’s “Jewish Emancipation, Citizenship, and Belonging” Module: here
Geoffrey Levin’s “Jews of the Middle East and North Africa: Empire, Colonialism, and Identity” Module: here
Karen E. H. Skinazi’s “Sephardic Journeys: Literature, Memory, and Jewish Culture” Module: here
Jewish Language Project: here
Jewish Cultures on the Map: here
Jewish English Lexicon: here

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Matthew Ritger, "Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Today’s guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe’s first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the history of humanism in ways that both challenge idealized notions of European humanism and illustrate its commitments to civic and Christian reform. The book explores Bridewell’s mission to discipline the poor and the “idle” through hard labor, vocational training, and basic education, while also exposing its coercive and exploitative practices, which included whippings, forced labor, and the infliction of fear.

Houses of Correction also explores how Bridewell contributed to a broader humanist culture of correction, which united textual methods with practical forms of knowledge, and which extended to rhetorical and textual forms, as well as literary productions. The book’s five chapters connect the history and influence of Bridewell to a range of literary texts, including Thomas More’s Utopia, Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest, and Milton’s Of Educationand Samson Agonistes.

Through its interrogation of the logic of carceral humanism, Houses of Correction demonstrates the crucial role that Bridewell played in cultivating a culture of correction that pervaded humanist education, textual practices, and literary representations.

Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance.

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New Trends in YIVO Scholarship

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Since 1925, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has been a pioneer in the field of Jewish studies. At the core of YIVO since its founding was its commitment to scholarship which supported the Jewish “folk.” This manifested in a variety of initiatives, including youth autobiography contests and a youth research division (yugfor), an Economic-Statistical section (ekstat), and the establishment of various YIVO branches. These YIVO's activities continue to pique the interests of scholars, who have recently produced new scholarship analyzing these initiatives through the lens of new pioneering research methods.

Join YIVO for a panel discussion sharing new research on these historic YIVO initiatives featuring presentations by William Pimlott, Kamil Kijek, and Nicolas Vallois, followed by a conversation led by Jessica Kirzane.

This panel discussion originally took place on June 11, 2025.

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David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab eds., "Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Visual Anthropology" (Berghahn, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode I discuss the book Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Anthropology (Berghahn, 2025) with co-editors David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab, a posthumous collection of writings by the late anthropologist Marcus Banks. Banks was a key the figures in development of visual anthropology, but his work remains of continuing relevance. This volume brings together several of his essays on film, photography, archive work, as well as reflections of visual methods such as photo-elicitation and ways of teaching visual anthroplogy.

The conversation begins with Marcus Banks himself, his place within anthropology, his influence on visual anthropology, and the broader effort to preserve and extend his work through a set of posthumous collections. From there, the discussion turns to one of the central themes that emerge from across several essays, namely, that images are not simply illustrations or transparent representations, but socially and temporally situated objects with disctinct social lives. From there, we discuss Banks’s interest in the materiality of the visual and how the circulation and afterlives of images gather new meaning over time.

A substantial part of the interview focuses on Banks’s film Raju and His Friends (1988), which proved foundational to his later reflections on ethnographic filmmaking, and especially on the ethics and politics of representation. As well as providing an introduction to Marcus Banks’s work and serving as a tribute to a scholar whose influence continues to shape the field, many of the topics covered in the interview touches on many broader questions in anthropology itself, and as such will be of interest not only to students of visual anthropology, but to anthropology students and anthropologists more generally.

David Zeitlyn is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. His work spans visual anthropology, photography and archives, religion and divination, and long-term fieldwork in Cameroon. He also collaborated with Marcus Banks on the second edition of Visual Methods in Social Research.

Chihab El Khachab is Associate Professor in Visual Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. He is a social anthropologist specializing in visual and media anthropology, especially Egyptian media production, and is the author of Making Film in Egypt: How Labor, Technology, and Mediation Shape the Industry.

Further reading and resources mentioned in the recording

Jainism as Social and Visual Practice: Anthropological Perspectives
Marcus Banks. Edited by John E. Cort, David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2026. This posthumous volume gathers Banks’s writings on Jain social organization and visual representation.
The revived HADDON catalogue of ethnographic films
Originally created by Marcus Banks in the 1990s, HADDON is an online catalogue of archival ethnographic film. The revived site presents a restored version of the database, now hosted through Paul Henley’s Silent Time Machine project.
Raju and His Friends (1988)
The film discussed at length in this episode, and a key reference point for Banks’s later reflections on visual anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking.

Marcus Banks was Professor of Visual Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA), University of Oxford until he passed away in 2020. He was a pioneer in integrating visual approaches into the mainstream of social and cultural anthropology. With Howard Morphy, he edited the influential volume Rethinking Visual Anthropology (Yale University Press, 1999).

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David I. Waddington, "The Hidden Curriculum of Video Games" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Despite decades of inflammatory rhetoric, the real risk of video games lies not in their violent imagery but in the ethical and political sensibilities they normalize. Video games reward speed, efficiency, control, and meritocratic mastery, training players to align with a technolibertarian worldview - one that celebrates individual will, technological power, and skepticism toward collective forms of governance. Rather than asking whether games produce violent individuals, we might more productively ask how they contribute to a commitment to radical capitalism and a belief in highly individualistic worldviews. In this unsettling work David Waddington traces the philosophical roots of technolibertarianism, founded on faith in technological progress and personal freedom. He identifies a darker turn in this thinking, animated by the ideals of Ayn Rand and her archetype of the "tech hero of capitalism." Many games, Waddington argues, invite players to inhabit this archetype, treating mastery, control, and relentless striving as moral virtues. While educational research often praises games for motivating students and fostering problem-solving, Waddington asks a deeper question: What kinds of people do games help us become? Drawing on Martin Heidegger and other thinkers, he explores whether gameplay expands human possibility or narrows it by habituating players to efficient yet restrictive systems. The Hidden Curriculum of Video Games (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026) critiques mainstream game design and educational technology, offering hopeful alternatives and examining reflective games that resist dominant gameplay logics. Written with clarity, passion, and philosophical depth, this thought-provoking work opens new horizons on technology, education, and the moral imagination of play.

Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the HNU University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal TITEL kulturmagazin for the game section, and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter Game Studies Watchlist.

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Heart-Centered Connections: Seven Essential Skills for Helping Neurodiverse and Marginalized Children Thrive

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Heart-Centered Connections: Seven Essential Skills for Helping Neurodiverse and Marginalized Children Thrive is a transformative guide for working with a child who is left out, left behind, or labeled “difficult.” Dr. Niki Elliott teaches the best practices to support kids who are misunderstood and marginalized—those who are neurodivergent, have a learning disability, or are trauma survivors. In this practical book, Dr. Elliott brings clear guidance and a hopeful message: when safety, compassion, and trust come first, real learning can begin. Heart-Centered Connections shows you how to create that foundation.

Based on decades of her groundbreaking research, Dr. Elliott offers seven pillars that will help you create environments where kids can achieve their full potential. You will learn how to: increase your ability to handle stress so you remain composed when a child acts out; establish stronger bonds, even with kids who initially seem defiant; teach in a way that creates joy and confidence; design neuro-inclusive environments in which youth of all abilities can flourish; view the child from a new perspective, offering them choice and dignity; and help the child settle their nervous system state so they can focus and learn.

Guest: Dr. Niki Elliott is a clinical professor and director of the Center for Embodied Equity and Neurodiversity at the University of San Diego SOLES, where she leads research, professional certificates, and statewide initiatives that transform K–16 learning environments through trauma-informed, neuro-inclusive design. A veteran educator of more than 30 years, Dr. Niki is known for translating complex neuroscience into powerful, accessible practices that strengthen belonging, emotional safety, and academic engagement for neurodiverse learners.

Host: Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for Listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please 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!

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Stephen G. Covell, "The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

How have Buddhist teachings come to be in modern and contemporary Japan and how are they taught? This pioneering work seeks to answer these questions by highlighting the public teachings of Temple Buddhism institutions, in particular Temple Buddhism kindergartens and Buddhist secondary schools and colleges. The community outreach provided by these Buddhist facilities is far greater than any other with the possible exception of funerals yet until now it has received little attention from scholars of Japanese religion.

After determining what is taught in Buddhist education and how, Stephen Covell introduces readers to a select group of monks who undergo some of the most grueling practices in Japanese Temple Buddhism to determine if the public-facing teachings of Buddhist education are unique or similar to those of elite Buddhist practitioners. The teachings and sites of teaching examined here include but are not limited to classical doctrinal studies and temples focused on the education of Buddhist clergy. Covell uncovers the arguments made by priests involved in morals education, the dharma talks of famous ascetics, and the ways in which laws and legal codes have changed Buddhist education. He looks at what is taught on the ground, online, and in popular texts to discuss the current teachings embraced as Buddhism within the institutions of Temple Buddhism. Among his numerous findings is such teachings and worldview are remarkably similar to those of New Religions and Buddhist lay movements as outlined by Japan religion scholars and government bodies in charge of education.

The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2024) will be welcomed by students and scholars in Japanese religious studies and early childhood and higher education as well as those interested in current Buddhist practice and teachings in general.

Dr. Victoria Montrose is the James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Religion at Furman University. Her recent research, “From Disciples to Dissidents: Student Protests and Reform Movements in Meiji-Era Buddhist Universities” was published in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies in late 2025.

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Becoming the System

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 8 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick sits down with Dr. Nelson Flores to discuss his 2024 book entitled Becoming the System: A Raciolinguistic Genealogy of Bilingual Education in the Post-Civil Rights Era, published by Oxford University Press.

In his book, Dr. Flores examines the ways that institutionalizing bilingual education in the post-Civil Rights Era in the United States has served to maintain rather than challenge racial hierarchies. He and Brynn discuss the lasting legacies of this institutionalization within neoliberal ideologies for Spanish-English bilingual education in the United States from the post WWII era to today.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Max Weinreich and the Meaning of Yiddish

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 3 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Max Weinreich spent the entirety of his adult life building YIVO and the field of Yiddish Studies. A 'convert' to the cause of Yiddishism in his adolescence, he pursued a doctorate in German philology in Weimar Germany with the explicit goal of returning to Eastern Europe to contribute to the project of building a modern, secular Yiddish culture. His study visits to Yale University and Vienna in the early 1930s proved transformational in broadening and revising his understanding of the role of the social sciences in Jewish life as a tool for strengthening Jews' psychological and material resources. The destruction of the traditional Yiddish heartland in Eastern Europe and his experiences leading YIVO in post-WWII New York City added yet another dimension to Weinreich's conception of the importance of both Yiddish and Jewish Studies for the future of American and world Jewry. Would Max Weinreich recognize Yiddish studies today?

Moderated by Kalman Weiser and featuring Naomi Seidman, Kenneth Moss, and Jeffrey Shandler, this panel will examine Weinreich's evolving understanding of the meaning of Yidishe visnshaft (Yiddish studies) and the role of Yiddish in Jewish life throughout his career.

This panel discussion originally took place on June 15, 2023.

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Bryan Alexander, "Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Over the past decade, American colleges and universities have seen enrollment decline, campuses close, programs cut, faculty and staff laid off, and public confidence erode. In Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026), futurist Bryan Alexander forecasts what the next decade might hold if we continue down this path. He argues that the United States has passed its high-water mark for postsecondary education and now faces a critical turning point. How will higher ed institutions respond to this wave of change and crisis? Combining data-driven research with scenario modeling, Alexander outlines a powerful framework for understanding what led to this moment: declining birthrates, surging student debt, rising tuition, shifting political winds, and growing skepticism about the value of a college degree. He maps out how these forces, if left unchecked, could continue to reshape academia by shrinking its footprint, narrowing its mission, and jeopardizing its role in addressing the planet's most pressing challenges, from climate change to artificial intelligence. Alexander explores how institutions might adapt or recover, presenting two possible futures: a path of managed descent and a more hopeful course of reinvention. Peak Higher Ed examines the fraying of the "college for all" consensus, the long shadow of pandemic-era disruptions, and the political polarization that has placed universities in the crosshairs. Written for educators, policymakers, students, and anyone invested in the future of higher learning, this book offers a deeply informed, unflinching look at the road ahead and the choices that will determine whether colleges and universities retreat from their peak or rise to a new one.

Guest: Bryan Alexander is an award–winning, internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of higher education’s future.

He completed his English language and literature PhD at the University of Michigan in 1997, with a dissertation on doppelgangers in Romantic-era fiction and poetry. Then Bryan taught literature, writing, multimedia, and information technology studies at Centenary College of Louisiana. There he also pioneered multi-campus interdisciplinary classes, while organizing an information literacy initiative.

From 2002 to 2014 Bryan worked with the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE), a non-profit working to help small colleges and universities best integrate digital technologies. With NITLE he held several roles, including co-director of a regional education and technology center, director of emerging technologies, and senior fellow. Over those years Bryan helped develop and support the nonprofit, grew peer networks, consulted, and conducted a sustained research agenda. In 2013 Bryan launched a business, Bryan Alexander Consulting, LLC. Through BAC he consults throughout higher education in the United States and abroad.

Bryan is currently a senior scholar at Georgetown University and teaches graduate seminars in their Learning, Design, and Technology program.

You can learn more about Peak Higher Ed here

You can follow Bryan’s writing on AI, academia, and the Future here

Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Ranita Ray, "Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

A powerful exposé of the American public education system's indifference toward marginalized children and the "slow violence" that fashions schools into hostile work and learning environments.
In 2017, sociologist Ranita Ray stepped inside a fourth-grade classroom in one of the nation’s largest majority-minority districts in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was there to conduct research on the lack of resources and budget cuts that regularly face public schools. However, a few months into her immersion, a disturbed Ray recognized that that greatest impediment to students was the “slow violence” that preys on their minds, bodies, and spirits at the hands of teachers and administrators who are charged with their care.
Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom (St. Martin's Press, 2025) lays bare the routine indifference, racism, and verbal and emotional abuse and harassment that teachers and administrators perpetrate routinely against the most vulnerable children in our schools. We meet Nazli, a bright, funny Black girl, and math wiz, who loses her baby brother, and is told that “grit” will enable her to rise above her grief. Reggie is a devoted student and curious scholar, but his path to success is derailed when teachers fashion him as a predator after they find him looking at two inappropriate photos on his iPad. There’s Nalin, a shy and determined Filipina who has just arrived in the US, but is ignored based on her educator’s assumption that “Asians” are “good at math.” Her entire journey through school is darkened by this stereotype. And there’s Miguel, a sharp, distracted Latino boy who can’t overcome his teachers’ urge to incorrectly diagnose him with autism.
Bolstered by an empathetic and passionate voice as well as the latest breaking research in the social sciences, Ray goes beyond timeworn discussions about the school-to-prison pipeline, funding, and achievement gaps to directly address what happens behind the closed doors of classrooms, introducing a compelling—and crucial—new perspective into the conversation about our education system.
In the warm, luminous spirit of character-driven books like Invisible Child, Slow Violence allows us to see that the way we’ve tried to make a start in education reform is wrong. To forge new approaches that foster young minds and flourishing generations we have to start with how children experience the classroom. Unflinchingly, Slow Violence tells us—and shows us where to begin.

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Andy Byford, "Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia" (Oxford UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Between the 1880s and the 1930s, children became the focus of unprecedented scientific and professional interest in modernizing societies worldwide, including in the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union. Those who claimed children as special objects of investigation were initially spread across a network of imperfectly professionalized scholarly and occupational groups based mostly in the fields of medicine, education, and psychology. From their various perspectives, they made ambitious claims about the contributions that their emergent expertise made to the understanding of, and intervention in, human bio-psycho-social development. The international movement that arose out of this catalyzed the institutionalization of new domains of knowledge, including developmental and educational psychology, special needs education, and child psychiatry.
Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia (Oxford UP, 2020) charts the evolution of the child science movement in Russia from the Crimean War to the Second World War. It is the first comprehensive history in English of the rise and fall of this multidisciplinary field across the late Imperial and Soviet periods. Drawing on ideas and concepts emanating from a variety of theoretical domains, the study provides new insights into the concerns of Russia's professional intelligentsia with matters of biosocial reproduction and investigates the incorporation of scientific knowledge and professional expertise focused on child development into the making of the welfare/warfare state in the rapidly changing political landscape of the early Soviet era.

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The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Research shows that honesty is the single most important characteristic a person can possess when it comes to liking them, respecting them, and understanding them. But honesty is eroding in many areas of society today, as we are confronted with honesty crises in politics, education, relationships, religion, celebrity culture, and technology.

Over the past 50 years, no single philosopher has offered a comprehensive exploration of honesty—how we define it, how it diverges in private and public spaces, and how it depends on shared perceptions of reality. Dr. Christian Miller addresses this gap, while showing how modern life increasingly rewards dishonesty, with profound consequences for our relationships, institutions and culture—a phenomenon he names The Honesty Crisis (Oxford UP, 2026).

From cases such as sermon plagiarism to AI-assisted cheating to the rise of fake news, Dr. Miller explores how dishonesty has become easier, more pervasive and even normalized in our society. Yet The Honesty Crisis does more than diagnose the problem: it proposes concrete, practical steps to preserve honesty where it matters most.

Guest: Dr. Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. The author of numerous articles and books, he also directed The Honesty Project, one of the largest research initiatives ever undertaken on honesty.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She holds a Ph.D. in history which she uses to explore which stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. She is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

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!

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Rebecca Kosick, "Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press" (Wayne State UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Can publishing change the world? In Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press Rebecca Kosick (Wayne State UP, 2026), an Associate Professor in Comparative Poetry and Poetics at the University of Bristol, tells the story of The Alternative Press. Beginning in Detroit in the late 1960s, initially based in the house of Ann and Ken Mikolowski, the press created a rich and eclectic set of artworks. The story of The Alternative Press is also the story of US art and radical politics from the 1970s into the 1990s, with lessons for art and politics today. Drawing on a huge amount of archival work, interviews, and visual reproductions to analyse both the form and content of The Alternative Press’s activity, the book will be essential reading for arts and humanities scholars, as well as for anyone interested in the history of radical art and culture in the USA.

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Shelley Fisher Fishkin, "Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade" (Yale UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Mark Twain’s Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he is viewed as an emblem both of Twain’s alleged racism and of his opposition to racism; a diminished character inflected by minstrelsy and a powerful challenge to minstrel stereotypes; a reason for banning Huckleberry Finn and a reason for teaching it; an embarrassment and a source of pride for Black readers.
In Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade (Yale UP, 2025) eminent Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin probes these controversies, exploring who Jim was, how Twain portrayed him, and how the world has responded to him. Fishkin also follows Jim’s many afterlives: in film, from Hollywood to the Soviet Union; in translation around the world; and in American high school classrooms today. The result is Jim as we have never seen him before—a fresh and compelling portrait of one of the most memorable Black characters in American fiction.

Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, professor of English, and professor (by courtesy) of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, and editor of the twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She lives in Stanford, CA.

YouTube Channel: here

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Jackie M. Blount, "Straighten Up, Girls and Boys: How Schools Have Shaped Sexuality and Gender" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Straighten Up, Girls and Boys: How Schools Have Shaped Sexuality and Gender (Harvard Education Press, 2026), acclaimed historian and educator Jackie M. Blount exposes the hidden history of how American schools have carefully shaped and policed gender and sexuality--affecting every student and educator, past and present. With clarity and compassion, she invites readers not only to understand these forces, but to take action for positive change in their own school communities.

Drawing on centuries of school design, hiring practices, and classroom curriculum, Blount uncovers how seemingly neutral decisions--from the layout of restrooms to textbooks and teacher roles--have been used to enforce binary gender norms and rigid expectations around sexuality. She explores the implications for both students and educators, highlighting moments of resistance and progress, but also the persistence of exclusion and harm. Through vivid historical storytelling and fresh analysis, Blount connects the dots between age-old anxieties and today's most pressing debates around LGBTQ+ issues in schools.

This book empowers educators with the knowledge and historical context needed to question entrenched practices and build more supportive school cultures. Encouraging both critical reflection and practical action, Blount's work is a vital resource for anyone committed to fostering respect and opportunity for every member of the school community.

Jackie M. Blount is professor emeritus of educational studies at the Ohio State University.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting, Panel #2

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s Center for Human Values hosted a day-long conference titled Audio & Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting. It was co-sponsored by Princeton’s Journalism program, and the NYU Podcast Initiative. Over the course of four panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research.

In the second panel, Chenjerai Kumanyika led a discussion about the aesthetics of podcasting. Professor Kumanyika is an assistant professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, who specializes in using narrative non-fiction audio journalism to critique the ideology of American historical myths about issues such as race, the Civil War, and policing. His podcast Empire City, was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best podcasts of 2024. He was the co-creator, co-executive producer and co-host of Uncivil, a podcast on the Civil War, and he is the collaborator for Scene on Radio’s Season 2 “Seeing White,” and Season 4 on the history of American democracy. His current podcast is Unruly Subjects. The panel included Vinson Cunningham, a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he has written about theatre and television. He is a Spring 2026 McGraw Professor of Writing in the Program in Journalism at Princeton University. He is the author of the novel, Great Expectations; Julia Barton is an award-winning podcast, audiobook, and radio editor. She was the executive editor of Pushkin Industries, where she helped develop Revisionist History and Against the Rules. She’s the editor of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia, Michael Specter’s Fauci, and Michael Lewis’s unabridged Liar’s Poker and companion podcast. Her 2019 series, Spacebridge, was called “dazzling” by The New Yorker. She writes the audio history newsletter, Continuous Wave.

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Amy J. Heineke and Kristin J. Davin, "Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy: Promoting Multilingualism in Elementary and Middle Schools" (Georgetown UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

A roadmap for enhancing students' equitable access to biliteracy development Monolingual ideologies have driven US educational policy for centuries. Despite the benefits of multilingualism, policies have often prioritized English and reduced children's access to their home languages. The "Seal of Biliteracy" is a language education policy that recognizes students' proficiency in two languages as a mechanism for nurturing students' bilingualism and growing the United States' multilingual capacity. Since its inception, the Seal of Biliteracy has become a national program that has been extended into elementary and middle schools as pathway awards—benchmarks signaling that younger students are on the pathway to receiving the Seal of Biliteracy. Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy provides foundational understandings, practical examples, and key levers necessary to help parents, educators, and policymakers understand and implement pathways to biliteracy in schools. In Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy: Promoting Multilingualism in Elementary and Middle Schools (Georgetown UP, 2026), ituating the program within broader bilingual, heritage, and world language education systems, Amy J. Heineke and Kristin J. Davin explain the history of bilingualism and language policy in US education, and they outline an accessible and equitable approach to developing successful pathway programs. Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy will be an invaluable tool for educators, stakeholders, and policymakers looking to nurture multilingualism, advance language programming, and help students achieve the Seal of Biliteracy.

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Inside the Mississippi Marathon: How Mississippi Dramatically Improved Its Education System with Rachel Canter

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In 2008, Rachel Canter founded Mississippi First, an education non-profit with the mission of improving educational outcomes for students across the state. Dating back to the 1990s, Mississippi ranked near the very bottom on educational assessment metrics for reading and math. Today, Mississippi’s elementary school students score above the national public average and the eight graders have nearly reached the national public average. For nearly two decades, Rachel has been on the frontlines fighting to improve reading and math outcomes for Mississippi’s public school students. In the process, she has learned that there are no quick fixes, silver bullets, or magical solutions. Improving educational outcomes takes time, accountability, evidence, and institutional support. Rachel and the Progressive Policy Institute have produced a short research paper on this incredibly improvement in outcomes titled “Inside the Mississippi Marathon.” This paper is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of education in America. Whether you are a researcher, policy maker, parent, or student, Inside the Mississippi Marathon charts a path for national improvement in education.

Rachel Canter is the Director of Education Policy for the Reinventing America’s Schools project at PPI. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and History from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 2008, she founded Mississippi First and served as its Executive Director for over 16 years.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting, Panel #1

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In the first panel, podcaster Benjamen Walker discusses Tuning Time, a podcast about the politics of time stretching technology, with NYU media and disability studies professor Mara Mills. Professor Mills teaches in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and is Director of the NYU Center for Disability Studies. Her work on “disability and media” spans disability arts and technoscience, with a focus on the history, politics, and cultures of electronics and digital media. Benjamen Walker is one of the co-founders of the podcast network Radiotopa from PRX, and for a decade hosted and produced his award winning program Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything.

The panel continues with a presentation by NYU musicologist Fanny Gribenski in which she discusses her current project, The Elephant in the Piano: Music, Ecology, Empire. The book, and podcast, is an investigation of the 19th century piano through a material history of its primary components: ivory, wood, felt, and metal. Professor Gribenski is a historical musicologist who specializes in the history of musical and sonic practices. Her first book, L'Église comme lieu de concert. Pratiques musicales et usages de l'espace (Paris, 1830–1905) analyzes the role of music in the production of sacred spaces. Tuning the World: The Rise of 440 Hertz in Music, Science, and Politics, 1859-1955 (University of Chicago, 2023) traces the rocky path towards international pitch standardization.

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Kristen Abbott Bennett, "Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2025) engages with one of Shakespeare's greatest thought-experiments: How does one navigate the 'theatre of the world'?

It invites students to examine how Shakespeare challenges this metaphor's vertical hierarchies in response to shifting understandings of cosmological order.

Teachers will find rich contextual frameworks for exploring how Shakespeare envisions 'worlds' as emerging from dynamic variables, raising urgent questions about how identity and justice are environmentally constructed.

Focal plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Hamlet, Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello.

Each discussion features student centered 'Explorations'.

These play-specific classroom activities can also be adapted across Shakespeare's corpus and tailored for both secondary and university-level students.

These exercises encourage non-linear critical and creative thinking, inviting students to contemplate big ideas and generate new perspectives about the shared points of contact between Shakespeare's world and their own.

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Natalia Rogach Alexander, "Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey" (Columbia UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

John Dewey is among history’s most celebrated thinkers on democracy and education, yet he has often been underappreciated and misunderstood as a philosopher. This book paints a fresh portrait of Dewey as not only a reformer of schooling but also a profound theorist of human development, whose vision of the centrality of education to democracy, philosophy, and flourishing can still inspire us today.

What can we learn from this great thinker as we face challenges such as widespread drudgery and disaffection, estrangement among individuals and groups, and a crisis of democracy? This book supplies the answers, offering a bold new account of Dewey as an educational theorist who is essential for our troubled times.

Revealing the true scope of Dewey’s educational vision, this book provides a new perspective on a neglected aspect of the philosophical tradition. Natalia Rogach Alexander's Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey (Columbia University Press, 2025) presents an alternative canon—running from Plato to Rousseau to Du Bois—that recasts philosophy in terms of education and, in so doing, opens new pathways for social critique and the liberation of human potential.

Natalia Rogach Alexander is a lecturer in philosophy at Columbia University.

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Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the New Books Network, I spoke with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their new edited volume, From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity (Open Book Publishers, 2026). The book is open access.

As universities promote internationalisation while maintaining labour systems that leave many migrant scholars vulnerable, this volume builds on the editors’ 2023 collection (also featured on New Books Network) by incorporating global perspectives. Through personal and autoethnographic narratives, contributors examine visa insecurity, institutional exclusion, racialisation, loneliness, and overwork, while also highlighting joy, solidarity, and “resilience”.

By treating lived experience as critical knowledge, From the Margins offers a strong critique of contemporary academia and invites readers to consider whom universities serve, whose labour sustains them, and what a more equitable academic future could look like.

Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Religion and Theology within the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research examines the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, particularly within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands.

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Mary R. Lanni, "Using Nursery Rhymes with Today’s Kids: Their Legacy and Evolution" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this illuminating conversation with librarian-author Mary R. Lanni, we celebrate her brand new book, Using Nursery Rhymes with Today’s Kids: Their Legacy and Evolution (Bloomsbury, 2026). Mary is a professional librarian in Denver, Colorado, USA. She is also co-author of Early Learning Through Play: Library Programming for Diverse Communities (Libraries Unlimited, 2019). We talk about the potentially sordid history of famous nursery rhymes, and the possibility of supplanting problematic ancient poems with new, inclusive songs.

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Romani Grassroots Language Learning

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Emily Pacheco speaks with Dr Santiago Betancor Falcón (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain) about his 2025 paper, Autonomous language learning as political activism: Roma autodidacts as catalysts of the nascent Romani language revitalisation movement in Spain. The conversation focuses on minoritised languages, autonomous language learning, and language activism.

Reference:

Betancor-Falcon, S. (2025). Autonomous language learning as political activism: Roma autodidacts as catalysts of the nascent Romani language revitalisation movement in Spain. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 44(6), 647-662. DOI here

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Cultural Competence Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All: Talking culturally responsive teaching with Dr Remy Low

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 31 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, we are delighted to be joined by educator and researcher Associate Professor Remy Low to explore what cultural competence and culturally responsive teaching looks like in the classroom. He is committed to furthering culturally responsive education across schools, higher education, arts and cultural institutions, as well as community organisations. As a previous high school teacher, now published academic and lecturer, Remy chats to us about what “good teaching” is, and that cultural competence in the classroom is grounded in self-awareness, care, and responsiveness.

This episode is hosted by Dr. Pooja Mittal Biswas. Pooja Mittal Biswas is an Academic Facilitator at the National Centre for Cultural Competence and an award-winning educator and author. She is the author of ten books of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Her ninth book, Hunger and Predation (Cordite Books, 2023) was shortlisted for the 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and her tenth book, The Maker of Garlands, was published by Vagabond Press in 2024.

Produced by: Adubi Plange, Dr Amy McHugh, Sarah Mashman

Podcast Artwork: Zein Arif

Resources

You can learn more about Associate Professor Remy Lowe through his University of Sydney Academic Research Profile.

Below are some of Remy’s works discussed in this episode of the Cultural Competence Collective:

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Julie J. Park, "Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 31 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era (Harvard Education Press, 2026), Julie J. Park offers deft analysis of the changes to college admissions and campus life since the US Supreme Court ruled to restrict race-conscious policies in two 2023 cases: Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Park offers clear explanations of the rulings, their historical context, and their implications for higher education policy. She highlights how the Supreme Court still allows campuses to consider the role of race in students' experiences and that numerous tools to advance diversity in admissions remain. In this lively, timely work, Park points out the swift and stark post-ruling shifts in campus demographics and grapples with questions of how to push toward a more equitable admissions system. She investigates alternative initiatives, such as test-optional and test-free admissions, percent plans, and others, weighing their merits and drawbacks. She also examines inequality affecting college applications themselves and offers ideas for reform. Integrating up-to-the minute research on admissions, standardized testing, enrollment management, and the campus racial climate, Park recommends actions that can advance equity-oriented access to higher education despite the current restrictions on race-conscious admissions. Park ends with a call to campus leaders, policymakers, and practitioners to reimagine selective college admissions and attendance and offers a glimpse of what the future could hold.

Julie J. Park is a professor in the College of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park. An expert on race and diversity in higher education, she served as a consulting expert in the landmark case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard on the side of Harvard.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Learning Languages on Social Media

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Yeong Ju Lee about her new book Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram (Routledge, 2025).

Lee, Y. J. (2025). Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram. Taylor & Francis.

This book explores creative uses of social media for informal language learning. It focuses on the underexplored area of how informal language learning adapts to technological innovations in two multimodal media-sharing platforms: TikTok and Instagram.

Drawing on ecological perspectives of language learning and spatial understandings of digital technology and learning, the research reported in this book unpacks how social media technologies are used for language learning. It presents insights from a dual-level qualitative methodological design: a comparative study of public online data of social media posts collected from TikTok and Instagram, and a multiple case study based on ethnographic narrative data gathered from participants’ journal entries, stimulated recall interviews, and social media posts. This book reveals the dynamic landscape of digital language learning that is being integrated into learners’ everyday lives through multimodal content creation and networking.

This book enriches readers’ understanding of social media’s role in language learning, and offers pedagogical strategies for teachers to integrate newer technologies and multimodal materials into language classrooms to enhance students’ learning experiences.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here

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Barry Devine and Ellen Scheible eds., "Teaching James Joyce in the Twenty-First Century" (UP of Florida, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 23 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

A guide for today’s classrooms, this collection from leading Joyce scholars explores innovative pedagogical approaches to the works of this often-challenging writer

Teaching James Joyce in the Twenty-First Century (UP of Florida, 2025) presents examples of bold, innovative pedagogical techniques instructors have used to adapt the study of Joyce’s work for the contemporary classroom. Leading Joyce scholars share approaches that go beyond the traditional university lecture hall to include experiences teaching high school students, senior citizens, art students, book club members, and people in prisons.

The strategies in this inspirational volume range from class discussions to creating art and music to walking city streets. Works examined include the complex Finnegans Wake and the influential modernist milestones Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. While Joyce is often viewed as an essential and foundational author of Irish literature, contributors to this volume argue that the spirit of Joyce’s writing is global, and they offer suggestions for teaching these works in an international context.

Students are often daunted by the perceived difficulty and inaccessibility of Joyce, but this volume helps both new and experienced teachers of Joyce make the writer’s texts understandable, relatable, and even fun. These authors argue that reading Joyce helps develop skills in holding and interrogating opposing ideas, skills that are essential in navigating the modern academic and political landscape. In grappling with Joyce, students will recognize his writing as relevant and urgent.

Barry Devine is associate professor of English at Heidelberg University. Ellen Scheible is professor of English at Bridgewater State University. Scheible is the author or editor of many books, including Body Politics in Contemporary Irish Women’s Fiction: The Literary Legacy of Mother Ireland.

Daniel Moran’s writing about literature and film can be found on Pages and Frames. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing and co-hosts the long-running podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network.

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Reflection-In-Motion

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 14 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Reflection-in-Motion: Reimagining Reflection in the Writing Classroom (Utah State UP, 2025) considers how reflective practice is embedded in daily course happenings, centering the experiences of students and teachers in Minority Serving Institutions to amplify underrepresented viewpoints about how reflection works in the writing classroom. Professor Jaclyn Fiscus-Cannaday examines how its availability is subject to teacher/student power dynamics, the literacies welcomed (or not) in the class, the past and present pedagogies that students are engaging with and attending to, and the interactions among humans, materials, and emotions within the rhetorical context. She adopts an intersectional feminist perspective for an inclusive view of how practitioners name, identify, and practice reflection in the everyday moments of writing classrooms.

Reflection is used for different rhetorical effects, but because classrooms so often focus on the Westernized view and its emphasis on growth, reflection has the underused and undertheorized potential rhetorical effect of helping students investigate their identities and positionalities, acknowledge deep-rooted ideologies, and consider new perspectives so they can better work across difference. Reflection-in-Motion will inspire teachers and writing program administrators to listen to how students define and practice reflection and why—thus making room for more capacious definitions of reflection and student-centered practices of what reflection can do and be.

Guest: Professor Jaclyn Fiscus-Cannaday is assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. She explores how we can learn from communities that support and welcome all writers.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics. She is the creator and producer of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading or sharing episodes. Please 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!

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Fabio Rojas, "From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline" (JHU Press, 2010)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 13 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The black power movement helped redefine African Americans' identity and establish a new racial consciousness in the 1960s. As an influential political force, this movement in turn spawned the academic discipline known as Black Studies. Today there are more than a hundred Black Studies degree programs in the United States, many of them located in America’s elite research institutions. In From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline (JHU Press, 2010), Fabio Rojas explores how this radical social movement evolved into a recognized academic discipline.

Rojas traces the evolution of Black Studies over more than three decades, beginning with its origins in black nationalist politics. His account includes the 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State College, the Ford Foundation’s attempts to shape the field, and a description of Black Studies programs at various American universities. His statistical analyses of protest data illuminate how violent and nonviolent protests influenced the establishment of Black Studies programs. Integrating personal interviews and newly discovered archival material, Rojas documents how social activism can bring about organizational change.

Shedding light on the black power movement, Black Studies programs, and American higher education, this historical analysis reveals how radical politics are assimilated into the university system.

Interview covers the evolution of Black Studies as a subject area and discipline, the historical role of philanthropy in funding and supporting Black Studies, the comparative existence and need of knowledge production coming from Black Studies think tanks and research centers and institutes, and the State of Black Studies in the 21st Century.

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Dennis Sherwood, Missing the Mark: Why So Many School Exam Grades are Wrong – and How to Get Results We Can Trust" (Canbury Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

"One in four grades may be wrong."

"25% of exam grades are incorrect."
"Grades are misleading and often wrong."

In Missing the Mark: Why So Many School Exam Grades are Wrong – and How to Get Results We Can Trust (Canbury Press, 2022) Dennis Sherwood discusses the flaws in the UK exam system, highlighting how one in four grades may be wrong and the systemic issues that prevent accurate assessment. He explores the history, current challenges, and potential solutions to ensure trustworthy exam results.

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Carol Rittner and John K Roth, "This Time: Teaching the Holocaust Today" (‎iPub Cloud, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Written for educators, scholars, graduate students, and readers engaged in Holocaust education, genocide studies, history, ethics, religious studies, and political theory, This Time: Teaching the Holocaust Today (‎iPub Cloud, 2026) treats teaching as a consequential act—one inseparable from the political realities in which it occurs. The volume challenges readers to reconsider what responsible Holocaust education demands now, and what it means to teach when historical memory itself is under strain.

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The Religion Department: An Online Learning Platform with Andrew Mark Henry and Andrew Ali Aghapour

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 4 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The Religion Department is an online learning platform dedicated to the academic, nonsectarian study of religion, created by the team behind Religion for Breakfast — the YouTube channel with over a million subscribers. Co-founded by Dr. Andrew Mark Henry and Dr. Andrew Ali Aghapour, The Religion Department offers guest lectures, multi-week seminars, and guided reading courses taught by scholars of religion, all designed to make university-level religious studies accessible to anyone, anywhere. Inspired by creator-driven platforms like Dropout TV and Nebula, The Religion Department is built on a user-funded model that compensates scholars fairly for their teaching and expertise. Current offerings include a guided reading of Attar's twelfth-century Sufi masterpiece The Conference of the Birds with Dr. Patrick D'Silva, a 52-week course on key concepts in religious studies led by Dr. Henry, and many more upcoming programs. In this episode, we talk with the co-founders about how Religion for Breakfast grew into something bigger, what The Religion Department offers, and why they believe the academic study of religion deserves a home beyond the traditional university. Learn more and become a member at religiondepartment.com

Dr. Andrew Mark Henry is a scholar of late Roman religion who holds a PhD from Boston University. He is the creator and host of Religion for Breakfast, and the 2026 recipient of the American Academy of Religion's Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion.

Dr. Andrew Ali Aghapour is a scholar of religion and science who holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an award-winning comedian and storyteller, and has served as the Consulting Scholar of Religion and Science for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

This episode’s host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com

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Ana Fernández-Aballí et al. eds., "Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education: Teaching Handbook for Use in Classrooms, Museums and Organizations" (U Groningen Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Heritage is a hot topic in public debates today. Many politicians invoke it to exclude marginal groups from belonging to the national story. Yet, in the new two-volume resource for educators Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education, contributors explore how heritage can be used for inclusive experiences in the classroom. The open-access Handbook and an Activity Book provide educators--from high school teachers to university professors to museum guides--with the necessary theoretical tools and practical exercises turn heritage into a vehicle for self-awareness, collective meaning-making and conflict resolution. By helping educators to identify and counter exclusionary narratives, by stimulating their interest in their own histories and those of their students, and by using creative performance techniques, the handbook and the activity book allow educators to make the best of the social and educational value of heritage. In this interview with two of the editors, we discuss the ambitions and experiences of REBELAH, the European Union funded project behind these resources, which brought together creative artists, community organizers and academics in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Hungary.

Free, Open Access here.

Ana Fernández-Aballí Altamirano is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen working on environmental education and epistemological diversity.

Todd Weir is professor of the History of Christianity and Modern Culture at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on religion and secularism in modern Europe.

Patricia Salvaia is a psychologist and Research Master’s student at the University of Groningen.

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William R. Brody, "Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Today I’m speaking with William R. Brody about his book, Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026). Bill is an interventional radiologist who served as the President of Johns Hopkins University, from 1996 to 2009, and President of the Salk Institute from 2009 to 2015. When he became president of Johns Hopkins University, Bill set out to teach a course to juniors and seniors that would serve as a crash course for dealing with the messy realities of life. Through stories and anecdotes, Bill explores a variety of important concepts that regularly manifest in all aspects of life: from survivorship bias to why career-planning doesn’t often go as planned. Uncommon Sense is one of those books that one can only write after a lifetime of learning, teaching, and doing.

Caleb Zakarin is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Emely Rumble, "Bibliotherapy in The Bronx" (Row House, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Bibliotherapy in The Bronx (Row House, 2025) by Emely Rumble, LCSW, is a groundbreaking exploration of the healing power of literature in the lives of marginalized communities. Drawing from her personal and professional experiences, Rumble masterfully intertwines storytelling with therapeutic insights to reveal how reading can be a potent tool for self-discovery, emotional transformation, and social change.
In this transformative work, Rumble offers readers an intimate glimpse into her journey as a psychotherapist in the Bronx, where she has spent over 14 years using books to help clients navigate complex emotions, heal from trauma, and find their voices. Through vivid anecdotes and real-world case studies, she demonstrates how literature can serve as a bridge between personal pain and collective healing.
Rich with practical tips, reflective exercises, and book recommendations, Bibliotherapy in The Bronx is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the power of words to change lives. Whether you're a therapist, educator, bibliophile, or simply someone seeking deeper understanding and growth, this book offers a compassionate, culturally affirming guide to the transformative potential of storytelling.
Rumble's work is a testament to the enduring power of books to heal, empower, and liberate. In a time when the world feels increasingly divided, Bibliotherapy in The Bronx reminds us that the stories we tell—and the stories we read—can unite us in our shared humanity.

-Raymond Williams, PhD is a political scientist, blogger, and book club administrator with an interest in American History and Politics. You can find Raymond on Instagram, Threads, and Twitter at @rtwilliams16.

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Amanda Anderson and Simon During, "Humanities Theory" (Oxford UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Humanities Theory (Oxford UP, 2026) pioneers a new topic: the theory of the humanities. It is an urgent topic right now because the humanities face a suite of forceful new challenges and are in a period of significant change. For these reasons, it has become important to analyse and understand what the humanities are as a whole, beyond disciplinary divisions and yet without resorting to simplistic notions of their worth. Remarkably little attention has been paid to this topic. Most discussions of the humanities have been polemical if not defensive.

This book argues that there exists a global humanities world which not only transcends disciplinary divisions but joins the professional academic humanities to a thriving amateur public humanities. This world has no essence, it is plural. Nevertheless, powerful, if contested, ethical orientations run through it and help shape it, including a will to truthfulness, a will to openness and generosity, a will to examine values.
In their essays Simon During and Amanda Anderson each bring different emphases to their shared orientation towards a large plural humanities world:
During analyses how key disciplines—sociology, philosophy and history—might be used to think about the humanities as a whole and, on this basis, offers some predictions of the future awaiting the humanities.
Anderson analyzes media representations of the humanities and considers the general conceptual frameworks through which the humanities focus on value and proffer critique. She analyses a series of examples of contemporary critical engagements in the humanities to press a case for value pluralism in the humanities and the university more broadly.

Amanda Anderson is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of English and Humanities and Director of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University. She is the author, most recently, of Psyche and Ethos: Moral Life after Psychology (Oxford, 2018) and Bleak Liberalism (Chicago, 2016). She previously served as the Director of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell and serves on the advisory board of the international Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI).

Simon During, educated in New Zealand and at Cambridge, has taught at the University of Melbourne and Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of pioneering work in post-colonialism, cultural studies, and the history of entertainment but in recent years has concentrated on thinking about literature and the humanities under their difficult contemporary conditions

YouTube Channel: here

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Yingyi Ma, "Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education" (Columbia UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education (Columbia UP, 2020), sociologist Yingyi Ma offers a multifaceted analysis of a new wave of international Chinese students—mostly self-funded—who have transformed American higher education over the past decade. This privileged yet diverse group of young people, emerging from a rapidly changing China, must navigate the complications and confusions of their formative years while bridging the world’s two most powerful countries. How do these students come to study in the United States? What does that experience mean to them? And what does American higher education need to know—and do—in order to continue attracting these students and supporting them adequately?

Drawing on research conducted in both Chinese high schools and American colleges and universities, Ma’s book offers illuminating insights into the experiences that define this new wave of students: above all, a duality of ambition and anxiety rooted in the transformative social changes of contemporary China. These students and their families are ambitious in seeking to navigate two very different educational systems and societies. Yet, at the same time, the complexity and pressure of these systems generate profound anxiety—from the challenges of applying to colleges, to studying and socializing on campus, to deciding what comes next after graduation. Ambitious and Anxious also offers valuable policy implications for American colleges and universities, touching on recruitment, student life, faculty support, and career services.

About the Author

Yingyi Ma is Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where she also serves as Director of the Asian/Asian American Studies Program. She is a Fellow of the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on United States–China Relations.

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The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Alex Rivera Cartagena discuss the looming social, cultural, and knowledge catastrophe described in The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want (Harper, 2025). They explore how narratives around artificial intelligence are shaped by powerful tech companies, often obscuring the real limitations, risks, and social costs of these systems.

Their conversation challenges many common assumptions about AI’s inevitability and neutrality, examining how the hype surrounding it threatens university life, just labor practices, and resource allocation. They also bring to light practical ways that individuals, communities, and institutions can resist misleading claims and advocate for more accountable technologies. They argue on behalf of a critical roadmap for rethinking our relationship with AI—one grounded not in hype and speculation, but in democratic values and collective action.

This is the first of two episodes about The AI Con. The second, in Spanish, will appear on the New Books Network en español.

This conversation is sponsored in part by the Teagle Foundation and the “STEM to STEAM” program, which stresses the importance of reading and integrating humanistic perspectives in the sciences.

Quotes, organizations, books, scholars, and articles mentioned in this conversation:

Instituto Nuevos Horizontes
Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez
Elogio a las cercanías: crítica a la cultura tecnológica actual, Héctor José Huyke.
The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking, Shannon Vallor.
The Costs of Connection and "Rethinking Big Data's Relation to the Contemporary Subject," by Nick Couldry and Ulises Ali Mejias.
DukeGPT
Wendy Brown
Ivan Illich
"Has such promise but is so empty." -Alex Rivera Cartagena
"We know that they don't understand." -Emily M. Bender
"The real privilege is not using this technology; it is avoiding it." -Alex Rivera Cartagena
"AI flattens relationships into the words we exchange instead of the things we do." -Emily M. Bender
"It's not about the text specifically but the idea the text enables." -Alex Hanna
"It doesn't make us think about process." -Alex Hanna
"The groups that are already formed can be very powerful pathways for political education and for ensuring there's an integration of society and tech that works for people." -Alex Hanna
"The very idea of intelligence is that you can rank people based on one property...that same racist eugenicist concept." -Emily M. Bender
"The imposition of technology is presented as philanthropy." -Emily M. Bender
"Metaphor of data colonialism" -Alex Hanna
"How do we get there without a natural disaster?" -Emily M. Bender

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Gabriel S. Estrada, "Queer Indigenous Cinemas: Sovereign Genders from Seven Directions" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Queer Indigenous Cinemas, scholar Gabriel S. Estrada offers an analysis of queer Indigenous media from the Americas, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. This groundbreaking work uses Indigenous directional space and sovereign mapping methods to uncover the emotional, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of queer Indigenous lives. The book's seven chapters--each one of the directions--look closely at media such as cinema and streaming videos that draw on Indigenous concepts from diverse nations such as Diné, Caxcan, Kanaka Maoli, and Nehiyawak.

Gabriel S. Estrada is a Caxcan/Xicanx professor in religious studies at California State University Long Beach, where ze teaches queer spirituality, Indigenous graduate classes, and Nahuatl literature.

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Flower Darby, "The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes" (U Oklahoma Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

The happier the teacher, the better the learning experience--for instructor and student alike. With this equation at its core, The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes (U Oklahoma Press, 2026) provides practical guidance for making distance learning infinitely more enjoyable and effective, and for improving the online teaching experience in asynchronous classes that often take place in Learning Management Systems (LMSs) like Canvas or Blackboard Learn, and where instructors and students rarely interact in real time, contributing to low completion rates. One of the most pervasive challenges in distance learning is the absent online instructor; and one clear reason for this problem is the often unsatisfying nature of teaching online. A leading voice on online education, Flower Darby draws on the sciences of learning, emotion, and motivation, three decades of her own teaching, extensive research on online student experience, and the stories of joyful online teachers to present concrete tips for making online teaching more rewarding. The key, Darby suggests, is learning to love teaching online. To that end, her book offers instructors accessible, inspiring, common-sense hacks for connecting with students, finding passion, navigating the structural inequities of higher ed, and more--all with a focus on building rapport and relationships, the central ingredients of happiness and satisfaction. These time-tested strategies and hard-won insights promise to help online teachers find meaning, purpose, and, yes, joy in their work--and, consequently, to fulfill the enormous, largely untapped potential of online education.

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David M. Perry, "The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook" (JHU Press, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 Apr 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Public scholarship is one of those things that most academics are interested in, but unfortunately for them, they don't know how to actually get started. It's not their fault: nobody's ever taught them how, because it's not a part of graduate curricula. The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook (JHU Press, 2026) is intended to solve that part of the "hidden curriculum" by offering scholars a practical series of steps on how to get started writing for the public, and from there, all of the different directions that they can go in.

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Teaching English Pronunciation

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move podcast Dr Hanna Torsh talks to Lindsay McMahon, founder of the All Ears English Podcast, about pronunciation teaching for global English.

What does it mean to speak well? And what does it mean to teach others to speak English well? What does good English sound like for you?

These are questions which teachers of English, as a first, second or foreign language and everything in-between, need to grapple with.

In the interview, Hanna and Lindsay talk about their approach to English language teaching, connection not perfection, and how this translates to a focus on pronunciation which is suited for the needs of students. This means using authentic interactions as much as possible, and working to change minds about the value of ‘native’ accents if most of your interactions are actually using English in global contexts with other multilingual speakers rather than in inner-circle countries with first language speakers. Finally, they touch briefly on what the surge in speech technologies means for teaching and learning pronunciation.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Nick Juravich, "Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education" (U Illinois Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Today, we're speaking with Nicholas Juravich, author of Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education (U Illinois Press, 2024). In this book, Juravich explores the emergence of paraprofessional educators in U.S. schools during the social and political upheavals of the late 1960s. He shows how these workers—often underpaid and undervalued—played a crucial role in addressing what he calls a "crisis of care" in public education.

The book situates paraprofessionals within broader Black and Latino struggles for economic opportunity and social justice, particularly in New York City. Juravich traces how these workers reshaped classrooms, strengthened ties between schools and communities, and helped create pathways for Black and Latino teachers in the 1970s and early 1980s. He also highlights how their organizing contributed to the growth and diversification of public-sector unions. Para Power ultimately offers a compelling look at an often overlooked workforce and its impact on education, labor, and community life.

Nicholas Juravich is an assistant professor of history and labor studies at UMass Boston, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Labor Resource Center. Previously, he was the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Women's History at the New-York Historical Society, where he curated the exhibition Ladies' Garments, Women's Work, Women's Activism and helped develop educational workshops on school segregation and movements for educational equality in New York City. His research focuses on public education, community organizing, and public-sector unions in 20th-century U.S. cities, and has been supported by numerous foundations and institutions.

My co-host today is Jillian Felton, a graduate student in the MA program in Communication at Oakland University.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Mark Hlavacik, "Willing Warriors: A New History of the Education Culture Wars" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

How the rise of the culture wars afflicts the politics of education.

On August 9, 2022, the Denton Independent School District held a meeting to address complaints about its libraries. Like so many districts in Texas and across the country, Denton had been responding to accusations that children had access to inappropriate books at school. During the public comment session, a local man stood up to the podium and read a sexually explicit passage from a book that he wanted removed from Denton’s school libraries. But beguiled by the prospect of securing a political win, he had confused the title of the lurid psychological thriller he read aloud with a young adult fiction series about mermaids. While his attempt to ban a book that was never in Denton’s school libraries in the first place received a few laughs, it also reflects a deeply serious and troubling culture of conflict that has taken over the politics of education and now divides people so completely as to make public education as a shared endeavor seem impossible.

In Willing Warriors, Mark Hlavacik shows how the culture wars have redefined the politics of US schooling from the 1970s to the present through vivid accounts of public controversies featuring Allan Bloom, Oprah Winfrey, Lynne Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Betsy DeVos, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others. Beginning in the 1970s, Hlavacik shows, efforts at innovation in schooling have increasingly been met by attempts to discredit them through exposé. As the culture wars have accelerated and exploded, this cycle of innovation and exposé has embroiled public schools in increasingly heated debates. He explains the dynamics that make curriculum controversies so intractable and confronts the delicate question of whether raucous public arguments are bad for education. With clarity and insight, Hlavacik reveals why bitter contests between educational ideologies not only add another burden for the schools, but also for the people—the willing warriors—who devote their lives to fighting for their betterment.

Mark Hlavacik is assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Assigning Blame: The Rhetoric of Education Reform.

Laura Beth Kelly is an associate professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Sarah Jaffe, "Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone" (Bold Type Books, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

In Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone (Bold Type Books, 2021), Sarah Jaffe argues that modern culture encourages workers to see their jobs as a “labor of love.” This idea tells people that passion and dedication should motivate them more than pay or working conditions. Jaffe shows that this belief often allows employers to justify low wages, long hours, and poor treatment. Through stories of workers across many fields, such as teachers, domestic workers, nonprofit employees, artists, athletes, and tech workers, the book demonstrates how devotion to work is used to normalize exploitation. Jaffe calls for a reevaluation of the relationship between work, identity, and personal fulfillment, suggesting that workers should organize collectively and demand fair compensation and conditions instead of relying on passion alone.

Sarah Jaffe is a journalist and labor reporter who writes about work, inequality, and social movements. Her work has appeared in major publications such as The Nation, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. Jaffe has long reported on labor struggles and worker organizing, including movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Fight for $15 campaign. She is also the author of Necessary Trouble and most recently From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in A World on Fire. She is co-host of the labor podcast Belabored. Her writing focuses on how economic systems shape everyday life and workers’ experiences.

My co-producer on this episode is Kelly Knight, a graduate student in the MA program in Communication at Oakland University.

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Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Who gets to live a life with dignity? Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and opportunity. For many migrant families, this search centers on access to strong, caring, and equitable educational systems that enable children to flourish. Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life (Stanford UP, 2025) follows the lives of 16 migrant families from Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as they navigate the promises and challenges of the American education system. Drawing on immersive ethnographic research in homes and schools from 2018 to 2021, Gabrielle Oliveira offers an intimate portrait of these families' experiences. She weaves together stories of parental sacrifice, children's educational and migration journeys, and educators' responses to trauma—all shaped by the additional disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Oliveira highlights the perseverance of families confronting the overlapping crises of border detention, family separation, and a public health emergency. These experiences forced them to reimagine education and what it means to build a future in the U.S. By examining how migrant children engage in classrooms, how teachers understand their needs, and how hope evolves, this book offers vital insights into the intersections of schooling and immigration. It calls for more responsive educational practices and policies that affirm the dignity and potential of all migrant children.

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Helmut Schuster and David Oxley, "Artificial Death of a Career: A Tale of Professional Obsolescence and How to Avoid It" (Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

How do you advance your career when AI is rewriting the rules of success?

As AI and automation revolutionize the global workforce, professionals everywhere are asking the same urgent question: How can I stay relevant in the age of AI?

Artificial Death of a Career: A Tale of Professional Obsolescence and Reinvention (Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2025) blends storytelling and strategy to explore the human side of technological disruption. When Shey Sinope's world collapses under the weight of the AI revolution, his personal fight to adapt becomes a roadmap for every professional determined to stay valuable, visible, and future-ready.

Award-winning authors, Drs. Schuster and Oxley, combine their behavioural science expertise with decades of experience as HR leaders and advisors to entrepreneurs and start-ups around the world, all delivered with their trademark wry sense of humour.

Inside, you'll discover how to:

Stay relevant in the age of AI by mastering adaptability and continuous learning
Reinvent your career before technology or automation forces the change
Build a leadership mindset for the AI revolution and beyond
Recognize early signs of professional obsolescence-and counter them fast
Develop resilience and confidence that withstand economic and technological shifts
Transform your work identity from outdated to indispensable
Career and professional life advice rooted in authenticity, respect, and inclusion-championing a world where being true to yourself is the foundation for realizing your fullest potential.

Equal parts insightful and entertaining, this book helps readers future-proof their skills, reimagine success, and thrive through change rather than fear it. The future of work isn't coming-it's here. Learn how to adapt, evolve, and lead in the age of AI. Your career reinvention starts now.

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Sam Illingworth and Rachel Forsyth, "GenAI in Higher Education: Redefining Teaching and Learning" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

GenAI in Higher Education: Redefining Teaching and Learning (Bloomsbury, 2026) provides practical guidance for higher education professionals looking to use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technologies. Blending theoretical grounding with real-world examples and case studies, it gives step-by-step guidance on how to evaluate, select, and implement GenAI technologies in teaching, learning, assessment, and student support. It covers topics including automating administrative processes, adapting learning resources, and critiquing outputs. Each chapter includes reflective exercises and further reading lists and shows how AI can enhance accessibility, efficiency, and creativity in higher education. Alongside this, the many challenges and ethical considerations of using AI are introduced, including issues around plagiarism, quality control, and the need to establish governance protocols.

Dr. Tiatemsu Longkumer, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan, researches indigenous religion and Christianity among the Nagas, Buddhism in Bhutan, and Generative AI in education.

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Upper Caste Liberalism with Ravikant Kisana

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

This episode features a conversation with Ravikant Kisana, Dean of the School of Liberal Education and Languages at Galgotias University in India, about his book Meet the Savarnas: Indian Millennials Whose Mediocrity Broke Everything. We discussed the term “savarna” and how his personal experiences as a student and professor in liberal institutions led him to write the book, the performativity and insularity of upper castes, the importance of endogamy to caste social reproduction, and how to understand the recent shift from claims to castelessness to overt assertions of caste pride.

Guest

Ravikant Kisana, Dean, School of Liberal Education and Languages, Galgotias University, India

References:

B.R. Ambedkar, “Castes in India”

Babasaheb: an honorific for B.R. Ambedkar meaning “respected father.”

IIMs: Indian Institutes of Management

Mayawati: first Dalit woman chief minister of India who served in the state of Uttar Pradesh as the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

BSP: Bahujan Samaj Party founded in 1984 and focused on representing the interests of Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and religious minorities.

OBC parties: see above

Veds/Vedas: ancient Sanskrit scriptures

Kayasth: scribal and administrative caste originating in Maharashtra, Bengal, and Odisha.

Marwari: mercantile caste originating in the Marwar region of Rajasthan.

Baniya: mercantile caste originating in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Baniya and Marwari are overlapping categories.

Jat: agricultural caste originating in the regions of Sindh and Punjab.

Noida: a city in the National Capital Region that falls within the state of Uttar Pradesh

Congress: Indian National Congress, one of India’s main national political parties founded in 1885.

MGNREGA: The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 is an Indian labor law guaranteeing at least 100 days of paid, unskilled manual work per financial year to rural households.

Read the transcript here

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Suzanne Bost, "Quiet Methodologies: Humility in the Humanities" (U Minnesota Press)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

What would it mean to disentangle humanities scholarship from combative, extractive, and colonial ways of knowing and writing? This is the question that animates Quiet Methodologies: Humility in the Humanities (U Minnesota Press), the latest book by literary scholar and poet Suzanne Bost.

Quiet Methodologies isn’t a traditional work of literary scholarship. Instead, the book reaches toward alternative ways of thinking with and teaching literature, grounded in speculation and conversation. It models a quiet kind of humanities work, committed not to asserting answers but to asking questions, not to claiming mastery but to embracing uncertainty.

For all its quietness, then, Quiet Methodologies is a bold and challenging work. Speaking to a moment of crisis within and beyond the academy, its provocations and explorations will be of interest to scholars and students working across humanities disciplines.

In conversation with Alix Beeston, Bost shares about the literary archives and scholarly works that helped her to unlearn scholarly conventions. She sets out her vision for reimagining humanities labor in terms of ethical responsibility, receptiveness, care—and even, perhaps, love.

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Podcast Intellectuals Panel #3 with Joy Connolly, Barry Lam, and Aurora Hutchinson

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On October 10, 2025, NYU’s Journalism Institute hosted a day-long conference titled Podcast Intellectuals: Producing Original Scholarship with Audio. Over the course of three panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research.

In this third, and final, panel, Robert Boynton moderates a conversation which asks, “Can podcasts save the university?” In it, Joy Connolly, Barry Lam, and Dr. Aurora Hutchinson discuss what role podcasts might play in the university’s system of hiring, promotion and tenure.

Robert S. Boynton is the director of the Literary Reportage program, and associate director of NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is author of The Invitation Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’ s Abduction Project, and The New New Journalism.

Joy Connolly is president of the American Council of Learned Societies and a scholar of ancient Roman political thought and literature. At ACLS, she has led initiatives such as Doctoral Futures to broaden the scope and reach of humanistic inquiry. She is the author of The State of Speech and The Life of Roman Republicanism, and is completing a new book called All the World’ s Pasts.

Professor Barry Lam earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton, taught at Vassar, and recently moved to UC Riverside. He is the host and executive producer of Hi-Phi Nation, a story-driven podcast about philosophy, at Slate magazine. He is also an Associate Director of the Marc Sanders Foundation, which promotes excellence in philosophy and public philosophy.

Dr Lauren Arora Hutchinson, previously a BBC journalist, is an award-winning audio storyteller, an academic, and the inaugural director of the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab, a studio and incubator for world class stories at the intersection of science, ethics, medicine and public health, at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Lauren’s immersive audio work has premiered at IDFA and the Venice Film Festival. She has a PhD in History of Science with a focus on Oral History, and was a Wellcome Trust Imperial Media Fellow. She is the host of the signal award winning podcast playing god?

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Podcast Intellectuals Panel #2 with Ellen Horne, Chenjerai Kumanyika, Barry Lam, and Julia Barton

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On October 10, 2025, NYU’s Journalism Institute hosted a day-long conference titled Podcast Intellectuals: Producing Original Scholarship with Audio. Over the course of three panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research.

In this second panel of the day, Ellen Horne moderates a conversation with Chenjerai Kumanyika, Barry Lam, and Julia Barton, three veterans who have made a specialty of working on creative, idea-informed series.

Professor Ellen Horne directs the Podcasting and Audio Reportage concentration at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She was the executive producer and editor of Admissible: Shreds of Evidence, and was host, reporter, and producer for Luminary’s Lies We Tell. Horne was the executive producer of WNYC’s Radiolab, where she won George Foster Peabody Awards, Third Coast Awards, and the Kavli Science Journalism Award. Her new documentary, Age of Audio, tells the story of the podcast from birth to boom to today.

NYU Professor Chenjerai Kumanyika specializes in using narrative non-fiction audio journalism to critique the ideology of American historical myths about issues such as race, the Civil War, and policing. His podcast Empire City was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best podcasts of 2024. He was the co-creator, co-executive producer and co-host of Uncivil, a podcast on the Civil War, and he is the collaborator for Scene on Radio’s Season 2 “Seeing White,” and Season 4 on the history of American democracy.

Julia Barton is an award-winning podcast, audiobook, and radio editor. She was the executive editor of Pushkin Industries, where she helped develop Revisionist History and Against the Rules. She’s the editor of Malcolm Gladwell’s audiobook The Bomber Mafia, Michael Specter’s Fauci, and Michael Lewis’s unabridged Liar’s Poker and companion podcast. Her 2019 series, Spacebridge, was called “dazzling” by The New Yorker. She is the author of the audio history newsletter, Continuous Wave.

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Tamara Kay, "Sesame Street Around the World: Culture, Politics, and Transnational Organizational Partnerships" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 7 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Given the sometimes extraordinary politicization of culture, it is surprising that Sesame Street has gained acceptance and legitimacy in more than fifty countries. Sesame Street's global success raises two questions. First, how does a US icon like Sesame Street spread around the world, gaining acceptance as a local cultural product? Second, how does the nonprofit that created it, Sesame Workshop, and its partners around the world navigate cultural differences, manage conflicts, and construct shared collective representations to create Sesame Street programs that resonate with local audiences?

In Sesame Street Around the World: Culture, Politics, and Transnational Organizational Partnerships (Oxford UP, 2025), Dr. Tamara Kay answers these questions using data from seven years of intensive ethnographic fieldwork and 200 in-depth interviews with Sesame Workshop staff and international partners-including their real-time interactions-from seventeen countries within four regions around the world.

Dr. Kay argues that Sesame Workshop's secret is its engagement in coproduction, meaning it works with partners as a transnational team to create local Sesame Street programs together. Through coproduction, Sesame Workshop and its partners create new collective identities by constructing value to align their interests and exchanging complex cultural knowledge to both customize and build alliances. She traces the successive processes of coproduction, beginning with the imagination of the cultural product, to its disassembly, reconstitution, and dissemination. Coproduction privileges the creation of new knowledge that emerges from transnational interaction, and uses that new knowledge to create a hybrid cultural product. The Sesame Street case grapples with and illuminates culture in transnational interaction, providing insight into a range of other transnational organizational partnerships and different kinds of hybrid cultural products.

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Bryan Caplan's Case Against Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 6 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Today I’m speaking with economist Bryan Caplan about education and bullshit, with a particular focus on his book, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money (Princeton University Press, 2018).

In our modern economy, possessing a college degree feels like a necessity for professional advancement. The age of good jobs for college dropouts is largely gone as more people spend more time in the classroom, writing papers, taking tests, and, of course, goofing off. On the one hand, policymakers celebrate the additional degrees attained by more people. Surely a more educated society means a more intelligent and productive one. It’s no secret that college grads make more money than dropouts, and high school grads make more than those who didn’t complete 12th grade.

Why is this the case? Does more education truly endow students with the skills necessary to succeed in the working world, or does education merely serve to certify that an individual has the intelligence and people skills needed to succeed? If the primary value of education is to signal conformity to employers’ expectations, then education as we know it is a waste of time, energy, and money.

Degrees range in practicality, but most—like economics—hardly spend time teaching the kinds of skills that translate to the jobs most graduates actually take. As Bryan puts it, “As far as I can tell, the only marketable skill I teach is how to be an economics professor.” The world certainly needs some economics professors, but the sentiment behind the point reflects an undeniable dirty little secret. Professors, by and large, teach students about their favorite subjects, not skills for career success.

For years, I’ve trumpeted the line that the purpose of higher education is not to teach skills but rather to teach students how to think. The Case Against Education deflates this argument with statistics and great humor. As the type of student who loved taking Russian literature, political philosophy, and economic history, I’m thrilled to speak with Bryan Caplan about bullshit and education.

Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Jessi Streib, "The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay After College" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 2 Mar 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Are jobs fair? In The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay after College (U Chicago Press, 2023), Jessi Streib, an associate Professor of Sociology at Duke University, uncovers the remarkable story of the way luck shapes the hiring process for a key strata of business jobs in America. Offering a thesis that is initially counterintuitive but clearly argued, empirically grounded, and ultimately compelling, the book introduces the idea of ‘luckocracy’. ‘Luckocracy’ underpins the functioning of important parts of the graduate labour market, and equalises what would otherwise be significant class differences between college graduates. Rich with details, as well as offering a broad new perspective on education and the labour market, the book is essential reading across the social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in understanding work, fairness, and the importance of luck.

Dave O'Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Manchester.

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A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

A Light in the Tower argues that excellent education and radical support for mental health struggles can coexist, and provides detailed advice for how to do so. Dr. Katie Rose Guest Pryal debunks claims that supporting student mental health harms educational rigor (coining the term “rigor angst” to discuss the fear that rigor is declining). She outlines actionable steps professors and administrators can take, including abandoning ableist and exclusionary campus culture; replacing “bad-hard” work that creates unnecessary logistical difficulties for students in favor of “good-hard” work that challenges them intellectually; providing an easy path to disability accommodations; and teaching accessibly for neurodivergent students.

Dr. Pryal examines the anxiety that plagues campuses as a result of exploited and overworked contingent faculty and students, the systemic and institutional burnout that affects higher education at every level, and the market-driven culture of toxic overwork. Addressing the stigma that haunts mental disability on campus, the ableism that hounds our teaching, and the cascade of mental health struggles that far too many faculty and students face, Dr. Pryal provides straightforward solutions to complex challenges.

Our guest is: Dr. Katie Rose Guest Pryal, who is an author, neurodiversity expert, and adjunct professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of A Light in the Tower, and other works including the award-winning Even If You’re Broken: Bodies, Boundaries, and Mental Health.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and creator of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please 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!

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Bin Chen, "Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern China: Education, Frontier Politics, and Nation-State" (Routledge, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Chen examines the Chinese Nationalist government's distinctive support for private Muslim teachers schools between the 1920s and 1940s, and explores the complex relationship between these institutions and the Chinese state during the Republican period.

In 1933, the government issued the Teachers Schools Regulations, mandating that all teachers schools be state-run. However, the Nationalists viewed private Muslim teachers schools as valuable allies in their efforts to assert influence in China’s Muslim-dominated northwestern frontier region and deliberately refrained from enforcing the 1933 Teachers Schools Regulations on them. Instead, the government applied the 1933 Amended Private Schools Regulations, which did not specifically address teachers schools, to govern Muslim teachers schools. By charting the evolving dynamics between the Nationalist state and Chinese Hui Muslims, Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern China: Education, Frontier Politics, and Nation-State (Routledge, 2025) reevaluates the Hui Muslims’ role in shaping modern China.

Offering crucial context on the role of Islam in modern China, this book is a valuable resource for scholars and students of Chinese history, as well as for policymakers and journalists interested in religion in China.

Bin Chen is Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University, and his research interests include China’s modern transition and Islam in China. His publications have appeared in The Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Modern Chinese History, International Journal of Asian Studies, and others.

Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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Ruixue Jia et al., "The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China" (Harvard UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China (Harvard UP, 2025), provides a detailed, research-driven survey of the gaokao, China's high-stakes college entrance exam. Authors Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li--past test-takers themselves--show how the exam system shapes schooling, serves state interests, inspires individualistic attitudes, and has lately become a touchstone in US education debates.

Ruixue Jia is a professor of economics at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. She also serves as co-director of the China Data Lab, executive secretary of the Association of Comparative Economic Studies (ACES) and co-chair of the China Economic Summer Institute (CESI).

Hongbin Li is the James Liang Chair, Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Stanford University.

Interviewer Peter Lorentzen is an associate professor of economics at the University of San Francisco, where he leads the Master's program in International and Development Economics.

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Claire Nicolas, "Une si longue course: Sport, genre, et citoyenneté au Ghana et en Côte d’Ivoire (années 1900-1970)" (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Today we are joined by Claire Nicolas, a chercheuse du Fonds National Suisse at Basel University, a holder of a prestigious Ambizione Research Grant, and the author of Une si longue course: Sport, genre, et citoyenneté au Ghana et en Côte d’Ivoire (années 1900-1970) (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2024). In our conversation, we discussed physical culture in colonial and post-colonial Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the differences and the similarities between the imperial and post-imperial biopolitical strategies in both places, and the way that sports histories benefit from sustained engagement with critical theory.

In Une si longue course, Nicolas engages in a sustained comparison between the colonial and post-colonial physical cultural life of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. She organizes her work into two sections: one on colonial West Africa and another on post-colonial West Africa. Each section has three chapters covering physical education, scouting and sports. Her work addresses athletic life from the top down and the bottom up. In doing so, she shows that contrary to any simple history of teleological progress or sport as a crucible for nationalism, physical education, scouting and sport have been imperfect tools for imperial and post-imperial states. Athletes, scouts, and students found innovative ways to reshape the physical cultural priorities of the state to suit their own agendas.

This deeply ambitious work significantly adds to our understanding of physical culture in colonial and post-colonial West Africa through a comparative approach. It draws upon extensive primary source research: Nicolas works in the archives of the British and French colonial states, the ministries of post-colonial Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, and the repositories of international sporting organizations in Switzerland. She also relies upon oral histories conducted with Ghanaian and Ivoirian sportsmen and women.

Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Great Britain, and France: their physical cultural programmes shared continuities and ruptures. Colonial empires concerned with the mise en valeur of their subjects sought biopolitical solutions to increase the birthrate, expand agricultural and industrial production, and prepare men for the defence of the empire. They worried that physical cultural programs – if poorly managed – would become sites for resistance, but Nicolas’ work shows that sporting clubs, scouting halls, and schools could confound any simple collaboration/resistance dichotomy.

Nicolas’ work also demonstrates the deeply gendered nature of both colonial and post-colonial physical culture. Newly emergent post-colonial nations sought to produce new men (and women) in ways that replicated the essentialism of their imperial predecessors.

Nicolas’ engaging work, thoroughly researched, and beautifully presented will be of broad interest to people invested in British, French, and West African history. It has broader conclusions for people interested in colonial and post-colonial theory.

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Nina Bandelj, "Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting" (Princeton UP, 2026)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Parents are exhausted. When did raising children become such all-consuming, never-ending, incredibly expensive, and emotionally absorbing effort? In this eye-opening book, Nina Bandelj explains how we got to this point--how we turned children into financial and emotional investments and child-rearing into laborious work. At the turn of the twentieth century, children went from being economically useful, often working to support families, to being seen by their parents as vulnerable and emotionally priceless. In the new millennium, however, parents have become overinvested in the emotional economy of parenting.

Analyzing in-depth interviews with parents, national financial datasets, and decades of child-rearing books, Bandelj reveals how parents today spend, save, and even go into debt for the sake of children. They take on parenting as the hardest but most important job, and commit their entire selves to being a good parent.

The economization and emotionalization of society work together to drive parental overinvestment, offering a dizzying array of products and platforms to turn children into human capital--from financial instruments to extracurricular programs to therapeutic parenting advice. And yet, Bandelj warns, the privatization of child-rearing and devotion of parents' monies, emotions, and souls ultimately hurt the well-being of children, parents, and society. Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting (Princeton UP, 2026) offers a compelling argument that we should reimagine children and what it means to raise them.

Nina Bandelj is Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and past president of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Rural students are unlikely to pursue degrees from private, selective schools. Why? And what happens to the handful of rural students who do attend elite colleges, colleges that may feel worlds away from home?

Educated Out shows how geography shapes rural, first-generation students’ access to college, their college experiences, and their postgraduation plans and opportunities. These students discover that home and college are very different worlds—and, over time, they start to question both. As they near graduation and navigate a job market in which the highest-paying and most prestigious opportunities are located in urban centers, they begin to feel the complicated burden of their schooling: they’ve been “educated out.”

In addition to advocating for a higher education landscape that truly includes rural students, Dr. Tieken critiques a system that requires people to leave their rural homes in search of opportunities. Without meaningful change, some students will have to make the impossible decision to leave home—and far more will remain there, undereducated and overlooked. Both engaging and accessible, Educated Out presents important and timely questions about rurality, identity, education, and inequality.

Our guest is: Dr. Mara Casey Tieken, who is associate professor of education at Bates College. She is the author of Educated Out; and Why Rural Schools Matter.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

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Arnoud S. Q. Visser, "On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All" (Princeton UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 2 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

A lively and entertaining cultural history of a supremely annoying intellectual vice Intellectuals have long provoked scorn and irritation, even downright aggression. Many learned individuals have cast such hostility as a badge of honor, a sign of envy, or a form of resistance to inconvenient truths. On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All (Princeton University Press, 2025) offers an altogether different perspective, revealing how the excessive use of learning has been a vice in Western culture since the days of Socrates. Taking readers from the academies of ancient Greece to today’s culture wars, Arnoud Visser explains why pretentious and punctilious learning has always annoyed us, painting vibrant portraits of some of the most intensely irritating intellectuals ever known, from devious sophists and bossy savantes to hypercritical theologians, dry-as-dust antiquarians, and know-it-all professors. He shows how criticisms of pedantry have typically been more about conduct than ideas, and he demonstrates how pedantry served as a weapon in the perennial struggle over ideas, social status, political authority, and belief. Shifting attention away from the self-proclaimed virtues of the learned to their less-than-flattering vice, Visser makes a bold and provocative contribution to the history of Western thought. Drawing on a wealth of sources ranging from satire and comedy to essays, sermons, and film, On Pedantry sheds critical light on why anti-intellectual views have gained renewed prominence today and serves as essential reading in an age of rising populism across the globe.

Arnoud S. Q. Visser is professor of textual culture in the Renaissance at Utrecht University and director of the Huizinga Institute, the Dutch national research school for cultural history.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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John L. Rudolph, "Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should)" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to John L. Rudolph about his book Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should) (Oxford UP, 2023).

Few people question the importance of science education in American schooling. The public readily accepts that it is the key to economic growth through innovation, develops the ability to reason more effectively, and enables us to solve the everyday problems we encounter through knowing how the world works. Good science teaching results in all these benefits and more -- or so we think. But what if all this is simply wrong? What if the benefits we assume science education produces turn out to be an illusion, nothing more than wishful thinking?

John L. Rudolph is Vilas Distinguished Achievement professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has affiliate appointments in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and the Robert and Jean Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies and is the past editor-in-chief of the Wiley & Sons journal Science Education. Prior to his faculty appointment, he taught physics, chemistry, and biology in middle schools and high schools across Wisconsin.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel.

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Jose Eos Trinidad, "Subtle Webs: How Local Organizations Shape US Education" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

In Subtle Webs: How Local Organizations Shape US Education (Oxford UP, 2025), Jose Eos Trinidad reveals how organizations outside schools have created an invisible infrastructure not only to affect local school districts but also to shape US education. He illustrates this by providing a behind-the-scenes look at how local organizations in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City have transformed data and worked with high schools to address the problem of students dropping out. The book argues that changes in a decentralized system happen less through top-down policy mandates or bottom-up social movements, and more through “outside-in” initiatives of networked organizations spread across various local systems. By detailing change across multiple levels and across multiple locations, Trinidad uncovers new ways to think about educational transformation, policy reform, and organizational change.

João Souto-Maior (website: here) is a postdoc at Stanford University.

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Ofer Sharone, "The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

An eye-opening look at how all American workers, even the highly educated and experienced, are vulnerable to the stigma of unemployment.

After receiving a PhD in mathematics from MIT, Larry spent three decades working at prestigious companies in the tech industry. Initially he was not worried when he lost his job as part of a large layoff, but the prolonged unemployment that followed decimated his finances and nearly ended his marriage. Larry's story is not an anomaly. The majority of American workers experience unemployment, and millions get trapped in devastating long-term unemployment, including experienced workers with advanced degrees from top universities. How is it possible for even highly successful careers to suddenly go off the rails?

In The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed (Oxford UP, 2024), Ofer Sharone explains how the stigma of unemployment can render past educational and professional achievements irrelevant, and how it leaves all American workers vulnerable to becoming trapped in unemployment. Drawing on interviews with unemployed workers, job recruiters, and career coaches, Sharone brings to light the subtle ways that stigmatization prevents even the most educated and experienced workers from gaining middle-class jobs. Stigma also means that an American worker risks more than financial calamity from a protracted period of unemployment. One's closest relationships and sense of self are also on the line.

Eye-opening and clearly written, The Stigma Trap is essential reading for anyone who has experienced unemployment, has a family member or friend who is unemployed, or who wants to understand the forces that underlie the anxiety-filled lives of contemporary American workers. The book offers a unique approach to supporting unemployed jobseekers. At a broader level it exposes the precarious condition of American workers and sparks a conversation about much-needed policies to assure that we are not all one layoff away from being trapped by stigma.

Stephen Pimpare is a Senior Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.

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Jo Mackiewicz, "Learning Skilled Trades in the Workplace" (Springer, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 9 Jan 2026 09:00:00 +0000

This open access book describes and explains a fifty-year-old woman’s process of developing trade competences. Drawing from daily journal entries, photographs, interviews from 10 fabrication shops, and online forums about trades, this autoethnography details the author's learning process at Howe’s Welding and Metal Fabrication, where she has worked for over three years. This book uses accessible, everyday language and draws heavily from personal experience in trades, taking the value of trades as a given and explaining the process of developing the depth and breadth of conceptual and procedural knowledges—the competences—required to work in repair and fabrication shops like Howe’s. This book combines a research-derived framework for analyzing scaffolded learning and expertise development with stories of learning how and learning what. Readers will gain a better understanding of knowledge development in trades workplaces, including how one-to-one interactions scaffold knowledge, how workers gradually enter a community of practice, and how workplaces can constrain learning. This book also gives readers a view of workplace learning over time and helps readers—researchers and practitioners—recognize opportunities for development toward expertise. The book is useful for tradespeople, especially newcomers to trades and, in particular, women.

Jo Mackiewicz, is a professor at Iowa State University. She studies communication and learning in pedagogical and workplace interactions. She has published four books about writing centers including 'Writing Center Talk over Time' which won the 2019 award for best monograph from the International Writing Centers Association and an edited collection 'Theories and Methods of Writing Center Studies' which won the 2021 award for best edited collection from the writing across the Curriculum Association. She has also written and cowritten numerous articles. Her book, 'Welding Technical Communication: Teaching and Learning Embodied Knowledge', was published by SUNY Press in May 2022.

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Terra Jacobson and Spencer Brayton, "Valuing the Community College Library: Impactful Practices for Institutional Success" (ACRL, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 7 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Valuing the Community College Library: Impactful Practices for Institutional Success (2025, ACRL) provides a holistic approach to exhibiting community college library value through historical context, practical applications, and future thinking. Through case studies, editorials from administrators, and practical approaches, it addresses why community college libraries exist and should exist, and the nuanced approaches to how library workers situate themselves at their institutions. Community college libraries need to provide access to content, people, space, and technology and offer instruction, but can also serve as an outreach arm in advancing the mission of open enrollment and affordable access to higher education. Valuing the Community College Library can help you be an advocate for your library on campus and in your community.

Guests: Terra B. Jacobson (Chicago, IL) has been the dean of the Learning Resource Center at Moraine Valley Community College (Palos Hills, IL) since 2016 and has worked in community college libraries since 2009. She has a M.S. in Information Science (Indiana University, Bloomington) as well as a M.S. in Library Science (Indiana University, Bloomington). Terra received her Ph.D. in Information Studies (Dominican University, IL). Her dissertation title is: The Value of Community College Libraires: Executive Leadership Team Perceptions of the Community College Library.

Terra is the 2021 recipient of the Illinois Library Association’s Valerie J. Wilford Scholarship Grant for Library Education. She also received the ALA College Libraries Section Innovation in College Librarianship award in 2014. Terra participates locally as a board member for the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries and works extensively with the Network of Illinois Learning Resources in Community Colleges (NILRC). She recently published the book Valuing the Community College Library: Impactful Practices for Institutional Success (2025) with ACRL. She currently teaches online at the State University of New York and at Dominican University in the School of Information Studies.

Spencer Brayton is director of Library Services at Waubonsee Community College (northeastern Illinois, USA). His research and publication interests include media and information literacy, community college libraries, coaching and leadership. Spencer received his Master of Arts in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Science in Management from the University of St. Francis (Joliet, IL), and is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Higher Education from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Helle Strandgaard Jensen, "Sesame Street: A Transnational History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Sesame Street: A Transnational History (Oxford UP, 2023), author Helle Strandgaard Jensen tells the story of how the American television show became a global brand. Jensen argues that because the show's domestic production was not financially viable from the beginning, Sesame Street became a commodity that its producers assertively marketed all over the world. Sesame Street: A Transnational History combines archival research from seven countries, bolstering an insightful analysis of how local reception and rejection of the show related to the global sales strategies and American ideals it was built upon.

Contrary to the producers’ oft-publicized claims of Sesame Street’s universality, the show was heavily shaped by a fixed set of assumptions about childhood, education, and commercial entertainment. This made sales difficult as Sesame Street met both skepticism and direct hostility from foreign television producers who did not share these ideals. Drawing on insights from new histories about childhood, education, and transnational media, the book lays bare a cultural clash of international proportions rooted in divergent approaches to children's television. In doing so, it provides a reflective backdrop to the many ongoing debates about children's media.

In contrasting the positive receptions and renunciations of Sesame Street, Jensen demonstrates that it was only after a substantial rethinking of Sesame Street’s aims and business model that this program ended up on numerous broadcasting schedules by the mid-1970s. Along the way, this rethinking and the constant negotiations with potential international buyers created and shaped the business and corporate brand that paved the way for the Sesame Street we know today.

Peter C. Kunze is a visiting assistant professor of communication at Tulane University.

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Aaron G. Fountain Jr., "High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America" (UNC Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In High School Students Unite! Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America (UNC Press, 2025), Aaron G. Fountain Jr. highlights the crucial impact of high school activists in the 1960s and 1970s. Mid-twentieth-century student activism is a pivotal chapter in American history. While college activism has been well documented, the equally vital contributions of high school students have often been overlooked. Only recently have scholars begun to recognize the transformative role teenagers played in reshaping American education.

Inspired by civil rights and antiwar movements, students across the nation demanded a voice in their education by organizing sit-ins, walkouts, and strikes. From cities such as San Francisco and Chicago to smaller towns such as Jonesboro, Georgia, these young leaders fought for curricula that reflected their evolving worldviews. Drawing on archival research and interviews, Aaron G. Fountain Jr. reveals how teenagers became powerful agents of change, advocating for constitutional rights and influencing school reform. Ironically, the modernization of school security, including police presence, was partly a response to these student-led movements. Through oral histories and FBI records, this fascinating history offers a fresh perspective on high school activism and its lasting impact on American education.

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Ruby Oram, "Home Work: Gender, Child Labor, and Education for Girls in Urban America, 1870-1930" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Home Work: Gender, Child Labor, and Education for Girls in Urban America, 1870-1930 (U Chicago Press, 2025) historian Ruby Oram tells the story of how middle-class, white women reformers lobbied the state to implement various public education reforms to shape the lives of girls and women in industrial cities between 1870 and 1930. Women such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley used education reform to target working-class communities and advocate for their middle-class ideals of girlhood and femininity, which could vary depending on the racial or socio-economic backgrounds of the girls. For example, reformers generally encouraged white girls to care for their future families, while pushing Black girls toward becoming domestic workers in others’ homes. Using Chicago as a case study, Oram also explores how many of the reforms sought by white women were in response to evolving anxieties about immigration, health, and sexual delinquency.
An illuminating addition to the history of urban education in America, Home Work enriches our understanding of educational inequality in twentieth-century schools.

Allie Morris (aemorris5@wisc.edu) is a joint Ph.D. student in Educational Policy Studies and History at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. She broadly studies gender, age, and education in the late 20th-century United States. Her current research focuses on the political history of girlhood from the 1960s to the 1990s, examining girls’ culture and activism in the American high school.

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Scott D. Seligman, "The Great Christmas Boycott Of 1906: Antisemitism and the Battle Over Christianity in the Public Schools" (U Nebraska Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s battles over Christianity in U.S. public schools have deep roots. In the nineteenth century, disputes were largely between Protestants and later-arriving Catholics, but in 1905 Jews entered the conflict in a dramatic way. That Christmas, Frank Harding, a Presbyterian principal in Brooklyn, urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus. For Orthodox activist Albert Lucas, already fighting Christian settlement houses that sought to convert Jewish children, Harding’s remarks were the last straw. He accused the public schools of illegal proselytizing, and Jewish leaders quickly mobilized, petitioning for Harding’s removal and demanding clear limits on religious practices in public education—limits they argued were violated by Bible readings, the Lord’s Prayer, religious imagery, and Christmas pageants.

When the New York Board of Education refused to act decisively, Jewish parents staged a citywide boycott of the 1906 school Christmas pageants, keeping as many as three-quarters of students home in some neighborhoods. The board briefly barred sectarian hymns and religious material, but the decision provoked a fierce antisemitic backlash, framed in the press as a Jewish attack on Christmas, and most of the restrictions were soon reversed. The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906: Antisemitism and the Battle Over Christianity in the Public Schools (U Nebraska Press, 2025) shows how this conflict—over law, tradition, and the place of religion in public schools—has never truly ended. With decisive victories elusive, Jewish organizations today have shifted toward other, more strategic ways of confronting Christian nationalism.

Scott D. Seligman is a writer and historian. He is the author of numerous books, including The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City (Potomac Books, 2020), the award-winning The Third Degree: The Triple Murder That Shook Washington and Changed American Criminal Justice (Potomac Books, 2018), and The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo.

Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid. He is the author of Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life.

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Amanda Nichols Hess, "Information Literacy and Critical Thinking: Using Perspective Transformation to Break Information Bubbles" (ALA, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Higher education is about transformation: research shows that the most well-prepared graduates are those who have experienced changes in how they think about and experience the world around them. Combined with flexible information-seeking and evaluation skills, learning ways to break information bubbles is essential for dealing with today's challenging, complex information environment. Jack Mezirow's transformative learning theory, which frames how adults think about and interact with the world around them, offers a way forward. In Information Literacy and Critical Thinking: Using Perspective Transformation to Break Information Bubbles (2025, ALA) Amanda Nichols Hess invites academic librarians to consider critical librarianship, pedagogy, and information literacy instruction in tandem with transformative learning theory, demonstrating tangible ways to integrate these concepts into their practice. Readers will discover an overview of critical library pedagogy and transformative learning theory, showing how reflection and action lie at the core of both ideas; in-depth exploration of the ten phases of the perspective transformation process and how they relate to key facets of critical librarianship, critical pedagogy, and critical information literacy; important theoretical and research viewpoints that elucidate perspective transformation; real-world scenarios modelling how one's own praxis can support learners; and a myriad of ideas, reflection questions, opportunities for action, and additional resources to spur readers to look beyond their own information bubbles and facilitate environments where learners can do the same.

Guest: Amanda Nichols Hess, PhD, is the coordinator of instruction and research help at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She holds a PhD in educational leadership, an education specialist certificate in instructional technology, and a Master of Science in information. Amanda’s research focuses on information literacy, instructional design, online learning, and the intersections of these topics—particularly in library-centric professional learning. Her work has been published in College & Research Libraries, Communications in Information Literacy, Journal of Academic Librarianship, and portal: Libraries and the Academy, among other venues. In addition to editing and authoring books for ACRL and ALA Editions, Amanda also authored Transforming Academic Library Instruction (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019).

Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Among the most common challenges on college campuses today is figuring out how to navigate our politically charged culture and engage productively with opposing viewpoints. In Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life (Princeton UP, 2024), Lara Schwartz introduces the fundamental principles of free expression, academic freedom, and academic dialogue, showing how open expression is the engine of social progress, scholarship, and inclusion. She sheds light on the rules and norms that govern campus discourse—such as the First Amendment, campus expression policies, and academic standards—and encourages students to adopt a mindset of inquiry that embraces uncertainty and a love of questions.

Empowering students, scholars, and instructors to listen generously, explore questions with integrity, and communicate to be understood, Try to Love the Questions includes writing exercises and discussion questions in every chapter, making it an indispensable resource for anyone interested in practicing good-faith dialogue.

Content note: The “test” Dr. Gessler references is a quiz on contraception, and the prevention and transmission of several different diseases; the prizes offered were candy bars.

Our guest is: Professor Lara Schwartz, who focuses on dialogue across difference, freedom of speech and dissent, inclusive pedagogy, dispute resolution, and depolarization. Drawing on her experience as a legislative lawyer, lobbyist, and communications strategist in leading civil rights organizations, Professor Schwartz understands how to lay the groundwork for important, tough conversations across difference. She is the author of Try to Love the Questions.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a full-time writing coach, grad student coach, and developmental editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You help support the show by downloading, teaching with, and recommending 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 all here. And thank you for listening!

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Carlo Rotella, "What Can I Get Out of This?: Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 7 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

I’m excited to talk to Carlo Rotella today. Carlo is Professor of English at Boston College. His books include The World Is Always Coming to an End: Pulling Together and Apart in a Chicago Neighborhood (University of Chicago Press, 2019); Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories (University of Chicago Press, 2012); Cut Time: An Education at the Fights (Houghton Mifflin, 2003); and October Cities (University of California Press, 1998). He has written for the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The New Yorker, and Harper's.

Today, we discuss Carlo’s new book, What Can I Get Out of This?: Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics (University of California Press, 2025). The book does two things. It directly reports what happened in a class Carlo taught in the spring of 2020. Carlo interviews students in the semesters after the class ended, learning what students were going through while they were taking your class, and also what stood out in their memories years later. The second thing the book does is offer hands-on lessons from a life of teaching. Throughout the book, Carlo discusses how to deal with a class that hates the novel that you assigned, how to reach out to a student who falls silent, and how to introduce the multitude of ways of being enthusiastic about literature to skeptical students.

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Jennifer Conrad on Teaching Through Picture Book Appreciation

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 Dec 2025 09:00:00 +0000

I have never spoken to anyone like Jennifer Conrad who teaches literature to her senior high school students through picture book appreciation. In our interview, we discuss how her unique program evolved, and how her students develop and deepen their love for this genre through interaction with young children.

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Democracy and Freedom: The Role of Philanthropy and Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

This week, we feature an episode with Dr. Alvaro Salas-Castro, President and CEO of the Reynolds Foundation, and Founder and Chairman of the Democracy Lab Foundation, which fosters civic innovation. We discuss the current state of the freedom and democracy movement, how philanthropic partnerships and democracy defenders are responding to authoritarianism, and how we create new transnational narratives and collaborative practices to support the movement for freedom and rights. We also dive into innovative projects in civic education and their potential to foster democratic renewal and commitments from the ground up.

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Margaret Grace Myers, "The Fight for Sex Ed: The Century-Long Battle Between Truth and Doctrine" (Beacon Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The US has some of the highest rates of STIs and teen pregnancies in the industrialized world. A comprehensive sex education curriculum—which teaches facts on contraception, prophylactics, consent, and STIs—has been available since the 90s. Yet the majority of states require that sex education stress abstinence, and 22 states do not require sex ed in public schools at all.

In The Fight for Sex Ed: The Century-Long Battle Between Truth and Doctrine (Beacon Press, 2025), writer, advocate, and historian Margaret Grace Myers shows us how we got here. While the earliest calls for sex ed came from a coalition of religious leaders and doctors at the turn of the century who sought to control the prevalence of STIs, the advent of antibiotics and modern condoms meant that abstinence was no longer good public health policy. The religious right, however, continued to frame it as such, using its impressive machinery to replace scientific facts with conservative Christian values.

Because sex ed is not mandated at the federal level, these battles have played out locally throughout the decades: through rigged school boards, administrative oustings, court cases, unjust firings, scare tactics, and threats. Myers also shows how the religious right has worked to narrow the discourse around sex ed, often dictating the terms of debate almost entirely.

What we teach young people has serious ramifications for reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ rights, gender equality, and public health. Sex education lies at the intersection of these hugely important cultural forces, yet it has been largely invisible. This book illuminates its potential—and its power.

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Doing the Work of Equity Leadership for Justice and Systems Change

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Doing the Work of Equity Leadership for Justice and Systems Change, scholars and practitioners who have worked together in various capacities across different school systems examine systemic equity leadership in U.S. public schools over the course of nearly a decade and across a time of profound racial and historical change.

This volume weaves together real-world insights, research-based strategies, and practical tools for transforming P–12 education systems into more equitable and just learning spaces. Contributors explore the early days of district equity leadership sparked by the Obama administration's focus on civil rights in education; Black Lives Matter (beginning with the Million Hoodies Movement for Justice); the proliferation of formal equity director roles, policies, and priorities; and the recent politically driven anti-DEI backlash. In doing so, it reveals the complex and crucial work of sustaining justice-focused educational systems change in the face of subtle resistance and outright attacks. This book is important reading for school leaders, district personnel, policymakers, and everyone who cares about a public education that works for all students.

Our guest is: Dr. Decoteau J. Irby, who is professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, codirector of the Center for Urban Education Leadership, and coeditor of Dignity-Affirming Education. He co-edited Doing the Work of Equity Leadership for Justice and Systems Change with Dr. Ann M. Ishimaru.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who produces the Academic Life podcast. She is a dissertation and grad student coach, and a developmental editor for humanities scholars at all stages of their careers. She writes the Academic Life Newsletter at her Substack.

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 275+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And get bonus content HERE.

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Carlo Rotella, "What Can I Get Out of This?: Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics" (U California Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

At a time when college students and their parents often question the "return on investment" from humanities courses, accomplished feature writer and English professor Carlo Rotella invites us into the minds of a group of skeptical first-year students who are ultimately transformed by a required literature class.

In What Can I Get Out of This?: Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics (University of California Press, 2025) he follows thirty-three students through his class to provide an intimate look at teaching and learning from their perspectives as well as his own. The students' reluctance--"How does this get me a job?"--transforms into insight as they wrestle with challenging books, share ideas, discover how to think critically, and form a community. In all these ways, they learn how to extract meaning from the world around them, an essential life skill. Confronting skeptics of higher education, this compassionate and inspiring book reveals the truth of what students actually experience in college.

Carlo Rotella is Professor of English at Boston College.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Ethan W. Ris, "Other People's Colleges: The Origins of American Higher Education Reform" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

For well over one hundred years, people have been attempting to make American colleges and universities more efficient and more accountable. Indeed, Ethan Ris argues in Other People's Colleges: The Origins of American Higher Education Reform (U Chicago Press, 2022), the reform impulse is baked into American higher education, the result of generations of elite reformers who have called for sweeping changes in the sector and raised existential questions about its sustainability. When that reform is beneficial, offering major rewards for minor changes, colleges and universities know how to assimilate it. When it is hostile, attacking autonomy or values, they know how to resist it. The result is a sector that has learned to accept top-down reform as part of its existence.

In the early twentieth century, the “academic engineers,” a cadre of elite, external reformers from foundations, businesses, and government, worked to reshape and reorganize the vast base of the higher education pyramid. Their reform efforts were largely directed at the lower tiers of higher education, but those efforts fell short, despite the wealth and power of their backers, leaving a legacy of successful resistance that affects every college and university in the United States. Today, another coalition of business leaders, philanthropists, and politicians is again demanding efficiency, accountability, and utility from American higher education. But, as Ris argues, top-down design is not destiny. Drawing on extensive and original archival research, Other People’s Colleges offers an account of higher education that sheds light on today’s reform agenda.

Joao Souto-Maior is PhD Student in Sociology of Education at the New York University.

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Joseph P. Viteritti, "Radical Dreamers: Race, Choice, and the Failure of American Education" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Seventy years after Brown v. Board of Education and demands to desegregate public schools, race and class remain the most reliable predictors of educational achievement in America. In attempting to address this divide, many school reformers have championed school choice: solutions like charter schools, vouchers, and other innovations designed to build more options into the system. Today, at least thirty-five states have laws that enable parents to send their children to private and religious schools at public expense while forty-six states have legalized charter schools.

In Radical Dreamers: Race, Choice, and the Failure of American Education (Oxford UP, 2025), Joseph P. Viteritti tells the definitive history of the school choice movement. In the 1990s, school choice emerged as an effort by a coalition of Black activists and conservative lawmakers seeking to offer economically disadvantaged students of color a way out of failing schools. As Viteritti shows, however, today's movement--championed by Republicans, conservatives, and faith-based organizations--has become less about placing disadvantaged children in better schools and more about providing public funding to students, irrespective of income, attending private--and frequently religious--schools.

Viteritti, an education insider and supporter of school choice for underserved students, profiles six influential figures, the "radical dreamers," who were integral to understanding the movement for greater education equality and the role that choice can play in fully realizing the movement's potential. Radical Dreamers urges us to have an honest conversation about education in America and where we have gone wrong. Viteritti's compelling narrative of how some of the most passionate educators conceived of school choice provides a valuable context to our nation's long struggle to offer every child in America a good education, and how that goal was undermined by advocates on both the left and right.

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Vania Smith-Oka, "Becoming Gods: Medical Training in Mexican Hospitals" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 8 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Becoming Gods: Medical Training in Mexican Hospitals (Rutgers University Press, 2021), Vania Smith-Oka follows a cohort of interns throughout their year of medical training in hospitals to understand how medical students become medical doctors. She ethnographically tracks their engagements with one another, interactions with patients, experiences with doctors, and presentations of cases to show how medical students undergo a nuanced process of accumulating knowledge and practical experience in shaping their medical selves. Smith-Oka illuminates the gendered aspects of this process, whereby the medical interns’ gender informs the kind of treatment they receive from other doctors and the kinds of possibilities they imagine for their careers and areas of medical practice. She documents the lives of the interns during which time they develop their medical selves and come to understand the tacit values of medical practice. The book is full of descriptive vignettes and ethnographic details that make it accessible to undergraduate students. It would be of interest to those in medical anthropology, hospital ethnography, medical education as well as people interested in how expertise is acquired and developed. The book examines medical interns’ transformations through ordinary and extraordinary moments, through active and passive learning where they not only acquire new knowledge but also new ways of being.

Vania Smith-Oka is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She is the Director of the Health, Humanities, and Society Program at the John J. Reilly Center.

Reighan Gillam is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Southern California.

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Julie Fette, "Gender by the Book: 21st-Century French Children's Literature" (Routledge, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 7 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Gender by the Book: 21st-Century French Children's Literature (Routledge, 2025) investigates the gender representations that French children's literature transmits to readers today. Using an interdisciplinary, mixed methods approach, this book grounds its literary analysis in a sociohistorical examination of three key institutions – libraries, book clubs, and subscription magazines – that circulate reading material to children. It shows how French policies, cultural beliefs, and market forces influence the content of children's literature, including tensions between State support for unprofitable artistic endeavors and a belief in children’s right to high-quality products on the one hand, and suspicion of activism as anathema to creativity and fear of losing boy readers on the other. In addition, the notion of universalism, which asserts that equality is best achieved when society is blind to differences, thwarts a diverse and equitable array of literary representations. Nevertheless, conditions are favorable for 21st-century French children's publishers to offer a robust body of richly entertaining egalitarian literature for children.

Guest Julie Fette, author of Gender by the Book: 21st-Century French Children's Literature published in October 2024 by Routledge. Dr. Fette is Associate Professor of French Studies at Rice University where she is also Rice Faculty Scholar at the Center for the Middle East, Baker Institute and a Faculty Affiliate with the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She is also the author of Exclusions: Practicing Prejudice in French Law and Medicine, 1920-1945 from Cornell University Press in 2012 and the co-author of the textbook Les Français from Hackett in 2021, as well as numerous articles and book chapters on subjects from gender and professional life in France to teaching French studies in the classroom and online.

Host Gina Stamm is Associate Professor of French at The University of Alabama. Their research is concentrated on the environmental humanities and speculative literatures of the 20th and 21st centuries, from Surrealism to contemporary science fiction and feminist utopias, in Metropolitan France and the francophone Caribbean.

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Fang Yu Hu, "Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls Under Japanese Rule" (U Washington Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 6 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls Under Japanese Rule (U Washington Press, 2024), female education and citizenship serve as a lens through which to examine Taiwan’s uniqueness as a colonial crossroads between Chinese and Japanese ideas and practices. A latecomer to the age of imperialism, Japan used modernization efforts in Taiwan to cast itself as a benevolent force among its colonial subjects and imperial competitors. In contrast to most European colonies, where only elites received an education, in Taiwan Japan built elementary schools intended for the entire population, including girls. In 1897 it developed a program known as “Good Wife, Wise Mother” that sought to transform Han Taiwanese girls into modern Japanese female citizens. Drawing on Japanese and Chinese newspapers, textbooks, oral interviews, and fiction, Fang Yu Hu illustrates how this seemingly progressive project advanced a particular Japanese vision of modernity, womanhood, and citizenship, to which the colonized Han Taiwanese people responded with varying degrees of collaboration, resistance, adaptation, and adoption. Hu also assesses the program’s impact on Taiwan’s class structure, male-female interactions, and political identity both during and after the end of Japanese occupation in 1945. Good Wife, Wise Mother expands the study of Taiwanese history by contributing important gendered and nonelite perspectives. It will be of interest to any historian concerned with questions of modernity, hybridity, and colonial nostalgia.

Fang Yu Hu is assistant professor of History at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona who specializes in modern East Asian history, with a focus on Taiwan, gender, colonialism, and cross-border flows. She has published in the journals ERAS of Monash University and Twentieth-Century China. Her current research focuses on Taiwanese migrants to mainland China and Southeast Asia in the first half of the 20th century.

Li-Ping Chen is a visiting scholar in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts.

Relevant Link:

NBN interview for Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960

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James Elwick, "Making a Grade: Victorian Examinations and the Rise of Standardized Testing" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 2 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Making a Grade: Victorian Examinations and the Rise of Standardized Testing (U Toronto Press, 2025) takes historiographic and sociological perspectives developed to understand large-scale scientific and technical systems and uses them to highlight the standardization that went into "standardized testing."

Starting in the 1850s achievement tests became standardized in the British Isles, and were administered on an industrial scale. By the end of the century more than two million people had written mass exams, particularly in science, technology, and mathematics. Some candidates responded to this standardization by cramming or cheating; others embraced the hope that such tests rewarded not only knowledge but also merit.

Written with humour, Making a Grade looks at how standardized testing practices quietly appeared, and then spread worldwide. This book situates mass exams, marks, and credentials in an emerging paper-based meritocracy, arguing that such exams often first appeared as "cameras" to neutrally record achievement, and then became "engines" to change education as people tailored their behaviour to fit these tests. Taking the perspectives of both examiners and examinees, Making a Grade claims that our own culture’s desire for accountability through objective testing has a long history.

James Elwick is Associate Professor at the Department of Science, Technology and Society, for which he is also Chair. He has written on the history of the life sciences and scientists including John Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, and T.H. Huxley, and is currently writing a history of academic integrity, viewed through the lens of students who cheat on their tests and other school assessments.

Jacob Ward is a historian at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. He has written in the history of science and technology, environmental history, business and financial history, and political history. He recently published Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications (MIT Press, 2024) and he’s currently working on a history of futurology in the United Kingdom and Europe from 1945 to the present day.

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Diane Ravitch, "An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else" (Columbia UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

For many years, Diane Ravitch was among the country’s leading conservative thinkers on education. The cure for what ailed the school system was clear, she believed: high-stakes standardized testing, national standards, accountability, competition, charters, and vouchers. Then Ravitch saw what happened when these ideas were put into practice and recanted her long-held views. The problem was not bad teachers or failing schools, as conservatives claimed, but poverty. She denounced privatization as a hoax that did not help students and that harmed the public school system. She urged action to address the root causes of inequality. In An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else (Columbia UP, 2025) this passionate and timely memoir of her life’s work as a historian and advocate, Ravitch traces her ideological evolution. She recounts her personal and intellectual journey: her childhood in Houston, her years among the New York intelligentsia, her service in government, and her leftward turn. Ravitch shares how she came to hold conservative views and why she eventually abandoned them, exploring her switch from championing standards-based curriculum and standardized testing to arguing for greater investment in professional teachers and in public schools. Bringing together candid reflections with decades of research on education, Ravitch makes a powerful case for becoming, as she calls herself, “an activist on behalf of public schools.”

Diane Ravitch is a historian of education and a prominent commentator about education and politics. Her many books include Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools (2013); The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010); and The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805–1973 (1974). Ravitch was assistant secretary of education under President George H. W. Bush and served on the national testing board during the Clinton administration. She is cofounder and president of the Network for Public Education

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Matthew D. Nelsen, "The Color of Civics: Civic Education for a Multiracial Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Matthew D. Nelsen, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami, has a new book out that focuses on the content of civic education in the United States, and how we learn about the diverse and varied history of the United States. There is an ongoing and contemporary conversation about civic education in the United States, and what should and should not be taught in explaining the United States, how it works, who is part of it, and how it has evolved over four centuries. Nelsen’s work, The Color of Civics: Civic Education for a Multiracial Democracy (Oxford UP, 2023), pays close attention to what happens in classrooms, particularly urban classrooms, when these lessons are taught, and how students respond to these curricula and experiences. What he finds should be of interest to all of us, since it gets to the very heart of civic education, which is how to teach young people about being citizens in a democracy. Nelsen poses these broader questions throughout the book: Who is learning what? What is the general social studies curriculum that discusses “how a bill becomes a law” and the basic information about separation of powers and checks and balances? How is this curriculum, which is both somewhat abstract and also an idealized version of the American political system, taught, and how is it engaged by students? Nelsen found a variety of answers, but what is of particular interest is that there are teachers and instructors who have taken this somewhat static curriculum, and integrated different dimensions to it, engaging students in understandings of social movements, highlighting activities by a number of different political leaders, from both mainstream and marginalized groups. When the education becomes more multifaceted, it pulls in more students, and allows them to see themselves in these activities, even in leadership roles. And it also is more encompassing for all of the students in the classroom, regardless of race or other identity groupings.

The Color of Civics pulls together a variety of forms and kinds of research methodology to understand what happens in classrooms and how students learn and see themselves within this fabric of American democracy. Using qualitative, quantitative, and ethnographic approaches, Nelsen weaves together robust data to explore what makes diverse impacts within the classrooms, especially within a big, urban public school system. Part of what is teased out in this research is the potential longevity of political socialization that transpires at an early age among students—this is a key dimension of citizenship, creating in individuals an understanding of their role and capacities within a democracy. The ability to teach about social movements, and political movements, and the individuals who were involved in these movements expands the concept of citizen participation in American politics and thus expands the notion of citizenship in general. This approach also moves beyond the “great man” narrative of history and helps students to think about how various people engage in politics, not just by running for elected office. Nelsen’s work is important and useful as we continue to consider how citizens can and should participate in American politics and how the next generation is taught about citizenship, the American republic, and the idea of a complex democracy.

This book may be acquired at Books and Books in Miami, Florida, at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago, IL, and at Women & Children First Bookstore in Chicago, IL.

Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University, and co-host of the New Books in Political Science. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Volume I: The Infinity Sage and Volume II: Into the Multiverse (UP Kansas, 2022 & 2025), as well as co-editor of Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (UP Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social

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Genocide Studies International Vol 16.1, Special Issue on The Future of Genocide Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Why should we ask students to learn about genocides? What outcomes do we aim for from this learning? How successful are we being and how can we do better? And why, in the end, does it matter?

These questions form the heart of a recent special edition of Genocide Studies International titled “The Future of Genocide Education.” The stem from a conference at Rowan University co-sponsored by Rowan and the Zoryan Institute. The papers and conversations held there have been reworked into a series of articles that form the heart of the special issue.

I talk with two of the authors, James Waller and Maureen Hiebert, about their contributions to the issue, there experience at the conference, and their concerns and successes in teaching students about genocide.

New Books in Genocide Studies has partnered with Genocide Studies International to bring you conversations with authors of cutting edge research and reflection that may not be reflected in published monographs. You can find more about the journal here. GSI is a housed at the Zoryan Institute. Learn more about the Institute here

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Leading Toward Liberation: How to Build Cultures of Thriving in Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Leading Toward Liberation: How to Build Cultures of Thriving in Higher Education (JHU Press, 2025), Dr. Annmarie Caño reimagines academic leadership as a practice rooted in liberation and equity. Drawing on her experiences as a Latina, first-generation college student, clinical psychologist, and higher education administrator, Caño shows how leaders can foster inclusive cultures where everyone thrives.

Through a lens of liberation psychology, Caño outlines actionable strategies for transforming institutions into spaces of freedom and growth. From crafting a values-driven vision to navigating institutional obstacles, accompanying others in solidarity, and leading with courage, this book offers practical insights to create systemic change. In this guide to navigating and disrupting the status quo to promote freedom and growth, Caño explains how to lead courageously, grow liberatory leadership skills, and plan career steps. Each chapter concludes with reflective self-coaching questions that empower readers to assess and refine their leadership journeys.

Leading Toward Liberation offers an antidote to toxic and unhealthy academic cultures that silence or force out talented colleagues and stifle creativity. Addressing challenges like hierarchical norms, burnout, and the marginalization of underrepresented voices, Caño inspires readers to rethink leadership as a shared endeavor of transformation. With a keen focus on the intersections of identity and power, this is an essential resource for leaders seeking to dismantle oppressive systems and co-create healthier academic environments.

Our guest is: Dr. Annemarie Caño, who is a professor of psychology at Gonzaga University and a two-time Fellow of the American Psychological Association who has held leadership positions at public and private universities.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an editor and a writing coach. She is the producer of the Academic Life podcast, and writes the show’s newsletter at christinagessler.stubstack.com.

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can 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 280+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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Debaditya Bhattacharya, "The Indian University: A Critical History" (Orient BlackSwan, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Is there such a thing as an ‘Indian university’? Is there an ‘idea’ of an Indian university? Were universities in India living and breathing products of the soil, or were they conceptual imports from a colonial heritage? What is the relationship between universities in India and the ‘publics’ that have inhabited or are alienated by them? More pointedly, how ‘public’ is the Indian public university?

This volume explores the historical makings of the Indian university as it stands today, by sifting through archives, colonial/postcolonial policies, textual-literary records and political-economic developments. What results is a ‘critical history’ – navigating the force of myth and promise, revolutions and reforms, communities and markets. From the glorification of ancient ‘greatness’ to the riskiness of ‘platform futures’, this book offers a time travel through one of the most exalted and yet most abused institutions of our age – the university.

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Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality offers practical guidance, tools, and resources to assist practitioners in creating effective, engaging workshops for adult learners. Drawing from three key learning frameworks and the author’s considerable expertise in facilitating workshops across both educational and corporate settings, this book focuses on ten essential principles to consider when developing professional learning experiences.

Whether facilitating on-site or virtually, readers will gain a deeper understanding of how to design and facilitate workshops with an inclusive mindset, thus creating meaningful, active learning opportunities that result in greater involvement among participants and better feedback. Guiding questions, chapter takeaways, and a compendium of additional online resources supply plentiful opportunities to further build and fine-tune these skills. Within these pages, both new and seasoned facilitators will find inspiration, encouragement, and support, as they craft professional learning experiences that ignite curiosity and spark growth in all learners.

Our guest is: Dr. Tolu Noah, who is an educational developer at California State University, Long Beach, USA, where she designs and facilitates professional learning programs for instructors. She has 16 years of teaching experience, and she enjoys facilitating engaging workshops and keynotes about a variety of teaching, learning, and technology topics.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a dissertation and writing coach, and a developmental editor. She is the producer of the Academic Life podcast, and author of the show’s newsletter found at ChristinaGessler.Substack.Com.

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can 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 275+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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Stephanie K. Kim, "Constructing Student Mobility: How Universities Recruit Students and Shape Pathways between Berkeley and Seoul" (MIT Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Constructing Student Mobility: How Universities Recruit Students and Shape Pathways between Berkeley and Seoul (MIT Press, 2023) challenges the popular image of the international student in the American imagination, an image of affluence, access, and privilege. In this provocative book, higher education scholar Stephanie Kim argues that universities -- not the students -- create the paths that allow students their international mobility. Focusing on universities in the United States and South Korea that aggressively grew their student pools in the aftermath of the Great Recession, Kim shows the lengths to which universities will go to expand enrollments as they draw from the same pool of top South Korean students.

Using ethnographic research gathered over a ten-year period in which international admissions were impacted by the Great Recession, changes in US presidential administrations, and the COVID-19 pandemic, Constructing Student Mobility provides crucial insights into the purpose, effects, and future of student recruitment across the Pacific.

Constructing Student Mobility received the Best Book Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education Council on International Higher Education.

Stephanie Kim is a scholar, educator, author, and practitioner in the field of comparative and international higher education. She teaches at Georgetown University, where she is an Associate Professor of the Practice and Faculty Director of Higher Education Administration in the School of Continuing Studies. She is also an affiliated faculty member of the Asian Studies Program in the School of Foreign Service.

Leslie Hickman is a translator and writer. She has an MA in Korean Studies from Yonsei University. You can follow her activities here.

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Christopher Willard et al., "College Mental Health 101: A Guide for Students, Parents, and Professionals" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 7 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

With a growing number of students entering college with an existing mental health diagnosis, College Mental Health 101: A Guide for Students, Parents, and Professionals (Oxford UP, 2025) offers hope and clear direction to those struggling with mental illness.

There is an undeniable mental health crisis on campuses these days. More students are anxious, depressed, drinking, and self-harming than ever before. The statistics are startling: 50% of mental health issues begin by age 14, 75% by age 24, while suicide is the second leading cause of death among young adults. And yet even while more students are struggling, more students than ever are breaking through stigma, seeking help, and sharing openly in person and social media about their challenges.

College Mental Health 101 offers more answers, relief, resources, and research backed information for families, students, and staff already at college or beginning the application process. With simple charts and facts, informal self-assessments, quick tips for students and those who support them, the book includes hundreds of voices addressing common concerns. Basics like picking and contacting a therapist, knowing your rights, disclosing to friends and family, advice on medication and time off, are all covered in brief digestible sections. The book also offers support and understanding to families and friends of struggling students who are often uncertain of where else to turn for expert advice. Packed with hundreds of expert and student voices, three diverse experts in the field have assembled the right resources at the right time.

Christopher Willard is a clinical psychologist, author, and consultant based in Massachusetts. He teaches at Harvard Medical School.

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Sarah McLaughlin, "Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 7 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In an era of globalized education, where ideals of freedom and inquiry should thrive, an alarming trend has emerged: foreign authoritarian regimes infiltrating American academia. In Authoritarians in the Academy, Sarah McLaughlin exposes how higher education institutions, long considered bastions of free thought, are compromising their values for financial gain and global partnerships.

This groundbreaking investigation reveals the subtle yet sweeping influence of authoritarian governments. University leaders are allowing censorship to flourish on campus, putting pressure on faculty, and silencing international student voices, all in the name of appeasing foreign powers. McLaughlin exposes the troubling reality where university leaders prioritize expansion and profit over the principles of free expression. The book describes incidents in classrooms where professors hesitate to discuss controversial topics and in boardrooms where administrators weigh the costs of offending oppressive regimes. McLaughlin offers a sobering look at how the compromises made in American academia reflect broader societal patterns seen in industries like tech, sports, and entertainment.

Meticulously researched and unapologetically candid, Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2025) is an essential read for anyone who believes in the transformative power of education and the necessity of safeguarding it from the creeping tide of authoritarianism.

Sarah McLaughlin is a senior scholar of global expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Who Needs College Anymore: Imagining A Future Where Degrees Don’t Matter

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In this optimistic yet practical assessment of how postsecondary education can evolve to meet the needs of next-generation learners, Kathleen deLaski reimagines what higher education might offer and whom it should serve. In the wake of declining enrollment and declining confidence in the value of a college degree, she urges a mindset shift regarding the learning routes and credentials that best prepare students for post-high-school success. Who Needs College Anymore draws on a decade of research from the Education Design Lab, and interviews of educational experts, college and career counselors, teachers, employers, and learners.

Kathleen deLaski applies human-centered design to higher education reform. She highlights ten top principles based on user feedback and considers how well they are being enacted by colleges. She urges institutions to better attend to the needs of new-majority learners, including people from low- or moderate-income backgrounds, people of color, first-generation students, veterans, single mothers, rural students, part-time attendees, and neurodivergent students. She finds ample opportunity for colleges to support learners via alternative pathways to marketable knowledge, including skills-based learning, apprenticeships, career training, and other types of workplace learning.

Our guest is: Kathleen deLaski, who spent twenty years as a journalist, including time as ABC News White House correspondent. In the second half of her career, she has focused on education reform, cofounding or founding nonprofits including the Education Design Lab. She is a senior advisor to the Project on Workforce at Harvard University, and is an adjunct professor at George Mason University.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a developmental editor for humanities scholars and social scientists at all stages of their careers. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast, and writes the Academic Life newsletter, found here

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 275+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Sexual Imperialism and English Language Teaching

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Dr Hanna Torsh speaks with Dr Vaughan Rapatahana about sexual predation in the English language teaching industry.

The conversation addresses his new book Sexual Predation and TEFL: The teaching of English as a Foreign Language Enables Sexual Predation (Brill, 2024), which explores how teaching English overseas intersects with and enables widespread sexual exploitation.

Trigger warning: this show discusses sexual exploitation and related content that listeners may find distressing.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Wade Davies, "Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball, 1895-1970" (UP of Kansas, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The game of basketball is perceived by most today as an “urban” game with a locale such as Rucker Park in Harlem as the game’s epicenter (as well as a pipeline to the NBA). While that is certainly a true statement, basketball is not limited to places such as New York City.

In recent years scholars have written about the meaning of the game (and triumphs on the hardwood) to other groups, such as Asian Americans (Kathleen Yep and Joel Franks) and Mexican Americans (Ignacio Garcia). To this important literature one can now add an examination of the sport in the lives of Native Americans, through Wade Davies' Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball, 1895-1970 (University Press of Kansas, 2020).

The game, as Davies notes, was not just something imposed upon Natives in locales such as the Indian Industrial Training School in Kansas (and elsewhere). The game provided linkages to the Native past, and was embraced as a way to “prove their worth” within a hostile environment designed to strip students of all vestiges of their cultural inheritance. The sport provided both young men and women with an opportunity to compete against members of other institutions (both Native and white) and to challenge notions of inferiority and inherent weaknesses.

Davies’ work does an excellent job of detailing the role of the sport in the lives of individuals, schools, and eventually, Native communities. Additionally, it examines how these players competed against sometimes seven opponents (the five players on the court and the two officials) to claim their rightful place on the court. They also often had to deal with the taunts and racism of crowds at opposing gyms. Still, most of these schools managed to field competitive teams that created their own “Indian” style of basketball that proved quite difficult to defeat.

Wade Davies is professor of Native American studies at the University of Montana, Missoula.

Jorge Iber is a professor of history at Texas Tech University.

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Philis Barragán-Goetz, "Reading, Writing, and Revolution: Escuelitas and the Emergence of a Mexican American Identity in Texas" (U Texas Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Debates about Ethnic Studies in K-12 and Higher Education have highlighted the importance of culturally inclusive pedagogy in schools. Despite discussions about Ethnic Studies, there is a more extended history of Mexican-origin people pushing for culturally responsive education. In Reading, Writing, and Revolution: Escuelitas and the Emergence of a Mexican American Identity in Texas (University of Texas Press, 2020), historian Philis M. Barragán-Goetz argues that through cultural negotiation, escuelitas (community schools) shaped Mexican American identity and civil rights activism in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Barragán Goetz weaves in oral histories, government documents, newspapers, and archival sources to demonstrate the power in grassroots organizing for educational justice in Texas. She debunks a popular myth that Mexican Americans have not cared for education throughout history. Barragán Goetz writes that the progressive education movement in the late 19th century was not all that progressive if we examine the lived experienced of Mexican-origin people. Activists such as Idar Family, Villegas de Magnon, Maria Villarreal, Maria Renteria, and many involved in the two main Mexican American civil rights organizations of the time provided a foundation for Latina/os to be part of the fight for educational inclusion in the 20th century. Reading, Writing, and Revolution is not merely a book about educational history; it is a trailblazing study on how Mexican Americans have relied on any tools available to create a more inclusive educational system for themselves and their community.

Philis M. Barragán Goetz is an Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University - San Antonio. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. She can be found on Twitter: @philismaria

Tiffany Jasmin González, Ph.D. is the Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History at the Newcomb Institute of Tulane University. You can follow Tiffany on Twitter @T_J_Gonzalez

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Jérémy Filet, "The Jacobites and the Grand Tour: Educational Travel and Small-States' Diplomacy" (Manchester UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The Jacobites and the Grand Tour: Educational travel and small-states' diplomacy (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Jérémy Filet is the first monograph to fully examine the intersecting networks of Jacobites and travellers to the continent. In the book, Dr. Filet considers how small states used official diplomacy and deployed soft power - embodied by educational academies - to achieve foreign policy goals. This work uses little-known archival materials to explain how and why certain small states secretly supported the Jacobite cause during the crucial years surrounding the 1715 rising, while others stayed out of Jacobite affairs.

The book demonstrates how early modern small states sought to cultivate good relations with Britain by attracting travellers as part of a wider trend of ensuring connections with future diplomats or politicians in case a Stuart restoration never came. This publication therefore brings together a study of Britain, small states, Jacobitism, and educational travel, in its nexus at continental academies.

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Elaine Weiss, "Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Elaine Weiss, acclaimed author of The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, follows that magisterial work with a work of equal scholarly significance and narrative excellence, Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools That Built the Civil Rights Movement (Simon and Schuster, 2025), "the story of four activists whose audacious plan to restore voting rights to Black Americans laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement."
"In the summer of 1954, educator Septima Clark and small businessman Esau Jenkins travelled to rural Tennessee’s Highlander Folk School, an interracial training center for social change founded by Myles Horton, a white southerner with roots in the labor movement. There, the trio united behind a shared mission: preparing Black southerners to pass the daunting Jim Crow era voter registration literacy tests that were designed to disenfranchise them.
Together with beautician-turned-teacher Bernice Robinson, they launched the underground Citizenship Schools project, which began with a single makeshift classroom hidden in the back of a rural grocery store. By the time the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, the secretive undertaking had established more than nine hundred citizenship schools across the South, preparing tens of thousands of Black citizens to read and write, demand their rights—and vote. Simultaneously, it nurtured a generation of activists—many of them women—trained in community organizing, political citizenship, and tactics of resistance and struggle who became the grassroots foundation of the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King called Septima Clark, “Mother of the Movement.”

Elaine Weiss is an award-winning journalist, author, and public speaker. In addition to Spell Freedom, she is the author of Fruits of Victory: The Woman’s Land Army of the Great War; and The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. Elaine lives with her husband in Baltimore, Maryland. Find out more at her website.

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Marlee S. Bunch, "Unlearning the Hush: Oral Histories of Black Female Educators in Mississippi in the Civil Rights Era"

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Unlearning the Hush: Oral Histories of Black Female Educators in Mississippi in the Civil Rights Era (University of Illinois Press, 2025), Dr. Marlee Bunch shared her research on Black female educators in Mississippi during the Civil Rights era and discussed how their experiences and wisdom continue to inform contemporary teaching practices and diversity initiatives. The conversation explored the importance of preserving and unearthing hidden histories through various forms of cultural expression, while examining the role of educators in creating inclusive learning environments. Marlee's work extends to her teaching philosophy and upcoming projects, including a National Academy of Education postdoc award project that will expand her oral history research to include Black male educators and explore the power of storytelling across generations.

Despite significant challenges and powerful opposition, Black female teachers stood at the forefront of advocating for and providing education to Black students. Their dedication not only improved opportunities for Black communities but also influenced changes in U.S. laws and societal expectations. Bunch draws on a rich fund of oral histories to reveal the interior lives of Black female educators who taught before and after desegregation in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In their own voices, these women detail the hurdles they faced guiding students through Jim Crow laws and Civil Rights-era desegregation. Bunch unearths the personal stories of teaching and activism during a historic time that included the Brown v. Board of Education decision and whites’ massive resistance to desegregation. The educators explain the importance of the Black community and Black homes while discussing their part in priming students for success and creating community cohesion. In addition, Bunch looks at the legacies of Black educators and the work still to be done. A section of images and poetry compliments the text. Inspiring and immersive, Unlearning the Hush combines memory with Civil Rights history to document Black women’s role in education during a tumultuous time.

Bunch is an interdisciplinary educator, scholar, author, and preserver of oral histories dedicated to illuminating untold stories and fostering human-centered, inclusive learning spaces. With over a decade of teaching experience across secondary and post-secondary classrooms, she has consistently championed equitable, rigorous, and reflective education that honors the lived experiences of students and educators alike.

A passionate advocate for justice-centered education, Bunch earned her doctoral degree in Education, Policy, Organization, and Leadership with an emphasis in Diversity and Equity from the University of Illinois. She also holds an M.Ed. in Secondary Education from DePaul University, an M.S. in Gifted Education, and an ESL certification — a testament to her commitment to meeting the diverse needs of learners. She is a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow.

At the heart of Bunch’s work is the belief that history and storytelling hold transformative power. Her research centers on the oral histories of Black female educators in Mississippi who taught during the Civil Rights era (1954–1970), preserving their narratives as both historical record and source of contemporary wisdom. Through this work, she invites reflection on resistance and the enduring importance of educators as community leaders and cultural stewards.
Her other publications include The Magnitude of Us (Teachers College Press, 2024), and Leveraging AI for Human-Centered Learning: Culturally Responsive and Social-Emotional Classroom Practice in Grades 6-12, co-authored with Brittany R. Collins (Routledge, 2025).

Whether through scholarship, storytelling, or advocacy, Bunch continues to elevate voices too often left at the margins, reminding us that the most meaningful learning happens when we center humanity, history, and hope.

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Christopher R. Matthews, "Doing Good Social Science: Lessons from Immersion, Understanding Social Life and Exploring the In-Between" (Routledge, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Doing Good Social Science: Lessons from Immersion, Understanding Social Life and Exploring the In-Between (Routledge, 2025) takes readers on a personal and thought-provoking journey and empowers readers to become unshakeable, free-thinking scholars. Drawing from nearly two decades of experience in research and mentorship, this book shares insights gained from creating 'immersive moments' to challenge conventional methodology and social theory. In doing so, it integrates ideas from classical and contemporary scholarship across various disciplines, bringing them to life through engaging field notes, interviews, and often humorous examples. The book outlines how to cultivate disciplined and systematic scholarship on complex topics while critiquing the 'wonky' practices that often pervade modern academia.

Part One advocates for a more scientific approach to social science, offering guiding principles for scholars striving to understand social life. Part Two deepens and complicates these arguments by examining the philosophical foundations of social science, focusing specifically on the 'in-between' aspects of the human condition and our social nature. The writing and thinking in the book are distinctive, passionate and brave. This book is a compelling read for advanced students, early career researchers, and any academic seeking to develop a more liberated, inventive approach to methods.

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David Theo Goldberg, "The War on Critical Race Theory: Or, The Remaking of Racism" (Polity Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The War on Critical Race Theory: Or, The Remaking of Racism (Polity Press, 2023) by David Theo Goldberg discusses how “Critical Race Theory” is consuming conservative America. The mounting attacks on a once-obscure legal theory are upending public schooling, legislating censorship, driving elections, and cleaving communities.

In this much-needed response, renowned scholar David Theo Goldberg cuts to the heart of the claims expressed in these attacks. He punctures the demonization of Critical Race Theory, uncovering who is orchestrating it, funding the assault, and eagerly distributing the message. The book richly illustrates the enduring nature of structural racism, even as a conservative insistence on colorblindness serves to silence the possibility of doing anything about it. Crucially, Goldberg exposes the political aims and effects of the vitriolic attacks. The upshot of CRT’s targeting, he argues, has been to unleash racisms anew and to stymie any attempt to fight them, all with the aim of protecting white minority rule.

David Theo Goldberg is Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine.

YouTube Channel here

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Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to others? While many forms of leisure meet these needs, Zena Hitz writes, few experiences are so fulfilling as the inner life, whether that of a bookworm, an amateur astronomer, a birdwatcher, or someone who takes a deep interest in one of countless other subjects. Drawing on inspiring examples, from Socrates and Augustine to Malcolm X and Elena Ferrante, and from films to Dr. Hitz’s own experiences as someone who walked away from elite university life in search of greater fulfillment, Lost in Thought is a passionate and timely reminder that a rich life is a life rich in thought.
Today, when even the humanities are often defended only for their economic or political usefulness, Dr. Hitz says our intellectual lives are valuable not despite but because of their practical uselessness. And while anyone can have an intellectual life, she encourages academics in particular to get back in touch with the desire to learn for its own sake, and calls on universities to return to the person-to-person transmission of the habits of mind and heart that bring out the best in us. Reminding us of who we once were and who we might become, Lost in Thought is a moving account of why renewing our inner lives is fundamental to preserving our humanity.

Our guest is: Dr. Zena Hitz, who is a Tutor in the great books program at St. John's College. She has a PhD in ancient philosophy from Princeton University and studies and teaches across the liberal arts. She is the founder of the Catherine Project, and the author of Lost in Thought.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who works as a developmental editor and grad student coach. She is the founder of the Academic Life project including this podcast, and writes the Academic Life Newsletter at ChristinaGessler.Substack.Com.

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 275+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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Hannah Star Rogers, "Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

'Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2022)' by Hannah Star Rogers

When I sat down with Hannah Star Rogers to discuss her new book Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge, I found myself nodding along to a refreshingly obvious yet somehow radical proposition: why do we insist on keeping art and science in separate corners? Rogers makes a compelling case that this artificial boundary isn't just limiting our understanding of both fields, it's actively distorting how we think about knowledge itself.

What struck me most during our conversation was Rogers' articulation of Art-STS (ASTS) as an emerging field that refuses to play by the old rules os separation and siloed study. The field, and Rogers, recognizes that both artists and scientists are engaged in the same fundamental project - making sense of the world through experimentation, observation, and yes, imagination. When we acknowledge this shared enterprise, the implications ripple outward. Who gets to produce legitimate knowledge? Whose methods count as valid? These questions matter because they shape everything from funding decisions to educational curricula to which voices we trust in public discourse.

Rogers doesn't just theorize about these connections; she shows us what happens when we take them seriously. The experimental collaborations she documents reveal knowledge production as a deeply social, often messy, always political process. This isn't a bug in the system, it's the system itself. And maybe, just maybe, admitting that is the first step toward building more honest and inclusive ways of understanding our world.

Notes:

Routledge Handbook of Art, Science, and Technology Studies

Picturing the Invisible

Science Communication as a Boundary Space: An Interactive Installation about the Social Responsibility of Science

Gaïa Global Circus: A Climate Tragicomedy

Shot on LiDAR, a Short Film Examines the Contradictions of Urban Surveillance

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Kenneth Jones, "African American Males and Video Games: How Gaming Technology Can Motivate and Enhance Learning" (Myers Education, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

African American males are confronted with formidable barriers in their pursuit of quality education, resulting in stark disparities in academic performance, economic opportunities, and social outcomes. Despite numerous educational initiatives striving for parity, African American males persistently bear the brunt of the highest rates of suspensions, expulsions, and dropout rates, surpassing all other demographic groups. Educational environments often fail to acknowledge and integrate the cultural and social needs of Black males, viewing them as "problems" rather than recognizing their immense potential for academic and leadership success. The prevalence of negative stereotypes in media, particularly in video games, exacerbates societal biases, portraying African American males as inherently violent and criminal. These representations contribute to implicit biases that affect perceptions and treatment in real-life scenarios. The systemic issues within the education system, coupled with socioeconomic factors, result in African American males being underrepresented in advanced placement and gifted education programs. This underrepresentation limits their opportunities for higher education and professional advancement.

Confronting these challenges necessitates a comprehensive approach that encompasses the creation of inclusive educational environments, the eradication of systemic racism, and the promotion of positive representations of African American males in media. By acknowledging and fostering the potential of Black males, society can strive to reduce disparities and cultivate a more equitable and just education system that recognizes and celebrates their academic and professional achievements. African American Males and Video Gamesexplores the perspectives of four African American male college students aged 18 to 21 on the impact of video games on their academic growth and development. The participants, all maintaining a GPA of 3.0 or higher, shared their experiences with teachers, video games, and coping mechanisms. This qualitative approach allowed for a rich understanding of the participant's experiences and the role of video games in their academic and mental well-being. Video games emerged as a significant coping tool for the participants, providing a mental escape from academic and social pressures. The games allowed them to engage in competitive and creative activities, fostering a sense of accomplishment and reducing stress. For example, games like NBA 2K21 and Forza Horizon 4 enabled them to explore alter egos and interests in a virtual space, offering entertainment and a sense of community. African American Males and Video Gamesis a critical text for exploring alternatives in providing a quality education experience for young African American males.

Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the HNU University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, hosts the German local radio show Replay Value and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter DiGRA D-A-CH Game Studies Watchlist.

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Alexandra Freidus, "Unequal Lessons: School Diversity and Educational Inequality in New York City" (NYU Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Unequal Lessons: School Diversity and Educational Inequality in New York City (NYU Press, 2025) argues that diversity and racial integration efforts are not sufficient to address educational inequality.

New York City schools are among the most segregated in the nation. Yet over seven decades after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, New Yorkers continue to argue about whether school segregation matters. Amid these debates, Alexandra Freidus dives deep into the roots of racial inequality in diversifying schools, asking how we can better understand both the opportunities and the limits of school diversity and integration. Unequal Lessons is based on six years of observations and interviews with children, parents, educators, and district policymakers about the stakes of racial diversity in New York City schools.

The book examines what children learn from diversity, exploring both the costs and benefits of school integration. By drawing on students’ first-hand experiences, Freidus makes the case that although a focus on diversity offers many benefits to students, it often reinscribes, rather than diminishes, existing inequalities in school policy and practice. The idea of diversity for its own sake is frequently seen as the solution, with students of color presumed to benefit from their experiences with white students, while schools fail to address structural inequality. Though educators and advocates often focus on diversity out of a real desire to make a positive difference in students’ lives, this book makes clear the gaps between good intentions and educational injustice.

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Teacher by Teacher: The People Who Change Our Lives

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 7 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Teacher By Teacher traces the journey of the tenth U.S. Secretary of Education and is a deeply personal love letter to all the teachers in our lives. The story of John B. King Jr.’s inspiring path to President Obama’s Cabinet begins the day that his mother died. He insisted on going to school that day, knowing he would find comfort in his classroom. As he navigated living alone with a father dying from undiagnosed Alzheimer’s, it was public school teachers who saved his life, believed in him and saw his potential. They made school a safe, supportive, and engaging place where he could be a kid despite the challenges at home. While some might have dismissed a rebellious young Black and Puerto Rican teen whose life was in crisis, King’s teachers and counselors gave him a second chance. He went on to earn degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and Yale and committed his career to trying to do for other young people what educators did for him.

Teacher By Teacher shows how dedicated educators—both Dr. King’s own teachers and the phenomenal teachers who he has encountered throughout his career as a teacher, principal, and education policymaker—can profoundly shape the lives of their students.

Our guest is: Dr. John B. King Jr., who served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet as the tenth U.S. Secretary of Education. Over the course of his influential career in public education, he has been a high school teacher, a middle school principal, the first African American and Puerto Rican to serve as New York State Education Commissioner, a college professor, the president and CEO of the Education Trust, and the chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY). His parents were career New York City public school educators. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, an education researcher and former teacher, and his two daughters.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who works as a writing coach and developmental editor. She is the producer of the Academic Life podcast, and the author of the Academic Life newsletter found at christinagessler.substack.com.

Playlist for listeners:

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Aline Nardo, "Evolutionary Theory and Education" (Brill, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

How has evolutionary theory shaped educational thinking over the past two centuries? ‘Evolutionary Theory and Education: The Influence of Evolutionary Thinking on Educational Theory and Philosophy’ (Brill, 2025) explores the considerable but under-appreciated influence of evolutionary ideas on educational theory and the philosophy of education. The book reveals the interplay between educational and evolutionary perspectives along the concepts of ‘adaptation’, ‘selection’, ‘inheritance’, and ‘progress’. It tracks these ideas across the works of various influential educational thinkers, including Herbert Spencer, Jean Piaget, John Dewey and Lev Vygotsky, and examines their continuing significance for how we understand and practice education today.

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How ClioVis is Transforming Education and Historical Research

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Today I’m speaking with Marcus Golding, historian and Director of Educational Operations at ClioVis. ClioVis is an incredible software and learning tool that allows educators and studies to create digital timelines, network visualizations, and interactive presentations. Founded by UT Austin history professor Erika Bsumek, ClioVis is made for professors and teachers by current professors and scholars. I’m thrilled to get the chance today to speak with Marcus about this software to share with our listeners how they can enhance their own work and teaching.

Visit ClioVis' website to learn more: Click Here

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Steve Haberlin, "Meditation in the College Classroom: A Pedagogical Tool to Help Students De-Stress, Focus, and Connect" (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2023).

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 6 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

This book provides background, strategies, and tips for higher education faculty and instructors interested in incorporating meditation in their classrooms. The work is based on research involving introducing brief meditation practices to college students and developing a detailed guide. Readers will learn how to develop their own meditation practice as an academic, to set the stage of introducing practice to students, to create ideal conditions for meditation in the classroom, specific, classroom-friendly meditation methods, ways to advance meditation practice with students and keep it interesting, and how to spread the culture of meditation across campus.

Guest: Steve Haberlin, PhD (he/him), is an assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in the College of Community Innovation and Education at University of Central Florida. He is the author of two books with Rowman & Littlefield: Meditation in the College Classroom (2022) and Awakening to Educational Supervision (2023). His research focuses on the practical use of meditation and mindfulness and current and future uses of technology in meditative practice. Prior to earning his PhD in Education, he spent ten years teaching elementary and middle school students in Tampa, Florida.

Host: Jenna Pittman (she/her), a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Duke University. She studies modern European history, political economy, and Germany from 1945-1990.

Scholars@Duke: https://scholars.duke.edu/pers...

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jennapittman

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Pooja Agarwal, Cynthia Nebel, Veronica Yan, "Smart Teaching Stronger Learning: Practical Tips From 10 Cognitive Scientists" (Unleash Learning Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 6 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

How can I help my students not only learn my course material but also retain and transfer that information? This is a question that has plagued and intrigued teachers for centuries. In Smart Teaching Stronger Learning: Practical Tips for 10 Cognitive Scientists, the authors provide their readers with evidence-based practices for immediate classroom implementation. Their premise is that small changes can lead to powerful results.

In this approachable book, each chapter is written by a cognitive scientist who is currently teaching. The chapters introduce a concept, describe how to implement the concept in your classroom, and provide multiple resources for further study. The book is consciously formatted to be a quick read (approximately 100 pages) and provides valuable information for anyone who is interested in helping someone else or themselves learn. Teachers, parents, coaches, and lifelong learners will benefit from these strategies.

In this episode, Dr. Pooja Agarwal, Dr. Cynthia Nebel, and Dr. Veronica Yan, discuss each of the topics presented in Smart Teaching Stronger Learning: Practical Tips for 10 Cognitive Scientists. Dr. Nebel discusses how learning increases motivation by discussing the Effective Teaching Cycle: Motivation, Scaffolding, and Reinforcement. Dr. Yan discusses the importance of interleaving. Dr. Agarwal provides an overview of the other chapter topics: retrieval practice, early childhood education, metacognition, concept mapping, learning transfer, engagement, and neuromyths. Throughout the episode, Drs. Agarwal, Nebel, and Yan share how these tips have been implemented in their classrooms, and how these same concepts can universally be applied to learning in general.

Dr. Pooja Agarwal is the author of the books Powerful Teaching and Smart Teaching Stronger Learning: Practical Tips for 10 Cognitive Scientists. She is editor-in-chief of Retrievalpractice.org and is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA.

Dr. Cynthia Nebel is the Director of Learning Services and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at St. Louis University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO.

Dr. Veronica Yan is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, TX.

Dr. Anne-Marie Verenna is a Professor of Biology and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellow at Delaware County Community College in Media, PA.

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Jennifer Crane, "'Gifted Children' in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality Since 1945" (Oxford UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 4 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Who are 'gifted' children? In ‘Gifted Children’ in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality since 1945 Jennifer Crane, a senior lecturer in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol (Oxford UP, 2025) tells the social and cultural history of this category of young people. The book charts the individuals, organisations, policymakers, and media activities that aimed to identify children as ‘gifted’, lobbying for their social status and the potential benefit they might bring to both the UK and the rest of the world. At the same time, the book critically assesses the idea of 'gifted' children being closely intertwined with a range of social inequalities, reflecting Britain’s broader class, race, gender and disability hierarchies. Most crucially, the book draws on children’s voices, foregrounding their experiences of understanding, embracing, and resisting the 'gifted' label. At a time of renewed public debates over social and cultural hierarchies, the book is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences. It is available open access here.

Jennifer Crane is lecturer in health geographies at the School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, working at the intersection of history, geography, and sociologies of health.

Dave O'Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Manchester.

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Jennifer R. Nájera, "Learning to Lead: Undocumented Students Mobilizing Education" (Duke UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Learning to Lead: Undocumented Students Mobilizing Education (Duke University Press, 2024), Jennifer R. Nájera explores the intersections of education and activism among undocumented students at the University of California, Riverside. Taking an expansive view of education, Nájera shows how students’ experiences in college—both in and out of the classroom—can affect their activism and advocacy work. Students learn from their families, communities, peers, and student and political organizations. In these different spaces, they learn how to navigate community and college life as undocumented people. Students are able to engage campus organizations where they can cultivate their leadership skills and—importantly—learn that they are not alone. These students embody and mobilize their education through both large and small political actions such as protests, workshops for financial aid applications, and Know Your Rights events. As students create community with each other, they come to understand that their individual experiences of illegality are part of a larger structure of legal violence. This type of education empowers students to make their way to and through college, change their communities, and ultimately assert their humanity.

Jennifer R. Nájera is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

David-James Gonzales (DJ) is Assistant Professor of History at Brigham Young University. He is a historian of migration, urbanization, and social movements in the U.S., and specializes in Latina/o/x politics and social movements.

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James M. Lang, "Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience" (University of Chicago Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Teachers are subject matter experts that can distill information into manageable chunks for their students. In Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Dr. James M. Lang insists that the skills teachers use in their classrooms can be transferred to a broader audience. This book provides a step-by-step guide to assist would-be authors in researching and developing a book.

Teachers are familiar with creating a course syllabus and developing learning objectives. Dr. Lang posits that these skills can help create a book for audiences outside one’s subject matter expertise. He provides insight into the technical aspects of writing, including organization, writing style, and revision. By providing writing prompts at the end of each chapter, Dr. Lang provides the prospective author the opportunity to immediately begin his/her/their own writing journey. The book concludes with an appendix that provides a behind the scenes look at the publishing process. This is a must read for anyone interested in enhancing their writing, learning about the many parts of the publishing process, and hoping to provide their expertise to a larger audience.

In addition to Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience, Dr. Lang is the author of Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It (Basic Books, 2020), Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2016) Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (Harvard University Press, 2013), and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching (Harvard UP, 2008). He has written extensively for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Dr. Lang serves as an editor to the Oklahoma University Press, is a highly sought-after speaker, and consultant. He is active on LinkedIn and Instagram and may be contacted directly at jamesmlang7@gmail.com.

Dr. Anne-Marie Verenna is a Professor of Biology and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellow at Delaware County Community College.

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How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students’ concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism. Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness.

The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students’ critical consciousness about race and racialization. Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno’s groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom

Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice

We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States

Presumed Incompetent

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can 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 250+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

Our guest is: Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, who is assistant professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. Her research has been recognized with multiple awards, including from the American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation. She is the author of How Schools Make Race, winner of a 2025 AAHHE Book of the Year Award, and a 2025 Nautilus Silver Book Award.

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Milton E. Clarke, "The Community College Reform Movement: Contentions and Ideological Origins" (Routledge, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In his new book, The Community College Reform Movement: Contentions and Ideological Origins (Routledge, 2025), political scientist Milton Clarke critically examines the rise of the higher education reform movement, often referred to as the “completion agenda,” which, since the early 2000s, has sought to restructure core aspects of the community college experience. Drawing on community colleges from across nine U.S. states as practical examples, this exploration examines the major higher education reforms, including dual enrollment, guided pathways, the demise of developmental education, corequisites, and performance-based funding. Against the popular view that support for such policies is tied to neoliberalism, this book argues for a more nuanced understanding of the complicated and often indistinct ideological foundation of the reform movement, demonstrating that supporters and detractors alike draw on similar concepts of equity, student success, and affordability. This complication is further clarified through an account of the history, process, functions, and institutions that paved the way for the advent of the higher education reform movement.

This book is vital reading for anyone interested in the future of community colleges and higher education. A special resonance is expected among researchers, scholars, and educators working in higher education, educational reform, and educational policy.

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Elliot Lichtman, "The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games" (MIT Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games (MIT Press, 2025), Elliot Lichtman will teach you some of computer science’s most powerful concepts in a refreshingly accessible way: exploring them through word games, board games, and strategy games you already know. Learn recursion by playing tic-tac-toe, efficient search through puzzle games like sudoku and Wordle, and machine learning by way of the playground classic rock-paper-scissors. Finish the book, and you’ll come away with not only a deeper understanding of these foundational programming techniques but also a new appreciation for the amazing feats that can be accomplished using simple, readable code.

Elliot Lichtman started teaching online classes in computer science when he was a freshman in high school. Small classes quickly grew into a series of larger and longer offerings, and from those, this book was born. Elliot is currently a junior at Yale University.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Yasmine Motawy, "Children’s Picture Books and Contemporary Egyptian Society" (AUC Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Children’s picture books are some of the most transparently ideological materials available to parents and educators, and as cultural objects they are an expression of the zeitgeist of a particular era. They reveal much about the hopes, values, and aspirations of the society that produces them, as well as that society’s vision of its place in the wider world at large.
Children’s Picture Books and Contemporary Egyptian Society (AUC Press, 2025) by Dr. Yasmine Motawy examines a new wave of Egyptian picture books that was published in the current century to see how these books responded to larger societal trends and transformations in Egypt, as well as to explore the ideologies that lie behind them. Dr. Motawy argues that a host of factors, including the growth of gated communities and international schooling, the proliferation of lucrative literary awards, returning Gulf migrants, television dramas, and nationwide reading advocacy initiatives helped give rise to a new kind of children’s picture book in Egypt.
Dr. Motawy focuses on three clusters of selected picture books to investigate the extent to which these books reproduce hegemonic discourses or, alternatively, open up new horizons of childhood agency and societal transformation. The first cluster includes books that directly socialize the child by showing them ‘how things are done,’ in both the domestic sphere and the increasing globalized spaces that children frequent with their families. The second cluster aims at reframing cultural notions around femininity through the retelling of folk and fairy tales, while the third cluster addresses children's abilities to assess the impact of their actions on their environment, and invites them to examine their personal suitability to positions of power and stewardship.

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David Zweig, "An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions" (MIT Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions (MIT Press, 2025) is a devastating account of the decision-making process behind one of the worst American policy failures in a century—the extended closures of public schools during the pandemic. In fascinating and meticulously reported detail, David Zweig shows how some of the most trusted members of society—from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists to eminent health officials—repeatedly made fundamental errors in their assessment and presentation of evidence. As a result, for the first time in modern American history, millions of healthy children did not set foot in a classroom for more than a year.
Since the spring of 2020, many students in Europe had been learning in person. Even many peers at home—in private schools, and public schools in mostly “red” states and districts—were in class full time from fall 2020 onward. Whatever inequities that existed among American children before the pandemic, the selective school closures exacerbated them, disproportionately affecting the underprivileged. Deep mental, physical, and academic harms—among them, depression, anxiety, abuse, obesity, plummeting test scores, and rising drop-out rates—were endured for no discernible benefit. As Europe had shown very early, after they had sent kids back to class, there was never any evidence that long-term school closures, nor a host of interventions imposed on students when they were in classrooms, would reduce overall cases or deaths in any meaningful way.
The story of American schools during the pandemic serves as a prism through which to approach fundamental questions about why and how individuals, bureaucracies, governments, and societies act as they do in times of crisis and uncertainty. Ultimately, this book is not about COVID; it’s about a country ill-equipped to act sensibly under duress.

David Zweig is the author of the novel Swimming Inside the Sun and the nonfiction book Invisibles. He has testified twice before Congress as an expert witness on American schools during the pandemic, and his investigative reporting on the pandemic has been cited in numerous congressional letters and a brief to the Supreme Court. Zweig’s journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, New York, Wired, The Free Press, The Boston Globe, and, most often, his newsletter, Silent Lunch. He lives with his family in New York State.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

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Jean J. Ryoo and Jane Margolis, "Power On!" (MIT Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 9 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

An interview with Jean Ryoo and Jane Margolis about Power On!

A diverse group of teenage friends learn how computing can be personally and politically empowering and why all students need access to computer science education.

This lively graphic novel follows a diverse group of teenage friends as they discover that computing can be fun, creative, and empowering. Taylor, Christine, Antonio, and Jon seem like typical young teens—they communicate via endless texting, they share jokes, they worry about starting high school, and they have each other's backs. But when a racially-biased artificial intelligence system causes harm in their neighborhood, they suddenly realize that tech isn't as neutral as they thought it was. But can an algorithm be racist? And what is an algorithm, anyway?
In school, they decide to explore computing classes, with mixed results. One class is only about typing. The class that Christine wants to join is full, and the school counselor suggests that she take a class in “Tourism and Hospitality” instead. (Really??) But Antonio's class seems legit, Christine finds an after-school program, and they decide to teach the others what they learn. By summer vacation, all four have discovered that computing is both personally and politically empowering.
Interspersed through the narrative are text boxes with computer science explainers and inspirational profiles of people of color and women in the field (including Katherine Johnson of Hidden Figures fame). Power On! is an essential read for young adults, general readers, educators, and anyone interested in the power of computing, how computing can do good or cause harm, and why addressing underrepresentation in computing needs to be a top priority.

Listen to the interview on the New Books Network Spanish here

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Harrison Browne and Rachel Browne, "Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes" (Beacon Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 8 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The debate over the inclusion of gender diverse people in sport has become the latest battleground in the fight for basic human rights and equality. Trans and nonbinary people around the world are facing physical harm and violence—including death—at unprecedented rates. In Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes (Beacon Press, 2025), trans athlete Harrison Browne and investigative journalist Rachel Browne reveal how the opposition towards gender diverse athletes is fueled by fear and a moral panic as opposed to facts around what makes “a level playing field.”

Interweaving Harrison’s firsthand experience as a transgender athlete with exclusive accounts—from athletes, coaches, policymakers, and advocates on the front lines—Let Us Play dismantles the illusion that sports have ever been fair, that trans athletes pose a threat to women’s sports, and that gender-affirming healthcare for athletes should be prohibitive to play.

Calling for a reframing of the binaries from youth and high school levels all the way to the national leagues, Browne and Browne offer a new path forward, led by solutions proposed by gender diverse athletes themselves.

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Daniel Karpowitz, "College in Prison: Reading in an Age of Mass Incarceration" (Rutgers UP, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 1 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Over the years, American colleges and universities have made various efforts to provide prisoners with access to education. However, few of these outreach programs presume that incarcerated men and women can rise to the challenge of a truly rigorous college curriculum. The Bard Prison Initiative is different.
In his book, College in Prison: Reading in an Age of Mass Incarceration (Rutgers University Press, 2017), Daniel Karpowitz chronicles how, since 2001, Bard College has provided hundreds of incarcerated men and women across the country access to a high-quality liberal arts education. Earning degrees in subjects ranging from Mandarin to advanced mathematics, graduates have, upon release, gone on to rewarding careers and elite graduate and professional programs. Yet this is more than just a story of exceptional individuals triumphing against the odds. It is a study in how the liberal arts can alter the landscape of some of our most important public institutions giving people from all walks of life a chance to enrich their minds and expand their opportunities.
Drawing on fifteen years of experience as a director of and teacher within the Bard Prison Initiative, Daniel Karpowitz tells the story of BPI’s development from a small pilot project to a nationwide network. At the same time, he recounts dramatic scenes from in and around college-in-prison classrooms pinpointing the contested meanings that emerge in moments of highly-charged reading, writing, and public speaking. Through examining the transformative encounter between two characteristically American institutions—the undergraduate college and the modern penitentiary—College in Prison makes a powerful case for why liberal arts education is still vital to the future of democracy in the United States.

Interviewee: Daniel Karpowitz has worked on public and private sector systems change for over twenty-five years. He is the former director of policy and academics for the Bard Prison Initiative and the cofounder of the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison, an organization that launches and cultivates college-in-prison programs across the country.

Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

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Catriona M.M. MacDonald, "The Caledoniad: The Making of Scottish History" (John Donald, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 30 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Why did Scots in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries know so little about their past and even less about those who controlled their history? Is the historical narrative the only legitimate medium through which the past can be made known? Are novelists and historians as far apart as convention has it? In an age when history grounds any claims to national status, these are important questions and they have implications for how Scottish history has evolved, and how Scottish identity has been understood up to the present day.

Scottish history is not simply the distillation of Scotland’s past: authors shape what we know and how we judge our forebears. The Caledoniad: The Making of Scottish History (John Donald, 2024) by Dr. Catriona MacDonald investigates who decided which Scottish voices of the past would be heard in history’s pages and which would ultimately be silenced. It sketches a picture of a narrow and privileged cultural elite that responded belatedly to a more democratic age and only slowly embraced women writers and the interests of ‘average’ Scots. Integrating historical fiction and popular histories in its appreciation of the Scottish historical imaginary, it most importantly tells the story of why, despite the interests of politicians and others, a truly British history has never emerged.

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Mitchell Thomashow, "To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning" (MIT Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 28 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Why we must rethink our residency on the planet to understand the connected challenges of tribalism, inequity, climate justice, and democracy. How can we respond to the current planetary ecological emergency? In To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning (MIT Press, 2020), Mitchell Thomashow proposes that we revitalize, revisit, and reinvigorate how we think about our residency on Earth. First, we must understand that the major challenges of our time--migration, race, inequity, climate justice, and democracy--connect to the biosphere. Traditional environmental education has accomplished much, but it has not been able to stem the inexorable decline of global ecosystems. Thomashow, the former president of a college dedicated to sustainability, describes instead environmental learning, a term signifying that our relationship to the biosphere must be front and center in all aspects of our daily lives. In this illuminating book, he provides rationales, narratives, and approaches for doing just that.

Dr. Mitchell Thomashow is a renowned environmental educator with a career that spans decades, and this is his 4th book within this domain… published by MIT press.

An overarching theme of ‘sense of place’ has permeated this and his other writings, and all have asked people to stop, see and reflect on the changes around them.

Mitch has a had varied career in academia, from teaching and advising graduate students, to initiating a cohort-based, low residency model, for a PhD in Environmental Studies. He has chaired an Environmental Studies Department at Antioch University and subsequently was appointed as the President of Unity College.

Mitchell’s expertise is still in demand in the environmental arena. He has been well received through over a hundred of his plenary addresses, workshops, and sustainability consultations.

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Jon Shelton, "The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy" (Cornell UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 17 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy (Cornell UP, 2023) questions the idea that education represents the best, if not the only, way for Americans to access economic opportunity. As Jon Shelton shows, linking education to economic well-being was not politically inevitable. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for instance, public education was championed as a way to help citizens learn how to participate in a democracy. By the 1930s, public education, along with union rights and social security, formed an important component of a broad-based fight for social democracy.

Shelton demonstrates that beginning in the 1960s, the political power of the education myth choked off powerful social democratic alternatives like A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin's Freedom Budget. The nation's political center was bereft of any realistic ideas to guarantee economic security and social dignity for the majority of Americans, particularly those without college degrees. Embraced first by Democrats like Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, Republicans like George W. Bush also pushed the education myth. The result, over the past four decades, has been the emergence of a deeply inequitable economy and a drastically divided political system.

Jon Shelton is professor and chair of democracy and justice studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. In addition to The Education Myth he is the author of Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American Political Order, which was the winner of the International Standing Conference of the History of Education’s First Book Award in 2018. Shelton has also published work in the Washington Post, Dissent, Jacobin, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and other publications. He served as the Vice-Chair of the city of Green Bay’s first ever Equal Rights Commission and sits on the Board of Directors for the Labor and Working-Class History Association and the Wisconsin Labor History Society. He also serves as President for Higher Education of the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin.

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Sara E. Wolf, "Teaching Copyright: Practical Lesson Ideas and Instructional Resources" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 16 May 2025 04:00:00 +0000

The teaching of copyright and related concepts can easily be overwhelming to instructors who are experts in their field but may have little to no detailed understanding of copyright law. They require reliable, accessible information to coach students on copyright-related matters.
In Teaching Copyright: Practical Lesson Ideas and Instructional Resources (Bloomsbury, 2025), Sara Wolf provides explicit guidance based on U.S. copyright law in the teaching of copyright and related concepts to learners at schools, colleges, and universities. Instructors are supported with time-saving resources such as lesson templates, scenarios, practice activities, and a downloadable test question bank.
Additionally, Bloom's Taxonomy labels lessons, activities, and assessment items to enable an appropriately diverse set of learning for students. Instead of reducing copyright to simple recall, the lessons and information in this text will help instructors develop higher-level thinking about copyright and assist them in measuring learners' abilities not just to remember, but also to analyze and evaluate copyright dilemmas.

Guest: Dr. Sara E. Wolf is an Associate Professor of library media and educational technology at Auburn University.

Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Kin Cheung, "Teaching Asia during a Resurgence of Anti-Asian Racism" (ASS, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

An open access Asia Shorts edited volume from AAS.

The spring of 2020 will remain etched in collective memory as a moment of profound upheaval. The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools and universities around the world to close their doors, reshaping education overnight. Teachers scrambled to reimagine their classrooms in online spaces, while students adjusted to a new, distanced reality. For educators of Asia-related topics, these shifts carried unique challenges. Already marginalized within English-speaking curricula, Asia’s place in classrooms faced further reductions amidst the chaos of pandemic adaptation. Recognizing this, our Asia Shorts volume, Teaching about Asia in a Time of Pandemic (AAS, 2025), was conceived as a timely response, offering guidance and inspiration during those uncertain times.

Almost five years later, the world has moved forward, but the ripple effects of that historic spring are still felt. This supplemental set of open-access essays, edited by Kin Cheung (Associate Professor of East and South Asian Religions at Moravian University) builds upon the foundation of the original volume, reflecting on the enduring impacts of the pandemic on education, equity, and how we teach about Asia.

One lasting consequence of the pandemic has been the rise in anti-Asian racism. Harassment and violence against Asians, fueled by pandemic-related scapegoating and xenophobic rhetoric, surged globally. In the United States, inflammatory phrases such as “China virus” and “kung flu” further stigmatized Asian communities, exacerbating a wave of hostility. Educators now face the challenge of addressing these injustices while fostering inclusive, empathetic learning environments. The essays in this collection delve into the pedagogical responses to anti-Asian racism, advocating for teaching frameworks that prioritize social justice and counteract harmful stereotypes and complement the important work of the scholars whose work appears in our recent Asia Shorts volume, Global Anti-Asian Racism, edited by Jennifer Ho.

Another critical dimension explored in this volume is the necessity of representation. Asian Americans remain underrepresented in both the teaching workforce and teacher education programs, leading to a curriculum that often overlooks the rich cultural and linguistic assets of Asian students and their families. This gap underscores the importance of preparing teachers to adopt culturally responsive practices, ensuring that all students—especially Asian American learners—feel seen and valued in the classroom.

These essays also challenge educators to move beyond surface-level engagement with Asia. A case in point is the life and legacy of Grace Lee Boggs, an Asian American activist whose story offers rich insights into the intersections of race, gender, and political activism. By teaching figures like Boggs through an antiracist, transnational lens, students can develop a deeper, more empathetic understanding of complex historical narratives. This approach not only enriches their knowledge of Asia and its diasporas but also equips them with critical tools to navigate and challenge systemic inequities in their own societies.

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Gina Seymour, "Youth Social Action in the Library: Cultivating Change Makers" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 10 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Learn how to take an apolitical, unbiased stance to support students as they pursue research, literature connections, maker activities, and civic engagement projects in their communities, nationally, and globally. In Youth Social Action in the Library: Cultivating Change Makers (Bloombury, 2025), Gina Seymour outlines school and public library programs, activities, and collaborative projects that will help students learn how to accomplish their goals in their communities. Highlighting the role of the librarian in fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills, the book explores controversial topics to qualify and expand best practices. By incorporating the programs in the book, librarians can help students learn how to have reasoned arguments inside and outside of the classroom and to become responsible members of society. UN Sustainable Development Goals are addressed, making this book not only based in community but global in scope. Numerous examples of youth activism from volunteering to protest marches are explained and are broad enough to be applied not only to current trends but also to future causes.

Gina Seymour is Library Media Specialist at Islip High School, NY, USA. An author and national speaker, she was named to Library Journal’s Movers & Shakers list (2017) as a “Change Agent.” She was an AASL Social Media Superstar Finalist in the category of Social Justice Defender, and she was awarded the Suffolk School Library Media Association’s School Librarian of the Year in 2014. She is author of Makers with a Cause: Creative Service Projects for Library Youth and shares her work, musings, and reflections on her blog GinaSeymour.com and on X @ginaseymour.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Stacy Brown, "Revolutionize Youth Book Clubs: Strategies for Meaningful and Fun Reading Experiences" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Learn to facilitate modern book clubs devoted to elevating the reading experience through active engagement, resulting in long-term commitment to book club events. How do you get the kids in your library to read? The benefits of reading are plentiful, especially for youth – it improves vocabulary, helps them become more empathetic and inclusive, and expands exposure to academic opportunities. In an age of digital distractions, book clubs can be a catalyst for encouraging youth to prioritize reading. These tried and tested strategies help even reluctant readers develop a love of reading through book club participation.

In Revolutionize Youth Book Clubs: Strategies for Meaningful and Fun Reading Experiences (Bloomsbury, 2025) Stacy Brown, who has facilitated book clubs for more than twenty years, shows you how to build active engagement through hands-on activities, reflective discussions, and theme-related tips and tricks, even in the face of time and budget constraints. Learn how to attract participants, brand and market your book clubs, and keep attendees returning for more. You'll be changing the world – one book club at a time.

Stacy Brown is a librarian and the Director of Innovation and Professional Learning at The Davis Academy, an independent school in Atlanta, Georgia. Stacy is a long-serving board member for the Atlanta Area Technology Educators organization and the advisory board for Savvy Cyber Kids, Inc., a nonprofit organization devoted to educating and empower digital citizens. Additionally, Stacy serves on the Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited School and Public Libraries advisory board.

Stacy’s expertise extends to academia, where she has taught as a visiting professor at The University of Washington’s iSchool, offering a course on marketing in information organizations. She is also a past chair of the AASL Collaborative School Library Award committee and served on AASL’s School Library Event Promotion Committee.

Stacy has written a new book Revolutionize Youth Book Clubs: Strategies for Meaningful and Fun Reading Experiencesand is the author of The School Librarian's Technology Playbook published in 2020. She is also a contributor to other Libraries Unlimited publications, such as School Library Makerspaces in Action, and has created several online courses focused on collection development and leadership in libraries.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Nolan L. Cabrera and Robert S. Chang, "Banned: The Fight for Mexican American Studies in the Streets and in the Courts" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 7 May 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Banned: The Fight for Mexican American Studies in the Streets and in the Courts (Cambridge UP, 2025), readers are taken on a journey through the intense racial politics surrounding the banning of Mexican American Studies in Tucson, Arizona. This book details the state-sponsored racism that led to the elimination of this highly successful program, and the grassroots and legal resistance that followed. Through extensive research and firsthand narratives, readers will gain a deep understanding of the controversy surrounding this historic case. The legal challenge successfully overturned the Arizona law and became a central symbol in the modern-day Ethnic Studies renaissance. This work is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the power of community activism, the importance of fighting for educational equity, and why the example of Tucson created an alternative blueprint for how we can challenge states that are currently banning critical race theory.

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Matthew Daniel Eddy, "Media and the Mind: Art, Science, and Notebooks as Paper Machines, 1700-1830" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

We often think of reason as a fixed entity, as a definitive body of facts that do not change over time. But during the Enlightenment, reason also was seen as a process, as a set of skills enacted on a daily basis. How, why, and where were these skills learned? Concentrating on Scottish students living during the long eighteenth century, Media and the Mind: Art, Science, and Notebooks as Paper Machines, 1700-1830 (University of Chicago Press, 2023) by Dr. Matthew Daniel Eddy argues that notebooks were paper machines and that notekeeping was a capability-building exercise that enabled young notekeepers to mobilize everyday handwritten and printed forms of material and visual media in a way that empowered them to judge and enact the enlightened principles they encountered in the classroom.

Covering a rich selection of material ranging from simple scribbles to intricate watercolor diagrams, the book reinterprets John Locke’s comparison of the mind to a blank piece of paper, the tabula rasa. Although one of the most recognizable metaphors of the British Enlightenment, scholars seldom consider why it was so successful for those who used it. Each chapter uses one core notekeeping skill to reveal the fascinating world of material culture that enabled students in the arts, sciences, and humanities to transform the tabula rasa metaphor into a dynamic cognitive model. Starting in the home, moving to schools, and ending with universities, the book reconstructs the relationship between media and the mind from the bottom up. It reveals that the cognitive skills required to make and use notebooks were not simply aids to reason; rather, they were part of reason itself.

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How to Found A College: A Conversation with University of Austin President Pano Kanelos

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Today I’m speaking with Pano Kanelos, founding president of the University of Austin. A scholar and professor of Shakespeare studies, Panos’ advocacy for the liberal arts eventually lead him to become president of St. John’s College in Annapolis. In the past few years, Pano has found himself at the center of an academic project that seemed rather unlikely in an era where the big universities are getting bigger and other colleges are shuttering their doors. The University of Austin’s creation points to the potential for dynamism and change in academia. While it’s just getting started, the story of University of Austin is one to follow for anyone interested in how higher education is changing in the 21st century.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Adam Kissel et al., "Slacking: A Guide to Ivy League Miseducation" (Encounter Books, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

What does a general education from an Ivy League mean? What structures produce the course catalogues that students can choose to customize their education from? Is a world-class degree a world-class education?

In this episode, we sit down with the three authors of Slacking: A Guide A Guide to Ivy League Miseducation (Encounter Books, 2025). Adam Kissel, Madison Marino Doan, and Rachel Alexander Cambre guide us through their process of collaboration and their argument that Ivy League institutions are not providing students with a quality education. Through the saturation of DEI-coded or hyper-specialized courses, they argue, students lack access to classical education and Western civilization–based instruction that would better serve their intellectual development. The authors discuss their approach to building the argument, the origins of their idea, and what students should keep in mind when selecting their schools and course lists.

Adam Kissel is a visiting fellow for higher education reform in the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation. He is a board member of the University of West Florida, Southern Wesleyan University, and the National Association of Scholars. Rachel Alexander Cambre teaches for Belmont Abbey College’s new Master of Arts in Classical and Liberal Education program. A visiting fellow in the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Politics and Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation from 2022 to 2024, she researches and writes on liberal arts education and American political thought. She held a research postdoctoral fellowship at the James Madison Program from 2019-2020. Madison Marina Doan is a senior research associate in the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Her work focuses on affordability and accountability reform in higher education and K-12 education choice initiatives. Her work may be found in Fox News, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, The Daily Signal, and the Educational Freedom Institute.

Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.

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Peter B. Kaufman, "The Moving Image: A User's Manual" (MIT Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Video (television, film, the moving image generally) is today’s most popular information medium. Two-thirds of the world’s internet traffic is video. Americans get their news and information more often from screens and speakers than through any other means. The Moving Image: A User's Manual (MIT Press, 2025) is the first authoritative account of how we have arrived here, together with the first definitive manual to help writers, educators, and publishers use video more effectively.

Drawing on decades as an educator, publisher, and producer, MIT’s Peter Kaufman presents new tools, best practices, and community resources for integrating film and sound into media that matters. Kaufman describes video’s vital role in politics, law, education, and entertainment today, only 130 years since the birth of film. He explains how best to produce video, distribute it, clear rights to it, cite it, and, ultimately, archive and preserve it. With detailed guidance on producing and deploying video and sound for publication, finding and using archival video and sound, securing rights and permissions, developing distribution strategies, and addressing questions about citation, preservation, and storage—across the broadest spectrum of platforms, publications, disciplines, and formats—The Moving Image equips readers for the medium’s continued ascendance in education, publishing, and knowledge dissemination in the decades to come. And, modeled in part on Strunk and White’s classic, The Elements of Style, it’s also a highly enjoyable read.

Peter B. Kaufman is Senior Program Officer at MIT Open Learning. He is the author of The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge and founder of Intelligent Television, a video production company that works with cultural and educational institutions around the world.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Yellowlees Douglas, "Writing for the Reader's Brain: A Science-Based Guide" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

What makes one sentence easy to read and another a slog that demands re-reading? Where do you put information you want readers to recall? Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, psychology and psycholinguistics, Writing for the Reader’s Brain (Cambridge University Press, 2025) provides a practical, how-to guide on how to write for your reader. It introduces the five 'Cs' of writing - clarity, continuity, coherence, concision, and cadence - and demonstrates how to use these to bring your writing to life.

Dr. Yellowlees Douglas is the founder of ReadersBrain Academy and has spent over twenty-five years teaching writing to everyone from professors to freshmen.

This interview was conducted by Renee Hale, who holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and works in R&D for the food and beverage industry. She is the author of The Nightstorm Files, a voracious reader, and enjoys sharing the joy of new perspectives with listeners.

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Gabe Henry, "Enough Is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell" (Dey Street, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In Enough is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Eezier to Spell (Dey Street Books, 2025), Gabe Henry presents a brief and humorous 500-year history of the Simplified Spelling Movement from advocates like Ben Franklin, C. S. Lewis, and Mark Twain to texts and Twitter. Why does the G in George sound different from the G in gorge? Why does C begin both case and cease? And why is it funny when a philologist faints, but not polight to laf about it? Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to write in English has, at one time or another, struggled with its spelling. So why do we continue to use it? If our system of writing words is so tragically inconsistent, why haven't we standardized it, phoneticized it, brought it into line? How many brave linguists have ever had the courage to state, in a declaration of phonetic revolt: "Enough is enuf"?

The answer: many. In the comic annals of linguistic history, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to bring English into the realm of the rational. This book is about them: Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Eliza Burnz, C. S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and the innumerable others on both sides of the Atlantic who, for a time in their life, became fanatically occupied with writing thru instead of through, tho for though, laf for laugh, beleev for believe, and dawter for daughter (and tried futilely to get everyone around them to do it too). Henry takes his humorous and informative chronicle right up to today as the language seems to naturally be simplifying to fit the needs of our changing world thanks to technology--from texting to Twitter and emojis, the Simplified Spelling Movement may finally be having its day.

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Neil Kraus, "The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement" (Temple UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Wage stagnation, growing inequality, and even poverty itself have resulted from decades of neoliberal decision making, not the education system, writes Neil Kraus in his urgent call to action, The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement (Temple UP, 2023).

Kraus claims the idea that both the education system and labor force are chronically deficient was aggressively and incorrectly promoted starting in the Reagan era, when corporate interests and education reformers emphasized education as the exclusive mechanism providing the citizenry with economic opportunity. However, as this critical book reveals, that is a misleading articulation of the economy and education system rooted in the economic self-interests of corporations and the wealthy.

The Fantasy Economy challenges the basic assumptions of the education reform movement of the last few decades. Kraus insists that education cannot control the labor market and unreliable corporate narratives fuel this misinformation. Moreover, misguided public policies, such as accountability and school choice, along with an emphasis on workforce development and STEM over broad-based liberal arts education, have only produced greater inequality.

Ultimately, The Fantasy Economy argues that education should be understood as a social necessity, not an engine of the neoliberal agenda. Kraus' book advocates for a change in conventional thinking about economic opportunity and the purpose of education in a democracy.

Neil Kraus is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. He is the author of Majoritarian Cities: Policy Making and Inequality in Urban Politics and Race, Neighborhoods, and Community Power: Buffalo Politics, 1934-1997.

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Aaron Kupchik, "Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice" (NYU Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 13 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Every year, millions of public school students are suspended. This overused punishment removes students from the classroom, but it does not improve their behavior. Instead, suspension disrupts their education, harming the students, their families, and their schools. Black students suffer most within this broken system, experiencing a far greater risk of school punishment and the significant harms that accompany it. Many activists and scholars have considered how school punishment increases racial inequity, but few have thought to ask why. Why do we punish students the way we do, and why have we allowed this harmful practice to impact the lives of our nation’s children?

In Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice (NYU Press, 2025), Aaron Kupchik takes readers to the root of the issue. Suspensions were not intended as a behavior management tool. Instead, they were designed to remove unwanted students from the classroom. Through statistical analysis and in-depth case studies of schools in Massachusetts and Delaware, Kupchik reveals how suspension rates skyrocketed after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, serving as an unofficial means of removing Black children from newly desegregated schools. His groundbreaking research traces the legacy of these segregationist movements, demonstrating that school districts with more desegregation-related legal battles from the 1950s onward suspend more Black students today. Combining expert analysis with compelling, accessible prose, Kupchik makes a powerful case for the end of suspension and other exclusionary punishments. The result is a revelatory explanation of a pressing problem facing all children, parents, and educators today.

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Katherine Ngo, "Unlocking the Treasury: Elementary Learning for Boys in Qing China" (Lever Press, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

How did young boys in premodern China learn? What educational texts did they use? What values informed their education? Katherine Ngo’s new book Unlocking the Treasury: Elementary Learning for Boys in Qing China (Lever Press, 2025) explores these questions through a focus on a Qing-dynasty textbook: Treasury of Elementary Learning (Youxue qionglin 幼學瓊林). One of the most popular textbooks in the Qing, Treasury is packed to the brim with allusions, references, exemplars, and much more. Katherine deftly unpacks Treasury, showing how it is at once a handbook for practical learning, a child-friendly version of the school of heart-mind, and an introduction to training for the civil-service examination.

In addition to being a wonderfully rich and careful introduction to Treasury, this book highlights how education in the Qing was complex, eclectic, and anything but focused exclusively on rote learning. Unlocking the Treasury should be of interest to scholars of China, historians of the early modern world, but also anyone interested in the history of education, pedagogy, and different ways of learning.

Unlocking the Treasury is also available as an Open Access ebook here.

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From Awareness to Action: A Conversation with Nancy Ceulemans on Understanding Children's Behavior

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

What if the key to understanding your child’s toughest behaviors isn’t just about discipline or routines – but about how their body and brain are processing the world around them?

In this episode of the New Books Network, Parenting Trainer Patrick Ney sits down with Nancy Ceulemans, neurodevelopmental educational consultant and co-author of From Awareness to Action – Empowering Early Childhood Educators to Support Children with Autism (2024). While the book is aimed at early childhood educators, the insights Nancy shares are just as powerful for parents of both autistic and neurotypical children.

Our conversation goes straight to the heart of the matter – why children act out in ways that often leave adults confused, overwhelmed, or stuck. Nancy brings decades of experience and a deeply holistic view of child development, tying together neuroscience, sensory integration, motor function, and family dynamics in a way that’s easy to understand and immediately useful.

Here are some of the highlights from our conversation:

– We talk about the impact of environmental toxins on children’s behavior – and some of the surprising sources many parents overlook

– Nancy explains how the sensory systems can be hypo- or hyper-reactive, and how this plays a major role in behaviors like meltdowns, shutdowns, or extreme reactions to everyday situations

– We offer practical tips for parents – whether your child is autistic or not – on what to do in the heat of a meltdown or when sensory issues are getting in the way of daily life

– Nancy dives into the role of muscle tone and motor systems in regulating emotions and behavior – something that’s rarely discussed but often the missing piece

– She also shares moving and insightful stories from her own life and clinical practice – including helping a child with selective mutism and working with a girl who refused to wear clothes, uncovering the hidden sensory cause behind it

The big message in this conversation is simple – when we look beyond the surface of behavior, we can start to understand what a child is really asking for. Whether your child is hitting, kicking, biting, spitting – or just struggling to cope with the world – this episode will give you new tools, new perspectives, and a deeper sense of connection.

Nancy Ceulemans is available for consultation at www.uniquelearning.ca

To learn with Patrick Ney in free Masterclasses, visit www.allaboutparenting.com

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Postscript: Collective Action to Support Students at American Colleges and Universities

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 2 Apr 2025 08:00:00 +0000

A coalition of educators and allies has come together to push back against a variety of different kinds of attacks on higher education and students at colleges and universities, particularly in the United States. This group is driven by the belief that a democracy is only as strong as its commitments to academic freedom, intellectual integrity, human diversity, and individual dignity. The impetus among this particular group of academics and staff members is to make sure that students at all the campuses, in all the programs at those campuses across the United States are supported and free to engage in their chosen courses of study. The various ways in which this mission is being attacked or undermined, with the slashing of grants, attempts to control curriculum, freezing of campus free speech, snatching of students off the streets, and threats to the bottom line all contribute to destabilizing the educational paths of students, and the ability of the faculty and the staff to provide students with the education, research opportunities, and higher education experiences they are seeking at these institutions.

I am joined on this installment of PostScript by three members of an organic group of educators—across disciplines—who came together in the early days of the new Trump Administration to try to figure out how to best support students at different institutions. One of the results of this collaboration among academics and educators across disciplines, institutions, and parts of the country, was to craft a letter directed at university administrators, governmental entities, and the public, explaining the value and import of education, especially in a democracy, and the need for a diversity of voices and contributors to that enterprise. I discuss the origin of the group, the genesis of the letter (which is available to sign here), and the deep concerns among those who work in higher education in the United States with Alison Gash, Daniel Laurison, and Nathan Lents.

Alison Gash is Professor of Political Science and Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Oregon.

Daniel Laurison is Associate Professor of Sociology at Swarthmore College, the former Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Sociology, and a 2021-2023 Carnegie Fellow.

Nathan Lents is Professor of Biology at John Jay College,

Links:

We are Higher Ed Letter: Speaking Out for Democracy and US Higher Education

We are Higher Ed Website: https://www.wearehighered.org/

Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj.

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Teaching International Students in Australia

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with Dr Agi Bodis and Dr Jing Fang about international tertiary students in Australia. They discuss how these students can make connections between their university experiences, their curriculum, and the professional industries they hope to one day be a part of. They also discuss how international students bring rich linguistic, cultural and intellectual experiences to their university and wider Australian communities.

Dr Bodis is a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University as well as the Course Director of the Applied Linguistics and TESOL program. Dr Fang is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie as well as a NAATI-certified translator and interpreter between English and Chinese. She also serves as a panel interpreter/translator for Multicultural NSW and as a NAATI examiner.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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David Oakeshott, "Schooling, Conflict and Peace in the Southwestern Pacific: Becoming Enemy Friends" (Bristol UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 08:00:00 +0000

Bringing concepts from critical transitional justice and peacebuilding into dialogue with education, Schooling, Conflict and Peace in the Southwestern Pacific: Becoming Enemy Friends (Bristol University Press, 2024) by Dr. David Oakeshott examines the challenges youth and their teachers face in the post-conflict settings of Bougainville and Solomon Islands.

Youth in these places must reconcile with the violent past of their parents’ generation while also learning how to live with people once on opposing ‘sides'. This book traces how students and their teachers form connections to the past and each other that cut through the forces that might divide them. The findings illustrate novel ways to think about the potential for education to assist post-conflict recovery.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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 episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Teaching With Positive Psychology Skills

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 6 Mar 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Studies show that students who have a positive outlook on their lives outperform students who don’t. Is positive thinking a skill? Can it be taught?

Our article is: “Teaching Positive Psychology Skills at school may be one way to help student mental health and happiness,” by Dr. Kai Zhuang Shum, published in The Conversation, which explores how the components of happiness and connection can be applied to classroom settings around the world. Amid the reduced access to mental health services for many students, and the rising rates of student stress and depression, researchers are finding that positive psychology interventions make a real difference. “Students who’ve been introduced to science-based ideas about happiness,” Dr. Shum writes, “feel more satisfied with life.” She joins us for this episode to explain more.

Our guest is: Dr. Kai Zhuang Shum, who is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP) and a Licensed Psychologist. She serves as an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville School Psychology Program. She specializes in positive psychology, motivation, anxiety (including OCD), attention, time management, and well-being (happiness).

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Listeners may enjoy this playlist:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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Chris Higgins, "Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education" (MIT Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 4 Mar 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education (MIT Press, 2024) is an imaginative tour of the contemporary university as it could be: a place to discover self-knowledge, meaning, and purpose.

What if college were not just a means of acquiring credentials, but a place to pursue our formation as whole persons striving to lead lives of meaning and purpose? In Undeclared, Chris Higgins confronts the contemporary university in a bid to reclaim a formative mission for higher education. In a series of searching essays and pointed interludes, Higgins challenges us to acknowledge how far our practices have drifted from our ideals, asking: What would it look like to build a college from the ground up to support self-discovery and personal integration? What does it mean to be a public university, and are there any left? How can the humanities help the job-ified university begin to take vocation seriously?

Cutting through the underbrush of received ideas, Higgins follows the insight where it leads, clearing a path from the corporate multiversity to the renaissance in higher education that was Black Mountain College and back again. Along the way, we tour a campus bent on becoming a shopping mall, accompany John Dewey through a midlife crisis, and witness the first "happening.” Through diverse and grounded philosophical engagements, Undeclared assembles the resources to expand the contemporary educational imagination.

Chris Higgins is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Formative Education in Boston College's Lynch School of Education and Human Development, where he directs the Transformative Educational Studies program. He is the author of The Good Life of Teaching.

The book is available Open Access here.

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Lisa Kallman Hopkins and Bridgit McCafferty, "Innovative Library Workplaces: Transformative Human Resource Strategies" (ACRL, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 2 Mar 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Good workplaces require both autonomy--giving employees a sense of ownership over how and where they work--and collaboration in pursuit of common goals. They see employees for who they are and support them, pay them enough money to live comfortably, and provide the resources, training, and support they need to be successful. Innovative Library Workplaces: Transformative Human Resource Strategies (2025, Association of College and Research Libraries) provides the tools you need to make your workplace a good one for your employees. Though this book took root during the pandemic, it is not of the pandemic: The changes wrought are permanent. Innovative Library Workplaces proposes a way forward after this monumental disruption, recognizing that neither the pandemic nor the work culture prior to it is a good model for what comes next.

Bridgit McCafferty is the Dean of the University Library & Archives at Texas A&M University-Central Texas and has led the library for twelve years. Prior to this, she oversaw reference and instruction services. She has taken on major administrative projects for her university, including recently chairing the SACSCOC Accreditation Reaffirmation Compliance Committee. She is the author of Library Management: A Practical Guide for Librarians and the coauthor of British Postmodernism: Strategies and Sources.

Lisa Kallman Hopkins is an associate librarian at A&M-Central Texas. She is the head of Technical Services and assistant dean of the University Library & Archives. In her role as head of Technical Services, she is directly responsible for systems, E-Resources, and agreements, and manages cataloging and acquisitions, interlibrary loan, e-reserves and textbook reserves. She is the university copyright specialist and copyeditor. In addition to Innovative Library Workplaces, she has submitted chapters to Transforming Acquisitions & Collection Services: Perspectives on Collaboration Within and Across Libraries and Technical Services: Adapting to the Changing Environment.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Educational Inequality in Fijian Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language-on-the-Move podcast, Dr Hanna Torsh speaks with Dr Prashneel Ravisan Goundar about his new book, English Language-Mediated Settings and Educational Inequality: Language Policy Agendas in the South Pacific published by Routledge in 2025.

In this book, Goundar explores how educational inequalities are responsible for the way students perform in English language-mediated school settings. He seeks to establish an explicit connection between language testing and educational inequalities at the higher education level.

With its focus on higher education, this research is a fresh reminder of the need to continuously revisit and unsettle inequalities that are embedded in education systems. In the South Pacific context, this study reveals the current issues, including medium of instruction challenges, lack of teaching and learning resources, teacher shortages, and language barriers. Goundar’s research seeks new answers to the problem of academic English language skills faced by undergraduate students. Since English is a second language for the majority of students in Fiji and as the quality of education varies between urban and rural schools, this cumulatively impacts students’ acquisition of English skills, and, consequently, their university performance. The important questions posed and addressed in this book are as follows:

What are the language implications of colonisation on education in the South Pacific? What resources and learning opportunities are provided in schools to promote equal access to education content for students from non-English-speaking backgrounds?
How do students from different schooling backgrounds in Fiji cope with an English language-mediated university learning environment?
Do educational inequalities manifest in the performance of students from all schooling backgrounds, or are they confined to specific sociocultural zones?

Drawing on a unique dataset from a context in the Global South, this book provides new insights for a more holistic approach to examining academic language proficiency and the use of language testing.

English Language-mediated Settings and Educational Inequalities: Language Education Policy Agendas in the South Pacific is suitable for postgraduate students in language policy and planning, multilingual language policies for schools, medium of instruction studies, and language testing, and South Pacific studies.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Robyn M. Gillies, "Enquiry-based Science Education" (CRC Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Students often think of science as disconnected pieces of information rather than a narrative that challenges their thinking, requires them to develop evidence-based explanations for the phenomena under investigation, and communicate their ideas in discipline-specific language as to why certain solutions to a problem work.

In Enquiry-based Science Education (CRC Press, 2020), Robyn M. Gillies provides teachers in primary and junior secondary school with different evidence-based strategies they can use to teach inquiry science in their classrooms. The research and theoretical perspectives that underpin the strategies are discussed as are examples of how different ones areimplemented in science classrooms to affect student engagement and learning.

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Adam R. Nelson, "Exchange of Ideas: The Economy of Higher Education in Early America" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Exchange of Ideas: The Economy of Higher Education in Early America (U Chicago Press, 2023) launches a breathtakingly ambitious new economic history of American higher education. In this volume, Adam R. Nelson focuses on the early republic, explaining how knowledge itself became a commodity, as useful ideas became salable goods and American colleges were drawn into transatlantic commercial relations. American scholars might once have imagined that higher education could sit beyond the sphere of market activity—that intellectual exchange could transcend vulgar consumerism—but already by the end of the eighteenth century, they saw how ideas could be factored into the nation’s balance of trade. Moreover, they concluded that it was the function of colleges to oversee the complex process whereby knowledge could be priced and purchased. The history of capitalism and the history of higher education, Nelson reveals, are intimately intertwined—which raises a host of important and strikingly urgent questions. How do we understand knowledge and education as commercial goods? Who should pay for them? And, fundamentally, what is the optimal system of higher education in a capitalist democracy?

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Allison Rank et al., "Civic Pedagogies: Teaching Civic Engagement in an Era of Divisive Politics" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Political Scientists Lauren C. Bell, Allison Rank, and Carah Ong Whaley have a new edited volume, Civic Pedagogies: Teaching Civic Engagement in an Era of Divisive Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). This book has four separate sections that guide the reader through different dimensions of teaching civic engagement and the many aspects of this important pedagogical capacity that often falls on the shoulders of political science faculty at universities and colleges in the United States. In our discussion we cover the idea of civic engagement itself as an approach that many of us integrate into our courses in a variety of ways. Civic Pedagogies focuses on this complex topic first through a number of chapters that dive into the theory behind civic engagement and how to think about this concept as a dimension of or the entirety of a college course. The next section of the book takes up a variety of different practical approaches to embedding civic learning into courses. The last two sections of the book explore the challenges and benefits of civically engaged pedagogies and, finally, assessment of civically engaged pedagogies.

This is a thorough and thoughtful book with an impressive array of contributing authors all thinking about not only the importance of civically engaged pedagogies, but also the unique dimensions of this kind of pedagogy. The three editors explain, in our conversation, different points of importances that were fleshed out by the many contributors and their thinking about how best to embed this vital component of education within a democracy. Civic Pedagogies: Teaching Civic Engagement in an Era of Divisive Politics has so many different perspectives that it provides a rich array of options for most educators who want or need to integrate civic pedagogies into their classrooms. In our discussion, we also explore the value of being able to engage on public topics and political questions in a civil manner—both in the classroom itself and then, as students move into their lives beyond college, as members of their communities.

Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social

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American Higher Education Under the Second Trump Administration

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Director John Torpey speaks with Steven Brint, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at UC Riverside, about the early days of the second Trump administration and its impact on higher education. Brint discusses the administration’s aggressive efforts to reshape federal governance, including its attacks on DEI programs, proposals to tax university endowments, and moves to condition federal funding on ideological compliance. The conversation explores how these policies could undermine academic freedom, international student enrollment, and the global reputation of U.S. universities. Brint also examines the broader crisis of public confidence in higher education, tracing concerns over cost, curriculum relevance, and perceptions of political bias. The episode concludes with a discussion of the risks facing the American university system in an era of rising authoritarianism and political polarization.

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Adam Laats, "Mr. Lancaster's System: The Failed Reform That Created America's Public Schools" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Two centuries ago, London school reformer Joseph Lancaster swept into New York City to revolutionize its public schools. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts passed laws mandating Lancaster's methods, and cities such as Albany, Savannah, Detroit, and Baltimore soon followed. In Mr. Lancaster's System: The Failed Reform That Created America's Public Schools (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024), Adam Laats tells the story of how this abusive, scheming reformer fooled the world into believing his system could provide free high-quality education for poor children. The system never worked as promised, but thanks to real work done by students, teachers, and families, Lancaster's failed reforms eventually led to the creation of the modern public school system.

Lancaster's idea was simple: instead of hiring expensive adult teachers, Lancasterian schools made children teach one another to read, write, and behave properly. America's city leaders poured the equivalent of millions of dollars into the scheme, built specialized school buildings featuring Lancaster's teaching machines, and offered him a huge salary. In London, where Lancaster opened his first school, the enthusiasm of city leaders was quickly and similarly followed by scandal and dismay. Lancaster borrowed money—even from the king of England—and spent it on fancy carriage rides and cases of champagne. Even worse, Lancaster proved to be a sexual predator. Kicked out of London, Lancaster brought his simplistic plan to the United States. His school model didn't work any better in US cities than it had in London, and Lancaster himself never changed his abusive ways.

Mr. Lancaster's System details how American cities created their first public schools out of the wreckage of Lancasterian failure. In the end, the most important people in this story are not self-proclaimed geniuses like Lancaster or elites like New York's mayor De Witt Clinton, but rather the thousands of parents and children who forced urban public schools to assume their modern shape.

Adam Laats is a professor of education and history at Binghamton University. He taught high school for many years in Milwaukee and is the author of The Other School Reformers and Fundamentalist U.

Max Jacobs is a PhD student in education at Rutgers University.

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Martín Alberto Gonzalez, "Why You Always So Political?: The Experiences and Resiliencies of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx Students in Higher Education" (Viva Oxnard, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 8 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

As of 2018, only about one in ten Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx (MMAX) students graduate with a college degree. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observations, pláticas, document analyses, and literature on race, space, and racism in higher education, Why you always so political?: The Experiences and Resiliencies of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx Students in Higher Education (Viva Oxnard, 2024) by Dr. Martín Alberto Gonzalez documents the narratives of 20 MMAX undergraduate students at a private, historically and predominantly white university in the Northeast United States. Utilizing counterstorytelling as a research method, Martín Alberto Gonzalez argues that the racially hostile campus environment experienced by MMAX students at their respective university manifests itself as a form of educational-environmental racism. By providing culturally relevant counterstories about racism in higher education, this book offers an accessible tool for teaching and learning about the harsh realities of Students of Color who attend predominantly white universities.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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.

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Mary Zaborskis, "Queer Childhoods: Institutional Futures of Indigeneity, Race, and Disability" (NYU Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 5 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Queer Childhoods: Institutional Futures of Indigeneity, Race, and Disability (NYU Press, 2024) explores how the institutional management of children's sexualities in boarding schools affected children's future social, political, and economic opportunities

Tracing the US's investment in disciplining minoritarian sexualities since the late nineteenth century, Mary Zaborskis focuses on a ubiquitous but understudied figure: the queer child. Queer Childhoods examines the lived and literary experiences of children who attended reform schools, schools for the blind, African American industrial schools, and Native American boarding schools. In mapping the institutional terrain of queer childhoods in educational settings of the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century, the book offers an original archive of children's sexual and embodied experiences.

Zaborskis argues that these boarding schools--designed to segregate racialized, criminalized, and disabled children from mainstream culture--produced new forms of childhood. These childhoods have secured American futures in which institutionalized children (and the adults they become) have not been considered full-fledged citizens or participants. By locating this queerness in state archives and institutions, Queer Childhoods exposes a queer social history entangled with genocide, eugenics, and racialized violence.

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Wilton S. Wright, "Rewriting Resistance to Social Justice Pedagogies" (Lexington Books, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Resistance to feminist, queer, and antiracist pedagogies can take many forms in the composition class: silence during class discussion; tepid, bland writing that fails to engage with course content; refusal to engage with feminist and queer ideas; open and direct challenges to professors’ authority. According to Wilton Wright, Rewriting Resistance to Social Justice Pedagogies (Lexington Books, 2024) argues that composition studies has not adequately addressed the complex and deeply local contexts and causes of resistance. Therefore, the author argues that resistance research must first understand the origins and purpose for a student’s resistance, interrogating the language used to name and describe students who resist. Composition instructors must then give students the tools to uncover and investigate their reasons for resistance themselves, challenging students to continually interrogate their resistances. This book utilizes feminist composition pedagogies, masculinity studies, and queer pedagogies to engage student resistance in the writing classroom.

Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is a Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His general area of study is at the intersection of space, behavior, and identity. He is currently conducting research about the negotiation that humans make between oneself, identification of place, and the attachment/s they have to those places. To learn more about Michael O. Johnston you can go to his personal website, Google Scholar, Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social),Twitter (@ProfessorJohnst), or by email at johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu

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Derek W. Black, "Dangerous Learning: The South's Long War on Black Literacy" (Yale UP, 2025)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Few have ever valued literacy as much as the enslaved Black people of the American South. For them, it was more than a means to a better life; it was a gateway to freedom and, in some instances, a tool for inspiring revolt. And few governments tried harder to suppress literacy than did those in the South. Everyone understood that knowledge was power: power to keep a person enslaved in mind and body, power to resist oppression. In the decades before the Civil War, Southern governments drove Black literacy underground, but it was too precious to be entirely stamped out.

Dangerous Learning: The South's Long War on Black Literacy (Yale UP, 2025) describes the violent lengths to which southern leaders went to repress Black literacy and the extraordinary courage it took Black people to resist. Derek W. Black shows how, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of Reconstruction, literacy evolved from a subversive gateway to freedom to a public program to extend citizenship and build democratic institutions—and how, once Reconstruction was abandoned, opposition to educating Black children depressed education throughout the South for Black and white students alike. He also reveals the deep imprint those events had on education and how this legacy is resurfacing today.

Omari Averette-Phillips is a PhD student in the History department at UC Davis.

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Taylor N. Carlson, "Through the Grapevine: Socially Transmitted Information and Distorted Democracy" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Accurate information is at the heart of democratic functioning. For decades, researchers interested in how information is disseminated have focused on mass media, but the reality is that many Americans today do not learn about politics from direct engagement with the news. Rather, about one-third of Americans learn chiefly from information shared by their peers in conversation or on social media. How does this socially transmitted information differ from that communicated by traditional media? What are the consequences for political attitudes and behavior?

Drawing on evidence from experiments, surveys, and social media, in Through the Grapevine: Socially Transmitted Information and Distorted Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 2024) Dr. Taylor N. Carlson finds that, as information flows first from the media then person to person, it becomes sparse, more biased, less accurate, and more mobilizing. The result is what Carlson calls distorted democracy. Although socially transmitted information does not necessarily render democracy dysfunctional, Through the Grapevine shows how it contributes to a public that is at once underinformed, polarized, and engaged.

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Naomi Hodgson and Stefan Ramaekers, "Philosophical Presentations of Raising Children: The Grammar of Upbringing" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Philosophical Presentations of Raising Children: The Grammar of Upbringing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) uses contemporary film to articulate a philosophical account of raising children. It forms part of a revaluation of the parent as a pedagogical figure, which stands in contrast to the instrumental accounts dominant in contemporary ‘parenting’ culture. Hodgson and Ramaekers use film to offer an affirmative account of the experience of raising children, as a presentation of those inevitable aspects and experiences that upbringing is: the initiation into language and the world; the representative nature of the parent; and the maintaining of mundane practices that constitute our shared culture and community. The films which are discussed are taken as grammatical investigations and enable the authors to develop an account of the use of film in education and as educational philosophy, and to respond to each film’s invitation to articulate the existential dimensions of raising children. Philosophical Presentations of Raising Children will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including education, sociology, philosophy, critical parenting studies and film studies - and, perhaps, parents.

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April-Louise Pennant, "Babygirl, You've Got This!: Experiences of Black Girls and Women in the English Education System" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

How do Black women experience education in Britain?

Within British educational research about Black students, gender distinctions have been largely absent, male-dominated or American-centric. Due to the lack of attention paid to Black female students, relatively little is known about how they understand and engage with the education system, or the influences which shape their long-term strategies and decision-making in order to gain educational 'success'.

Babygirl, You've Got This! Experiences of Black Girls and Women in the English Education System (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Dr. April-Louise Pennant will illustrate the educational experiences and journeys of Black British women graduates and considers the influence of the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, culture and social class on their educational journeys. Dr. Pennant uniquely documents the entire educational journey - from primary school to university - within both predominantly white (PW) and predominantly global majority (PGM) educational institutions in order to examine the various accessibility, financial and academic hurdles which face Black girls and women.

The book combines theoretical frameworks such as Critical Race Theory, Bourdieu's Theory of Practice and Black Feminist epistemology, alongside the personal accounts of the author and a range of Black British women graduates. Through analysis of the strategies, choices and decisions made by Black British women in their educational journeys, the book ultimately provides insights into how to navigate the education system effectively, and provides alternatives to normalised understandings of educational 'success'.

Find out more about Dr. April-Louise Pennant on her website!

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Loleen Berdahl et al., "For the Public Good: Reimagining Arts Graduate Programs in Canadian Universities" (U Alberta, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Arts graduate education is uniquely positioned to deliver many of the public good needs of contemporary Canada. For the Public Good: Reimagining Arts Graduate Programs in Canadian Universities (U Alberta, 2024) argues, however, that graduate programs must fundamentally change if they are to achieve this potential. Drawing on deep experience and research, the authors outline how reformed programs that equip graduates with advanced skills can address Canada’s most vexing challenges and seek action on equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization.

In the episode, the authors, Loleen Berdahl, Jonathan Malloy and Lisa Young, chart how current approaches to graduate education emerged and make a data-informed case for change. We also discuss an evidence-based vision for reimagining arts graduate education and actor-specific steps to achieve this potential.

This interview was conducted by Shreya Urvashi, a doctoral researcher of sociology and education based in Toronto, Canada.

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Nora Gross, "Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 05:00:00 +0000

A heartbreaking account of grief, Black boyhood, and how we can support young people as they navigate loss.

JahSun, a dependable, much-loved senior at Boys' Prep was just hitting his stride in the fall of 2017. He had finally earned a starting position on the varsity football team and was already weighing two college acceptances. Then, over Thanksgiving, tragedy struck. An altercation at his older sister's home escalated into violence, killing the unarmed teenager in a hail of bullets. JahSun's untimely death overwhelmed his entire community, sending his family, friends, and school into seemingly insurmountable grief. Worse yet, that spring two additional Boys' Prep students would be shot to death in their neighborhood. JahSun and his peers are not alone in suffering the toll of gun violence, as every year in the United States teenagers die by gunfire in epidemic numbers, with Black boys most deeply affected.

Brothers in Grief: The Hidden Toll of Gun Violence on Black Boys and Their Schools (U Chicago Press, 2024) closely attends to the neglected victims of youth gun violence: the suffering friends and classmates who must cope, mostly out of public view, with lasting grief and hidden anguish. Set at an ambitious urban high school for boys during the heartbreaking year following the death of JahSun, the book chronicles the consequences of untimely death on Black teen boys and on a school community struggling to recover. Sociologist Nora Gross tells the story of students attempting to grapple with unthinkable loss, inviting readers in to observe how they move through their days at school and on social media in the aftermath of their friends' and classmates' deaths. Gross highlights the discrepancy between their school's educational mission and teachers' and administrators' fraught attempts to care for students' emotional wellbeing. In the end, the school did not provide adequate space for grief, making it more difficult for students to heal, reengage with school, and imagine hopeful futures. Even so, supportive relationships deepened among students and formed across generations, offering promising examples of productive efforts to channel student grief into positive community change.

A searing testimony of our collective failure to understand the inner lives of our children in crisis, Brothers in Grief invites us all to wrestle with the hidden costs of gun violence on racial and educational inequity.

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Peter Hessler, "Other Rivers: A Chinese Education" (Penguin, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 9 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In 2019, journalist and writer Peter Hessler traveled with his family to China. He’d gotten a gig as a teacher of writing—nonfiction writing in particular—in what he’d hoped would be a sequel to his 2001 book River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze.

But plans changed—radically. At the very end of 2019, the COVID-19 virus emerges in Wuhan, leading to chaos as officials frantically try to figure out how to control the new disease. Peter’s reporting first wins his criticism from Chinese nationalists angry about his frank discussions of China’s mistakes—then criticism from U.S. hawks angry that Hessler gives Beijing credit for what it managed to do right as COVID rapidly spreads around the world.

Peter’s years in China are covered in his latest book Other Rivers: A Chinese Education (Penguin Press, 2024), published last year.

Peter Hessler is a staff writer at the New Yorker, where he served as Beijing correspondent from 2000 to 2007, Cairo correspondent from 2011 to 2016, and Chengdu correspondent from 2019 to 2021. He is the author of The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution; River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, which won the Kiriyama Book Prize; Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip; and Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West. He won the 2008 National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting, and he was named a MacArthur fellow in 2011.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Other Rivers. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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Why Teachers Turn to AI

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the Language on the Move podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Sue Ollerhead. Dr. Ollerhead is currently a Senior Lecturer in Languages and Literacy Education and the Director of the Secondary Education Program at Macquarie University. Her expertise lies in English language and literacy learning and teaching in multicultural and multilingual education contexts. Her research interests include translanguaging, multilingual pedagogies, literacy across the curriculum and oracy development in schools.

Dr. Ollerhead is currently editor of TESOL in Context, the peer reviewed journal of the Australian Council of TESOL Associations. She serves on the executive board of the English as a Medium of Instruction Centre (EMI) at Macquarie University.

Brynn and Sue chat about an article that Sue has recently written for the Australian Association for Research in Education entitled “Teachers Truly Know Students and How They Learn. Does AI?”. They discuss the emergence of AI platforms like ChatGPT and how these platforms are affecting teacher training.

A wonderful companion read to this episode is Distinguished Ingrid Piller’s Can we escape the textocalypse? Academic publishing as community building.

If you liked this episode, check out more resources on technology and language: Will technology make language rights obsolete?; the podcast Tech Won’t Save Us; and Are language technologies counterproductive to learning?

If you enjoy the show, support us by subscribing to the Language on the Move Podcast on your podcast app of choice, leaving a 5-star review, and recommending the Language on the Move Podcast and our partner the New Books Network to your students, colleagues, and friends.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Peter Mandler, "The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain's Transition to Mass Education Since the Second World War" (Oxford UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 6 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

How did public demand shape education in the 20th century? In The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain’s Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War (Oxford UP, 2020), Peter Mandler, Professor of Modern Cultural History at the University of Cambridge, charts the history of schools, colleges, and universities. The book charts the tension between demands for democracy and the defence of meritocracy within both elite and public discourses, showing how this tension plays out in Britain’s complex and fragmented education system. Offering an alternative vision to the popular memory and perception of education, a note of caution about the power of education to cure social inequalities, and a celebration of public demand for high quality education for all, the book is essential reading across the humanities, social sciences, and for anyone interested in understanding education in contemporary society.

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Graduate School Myths and Misconceptions

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 3 Jan 2025 09:00:00 +0000

It’s daunting when you don’t know what to expect about graduate school…or you’re worried you won’t measure up. This episode helps dispel the myths and addresses some of the common misconceptions. We unpack the realities, including: how to determine if graduate school is the right next step for you; when to apply; the time and financial investment of a graduate education; what life is like after getting in; the need for work-life balance; and the importance of finding the right mentor.

Our guest is: Dr. Miroslava Chávez-García, who is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and holds affiliations in the Departments of Chicana/o Studies and Feminist Studies as well as Iberian and Latin American Studies. She also serves as the Faculty Director of the McNair Scholars Program. She is the coauthor of Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students, with Yvette Martínez-Vu.

Our co-guest is: Dr. Yvette Martínez-Vu, who is a coach, consultant, author, speaker, and the

founder of Grad School Femtoring LLC. She is the coauthor of Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Listeners may enjoy this playlist:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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Crystal R. Sanders, "A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs" (UNC Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs (UNC Press, 2024) tells the little-known story of "segregation scholarships" awarded by states in the US South to Black students seeking graduate education in the pre-Brown v. Board of Education era. Under the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, decades earlier, southern states could provide graduate opportunities for African Americans by creating separate but equal graduate programs at tax-supported Black colleges or by admitting Black students to historically white institutions. Most did neither and instead paid to send Black students out of state for graduate education.

Crystal R. Sanders examines Black graduate students who relocated to the North, Midwest, and West to continue their education with segregation scholarships, revealing the many challenges they faced along the way. Students that entered out-of-state programs endured long and tedious travel, financial hardship, racial discrimination, isolation, and homesickness. With the passage of Brown in 1954, segregation scholarships began to wane, but the integration of graduate programs at southern public universities was slow. In telling this story, Sanders demonstrates how white efforts to preserve segregation led to the underfunding of public Black colleges, furthering racial inequality in American higher education.

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Lindsay Weinberg, "Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In Smart University: Student Surveillance in the Digital Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), Lindsay Weinberg evaluates how this latest era of tech solutions and systems in our schools impacts students' abilities to access opportunities and exercise autonomy on their campuses. Using historical and textual analysis of administrative discourses, university policies, conference proceedings, grant solicitations, news reports, tech industry marketing materials, and product demonstrations, Weinberg argues that these more recent transformations are best understood as part of a longer history of universities supporting the development of technologies that reproduce racial and economic injustice on their campuses and in their communities.

Mentioned in this episode is this piece that Dr. Weinberg wrote in Inside Higher Ed:

Lindsay Weinberg is a clinical assistant professor and the Director of the Tech Justice Lab in the John Martinson Honors College at Purdue University.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Luci Pangrazio and Neil Selwyn, "Critical Data Literacies: Rethinking Data and Everyday Life" (MIT Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Data has become a defining issue of current times. Our everyday lives are shaped by the data that is produced about us (and by us) through digital technologies. In Critical Data Literacies: Rethinking Data and Everyday Life (MIT Press, 2023), Luci Pangrazio and Neil Selwyn introduce readers to the central concepts, ideas, and arguments required to make sense of life in the data age. Bringing together cutting-edge thinking and discussion from across education, sociology, psychology, and media and communication studies, Critical Data Literacies develops a powerful argument for collectively rethinking the role that data plays in our everyday lives and re-establishing agency, free will, and the democratic public sphere.

In the episode, Luci Pangazio discusses how the tradition of critical literacies can offer a powerful foundation to address the big concerns of the data age, such as issues of data justice and privacy, algorithmic bias, dataveillance, and disinformation. We challenge the idea that datafication is an inevitable and inescapable condition.

This interview was conducted by Shreya Urvashi, a doctoral researcher of sociology and education based in Toronto, Canada.

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A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024), by Michelle D. Miller, which asserts that if teachers want an inclusive, engaging classroom, they must learn students’ names. Eschewing the random tips and mnemonic tricks that invariably fall short, Dr. Miller offers a clear explanation of what is really going on when we learn a name, and a science-based approach for using this knowledge to pedagogical advantage. Drawing on a deep background in the psychology of language and memory, Dr. Miller gives a lively overview of the surprising science of learning proper names, along with an account of why the practice is at once so difficult and yet so critical to effective teaching. She then sets out practical techniques for learning names, with examples of activities and practices tailored to a variety of different teaching styles and classroom configurations. In her discussion of certain factors that can make learning names especially challenging, Dr. Miller pays particular attention to neurodivergence and the effects of aging on this special form of memory.

A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names lays out strategies for putting these techniques into practice, suggests technological aids and other useful resources, and explains how to make name learning a core aspect of one’s teaching practice. With its research-based strategies and concrete advice, this concise and highly readable guide provides teachers of all disciplines and levels an invaluable tool for creating a welcoming and productive learning environment.

Our guest is: Dr. Michelle Miller, who is a cognitive psychologist, researcher, and speaker focused on supporting higher education faculty in creating effective and engaging learning experiences for students. She is the author of Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology (Harvard University Press, 2014), Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World (West Virginia University Press, 2022), and A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024). Dr. Miller is a Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast.

Listeners may enjoy this playlist:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!

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Stephen Jackson, "The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The Patchwork of World History in Texas High Schools (Routledge, 2022) traces the historical development of the World History course as it has been taught in high school classrooms in Texas, a populous and nationally influential state, over the last hundred years.

Arguing that the course is a result of a patchwork of competing groups and ideas that have intersected over the past century, with each new framework patched over but never completely erased or replaced, the author crucially examines themes of imperialism, Eurocentrism, and nationalism in both textbooks and the curriculum more broadly. The first part of the book presents an overview of the World History course supported by numerical analysis of textbook content and public documents, while the second focuses on the depiction of non-Western peoples, and persistent narratives of Eurocentrism and nationalism. It ultimately offers that a more global, accurate, and balanced curriculum is possible, despite the tension between the ideas of professional world historians, who often de-center the nation-state in their quest for a truly global approach to the subject, and the historical core rationale of state-sponsored education in the United States: to produce loyal citizens.

Offering a new, conceptual understanding of how colonial themes in World History curriculum have been dealt with in the past and are now engaged with in contemporary times, it provides essential context for scholars and educators with interests in the history of education, curriculum studies, and the teaching of World History in the United States.

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Leslie Beth Ribovich, "Without a Prayer: Religion and Race in New York City Public Schools" (NYU Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The processes of secularization and desegregation were among the two most radical transformations of the American public school system in all its history. Many regard the 1962 and 1963 US Supreme Court rulings against school prayer and Bible-reading as the end of religion in public schools. Likewise, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case is seen as the dawn of school racial equality. Yet, these two major twentieth-century American educational movements are often perceived as having no bearing on one another.

Without a Prayer: Religion and Race in New York City Public Schools (New York University Press, 2024) by Dr. Leslie Beth Ribovich redefines secularization and desegregation as intrinsically linked. Using New York City as a window into a national story, the volume argues that these rulings failed to successfully remove religion from public schools, because it was worked into the foundation of the public education structure, especially how public schools treated race and moral formation. Moreover, even public schools that were not legally segregated nonetheless remained racially segregated in part because public schools rooted moral lessons in an invented tradition—Judeo-Christianity—and in whiteness.

The book illuminates how both secularization and desegregation took the form of inculcating students into white Christian norms as part of their project of shaping them into citizens. Schools and religious and civic constituents worked together to promote programs such as juvenile delinquency prevention, moral and spiritual values curricula, and racial integration advocacy. At the same time, religiously and racially diverse community members drew on, resisted, and reimagined public school morality.

Drawing on research from a number of archival repositories, newspaper and legal databases, and visual and material culture, Without a Prayer shows how religion and racial discrimination were woven into the very fabric of public schools, continuing to inform public education’s everyday practices even after the Supreme Court rulings.

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Michael Plekon, "Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Life and Work Today" (Wipf and Stock, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In an era where congregations are shrinking and fewer people engage with faith communities, Michael Plekon's book Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Life and Work Today (Wipf and Stock, 2024) offers a timely exploration of both the challenges and opportunities facing modern Christian ministry. Through detailed analysis, Plekon traces the factors behind congregational decline while also highlighting inspiring stories of parishes that have successfully reimagined themselves for contemporary times.

Our conversation today exemplifies what contemporary theological discussions should encompass - a profound dialogue about the relevance of Christian theology in our time, acknowledging both trauma and pain, while exploring the tremendous opportunity Christianity can offer each of us.

This is more than just a book discussion - it's a sustained meditation on the vocation, lives, and work of pastors in our changing times.

Michael Plekon is a unique voice in contemporary religious scholarship, bridging academic theology and lived spirituality. Born in Yonkers in 1948, he has dedicated his life to exploring what holiness looks like in modern times through both scholarly work and pastoral experience. As a professor at Baruch College (1977-2017) and an ordained priest who has served in both Western and Eastern Churches, Plekon brings a rare dual perspective to religious studies. His dozen-plus books, including the award-winning "Uncommon Prayer," focus on finding the sacred in everyday life and examining how modern saints - from Dorothy Day to Thomas Merton - navigate faith in contemporary society. Plekon's work is particularly relevant today as he explores the intersection of religious identity, social justice, and community building in an increasingly diverse America.

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Deondra Rose, "The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 7 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

From their founding, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) educated as many as 90 percent of Black college students in the United States. Although many are aware of the significance of HBCUs in expanding Black Americans' educational opportunities, much less attention has been paid to the vital role that they have played in enhancing American democracy.

In The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy (Oxford UP, 2024), Deondra Rose provides an authoritative history of HBCUs and the unique role they have played in shaping American democracy since 1837. Drawing on over six years of deep research, Rose brings into view the historic impact that government support for HBCUs has had on the American political landscape, arguing that they have been essential for not only empowering Black citizens but also reshaping the distribution of political power in the United States. Rose challenges the conventional wisdom that, prior to the late twentieth century, the federal government took a laissez-faire approach to education. Instead, governmental action contributed to the expansion of HBCUs in an era plagued by racist policies and laws. Today, HBCUs remain extremely important, as evidenced by the outsized number of black political leaders--including Kamala Harris--who attended them. Rose stresses that policymakers promote democracy itself when they support HBCUs and their unique approach to postsecondary education, which includes a commitment to helping students develop politically empowering skills, promoting political leadership, and fostering a commitment to service.

A fresh look into the relationship between education and democracy, The Power of Black Excellence is essential reading for anyone interested not just in HBCUs, but the broader trajectory of Black citizenship in American history.

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That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Amanda Jones, which offers her story of life as a small-town librarian. One of the things she values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,” she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns-funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians-in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and "Christian." But she wouldn't give up without a fight: she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance. Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers.

Our guest is: Amanda Jones, who is the school librarian at the same school she attended as a child. She is the author of That Librarian: Fighting Book Banners in Today’s America. She was the 2021 School Library Journal Co-Librarian of the Year, a 2021 Library Journal Mover and Shaker, and the 2020 Louisiana Librarian of the Year. She presents nationally and internationally on the importance of certified school librarians, book joy, and why every child deserves to see themselves reflected in the books on library shelves. Amanda has received intellectual freedom awards from the American Library Association, American Association of School Librarians, and Louisiana Library Association. She is the Executive Director of the Livingston Parish Library Alliance, and a co-founding member of Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship. She lives in Louisiana with her husband, daughter, and their cat.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast.

Listeners may enjoy this playlist:

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Matthew Gardner Kelly, "Dividing the Public: School Finance and the Creation of Structural Inequity" (Cornell UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 4 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In Dividing the Public: School Finance and the Creation of Structural Inequity (Cornell UP, 2024), Matthew Gardner Kelly takes aim at the racial and economic disparities that characterize public education funding in the United States. With California as his focus, Kelly illustrates that the use of local taxes to fund public education was never an inadvertent or de facto product of past practices, but an intentional decision adopted in place of well-known alternatives during the Progressive Era, against past precedent and principle in several states.

From efforts to convert expropriated Indigenous and Mexican land into common school funding in the 1850s, to reforms that directed state aid to expanding white suburbs during the years surrounding World War II, Dividing the Public traces, in intricate detail, how a host of policies connected to school funding have divided California by race and class over time. In bringing into view the neglected and poorly understood history of policymaking connected to school finance, Kelly offers a new story about the role public education played in shaping the racially segregated, economically divided, and politically fragmented world of the post-1945 metropolis.

Matthew Gardner Kelly is an assistant professor of educational foundations, leadership, and policy at the University of Washington.

Max Jacobs is a PhD student in education at Rutgers University.

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Laura C. Chávez-Moreno, "How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America" (Harvard Education Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 3 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025), Dr. Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students’ concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr.Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex interactions among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language, and societal ideas interplay to form, reinforce, and blur the boundaries of racialized groups, a dynamic which creates contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism.

In this provocative book, Dr. Chávez-Moreno urges readers to rethink race, to reconceptualize Latinx as a racialized group, and to pay attention to how schools construct Latinidad (a concept about Latinx experience and identity) in relation to Blackness, Indigeneity, Asianness, and Whiteness. The work explores, as an example, how Spanish-English bilingual education programs engage in race-making work. It also illuminates how schools can offer ambitious teachings to raise their students’ critical consciousness about race and racialization.

Ultimately, Dr. Chávez-Moreno’s groundbreaking work makes clear that understanding how our schools teach about racialized groups is crucial to understanding how our society thinks about race and offers solutions to racial inequities. The book invites educators and scholars to embrace ambitious teaching about the ambivalence of race so that teachers and students are prepared to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes.

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Kathryn Houk et al., "Toward Inclusive Academic Librarian Hiring Practices" (ACRL, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 2 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Academic library hiring can be a bureaucratic and exclusionary process. Inclusive hiring practices can help libraries recenter the people in the process and incorporate transparency, empathy, and accessibility. Toward Inclusive Academic Librarian Hiring Practices (2024, ACRL), rather than focusing just on how to diversify applicant pools, breaks down the many considerations involved in hiring and the intentional, thoughtful preparation and self-examination that leads to successful recruitment and retention in three parts.

Training for Search Committees and Stakeholders
Removing Barriers for Candidates
Transforming the Process for All

Throughout are practical solutions for emphasizing inclusivity and accessibility throughout the hiring process, including instructions and examples for developing the position description and job postings, tips for creating diversity statements, interview instructions and preparation lists, interview itineraries, sample candidate emails and feedback forms, evaluation rubrics, ideas for onboarding and mentorship, and more. While you are evaluating potential hires, they are evaluating you. Toward Inclusive Academic Librarian Hiring Practices can help you center equity in your hiring, attract job seekers, and support both candidates and search committees through these time-intensive, laborious, and crucial processes.

Kathryn M. Houk is associate professor and undergraduate medical education librarian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), School of Medicine Library.
Jordan Nielsen is an associate professor and the Head of Access Services in the James E. Walker Library at Middle Tennessee State University.
Jenny Wong-Welch is the Director of the build IT Makerspace and Head of Research, Instruction, Outreach at San Diego State University.
Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Amy J. Binder and Jeffrey L. Kidder, "The Channels of Student Activism: How the Left and Right Are Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 2 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The past six years have been marked by a contentious political atmosphere that has touched every arena of public life, including higher education. Though most college campuses are considered ideologically progressive, how can it be that the right has been so successful in mobilizing young people even in these environments?

As Amy J. Binder and Jeffrey L. Kidder show in this surprising analysis of the relationship between political activism on college campuses and the broader US political landscape, while liberal students often outnumber conservatives on college campuses, liberal campus organizing remains removed from national institutions that effectively engage students after graduation. And though they are usually in the minority, conservative student groups have strong ties to national right-leaning organizations, which provide funds and expertise, as well as job opportunities and avenues for involvement after graduation. Though the left is more prominent on campus, the right has built a much more effective system for mobilizing ongoing engagement. What’s more, the conservative college ecosystem has worked to increase the number of political provocations on campus and lower the public’s trust in higher education.

In analyzing collegiate activism from the left, right, and center, The Channels of Student Activism: How the Left and Right Are Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today (U Chicago Press, 2022) shows exactly how politically engaged college students are channeled into two distinct forms of mobilization and why that has profound consequences for the future of American politics.

Amy J. Binder is professor of sociology at John Hopkins University. She is the author of Contentious Curricula and coauthor of Becoming Right.

Jeffrey L. Kidder is professor of sociology at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of Parkour and the City and Urban Flow

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Russell T.. McCutcheon, "Religious Studies Beyond the Discipline: On the Future of a Humanities Ph.D." (Equinox, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Given the continued challenges that face the higher education job market in the Humanities in North America, this multi authored volume offers (i) a critical assessment of the current situation of Humanities doctoral students, early career scholars, and those now working in doctoral degree-granting institutions in the U.S. along with (ii) concrete proposals for a way forward. In turn, these proposals (iii) are the starting point for constructive reflections by faculty now working in leading American doctoral programs. The aim for the volume is therefore to initiate and then move forward a conversation among future, current, and recent graduate students as well as those who train them concerning the content, process, and purpose of acquiring advanced research skills in the early twenty-first century university.

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Daniel S. Goldberg, "Tackle Football and Traumatic Brain Injuries: Law, Ethics, and Public Health" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Football is the national game in the United States – and many families and friends bond over their love of the sport. While few people play professional football, many participate in tackle football as children and adolescents. In the last decades, more attention has been paid to the dangers of playing tackle football, including traumatic brain injury and the degenerative brain disease, CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). As more former players donated their brains, the rate of CTE surprised even those already concerned with traumatic brain injury. If the risks are so great, why do more than two million American children under the age of 18 continue to play tackle football? Is it the opportunity to contribute to a team? Overcome adversity? Test personal limits?

In Tackle Football and Traumatic Brain Injuries: Law, Ethics, and Public Health (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024), Dr. Daniel S. Goldberg asks readers to think about American tackle football as an industry – like the American tobacco industry – that sells a product that is dangerous to those who use it. Despite the clearly documented costs to society and individuals who play, the tackle football industry has successfully manufactured doubt about the health hazards. Goldstein argues that a basic familiarity with the history of regulated industries and their intersection with public health is needed both to understand the contemporary debates and to move forward with fair and equitable policy solutions. If the risks to people who play were better known to the public, the profitability and perhaps even the viability of American football would be at risk.

Goldberg draws on public health ethics, public health law, and the histories of occupational and public health to assess the limits of parental choice to expose their children to risks of injury. Goldberg recommends using public health laws to counter the manufacture of doubt – offering specific policy proposals to address the population health and ethical problems presented by tackle football.

Daniel S. Goldstein, JD, PhD is an associate professor at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. He is the director of Education at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities and director of the Public Health Ethics and Law Program.

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Lauren D. Olsen, "Curricular Injustice: How U.S. Medical Schools Reproduce Inequalities" (Columbia UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Medical schools have increasingly incorporated the humanities and social sciences into their teaching, seeking to make future physicians more empathetic and more concerned with equity. In practice, however, these good intentions have not translated into critical consciousness. Humanities and social sciences education has often not only failed to deliver on its promise but even entrenched the inequalities that the medical profession set out to address.

In Curricular Injustice: How U.S. Medical Schools Reproduce Inequalities (Columbia UP, 2024), Lauren D. Olsen examines how U.S. medical school faculty conceived, designed, and implemented their vision of education, tracing the failures of curricular reform. She argues that the way medical students encounter humanities and social sciences material in practice has served to reinforce the status quo by teaching them to individualize systemic problems. Students learn to avoid advocacy, critique, and attention to structural inequalities—while also gathering that it will be up to them to find coping strategies for problems from burnout to systemic racism. Olsen pinpoints the limitations of how clinical faculty understand the humanities and social sciences, arguing that in structuring and teaching courses, they assumed, reinforced, and glorified a white, elite model of the medical profession. Showing how deeply intertwined professional and social identities are in medical education, Curricular Injustice has significant implications for how occupations, organizations, and institutions shape understandings of inequality.

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Domingo Morel, "Developing Scholars: Race, Politics, and the Pursuit of Higher Education" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Over the past fifty years, debates concerning race and college admissions have focused primarily on the policy of affirmative action at elite institutions of higher education. But a less well-known approach to affirmative action also emerged in the 1960s in response to urban unrest and Black and Latino political mobilization. The programs that emerged in response to community demands offered a more radical view of college access: admitting and supporting students who do not meet regular admissions requirements and come from families who are unable to afford college tuition, fees, and other expenses. While conventional views of affirmative action policies focus on the "identification" of high-achieving students of color to attend elite institutions of higher education, these programs represent a community-centered approach to affirmative action. This approach is based on a logic of developing scholars who can be supported at their local public institutions of higher education.

In Developing Scholars: Race, Politics, and the Pursuit of Higher Education (Oxford UP, 2023), Domingo Morel explores the history and political factors that led to the creation of college access programs for students of color in the 1960s. Through a case study of an existing community-centered affirmative action program, Talent Development, Morel shows how protest, including violent protest, has been instrumental in the maintenance of college access programs. He also reveals that in response to the college expansion efforts of the 1960s, hidden forms of restriction emerged that have significantly impacted students of color. Developing Scholars argues that the origin, history, and purpose of these programs reveal gaps in our understanding of college access expansion in the US that challenge conventional wisdom of American politics.

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Supporting Multilingual Families to Engage with their Children’s Schooling

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

How can school communications become more accessible to multilingual families? In this episode of the Language on the Move podcast, Dr Agnes Bodis talks to Professor Margaret Kettle about the Multilingual Glossary of School-based Terms. This is list of school-related terms selected and translated to help multilingual families connect with schools. The research-based glossary was developed jointly with the Queensland Department of Education, Education Queensland school personnel, Multicultural Australia, and community group members and families.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Andrew Stone Higgins, "Higher Education for All: Racial Inequality, Cold War Liberalism, and the California Master Plan" (UNC Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education remains to this day the largest and most ambitious attempt to provide free, universal college education in the United States. Yet the Master Plan, the product of committed Cold War liberals, unfortunately served to reinforce the very class-based exclusions and de facto racism that plagued K–12 education in the nation's largest and most diverse state. In doing so, it inspired a wave of student and faculty organizing that not only forced administrators and politicians to live up to the original promise of the Master Plan—quality higher education for all—but changed the face of California itself.

Higher Education for All: Racial Inequality, Cold War Liberalism, and the California Master Plan (UNC Press, 2023) is the first and only comprehensive account of the California Master Plan. Through deep archival work and sharp attention to a fascinating cast of historical characters, Andrew Stone Higgins has excavated the forgotten history of the Master Plan: from its origins in the 1957 Sputnik Crisis, through Governor Ronald Reagan's financial starvation and his failed quest to introduce tuition, to the student struggle to institute affirmative action in university admissions.

Abigail (Abby) Jean Kahn is a PhD candidate in the history of education at Stanford's Graduate School of Education. She also currently sits on the Graduate Student Council for the History of Education Society.

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Agustina Paglayan, "Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education" (Princeton UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

How the expansion of primary education in the West emerged not from democratic ideals but from the state's desire to control its citizens.

Nearly every country today has universal primary education. But why did governments in the West decide to provide education to all children in the first place? In Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education (Princeton UP, 2024), Agustina Paglayan offers an unsettling answer. The introduction of broadly accessible primary education was not mainly a response to industrialization, or fueled by democratic ideals, or even aimed at eradicating illiteracy or improving skills. It was motivated instead by elites' fear of the masses--and the desire to turn the "savage," "unruly," and "morally flawed" children of the lower classes into well-behaved future citizens who would obey the state and its laws.

Drawing on unparalleled evidence from two centuries of education provision in Europe and the Americas, and deploying rich data that capture the expansion of primary education and its characteristics, this sweeping book offers a political history of primary schools that is both broad and deep. Paglayan shows that governments invested in primary schools when internal threats heightened political elites' anxiety around mass violence and the breakdown of social order.

Two hundred years later, the original objective of disciplining children remains at the core of how most public schools around the world operate. The future of education systems--and their ability to reduce poverty and inequality--hinges on our ability to understand and come to terms with this troubling history.

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Janusz Korczak, "How to Love a Child and Other Selected Works" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

How to Love a Child and Other Selected Works (Vallentine Mitchell, 2018) is the first comprehensive collection of Korczak's works translated into English. It contains his most important pedagogical writings, journal articles, as well as private texts. Volume 2 starts with extensive excerpts from two pedagogical treatises written for young readers. These are: Rules of Life, which explains the intricacies of human relationships. Next follows a selection of journal articles presenting topics from social problems, pediatrics, developmental psychology and special pedagogy. This is followed by a collection of unpublished writing including private letters exchanged between him and his former wards. The final section is his diary - a unique documentation of Korczak's last weeks of life. Korczak's writing is characterized by uncompromising views, acute observations, subtle reflection, and, above all, love for children.

For more on Korczak, visit The Janusz Korczak Association of Canada.

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Donna J. Nicol, "Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action" (U Rochester Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of Rochester Press, 2024) examines the leadership strategies that Black women educators have employed as influential power brokers in predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States. Author Donna J. Nicol tells the extraordinary story of Dr. Claudia H. Hampton, the California State University (CSU) system's first Black woman trustee, who later became the board's first woman chair, and her twenty-year fight (1974-94) to increase access within the CSU for historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. Amid a growing white backlash against changes brought on by the 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, Nicol argues that Hampton enacted "sly civility" to persuade fellow trustees, CSU system officials, and state lawmakers to enforce federal and state affirmative action mandates.

Donna J. Nicol is Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts at California State University, Long Beach, CA.

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Why Not Be Kind?: A Discussion with Catherine J. Denial

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 7 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: A Pedagogy of Kindness (University of Oklahoma Press, 2024), by Dr. Catherine Denial, which explores why academia is not, by and large, a kind place. Without kindness at its core, Catherine Denial suggests, higher education fails students and instructors—and its mission—in critical ways. Part manifesto, part teaching memoir, part how-to guide, A Pedagogy of Kindness urges higher education to get aggressive about instituting kindness, which Dr. Denial distinguishes from niceness. Having suffered beneath the weight of just “getting along,” instructors need to shift every part of what they do to prioritizing care and compassion—for students as well as for themselves. A Pedagogy of Kindness articulates a fresh vision for teaching, one that focuses on ensuring justice, believing people, and believing in people. Offering evidence-based insights and drawing from her own rich experiences as a professor, Dr. Denial offers practical tips for reshaping syllabi, assessing student performance, and creating trust and belonging in the classroom. Her suggestions for concrete, scalable actions outline nothing less than a transformational discipline—one in which, together, we create bright new spaces, rooted in compassion, in which all engaged in teaching and learning might thrive.

Our guest is: Dr. Catherine J. Denial, who is the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College. A regular speaker and consultant on teaching and learning, she is also the author of Making Marriage: Husbands, Wives, and the American State in Dakota and Ojibwe Country.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Playlist for listeners:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.

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Filippo Gianferrari, "Dante's Education: Latin Schoolbooks and Vernacular Poetics" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In fourteenth-century Italy, literacy became accessible to a significantly larger portion of the lay population (allegedly between 60 and 80 percent in Florence) and provided a crucial means for the vernacularization and secularization of learning, and for the democratization of citizenship.

In Dante's Education: Latin Schoolbooks and Vernacular Poetics (Oxford University Press, 2024), Filippo Gianferrari demonstrate that Dante Alighieri's education and oeuvre sit squarely at the heart of this historical and cultural transition and provide an ideal case study for investigating the impact of Latin education on the consolidation of autonomous vernacular literature in the Middle Ages, a fascinating and still largely unexamined phenomenon. On the basis of manuscript and archival evidence, Gianferrari reconstructs the contents, practice, and readings of Latin instruction in the urban schools of fourteenth-century Florence. It also shows Dante's continuous engagement with this culture of teaching in his poetics, thus revealing his contribution to the expansion of vernacular literacy and education. The book argues that to achieve his unprecedented position of authority as a vernacular intellectual, Dante conceived his poetic works as an alternative educational program for laypeople, who could read and write in the vernacular but had little or no proficiency in Latin. By reconstructing the culture of literacy shared by Dante and his lay readers, Dante's Education shifts critical attention from his legacy as Italy's national poet, and a "great books" author in the Western canon, to his experience as a marginal intellectual engaged in advancing a marginal culture.

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Celebrating University Press Week with AUPresses President, Anthony Cond

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 Nov 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The Association of University Presses (AUPresses), a global organization of 161 mission-driven publishers, is proud to announce a collection of 123 books, journals, and projects that embody the #StepUP theme of this year’s University Press Week, happening Nov. 11 to 15. The featured publications, curated by AUPresses members in 12 countries, present thought-provoking concepts, new points of view, and inspiring ideas, many of which advocate for social change.

For a complete list of UP Week events, see here

For the gallery of 103 publications, see here

To work at a university press, see here

Anthony Cond is director of Liverpool University Press and president of the Association of University Presses

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network

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Kathleen McGoey and Lindsey Pointer, "Little Book of Restorative Teaching Tools for Online Learning: Games and Activities for Restorative Justice Practitioners" (Good Books, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Teaching, training, and gathering online has become a global norm since 2020. Restorative practitioners have risen to the challenge to shift restorative justice processes, trainings, and classes to virtual platforms, a change that many worried would dilute the restorative experience. How can people build relationships with genuine empathy and trust when they are not in a shared physical space? How can an online platform become an environment for people to take risks and practice new skills without the interpersonal support available when meeting face to face? Little Book of Restorative Teaching Tools for Online Learning: Games and Activities for Restorative Justice Practitioners (Good Books, 2024) is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to build community and foster development of restorative justice knowledge and skills via online platforms. The games and activities included support building relationships, introducing the restorative justice philosophy, practicing key skills, and understanding and addressing structural and racial injustices. More resources are available at this website.

Kathleen McGoey is a trainer and facilitator of restorative justice practices and conflict transformation. With a background leading restorative justice implementation in communities and schools, she currently supports cities, workplaces, and families to utilize restorative approaches to address incidents of harm. This is Kathleen's third publication since completing an MA in International Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She lives in Colorado.

Lindsey Pointer is an assistant professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School and principal investigator for the National Center on Restorative Justice. In addition to The Little Book of Restorative Teaching Tools, Lindsey is the author of The Restorative Justice Ritual (2021) and Wally and Freya (2022), a children's picture book about restorative justice. Lindsey has a PhD in Restorative Justice from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and is a former Fulbright and Rotary Global Grant recipient. She lives in Colorado.

Stephen Pimpare is Professor of Public Policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

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Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Meryl Alper, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, about her recent book, Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2023). In addition to being a professor, Alper is also an educational researcher who has worked over the past 20 years to make inclusive and accessible learning products with media organizations such as Sesame Workshop, Nickelodeon, and PBS KIDS. Vinsel and Alper talk about disability studies, the nature of Alper’s empirical work, the arc of Alper’s career, including her future projects.

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Keith E. Whittington, "You Can't Teach That!: The Battle over University Classrooms" (Polity Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Who controls what is taught in American universities – professors or politicians? The answer is far from clear but suddenly urgent. Unprecedented efforts are now underway to restrict what ideas can be promoted and discussed in university classrooms. Professors at public universities have long assumed that their freedom to teach is unassailable and that there were firm constitutional protections shielding them from political interventions. Those assumptions might always have been more hopeful than sound. A battle over the control of the university classroom is now brewing, and the courts will be called upon to establish clearer guidelines as to what – if any – limits legislatures might have in dictating what is taught in public universities.

In You Can't Teach That!: The Battle over University Classrooms (Polity Press, 2024), Keith Whittington argues that the First Amendment imposes meaningful limits on how government officials can restrict the ideas discussed on university campuses. In clear and accessible prose, he illuminates the legal status of academic freedom in the United States and shows how existing constitutional doctrine can be deployed to protect unbridled free inquiry.

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Sarah M. Stitzlein, "Teaching Honesty in a Populist Era: Emphasizing Truth in the Education of Citizens" (Oxford UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Democracy is struggling in an age of populism and post-truth. In a world swirling with competing political groups stating conflicting facts, citizens are left unsure whom to trust and which facts are true. The role of honesty in civic life is in jeopardy. When we lose sight of the importance of honesty, it hampers our ability to solve pressing problems. Teaching Honesty in a Populist Era: Emphasizing Truth in the Education of Citizens (Oxford University Press, 2024) asserts that to better enable young citizens to successfully engage in civic inquiry, the role of honesty must be foregrounded within education.

The book posits that honesty is a key component of a well-functioning democracy. Building upon this foundation, Sarah M. Stitzlein defines what honesty is, how it is connected to truth, and why both are important to and at risk in democracies today. Furthermore, the chapters offer guidance on how honesty and truth should be taught in schools. Situated within the philosophical perspective of pragmatism, the book examines the relationships between honesty, truth, trust, and healthy democratic living and provides recommendations for improving citizenship education and our ability to engage in civic reasoning.

Teaching Honesty in a Populist Era offers an improved path forward within our schools by detailing how to cultivate habits of truth-seeking and truth-telling. Such honesty will better enable citizens to navigate our difficult political moment and increase the likelihood that citizens can craft long-term solutions for democratic life together.

Sarah M. Stitzlein is Professor of Education and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati. Her research explores issues of political agency, educating for democracy, youth civic engagement, and equity in schools. She is the author of Learning How to Hope and American Public Education and the Responsibility of its Citizens, and co-editor of the journal Democracy & Education.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 3 Oct 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of Rochester Press, 2024) by Dr. Donna J. Nicol, which examines the leadership strategies that Black women educators have employed as influential power brokers in predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States. Black Woman on Board tells the extraordinary story of Dr. Claudia H. Hampton, the California State University (CSU) system's first Black woman trustee, who later became the board's first woman chair, and her twenty-year fight (1974–94) to increase access within the CSU for historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. Amid a growing white backlash against changes brought on by the 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, Dr. Nicol argues that Hampton enacted "sly civility" to persuade fellow trustees, CSU system officials, and state lawmakers to enforce federal and state affirmative action mandates. Black Woman on Board explores how Hampton methodically "played the game of boardsmanship," using the soft power she cultivated amongst her peers to remove barriers that might have impeded the implementation and expansion of affirmative action policies and programs. In illuminating the ways that Hampton transformed the CSU as the "affirmative action trustee," this remarkable book makes an important contribution to the history of higher education and to the historiography of Black women's educational leadership in the post-Civil Rights era.

Our guest is: Dr. Donna J. Nicol, who is the Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts at California State University, Long Beach, CA.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast.

Listeners may enjoy this playlist:

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Free Speech 70: Michael S. Roth on the Rise of Student Protests, the Fall of Some College Presidents, and Why Liberal Education Matters

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 28 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The campus protests over conflict in Israel and Gaza have engulfed universities, and led to the resignation of several university presidents. In this podcast, recorded live at the New York Institute of the Humanities, Michael S. Roth, the long-time President of Wesleyan College, explains how he navigates sharp disagreements on campus, what he means by “safe enough spaces,” and how to understand what is happening on campus in relation to our democracy.

Michael S. Roth is the 16th president of Wesleyan University, since 2007. Formerly president of California College of the Arts (CCA), Roth is known as a historian, curator, author and public advocate for liberal education. His many books include Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (Yale University Press, 2014); Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness (Yale University Press, 2019); and The Student: A Short History (Yale University Press, 2023). This conversation was recorded with a live audience at the New York Institute for the Humanities, which is directed by Eric Banks and hosted by the New York Public Library. I want to thank Eric Banks for the invitation to speak with President Roth, and the fellows of the New York Institute for a lively discussion included here.

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Caitlin Gerrity and Scott Lanning, "Conducting Original Research for Your Library" (Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Conducting Original Research for Your Library (Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited, 2024) is a concise manual for professionals in the field, this book helps librarians master the skills to conduct, interpret, and analyze their own original research. Many working librarians discover that original research would help them advocate for their libraries, but some graduate programs teach only limited research skills. Designed for all librarians, this book is a practical guide to engaging with the research process, from identifying a problem to sharing findings with others. Authors Kaitlin Gerrity and Scott Lanning have packed this introductory guide and reference book with short, to-the-point information that librarians will refer to often at all stages of a research project. From research ethics to statistical significance and everything in between, this primer is the point-of-need resource for librarians in public, academic, and school libraries who wish to use original research to support the profession.

NBN can get 20% off Conducting Original Research for Your Library by using the discount code NBN20 on the Blooomsbury.com US website.

Caitlin Gerrity is an Associate Professor and Director of the School Library Endorsement Program in the Department of Library and Information Science at Southern Utah University.

Scott Lanning is a LIS Professor an Assessment Librarian/Business, Computer Science and Math Librarian in the Department of Library & Information Science at Southern Utah University.

Discuss in this episode is Philadelphia Alliance to Restore School Librarians (PARSL). In addition to connecting through the PARSL website, you can connect on Instagram and Facebook.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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William H. F. Altman, "Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic" (Lexington, 2012)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic (Lexington, 2012), William Altman shines a light on the pedagogical technique of the playful Plato, especially his ability to create living discourses that directly address the student. Reviving an ancient concern with reconstructing the order in which Plato intended his dialogues to be taught as opposed to determining the order in which he wrote them, Altman breaks with traditional methods by reading Plato’s dialogues as a multiplex but coherent curriculum in which the Allegory of the Cave occupies the central place. His reading of Plato's Republic challenges the true philosopher to choose the life of justice exemplified by Socrates and Cicero by going back down into the Cave of political life for the sake of the greater Good.

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Wayne A. Wiegand, "In Silence or Indifference: Racism and Jim Crow Segregated Public School Libraries" (UP of Mississippi, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Librarians around the country are currently on a battleground, defending their right to purchase and circulate books dealing with issues of race and systemic racism. Despite this work, the library community has often overlooked—even ignored—its own history of White supremacy and deliberate inaction on the part of White librarians and library leadership. Author Wayne A. Wiegand takes a crucial step to amend this historical record. In Silence or Indifference: Racism and Jim Crow Segregated Public School Libraries (University of Mississippi Press, 2024) analyzes and critiques the world of professional librarianship between 1954 and 1974.

Wiegand begins by identifying racism in the practice and customs of public school libraries in the years leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. This culture permeated the next two decades, as subsequent Supreme Court decisions led to feeble and mostly unsuccessful attempts to integrate Jim Crow public schools and their libraries. During this same period, the profession was honing its national image as a defender of intellectual freedom, a proponent of the freedom to read, and an opponent of censorship. Still, the community did not take any unified action to support Brown or to visibly oppose racial segregation. As Black school librarians and their Black patrons suffered through the humiliations and hostility of the Jim Crow educational establishment, the American library community remained largely ambivalent and silent.

The book brings to light a distressing history that continues to impact the library community, its students, and its patrons. Currently available school library literature skews the historical perspective that informs the present. In Silence or Indifference is the first attempt to establish historical accountability for the systemic racism contemporary school librarianship inherited in the twenty-first century.

Wayne A. Wiegand is F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus at Florida State University. Often referred to as “the Dean of American library historians,” he is author of many scholarly articles and books, including Irrepressible Reformer: A Biography of Melvil Dewey; Part of Our Lives: A People’s History of the American Public Library; and American Public School Librarianship: A History.

Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive.

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Sivan Zakai and Matt Reingold, "Teaching Israel: Studies of Pedagogy from the Field" (Brandeis UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 15 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Sivan Zakai and Matt Reingold's their book Teaching Israel: Studies of Pedagogy from the Field (Brandeis UP, 2023).

In this discussion we discuss best teaching practices for Israel Incorporating Israel educators from inner-city nontraditional college classrooms, the US marine core university, Jewish day school high schools and pre-schools, and more. The approach almost across the board is learner centered where exploration and questioning are encouraged. Matt discusses how this volume provides opportunities for teachers to learn not only from settings that are similar to their own but also from settings that differ - a next step of communities of practice, sharing and expanding. Sivan discusses the impact and importance of understanding the lines between ancient and modern Israel and how they may be blurred at times and yet made very distinct at others. It is important for educators to understand the significance and impact of their teaching as Israel does pose a unique set of challenges in its multiplicity - history, religion, modern conflict, modern progress, and diversity. Many important topics were raised that encourage further discussion among teacher groups and within classrooms.

Follow us on unitytdiversity.com, FB Jewish Unity Through Diversity, Instagram, and YouTube to continue exploring the multiplicity of Israel and the Jewish people.

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Ehaab D. Abdou, "Education, Civics, and Citizenship in Egypt: Towards More Inclusive Curricular Representations and Teaching" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 14 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Ehaab D. Abdou's book Education, Civics, and Citizenship in Egypt: Towards More Inclusive Curricular Representations and Teaching (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) explores how to render curricular representations more inclusive and how individuals' interactions with competing historical narratives and discourses shape their civic attitudes and intergroup dynamics. Based on ethnographic research in the Egyptian context, it offers insights for curriculum developers, teacher educators, and teachers interested in the development of critical citizens who are able to engage with multiple narratives and perspectives. Drawing on theorizations of historical consciousness, critical pedagogy, and critical discourse analysis, it demonstrates the need for more nuanced and holistic analytical frameworks and pedagogical tools. Further, it offers insights towards building such analytical and pedagogical approaches to help gain a deeper understanding of connections between students' historical consciousness tendencies and their civic engagement as citizens.

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Celebrating Constitution Day Pt. 1: A Conversation with Cass R. Sunstein

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Join us for an in-depth exploration of Professor Cass Sunstein's latest work, Campus Free Speech (Harvard University Press, September 2024).

Together, we'll examine the book’s intriguing take on free speech in academic spaces and the broader implications for constitutional interpretation. Professor Sunstein also delves into the exercise of administrative power, with timely discussions on COVID-era authority and the Supreme Court's decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Gain unique insights from Sunstein on how the Constitution remains a guiding force for the American public in navigating modern challenges.

Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. In 2020, the World Health Organization appointed him as Chair of its technical advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and after that, he served on the President’s Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has advised officials at the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, and many nations on issues of law and public policy. He serves as an adviser to the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom.

Professor Sunstein is author of hundreds of articles and dozens of books, including Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013), The Ethics of Influence (2015), #Republic (2017), Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide (2017), The Cost-Benefit Revolution (2018), On Freedom (2019), Conformity (2019), How Change Happens (2019), and Too Much Information (2020). He is now working on a variety of projects involving the regulatory state, “sludge” (defined to include paperwork and similar burdens), fake news, and freedom of speech.

Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions

Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.

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Melissa Osborne, "Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Why do people go to college? In Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility (U Chicago Press, 2024), Melissa Osborne, an associate professor at Western Washington University, explores the experiences of students from low income and first-generation backgrounds who attend elite universities in the USA. The book offers a vital intervention for our understanding of the role of higher education and its connection to a range of social inequalities. It captures the sometimes difficult and ambivalent experiences of students from outside the traditional demographics for elite institutions. The analysis offers a nuanced understanding of the process of social mobility, showing the struggles of students and institutions, and the limits of individually-focused approaches to social change. Rich with ethnographic and qualitative data, as well as a powerful set of ideas for elite institutional change, the book is essential reading for educators everywhere.

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Josh Cowen, "The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers" (Harvard Education Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

School vouchers are often framed as a way to help students and families by providing choice, but evidence shows that vouchers have a negative impact on educational outcomes.

In The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers (Harvard Education Press, 2024), Josh Cowen describes voucher programs as the product of decades of work by influential conservatives and wealthy activists to support a vision of America where education is privatized and removed from the public sphere.

Far from realizing the purported goal of educational equity, Cowen cites multiple research studies that conclude that voucher programs return poor academic outcomes, including lower test scores on state exams, especially among students who are at greater academic risk because of their race, their religion, their gender identity, or their family's income.

The books traces the history of vouchers from it's initial proposal as part of conservative economic policy through its adoption as a method for families to resist school desegregation. Since then, the issue of education "freedom" has been a part of an ongoing culture war waged through policymaking, legislation, and litigation.

Cowen describes the advocacy network that funds research and promotion of vouchers as a way to attain ideological goals related to conservative social policy, not educational outcomes.

Jinhyun Cho, "English Language Ideologies in Korea: Interpreting the Past and Present" (Springer, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 6 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Jinhyun Cho, Senior Lecturer in the Translation and Interpreting Program of the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Her research interests are primarily in the field of sociolinguistics and sociolinguistics of translation & interpreting. Jinhyun's research focuses on intersections between gender, language ideologies, neoliberalism and intercultural communication across diverse social contexts including Australia and Korea.

Brynn and Jinhyun speak about her 2017 book entitled English Language Ideologies in Korea: Interpreting the Past and Present (Springer, 2017) which critically examines the phenomenon of “English fever” in South Korea from both micro- and macro-perspectives. Drawing on original research and rich illustrative examples, the book investigates two key questions: why is English so popular in Korea, and why is there such a gap between the ‘dreams’ and ‘realities’ associated with English in Korea?

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, "Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Over the past several decades, American society has experienced fundamental changes - from shifting relations between social groups and evolving language and behavior norms to the increasing value of a college degree. These transformations have polarized the nation's political climate and ignited a perpetual culture war.

In a sequel to their award-winning collaboration Asymmetric Politics, Grossmann and Hopkins draw on an extensive variety of evidence to explore how these changes have affected both major parties. In Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics (Cambridge UP, 2024), they show that the Democrats have become the home of highly-educated citizens with progressive social views who prefer credentialed experts to make policy decisions, while Republicans have become the populist champions of white voters without college degrees who increasingly distrust teachers, scientists, journalists, universities, non-profit organizations, and even corporations. The result of this new "diploma divide" between the parties is an increasingly complex world in which everything is about politics - and politics is about everything.

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Javier Muñoz-Díaz et al., "Indigenous Materials in Libraries and the Curriculum: Latin American and Latinx Sources" (Routledge, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 1 Sep 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Indigenous Materials in Libraries and the Curriculum: Latin American and Latinx Sources (Routledge, 2024), Javier Muñoz-Díaz, Kathia Ibacache, and Leila Gómez argue for a decolonial engagement with Indigenous peoples’ creative work to build awareness of divergent epistemologies and foster healing in the learning community.

This interview discusses how faculty and librarians can collaborate to develop inclusive library collections and curricula by supporting Indigenous peoples’ reclamation of lands and languages. In their book, the authors present practices to build and disseminate collections that showcase the work of Indigenous creators from Latin America and compensate for historical erasure and misrepresentation. Consideration is also given to developing a non-hegemonic curriculum in Indigenous languages and cultures for faculty and students from multicultural backgrounds, particularly Latinx students of Indigenous descent. Above all, the book aspires to facilitate the participation of Indigenous peoples in the scholarly conversation to counteract epistemic and material extractivism and transform the scaffolding of higher education in the current global climate crisis. Indigenous Materials in Libraries and the Curriculum is inspired by a transhemispheric vision to elicit conversation between Indigenous peoples from Latin America (Abiayala) and North America (Turtle Island).

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Tadashi Dozono, "Discipline Problems: How Students of Color Trouble Whiteness in Schools" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Angel, a Black tenth-grader at a New York City public school, self-identifies as a nerd and likes to learn. But she’s troubled that her history classes leave out events like the genocide and dispossession of Indigenous people in the Americas, presenting a sugar-coated image of the United States that is at odds with her everyday experience. “The history I learned in school is simpler,” she says. “The world I live in is a lot more complex.”

Angel, like every student interviewed in Discipline Problems: How Students of Color Trouble Whiteness in Schools (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024), has been identified by teachers as a “troublemaker,” a student whose behavior disrupts classroom norms and interferes with instruction. But her critiques of the curriculum she’s taught speak to her curiosity and insight, crucial foundations for understanding history. Like many students who have been marginalized by systemic racism in American schools, she exposes the shortcomings of her classrooms’ academic environments by challenging both the content and the methods of her education. All too often, these challenges are framed as “troublemaking,” and the students are disciplined for “acting out” instead of being rewarded for their intellectual engagement.

Tadashi Dozono, a professor of education and former high school social studies teacher, takes seriously the often-overlooked critiques that students of color who get labeled as troublemakers direct toward their high school history curriculum. He reinterprets “troublemaking,” usually cast as a behavioral deficit, as an intellectual asset and form of reasoning that challenges the “disciplining reason” of classrooms where whiteness is valued over the histories and knowledge of people of color. Dozono shows how what are traditionally framed as discipline problems can be seen through a different lens as responses to educational practices that marginalize non-white students. Discipline Problems reveals how students of color seek out alternate avenues for understanding their world and imagines a pedagogy that champions the curiosity, intellect, and knowledge of marginalized learners.

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Elizabeth A. Wahler and Sarah C. Johnson, "Creating a Person-Centered Library: Best Practices for Supporting High-Needs Patrons (Bloomsbury, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Creating a Person-Centered Library: Best Practices for Supporting High-Needs Patrons (Bloomsbury, 2023) provides a comprehensive overview of various services, programs, and collaborations to help libraries serve high-needs patrons as well as strategies for supporting staff working with these individuals. While public libraries are struggling to address growing numbers of high-needs patrons experiencing homelessness, food insecurity, mental health problems, substance abuse, and poverty-related needs, this book will help librarians build or contribute to library services that will best address patrons' psychosocial needs. Beth Wahler and Sarah C. Johnson, experienced in both library and social work, begin by providing an overview of patrons' psychosocial needs, structural and societal reasons for the shift in these needs, and how these changes impact libraries and library staff. Chapters focus on best practices for libraries providing person-centered services and share lessons learned, including information about special considerations for certain patron populations that might be served by individual libraries. The book concludes with information about how library organizations can support public library staff. Librarians and library students who are concerned about both patrons and library staff will find the practical advice in this book invaluable.

NBN can get 20% off Creating a Person-Centered Library by using the discount code NBN20 on the Blooomsbury.com US website.

Beth Wahler, PhD, MSW is founder and principal consultant at Beth Wahler Consulting, LLC and affiliated research faculty and previous director of the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina- Charlotte. Dr. Wahler is a social work consultant, researcher, and experienced administrator whose primary focus is trauma-informed librarianship, library strategies for addressing patrons’ or community psychosocial needs, supporting library staff with serving high-needs patrons and reducing work-related stress/trauma, and various kinds of collaborations, services, and programs to meet patron, staff, or community needs. She has also published and presented internationally on library patron and staff needs, trauma-informed librarianship, and library/social work collaborations.

Sarah C. Johnson, MLIS, LMSW, is an Adjunct Lecturer at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she teaches a graduate course on Library Social Work. As a researcher and educator, Sarah is the creator and host of the Library Social Work podcast which aims to inform the public about interdisciplinary collaborations between social service providers and public libraries.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Matt Brim, "Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University" (Duke UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University (Duke UP, 2020), Matt Brim shifts queer studies away from its familiar sites of elite education toward poor and working-class people, places, and pedagogies. Brim shows how queer studies also takes place beyond the halls of flagship institutions: in night school; after a three-hour commute; in overflowing classrooms at no-name colleges; with no research budget; without access to decent food; with kids in tow; in a state of homelessness. Drawing on the everyday experiences of teaching and learning queer studies at the College of Staten Island, Brim outlines the ways the field has been driven by the material and intellectual resources of those institutions that neglect and rarely serve poor and minority students. By exploring poor and working-class queer ideas and laying bare the structural and disciplinary mechanisms of inequality that suppress them, Brim jumpstarts a queer-class knowledge project committed to anti-elitist and anti-racist education. Poor Queer Studies is essential for all of those who care about the state of higher education and building a more equitable academy.

Matt Brim is Associate Professor of Queer Studies in the English Department at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York; author of James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination; and coeditor of Imagining Queer Methods.

John Marszalek III is author of Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi (2020, University Press of Mississippi). He is clinical faculty of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program at Southern New Hampshire University. Website: Johnmarszalek3.com Twitter: @marsjf3

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James Barrera, "'We Want Better Education!': The 1960s Chicano Student Movement, School Walkouts, and the Quest for Educational Reform in South Texas" (Texas A&M UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In 'We Want Better Education!': The 1960s Chicano Student Movement, School Walkouts, and the Quest for Educational Reform in South Texas (Texas A&M UP, 2023), James B. Barrera offers a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the educational, cultural, and political issues of the Chicano Movement in Texas, which remains one of the lesser-known social and political efforts of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This movement became the political training ground for greater Chicano empowerment for students. By the 1970s, it was these students who helped to organize La Raza Unida Party in Texas. This book explores the conditions faced by students of Mexican origin in public schools throughout the South Texas region, including Westside San Antonio, Edcouch-Elsa, Kingsville, and Crystal City.

Barrera focuses on the relationship of Chicano students and their parents with the school systems and reveals the types of educational deficiencies faced by such students that led to greater political activism. He also shows how school-related issues became an important element of the students' political and cultural struggle to gain a quality education and equal treatment. Protests enabled students and their supporters to gain considerable political leverage in the decision-making process of their schools. Barrera incorporates information collected from archives throughout the state of Texas, including statistical data, government documents, census information, oral history accounts, and legal records. Of particular note are the in-depth interviews he conducted with numerous former students and community activists who participated or witnessed the various "walkouts" or student protests. "We Want Better Education!" is a major contribution to the historiography of social movements, Mexican American studies, and twentieth-century Texas and American history.

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Le Lin, "The Fruits of Opportunism: Noncompliance and the Evolution of China's Supplemental Education Industry" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

An in-depth examination of the regulatory, entrepreneurial, and organizational factors contributing to the expansion and transformation of China’s supplemental education industry.

Like many parents in the United States, parents in China, increasingly concerned with their children’s academic performance, are turning to for-profit tutoring businesses to help their children get ahead in school. China’s supplemental education industry is now the world’s largest and most vibrant for-profit education market, and we can see its influence on the US higher education system: more than 70% of Chinese students studying in American universities have taken test preparation classes for overseas standardized tests. The Fruits of Opportunism: Noncompliance and the Evolution of China's Supplemental Education Industry (U Chicago Press, 2022) offers a much-needed thorough investigation into this industry. This book examines how opportunistic organizations thrived in an ambiguous policy environment and how they catalyzed organizational and institutional changes in this industry.

A former insider in China’s Education Industry, sociologist Le Lin shows how and why this industry evolved to become a for-profit one dominated by private, formal, nationally operating, and globally financed corporations, despite restrictions the Chinese state placed on the industry. Looking closely at the opportunistic organizations that were founded by marginal entrepreneurs and quickly came to dominate the market, Lin finds that as their non-compliant practices spread across the industry, these opportunistic organizations pushed privatization and marketization from below. The case of China’s Education Industry laid out in The Fruits of Opportunism illustrates that while opportunism leaves destruction in its wake, it can also drive the formation and evolution of a market.

Professor Le Lin’s research centers on organizations, political economy, economic sociology and social stratification, especially where these areas intersect with education and healthcare in China, the U.S. and in a transnational context. His most recent book The Fruits of Opportunism: Noncompliance and the Evolution of China’s Supplemental Education Industry, was published by the University of Chicago Press won the Honorable Mention of the Asia/Transnational Book Award, American Sociological Association (ASA) in 2023. His articles and research have also appeared in journals such as Socio-Economic Review, Higher Education and Global Perspectives, and has won awards from the American Sociological Association and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics.

Gene-George Earle is currently a PhD candidate in Anthropology at East China Normal University in Shanghai.

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Michele Santamaria and Nicole Pfannenstiel, "Information Literacy and Social Media: Empowered Student Engagement with the Acrl Framework" (ACRL, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Teaching our students how to become flexible and accurate evaluators of information requires teaching them adaptable processes and not static heuristics. Our conventional information literacy teaching and learning tools are simply not up to tackling the life-long, real-world challenges and transferable applications required by today's evolving information landscape.

Information Literacy and Social Media: Empowered Student Engagement with the ACRL Framework (ACRL, 2024) by Michele Santamaria and A. Nicole Pfannenstiel (2024, ACRL) provides librarians and non-librarian practitioners with ways to teach and learn with social media. It addresses how to broadly conceptualize information literacy teaching with social media and allay any student reluctance to using social media for academic purposes. It proposes how to map some of the ACRL threshold concepts onto specific social media platforms, including Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok, while providing general guidance for if and when those platforms change. There are eight concrete, cross-disciplinary lesson plans that factor in design, assessment, and student engagement. Finally, the book considers how up-and-coming platforms might empower students to be critical content creators and encourage librarians and faculty to support and create new information literacy initiatives on their campuses. Information Literacy and Social Media demonstrates how to engage students with and through social media platforms and teach them to embrace their role as information creators through engagement with the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. This is the step that they must take to truly be metaliterate in the creative and ethical ways that make information literacy an essential college competency.

New Books Network listener can receive 20% off this title through the ALA Store using the promo code: ACRL5456P.

Michele Santamaría is the Learning Design Librarian at Millersville University.

Nicole Pfannenstiel, PhD., is a student-centered faculty member of the English & World Languages department at Millersville University.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Theodore G. Zervas, "With Grit and a Big Heart: A Beginners Guide to Teaching" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 17 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What does it take to become a teacher today and how does one become a teacher? Theodore G. Zervas's book With Grit and a Big Heart: A Beginners Guide to Teaching (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022) covers the ins and outs on becoming a teacher from receiving a teaching license, working with students, colleagues, and parents, and confronting some of the social and political issues that dominate American society today. This book covers urban, suburban, and rural school settings and is intended for both teachers and anybody interested in the teaching profession.

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Anthony Abraham Jack, "Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price" (Princeton UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Elite colleges are boasting unprecedented numbers with respect to diversity, with some schools admitting their first majority-minority classes. But when the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial unrest gripped the world, schools scrambled to figure out what to do with the diversity they so fervently recruited. And disadvantaged students suffered. Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price (Princeton UP, 2024) exposes how woefully unprepared colleges were to support these students and shares their stories of how they were left to weather the storm alone and unprotected.

Drawing on the firsthand experiences of students from all walks of life at elite colleges, Anthony Abraham Jack reveals the hidden and unequal worlds students navigated before and during the pandemic closures and upon their return to campus. He shows how COVID-19 exacerbated the very inequalities that universities ignored or failed to address long before campus closures. Jack examines how students dealt with the disruptions caused by the pandemic, how they navigated social unrest, and how they grappled with problems of race both on campus and off.

A provocative and much-needed book, Class Dismissed paints an intimate and unflinchingly candid portrait of the challenges of undergraduate life for disadvantaged students even in elite schools that invest millions to diversify their student body. Moreover, Jack offers guidance on how to make students' path to graduation less treacherous--guidance colleges would be wise to follow.

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Decoding the Academic Job Market

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

When professor jobs are scarce and most academic jobs are temporary, what do you do if you still want to work on a campus? Can you make the leap to admin? How do you make the leap?

Dr. Jacquelyn Ardam joins us to explain the hidden curriculum of the academic job market. She shares what helped her pivot roles from visiting professor to campus administrator, how research and writing are still a meaningful part of her life, and why she is happier now running a campus research center than she was in her previous jobs.

Our guest is: Dr. Jacquelyn Ardam, who is the Director of the Undergraduate Research Center for the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at UCLA. She has founded several undergraduate research programs and co-directs UCLA’s Mellon Mays University Fellowship program. Jacquelyn holds a PhD in English from UCLA and is a specialist in modern and contemporary poetry. She has written about art, literature, culture, and higher education for peer-reviewed journals and public venues, and is the author of Avidly Reads Poetry.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Listeners may enjoy this playlist:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can help support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us here to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.

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Neoliberalism and the University, Part 1

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 2 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues.

Today, our hosts, Anjali DasSarma and Sim Gill, present the first of two episodes on neoliberalism and the state of the university as a deeply powerful structure, along with two incredible scholars: Professor Natalie Fenton and Professor Alison Hearn.

In this episode, we explore the complex realm of neoliberalism and its profound impact on education systems in the UK, Canada, and the US. Join us as we unpack how neoliberal ideologies have transformed the very essence of the student experience.

Neoliberal policies have reshaped the landscape of education, redefining relationships between students, faculty, and institutions. But what does this actually mean for the individuals learning and working within these institutions?

Join us for an exciting conversation as we explore the complex and pressing issues shaping our academic worlds today.

In this episode you will hear about:

How Fenton and Hearn define and understand the university within neoliberalism
The material working conditions of faculty, students, and other laborers across UK, Canadian, and US contexts
Unionizing and what it means to work as a collective
The Research Excellence Framework and Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario
Capitalism and the university as a corporation

Guest Biographies:

Natalie Fenton: Natalie is a Professor of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths University.

Alison Hearn: Alison is a professor in the Department of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario.

Host Biographies:

Anjali DasSarma: Anjali DasSarma is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sim Gill: Sim Gill is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and the Center on Digital Culture and Society.

Credits

Interview by: Anjali DasSarma and Sim Gill

Produced by: Eszter Zimanyi

Edited by: Anjali DasSarma and Matt Parker

Sound Mixing by: Matt Parker

Music by: Zoe Zhao

Blog post written by: Anjali DasSarma and Sim Gill

Keywords: neoliberalism, higher education, labor rights

This episode was recorded on November 15th, 2023 at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

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Laura Yares, "Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth-Century America" (NYU Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The earliest Jewish Sunday schools were female-led, growing from one school in Philadelphia established by Rebecca Gratz in 1838 to an entire system that educated vast numbers of Jewish youth across the country. These schools were modeled on Christian approaches to religious education and aimed to protect Jewish children from Protestant missionaries. But debates soon swirled around the so-called sorry state of “feminized” American Jewish supplemental learning, and the schools were taken over by men within one generation of their creation. It is commonly assumed that the critiques were accurate and that the early Jewish Sunday school was too feminized, saccharine, and dependent on Christian paradigms. Tracing the development of these schools from their inception through the first decade of the twentieth century, Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth-Century America (NYU Press, 2023), Laura Yares shows this was not the reality.

Jewish Sunday Schools argues that the work of the women who shepherded Jewish education in the early Jewish Sunday school had ramifications far outside the classroom. Indeed, we cannot understand the nineteenth-century American Jewish experience, and how American Judaism sought to sustain itself in an overwhelmingly Protestant context, without looking closely at the development of these precursors to Hebrew School. Yares provides an in-depth portrait of a massively understudied movement that acted as a vital means by which American Jews explored and reconciled their religious and national identities.

Interviewee: Laura Yares is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State University.

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Derek Taira, "Forward without Fear: Native Hawaiians and American Education in Territorial Hawai'i, 1900-1941" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

During Hawai‘i’s territorial period (1900–1959), Native Hawaiians resisted assimilation by refusing to replace Native culture, identity, and history with those of the United States. By actively participating in U.S. public schools, Hawaiians resisted the suppression of their language and culture, subjection to a foreign curriculum, and denial of their cultural heritage and history, which was critical for Hawai‘i’s political evolution within the manifest destiny of the United States.

In Forward without Fear: Native Hawaiians and American Education in Territorial Hawai'i, 1900-1941 (U Nebraska Press, 2024), Derek Taira reveals that many Native Hawaiians in the first forty years of the territorial period neither subscribed nor succumbed to public schools’ aggressive efforts to assimilate and Americanize them but instead engaged with American education to envision and support an alternate future, one in which they could exclude themselves from settler society to maintain their cultural distinctiveness and protect their Indigenous identity. Taira thus places great emphasis on how they would have understood their actions—as flexible and productive steps for securing their cultural sovereignty and safeguarding their future as Native Hawaiians—and reshapes historical understanding of this era as one solely focused on settler colonial domination, oppression, and elimination to a more balanced and optimistic narrative that identifies and highlights Indigenous endurance, resistance, and hopefulness.

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Ujju Aggarwal, "Unsettling Choice: Race, Rights, and the Partitioning of Public Education" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What do universal rights to public goods like education mean when codified as individual, private choices? Is the “problem” of school choice actually not about better choices for all but, rather, about the competition and exclusion that choice engenders—guaranteeing a system of winners and losers? Unsettling Choice: Race, Rights, and the Partitioning of Public Education (U Minnesota Press, 2024) addresses such questions through a compelling ethnography that illuminates how one path of neoliberal restructuring in the United States emerged in tandem with, and in response to, the Civil Rights movement.

Drawing on ethnographic research in one New York City school district, Unsettling Choice traces the contestations that surfaced when, in the wake of the 2007–2009 Great Recession, public schools navigated austerity by expanding choice-based programs. Ujju Aggarwal argues that this strategy, positioned as “saving public schools,” mobilized mechanisms rooted in market logics to recruit families with economic capital on their side, thereby solidifying a public sphere that increasingly resembled the private—where contingency was anticipated and rights for some were marked by intensified precarity for poor and working-class Black and Latinx families. As Unsettling Choice shows, these struggles over public schools—one of the last remaining universal public goods in the United States—were entrapped within neoliberal regimes that exceeded privatization and ensured exclusion even as they were couched in language of equity, diversity, care, and rights. And yet this richly detailed and engaging book also tracks an architecture of expansive rights, care, and belonging built among poor and working-class parents at a Head Start center, whose critique of choice helps us understand how we might struggle for—and reimagine—justice, and a public that remains to be won.

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What Would Jesus Say about Diversity and Inclusion? (with Pete Imperial)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Pete Imperial has been principal of St. Mary’s Catholic High School in Berkeley, California, a Lasallian Catholic School of 160 years and going strong. Yet only 45% of the students are Catholics (though a similar number are Protestant Christians) and some of the kids have had no religious experience at all. How does a good Catholic school infuse the souls of its charges and the secular society at large with the Gospel and the teachings of the Holy Roman Catholic Church?

Dr. Imperial has a BA from the University of California in Berkeley, an MA in history from San Francisco State University, and an EdD in Educational Administration from the University of San Francisco. In addition to running the school, he also teaches Islamic Studies, Economics, and East Asian History.

This episode is indebted to Ryan Anderson, the listener and a friend of the podcast who suggested this episode and introduced me to Peter.

St. Mary’s College High School website and Pete’s faculty webpage.
About Lasallian education.

Other Almost Good Catholics episodes on the subject of Catholic Education:

Joseph Nagel and Heather Skinner on Almost Good Catholics, episode 8: It's Elementary! Catholic Education in the 21st Century.
Rich Meyer on Almost Good Catholics, episode 45: Education in the World not of the World: A School Director and Father Talks about Forming the Whole Child.

Here is the pilgrimage with Monique and Joseph González this coming September with Inside the Vatican, and the related episodes from Almost Good Catholics:

Pilgrimage to Mexico: Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Flower World Prophecy 2024
Colleen Dulle on Almost Good Catholics, episode 16: Marxists and Mystics: A Vatican Journalist discusses her Biography of Madeleine Delbrêl and the New Papal Constitution
Father James Martin, SJ, on Almost Good Catholics, episode 30: What if You’re Gay? Starting Conversations with and about LGBT Catholics.
Joseph and Monique González on Almost Good Catholics, episode 74: Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth: How the Flower World Bloomed into History in 1531.

Here is my first discussion with Pastor Brian Zahnd and the film A Hidden Life which we will be talking about in August:

A Hidden Life (2019) trailer, IMBD, and on Amazon Prime.
Brian Zahnd on Almost Good Catholics, episode 82: The Wood between the Worlds: Why Death on the Cross?

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Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz and Sara A. Howard, "Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations in Librarianship" (Litwin Books, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 14 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

This interview with Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz about Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations on Identity and Libraries and Grabbing Tea: Queer Conversations on Archives and Practice (available in 2024 from the Litwin Books Series on Gender and Sexuality in Library and Information Studies) explores how queerness is centered within library and archival theory and practice. Smith-Cruz and co-editor Sara A. Howard invited library and archives workers to share conversations which became the chapters for these two volumes. These conversations explore a huge range of topics: identity, community practice and outreach, visibility and coming out or being outed in the library, as well as the archive as a site for reclamation, narrative storytelling, ancestral recalling, and historical revisioning within LGBTQ+ communities. Contributions to these volumes integrate interpersonal experiences of professionalism for queer folks in the field, dive into their relationships and points of connection with each other and the communities they serve, and engage with the implications of race and sexuality in archival practice. Readers are invited to listen in and join these conversations that consider the fluidity of our bodies as queer bodies, and our lives as queer lives inside of the library and the archive.

Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz is a volunteer archivist at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and an Assistant Curator, and Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning, and Engagement at New York University Division of Libraries.

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Maya Wind, "Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom" (Verso, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Israeli universities have long enjoyed a reputation as liberal bastions of freedom and democracy. Drawing on extensive research and making Hebrew sources accessible to the international community, Maya Wind shatters this myth by documenting how Israeli universities are directly complicit in the violation of Palestinian rights.

In Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (Verso, 2024) shows, Wind argues that Israeli universities serve as pillars of Israel's system of oppression against Palestinians. Academic disciplines, degree programs, campus infrastructure, and research laboratories all service Israeli occupation and apartheid, while universities violate the rights of Palestinians to education, stifle critical scholarship, and violently repress student dissent. Towers of Ivory and Steel is a powerful exposé of Israeli academia’s ongoing and active complicity in Israel’s settler-colonial project.

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Mary Schreiber and Wendy K. Bartlett, "Curating Community Collections: A Holistic Approach to Diverse Collection Development" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

A primary question for many librarians, directors, and board members is how to evaluate diversity in a collection on an ongoing basis. Curating Community Collections: A Holistic Approach to Diverse Collection Development (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Mary Schreiber and Wendy Bartlett provides librarians with the tools they need to understand the results of diversity audits and to formulate a reasonable, achievable plan for increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion not only in the collection itself, but also in library collection policies and practices. Information on ways to make diversity, equity, and inclusion part of a library's everyday workflow will help ensure the sustainability of these principles. Schreiber and Bartlett teach readers how to increase the number of diverse materials in their collections and make them more discoverable to library patrons through the implementation of a community collections program. Stories from librarians around the United States and Canada who are auditing and improving the diversity of their collections add broad, scalable perspectives for libraries of any size, budget, and mission. Action steps provided at the end of each section offer a practical road map for all types of libraries to curate a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community collection.

Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited are offering listeners of the New Books Network 20% off this title at Bloomsbury.com using the code NBN20.

Mary Schreiber received her M.L.I.S. degree from Kent State University’s School of Information. She has worked in children’s services, collection development, and is currently a branch manager for Cuyahoga County Public Library. She authored Partnering with Parents: Boosting Literacy for All Ages, which was released in 2019.

Wendy Bartlett is the Collection Development and Acquisitions Manager at Cuyahoga County Public Library. Wendy has also served as a branch manager for CCPL. Previously, Wendy was the Assistant Director at the Kent Free Library in Kent, Ohio, and before that Wendy was the Regional Manager for the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Borders Books and Music stores. Wendy's first book, Floating Collections: A Collection Development Model for Long-Term Success, was published by Libraries Unlimited.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Sandra Hirsh, "Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 7 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Building on the success and impact of Library 2020: Today’s Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow’s Library by Joseph Janes, Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) edited by Sandra Hirshupdates, expands upon, and broadens the discussions on the future of libraries and the ways in which they transform information services to best serve their communities. Library 2035 explores the lessons learned over the past decade and forecasts the opportunities, strengths, and challenges for libraries in the future. Contributors including R. David Lankes, Kelvin Watson, Annie Norman, Miguel Figueroa, and Nicole Cooke, along with 25 other library leaders, were asked to describe the “library of 2035” in whatever way they wanted. Their responses to this question will inspire, provoke, challenge, and expand our thinking about the role and importance of libraries in the future. Library leaders, LIS students and faculty will find this book particularly meaningful and useful as we grapple with what the future of libraries and the profession will be.

Dr. Sandra Hirsh hosts the Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries Webcast with contributors to this work

Dr. Sandra Hirsh is the Associate Dean for Academics in the College of Professional and Global Education at San José State University (SJSU). She previously served as professor and director of the SJSU School of Information and worked at HP Labs, Microsoft, and LinkedIn. She is past president of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) and the Association for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T).

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Jessie Abrahams, "Schooling Inequality: Aspirations, Opportunities and the Reproduction of Social Class" (Bristol UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 6 Jul 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Despite a mass expansion of the higher education sector in the UK since the 1960s, young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds remain less likely to enter university than their advantaged counterparts.

Drawing on unique new research gathered from three contrasting secondary schools in England, including interviews with children from three year groups and careers advisors, Schooling Inequality: Aspirations, Opportunities and the Reproduction of Social Class (Bristol University Press, 2024) by Dr. Jessie Abrahams explores the aspirations, opportunities and experiences of young people from different social-class backgrounds against a backdrop of continuing inequalities in education.

By focusing both on the stories of young people and the schools themselves, the book sheds light on the institutional structures and practices that render young people more, or less, able to pursue their aspirations.

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Bayley J. Marquez, "Plantation Pedagogy: The Violence of Schooling Across Black and Indigenous Space" (U California Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 30 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, teachers, administrators, and policymakers fashioned a system of industrial education that attempted to transform Black and Indigenous peoples and land. This form of teaching—what Bayley J. Marquez names plantation pedagogy—was built on the claim that slavery and land dispossession are fundamentally educational. Plantation pedagogy and the formal institutions that encompassed it were thus integrally tied to enslavement, settlement, and their inherent violence toward land and people. Marquez investigates how proponents developed industrial education domestically and then spread the model abroad as part of US imperialism. A deeply thoughtful and arresting work, Plantation Pedagogy: The Violence of Schooling Across Black and Indigenous Space (U California Press, 2024) sits where Black and Native studies meet in order to understand our interconnected histories and theorize our collective futures.

Bayley J. Marquez is an Indigenous scholar from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians and Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Max Jacobs is a PhD student in education at Rutgers University. He currently sits on the Graduate Student Council for the History of Education Society.

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Jessica Lander, "Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education" (Beacon Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

A landmark work that weaves captivating stories about the past, present, and personal into an inspiring vision for how America can educate immigrant students Setting out from her classroom, Jessica Lander takes the reader on a powerful and urgent journey to understand what it takes for immigrant students to become Americans. A compelling read for everyone who cares about America’s future, Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education (Beacon Press, 2022) brims with innovative ideas for educators and policy makers across the country. Lander brings to life the history of America’s efforts to educate immigrants through rich stories. Making Americans is an exploration of immigrant education across the country told through key historical moments, current experiments to improve immigrant education, and profiles of immigrant students. Making Americans is a remarkable book that will reshape how we all think about nurturing one of America’s greatest assets: the newcomers who enrich this country with their energy, talents, and drive.

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Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider, "The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual" (The New Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

A perfectly timed book for the educational resistance—those of us who believe in public schools Culture wars have engulfed our schools. Extremist groups are seeking to ban books, limit what educators can teach, and threaten the very foundations of public education. What’s behind these efforts? Why are our schools suddenly so vulnerable? And how can the millions of Americans who love their public schools fight back?

In this concise, hard-hitting guide, journalist Jennifer C. Berkshire and education scholar Jack Schneider answer these questions and chart a way forward. The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual (The New Press, 2024) explains the sudden obsession with race and gender in schools, as well as the ascendancy of book-banning efforts. It offers a clear analysis of school vouchers and the impact they’ll have on school finances. It deciphers the movement for “parents’ rights,” explaining the rights that students and taxpayers also have. And it reveals how the ostensible pursuit of “religious freedom” opens the door to discrimination against vulnerable children. Berkshire and Schneider outline the core issues driving the education wars, offering essential information about issues, actors, and potential outcomes. In so doing, they lay out what is at stake for parents, teachers, and students and provide a road map for ensuring that public education survives this present assault. A book that will enrage and enlighten the millions of citizens who believe in their public schools, here is a long-overdue handbook and guide to action.

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Jin Feng, "The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China" (Association for Asian Studies, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In 2009, Fudan University launched China’s first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs’ founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2019, as their inspiration.

In her book, The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Association for Asian Studies, 2024), Jin Feng explores why Chinese authors took part in the U.S. programs, and how they tried to implement its teaching methods in mainland China–clearly, a very different political and cultural environment.

In this interview, Jin and I talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop, the Chinese authors that attended, and the surprising links between U.S. and Chinese academia.

Jin Feng is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press: 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press: 2009), Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies and numerous articles in both English and Chinese.

You can read an excerpt of The Transpacific Flow here.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Transpacific Flow. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.

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PhDing While Parenting

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

An increasing number of students worldwide attend graduate school while simultaneously navigating a variety of competing responsibilities in their personal lives. For many students, this includes both parenting and working full-time, while maintaining a rigorous graduate course-load. Because academia overwhelmingly defaults to assuming all graduate students’ needs are similar to those of middle-class single white males, PhDing while parenting remains under-explored in the literature, and hidden in plain sight on campus. Graduate students are often reluctant to talk to their supervisors about the strains of juggling a demanding private life while attending school…until they hit a personal crisis or they burn out. But what if supervisors were trained to mentor holistically? What if they tailored support, checking in with students not just about their academic progress, but about their off-campus priorities and problems as well?

In today’s episode, we explore why graduate supervisors need to be trained to connect their students to a variety of necessary resources, to help their student-parents get to PhDone. We explore the new case-study documenting experiences of doctoral students in South Africa juggling both parental and professional roles. And we dive into the findings of the new article “Balanced-Integration: A Dimension of Supervision to Support Students Navigating Parenthood in Pursuit of a PHD,” by Dr. S. Nkoala, which was published in South African Journal of Higher Education Volume 38, Number 1, in March 2024.

Our guest is: Dr. Sisanda Nkoala who is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of the Western Cape. She has won numerous awards, and serves as vice-chair of the IAMCR’s media education research section, the African Journalism Educators Network secretary-general, as an associate editor for the Journal of Communication Technology, a public representative on the South African Press Council, a member of the Film & Publication Board’s Appeals Tribunal, and as the vice-president of the South African Communication Association. She is published in many journals, and is the editor of 100 Years of Radio in South Africa, Volume 1: South African Radio Stations and Broadcasters Then & Now, and Community Radio, Digital Radio and the Future of Radio in South Africa.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. You can help support the show by downloading, assigning, or sharing any of our 200+ episodes.

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Michael V. Singh, "Good Boys, Bad Hombres: The Racial Politics of Mentoring Latino Boys in Schools" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The unintended consequences of youth empowerment programs for Latino boys Educational research has long documented the politics of punishment for boys and young men of color in schools—but what about the politics of empowerment and inclusion? In Good Boys, Bad Hombres: The Racial Politics of Mentoring Latino Boys in Schools (U Minnesota Press, 2024), Michael V. Singh focuses on this aspect of youth control in schools, asking on whose terms a positive Latino manhood gets to be envisioned. Based on two years of ethnographic research in an urban school district in California, Good Boys, Bad Hombres examines Latino Male Success, a school-based mentorship program for Latino boys. Instead of attempting to shape these boys’ lives through the threat of punishment, the program aims to provide an “invitation to a respectable and productive masculinity” framed as being rooted in traditional Latinx signifiers of manhood.

Singh argues, however, that the promotion of this aspirational form of Latino masculinity is rooted in neoliberal multiculturalism, heteropatriarchy, and anti-Blackness, and that even such empowerment programs can unintentionally reproduce attitudes that paint Latino boys as problematic and in need of control and containment. An insightful gender analysis, Good Boys, Bad Hombres sheds light on how mentorship is a reaction to the alleged crisis of Latino boys and is governed by the perceived remedies of the neoliberal state. Documenting the ways Latino men and boys resist the politics of neoliberal empowerment for new visions of justice, Singh works to deconstruct male empowerment, arguing that new narratives and practices—beyond patriarchal redemption—are necessary for a reimagining of Latino manhood in schools and beyond.

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Sommer Browning and Isabel Soto-Luna, "Serving Hispanic, Latine, and Latinx Students in Academic Libraries" (Library Juice Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Serving Hispanic, Latine, and Latinx Students in Academic Libraries (Library Juice Press, 2024) is a collection of essays written by library workers that highlights academic library practices, programs, and services that support Hispanic, Latine, and Latinx students. As of 2020, there were over 500 federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the United States and Puerto Rico with another 300 designated as “emerging”. But this is only part of the picture; there are many more institutions of higher education with large Latinx populations that do not have this designation.

In this book, editors Sommer Browning and M. Isabel Soto-Luna bring together contributions that draw attention to the important and exciting work being done in the libraries of these community colleges and research-centered institutions. With chapters on information literacy, special collections, collection management, critical pedagogy, and many others, this is an essential book for library workers searching for new programs and fresh ways to support their Hispanic and Latine students.

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Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, "Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America" (UNC Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Pivoting from studies that emphasize the dominance of progressivism on American college campuses during the late sixties and early seventies, Lauren Lassabe Shepherd positions conservative critiques of, and agendas in, American colleges and universities as an essential dimension of a broader conversation of conservative backlash against liberal education.

This book explores the story of how stakeholders in American higher education organized and reacted to challenges to their power from the New Left and Black Power student resistance movements of the late 1960s. By examining the range of conservative student organizations and coalition building, Shepherd shows how wealthy donors and conservative intellectuals trained future GOP leaders such as Karl Rove, Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions, Pat Buchanan, and others in conservative politics, providing them with tactics to consciously drive American politics and culture further to the authoritarian right and to "reclaim" American higher education.

Lauren Lassabe Shepherd is instructor of higher education at the University of New Orleans.

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Margaret A. Hagerman, "Children of a Troubled Time: Growing Up with Racism in Trump's America" (NYU Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 9 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Kids are at the center of today's "culture wars"--pundits, politicians, and parents alike are debating which books they should be allowed to read, which version of history they should learn in school, and what decisions they can make about their own bodies. And yet, no one asks kids what they think about these issues.

In Children of a Troubled Time: Growing Up with Racism in Trump's America (NYU Press, 2024), award-winning sociologist Margaret A. Hagerman amplifies the voices of children who grew up during Trump's presidency and explores how they learn about race in America today. Hagerman interviewed nearly fifty children between the ages of ten to thirteen in two dramatically different political landscapes: Mississippi and Massachusetts. Hagerman interviewed kids who identified as conservative and liberal in both places as well as kids from different racial groups. She discovered remarkably similar patterns in the ideas expressed by these children. Racism, she asserts, is not just a local or regional phenomenon: it is a broad American project affecting childhoods across the country.

In Hagerman's emotionally compelling interviews, children describe what it is like to come of age during years of deep political and racial divide, and how being a kid during the Trump era shaped their views on racism, democracy, and America as a whole. Children's racialized emotions are also central to this book: disgust and discomfort, fear and solidarity, dominance and apathy.

As administrators, teachers, and parents struggle to help children make sense of our racially and politically polarized nation, Hagerman offers concrete examples of the kinds of interventions necessary to help kids learn how to become members of a multi-racial democracy and to avoid the development of far-right thinking in the white youth of today. Children of a Troubled Time expands our understanding of how the rising generation grapples with the complexities of racism and raises critical questions about the future of American society.

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Nicholas Tampio, ed., "Democracy and Education" (Columbia UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 5 Jun 2024 08:00:00 +0000

John Dewey's Democracy and Education (1916) transformed how people around the world view the purposes of schooling. This new edition makes Dewey's ideas come alive for a new generation of readers.

Nicholas Tampio is a professor of political science at Fordham University. He is the author of Teaching Political Theory: A Pluralistic Approach (2022) and Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (2018).

Max Jacobs is a PhD student in education at Rutgers University. He currently sits on the Graduate Student Council for the History of Education Society.

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Transforming Hispanic-Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 30 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What makes Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) uniquely Latinx? And how can university leaders, staff, and faculty transform these institutions into spaces that promote racial equity, social justice, and collective liberation?

Today’s book is: Transforming Hispanic-Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023), by Dr. Gina Ann Garcia. In it, Dr. Garcia argues that in order to serve Latinx students and other students of color, these institutions must acknowledge how whiteness operates across the organization, from the ways that it is governed and how decisions are made to how education and knowledge are delivered. Diversity alone is insufficient for achieving a dynamic learning environment within higher education institutions. Dr. Garcia's framework for transforming HSIs into truly Latinx institutions is grounded in critical theories, yet it advances new ways of thinking about how to organize colleges and universities that are actively serving students of color, low-income students, and students from other minoritized backgrounds. This framework connects multiple important dimensions, including mission, identity, strategic purpose, membership, curriculum, student services, physical infrastructure, governance, leadership, external partnerships, and external influences. Drawing on over 25 years of HSI research, Dr. Garcia offers unique solutions for colleges and universities that want to better serve their students.

Our guest is: Dr. Gina Ann Garcia, who is a professor in the School of Education at UC Berkeley. Her research centers on issues of equity and justice in higher education with an emphasis on understanding how Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) embrace and enact an organizational identity for serving minoritized populations. She explores the experiences of administrators, faculty, and staff at HSIs and the outcomes of students attending these institutions. As an equity-minded scholar, she tends to the ways that race and racism have shaped institutions of higher education. She is the author of Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Opportunities for Colleges & Universities, the editor of Hispanic-Serving Institutions in Practice: Defining “Servingness” at HSIs, and the author of Transforming Hispanic Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice. She consults directly with HSIs to work towards organizational transformation; is a proud alumna of an HSI; and was a Title V Coordinator at Cal State University, Fullerton which drives and motivates her research and praxis.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

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Chris Haufe, "Do the Humanities Create Knowledge?" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 28 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

There is in certain circles a widely held belief that the only proper kind of knowledge is scientific knowledge. This belief often runs parallel to the notion that legitimate knowledge is obtained when a scientist follows a rigorous investigative procedure called the 'scientific method'.

In Do the Humanities Create Knowledge? (Cambridge UP, 2023), Chris Haufe challenges this idea. He shows that what we know about the so-called scientific method rests fundamentally on the use of finely tuned human judgments directed toward certain questions about the natural world. He suggests that this dependence on judgment in fact reveals deep affinities between scientific knowledge and another, equally important, sort of comprehension: that of humanistic creative endeavour. His wide-ranging and stimulating new book uncovers the unexpected unity underlying all our efforts – whether scientific or arts-based – to understand human experience. In so doing, it makes a vital contribution to broader conversation about the value of the humanities in an increasingly STEM-saturated educational culture.

If it is agreed that the humanities are valuable and essential, are there better and worse ways in which to generate humanistic knowledge? This book offers compelling answers.

Chris Haufe is the Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Professor of the Humanities and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of How Knowledge Grows (2022) and Fruitfulness (2024).

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Bryan Hanson on Disrupting Academic Bullying

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 27 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with Bryan Hanson, ombudsperson for Virginia Tech's Graduate School, about a program he developed called Disrupting Academic Bullying, which seeks to encourage all members of academic communities to support and promote affirming environments for research and learning. Lee and Bryan talk about the reality of harassment and abuse in academic workplaces and what community members and departments can do when they experience or witness bullying. They also reflect on the limits of such programs and the use of formal bureaucratic responses to solve social and moral problems, while affirming that universities could, indeed, do a great deal more today to address such issues.

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Larry Roeder and Barry Harrelson, "Dirt Don't Burn: A Black Community's Struggle for Educational Equality Under Segregation" (Georgetown UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 27 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The system of educational apartheid that existed in the United States until the Brown v. Board of Education decision and its aftermath has affected every aspect of life for Black Americans.

Larry Roeder and Barry Harrelson's book Dirt Don't Burn: A Black Community's Struggle for Educational Equality Under Segregation (Georgetown UP, 2023) is the riveting narrative of an extraordinary community that overcame the cultural and legal hurdles of systematic racism. Dirt Don't Burn describes how Loudoun County, Virginia, which once denied educational opportunity to Black Americans, gradually increased the equality of education for all children in the area. The book includes powerful stories of the largely unknown individuals and organizations that brought change to enduring habits of exclusion and prejudice toward African Americans.

Dirt Don't Burn sheds new light on the history of segregation and inequity in American history. It provides new historical details and insights into African American experiences based on original research through thousands of previously lost records, archival NAACP files, and records of educational philanthropies. This book will appeal to readers interested in American history, African American history, and regional history, as well as educational policy and social justice.

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Danielle R. Olden, "Racial Uncertainties: Mexican Americans, School Desegregation, and the Making of Race in Post–Civil Rights America" (U California Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 22 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Mexican Americans have often fit uncertainly into the white/non-white binary that has goverens much of American history. After Colorado, and much of the rest of the American West, became American claimed territory after the Mexican-Americna War in 1848, thousands of formerly Mexican citizens became American citizens. Flash foward a century to post-war Denver. In the spring of 1969, Mexican American students staged a walk out in protest of poor quality education, racist teachers, and school segregation - they were met by police in riot gear, to beat and arrested dozens of peaceful protestors. Denver thus became ground zero for debates over race in the American West, a city as important to conceptions of whiteness, "minority" status, and colorblindness as any place in the South.

In the award winning book, Racial Uncertainties: Mexican Americans, School Desegregation, and the Making of Race in Post-Civil Rights America (U California Press, 2022), University of Utah historian Danielle Olden tracks the history of Chicano, Latinx, and Mexican American identities through Denver's history, focusing on the lead up to the 1973 Supreme Court case, Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1. Olden tracks the remarkable and complicated story of that city's Chicano, Black, and white communities through the halting process of school desegregation, and in doing so provides an explemary lesson in the social mutability of the concept of race.

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Jennifer Liu, "Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 18 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960 (U Hawaii Press, 2024) examines how the Guomindang (GMD or Nationalists) sought to maintain control of middle-school students and cultivate their political loyalty over the trajectory of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, and postwar Taiwan. During the Sino-Japanese War the Nationalists managed middle-school refugee students by merging schools, publishing and distributing updated textbooks, and assisting students as they migrated to the interior with their principals and teachers. In Taiwan, the China Youth Corps (CYC) became a symbol of the regime’s successful establishment. Tracing Nationalist efforts to indoctrinate ideology and martial spirit, Jennifer Liu investigates how GMD leaders Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo tried to build support among young people in their efforts to stabilize Taiwanese society under their rule. By comparing two key youth organizations—the Three People’s Principles Youth Corps in China, and the CYC on Taiwan—Liu uses education as a lens to analyze state-building in modern China.

Liu’s careful analysis of the inner workings of GMD youth organizations also illuminates the day-to-day operations of military training in gender-segregated upper-middle schools—including how the government selected instructors and the skills taught to students. According to Liu, mandatory military training contributed to preventing major protest against the government but the policy was not without critics. Intellectuals, parents, and students voiced their dissent at what they perceived as excessive control by a repressive government and a waste of resources interfering with academics. The government-mandated civics curriculum, including government-approved textbooks and standards, reveals the characteristics and duties GMD officials believed modern citizens of the next generation should possess. Through provisions for refugee students, youth organizations, military training, and civics classes, GMD secondary education policy played a critical role in the process of state building in both modern China and Taiwan.

Skillfully combining archival work in Nanjing and Taipei, along with oral interviews with former students and CYC administrators, instructors, and members, Liu offers a unique perspective toward a balanced assessment of Nationalist Party rule.

Jennifer Liu is associate professor of East Asian history at Central Michigan University. She specializes in the political and social history of twentieth-century China, particularly education, youth culture, student protest, and ethnic identity.

Li-Ping Chen is a teaching fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts.

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En Li, "Betting on the Civil Service Examinations: The Lottery in Late Qing China" (Harvard UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 17 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

During the Qing dynasty in China, a wide variety of people participated in a lottery game named weixing (“surname guessing”), which had participants placing bets on the surnames of civil service examination candidates. A fiercely competitive process, those who passed the various levels of the civil service and military examinations could climb the social ladder and obtain status in their communities and be considered for important positions in the government and military. The results of these examinations were not only highly anticipated by the exam takers themselves but also–with the introduction of weixing–by an enthusiastic community of players who bet on the success of candidates with less common surnames.

In this episode, En Li, assistant professor of modern East Asian history at the University of Texas at Dallas and author of Betting on the Civil Service Exmaninations: The Lottery in Late Qing China (Harvard University Asia Center, 2023), explores the fascinating history of this lottery game–from the longer history of games and betting in China and the origin of weixing to its regulation by the government to raise revenue and the spread of the game beyond China’s borders through Chinese diasporic communities to Southeast Asia and North America. The book considers the game from multiple perspectives–government officials, players, and lottery game runners. En Li thoughtfully reflects on the book and the process of producing it and points to the larger significance of both weixing and the civil service examinations in Chinese society and life and the risk, reward, and loss involved.

Laurie Dickmeyer is an Assistant Professor of History at Angelo State University, where she teaches courses in Asian and US history. Her research concerns nineteenth century US-China relations. She can be reached at laurie.dickmeyer@angelo.edu.

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Matthew Berland and Antero Garcia, "The Left Hand of Data: Designing Education Data for Justice" (MIT Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 15 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Educational analytics tend toward aggregation, asking what a “normative” learner does. In The Left Hand of Data: Designing Education Data for Justice (MIT Press, 2024, open access at this link), educational researchers Matthew Berland and Antero Garcia start from a different assumption—that outliers are, and must be treated as, valued individuals. Berland and Garcia argue that the aim of analytics should not be about enforcing and entrenching norms but about using data science to break new ground and enable play and creativity. From this speculative vantage point, they ask how we can go about living alongside data in a better way, in a more just way, while also building on the existing technologies and our knowledge of the present.

The Left Hand of Data explores the many ways in which we use data to shape the possible futures of young people—in schools, in informal learning environments, in colleges, in libraries, and with educational games. It considers the processes by which students are sorted, labeled, categorized, and intervened upon using the bevy of data extracted and collected from individuals and groups, anonymously or identifiably. When, how, and with what biases are these data collected and utilized? What decisions must educational researchers make around data in an era of high-stakes assessment, surveillance, and rising inequities tied to race, class, gender, and other intersectional factors? How are these complex considerations around data changing in the rapidly evolving world of machine learning, AI, and emerging fields of educational data science? The surprising answers the authors discover in their research make clear that we do not need to wait for a hazy tomorrow to do better today.

Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. Jen edits for Partnership Journal and organizes with the TPS Collective. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive.

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Ketaki Chowkhani, "The Limits of Sexuality Education: Love, Sex, and Adolescent Masculinities in Urban India" (Routledge, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 13 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Limits of Sexuality Education: Love, Sex, and Adolescent Masculinities in Urban India (Routledge, 2024) explores different strands of thinking about sexuality education in contemporary urban India. It interrogates the limits of sexuality education as we know it today by rethinking adolescent masculinities in middle-class urban India.

This book contributes to the wide gap in theorising sexuality education and adolescent masculinities in urban India. It presents an adolescent perspective on sexuality education, looks at adolescent love from the school teachers’ perspective, and tries to understand a teacher’s negotiations with student romance. It unravels the sexual and romantic lives of adolescents and examines the circulation of sexual knowledge and sources of information on sex that adolescent boys in India have access to. This book uncovers the limits of sexuality education by examining State, feminist, Christian, and sexological materials on sexuality education in Mumbai and Delhi. Based on detailed research and narratives from teachers, young men, and women, the book explores adolescent male romance and its affective registers, adolescent male sexual knowledge, and the regulation of romance in school spaces.

This book will be of interest to students and researchers of education, sexuality and gender studies, masculinity studies, and sex education as well as those interested in education policy, education politics, educational research, and inclusion and special education. Located at the intersection of sexuality studies, education, masculinity studies, and cultural studies, it will also appeal to those working in sexuality education in urban India within the complex web of the middle classes, consumerism, post-feminism, romance, adolescent masculinities, and cinema.

Rituparna Patgiri has a PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her research interests lie in the areas of food, media, gender and public. She is also one of the co-founders of Doing Sociology. Patgiri can be reached at @Rituparna37 on Twitter.

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Rachelle Winkle-Wagner, "The Chosen We: Black Women's Empowerment in Higher Education" (SUNY Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 12 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The Chosen We: Black Women's Empowerment in Higher Education (SUNY Press, 2023) elevates the oral histories of 105 accomplished, college-educated Black women who earned success despite experiencing reprehensible racist and sexist barriers. The central argument is that these women succeeded in and beyond college by developing a Chosen We—a community with one another. The book builds on their words and insights to offer a powerful rethinking of educational success that moves away from individualistic and competitive models and instead imagines success as a result of recognizing what people owe to one another. It also uncovers the importance of the type of institutions that students attend for higher education, comparing Black women's experiences not only by region and era but also by whether they attended a predominantly White institution (PWI) or a historically Black college or university (HBCU). The Chosen We features theoretical and methodological exemplars for how to conduct research across lines of difference. The Black women's oral histories shared here manifest the wisdom from which many groups in the United States might benefit—that liberation is only found through community.

Rachelle Winkle-Wagner is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the coauthor (with Angela M. Locks) of Diversity and Inclusion on Campus: Supporting Students of Color in College, and the author of The Unchosen We: Black Women and Identity in Higher Education, among other books.

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Donald Opitz and Derek Melleby, "Learning for the Love of God: A Student's Guide to Academic Faithfulness" (Brazos Press, 2014)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 11 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Donald Opitz and Derek Melleby about their book Learning for the Love of God: A Student's Guide to Academic Faithfulness (Brazos Press, 2014).

Most Christian college students separate their academic life from church attendance, Bible study, and prayer. Too often discipleship of the mind is overlooked if not ignored altogether. In this lively and enlightening book, two authors who are experienced in college youth ministry show students how to be faithful in their studies, approaching education as their vocation. This revised edition of the well-received The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness includes updates throughout, two new substantive appendixes, personal stories from students, a new preface, and a fresh interior design. Chapters conclude with thought-provoking discussion questions. Read a review of the book by local bookstore owner and friend of the authors here.

Donald Opitz (PhD, Boston University) is chaplain and senior director of Christian formation at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. He is the author of numerous articles and has worked as a pastor as well as a campus minister.

Derek Melleby (DMin, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) serves as a consultant with North Group Consultants. As the former Director of Calling & Career Development at Lancaster Bible College, Derek helped individuals connect to a sense of calling in their career. In that role, he served the student population, accompanying them on their journey to grow their self-awareness and develop the skills needed to make a positive impact on their communities. He has also provided executive leadership in a growth-oriented non-profit organization.

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Matteo Pangallo and Emily B. Todd, "Teaching the History of the Book" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Matteo Pangallo and Emily Todd, Teaching the History of the Book (University of Massachusetts Press 2023) is the first collection of its kind dedicated to book history pedagogy. With original contributions from a diverse range of teachers, scholars, and practitioners in literary studies, history, book arts, library science, language studies, and archives, this volume presents a variety of methods for teaching book history both as its own subject and as an approach to other material. Each chapter describes lessons, courses, and programs centered on the latest and best ways of teaching undergraduate and graduate students.

Expansive and instructive, this volume introduces ways of helping students consider how texts were produced, circulated, and received, with chapters that cover effective ways to organize courses devoted to book history, classroom activities that draw on this subject in other courses, and an overview of selected print and digital tools. Contributors, many of whom are leading figures in the field, utilize their own classroom experiences to bring to life some of the rich possibilities for teaching book history in the twenty-first century.

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Ariana Mangual Figueroa, "Knowing Silence: How Children Talk about Immigration Status in School" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Learning from children about citizenship status and how it shapes their schooling.

There is a persistent assumption in the field of education that children are largely unaware of their immigration status and its implications. In Knowing Silence: How Children Talk about Immigration Status in School (U Minnesota Press, 2024), Ariana Mangual Figueroa challenges this “myth of ignorance.” By listening carefully to both the speech and significant silences of six Latina students from mixed-immigration-status families, from elementary school into middle school and beyond, she reveals the complex ways young people understand and negotiate immigration status and its impact on their lives. Providing these children with iPod Touches to record their own conversations, Mangual Figueroa observes when and how they choose to talk about citizenship at home, at school, and in public spaces. Analyzing family conversations about school forms, in-class writing assignments, encounters with the police, and applications for college, she demonstrates that children grapple with the realities of citizenship from an early age. Educators who underestimate children’s knowledge, Mangual Figueroa shows, can marginalize or misunderstand these students and their families.

Combining significant empirical findings with reflections on the ethical questions surrounding research and responsibility, Mangual Figueroa models new ways scholars might collaborate with educators, children, and families. With rigorous and innovative ethnographic methodologies, Knowing Silence makes audible the experiences of immigrant-origin students in their own terms, ultimately offering teachers and researchers a crucial framework for understanding citizenship in the contemporary classroom.

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Community and Heritage Languages Schools Transforming Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 6 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today we talked to Joseph Lo Bianco about the edited volume Community and Heritage Languages Schools Transforming Education (Routledge, 2023). The conversation addresses community and heritage language schooling research and practice, and our guest’s long history of important language policy research and activism, as well as the interconnections between the two.

For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.

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Leading from the Margins: College Leadership from Unexpected Places

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: Leading From the Margins: College Leadership from Unexpected Places (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024), by Dr. Mary Dana Hinton, which is a guide to why people from marginalized backgrounds may be uniquely qualified to become effective higher education leaders―and how they can get there. Students and faculty in higher education increasingly reflect more diverse backgrounds, but this diversity remains rare in many leadership roles. In Leading from the Margins, Dr. Hinton celebrates the unique strengths of marginalized individuals, inviting them to embrace their leadership potential and make a difference. Drawing from Dr. Hinton's own journey to becoming a university president, this book challenges conventional leadership theories and highlights the value of diverse voices. This book is a vital resource for people in higher education aspiring to senior leadership positions who feel unheard or unrepresented in traditional leadership roles. Leading from the Margins is an essential read for anyone seeking to foster inclusive and effective leadership, bridging the gap between theory and lived experiences. Whether you're an emerging or established leader, Leading from the Margins will empower you to find your own leadership style and discover strength in unexpected places.

Our guest is: Dr. Mary Dana Hinton, who is the 13th president of Hollins University. An active and respected proponent of the liberal arts and inclusion, her leadership reflects a deep and abiding commitment to educational equity and the education of women. Dr. Hinton was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, an organization established more than 240 years ago by the nation’s founders to honor exceptionally accomplished individuals and engage them in advancing the public good. Her scholarship focuses on higher education leadership, strategic planning, the role of education in peace building, African American religious history, and inclusion in higher education. She is the author of The Commercial Church: Black Churches and the New Religious Marketplace in America, and of Leading from the Margins: College Leadership from Unexpected Places.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. You can support the show by downloading and sharing episodes.

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Kathryn Telling, "The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education: Negotiating Inclusion and Prestige" (Policy Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 27 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

What is the future of higher education? In The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education: Negotiating Inclusion and Prestige (Policy Press, 2023), Dr Kathryn Telling, a lecturer in education at the University of Manchester, explores the rise of liberal arts degrees in England to examine the broader contours of the contemporary university. The book tells the story of student and staff perspectives on liberal arts, as well as examining the institutional motivations and narratives underpinning the dilemmas and paradoxes of this subject area. Offering a rich and detailed engagement with key issues such as interdisciplinarity, institutional status, employability, and inequality in higher education, the book is essential reading across the humanities and social sciences.

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Diana Chapman Walsh, "The Claims of Life: A Memoir" (MIT Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

The engaging memoir of a legendary president of Wellesley College known for authentic and open-hearted leadership, who drove innovation with power and love. The Claims of Life: A Memoir (The MIT Press, 2023) traces the emergence of a young woman who set out believing she wasn’t particularly smart but went on to meet multiple tests of leadership in the American academy—a place where everyone wants to be heard and no one wants a boss. In college, Diana Chapman met Chris Walsh, who became a towering figure in academic science. Their marriage of fifty-seven years brought them to the forefront of revolutions in higher education, gender expectations, health-care delivery, and biomedical research.

The Claims of Life offers readers an unusually intimate view of trustworthy leadership that begins and ends in self-knowledge. During a transformative fourteen-year Wellesley presidency, Walsh advanced women’s authority, compassionate governance, and self-reinvention. After Wellesley, Walsh’s interests took her to the boards of five national nonprofits galvanizing change. She kept counsel with Nobel laureates, feminist icons, and even the Dalai Lama, seeking solutions to the world’s climate crisis. With an ear tuned to social issues, The Claims of Life is an inspiring account of a life lived with humor, insight, and meaning that will surely leave a lasting impression on its readers.

Diana Chapman Walsh is President Emerita of Wellesley College and an emerita member of the governing boards of MIT and Amherst College. She was a trustee of the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the Mind and Life Institute, and also chaired the Broad Institute's inaugural board and cofounded the Council on the Uncertain Human Future.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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Brooke Larson, "The Lettered Indian: Race, Nation, and Indigenous Education in Twentieth-Century Bolivia" (Duke UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Bringing into dialogue the fields of social history, Andean ethnography, and postcolonial theory, The Lettered Indian: Race, Nation, and Indigenous Education in Twentieth-Century Bolivia (Duke University Press, 2024) by Dr. Brooke Larson maps the moral dilemmas and political stakes involved in the protracted struggle over Indian literacy and schooling in the Bolivian Andes.

Dr. Larson traces Bolivia’s major state efforts to educate its unruly Indigenous masses at key junctures in the twentieth century. While much scholarship has focused on “the Indian boarding school” and other Western schemes of racial assimilation, Dr. Larson interweaves state-centred and imperial episodes of Indigenous education reform with vivid ethnographies of Aymara peasant protagonists and their extraordinary pro-school initiatives. Exploring the field of vernacular literacy practices and peasant political activism, she examines the transformation of the rural “alphabet school” from an instrument of the civilising state into a tool of Aymara cultural power, collective representation, and rebel activism. From the metaphorical threshold of the rural school, Dr. Larson rethinks the politics of race and indigeneity, nation and empire, in postcolonial Bolivia and beyond.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming 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.

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Kelsey Keyes and Ellie Dworak, "Supporting Student Parents in the Academic Library: Designing Spaces, Policies, and Services" (ACRL, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Student parents can feel unwelcome and invisible in their institutions. And for every student parent who is struggling to complete an education despite these hurdles, there are many others who have not been able to find a way. Supporting Student Parents in the Academic Library: Designing Spaces, Policies, and Services (ACRL, 2024) by Kelsey Keyes and Ellie Dworak is a guide to engaging with and aiding the student parents in your libraries and leading the charge in making your institutions more family friendly.

Supporting Student Parents in the Academic Library is part toolkit, part treatise, and part call to action. In four parts: The Higher Education Landscape, The Role of Academic Libraries, Looking Outward to Community, and Evaluating Needs and Measuring Success. It includes templates, sample policy language, budgets, survey instruments, and other immediately useful tools and examples. There are field notes from academic librarians from institutions of varying sizes and resources demonstrating different ways of supporting these students, and the voices of students themselves.

Kelsey Keyes was an academic librarian for fifteen years and is now Emerita Professor at Boise State University. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science and a Masters of English Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is currently the Managing Editor of Critical AI (Duke University Press), as well as the copy editor of College & Research Libraries and Rare Books and Manuscripts (both ACRL publications). She also provides writing and editing support for academics, business, fiction and non-fiction writers (kelseykeyes.com). For over a decade, her research has focused on parenting students in higher education. Kelsey lives in Europe with her family.

Ellie Dworak is an Associate Professor and the Research Data Librarian at Boise State University. She earned her Masters in Library and Information Services from the University of Michigan in 1996 and worked for the Ohio University and San Diego State University libraries prior to joining the faculty at Boise State in 2018. Her research focuses on higher education policy, human computer interaction, and the social impacts of living in a datafied society. She lives with her husband and three dogs in Boise, Idaho.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program & Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Shardé M. Davis, "Being Black in the Ivory: Truth-Telling about Racism in Higher Education" (UNC Press, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

When Sharde M. Davis turned to social media during the summer of racial reckoning in 2020, she meant only to share how racism against Black people affects her personally. But her hashtag, BlackintheIvory, went viral, fostering a flood of Black scholars sharing similar stories. Soon the posts were being quoted during summer institutes and workshops on social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. And in fall 2020, faculty assigned the tweets as material for course curriculum.

Being Black in the Ivory: Truth-Telling about Racism in Higher Education (UNC Press, 2024) is a curated collection of original personal narratives from Black scholars across the country seeks to continue the conversation that started with BlackintheIvory. Put together, the stories reveal how racism eats its way through higher education, how academia systemically ejects Black scholars in overt and covert ways, and how academic institutions--and their individual members--might make lasting change. While anti-Black racism in academia is a behemoth with many entry points to the conversation, this book marshals a diverse group of Black voices to bring to light what for too long has been hidden in the shadow of the ivory tower.

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Margaret Price, "Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life" (Duke UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In Crip Spacetime: Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life (Duke University Press, 2024), Margaret Price intervenes in the competitive, productivity-focused realm of academia by sharing the everyday experiences of disabled academics. Drawing on more than three hundred interviews and survey responses, Price demonstrates that individual accommodations--the primary way universities address accessibility--actually impede access rather than enhance it. She argues that the pains and injustices encountered by academia's disabled workers result in their living and working in realities different from nondisabled colleagues: a unique experience of space, time, and being that Price theorizes as "crip spacetime." She explores how disability factors into the exclusionary practices found in universities, with multiply marginalized academics facing the greatest harms. Highlighting the knowledge that disabled academics already possess about how to achieve sustainable forms of access, Price boldly calls for the university to move away from individualized models of accommodation and toward a new system of collective accountability and care.

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José Tenorio, "School Food Politics in Mexico: The Corporatization of Obesity and Healthy Eating Policies" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

For decades now, we’ve all heard the refrain – we are in a war against obesity, with perhaps the most important battle being fought over the health of our children. What better place could there be to defeat the enemy of obesity than our schools, where children are fed and educated and educated about being fed on a daily basis? But how did we come to see health promotion in schools as the key solution to solving the problem of obesity? And is obesity really at the root of our problems to begin with?

Intertwining policy analysis and ethnography, José Tenorio’s School Food Politics in Mexico: The Corporatization of Obesity and Healthy Eating Policies (Routledge, 2023) examines how, and why now, the promotion of healthy lifestyles has been positioned as an ideal ‘solution’ to obesity and how this shapes the preparation, sale and consumption of food in schools in Mexico.

This book situates obesity as a structural problem enabled by market-driven policy change, problematizing the focus on individual behavior change which underpins current obesity policy. Expanding the conversation on the politics of food in schools, obesity policy and dominant perspectives on the relation between food and health, this book is a must-read for scholars of food and nutrition, public health and education, as well as those with an interest in development studies and policy enactment and outcomes.

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Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education: A Labor History (University of Illinois Press, 2024), which is an essay collection co-edited by Eric Fure-Slocum and Claire Goldstene. It explores why in the United States more than three-quarters of the people teaching in colleges and universities work as contingent faculty. This “gig” economy includes lack of job security and health care, professional disrespect, and poverty wages that can require some faculty to juggle multiple jobs. The included essays draw on a wide range of perspectives, investigate structural changes that have caused the use of contingent faculty to skyrocket, illuminate how precarity shapes day-to-day experiences in the academic workplace, and delve into the ways contingent faculty engage in collective action and other means to resist austerity measures, improve their working conditions, and instigate reforms in higher education. By challenging contingency, this volume issues a call to reclaim higher education’s public purpose.

Our guest is: Dr. Claire Goldstene, who taught as contingent faculty at the University of Maryland, the University of North Florida, and American University. She has published extensively on contingent faculty issues and served on the board of New Faculty Majority Foundation. She is also the author of The Struggle for America's Promise: Equal Opportunity at the Dawn of Corporate Capital and is currently working on a book about free speech in the early-twentieth century United States. She is the co-editor of Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education.

Our co-guest is: Maria Maisto, who taught as a contingent faculty member for over fifteen years in Maryland and Ohio. She has published and spoken widely on the topic of contingent faculty equity, advocacy, and coalition building. In 2009, she co-founded New Faculty Majority: The National Coalition for Adjunct and Contingent Equity, a 501(c)6 membership and advocacy organization, and served as its president. She is a featured essayist in Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator and show host of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Listeners may also like this playlist:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Please support the show by downloading and sharing episodes.

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John Warner on Teaching Writing in the Age of Generative AI

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with writer and editor John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for more than twenty years. Warner is the author of at least three - or four depending on whether you count a work of parody - books on writing and higher education, and today he is perhaps best known for his Substack, The Biblioracle Recommends. Vinsel and Warner talk about how teaching writing will need to shift after the arrival of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, but only after discussing a deeper truth: Teaching writing and thinking at the college level has had big problems for years, problems that AI tools simply exacerbate. The pair talk about Warner’s experiences and his approach to teaching writing as well as about a book he is writing about teaching writing in the age of generative AI.

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Colette Cann and Eric Demeulenaere, "The Activist Academic: Engaged Scholarship for Resistance, Hope and Social Change" (Myers Education Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

How can traditional academic scholarship be disrupted by activist academics? How can we make space for those who are underrepresented and historically oppressed to come to academia as their authentic selves? How can the platform of academia create space for change in the world? In The Activist Academic: Engaged Scholarship for Resistance, Hope and Social Change (Myers Education Press: 2020), Professor Colette N. Cann and Professor Eric J. DeMeulenarare answer these questions. Their work challenges dominant frameworks of what it is to be an academic. They challenge readers to think about their responsibility as academics, and their role not just as researchers and teachers, but as parents, friends and members of the community. This book should be compulsory reading for for all scholars, and those that aspire to enter academia. It provides the opportunity to rethink the ways that activism and scholarship can be combined, and the impact that academics have in the spaces that they work.

Professor Colette N. Cann is the Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Advancement and Professor in the School of Education at the University of San Francisco.

Professor Eric DeMeulenaere is a Professor of Education, Director of Community, Youth, & Education Studies and Director of Comparative Race & Ethnic Studies at Clark University.

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Mary K. Bolin, "Refocusing Academic Libraries Through Learning and Discourse: The Idea of a Library" (Chandos, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Academic libraries are changing in the face of information technologies, economic pressures, and globally disruptive events such as the current pandemic. In Refocusing Academic Libraries Through Learning and Discourse: The Idea of a Library (Chandos, 2023), Mary K. Bolin argues for a radical vision of library transformation, offering practical solutions for transforming organizational and workflow structures for the future. This book analyzes existing organizational structures and proposes new ones that can be adapted to individual libraries. It discusses the challenges posed by virtual learning environments, digital initiatives and resources, changes to cataloging standards and succession planning, as well as changes brought about by the current pandemic. It aims to help library leaders find new models of organization that make the best use of limited resources.

Refocusing Academic Libraries Through Learning and Discourse: The Idea of a Library helps inform discussions taking place in academic libraries about organizational patterns and divisions of labor. These discussions are now more critical than ever because academic libraries are facing a time of disruption. This book will give librarians leverage to think outside traditional bureaucratic structures and re-think how libraries serve their patrons. The book examines existing structures and proposes new ones. Specifically, the book proposes organizational models and lays out a process for planning organizational transformation and implementing a new organization. Seven chapters offer a radical vision of library transformation, proposing a collaborative process for changing academic libraries into organizations that are fit for the second quarter of the twenty-first century and beyond. This book will be invaluable to librarians looking for solutions to library organizational and workflow structures.

Mary K. Bolin, PhD, has more than 40 years of experience as a librarian and faculty member, administrator, and LIS instructor. She received a PhD in Higher Education Administration from the University of Nebraska in 2007, has an MA in English (Linguistics) from the University of Idaho. and an MSLS from the University of Kentucky. She spent her career as a practitioner at the University of Georgia, University of Idaho, and University of Nebraska--Lincoln. She has been an instructor in the School of Information at San Jose State University, teaching cataloging and metadata, since 2008.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program and Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Jeffrey Benson, "Hacking School Discipline Together" (Times Ten Publications, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Jeffrey Benson’s Hacking School Discipline Together (Times Ten Publications, 2024) follows in footsteps first hacked out by Weinstein and Maynard in their 2019 bestselling Hacking School Discipline. Benson, informed by his 40 years of teaching, directing, mentoring, and consulting, takes the discussion to the broader school community. This book offers an effective elixir, distilled from experiences and best practices of Benson’s career. The formula is ten hacks in the form ten very readable chapters and that every teacher and administrator can start using tomorrow. Benson knows how to build community, establish systems, and create the environment where teachers teach and students study, and no time (or minimal time) is lost to the distractions of discipline problems.

This is Jeffrey Benson’s fifth book and follows his recent Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL which focused on classroom practices (and was also an NBN discussion on the New Books in Education). This time, Benson thinks about these questions from the perspective of the administrator and teacher-leader, asking (and answering) how the whole school can affect the whole student.

Jeffrey Benson’s website
Jeffrey Benson’s Hacking School Discipline from Times Ten Publications, available on Amazon.com
All of Jeffery Benson’s books on Amazon.com
Jeffrey Benson’s previous NBE interview

Krzysztof (Chris) Odyniec is a teacher and historian who has worked in secondary and post-secondary education for fifteen years. He currently teaches social studies at John Swett High School in Crockett, California.

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Is Grad School for Me?: Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students (U California Press, 2024), by Dr. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chávez-García. It is the first book to provide first-generation, low-income, and nontraditional students of color with insider knowledge on how to consider and navigate graduate school. Is Grad School for Me? is a calling card and a corrective to the lack of clear guidance for historically excluded students navigating the onerous undertaking of graduate school—starting with asking if grad school is even a good fit. This essential resource offers step-by-step instructions on how to maneuver the admissions process before, during, and after applying. Unlike other guides, Is Grad School for Me? takes an approach that is both culturally relevant and community based. The book is packed with relatable scenarios, memorable tips, common myths and mistakes, sample essays, and templates to engage a variety of learners. With a strong focus on demystifying higher education and revealing the hidden curriculum, this guide aims to diversify a wide range of professions in academia, nonprofits, government, industry, entrepreneurship, and beyond.

Our guest is: Dr. Yvette Martínez-Vu is a grad school and productivity coach and host of the globally top-rated Grad School Femtoring Podcast. She is also the co-editor of the best-selling Chicana M(other)work Anthology and founder of Grad School Femtoring, LLC, where she supports first-gen BIPOC folks in reaching their academic and personal goals. She is the co-author of Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students.

Our co-guest is: Dr. Miroslava Chávez-García is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is currently the Faculty Director of the UCSB McNair Scholars Program. She is author of Migrant Longing, States of Delinquency, and Negotiating Conquest. She is the co-author of Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students.

Listeners may also like the episodes on this playlist:

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Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti, "Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids" (Princeton UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Parents everywhere want their children to be happy and do well. Yet how parents seek to achieve this ambition varies enormously. For instance, American and Chinese parents are increasingly authoritative and authoritarian, whereas Scandinavian parents tend to be more permissive. Why? Love, Money, and Parenting investigates how economic forces and growing inequality shape how parents raise their children. From medieval times to the present, and from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden to China and Japan, Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti look at how economic incentives and constraints—such as money, knowledge, and time—influence parenting practices and what is considered good parenting in different countries.

Through personal anecdotes and original research, Doepke and Zilibotti show that in countries with increasing economic inequality, such as the United States, parents push harder to ensure their children have a path to security and success. Economics has transformed the hands-off parenting of the 1960s and ’70s into a frantic, overscheduled activity. Growing inequality has also resulted in an increasing “parenting gap” between richer and poorer families, raising the disturbing prospect of diminished social mobility and fewer opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In nations with less economic inequality, such as Sweden, the stakes are less high, and social mobility is not under threat. Doepke and Zilibotti discuss how investments in early childhood development and the design of education systems factor into the parenting equation, and how economics can help shape policies that will contribute to the ideal of equal opportunity for all. Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids (Princeton UP, 2019) presents an engrossing look at the economics of the family in the modern world.

Matthias Doepke is professor of economics at Northwestern University. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Fabrizio Zilibotti is the Tuntex Professor of International and Development Economics at Yale University. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

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Fran Martin, "Dreams of Flight: The Lives of Chinese Women Students in the West" (Duke UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Dreams of Flight: The Lives of Chinese Women Students in the West (Duke UP, 2021) explores the significance of transnational educational mobility in the life aspirations of young, middle-class Chinese women. Based on extensive, long-term ethnographic research, Fran Martin explores how young Chinese women negotiate competing pressures on their identity while studying abroad. On one hand, unmarried middle-class women in the single-child generations are encouraged to develop themselves as professional human capital through international education, molding themselves into independent, cosmopolitan, career-oriented individuals. On the other, strong neo-traditionalist state, social, and familial pressures of the post-Mao era push them back toward marriage and family by age thirty. Martin examines these women’s motivations for studying in Australia and traces their embodied and emotional experiences of urban life, social media worlds, work in low-skilled and professional jobs, romantic relationships, religion, Chinese patriotism, and changed self-understanding after study abroad. Martin illustrates how emerging forms of gender, class, and mobility fundamentally transform the basis of identity for a whole generation of Chinese women.

Fran Martin is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on television, film, literature and other forms of cultural production in contemporary transnational China (The PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), with a specialization in transnational flows and representations and cultures of gender and sexuality.

Yadong Li is a PhD student in anthropology at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of the anthropology of state, the anthropology of time, hope studies, and post-structuralist philosophy. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here.

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Flora Lu and Emily Murai, "Critical Campus Sustainabilities: Bridging Social Justice and the Environment in Higher Education" (Springer, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In response to student demands reflecting the urgency of societal and ecological problems, universities are making a burgeoning effort to infuse environmental sustainability efforts with social justice. In this edited volume, we extend calls for higher education leaders to revamp programming, pedagogy, and research that problematically reproduce dominant techno-scientific and managerial conceptualizations of sustainability. Students, staff and community partners, especially those from historically underrepresented and marginalized groups, are at the forefront of calls for critical sustainabilities programming, education and collaborations. Their work centers themes of power relations, (in)equity, accessibility, and social (in)justice to study the interrelationships between humans, non-humans, and the environment. Their voices, perspectives and lived experiences are provocations for institutions to think and act more expansively.

Critical Campus Sustainabilities: Bridging Social Justice and the Environment in Higher Education (Springer, 2023) amplifies some of these voices and bottom up efforts toward a more critical approach to sustainability on campus. We ground our recommendations on findings from campus-wide surveys that were taken by over 8,000 undergraduates in 2016, 2019, and 2022. Furthermore, we share the design principles and lessons learned from several innovative, award-winning initiatives designed to foster critical sustainabilities at UC Santa Cruz.

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Freedom in the Academy: A Conversation with Niall Ferguson

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 5 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Finishing off our series on freedom of speech, renowned historian Niall Ferguson discusses ideological conflict both between America and China and within the United States, and particularly our universities. Along the way, he shares important lessons from academic culture during the World Wars, how history ought to be taught, how optimistic we should be about the future of tech, and, of course, his newest project, the University of Austin.

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, where he served for twelve years as the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. He is the author of 16 books, most recently Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, which has been short-listed for the Lionel Gelber Prize. He is a founder of the University of Austin, a new university in Austin, TX. His recent essay for The Free Press, “The Treason of the Intellectuals,” referenced during the episode, discusses the role of German academia in the Third Reich.

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Derron Wallace, "The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 4 Mar 2024 09:00:00 +0000

How does race matter in schools? In The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth (Oxford UP, 2023), Derron Wallace, the Jacob S. Potofsky Chair in Sociology at Brandeis University, tells the contrasting stories of two schools in the UK and USA. The book demonstrates two very different sets of expectations for Black youth in the two countries schools, and two very different educational and social structures reinforcing these expectations. The book draws on a rich ethnographically informed narrative, which centres teachers’ and students’ understandings and experiences of education. In doing so, the book challenges ‘cultural’ explanations for failures and successes in the two schools, and the two countries. Demonstrating both the socially constructed nature of race in the UK and USA, and the racism at the centre of both educational systems, the book is essential reading across the social sciences, humanities and for anyone interested in schools, education, and social change.

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Horace J. Maxile, Jr. and Kristen M. Turner, "Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey: A Teacher's Guide" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey: A Teacher’s Guide provides concrete information and approaches that will help instructors include women and people of color in the typical music history survey course and the foundational music theory classes. This book provides a reconceptualization of the principles that shape the decisions instructors should make when crafting the syllabus. It offers new perspectives on canonical composers and pieces that take into account musical, cultural, and social contexts where women and people of color are present. Secondly, it suggests new topics of study and pieces by composers whose work fits into a more inclusive narrative of music history. A thematic approach parallels the traditional chronological sequencing in Western music history classes. Three themes include people and communities that suffer from various kinds of exclusion: Locales & Locations; Forms & Factions; Responses & Reception. Each theme is designed to uncover a different cultural facet that is often minimized in traditional music history classrooms but which, if explored, lead to topics in which other perspectives and people can be included organically in the curriculum, while not excluding canonical composers.

Dr. Horace J. Maxile, Jr. is Associate Professor of Music Theory at Baylor University. His primary interests are the concert music of Black composers, music semiotics, and gospel music. His research has appeared in scholarly journals such as Perspectives of New Music, American Music, the Journal of the Society for American Music, and Black Music Research Journal.

Dr. Kristen M. Turner is a Lecturer in the music and honors departments at North Carolina State University. Her work centers on issues of race, gender, and class in American popular culture at the turn of the twentieth century. Her research has appeared in collected editions and scholarly journals including the Journal of the American Musicological Society, the Journal of the Society for American Music, American Studies, and Musical Quarterly.

Emily Ruth Allen (@emmyru91) holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Florida State University. Her current research is about parade musics in Mobile, Alabama’s Carnival.

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How to Teach TESOL Ethically in an English-Dominant World

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Carla Chamberlin and Mak Khan speak with Ingrid Piller about linguistic diversity and social justice.

We discuss whether US native speakers of English can teach English ethically; how migrant parents can foster their children’s biliteracy; what the language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic are; whether multilingualism researchers have a monolingual English-centric blind spot; and how the research paradigms of World Englishes and multilingualism connect.

First published on November 19, 2020.

“Chats in Linguistic Diversity” is a podcast about linguistic diversity in social life brought to you by the Language on the Move team. We explore multilingualism, language learning, and intercultural communication in the contexts of globalization and migration.

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Max Felker-Kantor, "DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools" (UNC Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

With its signature "DARE to keep kids off drugs" slogan and iconic t-shirts, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was the most popular drug education program of the 1980s and 1990s. But behind the cultural phenomenon is the story of how DARE and other antidrug education programs brought the War on Drugs into schools and ensured that the velvet glove of antidrug education would be backed by the iron fist of rigorous policing and harsh sentencing.

Max Felker-Kantor has assembled the first history of DARE, which began in Los Angeles in 1983 as a joint venture between the police department and the unified school district. By the mid-90s, it was taught in 75 percent of school districts across the United States. DARE received near-universal praise from parents, educators, police officers, and politicians and left an indelible stamp on many millennial memories. But the program had more nefarious ends, and Felker-Kantor complicates simplistic narratives of the War on Drugs.

In DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools (UNC Press, 2023), he shows how policing entered US schools and framed drug use as the result of personal responsibility, moral failure, and poor behavior deserving of punishment rather than something deeply rooted in state retrenchment, the abandonment of social service provisions, and structures of social and economic inequality.

Jeffrey Lamson is a PhD student in world history at Northeastern University. His research focuses on the history of police technology, its relationship to the history of police reform, and its place at the intersection of U.S. domestic policing and global counterinsurgency.

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Mirelsie Velazquez, "Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977" (U Illinois Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The postwar migration of Puerto Rican men and women to Chicago brought thousands of their children into city schools. These children's classroom experience continued the colonial project begun in their homeland, where American ideologies had dominated Puerto Rican education since the island became a US territory. Mirelsie Velázquez tells how Chicago's Puerto Ricans pursued their educational needs in a society that constantly reminded them of their status as second-class citizens. Communities organized a media culture that addressed their concerns while creating and affirming Puerto Rican identities. Education also offered women the only venue to exercise power, and they parlayed their positions to take lead roles in activist and political circles. In time, a politicized Puerto Rican community gave voice to a previously silenced group--and highlighted that colonialism does not end when immigrants live among their colonizers.

A perceptive look at big-city community building, Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City, 1940-1977 (U Illinois Press, 2022) reveals the links between justice in education and a people's claim to space in their new home.

Mirelsie Velázquez, PhD, is an associate professor of Latina/o Studies. As an interdisciplinary scholar, her work centers history of education, women's history, Puerto Rican studies, gender and sexuality, and teacher education.

Max Jacobs is a PhD student in education at Rutgers University. He currently sits on the Graduate Student Council for the History of Education Society.

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Patrick Gamsby, "The Discourse of Scholarly Communication" (Lexington Books, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

The Discourse of Scholarly Communication (Lexington Books, 2023) examines the place and purpose of modern scholarship and its dialectical relationship with the ethos of Enlightenment. Patrick Gamsby argues that while Enlightenment/enlightenment is often used in the mottos of numerous academic institutions, its historical, social, and philosophical elements are largely obscured. Using a theoretical lens, Gamsby revisits the ideals of the Enlightenment alongside the often-contradictory issues of disciplinary boundaries, access to research, academic labor in the production of scholarship (author, peer reviewer, editor, and translator), the interrelationship of form and content (lectures, textbooks, books, and essays), and the stewardship of scholarship in academic libraries and archives. It is ultimately argued that for the betterment of the scholarly communication ecosystem and the betterment of society, anti-Enlightenment rules of scholarship such as ‘publish or perish’ should be dispensed with in favor of the formulation of a New Enlightenment.

Patrick Gamsby is the Scholarly Communication Librarian and Cross-Appointed to the Department of Sociology at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He previously worked in scholarly communications at Brandeis University and Duke University. Patrick holds a MLIS degree from the University of Western Ontario, a MES degree from York University, and a Ph.D. from Laurentian University. He is the author of two books - Henri Lefebvre, Boredom, and Everyday Life and The Discourse of Scholarly Communication - and he lives in St. John's, Newfoundland with his wife and two daughters.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program and Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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James S. Damico and Mark C. Baildon, "How to Confront Climate Denial: Literacy, Social Studies, and Climate Change" (Teachers College Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Climate change and climate denial have remained largely off the radar in literacy and social studies education in the United States. How to Confront Climate Denial: Literacy, Social Studies, and Climate Change (Teachers College Press, 2022) addresses that gap with the design of the Climate Denial Inquiry Model (CDIM) and clear examples of how educators and students can confront two forms of climate denial: science denial and action denial. The CDIM highlights how critical literacies specifically designed for climate denial texts can be used alongside eco-civic practices of deliberation, reflexivity, and counter-narration to help students discern corporate, financial, and politically motivated roots of climate denial and to better understand efforts to misinform the American public, sow doubt and distrust of basic scientific knowledge, and erode support for evidence-based policymaking and collective civic action. With an emphasis on inquiry-based teaching and learning, the book also charts a path from destructive stories-we-live-by that are steeped in climate denial (humans are separate from nature, the primary goal of society is economic growth without limits, nature is a resource to be used and exploited) to ecojustice stories-To-live by that invite teachers and students to consider more just and sustainable futures.

As mentioned in the podcast, From Climate Denial to Ecojustice is the accompanying website.James S. Damico is Professor of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education at Indiana University, Bloomington, U.S.A.

Mark Baildon is an Associate Professor of Foundations of Education and Coordinator of International Collaborations and Partnerships in United Arab Emirates University’s College of Education.

Madden Gilhooly is a public-school teacher and casual academic based on Gadigal land in so-called-Sydney, Australia.

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Richard A. Detweiler, "The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry, and Accomplishment" (MIT Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 11 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

We speak with Richard Detweiler about his new book The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs: Lives of Consequence, Inquiry and Accomplishment (MIT Press, 2021). This multi-year project, which entailed interviews with a national sample of over 1,000 college graduates aged 25-64, provides convincing evidence of the benefits the liberal arts in enabling individuals to lead more fulfilling lives and successful careers. He uses an innovative definition of the liberal arts which focuses on the distinctive: 1) purpose, 2) context, and 3) content of a liberal arts education, measuring the frequency and intensity of these elements across different higher education institutions. He also shares insights from his tenure as President of Hartwick College and the head of the Great Lakes College Association.

David Finegold is the president of Chatham University.

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Nicholas B. Dirks, "City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 9 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Drawing from his experiences of having belonged to the faculty, administrative, and presidential circles of the university, author Nicholas B. Dirks offers his nuanced and comprehensive reflections on the solutions for the most pressing issues facing universities today. These range from issues with free speech, interdisciplinary work, budgeting costs, internal politics, and the devaluing of the liberal arts. In a time where universities face fierce attacks from the political right and left and a distrust from the general public, Dirks defends their role in society, as key institutions that guard and create new knowledge to understand the world at large and drive meaningful change. In City of Intellect: The Uses and Abuses of the University (Cambridge UP, 2024), Dirks argues for a reimagination of the university to ensure its survival and relevance in the years to come, positioning him as a visionary leader in a time where higher education needs it the most.

Nicholas B. Dirks is the current president and CEO of the renowned New York Academy of Sciences, one of the oldest scientific organizations in the United States. His notable past appointments include serving as the 10th Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley from 2013 to 2017, and as the Executive Vice President and Dean of the Faculty for Arts and Sciences at Columbia University.

Ariadna Obregon is a PhD student at the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. On Twitter/X: @AriadnaObregn1

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Sheila Marie Bock, "Claiming Space: Performing the Personal Through Decorated Mortarboards" (Utah State UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 2 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Claiming Space: Performing the Personal through Decorated Mortarboards (Utah State University Press, 2023) by Dr. Sheila Bock examines the growing tradition of decorating mortarboards at college graduations, offering a performance-centred approach to these material sites of display. Taking mortarboard displays seriously as public performances of the personal, this book highlights the creative, playful, and powerful ways graduates use their caps to fashion their personal engagement with notions of self, community, education, and the unknown future.

The forms and meanings of these material displays take shape in relation to broader, ongoing conversations about higher education in the United States, conversations grounded in discourses of belonging, citizenship, and the promises of the American Dream. Integrating observational fieldwork with extensive interviews and surveys, Dr. Bock highlights the interpretations of individuals participating in this tradition. She also attends to the public framings of this tradition, including how images of mortarboards have grounded online enactments of community through hashtags such as #LatinxGradCaps and #LetTheFeathersFly, as well as what rhetorical framings are employed in news coverage and legal documents in cases where the value of the practice is both called into question and justified.

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Black Women, Ivory Tower: Revealing the Lies of White Supremacy in American Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 1 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: Black Women, Ivory Tower: Revealing the Lies of White Supremacy in American Education (Broadleaf Books, 2024), by Dr. Jasmine L. Harris, which is an exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in higher education. Dr. Jasmine Harris shares her own experiences attempting to be a Vassar girl and reckoning with a lack of legacy and agency, while examining the day-to-day impacts on Black women as individuals, and the longer-term consequences to their professional lives, and the generational costs to entire families. Trial and error has been required of Black students to navigate systems of discrimination and disadvantage. But this book now offers useful support, illuminating the community of Black women dealing with similar issues. The author's story is not unusual, nor are her interactions anomalies. Black Women, Ivory Tower explores why.

Our guest is: Dr. Jasmine L. Harris, who is associate professor of African American Studies and coordinator of the African American Studies Program in the Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Texas, San Antonio. A rising voice in the study of Black lives in the US, Dr. Harris's research and teaching focus on the experiences of Black people in predominantly white schools, specifically the social, physical, and economic impacts of their presence there. She has been published in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Women's Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Listeners may also be interested in:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.

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The Culture Trap, with Sociologist Derron Wallace (EF, JP)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 1 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Elizabeth and John talk with Derron Wallace, sociologist of education and Brandeis colleague, about his new book The Culture Trap, which explores "ethnic expectations" for Caribbean schoolchildren in New York and London. His work starts with the basic puzzle that while black Caribbean schoolchildren in New York are often considered as "high-achieving," in London, they have been, conversely thought to be "chronically underachieving." Yet in each case the main cause -- of high achievement in New York and low achievement in London -- is said to be cultural. We discuss the concept of "ethnic expectations" and the ways it can have negative effects even when the expectations themselves are positive, and the dense intertwining of race, class, nation, colonial status, and gender, and the travels of the concept of culture in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Mentioned in the episode:

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report [the Sewell Report] (2021)
The Moynihan Report (1965)
Georg Lukacs, "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat" (1923)
Diane Reay, "What Would a Socially Just Educational System Look Like?" (2012)
Bernard Coard, How the Caribbean Child is made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System
Steve McQueen, Small Axe, "Education," (2020)
Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other (2019)
B. Brian Forster, I Don't Like the Blues: Race, Place, and the Backbeat of Black Life (2020)
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, "Adieu Culture: A New Duty Arises" (2003)
David Simon's TV show The Wire (and also Lean on Me, and To Sir, with Love and with major props from Derron, Top Boy)
Stuart Hall, The Fateful Triangle (1994)

Listen and Read

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The Future of School Reform: A Discussion with Alison Colwell

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Educationalists sometimes argue that the best way to improve a failing school is to appoint a strict principal or head, and this is sometimes the case. Not everyone agrees, of course, and many wonder what a strict principle or head actually does to improve student performance. In this interview, Owen Bennett Jones speaks with Alison Colwell, a woman the Daily Mail labelled Britain’s strictest head teacher. She turned a school around, and tells Bennett Jones how she did it. Colwell is the author of No Excuses Turning Around One of Britain’s Toughest Schools (Biteback, 2023).

Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press.

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Maryam Kashani, "Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival" (Duke UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

From the Black Power movement and state surveillance to Silicon Valley and gentrification, Medina by the Bay: Scenes of Muslim Study and Survival (Duke UP, 2023) examines how multiracial Muslim communities in the San Francisco Bay Area survive and flourish within and against racial capitalist, carceral, and imperial logics. Weaving expansive histories, peoples, and geographies together in an ethnographic screenplay of cinematic scenes, Maryam Kashani demonstrates how sociopolitical forces and geopolitical agendas shape Muslim ways of knowing and being. Throughout, Kashani argues that contemporary Islam emerges from the specificities of the Bay Area, from its landscapes and infrastructures to its Muslim liberal arts college, mosques, and prison courtyards. Theorizing the Medina by the Bay as a microcosm of socioeconomic, demographic, and political transformations in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, Kashani resituates Islam as liberatory and abolitionist theory, theology, and praxis for all those engaged in struggle.

Maryam Kashani is a filmmaker and associate professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is an affiliate with Anthropology, Media and Cinema Studies, the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory. Her films and video installations have been shown at film festivals, universities, and museums internationally and include things lovely and dangerous still (2003), Best in the West (2006), las callecitas y la cañada (2009), and Signs of Remarkable History (2016); she is currently working on two film duets with composer/musician Wadada Leo Smith that examine the ongoing relationships between the struggles for Black freedom, creative music, and spirituality. Kashani is also in the leadership collective of Believers Bail Out, a community-led effort to bailout Muslims in pretrial and immigration incarceration towards abolition.

Najwa Mayer is an interdisciplinary cultural scholar of race, gender, sexuality, and Islam in/and the United States, working at the intersections of politics, aesthetics, and critical theory. She is currently a Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Scholar at Boston University.

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Hajar Yazdiha, "The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement" (Princeton UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

In the post-civil rights era, wide-ranging groups have made civil rights claims that echo those made by Black civil rights activists of the 1960s, from people with disabilities to women's rights activists and LGBTQ coalitions. Increasingly since the 1980s, white, right-wing social movements, from family values coalitions to the alt-right, now claim the collective memory of civil rights to portray themselves as the newly oppressed minorities. The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement (Princeton UP, 2023) reveals how, as these powerful groups remake collective memory toward competing political ends, they generate offshoots of remembrance that distort history and threaten the very foundations of multicultural democracy.

In the revisionist memories of white conservatives, gun rights activists are the new Rosa Parks, antiabortion activists are freedom riders, and antigay groups are the defenders of Martin Luther King's Christian vision. Drawing on a wealth of evidence ranging from newspaper articles and organizational documents to television transcripts, press releases, and focus groups, Hajar Yazdiha documents the consequential reimagining of the civil rights movement in American political culture from 1980 to today. She shows how the public memory of King and civil rights has transformed into a vacated, sanitized collective memory that evades social reality and perpetuates racial inequality.

Powerful and persuasive, The Struggle for the People's King demonstrates that these oppositional uses of memory fracture our collective understanding of who we are, how we got here, and where we go next.

Hajar Yazdiha is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and faculty affiliate of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at Rutgers University. Her research examines the mechanisms underlying the politics of inclusion and exclusion as they shape intergroup boundaries, ethno-racial identities, and intergroup relations. This work crosses subfields of race and ethnicity, migration, social movements, culture, and law using mixed methods including interview, survey, historical, and computational text analysis.

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Ankhi Mukherjee and Ato Quayson, "Decolonizing the English Literary Curriculum" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

George Floyd's death on May 25th 2020 marked a watershed in reactions to anti-Black racism in the United States and elsewhere. Intense demonstrations around the world followed. Within literary studies, the demonstrations accelerated the scrutiny of the literary curriculum, the need to diversify the curriculum, and the need to incorporate more Black writers.

Decolonizing the English Literary Curriculum (Cambridge UP, 2023), jointly edited by Professor Ankhi Mukherjee and Professor Ato Quayson, is a major collection that aims to address these issues from a global perspective. An international team of leading scholars illustrate the necessity and advantages of reform from specific decolonial perspectives, with evidence-based arguments from classroom contexts, as well as establishing new critical agendas. The significance of Decolonizing the English Literary Curriculum lies in the complete overhaul it proposes for the study of English literature. It reconnects English studies, the humanities, and the modern, international university to issues of racial and social justice.

Arnab Dutta Roy is Assistant Professor of World Literature and Postcolonial Theory at Florida Gulf Coast University.

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Andi Gustavson and Charlotte Nunes, "Transforming the Authority of the Archive: Undergraduate Pedagogy and Critical Digital Archives" (U Michigan Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Featuring perspectives from educators, undergraduates, and archivists who are affiliated with community and institutional archives, the contributions to Transforming the Authority of the Archive: Undergraduate Pedagogy and Critical Digital Archives (U Michigan Press, 2023) explore efforts to deconstruct and transform the institutional authority of the archive and describe new possibilities for archives in education. In this conversation, editors Andi Gustavson and Charlotte Nunes speak about the book’s genesis, their framing of critical digital archives, and the broad range of institutions, labor, and individuals connected to projects described in the book. This discussion also touches on how factors including supportive leadership and space for experimentation create opportunities for instructors and students to challenge the authority of the archive. Read an open access edition of this book on the Lever Press website.

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Kathryn Fishman-Weaver and Jill Clingan, "Teaching Women's and Gender Studies (Grades 9-12)" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Incorporate Women’s and Gender Studies into your middle school classroom using the powerful lesson plans in this book. In Kathryn Fishman-Weaver and Jill Clingan's Teaching Women's and Gender Studies (Grades 9-12) (Routledge, 2022), the authors present seven units organized around four key concepts: Why WGST; Art, Emotion, and Resistance; Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation; and Intersectionality.

With thought questions for activating prior knowledge, teaching notes, reflection questions, reproducibles, and strategies, these units are ready to integrate purposefully into your existing classroom practice. Across various subject areas and interdisciplinary courses, these lessons help to fill a critical gap in the curriculum. Through affirming, inclusive, and representative projects, this book offers actionable ways to encourage and support young people as they become changemakers for justice.

This book is part of a series on teaching Women’s and Gender Studies in the K-12 classroom. We encourage readers to also check out the high school edition.

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Kathryn Fishman-Weaver and Jill Clingan, "Teaching Women's and Gender Studies (Grades 6-8)" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Incorporate Women’s and Gender Studies into your middle school classroom using the powerful lesson plans in this book. In Kathryn Fishman-Weaver and Jill Clingan's Teaching Women's and Gender Studies (Grades 6-8) (Routledge, 2022), the authors present seven units organized around four key concepts: Why WGST; Art, Emotion, and Resistance; Diversity, Inclusion, and Representation; and Intersectionality.

This book is part of a series on teaching Women’s and Gender Studies in the K-12 classroom. We encourage readers to also check out the high school edition.

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Black and Queer on Campus

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: Black and Queer on Campus (NYU Press, 2023) by Michael P. Jeffries, which offers an inside look at what life is like for LGBTQ college students on campuses across the United States. Dr. Jeffries shows that Black and queer college students often struggle to find safe spaces and a sense of belonging when they arrive on campus. Drawing on his interviews with students from over a dozen colleges, Dr. Jeffries provides a much-needed perspective on the specific challenges Black LGBTQ students face and the ways they overcome them. We learn through these intimate portraits that many of the most harmful stereotypes and threats to black queer safety continue to haunt this generation of students. We also learn how students build queer identities. Black and Queer on Campus sheds light on the oft-hidden lives of Black LGBTQ students, and how educational institutions can better serve them. It highlights the quiet beauty and joy of Black queer social life, and the bonds of friendship that sustain the students.

Our guest is: Dr. Michael P. Jeffries, who is Dean of Academic Affairs, Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics, and Professor of American Studies at Wellesley College. He is the author of Behind the Laughs: Community and Inequality in Comedy; Paint the White House Black: Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America; Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop; and Black and Queer on Campus. He has published dozens of essays and works of criticism in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and The Boston Globe, and has been interviewed by The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NPR.

Listeners may also be interested in:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. The Academic Life podcast is currently listened to in more than 150 countries. You can help support the show’s mission of democratizing education and sharing the hidden curriculum by downloading episodes, and by telling a friend—because knowledge is for everybody. You’ll find all 190+ Academic Life episodes archived here.

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Sandro R. Barros et al., "The Dissidence of Reinaldo Arenas: Queering Literature, Politics, and the Activist Curriculum" (U Florida Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Focusing on the didactic nature of the work of Reinaldo Arenas, The Dissidence of Reinaldo Arenas: Queering Literature, Politics, and the Activist Curriculum (U Florida Press, 2022) demonstrates the Cuban writer’s influence as public pedagogue, mentor, and social activist whose teaching on resistance to normative ideologies resonates in societies past, present, and future. Through a multidisciplinary approach bridging educational, historiographic, and literary perspectives, The Dissidence of Reinaldo Arenas illuminates how Arenas’s work remains a cutting-edge source of inspiration for today’s audiences, particularly LGBTQI readers. It shows how Arenas’s aesthetics contain powerful insights for exploring dissensus whether in the context of Cuba, broader Pan-American and Latinx-U.S. queer movements of social justice, or transnational citizenship politics. Carefully dissecting Arenas’s themes against the backdrop of his political activity, this book presents the writer’s poetry, novels, and plays as a curriculum of dissidence that provides models for socially engaged intellectual activism.

Sandro R. Barros, assistant professor in the Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education program at Michigan State University, is the author of Competing Truths in Contemporary Latin American Literature: Narrating Otherness, Marginality, and the Politics of Representation.

Rafael Ocasio is Charles A. Dana Professor of Spanish at Agnes Scott College. He is the author of A Gay Cuban Activist in Exile: Reinaldo Arenas and Cuba’s Political and Sexual Outlaw: Reinaldo Arenas.

Angela L. Willis is professor of Hispanic studies and Latin American studies at Davidson College.

Katie Coldiron is the Outreach Program Manager for the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) and PhD student in History at Florida International University.

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Christopher R. Martin, "No Longer Newsworthy: How the Mainstream Media Abandoned the Working Class" (Cornell UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 7 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Until the recent political shift pushed workers back into the media spotlight, the mainstream media had largely ignored this significant part of American society in favor of the moneyed upscale consumer for more than four decades. Christopher R. Martin now reveals why and how the media lost sight of the American working class and the effects of it doing so.

The damning indictment of the mainstream media that flows through No Longer Newsworthy: How the Mainstream Media Abandoned the Working Class (Cornell UP, 2019) is a wakeup call about the critical role of the media in telling news stories about labor unions, workers, and working-class readers. As Martin charts the decline of labor reporting from the late 1960s onwards, he reveals the shift in news coverage as the mainstream media abandoned labor in favor of consumer and business interests. When newspapers, especially, wrote off working-class readers as useless for their business model, the American worker became invisible. In No Longer Newsworthy, Martin covers this shift in focus, the loss of political voice for the working class, and the emergence of a more conservative media in the form of Christian television, talk radio, Fox News, and conservative websites.

Now, with our fractured society and news media, Martin offers the mainstream media recommendations for how to push back against right-wing media and once again embrace the working class as critical to its audience and its democratic function.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Lee McIntyre, "The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience" (MIT Press, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

What can explain the success of science as an endeavor for getting closer to truth? Does science simply represent a successful methodology, or is it something more?

In The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience (MIT Press, 2019), Lee McIntyre addresses recent attacks on science in areas such as climate change, vaccination, and even belief that the world is flat by explaining why science is a culture built around a “scientific attitude” that embraces evidence and a willingness to change beliefs based on where evidence leads.

What does it mean for science education if the success of science derives as much from attitude as it does from methodology? And can science provide a model for other truth-seeking endeavors?

Join us for a conversation that draws together ideas from science, philosophy, and education and applies them to the most important issues we face as a society.

Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School.

Jonathan Haber is an educational researcher and consultant working at the intersection of pedagogy, technology, and educational policy. His books include MOOCS and Critical Thinking from MIT Press and his LogicCheck project analyzes the reasoning behind the news of the day. You can read more about Jonathan’s work at http://www.degreeoffreedom.org.

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Nature-Study

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, John Linstrom tells us about Nature-Study, an educational movement that began in the rural classrooms of American Progressive Era. It takes students and learners of all kinds out of the classroom, away from the textbook, and into the world, to observe and learn. It offers us a mode of attunement to the world that we might use to heal the divide between rural and urban, and kindle the kind of social change we need to get the world off fossil fuels.

Our conversation is centered around the new scholarly edition John edited of Liberty Hyde Bailey’s The Nature-Study Idea (Cornell University Press, 2023), which just came out. It’s the first book in the new The Liberty Hyde Bailey Library, a series for Cornell University Press reintroducing the ecological and critical-agrarian writings of L. H. Bailey (1858-1954). John was one of our first guests on High Theory back in 2020 – so if you want to listen back, you can check out the episode on Ecosphere. John told me when were were preparing to record that there was some debate about the dash in “Nature-Study” back in the day, but that he was on the side of the dashers, because the women teachers who led the movement favored the dash.

John is a Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate and Inequality at the Climate Museum in NYC. He is also the author of a book of poems called To Leave for Our Own Country coming out with Black Lawrence Press in April 2024. He believes in poetry's power to foster communities for change, human and more-than-human stories and visions of climate justice He received his PhD in Literature from New York University and his MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University. John, Kim, and Saronik spent a lot of time together as grad students at 244 Greene St. in NYC. John and Kim used to run a working group on agriculture and literature, called Farm to Text. John lives in Queens, where gleans deep joy from holding his baby daughter, singing choral music, and eating large quantities of pesto.

The image for this episode was made by Saronik Bosu, especially for his friend John, in 2023.

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Claudia Smith Brinson, "Stories of Struggle: The Clash over Civil Rights in South Carolina" (U South Carolina Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In Stories of Struggle: The Clash over Civil Rights in South Carolina (U South Carolina Press, 2020), longtime journalist Claudia Smith Brinson details the lynchings, beatings, bombings, cross burnings, death threats, arson, and venomous hatred that black South Carolinians endured―as well as the astonishing courage, devotion, dignity, and compassion of those who risked their lives for equality.

Through extensive research and interviews with more than one hundred fifty civil rights activists, many of whom had never shared their stories with anyone, Brinson chronicles twenty pivotal years of petitioning, preaching, picketing, boycotting, marching, and holding sit-ins. Participants' use of nonviolent direct action altered the landscape of civil rights in South Carolina and reverberated throughout the South.

These firsthand accounts include those of the unsung petitioners who risked their lives by supporting Summerton's Briggs v. Elliot, a lawsuit that led to the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision; the thousands of students who were arrested and jailed in 1960 for protests in Rock Hill, Orangeburg, Denmark, Columbia, and Sumter; and the black female employees and leaders who defied a governor and his armed troops during the 1969 hospital strike in Charleston.

Brinson also highlights contributions made by remarkable but lesser-known activists, including James M. Hinton Sr., president of the South Carolina Conference of Branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Thomas W. Gaither, Congress of Racial Equality field secretary and scout for the Freedom Rides; Charles F. McDew, a South Carolina State College student and co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Mary Moultrie, grassroots leader of the 1969 hospital workers' strike.

These intimate stories of courage and conviction, both heartbreaking and inspiring, shine a light on the progress achieved by nonviolent civil rights activists while also revealing white South Carolinians' often violent resistance to change. Although significant racial disparities remain, the sacrifices of these brave men and women produced real progress―and hope for the future. For more information on this book, see storiesofstruggle.com

Matt Simmons is an Assistant Professor of History at Emmanuel University where he teaches course in U.S. and public history. His research interests focus on the intersection of labor and race in the twentieth-century American South. You can follow him on X @matthewfsimmons.

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Kevin Hood Gary, "Why Boredom Matters: Education, Leisure, and the Quest for a Meaningful Life" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Boredom is an enduring problem. In response, schools often do one or both of the following: first, they endorse what novelist Walker Percy describes as a 'boredom avoidance scheme,' adopting new initiative after new initiative in the hope that boredom can be outrun altogether, or second, they compel students to accept boring situations as an inevitable part of life. Both strategies avoid serious reflection on this universal and troubling state of mind.

In Why Boredom Matters (Cambridge UP, 2022)k, Gary argues that schools should educate students on how to engage with boredom productively. Rather than being conditioned to avoid or blame boredom on something or someone else, students need to be given tools for dealing with their boredom. These tools provide them with internal resources that equip them to find worthwhile activities and practices to transform boredom into a more productive state of mind. This book addresses the ways students might gain these skills.

From reviews:

‘Kevin Gary’s important and insightful book challenges readers to consider the moral and practical dimensions of boredom so that we might educate for lives of meaning. He gathers a range of sources from across time, traditions, and disciplines, and he puts these in conversation with our everyday experiences of boredom in the modern world, while also exploring ways that boredom has been written about and experienced in the past. It is an excellent book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.’--Jeff Frank

‘Why Boredom Matters is one of those delightful books in which the author seamlessly draws from thinkers from across multiple disciplines such as education, theology, philosophy, literature, and pop culture. Søren Kierkegaard, Walker Percy, David Wallace Foster, Leo Tolstoy, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Dewey, Albert Bormann, Simone Weil, Josef Pieper, St. Benedict, Groundhog Day, and The Karate Kid all contribute to a richer understanding of boredom.’-- Elizabeth Amato

Adrian Guiu holds a PhD in History of Christianity from the University of Chicago and teaches at Wright College in Chicago.

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Milton Gaither, "Homeschool: An American History" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

With around two million children currently enrolled in home schools in the USA, no-one can doubt that the subject of Milton Gaither’s new book is timely. Gaither, a professor of education at Messiah College, PA, first published this study in 2008, but has updated his text to reflect both the levelling out of the number of children involved in the movement as well as to explain some of the scandals that have brought some parts of the movement into disrepute. Homeschool: An American History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) describes the long history of home education, from the colonial period to the present day, and it highlights the key roles played by individuals on the left, such as John Holt, and on the right, such as R. J. Rushdoony. Home education is changing, and might never have been more important than it is today – and this important new book explains why.

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).

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Toward Equity in Science: A Discussion with Cassidy Sugimoto and Vincent Larivière

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Listen to this interview of Cassidy Sugimoto and Vincent Larivière, co-authors of Equity for Women in Science: Dismantling Systemic Barriers to Advancement (Harvard UP, 2023). Cassidy is Professor and Tom and Marie Patton School Chair in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is also President of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics. Vincent is Professor of Information Science at Université de Montréal, where he also serves as Associate Vice-President of Planning and Communications. He is Scientific Director of the Érudit journal platform and Associate Scientific Director of the Observatoire des Sciences et des Technologies.

We talk about how the science of science is advancing the work done by each and every scientist, by helping them to do work that is fairer, truer, and realer.

Vincent Larivière : "Scientists are group leaders, reviewers, editors, administrators — I mean, we are mostly an autonomous community, so there's mostly no one else to blame for inequity in our science practice. The system that we're in is the one that we've created collectively. So, there is a responsibility in all of the actions we do and in all of the different roles that we have to actually make science better and to fight inequality. Because the inequality, as so much work now demonstrates, is bad. It’s bad from the point of view of the individual scientist, but it’s bad too for the science itself — we could do better science by being more inclusive in our science practice."

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How to Build a Career: A Discussion with Ben Wildavsky

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

On this episode of the Academic Life, we dive into the book The Career Arts: Making the Most of College, Credentials, and Connections (Princeton UP, 2023) by Ben Wildavsky, which makes a persuasive case for building career success through broad education, targeted skills, and social capital. People today expect to hold many jobs over the course of their lives, which is why they need a range of essential skills. The Career Arts provides a corrective to the misleading notion that there is a direct trade-off between going to college and acquiring practical job skills. Drawing on evidence-based research, illuminating case studies, and in-depth interviews, Wildavsky shares vital lessons of what he calls the career arts, which include cultivating a mix of broad and targeted skills, taking advantage of employer-funded education benefits, and preparing for the world as it is, not as you wish it could be. He explains why college remains the gold standard of credentials, and presents the most promising supplements and alternatives to college that can help learners combine general and job-specific skills. He shows how building social capital is also critical to success, particularly for disadvantaged students. A guidebook for students, parents, counselors, and educators, The Career Arts reveals why college education and job preparation are not either-or propositions and identifies the blend of education and networking needed to support real-world career aspirations.

Our guest is: Ben Wildavsky, who is a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia's School of Education and Human Development. He is the award-winning author of The Great Brain Race and coeditor of Reinventing Higher Education, and Measuring Success. He is the host and co-producer of the Higher Ed Spotlight podcast.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the host and producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Listeners to this episode may be interested in:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey--and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 175+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.

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Nettrice R. Gaskins, "Techno-Vernacular Creativity and Innovation: Culturally Relevant Making Inside and Outside of the Classroom" (MIT Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Nettrice R. Gaskins about Techno-Vernacular Creativity and Innovation: Culturally Relevant Making Inside and Outside of the Classroom (MIT Press, 2021).

The growing maker movement in education has become an integral part of both STEM and STEAM learning, tapping into the natural DIY inclinations of creative people as well as the educational power of inventing or making things. And yet African American, Latino/a American, and Indigenous people are underrepresented in maker culture and education. In this book, Nettrice Gaskins proposes a novel approach to STEAM learning that engages students from historically marginalized communities in culturally relevant and inclusive maker education. Techno-vernacular creativity (TVC) connects technical literacy, equity, and culture, encompassing creative innovations produced by ethnic groups that are often overlooked.

TVC uses three main modes of activity: reappropriation, remixing, and improvisation. Gaskins looks at each of the three modes in turn, guiding readers from research into practice. Drawing on real-world examples, she shows how TVC creates dynamic learning environments where underrepresented ethnic students feel that they belong. Students who remix computationally, for instance, have larger toolkits of computational skills with which to connect cultural practices to STEAM subjects; reappropriation offers a way to navigate cultural repertoires; improvisation is firmly rooted in cultural and creative practices. Finally, Gaskins explores an equity-oriented approach that makes a distinction between conventional or dominant pedagogical approaches and culturally relevant or responsive making methods and practices. She describes TVC habits of mind and suggests methods of instructions and projects.

Mentioned in this episode:

“Underwater Dreams,” 2014 film directed by Mary Mazzio
Dr. Gaskins’ collages, generative AI portrait of Greg Tate, links to Romare Bearden, and more

Nettrice Gaskins is an African American digital artist, academic, cultural critic and advocate of STEAM fields. She is currently the assistant director of the STEAM Learning Lab at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.

Liliana Gil is Assistant Professor of Comparative Studies (STS) at the Ohio State University.

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Sarah Hartman-Caverly and Alexandria Chisholm, "Practicing Privacy Literacy in Academic Libraries" (ACRL, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Privacy is not dead: Students care deeply about their privacy and the rights it safeguards. They need a way to articulate their concerns and guidance on how to act within the complexity of our current information ecosystem and culture of surveillance capitalism.

Practicing Privacy Literacy in Academic Libraries: Theories, Methods, and Cases (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2023) edited by Sarah Hartman-Caverly and Alexandria Chisholm, can help you teach privacy literacy, evolve the privacy practices at your institution, and re-center the individuals behind the data and the ethics behind library work. Divided into four sections: What is Privacy Literacy? Protecting Privacy Educating about Privacy Advocating for Privacy Chapters cover topics including privacy literacy frameworks; digital wellness; embedding a privacy review into digital library workflows; using privacy literacy to challenge price discrimination; privacy pedagogy; and promoting privacy literacy and positive digital citizenship through credit-bearing courses, co-curricular partnerships, and faculty development and continuing education initiatives. Practicing Privacy Literacy in Academic Libraries provides theory-informed, practical ways to incorporate privacy literacy into library instruction and other areas of academic library practice.

Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program and Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at Delaware County Community College.

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Learning Happens Where There's Meaning

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Listen to Episode No.3 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois, and as well, Kit Nicholls, who is Director of the Cooper Union's Center for Writing and Learning. In this episode of the Focus, our topic is Learning happens where there's meaning.

Bill Cope : "At root, what we're talking about in this conversation is some very old values. We wouldn't disagree much with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, we wouldn't disagree much with John Dewey, we wouldn't disagree much with Maria Montessori — if you want to take some of the greats of education — Paulo Freire, we wouldn't want to disagree with. So, we're talking about some old values, but the reality is, The values have not been realized. They might be in small spots of time, for some of us, sometimes, in moments of idealism and extremely hard work. But the question is then, Is there an opportunity for us now with these new media, these digital technologies, to build structures of participation. If our keyword is participation — which is, how to build certain kinds of collaborative, participatory environments — then, can the digital help us do that? Or will the technology make things worse?"

Some related links:

Common Ground Scholar — Learn and work with meaning!
Here I talk to the authors of the book Syllabus
And here's a link to Syllabus

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Ann Medaille, "The Librarian's Guide to Learning Theory: Practical Applications in Library Settings" (ALA Editions, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 9 Dec 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Demonstrating how learning theories are applicable to a variety of real-world contexts, The Librarian's Guide to Learning Theory: Practical Applications in Library Settings (ALA Editions, 2023) will help library workers better understand how people learn so that they can improve support for instruction on their campuses and in their communities. In this book, Ann Medaille illustrates how libraries support learning in numerous ways, from makerspaces to book clubs, from media facilities to group study spaces, from special events to book displays. Medaille unchains the field of learning theory from its verbose and dense underpinnings to show how libraries can use its concepts and principles to better serve the needs of their users.

Through 14 chapters organized around learning topics, including motivation, self-regulation, collaboration, and inquiry, readers will explore succinct overviews of major learning theories drawn from the fields of psychology, education, philosophy, and anthropology, among others. All of these can support reflection on concrete ways to improve library instruction, spaces, services, resources, and technologies. This accessible handbook includes teaching librarian's tips, reflection questions, and suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter.

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Education Behind the Wall: Why and How We Teach College in Prison

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Why are college programs offered in some prisons? How are the students selected? Where do the professors come from? What are the logistics of preparing to teach, and to learn, behind the wall? How does the digital divide affect these students?

Today’s book is: Education Behind the Wall: Why and How We Teach College in Prison (Brandeis UP, 2022) edited by Mneesha Gellman, which is an edited volume reflecting on different aspects of teaching in prison and different points of view. This book seeks to address some of the major issues faced by faculty who are teaching college classes for incarcerated students. Composed of a series of case studies meant to showcase the strengths and challenges of teaching a range of different disciplines in prison, this volume brings together scholars who articulate some of the best practices for teaching their expertise inside alongside honest reflections on the reality of educational implementation in a constrained environment. The book not only provides essential guidance for faculty interested in developing their own courses to teach in prisons, but also places the work of higher education in prisons in philosophical context with regards to racial, economic, social, and gender-based issues. Rather than solely a how-to handbook, this volume also helps readers think through the trade-offs that happen when teaching inside, and about how to ensure the full integrity of college access for incarcerated students.

Our guest is: Dr. Mneesha Gellman, who is the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative, which brings an Emerson College bachelor’s degree pathway to incarcerated students at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord. Gellman is an associate professor of political science at the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College.

Listeners may also be interested in:

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 175+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Saran Stewart et al., "Each One Teach One: Parental Involvement and Family Engagement in Jamaica's Education System" (U West Indies Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 25 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Each One Teach One: Parental Involvement and Family Engagement in Jamaica’s Education System (University of the West Indies Press, 2022) is a collection of research studies and essays across multiple educational fields: leadership, psychology, special education, early childhood, literacy studies, mathematics and teacher education. The contributors to this collection provide empirical evidence on the state of parental involvement and family engagement in Jamaica. A team approach has been used in completing the various chapters in which graduate researchers collaborated with lecturers in their areas of specialization. The different voices and data from the participants along with relevant literature shape the dialogue on the importance of home and school collaboration in students’ overall outcomes. Each One Teach One provides critical onto-epistemological frameworks grounded within the Jamaican context to examine the scope, prevalence, and effects of parental involvement and family engagement in schooling. The findings, implications and recommendations can guide policymakers in the formulation of strategies compatible with the needs of the schools, students and families and provide indispensable data on how to effectively work together to optimize students’ success.

Saran Stewart is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs and Director of Global Education, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut.

Sharline Cole is Lecturer in Educational Psychology and Research, the School of Education, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.

Yewande Lewis-Fokum is Lecturer in Literacy and Language Education, the School of Education, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.

Madden Gilhooly is a humanities public-school teacher and casual academic based on Gadigal land in so-called-Sydney, Australia.

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Robin Phylisia Chapdelaine et al., "When Will the Joy Come?: Black Women in the Ivory Tower" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

How do Black women in higher education create, experience, and understand joy? What sustains them? While scholars have long documented sexism, racism, and classism in the academy, one topic has been conspicuously absent from the literature--how Black women academics have found joy in the midst of adversity. Moving beyond questions of resilience, labor for others, and coping, Robin Phylisia Chapdelaine, Abena Ampofoa Asare, and Michelle Dionne Thompson's book When Will the Joy Come?: Black Women in the Ivory Tower (U Massachusetts Press, 2023) focuses on the journeys of over thirty Black women at various stages of their careers.

Joy is a mixture of well-being, pleasure, alignment, and purpose that can be elusive for Black women scholars. With racial reckoning and a global pandemic as context, this volume brings together honest and vital essays that ponder how Black women balance fatigue and frustrations in the halls of the ivory tower, and explore where, when, and if joy enters their lives. By carefully contemplating the emotional, physical, and material consequences of their labor, this collection demonstrates that joy is a tactical and strategic component of Black women's struggle.

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Lydia Zvyagintseva and Mary Greenshields, "Land in Libraries: Toward a Materialist Conception of Education" (Library Juice Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The question of land is largely absent in libraries. Deeply committed to the neoliberal project as a guiding ideology of the profession, libraries exist at once as ahistorical, atheoretical, and landless institutions in their understanding of themselves, their work, and their impact on people.

Land in Libraries: Toward a Materialist Conception of Education (Library Juice Press, 2023) seeks to contribute to the growing body of work on libraries and the anthropocene, decolonization, and climate change through writing in theory and practice. This edited volume explores both non-metaphorical (actual, material) as well as conceptual perspectives on land. Contributions to this book center land as a foundational category underpinning social relations, as a necessity for the function and reproduction of capitalism, and as a place where we work and learn together. Fundamentally, we live on the land and how we live in relation to the land matters to how we understand ourselves as individuals and a society.

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Cody D. Ewert, "Making Schools American: Nationalism and the Origin of Modern Educational Politics" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In recent years, public schools have become one of the central battlegrounds of American politics. Making Schools American: Nationalism and the Origin of Modern Educational Politics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) lucidly explores how schools acquired such a critical role in the United States and its nation-building projects. Its author, Cody Dodge Ewert, illustrates how school reformers in the Progressive Era celebrated public education’s unique capacity to unite a diverse and diffuse citizenry while curing a broad swath of social and political ills. Pitching the school as a quintessentially American institution, these reformers’ lofty visions and nation-building projects inspired a historic expansion in public schooling, laying the groundwork for contemporary struggles over the structure and curriculum of public schools.

Making Schools American carefully historicizes this varied progressive movement, examining case studies in New York, Utah, and Texas which all shed a unique light on the development of American education and the broader debates of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century United States concerning what it meant to be an American.

Thomas Cryer is a PhD Student in American History at University College London, where he studies race, nationhood, education, and memory through the life, scholarship, and activism of the historian John Hope Franklin.

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Andrea Jamison, "Decentering Whiteness in Libraries: A Framework for Inclusive Collection Management Practices" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Decentering Whiteness in Libraries: A Framework for Inclusive Collection Management Practices (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) serves as a "how to" guide for evaluating and crafting collection development policies that will help create equity in library collections. In this book, Andrea Jamison not only contextualizes the need for inclusive collection development policies but provides user-friendly tables, guides, and sample policies.

This episode discusses why the history of inequality in libraries matters to our work today and what we can learn from it; how the Library Bill of Rights can be used as an advocacy tool; how we can evaluate and create diverse collection management policies; where to get started with putting policy into practice; and more.

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Earl Lewis and Nancy Cantor, "Our Compelling Interests: The Value of Diversity for Democracy and a Prosperous Society" (Princeton UP, 2016)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Princeton University Press’ Our Compelling Interests series focuses on diversity, in racial, gender, socioeconomic, religious, and other forms. Some of the titles in this series so far include The Walls around Opportunity: The Failure of Colorblind Policy for Higher Education by Gary Orfield, Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise By Eboo Patel, and The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy, by Scott E. Page.

Earl Lewis is the Thomas C. Holt Distinguished University Professor of history, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Public Policy and director of the Center for Social Solutions at the University of Michigan. From March 2013-2018, he served as President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Nancy Cantor is Chancellor of Rutgers University – Newark. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the National Academy of Medicine, she previously led Syracuse University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was provost at the University of Michigan, where she was closely involved in the defense of affirmative action in 2003 Supreme Court cases Grutter and Gratz.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network.

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Terah J. Stewart, "Sex Work on Campus" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Terah J. Stewart's book Sex Work on Campus (Routledge, 2022) examines the experiences of college students engaged in sex work and sparks dialogue about the ways educators might develop a deeper appreciation for-and praxis of-equity and justice on campus.

Analyzing a study conducted with seven college student sex workers, the book focuses on sex work histories, student motivations, and how power (or lack thereof) associated with social identity shape experiences of student sex work. It examines what these students learn because of sex work, and what college and university leaders can do to support them. These findings are combined in tandem with analysis of current research, popular culture, sex work rights movements, and exploration of legal contexts.

This fresh and important writing is suitable for students and scholars in sexuality studies, gender studies, sociology, and education.

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Rachel Neff, "Chasing Chickens: When Life After Higher Education Doesn't Go the Way You Planned" (UP of Kansas, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

The majority of PhDs won’t secure a tenure-track job. So how can you pivot, and find a new opportunity? Dr. Rachel Neff joins us to share her experiences post-grad, and offers her wisdom on how to turn “This wasn’t the plan!” into “Why not?”

Today’s book is: Chasing Chickens: When Life After Higher Education Doesn't Go the Way You Planned (UP of Kansas, 2019), by Dr. Rachel Neff, which retraces the steps that took her from her moment of reckoning—aka “failure”—to a new way of seeing and grasping success. Each chapter takes us along her new, unlikely career path, from revealing how she ended up chasing chickens on New Year’s Eve, to explaining what happens when a PhD becomes an executive assistant. Written with the benefit of hindsight, Dr. Neff offers advice on how to see the bigger picture, find your next career, and ace an interview. She takes the uncertainty and stress out of reinventing yourself, and provides tools for finding and making your own way.

Our guest is: Dr. Rachel Anna Neff, who is the owner of Exceptional Editorial, and has worked as a digital strategist, a copy editor, an adjunct instructor, and a tutor. She has written poetry since elementary school and has notebooks full of half-written novels. She earned her doctorate in Spanish literature, and holds two BAs, an MA, and a MFA. Her work has been published in JuxtaProse Magazine, Crab Fat Magazine and included in several anthologies. Her books include The Haywire Heart and Other Musings on Love, and Chasing Chickens: When Life after Higher Education Doesn't Go the Way You Planned.

Listeners may also be interested in:

Three Things I Wish I Knew When I Went on the Academic Job Market, by Rachel Neff
The Employability Journal, by Babara Bassot
Independent Scholars Meet the World: Expanding Academia Beyond the Academy, edited by Christine Caccipuoti and Elizabeth Keohane-Burbridge
Academic Life episode "Should I Quit My PhD Program?"
How to Leave Academia and Find a Good Job

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Kristofer Ray and Brady DeSanti, "Understanding and Teaching Native American History" (U Wisconsin Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Understanding and Teaching Native American History (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023), co-edited by Kristofer Ray and Brady DeSanti, is a timely and urgently needed remedy to a long-standing gap in history instruction. While the past three decades have seen burgeoning scholarship in Indigenous studies, comparatively little of that has trickled into classrooms. This volume is designed to help teachers effectively integrate Indigenous history and culture into their lessons, providing richly researched content and resources across the chronological and geographical landscape of what is now known as North America.

Despite the availability of new scholarship, many teachers struggle with contextualizing Indigenous history and experience. Native peoples frequently find themselves relegated to historical descriptions, merely a foil to the European settlers who are the protagonists in the dominant North American narrative. This collection offers a way forward, an alternative framing of the story that highlights the ongoing integral role of Native peoples via broad coverage in a variety of topics including the historical, political, and cultural. With its scope and clarity of vision, suggestions for navigating sensitive topics, and a multitude of innovative approaches authored by contributors from multidisciplinary backgrounds, Understanding and Teaching Native American History will also find use in methods and other graduate courses. Nearly a decade in the conception and making, this is a groundbreaking source for both beginning and veteran instructors.

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Speak UP!: Celebrating University Press Week with AUPresses President, Jane Bunker

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

University Press Week 2023 will provide an opportunity for presses and their supporters to shout to the rooftops about the value of the essential work of university presses: giving voice to the scholarship and ideas that shape conversations around the world. Through a variety of publications and platforms, university presses and their authors cultivate and amplify a diverse, inclusive, and exhilarating range of research and concepts.

For a complete list of UP Week events, see here

For the gallery of 103 publications, see here

For the gallery as listed on Bookshop.org with buy buttons next to relevant titles, see here

Some other news not discussed in the conversation:

University of Georgia and Wesleyan University Presses have finalists for the National Book Award poetry prize, and Yale University Press has a finalist for the nonfiction prize.
AUPresses Central Office will consult with an invited advisory group to conduct an environmental scan regarding AI.

Jane Bunker is Director of Cornell University Press and President of the Association of University Presses.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Stephanie K. Kim, "Constructing Student Mobility: How Universities Recruit Students and Shape Pathways between Berkeley and Seoul" (MIT Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Constructing Student Mobility received the Best Book Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education Council on International Higher Education.

Leslie Hickman is a translator and writer. She has an MA in Korean Studies from Yonsei University. You can follow her activities here.

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Caroline Levine, "The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis" (Princeton UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 9 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

W. H. Auden once said, “Poetry makes nothing happen.” Auden’s quote has been used for so many purposes, it might be worth remembering what he meant. Auden’s line is importantly from a poem memorializing W.B. Yeats, a politician and a poet. Auden meant that despite Yeats’s poetry, “Ireland [still] has her madness and her weather still.” Yeats’s poetry didn’t stop suffering. But Auden acknowledges that poetry is a “way of happening” that survives and persists. Today’s guest, Caroline Levine, has written a brilliant new book The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (Princeton UP, 2023). As I read the book, I began asking myself in the manner of Auden: “Does literary criticism make nothing happen? What kind of something might attention to social forms within aesthetic criticism make happen?”

I am excited to talk to Caroline Levine is David and Kathleen Ryan Professor of Humanities at Cornell University. Previously, she was Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (2015), which won the winner of the James Russell Lowell Prize from the Modern Language Association, as well as The Serious Pleasures of Suspense: Victorian Realism and Narrative Doubt (2003) and Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts (2007).

John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities at Boston College. He earned a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. In 2023, his dissertation won the J. Leeds Barroll Prize, given by the Shakespeare Association of America. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies.

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Elisabet Kennedy, "Embracing Culturally Responsive Practice in School Libraries" (ALA Editions, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 8 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

School librarians have always connected learners’ life experiences, cultures, and communities to materials, projects, and processes. As schools look to make these connections within the classroom and to the curriculum, school librarians are perfectly poised to lead and model meaningful steps toward a culturally responsive mindset. Embracing Culturally Responsive Practice in School Libraries (ALA Editions, 2023) by Elisabet Kennedy celebrates how learners’ cultures shape everything from their communication to how they process information.

This book translates complex concepts into accessible and practical school library strategies while challenging readers to embrace and nurture their personal and professional growth. An authentic and approachable guide to culturally responsive pedagogy aligned with the National School Library Standards, this book features an adapted framework with actionable steps and activities based on culturally responsive principles that directly relate to AASL Standards; scenarios offering context for learning, demonstrating conflicts, exploring potential harm, and suggesting strategies; and reflective exercises and challenges, introductory definitions, and resources for deeper exploration.

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Speak Freely: The Princeton Principles

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Kicking off our new monthly series on freedom of speech, Keith Whittington and Donald Downs discuss the Princeton Principles for a Campus of Free Inquiry. These principles, outlined by a group of scholars convened by Professor Robert P. George here at the James Madison Program in March 2023, expand on the well-known Chicago Principles in ensuring campus free speech and institutional neutrality.

Professors Whittington and Downs are both among the original fifteen participants and endorsers of the Princeton Principles, and played significant roles in drafting the document. Keith Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, and the author of Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech (Princeton UP, 2019). He specializes in public law and American Politics, and will soon join the faculty of Yale Law School. Donald Downs is the Alexander Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His areas of specialty include freedom of speech, academic freedom, and American politics. Since retiring, Downs has been the lead faculty advisor to the Free Speech and Open Inquiry Project of the Institute for Humane Studies in Washington, D.C.

Princeton's governing document, Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities, referenced during the episode. The James Madison Program's Initiative on Freedom of Thought, Inquiry, and Expression.

Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes.

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Tamson Pietsch, "The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

A globe-trotting and scandal-ridden story of American empire and higher education, The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 2023) tells the story of one of the first ‘semesters at sea’. Led by the New York University Professor of Experimental Psychology James E. Lough, the SS Ryndam departed from Hoboken, New Jersey in 1926, bringing over 500 American students to nearly fifty global ports and meetings with Benito Mussolini, Mahatma Gandhi, and Pope Pius XI. Along the way, the students came to terms with the contours of American empire and, through direct experience, learned subjects ranging from botany to painting and journalism, all the while leaving a vital imprint on the communities and people they intersected with. Looking behind the ribald headlines of jazz, drugs, and alcohol, The Floating University mines a diverse historical archive to reveal how the Ryndam’s voyage—for all its eventual failure—sheds a unique light on the footprint of American empire, the societal role of higher education, and the intellectual grounding of the generation of Americans that came to dominate international politics following World War Two.

Tamson Pietsch is an Associate Professor of Social and Political Sciences and Director of the Australian Centre for Public History at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research focuses on the history of ideas and the global politics of knowledge, particularly within universities and other institutions of knowledge. Professor Pietsch received her DPhil from the University of Oxford and worked at the Universities of Oxford, Sydney, and Brunel University London before taking up her present role.

Thomas Cryer is a PhD Student in American History at University College London, where he studies race, nationhood, and memory through the life, scholarship, and activism of the historian John Hope Franklin.

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David Alan Richards, "I Give These Books: The History of the Yale University Library, 1656-2016" (Oak Knoll, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 4 Nov 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The disparate stories of the libraries of the fledgling colleges in the colonies of the Eastern Seaboard, beginning more than one hundred fifty years before the Declaration of Independence, has been recorded occasionally in scattered scholarly journals, but never has there appeared a fully-fledged history of the library of one of America's oldest universities from its founding through the present day.

In I Give These Books: The History of the Yale University Library, 1656-2022 (Oak Knoll, 2022), David Allen Richards presents this story. In its pages, the founding, growth, organisation, and expansion of a major American university library is revealed over three and a half centuries of its history.

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Exploring the Emotional Arc of Turning a Dissertation into a Book

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 Nov 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Imposter syndrome. Intellectual fatigue. Feeling like you have nothing interesting to say. Not liking your topic or your research anymore. Wondering if anyone even cares if you write a book. Is a pile of emotional luggage getting in the way of your progress? On this episode of the Academic Life, Dr. Leslie Wang joins us to talk about emotional blocks that arise when turning a dissertation into a book, and what to do about them.

Inside most scholars are the criticisms and judgments we’ve carried since graduate school (and a few we’ve carried longer than that), many of which have made a space inside us as our “inner critics,” and some of which leave us questioning our claim to being a writer at all. Dr. Wang takes us through three key questions we need to ask ourselves, offers suggestions for how to handle our inner critics, helps us imagine a generous reader awaiting our new book, and invites us to interrogate how the grind mentality is affecting our creativity.

Our guest is: Dr. Leslie Wang, who is a former Associate Professor of Sociology, at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She holds a PhD and Master’s Degree in Sociology, from the University of California Berkeley, and an International Coach Federation Certification. She is the author of Outsourced Children, and Chasing the American Dream in China, and the founder of Your Words Unleashed. When she is not working with high-achieving scholars, she enjoys cooking, international travel, and spending time with her husband and son.

Listeners to this episode may be interested in:

Why it’s so hard to turn your dissertation into a book, by Dr. Leslie Wang
Academic Life episode on book proposals
Becoming the Writer You Already Are, by Michelle R. Boyd

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Ben Wildavsky, "The Career Arts: Making the Most of College, Credentials, and Connections" (Princeton UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 1 Nov 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Young people coming out of high school today can expect to hold many jobs over the course of their lives, which is why they need a range of essential skills. The Career Arts: Making the Most of College, Credentials, and Connections (Princeton UP, 2023) provides a corrective to the widespread and misleading notion that there is a direct trade-off between going to college and acquiring practical job skills. Ben Wildavsky cuts through the noise and anxiety surrounding this issue to offer sensible, clear-eyed guidance for anyone who is making decisions about education and career preparation with a view to getting ahead in the workforce.

Drawing on evidence-based research, illuminating case studies, and in-depth interviews, Wildavsky shares the most vital lessons of what he calls the career arts, which include cultivating a mix of broad and targeted skills, taking advantage of employer-funded education benefits, and preparing for the world as it is, not as you wish it could be. He explains why college remains the gold standard of credentials, and presents the most promising high-quality supplements and alternatives to college that can help learners combine general and job-specific skills. He shows how building social capital is also critical to success, particularly for disadvantaged students.

An invaluable guidebook for students, parents, counselors, and educators, The Career Arts reveals why college education and job preparation are not either-or propositions and identifies the blend of education and networking needed to support real-world career aspirations.

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Henrik Fürst and Erik Nylander, "The Value of Art Education: Cultural Engagements at the Swedish Folk High Schools" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Is art education worthwhile? In The Value of Art Education: Cultural Engagements at the Swedish Folk High Schools (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023), Henrik Fürst, Associate Professor in the Department of Education at Stockholm University and Erik Nylander, Associate Professor in Education at Linköping University, explore this question using the case study of a unique form of educational institution in Sweden. Drawing on a project that examined questions of admissions, teaching, assessments, students’ experiences, and the value and values of art itself, the research delivers a comprehensive picture of why and how art education matters. Rich in detail and offering more general reflections on the importance of the arts, the book is essential reading across the social sciences and humanities, as well as for those interested in defending arts education.

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Utsa Mukherjee, "Race, Class, Parenting and Children's Leisure: Children's Leisurescapes and Parenting Cultures in Middle-Class British Indian Families" (Policy Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Children's leisure lives are changing, with increasing dominance of organised activities and screen-based leisure. These shifts have reconfigured parenting practices, too. However, our current understandings of these processes are race-blind and based mostly on the experiences of white middle-class families.

Drawing on an innovative study of middle-class British Indian families, this book brings children's and parents' voices to the forefront and bridges childhood studies, family studies and leisure studies to theorise children's leisure from a fresh perspective.

Demonstrating the salience of both race and class in shaping leisure cultures within middle-class racialised families, Utsa Mukherjee's Race, Class, Parenting and Children's Leisure: Children's Leisurescapes and Parenting Cultures in Middle-Class British Indian Families (Policy Press, 2022) is an invaluable contribution to key sociological debates around leisure, childhoods and parenting ideologies.

Shu Wan is currently matriculated as a doctoral student in history at the University at Buffalo. As a digital and disability historian, he serves in the editorial team of Digital Humanities Quarterly and Nursing Clio. On Twitter: @slissw.

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Pat Thomson and Christine Hall, "Schools and Cultural Citizenship: Arts Education for Life" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Why study the arts in school? In Schools and Cultural Citizenship: Arts Education for Life (Routledge, 2023), Pat Thomson, Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham and Christine Hall, Emeritus Professor and former Head of Education at the University of Nottingham, examine this question by introducing findings from the Tracking Arts Learning and Engagement (TALE) Project. The book reflects on perspectives of teachers, students, school managers, and arts organisations as to how “arts rich” schools are constituted and what is needed for them to survive and thrive. The book is offers deep theoretical and empirical insights, and will be accessible and essential reading across the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and for anyone interested in the value of arts education.

Dave O'Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Manchester.

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William B. Eimicke et al., "Leveling the Learning Curve: Creating a More Inclusive and Connected University" (Columbia UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Will the COVID-19 pandemic be remembered as a turning point in how universities deliver teaching and learning? How might the widespread use of digital tools change higher education?

Leveling the Learning Curve: Creating a More Inclusive and Connected University (Columbia UP, 2023) explores the role of digital education at this crucial crossroads. Built on interviews with more than fifty leading practitioners from major universities and ed-tech firms, Leveling the Learning Curve is an indispensable guide to the inner workings of digital education. Written for university managers and leaders, it explores how new tools can allow universities to reach new audiences and address long-standing imbalances. The authors examine challenges to implementing digital education programs and provide insight into how universities have managed to balance the needs of faculty and on- and off-campus students. The book traces the history of digital education initiatives from Khan Academy, TED Talks, and MOOCs through the pandemic, examining both successes and failures. It offers compelling examples of what a "connected university" looks like in practice, sharing ways digital tools can bring in wider audiences, expand interdisciplinary teaching and learning, connect students to real-life issues, help meet equity goals, and open new revenue streams.

Designed as both a manual and an in-depth study, Leveling the Learning Curve is required reading for educational leaders looking to navigate the complex waters of postpandemic digital education.

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The Future of Paying Attention: A Discussion with Carolyn Dicey Jennings

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Is it really harder to pay attention to something than it used to be? No doubt the world is getting faster, and social media platforms are so good at grabbing attention. But how real is the problem and in particular, does it impact our creativity? Carolyn Dicey Jennings is based at the University of California, Merced, and has just co-written a chapter called “Attention, Technology, and Creativity” in a book called Scenes of Attention: Essays on Mind, Time, and the Senses published by Columbia UP (2023) Listen to her in conversation with Owen Bennett Jones.

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Campbell F. Scribner, "A Is for Arson: A History of Vandalism in American Education" (Cornell UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In A Is for Arson: A History of Vandalism in American Education (Cornell UP, 2023), Campbell F. Scribner sifts through two centuries of debris to uncover the conditions that have prompted school vandalism and to explain why attempts at prevention have inevitably failed. Vandalism costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year, as students, parents, and even teachers wreak havoc on school buildings. Why do they do it? Can anything stop them? Who should pay for the damage? Underlying these questions are long-standing tensions between freedom and authority, and between wantonness and reason. Property destruction is not simply a moral failing, to be addressed with harsher punishments, nor can the problem be solved through more restrictive architecture or policing.

Scribner argues that education itself is a source of intractable struggle, and that vandalism is often the result of an unruly humanity. To understand schooling in the United States, one must first confront the all-too-human emotions that have led to fires, broken windows, and graffiti. A Is for Arson captures those emotions through new historical evidence and diverse theoretical perspectives, helping readers understand vandalism variously as a form of political conflict, as self-education, and as sheer chaos. By analyzing physical artifacts as well as archival sources, Scribner offers new perspectives on children's misbehavior and adults' reactions and allows readers to see the complexities of education—the built environment of teaching and learning, evolving approaches to youth psychology and student discipline—through the eyes of its often resistant subjects.

Cambell F. Scribner is a scholar of educational policy, history, and philosophy at the University of Maryland.

Max Jacobs is a PhD student in education at Rutgers University. He currently sits on the Graduate Student Council for the History of Education Society.

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The Benefits of New Forms of Assessments for Historical Thinking

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Considering trying ungrading? Assigning the unessay? What helps, and what hinders student progress? Today’s guest shares her own interrupted journey to her degree, and considers how different assignments and assessment methods helped her connect in the classroom.

Today’s article is: "The Benefits of Nontraditional Assessments for Historical Thinking ," by Haley Armogida, published in 2022 in Teaching History: A Journal of Methods (47)1. In it, Haley Armogida considers which types of assessments benefited her as a student, and why. You can read a pdf of the full article here or find it online in free open access.

Our guest is: Haley Armogida, who was a nontraditional undergrad at Ball State University. She recently graduated with a History Bachelor’s in Science. During her second go at academia from 2020 to 2022, she presented her work at such conferences as the Johns Hopkins Macksey Symposium for undergraduate research and the Student History Conference at Ball State. She was published in Teaching History: A Journal of Methods in an article which discussed the benefits of nontraditional forms of assessment in history classrooms, and hopes that her contributions to the field will be to make the study of history more accessible to people outside the realm of academia. She and her husband Nick (both Ball State alumni) and their dog Luna recently moved to Colorado, where she plans to start a podcast of her own, and search for the perfect grad program.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer and show-host of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

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Philipp Stelzel, "The Faculty Lounge: A Cocktail Guide for Academics" (Indiana UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The life of a scholar is stressful. The best way to muddle through is with a stiff drink. Balancing teaching, research, and service more than merits a cocktail at the end of a long day. So, sit back, relax, and infuse some intoxicating humor into old-fashioned academia. A humorous handbook for surviving life in higher education, The Faculty Lounge: A Cocktail Guide for Academics (Indiana University Press, provides deserving scholars with a wide range of academic-themed drink recipes. Philipp Stelzel shares more than 50 recipes for all palates, including The Dissertation Committee (rum), The Faculty Meeting (rye), The Presidential Platitude (gin), and more. Offering cocktails for every academic occasion along with spirited, amusing commentary, The Faculty Lounge is the perfect gift for graduate students, tenure-track professors, and disillusioned administrators.

Philipp Stelzel is a specialist in post-World War II German, West European, and transatlantic political and intellectual history. After earning his PhD at the University of North Carolina, Stelzel taught at Duke University and Boston College before coming to Duquesne in 2014. His first book first book, History after Hitler: a Transatlantic Enterprise (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) analyzes the intellectual exchange between German and American historians of modern Germany from the end of World War II to the 1980s.

Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California.

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Swati Ganguly, "Tagore's University: A History of Visva-Bharati, 1921-1961" (New India Foundation, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Swati Ganguly's book Tagore's University: A History of Visva-Bharati, 1921-1961 (New India Foundation, 2022) is for anyone who is searching for tangible ways to revamp higher education, re-organize our socio-economic life, and reimagine participatory democracy.

Tagore’s University is a history of Visva-Bharati, the world centre of learning and culture founded by Rabindranath Tagore a hundred years ago. The poet’s conception entailed several autonomous centres – for Asian studies, the visual arts, music, and rural reconstruction – in defiance of the standard notions of a university. Visva-Bharati was set up to break barriers between nations and races by rebuilding in miniature the visva – the world torn apart by World War I.

The book traces the first four decades of this large experiment in building a cultural community of learning, teaching, and scholarship. It tells the story of exceptional individuals from across Europe, Asia, America, and India who became Tagore’s collaborators in a mini-universe of creativity and humane intellection. It reveals why in its heyday Visva-Bharati was so internationally renowned as an extraordinarily attractive institution.

Swati Ganguly explores the many achievements of what Tagore called his “life’s best treasure”. She also narrates changes in the material life and spirit of the place after Tagore, when it was shaped by the larger forces of a newly independent India. Archives, memoirs, official documents, and oral narratives come alive in this compellingly written and little-known history of an institution that once redefined tradition and modernity.

Interested listeners can order a very affordable copy on AbeBooks. In general, AbeBooks is a good vender for getting printed books from Indian publishers.

The interview is a bit on the long side. Feel free to skip parts of it. Generally speaking, the first hour is about the administrative history (chronology) of Visvabharati and the second hour is about each program: oriental studies, arts, rural reform, and life (like adda) in Santiniketan. Trust me, wherever you begin, you'll find fascinating stories, amazing lives lived, and bold dreams and courageous experiments to build a different way of life for all.

Jessica Zu is an intellectual historian and a scholar of Buddhist studies. She is an assistant professor of religion at the University of Southern California.

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Kristen Green, "The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail" (Seal Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The inspiring true story of an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation’s first HBCUs. In The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail (Seal Press, 2022), New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre.”

When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre,” a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams. It still exists today as Virginia Union University, one of America’s first Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A sweeping narrative of a life in the margins of the American slave trade, The Devil’s Half Acre brings Mary Lumpkin into the light. This is the story of the resilience of a woman on the path to freedom, her historic contributions, and her enduring legacy.

Katrina Anderson is a doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware.

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Robert Greene and Tyler D. Parry, "Invisible No More: The African American Experience at the University of South Carolina" (U South Carolina Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Since its founding in 1801, African Americans have played an integral, if too often overlooked, role in the history of the University of South Carolina. Robert Greene and Tyler D. Parry's edited volume Invisible No More: The African American Experience at the University of South Carolina (U South Carolina Press, 2021) seeks to recover that historical legacy and reveal the many ways that African Americans have shaped the development of the university. The essays in this volume span the full sweep of the university's history, from the era of slavery to Reconstruction, Civil Rights to Black Power and Black Lives Matter. This collection represents the most comprehensive examination of the long history and complex relationship between African Americans and the university.

Like the broader history of South Carolina, the history of African Americans at the University of South Carolina is about more than their mere existence at the institution. It is about how they molded the university into something greater than the sum of its parts. Throughout the university's history, Black students, faculty, and staff have pressured for greater equity and inclusion. At various times they did so with the support of white allies, other times in the face of massive resistance; oftentimes, there were both.

Between 1868 and 1877, the brief but extraordinary period of Reconstruction, the University of South Carolina became the only state-supported university in the former Confederacy to open its doors to students of all races. This "first desegregation," which offered a glimpse of what was possible, was dismantled and followed by nearly a century during which African American students were once again excluded from the campus. In 1963, the "second desegregation" ended that long era of exclusion but was just the beginning of a new period of activism, one that continues today. Though African Americans have become increasingly visible on campus, the goal of equity and inclusion—a greater acceptance of African American students and a true appreciation of their experiences and contributions—remains incomplete. Invisible No More represents another contribution to this long struggle.

A foreword is provided by Valinda W. Littlefield, associate professor of history and African American studies at the University of South Carolina. Henrie Monteith Treadwell, research professor of community health and preventative medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine and one of the three African American students who desegregated the university in 1963, provides an afterword.

Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

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John Arena, "Expelling Public Schools: How Antiracist Politics Enable School Privatization in Newark" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 9 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Exploring the role of identitarian politics in the privatization of Newark’s public school system In Expelling Public Schools, John Arena explores the more than two-decade struggle to privatize public schools in Newark, New Jersey—a conflict that is raging in cities across the country—from the vantage point of elites advancing the pro-privatization agenda and their grassroots challengers. Analyzing the unsuccessful effort of Cory Booker—Newark’s leading pro-privatization activist and mayor—to generate popular support for the agenda, and Booker’s rival and ultimate successor Ras Baraka’s eventual galvanization of the charter movement, Arena argues that Baraka’s black radical politics cloaked a revanchist agenda of privatization.

John Arena's book Expelling Public Schools: How Antiracist Politics Enable School Privatization in Newark (U Minnesota Press, 2023) reveals the political rise of Booker and Baraka, their one-time rivalry and subsequent alliance, and what this particular case study illuminates about contemporary post–civil rights Black politics. Ultimately, Expelling Public Schools is a critique of Black urban regime politics and the way in which antiracist messaging obscures real class divisions, interests, and ideological diversity.

Laura Beth Kelly is an assistant professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

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James N. Druckman and Elizabeth A. Sharrow, "Equality Unfulfilled: How Title IX's Policy Design Undermines Change to College Sports" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The year 1972 is often hailed as an inflection point in the evolution of women's rights. Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a law that outlawed sex-based discrimination in education. Many Americans celebrate Title IX for having ushered in an era of expanded opportunity for women's athletics; yet fifty years after its passage, sex-based inequalities in college athletics remain the reality. James N. Druckman and Elizabeth A. Sharrow's book Equality Unfulfilled: How Title IX's Policy Design Undermines Change to College Sports (Cambridge UP, 2023) explains why.

The book identifies institutional roadblocks - including sex-based segregation, androcentric organizational cultures, and overbearing market incentives - that undermine efforts to achieve systemic change. Drawing on surveys with student-athletes, athletic administrators, college coaches, members of the public, and fans of college sports, it highlights how institutions shape attitudes toward gender equity policy. It offers novel lessons not only for those interested in college sports but for everyone seeking to understand the barriers that any marginalized group faces in their quest for equality.

Kelly McFall is Professor of History and Director of the Honors Program at Newman University.

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Nicholas Tampio, "Teaching Political Theory: A Pluralistic Approach" (Edward Elgar, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Nicholas Tampio, a political theorist at Fordham University, has a new book that focuses on teaching political theory. For many of us who teach political theory, this is another welcome addition to the growing library of texts that are designed to broaden and expand the scope of not only what is taught in political theory courses, but how this vital area of study is conveyed to students, and how students interact with complex and important texts. Tampio explains his thinking about how political theory undergirds our understanding of politics itself and political science as a discipline, thus the book not only discusses how to teach political theory and how to design courses in political theory, but it also makes the case as to why political theory is important and an overarching part of political science as a discipline.

Tampio, in the early section of Teaching Political Theory: A Pluralistic Approach (Edward Elgar, 2022), provides a useful guide to the different kinds of approaches to political theory as a discipline and the different ways that it can be studied and taught. The rest of the book is broken up into two sections, one on designing courses in political theory and more options to be included in a contemporary syllabus. The second section of the book is titled “Teaching Political Theory Today” and Tampio explores different subject matters and foci that open up a discussion of political theory concepts. In our podcast conversation, Tampio explains that he is not trying to prescribe particular texts or a particular way of teaching, so much as exploring avenues of inquiry that have worked for him in his classes over the years, and how he has worked and recrafted his approaches to teaching, especially teaching political theory. Teaching Political Theory: A Pluralistic Approach is an accessible and engaging text that provides a kind of conversation about teaching in general, with a particular focus on how to engage ideas and texts that might seem initially abstract, especially to contemporary undergraduates.

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Teaching (and Learning) at a University Online

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 4 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

There is a lot of talk about online learning, and particularly universities going online. Today I talked to Caleb Simmons, Executive Director of Arizona Online (and notable scholar of religion and South Asian Studies). We talk about how online learning is done at Arizona and the promise of online learning generally.

Listeners might be interested in Caleb's article Narrative Pedagogy and Transmedia Balancing.

Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.

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Jody N. Polleck, "Facilitating Youth-Led Book Clubs As Transformative and Inclusive Spaces" (Teachers College Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 3 Oct 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Facilitating Youth-Led Book Clubs as Transformative and Inclusive Spaces (Teachers College Press) teaches us how to integrate book clubs into secondary school communities for transformation and inclusion so as to enhance and nurture students’ literacies along with their social and emotional development. Using her extensive experiences with culturally, neurologically, and linguistically diverse students, Jody Polleck provides a rich resource that demonstrates how book clubs serve as critical places where adolescents can develop as readers while simultaneously working to build authentic relationships with their peers. Polleck offers research and theories grounded in culturally sustaining pedagogies and healing-centered engagements along with practical strategies for book club facilitators—from developing specific student-centered pedagogical approaches to embodying critical and humanizing dispositions.

Educate for Action is the accompanying website with suggested reading lists, teaching materials, classroom activities, and more.

Dr. Jody Polleck is a full professor and the program coordinator for literacy education at Hunter College in New York City. She began her work with urban adolescents in 1994 as an outreach counselor in Washington, D.C. for displaced youth. In 1999, she received her Master’s in English education and worked as a high school reading and English teacher for emerging readers and writers. In 2002, Jody received National Board Certification for adolescent English language arts; and in 2003, she accepted a full-fellowship to New York University where she completed her doctoral degree in English education. Jody is a 2019 Fulbright scholar. Her current research focuses on culturally sustaining literacy instruction and its intersections with healing-centered and culturally-affirming social emotional learning. She has published in over 25 books and journals including ALAN Review, Contemporary Issues in Technology and and Teacher Education, English Journal, High School Journal, Journal of Teaching Writing, Literacy Research and Instruction, Preventing School Failure, Reading and Writing Quarterly, Reading Horizons, and Teacher Education Quarterly. Facilitating Youth-led Book Clubs as Transformative and Inclusive Spaces is her first book.

Madden Gilhooly is a humanities public-school teacher and casual academic based on Gadigal land in so-called-Sydney, Australia.

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Michael D. Smith, "The Abundant University: Remaking Higher Education for a Digital World" (MIT Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

For too long, our system of higher education has been defined by scarcity: scarcity in enrollment, scarcity in instruction, and scarcity in credentials. In addition to failing students professionally, this system has exacerbated social injustice and socioeconomic stratification across the globe. In The Abundant University, Michael D. Smith argues that the only way to create a financially and morally sustainable higher education system is by embracing digital technologies for enrolling, instructing, and credentialing students—the same technologies that we have seen create abundance in access to resources in industry after industry.

The Abundant University: Remaking Higher Education for a Digital World (MIT Press, 2023) explains how we got our current system, why it’s such an expensive, inefficient mess, and how a system based on exclusivity cannot foster inclusivity. Smith challenges the resistance to digital technologies that we have already seen among numerous institutions, citing the examples of faculty resistance toward digital learning platforms. While acknowledging the understandable self-preservation instinct of our current system of residential education, Smith makes a case for how technology can engender greater educational opportunity and create changes that will benefit students, employers, and society as a whole.

Smith, the J. Erik Johnson Chaired Professor of Information Technology and Marketing at Carnegie Mellon University, argues that American higher education is subject to market forces just like any other industry. Forbes says, “With a straightforward, conversational style, Smith succeeds in portraying the current problems bearing down on higher education and offering a set of bold solutions for a future where he envisions a college education becoming ‘more open, flexible, inclusive, and lower-priced.’ The Abundant University is a provocative book that should be read by higher ed insiders as well as those in the general public who care about expanding the reach and the impact of higher education.”

John Emrich has worked for decades in corporate finance, investment management, and corporate strategy. He has a podcast about the investment advisory industry called Kick the Dogma.

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Rachel Elior, "The Unknown History of Jewish Women Through the Ages: On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty" (de Gruyter, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Rachel Elior's book The Unknown History of Jewish Women: On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty (de Gruyter, 2023) is a comprehensive study on the history of Jewish women, which discusses their absence from the Jewish Hebrew library of the "People of the Book" and interprets their social condition in relation to their imposed ignorance and exclusion from public literacy.

The book begins with a chapter on communal education for Jewish boys, which was compulsory and free of charge for the first ten years in all traditional Jewish communities. The discussion continues with the striking absence of any communal Jewish education for girls until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the implications of this fact for twentieth-century immigration to Israel (1949-1959). The following chapters discuss the social, cultural and legal contexts of this reality of female illiteracy in the Jewish community-a community that placed a supreme value on male education. The discussion focuses on the patriarchal order and the postulations, rules, norms, sanctions and mythologies that, in antiquity and the Middle Ages, laid the religious foundations of this discriminatory reality.

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Andrew J. Hoffman, "The Engaged Scholar: Expanding the Impact of Academic Research in Today’s World" (Stanford UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Society and democracy are ever threatened by the fall of fact. Rigorous analysis of facts, the hard boundary between truth and opinion, and fidelity to reputable sources of factual information are all in alarming decline. A 2018 report published by the RAND Corporation labeled this problem "truth decay" and Andrew J. Hoffman lays the challenge of fixing it at the door of the academy.

But, as he points out, academia is prevented from carrying this out due to its own existential crisis—a crisis of relevance. Scholarship rarely moves very far beyond the walls of the academy and is certainly not accessing the primarily civic spaces it needs to reach in order to mitigate truth corruption. In this brief but compelling book, Hoffman draws upon existing literature and personal experience to bring attention to the problem of academic insularity—where it comes from and where, if left to grow unchecked, it will go—and argues for the emergence of a more publicly and politically engaged scholar.

The Engaged Scholar: Expanding the Impact of Academic Research in Today’s World (Stanford UP, 2021) is a call to make that path toward public engagement more acceptable and legitimate for those who do it; to enlarge the tent to be inclusive of multiple ways that one enacts the role of academic scholar in today's world.

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Jack Schneider and Ethan L. Hutt, "Off the Mark: How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don't Have To)" (Harvard UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Amid widespread concern that our approach to testing and grading undermines education, two experts explain how schools can use assessment to support, rather than compromise, learning.

Anyone who has ever crammed for a test, capitulated to a grade-grubbing student, or fretted over a child’s report card knows that the way we assess student learning in American schools is freighted with unintended consequences. But that’s not all. As experts agree, our primary assessment technologies—grading, rating, and ranking—don’t actually provide an accurate picture of how students are doing in school. Worse, they distort student and educator behavior in ways that undermine learning and exacerbate inequality. Yet despite widespread dissatisfaction, grades, test scores, and transcripts remain the currency of the realm.

In Off the Mark: How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don't Have To) (Harvard University Press, 2023), Jack Schneider and Ethan Hutt explain how we got into this predicament, why we remain beholden to our outmoded forms of assessment, and what we can do to change course. As they make clear, most current attempts at reform won’t solve the complex problems we face. Instead, Schneider and Hutt offer a range of practical reforms, like embracing multiple measures of performance and making the so-called permanent record “overwritable.” As they explain, we can remake our approach in ways that better advance the three different purposes that assessment currently serves: motivating students to learn, communicating meaningful information about what young people know and can do, and synchronizing an otherwise fragmented educational system.

Written in an accessible style for a broad audience, Off the Mark is a guide for everyone who wants to ensure that assessment serves the fundamental goal of education—helping students learn.

Ethan Hutt is the Gary Stuck Faculty Scholar in Education at the University of North Carolina.

Jack Schneider is the Dwight W. Allen Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Max Jacobs is a PhD student in education at Rutgers University. He currently sit on the Graduate Student Council for the History of Education Society.

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C. J. Pascoe, "Nice Is Not Enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High" (U California Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Nice is not enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High (University of California Press, 2023) by Dr. C. J. Pascoe is a provocative story of contemporary high school that argues that a shallow culture of kindness can do more lasting harm than good.

Based on two years of research, Nice Is Not Enough shares striking dispatches from one high school's "regime of kindness" to underline how the culture operates as a band-aid on persistent inequalities. Through incisive storytelling and thoughtful engagement with students, this brilliant study by Dr. Pascoe exposes uncomfortable truths about American politics and our reliance on individual solutions instead of profound systemic change.

Nice Is Not Enough brings readers into American High, a middle- and working-class high school characterized by acceptance, connection, and kindness—a place where, a prominent sign states, "there is no room for hate." Here, inequality is narrowly understood as a problem of individual merit, meanness, effort, or emotion rather than a structural issue requiring deeper intervention. Surface-level sensitivity allows American High to avoid "political" topics related to social inequality based on race, sex, gender, or class. Being nice to each other, Dr. Pascoe reveals, does not serve these students or solve the broader issues we face; however, a true politics of care just might.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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A Better Way to Buy Books

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the most revolutionary new organizations in the book world. Bookshop has found a way to retain the convenience of online book shopping while also supporting independent bookstores that are the backbones of many local communities.

Andy Hunter is CEO and Founder of Bookshop.org. He also co-created Literary Hub.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network.

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Michael S. Roth, "The Student: A Short History" (Yale UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 7 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In The Student: A Short History (Yale UP, 2023), Michael S. Roth narrates a vivid and dynamic history of students, exploring some of the principal models for learning that have developed in very different contexts, from the sixth century BCE to the present.

Beginning with the followers of Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus and moving to medieval apprentices, students at Enlightenment centers of learning, and learners enrolled in twenty-first-century universities, he explores how students have been followers, interlocutors, disciples, rebels, and children becoming adults. There are many ways to be a student, Roth argues, but at their core is developing the capacity to think for oneself by learning from others, and thereby finding freedom.

In an age of machine learning, this book celebrates the student who develops more than mastery, cultivating curiosity, judgment, creativity, and an ability to keep learning beyond formal schooling. Roth shows how the student throughout history has been someone who interacts dynamically with the world, absorbing its lessons and creatively responding to them.

Micheal Roth is president of Wesleyan University.

Benjamin Phillips is an MA student in History at Ohio University. His primary field is Late Antique Cultural and Intellectual History.

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Stephen Ramsay, "On the Digital Humanities: Essays and Provocations" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Stephen Ramsey's On the Digital Humanities: Essays and Provocations (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) is a witty and incisive exploration of the philosophical conundrums that animate the digital humanities. Since its inception, the digital humanities has been repeatedly attacked as a threat to the humanities: warnings from literary and cultural theorists of technology overtaking English departments and the mechanization of teaching have peppered popular media.

Stephen Ramsay’s On the Digital Humanities, a collection of essays spanning the personal to the polemic, is a spirited defense of the field of digital humanities. A founding figure in what was once known as “humanities computing,” Ramsay has a well-known and contentious relationship with what is now called the digital humanities (DH). Here Ramsay collects and updates his most influential and notorious essays and speeches from the past fifteen years, considering DH from an array of practical and theoretical perspectives.

The essays pursue a broad variety of themes, including the nature of data and its place in more conventional notions of text and interpretation, the relationship between the constraints of computation and the more open-ended nature of the humanities, the positioning of practical skills and infrastructures in both research and pedagogical contexts, the status of DH as a program for political and social action, and personal reflections on the author’s journey into the field as both a theorist and a technologist. These wide-ranging essays all center around one idea: that DH not forsake its connection to the humanities. While “digital humanities” may sound like an entirely new form of engagement with the artifacts of human culture, Ramsay argues that the field well reveals what is most essential to humanistic inquiry.

Hallel Yadin is an archivist and special projects manager at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

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Kenneth J. Saltman, "The Alienation of Fact: Digital Educational Privatization, AI, and the False Promise of Bodies and Numbers" (MIT Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Today, conspiracy theories run rampant, attacks on facts have become commonplace, and systemic inequities are on the rise as individual and collective agency unravels. The Alienation of Fact: Digital Educational Privatization, AI, and the False Promise of Bodies and Numbers (MIT Press, 2022) explains the educational, technological, and ideological preconditions for these contemporary crises of truth and agency and explores the contradictions and competing visions for the future of education that lie at the center of the problem.

Schools are increasingly reimagined as businesses, and high-stakes standardized testing and curricula, for-profit charter schools, and the rise of educational AI put capital and technology at the center of education. Yet even as our society demands measure, data, and facts, politicians and news outlets regularly make unfounded assertions. How should we make sense of the contradictions between the demand for radical data-driven empiricism and the flight from evidence, argument, or theoretical justification?

In this critical investigation of the new digital directions of educational privatization—AI education, adaptive learning technology, biometrics, the quantification of play and social emotional learning—and the politics of the body, Saltman shows how the false certainty of bodies and numbers replaces deliberative and thoughtful agency in a time of increasing precarity. A distinctive contribution to scholarship on public school privatization and educational technology, politics, policy, pedagogy, and theory, The Alienation of Fact is a spirited call for democratic education that values creating a society of “thinking people” over capitalistic gains.

This book is available open access here.

Joao Souto-Maior is a postdoc at the New York University’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change.

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Al Davidoff, "Unionizing the Ivory Tower: Cornell Workers' Fifteen-Year Fight for Justice and a Living Wage" (ILR Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 4 Sep 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Unionizing the Ivory Tower: Cornell Workers' Fifteen-Year Fight for Justice and a Living Wage (ILR Press, 2023) chronicles how a thousand low-paid custodians, cooks, and gardeners succeeded in organizing a union at Cornell University. Al Davidoff, the Cornell student leader who became a custodian and the union's first president, tells the extraordinary story of these ordinary workers with passion, sensitivity, and wit.

His memoir reveals how they took on the dominant power in the community, built a strong organization, and waged multiple strikes and campaigns for livable wages and their dignity. Their strategies and tactics were creative and feisty, founded on worker participation and ownership.

The union's commitment to fairness, equity, and economic justice also engaged these workers—mostly rural, white, and conservative—at the intersections of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Davidoff's story demonstrates how a fighting union can activate today's working class to oppose antidemocratic and white supremacist forces.

Al Davidoff is co-founder of the National Labor Leadership Initiative and the Director of Organizational and Leadership Development for US labor's global arm at the Solidarity Center.

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The Power of Play in Higher Education: A Conversation with Alison James

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Why are academics encouraged to be rigorous and exhausted, instead of innovative and engaged? What learning outcomes are we sacrificing by being so serious? Dr. Alison James joins us to share insights from her research and practice of emphasizing play in higher education. This episode explores:

How having fun can strengthen problem solving skills and learning outcomes.
Why higher education doesn’t take play, creativity, and fun seriously enough.
What led her to prioritize play when other educators weren’t.
A discussion of her books The Value of Play in Higher Education, and The Power of Play in Higher Education.

Our guest is: Dr. Alison James, who is Professor Emerita of the University of Winchester. She is the author of numerous articles and publications on play and creativity in university learning, and of the three year study The Value of Play in HE, supported by the Imagination Lab Foundation and available free here. She is the co-editor, with Chrissi Nerantzi, of The Power of Play in HE: Creativity in Tertiary Learning, and the co-author, with Stephen D. Brookfield, of Engaging Imagination: Helping Students Become Creative and Reflective Thinkers.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a freelance book editor. She has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life podcast since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, by Dacher Keltner
Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time, by Sheila Liming
Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age, by Katherine May
The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life, by Dr. Mike Rucker
The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature, by Sue Stuart-Smith
This conversation about seeking meaning instead of happiness
This conversation about the importance of spending time in nature
This conversation about the need to take a break from overworking and underliving
This conversation about belonging and the science of creating human connections
This conversation about the value of living a “good-enough” life

Welcome to the Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Missed any of the 150+ Academic Life episodes? You can find them all archived here. And check back soon: we’re in the studio creating more episodes for your academic journey—and beyond!

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Hava Rachel Gordon, "This Is Our School!: Race and Community Resistance to School Reform" (NYU Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Parents, educators, and activists are passionately fighting to improve public schools around the country. In This Is Our School!: Race and Community Resistance to School Reform (NYU Press, 2021), Hava Rachel Gordon takes us inside these fascinating school reform movements, exploring their origins, aims, and victories as they work to build a better future for our education system.

Focusing on a school district in Denver, Colorado, Gordon takes a look at different coalitions within the school reform movement, as well as the surprising competition that arises between them. Drawing on over eighty interviews and ethnographic research, she explores how these groups vie for power, as well as the role that race, class, and gentrification play in shaping their successes and failures, strategies and structures.

Gordon shows us what happens when people mobilize from the ground up and advocate for educational change. This Is Our School! gives us an inside look at the diverse voices within the school reform movement, each of which plays an important role in the fight to improve public education.

Joao Souto-Maior is a postdoc at the New York University’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change.

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James S. Damico et al., "Commemorative Literacies and Labors of Justice: Resistance, Reconciliation, and Recovery in Buenos Aires and Beyond" (Routledge, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Commemorative Literacies and Labors of Justice: Resistance, Reconciliation, and Recovery in Buenos Aires and Beyond (Routledge, 2021) examines literacy practices of commemoration marking the 40th anniversary of the March 24, 1976 coup in Argentina. Drawing on research conducted across three distinct sites in Buenos Aires in March 2016—a public university, a Catholic church, and a former naval base and clandestine detention center transformed into a museum space for memory and justice—this book sheds light on the ways commemorative literacies at these locations work spatially to mobilize memory of the past to address and advance justice concerns in the present. These labors of justice manifest in three ways: as resistance, reconciliation, and recovery. Damico, Lybarger, and Brudney also demonstrate how these particular kinds of commemorative literacies resonate transnationally in ways that necessitate a commitment to commemorative ethics.

This book is ideal not only for researchers, graduate students, and scholars in literacy studies but also for all those working in related fields, including memory studies, religious studies, area studies, and Latin American studies, to address issues pertaining to memory, testimony, transitional justice, state repression, and human rights in Argentina, Latin America, or the Global South, more generally.

Madden Gilhooly is a public high school geography/social science teacher, writer, poet and casual academic.

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Elly Fishman, "Refugee High: Coming of Age in America" (The New Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 26 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Lit Hub's Most Anticipated of 2021. Winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Award. A year in the life of a Chicago high school that has one of the highest proportions of refugees of any school in the nation. “A wondrous tapestry of stories, of young people looking for a home. With deep, immersive reporting, Elly Fishman pulls off a triumph of empathy. Their tales and their school speak to the best of who we are as a nation—and their struggles, their joys, their journeys will stay with you.” —Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here.

For a century, Chicago’s Roger C. Sullivan High School has been a home to immigrant and refugee students. In 2017, during the worst global refugee crisis in history, its immigrant population numbered close to three hundred—or nearly half the school—and many were refugees new to the country. These young people came from thirty-five different countries, speaking among themselves more than thirty-eight different languages. For these refugee teens, life in Chicago is hardly easy. They have experienced the world at its worst and carry the trauma of the horrific violence they fled. In America, they face poverty, racism, and xenophobia, but they are still teenagers—flirting, dreaming, and working as they navigate their new life in America.

Elly Fishman's book Refugee High: Coming of Age in America (The New Press, 2021) is a riveting chronicle of the 2017–8 school year at Sullivan High, a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric was at its height in the White House. Even as we follow teachers and administrators grappling with the everyday challenges facing many urban schools, we witness the complicated circumstances and unique education needs of refugee and immigrant children: Alejandro may be deported just days before he is scheduled to graduate; Shahina narrowly escapes an arranged marriage; and Belenge encounters gang turf wars he doesn’t understand. Equal parts heartbreaking and inspiring, Refugee High raises vital questions about the priorities and values of a public school and offers an eye-opening and captivating window into the present-day American immigration and education systems.

Laura Beth Kelly is an assistant professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Frederick W. Gooding Jr. and Eric S. Yellin, "Public Workers in Service of America: A Reader" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 26 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

From white-collar executives to mail carriers, public workers meet the needs of the entire nation. In Public Workers in Service of America: A Reader (U Illinois Press, 2023), Frederick W. Gooding Jr. and Eric S. Yellin provide an edited collection of new research on this understudied workforce:

Part One begins in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century to explore how questions of race, class, and gender shaped public workers, their workplaces, and their place in American democracy. In Part Two, essayists examine race and gender discrimination while revealing the subtle contemporary forms of marginalization that keep Black men and Black and white women underpaid and overlooked for promotion. The historic labor actions detailed in Part Three illuminate how city employees organized not only for better pay and working conditions but to seek recognition from city officials, the public, and the national labor movement. Part Four focuses on nurses and teachers to address the thorny question of whether certain groups deserve premium pay for their irreplaceable work and sacrifices or if serving the greater good is a reward unto itself. Contributors: Eileen Boris, Cathleen D. Cahill, Frederick W. Gooding Jr., William P. Jones, Francis Ryan, Jon Shelton, Joseph E. Slater, Katherine Turk, Eric S. Yellin, and Amy Zanoni.

Stephen Pimpare is a Senior Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.

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Erica O. Turner, "Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

For the past five years, American public schools have enrolled more students identified as Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Asian than white. At the same time, more than half of US school children now qualify for federally subsidized meals, a marker of poverty. The makeup of schools is rapidly changing, and many districts and school boards are at a loss as to how they can effectively and equitably handle these shifts.

Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality (U Chicago Press, 2020) is an ethnographic account of two school districts in the Midwest responding to rapidly changing demographics at their schools. It is based on observations and in-depth interviews with school board members and superintendents, as well as staff, community members, and other stakeholders in each district: one serving “Lakeside,” a predominately working class, conservative community and the other serving “Fairview,” a more affluent, liberal community. Erica O. Turner looks at district leaders’ adoption of business-inspired policy tools and the ultimate successes and failures of such responses. Turner’s findings demonstrate that, despite their intentions to promote “diversity” or eliminate “achievement gaps,” district leaders adopted policies and practices that ultimately perpetuated existing inequalities and advanced new forms of racism.

While suggesting some ways forward, Suddenly Diverse shows that, without changes to these managerial policies and practices and larger transformations to the whole system, even district leaders’ best efforts will continue to undermine the promise of educational equity and the realization of more robust public schools.

Joao Souto-Maior is a postdoc at the New York University’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change.

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Managing your Mental Health During Your PhD

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Can your graduate school affect your mental health? Dr. Zoe Ayres joins us to discuss what she wishes she had known before starting graduate school, including:

What happens when you can’t access the hidden curriculum.
The myths we tell ourselves, and the systems that work against us.
How the pressures of graduate school can affect our mental health.
Why you need a to build a network of mentors outside your school.

Today’s book is: Managing Your Mental Health During Your PhD: A Survival Guide, by Dr. Zoe Ayres, which investigates why mental health issues are so common among the student population. Ayres looks honestly at the experiences of PhD students, and explores environmental factors that can impact mental health. These include the PhD student-supervisor relationship, the pressure to publish, and deep systemic problems in academia, such as racism, bullying and harassment. She provides resources students, while offering ideas for improvements that universities can make to ensure that academia is a place for all to thrive.

Our guest is: Dr. Zoë Ayres, who studied for a PhD in chemistry at the University of Warwick, looking at using electrochemical boron doped diamond sensors to monitor environmental contaminants, before transitioning to industry. She worked for several years as a Senior Scientist in the water industry, before becoming Head of Research and Technology for a biotechnology start-up. She has transitioned back into academia, and is Head of Laboratory Facilities at the Open University, working with her team to manage over 180 laboratories. Zoë cares passionately about creating spaces for people to thrive in research. She is the author of Managing Your Mental Health During Your PhD: A Survival Guide, and of articles and peer-reviewed papers on improving research culture. She is co-Founder of Voices of Academia, an international blog designed to share the academic mental health experiences of academics from around the world.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a historian.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from today’s experts inside and outside the academy, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life.

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Cara Fitzpatrick, "The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America" (Basic Books, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

America has relied on public schools for 150 years, but the system is increasingly under attack. With declining enrollment and diminished trust in public education, policies that steer tax dollars into private schools have grown rapidly. To understand how we got here, The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War Over Education in America (Basic Books, 2023) argues, we must look back at the turbulent history of school choice.

Cara Fitzpatrick uncovers the long journey of school choice, a story full of fascinating people and strange political alliances. She shows how school choice evolved from a segregationist tool in the South in the 1950s, to a policy embraced by advocates for educational equity in the North, to a conservative strategy for securing government funds for private schools in the twenty-first century. As a result, education is poised to become a private commodity rather than a universal good.

The Death of Public School presents the compelling history of the fiercest battle in the history of American education--one that already has changed the future of public schooling.

Laura Beth Kelly is an assistant professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Kalani Adolpho et al., "Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in Libraries" (Library Juice Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 20 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In the library profession, and in the world as a whole, the experiences of trans and gender diverse people often go unnoticed, hidden, and ignored. Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in Libraries (Library Juice Press, 2021) is entirely written and edited by trans and gender diverse people involved in the field: its fifty-seven authors include workers from academic and public libraries, special collections and archives, and more; LIS students; and a few people who have left the library profession completely.

Editors Kalani Adolpho, Stephen G. Krueger, and Krista McCracken share in this interview how this book is not intended to be the definitive guide to trans and gender diverse experiences in libraries, but instead to start the conversation. This project hopes to help trans and gender diverse people in libraries realize that they are not alone, and that their experiences are worth sharing.

This book also demonstrates some of the reality in a field that loves to think of itself as inclusive. From physical spaces to policies to interpersonal ignorance and bigotry, the experiences recounted in this book demonstrate that the library profession continues to fail its trans and gender diverse members over and over again. You cannot read these chapters and claim that Safe Zone stickers and “libraries are for everyone” signs have done the job. You cannot assume that everything is fine in your workplace because nobody has spoken out. You can no longer pretend that trans and gender diverse people don’t exist.

Find the table of contents for Trans and Gender Diverse Voices in Libraries as well as open access chapters online here. Learn about the Trans and Gender Diverse LIS network here.

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Satish Kumar and Lorna Howarth, "Regenerative Learning: Nurturing People and Caring for the Planet" (Salt Desert Media, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Be The Change! Are you a policy maker? Parent? Teacher? Regenerative Learning: Nurturing People and Caring for the Planet (Salt Desert Media, 2022) is full of fresh ideas as well as practical solutions. Learn how we can make the whole world of education more inspiring - and more green. Education can be - and it should be - more inspiring, holistic, integrated, creative, and joyous! And that isn't a mere pipe dream.

This book will help you to achieve it. Published for the 30th anniversary of Schumacher College, this collection of independently-written essays is on a subject of urgent importance for a world afflicted by climate change, inequality, mass disadvantage, and pandemics. Schumacher College is synonymous with the effort to create a model of learning that develops alumni who have the skills and passions that will make the contemporary world a better place. Contributors include: Fritjof Capra, Vandana Shiva, David Orr, Charles Eisenstein, Gunter Pauli, Anthony Seldon, Jon Alexander, Alan Boldon, Pavel Cenkl, Lauren Elizabeth Clare, Joseph Bharat Cornell, Guy Dauncey, Alan Dyer, Natalia Eernstman, Guillem Ferrer, Herbert Girardet, Donald Gray, Stephan Harding, Ina Matijevic, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Dana Littlepage Smith, Isabel Losada, Thakur S. Powdyel, and Colin Tudge.

Satish Kumar is one of the editors of Regenerative Learning and is also the author of many other books, most recently Elegant Simplicity: The Art of Living Well and out this year Radical Love: From Separation to Connection with the Earth, Each Other, and Ourselves. Satish is also the founder of the Schumacher College and The Small School, as well as Editor Emeritus of Resurgence & Ecologist.

Madden Gilhooly is a humanities public-school teacher and casual academic based in London, England.

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Renyi Hong, "Passionate Work: Endurance after the Good Life" (Duke UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In Passionate Work: Endurance after the Good Life (Duke UP, 2022), Renyi Hong theorizes the notion of being "passionate about your work" as an affective project that encourages people to endure economically trying situations like unemployment, job change, repetitive and menial labor, and freelancing. Not simply a subject of aspiration, passion has been deployed as a means to build resilience and mend disappointments with our experiences of work.

Tracking the rise of passion in nineteenth-century management to trends like gamification, coworking, and unemployment insurance, Hong demonstrates how passion can emerge in instances that would not typically be understood as passionate. Gamification numbs crippling boredom by keeping call center workers in an unthinking, suspensive state, pursuing even the most banal tasks in hope of career advancement. Coworking spaces marketed toward freelancers combat loneliness and disconnection at the precise moment when middle-class sureties are profoundly threatened. Ultimately, Hong argues, the ideal of passionate work sustains a condition of cruel optimism in which passion is offered as the solution for the injustices of contemporary capitalism.

Hong is assistant professor in the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore. He is interested in labor and its relationships with affect, technology and capitalism. His works can be found in Social Text, New Media & Society, European Journal of Cultural Studies, among others.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Jennifer Keys Adair and Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove, "Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism, and Learning in the Early Grades" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Early childhood can be a time of rich discovery, a period when educators have an opportunity to harness their students’ fascination to create unique learning opportunities. Some teachers engage with their students’ ideas in ways that make learning collaborative--but not all students have access to these kinds of learning environments.

In Segregation by Experience: Agency, Racism, and Learning in the Early Grades (U Chicago Press, 2021), the authors filmed and studied a a first-grade classroom led by a Black immigrant teacher who encouraged her diverse group of students to exercise their agency. When the researchers showed the film to other schools, everyone struggled. Educators admired the teacher but didn’t think her practices would work with their own Black and brown students. Parents of color—many of them immigrants—liked many of the practices, but worried that they would compromise their children. And the young children who viewed the film thought that the kids in the film were terrible, loud, and badly behaved; they told the authors that learning was supposed to be quiet, still, and obedient. In Segregation by Experience Jennifer Keys Adair and Kiyomi Sánchez-Suzuki Colegrove show us just how much our expectations of children of color affect what and how they learn at school, and they ask us to consider which children get to have sophisticated, dynamic learning experiences at school and which children are denied such experiences because of our continued racist assumptions about them.

Laura Beth Kelly is an assistant professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Carl Van Ness, "The Making of Florida's Universities: Public Higher Education at the Turn of the Twentieth Century" (UP of Florida, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In The Making of Florida's Universities: Public Higher Education at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (UP of Florida, 2023), Carl Van Ness describes the remarkable formative years of higher education in Florida, comparing the trajectory to that of other states and putting it in context within the broader history and culture of the South. Central to this story is the Buckman Act of 1905, a state law that consolidated government support to three institutions and prompted decades of conflicts over where Florida’s public colleges and universities would be located, who would head them, and who would manage their affairs.

Van Ness traces the development of the schools that later became the University of Florida, Florida State University, and Florida A&M University. He describes little-known events such as the decision to move the University of Florida from its original location in Lake City, as well as a dramatic student rebellion at Florida A&M University in response to attempts to restrict Black students to vocational education and the subsequent firing of the president in 1923. The book also reflects on the debates regarding Florida’s normal schools, which provided coursework and practical training to teachers, a majority of whom were women. Utilizing rare historical records, Van Ness brings to light events in Florida’s history that have not been examined and that continue to affect higher education in the state today.

Carl Van Ness is university librarian emeritus at the University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries.

Katie Coldiron is based at Florida International University. She is Outreach Program Manager for the Digital Library of the Caribbean at FIU Libraries and doctoral student in the FIU Department of History.

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Lauren S. Foley, "On the Basis of Race: How Higher Education Navigates Affirmative Action Policies" (NYU Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Diversity in higher education is under attack as the Supreme Court limits the use of race-conscious admissions practices at American colleges and universities. In On the Basis of Race: How Higher Education Navigates Affirmative Action Policies (NYU Press, 2023), Lauren S. Foley sheds light on our current crisis, exploring the past, present, and future of this contentious policy. From Brown v. Board of Education in the mid-twentieth century to the current Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Foley explores how organizations have resisted and complied with public policies regarding race. She examines how admissions officers, who have played an important role in the long fight to protect racial diversity in higher education, work around the law to maintain diversity after affirmative action is banned.

Foley takes us behind the curtain of student admissions, shedding light on how multiple universities, including the University of Michigan, have creatively responded to affirmative action bans. On the Basis of Race traces the history of a controversial idea and policy, and provides insight into its uncertain future.

Stephen Pimpare is a Senior Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.

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Keith A. Mayes, "The Unteachables: Disability Rights and the Invention of Black Special Education" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 13 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The Unteachables: Disability Rights and the Invention of Black Special Education (U Minnesota Press, 2023) examines the overrepresentation of Black students in special education over the course of the twentieth century. As African American children integrated predominantly white schools, many were disproportionately labeled educable mentally retarded (EMR), learning disabled (LD), and emotionally behavioral disordered (EBD). Keith A. Mayes charts the evolution of disability categories and how these labels kept Black learners segregated in American classrooms.

The civil rights and the educational disability rights movements, Mayes shows, have both collaborated and worked at cross-purposes since the beginning of school desegregation. Disability rights advocates built upon the opportunity provided by the civil rights movement to make claims about student invisibility at the level of intellectual and cognitive disabilities. Although special education ostensibly included children from all racial groups, educational disability rights advocates focused on the needs of white disabled students, while school systems used disability discourses to malign and marginalize Black students.

From the 1940s to the present, social science researchers, policymakers, school administrators, and teachers have each contributed to the overrepresentation of Black students in special education. Excavating the deep-seated racism embedded in both the public school system and public policy, The Unteachables explores the discriminatory labeling of Black students, and how it indelibly contributed to special education disproportionality, to student discipline and push-out practices, and to the school-to-prison pipeline effect.

Joao Souto-Maior is a postdoc at the New York University’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change.

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Academic Aunties: A Conversation with Dr. Ethel Tungohan

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

You’ve probably heard by now that there’s a hidden curriculum in academia. But it’s called hidden for a reason—only some [privileged] people are in the know about what it contains. And when you can’t find the answers you need, earning your degree is much harder than it should be. Today, higher education podcast host Dr. Ethel Tungohan of the Academic Aunties joins Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer and host of the Academic Life, to talk about why they are so passionate about bridging this knowledge gap. This episode explores:

The importance of seeing the structural barriers and gatekeepers.
Why the problem is not you, it’s them.
How being left out of important conversations harms women, first gen students, and people of color in academia.
Some advice that can help you survive and thrive in academia.

Our guest is: Dr. Ethel Tungohan, who is Associate Professor of Politics and Social Science at York University. She received her doctoral degree in Political Science and Women and Gender Studies from the University of Toronto. Her research looks at migrant labor, specifically assessing migrant activism. Her work has been published in academic journals such as the International Feminist Journal of Politics; Politics, Groups, and Identities; and Canadian Ethnic Studies. Dr. Tungohan specializes in socially engaged research and is actively involved in grassroots migrant organizations such as Gabriela-Ontario and Migrante-Canada. She is the host of the Academic Aunties.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Care Activism: Migrant Domestic Workers, Movement-Building, and Communities of Care, by Ethel Tungohan
Containing Diversity: Canada and the Politics of Immigration in the 21st Century, by Yasmeen Abu-Laban, Ethel Tungohan, and Christina Gabriel
Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility, by Roland Sintos Coloma, Bonnie McElhinny, Ethel Tungohan, John Paul Catungal and Lisa M. Davidson
The Academic Life podcast on community-building and How We Show Up, with Mia Birdsong
The Academic Life episode on the Field Guide to Grad School
The Academic Life episode on barriers to tenure for women of color
The Academic Life podcast on feminist communication strategies
The Academic Life podcast on how to stop overworking and underliving
The Academic Life podcast about quitting a PhD program
The Academic Life episode on The Grant Writing Guide

Welcome to The Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we are inspired and informed by today’s knowledge-producers, working inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Find us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

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Yoni Furas, "Educating Palestine: Teaching and Learning History Under the Mandate" (Oxford UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 7 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Through the story of education and the teaching of history in Mandate Palestine, Yoni Furas reframes our understanding of the Palestinian and Zionist national movements. Educating Palestine: Teaching and Learning History Under the Mandate (Oxford UP, 2020) argues that Palestinian and Hebrew pedagogy could only be truly understood through an analysis of the conscious or unconscious dialogue between them. The conflict over Palestine, the study shows, shaped the way Arabs and Zionists thought, taught, and wrote about their past. British rule over Palestine promised the Jews a national home, but had no viable policy towards the Palestinians and established an education system that lacked a sustainable collective ethos. Nevertheless, Palestinian educators were able to produce a national pedagogy that knew how to work with the British and simultaneously promoted an ideology of progress and independence that challenged colonial rule.

Roberto Mazza is currently an independent scholar. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Twitter and IG: @robbyref Website: www.robertomazza.org

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Landon Mascareñaz and Doannie Tran, "The Open System: Redesigning Education and Reigniting Democracy" ((Harvard Education Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 6 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Landon Mascareñaz and Doannie Tran propose that, even as events of this decade have exposed stress points in existing top-down, closed systems within education and other public institutions, they have also created prime opportunities to rethink and redesign those systems in ways that encourage civic participation and invigorate local democracy.

In The Open System: Redesigning Education and Reigniting Democracy (Harvard Education Press, 2023), Mascareñaz and Tran argue for a critical revitalization of public education centered in openness, an organization design concept in which an entity receives, considers, and acts on input from the community it serves. As they demonstrate, open education policy improves information flow, increasing opportunity, bolstering public trust, and making room for cocreation and coproduction driven by community partnerships and family engagement.

Based on their groundbreaking work with educational coalitions such as the Kentucky Coalition for Advancing Education and Colorado's Homegrown Talent Initiative, Mascareñaz and Tran introduce six key liberatory moves that can bring about open system transformation. They highlight real-life examples of the types of incremental, specific, and discrete projects that leaders can use to create openness in educational systems at the school, district, and state levels, providing a blueprint for changemaking.

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Jack Cohen and Yosef Lynn, "Nurture Their Nature: The Torah’s Essential Guidance for Parents and Teachers" (Mosaica Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 4 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Embark on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment with Nurture their Nature; The Torah’s Essential Guidance for Parents and Teachers (Mosaica Press, 2021), an insightful book co-authored by Rabbi Jack Cohen and Rabbi Dr. Yosef Lynn. Drawing on wisdom from the Torah, this book guides parents and teachers in finding their own unique selves and igniting the same in their children and students. It's an essential read for those shaping the next generation.

Ohad Fedida lives in Miami and is a psychology research and clinical assistant. He is pursuing a graduate degree in psychology, and is involved in a wide array of initiatives and studies from legal philosophy, Jewish programming, and psychology.

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Alelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 2 Aug 2023 19:55:10 +0000

The vast majority of American college students attend two thousand or so private and public institutions that might be described as the Middle—reputable educational institutions, but not considered equal to the elite and entrenched upper echelon of the Ivy League and other prestigious schools. Richard DeMillo has a warning for these colleges and universities in the Middle: If you do not change, you are heading for irrelevance and marginalization. In Abelard to Apple, DeMillo argues that these institutions, clinging precariously to a centuries-old model of higher education, are ignoring the social, historical, and economic forces at work in today's world. In the age of iTunes, open source software, and for-profit online universities, there are new rules for higher education.

DeMillo, who has spent years in both academia and in industry, explains how higher education arrived at its current parlous state and offers a road map for the twenty-first century. He describes the evolving model for higher education, from European universities based on a medieval model to American land-grant colleges to Apple's iTunes U and MIT's OpenCourseWare. He offers ten rules to help colleges reinvent themselves (including “Don't romanticize your weaknesses”) and argues for a focus on teaching undergraduates.

DeMillo's message—for colleges and universities, students, alumni, parents, employers, and politicians—is that any college or university can change course if it defines a compelling value proposition (one not based in “institutional envy” of Harvard and Berkeley) and imagines an institution that delivers it.

Richard A. DeMillo is Distinguished Professor of Computing and Professor of Management, former John P. Imlay Dean of Computing, and Director of the Center for 21st Century Universities at Georgia Institute of Technology. Author of over 100 articles, books, and patents, he has held academic positions at Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Padua. He directed the Computer and Computation Research Division of the National Science Foundation and was Hewlett-Packard’s first Chief Technology Officer.

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Steve Mentz, "An Introduction to the Blue Humanities" (Routledge, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

An Introduction to the Blue Humanities (Routledge, 2023) is the first textbook to explore the many ways humans engage with water, utilizing literary, cultural, historical, and theoretical connections and ecologies to introduce students to the history and theory of water-centric thinking. Comprised of multinational texts and materials, each chapter will provide readers with a range of primary and secondary sources, offering a fresh look at the major oceanic regions, salt and freshwater geographies, and the physical properties of water that characterize the Blue Humanities. Each chapter engages with carefully-chosen primary texts, including frequently-taught works such as Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Homer's The Odyssey, and Luis Vaz de Camões' The Lusiads, to provide the perfect pedagogy for students to develop an understanding of the Blue Humanities chapter by chapter.

Readers will gain insight into new trends in intellectual culture and the long histories of humans thinking with water, ranging across the many coastlines of the World Ocean to Pacific clouds, Mediterranean lakes, Caribbean swamps, Arctic glaciers, Southern Ocean rainstorms, Atlantic groundwater, and Indian Ocean rivers. Providing new avenues for future thinking and investigation of the Blue Humanities, this volume will be ideal for both undergraduate and graduate courses engaging with the environmental humanities and oceanic literature.

Steve Mentz is a Professor of English at St. John’s University in New York City. His academic expertise includes environmental criticism, the blue humanities, Shakespeare studies, early modern European poetry, and critical theory. He has published five single-author books, including Ocean (2020), Break Up the Anthropocene (2019), and Shipwreck Modernity (2015). He has edited or co-edited six other volumes, published many chapters and articles in scholarly journals and collections, and organized exhibitions and symposia on blue humanities topics. His research has been funded by the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the John Carter Brown Library, the National Maritime Museum in London, and other institutions. He received his Ph.D. in English from Yale University in 2000.

Scott T. Erich is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. His dissertation, "Taming the Sea: Property, Rights, and the Extractive Seascape of Southeastern Arabia," is an ethnographic and historical examination of how fishermen, local rulers, colonial officials, and private companies claim rights to oceanic “territory” and extract marine natural resources – including pearls, fish, sponges, and oil – from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. He is a recipient of the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award and the Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant. Previously, Scott was a Visiting Scholar at the American University of Sharjah, U.A.E., and a Fellow with the Institute of Current World Affairs in Muscat, Oman. He has worked at the University of Chicago, the Middle East Institute, and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center. Currently, he is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at Baruch College, and a Community Reef Ambassador with the Billion Oyster Project.

Ahmed Yaqoub AlMaazmi is a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, Near Eastern Studies Department. His research focuses on the intersection of law, the occult sciences, and the environment across the western Indian Ocean. He can be reached by email at almaazmi@princeton.edu or on Twitter @Ahmed_Yaqoub. Listeners’ feedback, questions, and book suggestions are most welcome.

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Syed Ali and Margaret M. Chin, "The Peer Effect: How Your Peers Shape Who You Are and Who You Will Become" (NYU Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

For decades, parents across America have asked their kids, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” The answer is, “Duh, yes.” Peers, as parents well know, have a tremendous impact on who their kids are and what they will become. And even while they insist otherwise, parents know that they’re largely powerless to change this. But the effect of peers is not just a story about kids; peers can also affect adult behavior—they affect what we do and who we are well into old age. Noted sociologists Syed Ali and Margaret M. Chin call this “the peer effect.”

In their book, The Peer Effect: How Your Peers Shape Who You Are and Who You Will Become (NYU Press, 2023), they take readers on a tour of how our peers, and the peer cultures they create, shape our behavior in schools and the workplace. Ali and Chin begin their look at the peer effect at the high school from which they both graduated: New York City’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School, arguably the best public high school in the nation. Through a fascinating and often humorous narrative, they show how peers can influence each other—in this case, how highly motivated students can create a culture of influence to achieve success in learning and in admission to elite colleges. They also show the many other ways that peers can influence one another beyond school performance, from hookup culture to school bullying and youth suicide.

Ali and Chin are also interested in the extent to which the peer effect can last. Through interviews with adult graduates of Stuyvesant, they investigate the long-lasting effects of high school peer culture. They also examine the peer effect in post–high school settings, notably around workplace misconduct, including the steroid culture in baseball and the use of excessive force by the police. The Peer Effect ultimately offers ways to understand the power of peer influence and apply this understanding to resolving issues regarding schools, college graduation rates, workplace culture, and police violence. In the tradition of big idea books like The Tipping Point, The Peer Effect will forever change the way we look at the world of human behavior.

Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington, 2022). His general area of study is about the construction of place in tourist cities and about the people who reside there. He is currently conducting research for his next project on the social construction of tourist cities. To learn more about Michael O. Johnston you can go to his website, Google Scholar, Twitter @ProfessorJohnst, or by email at johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu.

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Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius, "Awkward Archives: Ethnographic Drafts for a Modular Curriculum" (Archive Books, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Awkward Archives: Ethnographic Drafts for a Modular Curriculum (Archive Books, 2022) proposes a manual for academic teaching and learning contexts. An ethnographic research approach is confronted with the demands of archival research as both disciplines challenge their inner logics and epistemologies. Through fieldwork and ethnographic tools and methods, both analogue and digital, the editors take various contemporary archival sites in Berlin as case studies to elaborate on controversial concepts in Western thought. Presenting as such a modular curriculum on archives in their awkwardness—with the tensions, discomfort and antagonisms they pose.

With case studies on Haus der Kulturen der Welt, the Hahne-Niehoff Archive and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, among others

This book is available open access

here.

Adam Bobeck is a PhD candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of Leipzig. His PhD is entitled “Object-Oriented Azadari: Ontology and Ritual Theory”.

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Juliet Schor, "After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back" (U California Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

When the "sharing economy" launched a decade ago, proponents claimed that it would transform the experience of work--giving earners flexibility, autonomy, and a decent income. It was touted as a cure for social isolation and rampant ecological degradation. But this novel form of work soon sprouted a dark side: exploited Uber drivers, neighborhoods ruined by Airbnb, racial discrimination, and rising carbon emissions. Several of the most prominent platforms are now faced with existential crises as they prioritize growth over fairness and long-term viability.

Nevertheless, the basic model--a peer-to-peer structure augmented by digital tech--holds the potential to meet its original promises. Based on nearly a decade of pioneering research, After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back (U California Press, 2021) dives into what went wrong with this contemporary reimagining of labor. The book examines multiple types of data from thirteen cases to identify the unique features and potential of sharing platforms that prior research has failed to pinpoint. Juliet B. Schor presents a compelling argument that we can engineer a reboot: through regulatory reforms and cooperative platforms owned and controlled by users, an equitable and truly shared economy is still possible.

Juliet B. Schor is an American economist and Sociology Professor at Boston College. She has studied trends in working time, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women's issues and economic inequality, and concerns about climate change in the environment. She is a New York Times bestselling author and the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Better Future Project.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Phoebe Ho et al., "Diversity and the Transition to Adulthood in America" (U California Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

How do children and adolescents transition to adulthood in today’s America? How have American society’s entrenching economic inequality and increasing financial precarity profoundly shaped their coming-of-age experience? What does it mean to grow up in a diverse society interacting with peers and adults with very different racial and ethnic backgrounds? These are important questions to ask in order to understand young people’s life in the United States.

In Diversity and the Transition to Adulthood in America (U California Press, 2022), sociologists Phoebe Ho, Hyunjoon Park, and Grace Kao use large-scale and nationally representative data to address these important questions. The book offers a panoramic view of young people’s life in today’s increasingly diverse America. Through identifying the patterns and trends of when and how youths of different racial and ethnic backgrounds reach their life milestones, the book maps out the varying life paths of young Americans, who will play critical roles in shaping the future of this country.

In this episode, you will hear NBN host Pengfei Zhao talked with Phoebe Ho, the lead author of Diversity and the Transition to Adulthood in America. Their conversation ranges from the major findings of the book, to how these findings may inform public debates on issues related to young people, as well as how university instructors may use this book to engage students in their classrooms.

Phoebe Ho is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas. Her research focuses on family experiences with education and schooling in the United States, with a particular emphasis on race, ethnicity, immigrant status, and social class.
Hyunjoon Park is Korea Foundation Professor of Sociology and Director of the James Joo-Jin Kim Program in Korean Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include social stratification, education, family, and the transition to adulthood, especially in East Asian societies.
Grace Kao is IBM Professor of Sociology and Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University. She is a past vice president of the American Sociological Association. Her research focuses on race, ethnicity, immigration, education, and youth outcomes.

Pengfei Zhao is a critical researcher and qualitative research methodologist based at the University of Florida. She is currently working on a book manuscript studying the coming-of-age experience of rural Chinese youth during and right after the Cultural Revolution.

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Yi-Lin Chiang, "Study Gods: How the New Chinese Elite Prepare for Global Competition" (Princeton UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

We understand very little about how elite individuals and families operate in everyday life to maintain their privileged statuses, as many of these status-maintaining activities are conducted out of the sight of the public, in private family settings, exclusive schools, and through privileged services.

Yi-Lin Chiang’s new book, Study Gods: How the New Chinese Elite Prepare for Global Competition (Princeton University Press, 2022), offers a rare look into this issue in the context of contemporary China. Based on solid, long-term ethnographic research, Study Gods documents the educational journeys of elite Chinese adolescents, some of whom were named “study gods” by their peers because of their effortless abilities to achieve high academic performance. Employing vivid descriptions and sophisticated analyses, Chiang has shown how these young people achieve and maintain elite status by absorbing and complying with the rules surrounding status.

In this episode, I talked with Yi-Lin Chiang about her new book, Studying Gods. You will hear not only her fascinating findings about the young generation of Chinese elite, but also behind-the-scene stories and reflections from a seasoned ethnographer, from how she interacted with these elite youths to what differs the younger generation of Chinese elites from the older ones, and why she thinks it is important to understand their elite world.

Yi-Lin Chiang is assistant professor of sociology at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Chiang’s research focuses on educational stratification and intergenerational status transmission in greater China.

About the host: Pengfei Zhao is a critical researcher and qualitative research methodologist based at the University of Florida. She is currently working on a book manuscript studying the coming-of-age experience of rural Chinese youth during and right after the Cultural Revolution.

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Adhaar Noor Desai, "Blotted Lines: Early Modern English Literature and the Poetics of Discomposition" (Cornell UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 4 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Almost every student that will enroll in a college Shakespeare course can expect two things. Students will have to engage with the style and themes of texts that were composed over four hundred years old. And students will have to submit a piece of original writing that is well-organized, has a fresh argument, and cites early modern sources correctly. Rarely do these two tracks of the course inform each other. Adhaar Noor Desai’s new book, Blotted Lines: Early Modern English Literature and the Poetics of Discomposition (Cornell University Press, 2023) seeks to address this disjunction. As Desai shows, the early modern archive proposed strategies and ideas about writing that students and teachers might profitably learn—and sometimes unlearn.

The innovative structure of Blotted Lines has an introduction, a coda, and five chapters that pair a topic from early modern poetics with a key writer: style (George Gascoigne), invention (Philip Sidney), revision (John Davies of Hereford), editing (Anne Southwell) and performance anxiety (William Shakespeare). After each chapter, Desai offers a brief conversational “reflection,” which offer a combination of practical teaching advice for the Shakespeare classroom and more expansive discussions about pedagogy in the twenty-first century university.

Desai is Professor of English at Bard College and is one of the co-founders of the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network, an international project that brings together practitioners working at the intersection of technology, social justice, and creative practice. His scholarship has been published in English Literary Renaissance, Philological Quarterly, Configurations, Publicity and the Early Modern Stage, and Teaching Social Justice through Shakespeare. Blotted Lines is his first monograph.

John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Boston College. He earned a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. In 2023, his dissertation won the J. Leeds Barroll Prize, given by the Shakespeare Association of America. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies.

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Peter L. Stiepleman, "An Imperfect Leader: Human-Centered Leadership in (after) Action" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 3 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0000

An Imperfect Leader: Leadership in (After) Action (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) tells the story of a superintendent from his first days to the pandemic. In each chapter, he responds to a series of questions to prompt genuine reflection. This book is structured to give leaders the tools to become predictably successful leaders. Peter Stiepleman, the 2021 Missouri Superintendent of the Year, lives and works in the Pacific Northwest. He serves as an advisor to leaders and hosts a weekly podcast where he talks to leaders across the nation.

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The War on Learning: Gaining Ground in the Digital University

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 21:27:14 +0000

Behind the lectern stands the professor, deploying course management systems, online quizzes, wireless clickers, PowerPoint slides, podcasts, and plagiarism-detection software. In the seats are the students, armed with smartphones, laptops, tablets, music players, and social networking. Although these two forces seem poised to do battle with each other, they are really both taking part in a war on learning itself. In The War on Learning, Elizabeth Losh examines current efforts to “reform” higher education by applying technological solutions to problems in teaching and learning. She finds that many of these initiatives fail because they treat education as a product rather than a process. Highly touted schemes—video games for the classroom, for example, or the distribution of iPads—let students down because they promote consumption rather than intellectual development.

Losh analyzes recent trends in postsecondary education and the rhetoric around them, often drawing on first-person accounts. In an effort to identify educational technologies that might actually work, she looks at strategies including MOOCs (massive open online courses), the gamification of subject matter, remix pedagogy, video lectures (from Randy Pausch to “the Baked Professor”), and educational virtual worlds. Finally, Losh outlines six basic principles of digital learning and describes several successful university-based initiatives. Her book will be essential reading for campus decision makers—and for anyone who cares about education and technology.

Elizabeth Losh directs the Culture, Art, and Technology Program at Sixth College at the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Virtualpolitik: An Electronic History of Government Media-Making in a Time of War, Scandal, Disaster, Miscommunication, and Mistakes (MIT Press) and the coauthor of Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing.

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Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire, "A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School" (The New Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Across the U.S., state legislatures-often under the cover of darkness, and usually in spite of public opposition-are passing bills that channel public dollars to private schools. These voucher schemes promise to transfer billions from state treasuries to upper-income families. But that's just the start. Opponents of public schools want to dismantle the public education system entirely. Outrageous and unfounded attacks on the schools-about Critical Race Theory, "gender ideology," and "grooming"-are all part of a broader strategy to sow doubt and distrust. This is the end game.

Education historian Jack Schneider and journalist Jennifer Berkshire trace the war on public education to its origins, offering the deep backstory necessary to understand the threat presently posed to America's schools. The book also looks forward to imagine how current policy efforts will reshape the educational landscape and remake America's future.

A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School (The New Press, 2023) offers readers a lively, accessible, yet scholarly view of a decades-long conservative cause: unmaking the system that serves over 90% of students in the U.S. Presenting a clear view of the ideology motivating this assault, the book also maps the future-outlining how current policy efforts will reshape the educational landscape and remake American democracy.

Laura Beth Kelly is an assistant professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

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John L. Rudolph, "Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should)" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to John L. Rudolph about his book Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should) (Oxford UP, 2023).

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Myka Kennedy Stephens, "Integrated Library Planning: A New Model for Strategic and Dynamic Planning, Management, and Assessment" (ACRL, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Many library project plans, from small projects to institution-wide strategic planning committees, follow a linear trajectory: create the plan, do the plan, then review the outcome. While this can be effective, it also sometimes leads to disregarding new information that emerges while executing the plan, making the outcome less effective. Planning processes can also feel forced and predetermined if stakeholder feedback is not seriously considered. When this happens too many times, people stop offering their honest opinions and new ideas because they have learned that the planners do not really want to hear them.

Integrated Library Planning: A New Model for Strategic and Dynamic Planning, Management, and Assessment (ACRL, 2023) offers a different kind of approach to planning that is both strategic and dynamic: fueled by open communication, honest assessment, and astute observation. Voices at the table, near the table, and far from the table are heard and considered. Its perpetual rhythm gives space to consider new information when it emerges and freedom to make changes at a time that makes sense instead of when it is most convenient or expected. The era of fixed-length strategic plans is coming to an end. Five-year strategic plans had already given way to three-year strategic plans, and now we find ourselves needing to plan and function when nothing is certain beyond the present moment.

The components of this model might look deceptively similar to the strategic planning practices used in libraries and organizations for decades; however, when implemented as a whole, with a monthly review cycle on a rolling planning horizon and space for regular analysis of information needs and behavior, it has the potential to shatter any previous notions of planning that serve only to satisfy administrators. Integrated Library Planning can help libraries effectively navigate and become agents of change.

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Olga Burlyuk and Ladan Rahbari, "Migrant Academics' Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe" (Open Book Publishers, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 17 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity and Resilience in Europe (Open Book Publishers, 2023) consists of narratives of migrant academics from the Global South within academia in the Global North. The autobiographic and autoethnographic contributions to this collection aim to decolonise the discourse around academic mobility by highlighting experiences of precarity, resilience, care and solidarity in the academic margins. The authors use precarity to analyse the state of affairs in the academy, from hiring practices to ‘culturally’ accepted division of labour, systematic forms of discrimination, racialisation, and gendered hierarchies, etc.

Building on precarity as a critical concept for challenging social exclusion or forming political collectives, the authors move away from conventional academic styles, instead adopting autobiography and autoethnography as methods of intersectional scholarly analysis. This approach creatively challenges the divisions between the system and the individual, the mind and the soul, the objective and the subjective, as well as science, theory, and art. This volume will be of interest not only to scholars within the field of migration studies, but also to instructors and students of sociology, postcolonial studies, gender and race studies, and critical border studies. The volume’s interdisciplinary approach also seeks to address university diversity officers, managers, key decision-makers, and other readers directly or indirectly involved in contemporary academia. The format and style of its contributions are wide-ranging (including poetry and creative prose), thus making it accessible and readable for a general audience.

The volume has been published open access and can be downloaded from here.

Rituparna Patgiri, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. She has a PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her research interests lie in the areas of food, media, gender and public. She is also one of the co-founders of Doing Sociology. Patgiri can be reached at @Rituparna37 on Twitter.

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Peter Baldwin, "Athena Unbound: Why and How Scholarly Knowledge Should Be Free for All" (MIT Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

A clear-eyed examination of the open access movement: past history, current conflicts, and future possibilities. Open access (OA) could one day put the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips. But the goal of allowing everyone to read everything faces fierce resistance.

In Athena Unbound: Why and How Scholarly Knowledge Should Be Free for All (MIT Press, 2023), Peter Baldwin offers an up-to-date look at the ideals and history behind OA, and unpacks the controversies that arise when the dream of limitless information slams into entrenched interests in favor of the status quo. In addition to providing a clear analysis of the debates, Baldwin focuses on thorny issues such as copyright and ways to pay for “free” knowledge. He also provides a roadmap that would make OA economically viable and, as a result, advance one of humanity’s age-old ambitions. Baldwin addresses the arguments in terms of disseminating scientific research, the history of intellectual property and copyright, and the development of the university and research establishment. As he notes, the hard sciences have already created a funding model that increasingly provides open access, but at the cost of crowding out the humanities. Baldwin proposes a new system that would shift costs from consumers to producers and free scholarly knowledge from the paywalls and institutional barriers that keep it from much of the world. Rich in detail and free of jargon, Athena Unbound is an essential primer on the state of the global open access movement.

Peter Baldwin is Professor of History at UCLA, and Global Distinguished Professor at NYU.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network.

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Nate G. Hilger, "The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis" (MIT Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, and its primary workers--parents--labor in isolation. If they ask for help, they are made to feel inadequate; there is no centralized organization to represent their interests; and there is virtually nothing spent on research and development to help them achieve their goals. It's almost as if parents are set up to fail--and the result is lost opportunities that limit children's success and make us all worse off. In The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis (MIT Press, 2023), Nate Hilger combines cutting-edge social science research, revealing historical case studies, and on-the-ground investigation to recast parenting as the hidden crucible of inequality.

Parents are expected not only to care for their children but to help them develop the skills they will need to thrive in today's socioeconomic reality--but most parents, including even the most caring parents on the planet, are not trained in skill development and lack the resources to get help. How do we fix this? The solution, Hilger argues, is to ask less of parents, not more. America should consider child development a public investment with a monumental payoff. We need a program like Medicare--call it Familycare--to drive this investment. To make it happen, parents need to organize to wield their political power on behalf of children--who will always be the largest bloc of disenfranchised people in this country.

The Parent Trap exposes the true costs of our society's unrealistic expectations around parenting and lays out a profoundly hopeful blueprint for reform.

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Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn, "The Autocratic Academy: Reenvisioning Rule Within America's Universities" (Duke UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 10 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Critics of contemporary US higher education often point to the academy’s “corporatization” as one of its defining maladies. However, in The Autocratic Academy: Reenvisioning Rule Within America's Universities (Duke UP, 2023), Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn argues that American colleges and universities have always been organized as corporations in which the power to rule is legally vested in and monopolized by antidemocratic governing boards.

This institutional form, Kaufman-Osborn contends, is antithetical to the free inquiry that defines the purpose of higher education. Tracing the history of the American academy from the founding of Harvard (1636), through the Supreme Court’s Dartmouth v. Woodward ruling (1819), and into the twenty-first century, Kaufman-Osborn shows how the university’s autocratic legal constitution is now yoked to its representation on the model of private property. Explaining why appeals to the cause of shared governance cannot succeed in wresting power from the academy’s autocrats, Kaufman-Osborn argues that American universities must now be reincorporated in accordance with the principles of democratic republicanism. Only then can the academy’s members hold accountable those chosen to govern and collectively determine the disposition of higher education’s unique public goods.

Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn is Baker Ferguson Professor of Politics and Leadership Emeritus at Whitman College and author of From Noose to Needle: Capital Punishment and the Late Liberal State and Creatures of Prometheus: Gender and the Politics of Technology.

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Athene Donald, "Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 7 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Why are girls discouraged from doing science? Why do so many promising women leave science in early and mid-career? Why do women not prosper in the scientific workforce?

Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science (Oxford UP, 2023) looks back at how society has historically excluded women from the scientific sphere and discourse, what progress has been made, and how more is still needed. Athene Donald, herself a distinguished physicist, explores societal expectations during both childhood and working life using evidence of the systemic disadvantages women operate under, from the developing science of how our brains are―and more importantly aren't―gendered, to social science evidence around attitudes towards girls and women doing science.

It also discusses how science is done in practice, in order to dispel common myths: for example, the perception that science is not creative, or that it is carried out by a lone genius in an ivory tower, myths that can be very off-putting to many sections of the population. A better appreciation of the collaborative, creative, and multi-disciplinary nature of science is likely to lead to its appeal to a far wider swathe of people, especially women. This book examines the modern way of working in scientific research, and how gender bias operates in various ways within it, drawing on the voices of leading women in science describing their feelings and experiences. It argues the moral and business case for greater diversity in modern research, the better to improve science and tackle the great challenges we face today.

Athene Donald is Professor Emerita in Experimental Physics and Master of Churchill College, University of Cambridge. Other than four years postdoctoral research in the USA, she has spent her career in Cambridge, specializing in soft matter physics and physics at the interface with biology. She was the University of Cambridge's first Gender Equality Champion, and has been involved in numerous initiatives concerning women in science. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999 and appointed DBE for services to Physics in 2010.

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Mark R. Warren, "Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline" (Oxford UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 7 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The story of how Black and Brown parents, students and members of low-income communities of color organized to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in their local schools and built a movement that spread across the country.

In Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline (Oxford UP, 2021), Mark R. Warren documents how Black and Brown parents, students, and low-income communities of color organized to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in their local schools and built an intersectional movement that spread across the country. Examining organizing processes in Mississippi, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other localities, he shows how relatively small groups of community members built the power to win policy changes to reduce suspensions and expulsions by combining deep local organizing with resources from the national movement. As a result, over the course of twenty years, the movement to combat the school-to-prison pipeline resulted in falling suspension rates across the country and began to make gains in reducing police presence in schools, especially in places where there have been sustained organizing and advocacy efforts. In documenting the struggle organizers waged to build national alliances led by community groups and people most impacted by injustice rather than Washington-based professional advocates, Warren offers a new model for movements that operate simultaneously at local, state and national levels, while primarily oriented to support and spread local organizing. In doing so, he argues for the need to rethink national social justice movements as interconnected local struggles whose victories are lifted and spread, In the end, the book highlights lessons from the school-to-prison pipeline movement for organizers, educators, policymakers and a broader public seeking to transform deep-seated and systemic racism in public schools and the broader society.

This episode's host, Laura Kelly, is an assistant professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College.

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Amanda Apgar, "The Disabled Child: Memoirs of a Normal Future" (U Michigan Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 6 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

When children are born with disabilities or become disabled in childhood, parents often experience bewilderment: they find themselves unexpectedly in another world, without a roadmap, without community, and without narratives to make sense of their experiences.

Amanda Apgar's book The Disabled Child: Memoirs of a Normal Future (U Michigan Press, 2023) tracks the narratives that have emerged from the community of parent-memoirists who, since the 1980s, have written in resistance of their children's exclusion from culture. Though the disabilities represented in the genre are diverse, the memoirs share a number of remarkable similarities; they are generally written by white, heterosexual, middle or upper-middle class, ablebodied parents, and they depict narratives in which the disabled child overcomes barriers to a normal childhood and adulthood. Apgar demonstrates that in the process of telling these stories, which recuperate their children as productive members of society, parental memoirists write their children into dominant cultural narratives about gender, race, and class. By reinforcing and buying into these norms, Apgar argues, "special needs" parental memoirs reinforce ableism at the same time that they're writing against it.

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Philip Kitcher, "What's the Use of Philosophy?' (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 5 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In What's the Use of Philosophy? (Oxford UP, 2023), Philip Kitcher here grapples with an essential philosophical question: what the point of philosophy is, and what it should and can be. Kitcher's portrait of the discipline is not a familiar defense of the importance of philosophy or the humanities writ large. Rather, he is deeply critical of philosophy as it is practiced today, a practice focused on narrow technical questions that are far removed from the concerns of human life. He provides a penetrating diagnosis of why exactly contemporary philosophy has come to suffer this crisis, showing how it suffers from various syndromes that continue to push it further into irrelevance. Then, taking up ideas from William James and John Dewey, Kitcher provides a positive roadmap for the future of philosophy: first, as a discipline that can provide clarity to other kinds of human inquiry, such as religion or science; and second, bringing order to people's notions of the world, dispelling confusion in favor of clarity, and helping us think through our biggest human questions and dilemmas. Kitcher concludes with a letter to young philosophers who wonder how they can align their aspirations with the hyper-professionalism expected of them.

Philip Kitcher has taught for nearly half a century at several American Universities, most recently at Columbia University in the City of New York. His work has been honored with a number of awards, including the Rescher Medal for systematic philosophy, and the Hempel Award for lifetime achievement in the Philosophy of Science. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Member of the American Philosophical Society, a Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.

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Embodied and Trauma-Aware Pedagogy

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 5 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

In this episode I sit down with Frances Garrett, a scholar of Tibetan culture, history, and language. We talk about Frances’s interests in embodiment and movement, and how her experiences as ballet dancer, surfer, and rock climber connect with her work on religion and healing. Our conversation focuses on her commitment to embodied and trauma-aware pedagogy, and how in the interest of flourishing, she engages the whole person in the learning process. Along the way, we talk about Tibetan bards, sacred mountains, and the importance of long walks.

Enjoy! And, if you want to hear from more experts on Buddhist medicine and related topics, subscribe to Blue Beryl for monthly episodes here.

Resources

Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange.

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Jen Ross, "Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 4 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

What is the future of education? In Digital Futures for Learning: Speculative Methods and Pedagogies (Routledge, 2022), Jen Ross, a senior lecturer in digital education at the University of Edinburgh, analyses the way ideas about the future are produced and become accepted in education (and in society). This analysis is the basis for offering radical alternatives. In the educational context, the book reflects on four research projects that demonstrate the power of particular approaches- speculative methods- to engaging with digital pedagogy and research. The book has a rich theoretical engagement with a range of social and educational theory, as well as giving detailed practical guidance for educators. The detailed guidance for researchers and teachers who want to make alternative digital futures make the book essential reading for anyone interested in the future of education.

Dave O'Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Sheffield.

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Philip Kirby and Margaret J. Snowling, "Dyslexia: A History" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 3 Jun 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In 1896 the British physician William Pringle Morgan published an account of “Percy,” a “bright and intelligent boy, quick at games, and in no way inferior to others of his age.” Yet, in spite of his intelligence, Percy had great difficulty learning to read. Percy was one of the first children to be described as having word-blindness, better known today as dyslexia.

In Dyslexia: A History (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022), Philip Kirby and Margaret Snowling chart a journey that begins with Victorian medicine and continues to dyslexia’s current status as the most globally recognized specific learning difficulty. In an engaging narrative style, Kirby and Snowling tell the story of dyslexia, examining its origins and revealing the many scientists, teachers, and campaigners who put it on the map. Through this history they explain current debates over the diagnosis of dyslexia and its impact on learning.For those who have lived experience of dyslexia, professionals who have supported them, and scholars of social history, education, psychology, and childhood studies, Dyslexia reflects on the place of literacy in society – whom it has benefited, and whom it has left behind.

Philip Kirby is lecturer in social science, King’s College London. Margaret J. Snowling is professor of psychology, University of Oxford, and president of St John’s College.

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Educating for Solitude: A Conversation with William Deresiewicz

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 31 May 2023 14:56:28 +0000

What kind of person is our education system designed to create? Best-selling author and award-winning essayist William Deresiewicz discusses the failures of our higher education system, how it mis-conditions our elite, and fails to value the humanities, as well as his latest collection of essays, The End of Solitude.

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Yang Va Lor, "Unequal Choices: How Social Class Shapes Where High-Achieving Students Apply to College" (Rutgers UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 30 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

High-achieving students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to end up at less selective institutions compared to their socioeconomically advantaged peers with similar academic qualifications. A key reason for this is that few highly able, socioeconomically disadvantaged students apply to selective institutions in the first place.

In Unequal Choices: How Social Class Shapes Where High-Achieving Students Apply to College (Rutgers University Press, 2023), Dr. Yang Va Lor examines the college application choices of high-achieving students, looking closely at the ways the larger contexts of family, school, and community influence their decisions. For students today, contexts like high schools and college preparation programs shape the type of colleges that they deem appropriate, while family upbringing and personal experiences influence how far from home students imagine they can apply to college. Additionally, several mechanisms reinforce the reproduction of social inequality, showing how institutions and families of the middle and upper-middle class work to procure advantages by cultivating dispositions among their children for specific types of higher education opportunities.

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Assessing Affirmative Action: A Conversation with Jason Riley

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 29 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

With the Supreme Court poised to potentially outlaw race-conscious admissions, Affirmative Action may soon be on the chopping block.

What will be the legacy of this half-century-old policy? Jason Riley, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and columnist at the Wall Street Journal, discusses affirmative action's impact both on the black community and the broader American education system. Riley is the author of Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell and Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.

Riley's piece "Racial Preferences Harm Their Beneficiaries, Too" is here.

Riley's article "The College Board's Racial Pandering" is here.

Statistical evidence of the impact of racial preferences in college admissions, mentioned in the discussion is here.

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Learning for Liberation: The Life and Legacy of Paulo Freire

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 29 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Paulo Freire offers activists and academics everywhere a lesson in what it means to be a radical intellectual. He is known as the founder of critical pedagogy, which asks teachers and learners to understand and resist their own oppression. His subversive books have been banned and burned in many countries, including his native Brazil, where the military dictatorship of the 1960s imprisoned and then exiled him.

On this episode, we learn about Freire's life and the basics of his foundational text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, with help from professor emeritus John Portelli. Then, we explore how Freire's legacy is still shaping our ideas of teaching and learning today. Academic/activist/artist Deborah Barndt takes us to York University's faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, which is rooted in the work of Freirean scholars. Next, we learn about how Freire's pedagogy is put into practice to advocate for disabled learners, with Marc Castrodale, a teacher, disability officer, and scholar of critical disability and Mad studies. Finally, social worker Sharon Steinhauer tells us the story of the University at Blue Quills, and how an act of Indigenous resurgence led to the beginning of a network of decolonial universities in Canada.

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Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, "Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice" (Atria Books, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 28 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In the current period of social and political unrest, conversations about identity are becoming more frequent and more difficult. On subjects like critical race theory, gender equity in the workplace, and LGBTQ-inclusive classrooms, many of us are understandably fearful of saying the wrong thing. That fear can sometimes prevent us from speaking up at all, depriving people from marginalized groups of support and stalling progress toward a more just and inclusive society.

Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, founders of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU School of Law, are here to show potential allies that these conversations don't have to be so overwhelming. Through stories drawn from contexts as varied as social media posts, dinner party conversations, and workplace disputes, they offer seven user-friendly principles that teach skills such as how to avoid common conversational pitfalls, engage in respectful disagreement, offer authentic apologies, and better support people in our lives who experience bias.

Research-backed, accessible, and uplifting, Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity, and Justice (Atria Books, 2023) charts a pathway out of cancel culture toward more meaningful and empathetic dialogue on issues of identity. It also gives us the practical tools to do good in our spheres of influence. Whether managing diverse teams at work, navigating issues of inclusion at college, or challenging biased comments at a family barbecue, Yoshino and Glasgow help us move from unconsciously hurting people to consciously helping them.

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Navigating the Community College Job Market

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 25 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

What makes a community college job interview different than one at a four-year college or a university? Do you need a PhD to get hired? What are they looking for? Professor Rob Jenkins joins us to explain the hidden curriculum of navigating the community college job market, including:

How long a typical interview lasts.
What it really means when they ask you to do a job talk.
How much of your expertise they want to hear about.
Why your commitment to teaching well matters the most.
Important things not to say or do.

Our guest is: Professor Rob Jenkins, an associate professor of English at Georgia State University Perimeter College. He has spent more than 35 years in higher education, mostly at the two-year college level, where he has served as a faculty member, a department chair, an academic dean, and a program director. He writes the “Two-Year Track” columns in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and is the author of six books, including Welcome to My Classroom, and Think Better Write Better. For the past 15 years, he has led workshops on preparing for two-year college careers at research universities across the country. For more information, visit www.robjenkins.com.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a historian.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

The Employability Journal, by Barbara Bassot
Candid Advice for New Faculty Members, by Marybeth Gasman
Building a Career in America’s Community Colleges, by Rob Jenkins
Putting the Humanities PhD to Work, by Katina Rogers
Academic Life episode on leaving academia
Academic Life episode on moving far from home for an academic job
Academic Life episode on the long road to the dream job in academia
Academic life episode with the American Association of University Professors
Academic Life episode on the role of community colleges in higher education

Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from today’s experts inside and outside the academy, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life.

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May Hara and Annalee G. Good, "Teachers as Policy Advocates: Strategies for Collaboration and Change" (Teachers College Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 24 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

May Hara and Annalee G. Good's Teachers as Policy Advocates: Strategies for Collaboration and Change (Teachers College Press, 2023) argues that teachers’ active participation in policy advocacy is crucial to creating a K–12 educational system that honors the needs of students, families, and communities. The authors examine obstacles to teacher involvement in policy, analyze preservice and practicing teachers' experiences, and present a model for collaborative professional development for teacher policy advocacy. Case studies are used to explore four contemporary policy areas—school safety, student assessment, public health, and digital learning—to identify what teachers know about policy, how they view their relationships to advocacy, and the impact of collaborative professional development on their beliefs and practices. This text offers pragmatic strategies for increasing teacher policy capacity and advocacy agency while simultaneously calling for systemic change at school, district, state, and national levels of policymaking. Teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and administrators can use this resource for reflection, discussion, and action with the goal of creating more effective and responsive educational policy.

Alex Tabor is a doctoral candidate in history, a government research consultant, and an experienced educator currently working with undergraduate and incarcerated adult learners.

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Money or Meaning? A Discussion on Choice and Restlessness with Ben and Jenna Storey

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 23 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Madison Program alumni Ben and Jenna Storey discuss the philosophy of making choices and of restlessness, and critique the way universities treat those topics.

Ben and Jenna are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies department, where they focus on political philosophy, classical schools, and higher education. Previously, they directed the Toqueville Program at Furman University in South Carolina. They are the authors of Why We Are Restless.

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Truth, Fiction, and Student Loan Forgiveness: A Conversation with Beth Akers

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 22 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

With the Biden Administration's student loan relief coming down the pike, Annika sits down with Dr. Beth Akers, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who specializes in higher education finance. Beth discusses the issue of student debt, and what the Biden relief plan will and will not achieve.

You can find more information about Dr. Akers and her recent writing and appearances here.

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Justine Ellis, "The Politics of Religious Literacy: Education and Emotion in a Secular Age" (Brill, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 14 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Religious Literacy has become a popular concept for navigating religious diversity in public life. In The Politics of Religious Literacy: Education and Emotion in a Secular Age (Brill, 2022), Justine Ellis challenges commonly held understandings of religious literacy as an inclusive framework for engaging with religion in modern, multifaith democracies. As the first book to rethink religious literacy from the perspective of affect theory and secularism studies, this new approach calls for a constructive reconsideration focused on the often-overlooked feelings and practices that inform our questionably secular age. This study offers fresh insights into the changing dynamics of religion and secularism in the public sphere.

Justine Esta Ellis received a doctorate from the University of Oxford and is the Associate Director of Columbia University’s Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life.

Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com.

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Locating Human Dignity in Cambodia: Prospects for Human Rights Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 13 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

The concept of human dignity is a foundational one within human rights discourses, and is commonly used in the context of human rights and sustainable development policies and programs. But the meaning of ‘human dignity’, and its role, have seldom been interrogated rigorously or systematically. Instead, there exists a widespread presumption of universality, despite growing evidence that the concept of human dignity can be understood in profoundly different ways in different socio-cultural and political settings. Dr Rachel Killean and Dr Natali Pearson discuss human dignity in Cambodia, and prospects for human rights education.

Dr Natali Pearson is Curriculum Coordinator at the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, a university-wide multidisciplinary center at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on the protection, management and interpretation of underwater cultural heritage in Southeast Asia.

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Karen Schrier, "We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics" (Oxford UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Ethics and civics have always mattered, but perhaps they matter now more than ever before. Recently, with the rise of online teaching and movements like #PlayApartTogether, games have become increasingly acknowledged as platforms for civic deliberation and value sharing. We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics (Oxford UP, 2021) explores these possibilities by examining how we connect, communicate, analyze, and discover when we play games. Combining research-based perspectives and current examples, this volume shows how games can be used in ethics, civics, and social studies education to inspire learning, critical thinking, and civic change.

We the Gamers introduces and explores various educational frameworks through a range of games and interactive experiences including board and card games, online games, virtual reality and augmented reality games, and digital games like Minecraft,Executive Command, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Fortnite, When Rivers Were Trails, Politicraft, Quandary, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The book systematically evaluates the types of skills, concepts, and knowledge needed for civic and ethical engagement, and details how games can foster these skills in classrooms, remote learning environments, and other educational settings. We the Gamers also explores the obstacles to learning with games and how to overcome those obstacles by encouraging equity and inclusion, care and compassion, and fairness and justice.

Featuring helpful tips and case studies, We the Gamers shows teachers the strengths and limitations of games in helping students connect with civics and ethics, and imagines how we might repair and remake our world through gaming, together.

Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, editor of “Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok.

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Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert, "Relationship-Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 11 May 2023 04:00:00 +0000

During Leo Lambert’s 19-year tenure as president at Elon University, the institution moved from a regional college to becoming one of the U.S.’s top 100 national universities. It is consistently ranked #1 for undergraduate education, ahead of Brown and Princeton. Lambert describes the five core “Elon Experiences” and other high impact practices that have helped Elon become one of the leaders in active and engaged learning. He also discusses the other strategies that enabled Elon to advance so significantly, including: adding a law school, creating a top-ranked School of Communications, an AACSB-accredited Business School, and a new School of Health Sciences, and constructing over two-thirds of the buildings and facilities on its beautiful North Carolina campus. In Relationship-Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020) he shares numerous insights from Elon and a diverse set of 16 other colleges and universities that have intentionally focused on building deep connections for students with faculty, staff and their peers.

David Finegold is the president of Chatham University.

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Karin Chenoweth, "Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement" (Harvard Education Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement (Harvard Education Press, 2021), long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts' successes, including leadership, processes, and systems.

Districts That Succeed reveals that helping more students achieve is not a matter of adopting a program or practice. Rather, it requires developing a district-wide culture where all adults feel responsible for the academic well-being of students and adopt systems and processes that support that culture. Chenoweth explores how districts, from urban Chicago, Illinois to suburban Seaford, Delaware, have organized themselves to look at data to guide improvement. Her research highlights the essential role of districts in closing achievement gaps and illustrates how successful outliers can serve as resources for other districts. With important lessons for district leaders and policy makers alike, Chenoweth offers the hard-won wisdom of educators who understand the power of schools to, as one superintendent says, "change the path of poverty."

Host Laura Kelly is an assistant professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, where she researches and teaches about language and literacy learning and teaching in culturally and linguistically diverse educational contexts.

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Bryan Alexander, "Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023), futurist Bryan Alexander explores higher education during an age of unfolding climate crisis. Powered by real-world examples and the latest research, Alexander assesses practical responses and strategies by surveying contemporary programs and academic climate research from around the world. He establishes a model of how academic institutions may respond and offers practical pathways forward for higher education. How will the two main purposes of education—teaching and research—change as the world heats up? Alexander positions colleges and universities in the broader social world, from town-gown relationships to connections between how campuses and civilization as a whole respond to this epochal threat.

Brady McCartney is an environmental educator and the Consortium Director of the EcoLeague, an environmental education consortium currently based at Dickinson College's Center for Sustainability Education.

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Do You Have Imposter Syndrome?

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 May 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Why do so many students and academics worry that they are imposters? Is it normal to experience this kind of self-doubt? This episode explores:

The difference between imposter syndrome and imposter phenomenon.
How we can better understand imposter syndrome.
Why it strikes some people.
How to recognize it when it does.
Tips for helping others and ourselves.

Our guest is: Dr Darragh McCashin, who is an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology at Dublin City University (DCU), and is interested in digital youth mental health, and clinical/forensic applications of technology. Previously, Darragh was a Marie Curie Fellow/PhD student at University College Dublin (UCD), examining technology-enabled youth mental health within the EU H2020-funded TEAM-ITN project, specifically the role of technology-assisted cognitive behavioural therapy for children using mixed methodologies. A second strand to Darragh’s research is that of forensic/criminal psychology. With an MSc in Applied Forensic Psychology (University of York), Darragh has previously worked as an Associate Lecturer and Research Assistant in the Online-Protect research group at the University of Lincoln case formulation tools for those with convictions for internet sexual offences.

With respect to policy-making, Darragh is currently the taskforce leader for Mental Health of Researchers within the Policy Working Group of the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), and co-founded the researcher mentoring programme Referent. Darragh also sits on two COST Actions: Researcher Mental Health Observatory (CA19117; Working Group Chair), and the European Network for Problematic Usage of the Internet (CA16207; management committee member for Ireland).

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship and Community, by Mia Birdsong
It’s a Wonderful Life: Insights on Finding a Meaningful Existence, by Frank Martela
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, by Nedra Glover Tawwab
The Rejection That Saved My Life, by Jessica Bacal
The Academic Life podcast on belonging and the science of creating connection and bridging divides
The Academic Life podcast Dealing With Rejection
The Academic Life podcast On The Museum of Failure

Welcome to The Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we are inspired and informed by today’s knowledge-producers, working inside and outside the academy. Find us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

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Parenting and Mindfulness

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Today I sat down with Nadia Davis to discuss parenting and mindfulness. Nadia is the author of Home Is Within You: A Memoir of Recovery and Redemption (Girl Friday Books, 2021).

Nadia Davis is the mother of three sons, a writer, attorney, kundalini yoga teacher and former executive director and elected official.

She graduated from U.C.L.A. with a degree in Sociology and Specialization in Juvenile Justice, Loyola Law School with a Doctorate, and has received numerous state and national awards for her work improving the lives of others, including the John F. Kennedy Jr. Public Service Award, National Womens' Political Caucus Woman of the Year, and Hispanic Woman of the Year L.U.L.A.C. Her journey of recovery from childhood and adult trauma, a near death car accident, chronic pain, public shaming, addiction and mental health is an inspiration to many. She shows readers a way out of darkness into connection with their infinite true selves and our home within. Nadia lives in Southern California happily co-parenting her three sons. For more information, please visit her website.

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Locke, Tocqueville, and Civic Education: A Conversation with Jeffrey Sikkenga

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Why is education so important in a democracy? Are democracies capable of producing the citizens they need? What do John Locke and Alexis de Tocqueville have to teach us about education in a liberal democracy? Jeffrey Sikkenga, Executive Director of the Ashbrook Center, joins Madison's Notes to answer these questions and more.

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Rachel Dunn et al., "What Is Legal Education For?" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

This book delves deep into the question of what is legal education for? Who does it serve, and how, as educators can we reflect on what we deliver in the law classroom? In answering this question, What is Legal Education For? Re-assessing the Purposes of Early Twenty-First Century Learning and Law Schools (Routledge 2022), editors Dr Rachel Dunn, Professor Paul Maharg and Dr Victoria Roper bring together a collection that grew out of a Modern Law Review Seminar, which celebrated the works of Peter Birks' earlier collection, Pressing Problems in the Law: What is the Law School for? (1996). What is fascinating about this collection is that each chapter offers a unique lens of analysis to consider the role of legal education in society, from the perspective of lawyers, educators and students. We had a really great discussion which considers the challenges that legal educators face, specially with regard to the increasing corporatisation of law schools and what this means both from an international perspective, and also for students from minority backgrounds. This book will be useful for anyone interested in law, law teaching and lawyering, and marks an essential contribution in the evolution of legal pedagogy.

Jane Richards is a doctoral student at the University of Hong Kong. You can find her on twitter where she follows all things related to human rights and Hong Kong politics @JaneRichardsHK.

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Free Speech 69: Campus Misinformation with Bradford Vivian

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

State censorship and cancel culture, trigger warnings and safe spaces, pseudoscience, First Amendment hardball, as well as orthodoxy and groupthink: universities remain a site for important battles in the culture wars. What is the larger meaning of these debates? Are American universities at risk of conceding to mobs and cuddled “snowflake” students and sacrifice the hallowed values of free speech and academic inquiry? Bradford Vivian examines the heated debates over campus misinformation as a language unto itself that confirms existing notions and often provides simple explanations for complex shared problems. In his book, Campus Misinformation: The Real Threat to Free Speech in American Higher Education (Oxford UP), he shows how the free speech crisis on US college campuses has been manufactured through misinformation, distortion, and political ideology, and how campus misinformation is a threat not only to academic freedom but also to civil liberties in US society writ large.

In our conversation, Bradford explained how campus speech crises are used – and also how faculty, administrators, students and others can recognize recurring patterns and properly respond, for example to distinguish between abuses of scientific evidence and sound scientific claims in public argument. Bradford Vivian is a professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. His research and teaching focuses on theories of rhetoric (or the art of persuasion) and public controversies over memory, history, speech and other issues. Among his books are Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture (Oxford University Press), Public Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again (Penn State Press) and Being Made Strange: Rhetoric beyond Representation (SUNY Press). He is also co-editor, with Anne Teresa Demo, of Rhetoric, Remembrance, and Visual Form: Sighting Memory (Routledge). He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend and, from the National Communication Association, the James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address, the Critical/Cultural Studies Division Book of the Year Award, and the Karl R. Wallace Memorial Award.

Uli Baer teaches literature and photography as University Professor at New York University. A recipient of Guggenheim, Getty and Humboldt awards, in addition to hosting "Think About It” he hosts (with Caroline Weber) the podcast "The Proust Questionnaire” and is Editorial Director at Warbler Press. Email ucb1@nyu.edu; Twitter @UliBaer.

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Defending Academic Freedom: A Conversation with Keith Whittington

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 1 May 2023 13:52:24 +0000

What is academic freedom for? What are the greatest threats to academic freedom today? Should Critical Race Theory be taught on college campuses? What about in K-12 classrooms? Keith Whittington, Chairman of the Academic Freedom Alliance's Academic Committee and the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University, joins the show to answer these questions and discuss the work of the Academic Freedom Alliance.

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Book Talk 59: Reading the Classics with Louis Petrich

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 1 May 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Why read the Classics, and how to do it best? Louis Petrich teaches at St. John’s College, the third-oldest college and “the nation's most contrarian college” (according to the New York Times, meant as a compliment). St. John’s takes a remarkable approach to the liberal arts: students and teachers read and discuss 3,000 years of Great Books over four years, all via primary readings without disciplinary boundaries. Louis Petrich and I talked about teaching and reading Classic Books as a means of deepening rather than resolving the mystery of who we are, what we do, and how best to engage the world around us. St. John’s offers the series Continuing the Conversation with professors where “questions are more important than answers,” which is a natural companion to Think About It.

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James Hibbard, "The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels" (Pegasus Books, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Interweaving a deeply personal narrative of elite-level cycling and mental health struggles with an evocative history of Western philosophy from Plato to the Existentialists, The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels (Pegasus Books, 2023) explores the limits of rationality and how the visceral, embodied nature of sport ultimately has the potential to redeem us from the painful, locked-in isolation of our own heads.

In the tradition of philosophical road trip titles like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and On the Road, The Art of Cycling turns a critical eye towards our increasingly disconnected digital lives --showing how re-engaging with the material world can breathe new vitality into everyday existence and serve as a countervailing force against the sense of detachment which has come to characterize modern life for so many.

A former professional cyclist, James Hamilton Hibbard studied philosophy at The University of California, Santa Cruz and DePaul University. He has received grants and been selected for workshops by PEN America and Tin House. Also a screenwriter, James' first feature film is currently being developed. He lives with his wife and son in Northern California.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Helle Strandgaard Jensen, "Sesame Street: A Transnational History" (Oxford UP, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Peter C. Kunze is a visiting assistant professor of communication at Tulane University.

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Ph.D. Employability: Struggles and Solutions

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

What happens when jobs in academia are scarce, and few of the descriptions of jobs outside academia seem like a fit? How can graduates find the right job for them, whether it’s inside academia or far afield? This episode explores:

Ways to explain your skills and expertise so an employer sees you as a good match for them.
Tips for reframing how graduate students talk about themselves and their research.
How advisors can encourage graduates to explore a wider range of jobs.
A discussion of the book chapter “Beyond the Data: Navigating the Struggles of Post-PhD Employability,” in The Sage Handbook of Graduate Employability.

Our guest is: Dr. Holly Prescott, who is a career guidance practitioner specializing in working with postgraduate researchers (graduate students/ PhDs). She completed a PhD in Literature and Cultural Geography at the University of Birmingham (UK) in 2011. Since then, she has gained ten years' experience in postgraduate student recruitment, admissions, and careers support. Holly also holds a PGDip (QCG) in Career Guidance from Coventry University (UK) and the Career Development Institute, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is currently the Careers Adviser for Postgraduate Researchers at the University of Birmingham (UK). Holly is particularly passionate about developing Postgraduate Researchers' awareness of career routes beyond and adjacent to academic research, helping them to make transitions into meaningful careers. This led her to found the PhD careers blog ‘PostGradual’ (www.phd-careers.co.uk). Holly lives with a rare autoimmune eye condition called AZOOR which causes visual field defects, and outside of work she volunteers for the British sight loss charity RNIB. She is also Assistant Artistic Director of Ottisdotter Theatre Company based in London. She is the author of “Beyond the Data: Navigating the Struggles of Post-PhD Employability,” in The Sage Handbook of Graduate Employability.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

The Employability Journal, by Barbara Bassot
Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide, by Christopher L. Caterine
Candid Advice for New Faculty Members, by Marybeth Gasman
Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving in and beyond the Classroom, by Katina Rogers
Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers, by Kathryn Linder, Keven Kelly, and Thomas Tobin
The Connected PhD podcast episode, part one
Academic Life podcast episode on Hope for the Humanities PhD
Academic Life podcast on Leaving Academia

Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week, to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and embrace the broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Transforming the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

We have an engaging discussion with Dr. Dan Greenstein, who in 2018 left the Gates Foundation, where he led the Post-Secondary program, to become the Chancellor for the PASSHE system. He knew he was taking on a great challenge with a system that had seen enrollment decline over the prior decade from a peak of 120,000 to fewer than 90,000 students. He was able to garner the necessary political support for a major transformation of the system, starting with financial stabilization by taking out $300 million in costs while freezing tuition for 4 consecutive years. This was followed by a system redesign, integrating sets of 3 independent institutions in the Western and Eastern parts of Pennsylvania into two new universities: West Penn and Commonwealth University. He shares lessons from this reform effort that will be part of a forthcoming book.

David Finegold is the president of Chatham University.

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Rachael Gabriel, "How Education Policy Shapes Literacy Instruction" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Reading instruction is the most legislated area of education and the most frequently referenced metric for measuring educational progress. This book, How Education Policy Shapes Literacy Instruction: Understanding the Persistent Problems of Policy and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), edited by Rachael Gabriel, traces the trajectories of policy issues with direct implications for literacy teaching, learning, and research in order to illustrate the dynamic relationships between policy, research, and practice as they relate to perennial issues such as: retention in grade, remediation, intervention, instruction for English learners, early literacy instruction, coaching, and leadership. Using policy documents and peer-reviewed articles published from the 1960s to the present, the editor and authors illustrate how issues were framed, what was at stake, and how policy solutions to persistent questions have been understood over time. In doing so, the book links a generation of scholars with research that illustrates trajectories of development for ideas, strategies, and solutions.

Laura Beth Kelly is an assistant professor of Educational Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Nancy K. Miller and Tahneer Oksman. "Feminists Reclaim Mentorship" (SUNY Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Mentorship continues to loom large in stories about women's work and personal lives-- sometimes for the better, but often for the worse. If mentors can nurture and support, they can also bitterly disappoint, reproducing the hardships they once suffered and reinforcing the same old hierarchies and inequities. The stories gathered in Feminists Reclaim Mentorship (SUNY Press, 2023) challenge our fundamental assumptions about mentorship, illuminating the obstacles that make it difficult to connect meaningfully and ethically while reimagining the possibilities for reciprocity.

Does mentorship require sameness? Might we find more inventive, collaborative ways to bond than the traditional top-down model of mentoring? Drawing on their experiences in academia, creative writing, publishing, and journalism, the volume's editors, Nancy K. Miller and Tahneer Oksman, and their twenty-six contributors collectively strive for relationships that acknowledge differences alongside the importance of common bonds. Feminists Reclaim Mentorship will resonate across workspaces and arrives at a moment when the need to form feminist connections within and between generations couldn't feel more urgent.

Host Annie Berke sits down with Drs. Miller and Oksman, as well as contributor Dr. Elizabeth Alsop, to discuss the origins of this anthology, the biggest myths behind mentorship, and what mentors and mentees owe to one another.

Nancy K. Miller is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her many books include My Brilliant Friends: Our Lives in Feminism; Breathless: An American Girl in Paris; What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past; and But Enough About Me: Why We Read Other People's Lives.

Tahneer Oksman is Associate Professor of Academic Writing at Marymount Manhattan College. She is the author of "How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?" Women and Jewish American Identity in Contemporary Graphic Memoirs and coeditor (with Seamus O'Malley) of The Comics of Julie Doucet and Gabrielle Bell: A Place Inside Yourself. She reviews memoirs, graphic novels, and comics for NPR and The Washington Post.

Elizabeth Alsop is Assistant Professor of Communication and Media at the CUNY School of Professional Studies, and affiliated faculty in the M.A. in Liberal Studies program at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Making Conversation in Modernist Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2019) and a number of scholarly essays on 20th-century fiction, film and television aesthetics, and contemporary TV storytelling. Her cultural criticism has appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, and The New York Times Magazine. She is currently writing a book on the films of Elaine May.

Annie Berke is the Film Editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books and author of Their Own Best Creations: Women Writers in Postwar Television (University of California Press, 2022). Her scholarship and criticism has been published in Feminist Media Histories, Public Books, Literary Hub, and Ms.

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Scott Newstok, "How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education" (Princeton UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (Princeton UP, 2020) offers a short, spirited defense of rhetoric and the liberal arts as catalysts for precision, invention, and empathy in today's world. The author, a professor of Shakespeare studies at a liberal arts college and a parent of school-age children, argues that high-stakes testing and a culture of assessment have altered how and what students are taught, as courses across the arts, humanities, and sciences increasingly are set aside to make room for joyless, mechanical reading and math instruction. Students have been robbed of a complete education, their imaginations stunted by this myopic focus on bare literacy and numeracy.

Education is about thinking, Newstok argues, rather than the mastery of a set of rigidly defined skills, and the seemingly rigid pedagogy of the English Renaissance produced some of the most compelling and influential examples of liberated thinking. Each of the fourteen chapters explores an essential element of Shakespeare's world and work, aligns it with the ideas of other thinkers and writers in modern times, and suggests opportunities for further reading. Chapters on craft, technology, attention, freedom, and related topics combine past and present ideas about education to build a case for the value of the past, the pleasure of thinking, and the limitations of modern educational practices and prejudices.

Scott Newstok is professor of English and founding director of the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment at Rhodes College. A parent and an award-winning teacher, he is the author of Quoting Death in Early Modern England and the editor of several other books. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Di Luo, "Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945" (Brill, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945 (Brill, 2022) focuses on the role of literacy in building a modern nation-state by examining the government provision of adult literacy training in early twentieth-century China. Based on untapped archives and diaries, Di Luo uncovers people’s strategic use of literacy and illiteracy in social interactions and explores the impact of daily experiences on the expansion of state power. Highlighting interpersonal and intergroup relations, Beyond Citizenship suggests a new methodology of studying literacy which foregrounds the agentive role of historical actors and so moves away from a more traditional approach that treats literacy itself as the key factor enabling social change.

Dr. Yi Ren is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Shelly M. Jones, "Women Who Count: Honoring African American Women Mathematicians" (American Mathematical Society, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

African-Americans and women are increasingly visible in professional mathematical institutions, organizations, and literature, expanding our mental models of the mathematics community. Yet early representation also matters: We begin building these models as soon as we begin seeing and doing mathematics, and they can be slow to adapt. In her wonderful activity book Women Who Count: Honoring African American Women Mathematicians (MAA Press, 2019), Dr. Shelly Jones invites children, and their parents and educators, to immerse themselves in the lives and deeds of Black women mathematicians.

The 29 profiles trace back to "the Firsts" in their fields, such as early PhD awardee Evelyn Boyd Granville; the "Pioneers" of emerging fields and programs, including ethnomathematics co-founder Gloria Gilmer; through "Unhidden Figures" like Dorothy Johnson Vaughan of recent biopic fame; and to "Contemporary Firsts" who are living, working, and opening new doors today. Along with their mathematical contributions, Dr. Jones shares details of these mathematicians' early lives, their hobbies and interests, and how they have been shaped by and in turn shaped their communities. Each mini-biography introduces a whole person whom readers new to mathematics can relate to and be inspired by.

Each profile is accompanied by a pencil-and-paper activity that brings to life the some part of their story. Some are classics, including word searches and I-Spy, while others introduce readers to mathematical and educational concepts explored by their subjects—coloring tessellations, for example, or solving equations to decode messages. The text and activities are targeted to grades 3–8, and are ideal for elementary and middle school classrooms.

In our conversation, Dr. Jones described how she conceived the book, assembled the stories and activities, and connected with illustrator Veronica Martins. I came away with a richer perspective on the state of the field for aspiring mathematicians—in addition to a perfect gift for my second-grade nephew.

Suggested companion works:

Dr. Shelly M. Jones is a Professor of Mathematics Education at Central Connecticut State University. She has been an educator for 30 years and currently teaches undergraduate mathematics content and methods courses for pre-service teachers as well as graduate level mathematics content, curriculum and STEM courses for in-service teachers. Dr. Jones serves her community by working with various professional and community organizations. You can see her CCSU TEDx talk on YouTube where she talks about culturally relevant mathematics. She is also a contributing author to The Brilliance of Black Children in Mathematics: Beyond the Numbers and Toward a New Discourse and co-author of Engaging in Culturally Relevant Math Tasks: Fostering Hope.

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Simon Strange, "Blank Canvas: Art School Creativity and the Development of Punk, Post Punk and New Wave Music" (Intellect, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 8 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In Blank Canvas: Art School Creativity From Punk to New Wave (Intellect Publishing, 2022), Simon Strange explores the relationship between art and music within education in the United Kingdom. Strange examines the diverse range of people who broke down the barriers between art, life, and the creative self. He looks at art school Britain in the 1960s and ’70s, a hotbed of experimental DIY creativity that blurred the lines between art and music. Tracing lines from the Bauhaus “blank slate” through the white heat of the Velvet Underground and the cutting edge of the Slits, Blank Canvas draws on interviews with giants of the genre across the spectrums of music, gender, and race, from Brian Eno to Pauline Black, Cabaret Voltaire to Gaye Advert. What emerges is a portrait of the era as an eclectic range of musical styles and cultures fused, erupting into a diverse flow of outspoken originality. Providing a framework for creativity within the arts and education, the book illuminates a path for the cultural evolution of both musicians and artists hoping to create the future.

Rebekah Buchanan is a Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music.

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Antero Garcia, "All through the Town: The School Bus as Educational Technology" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 6 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Everyone knows the yellow school bus. It’s been invisible and also omnipresent for a century. Dr. Antero Garcia shows how the U.S. school bus, its form unaltered for decades, is the most substantial piece of educational technology to ever shape how schools operate. As it noisily moves young people across the country every day, the bus offers the opportunity for a necessary reexamination of what “counts” as educational technology.

Particularly in light of these buses being idled in pandemic times, All through the Town: The School Bus as Educational Technology (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) questions what we take for granted and what we overlook in public schooling in America, pushing for liberatory approaches to education that extend beyond notions of school equity.

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Gay on God's Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 6 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: Gay on God's Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities (UNC Press, 2018), by Jonathan Coley. Although the LGBT movement has made rapid gains in the United States, LGBT people continue to face discrimination in faith communities. In this book, sociologist Jonathan S. Coley documents why and how student activists mobilize for greater inclusion at Christian colleges and universities. Drawing on interviews with student activists at a range of Christian institutions of higher learning, Dr. Coley shows that students, initially drawn to activism because of their own political, religious, or LGBT identities, are forming direct action groups that transform university policies, educational groups that open up campus dialogue, and solidarity groups that facilitate their members’ personal growth. He also shows how these LGBT activists apply their skills and values after graduation in subsequent political campaigns, careers, and family lives, potentially serving as change agents in their faith communities for years to come. Dr. Coley’s findings shed light on a new frontier of LGBT activism and challenge prevailing wisdom about the characteristics of activists, the purpose of activist groups, and ultimately the nature of activism itself. Gay on God’s Campus won the 2018 Stanford M. Lyman Distinguished Book Award, from the Mid-South Sociological Association. For more information about this project’s research methodology and theoretical grounding, please visit http://jonathancoley.com/book

Our guest is: Dr. Jonathan Coley, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Oklahoma State University and Deputy Editor of The Sociological Quarterly. His research focuses on social movements, politics, religion, education, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. His current research projects examine LGBTQ activism at Christian colleges and universities; the presence of political, religious, and social activist groups at U.S. colleges and universities (with Dhruba Das, Gabby Gomez, Jericho McElroy, and Jessica Schachle); local-level church-state relations in the United States (with Gary Adler, Damon Mayrl, and Rebecca Sager); and LGBTQ faith leaders in the United States (with Joseph Anthony). His research has been published in American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Sociological Forum, Mobilization, Sociology of Religion, and Sociology of Education. He is the author of Gay on God's Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice, by Brantley Gasaway
From Single to Serious: Relationships, Gender, and Sexuality on American Evangelical Campuses, by Dana Malone
Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition, by Melissa Sanchez

Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights, by Heather White

The Queer Faith page at Union Theological Seminary This podcast on feminism and fierceness in the Bible

Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us each week, where we learn directly from experts. We embrace the broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life, and are informed and inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Lost in Thought: A Conversation with Zena Hitz

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 5 Apr 2023 14:14:21 +0000

What are the "great books"? What makes them great? Is the cultivation of an intellectual life especially important to citizens of a democratic republic? Zena Hitz, Tutor at St. John's College, joins the show to discuss all this and more!

You can buy Hitz's book Lost in Thought here.

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The Connected PhD, Part Three

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 4 Apr 2023 08:00:00 +0000

How can a PhD program pivot from a professoriate-apprenticeship system, to one that is mindful of students’ post-grad career goals? This episode completes our three-part series on The Connected PhD, and explores:

The positive effect on professors when their graduate students can prepare for multiple career options.
How speaking one-on-one with students helped one program reexamine what “support” is, and what it needs to be.
The importance of restructuring PhD timelines.
Why the future of humanities PhD programs matters.

Our guest is: Dr. Ulka Anjaria, who teaches and researches South Asian literature and film. She is the author many articles and books, including Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel: Colonial Difference and Literary Form (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Reading India Now: Contemporary Formations in Literature and Popular Culture (Temple University Press, 2019); and Understanding Bollywood: The Grammar of Hindi Cinema, First Edition (Routledge, 2021). She is a professor of English, and the director of the Mandel Center for the Humanities at Brandeis University.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Managing Your Mental Health During Your PhD: A Survival Guide, by Zoe Ayers
Being Well in Academia: Ways to Feel Stronger, Safer and More Connected, by Petra Boynton
The Field Guide to Grad School, by Jessica McCrory Calarco
Degrees of Difference: Reflections of Women of Color on Graduate School, by Kimberly McKee and Denise Delgado, eds.
Your PhD Survival Guide: Planning, Writing, and Succeeding in Your Final Year, by Katherine Firth. Liam Connell, and Peta Freestone
Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving in and beyond the Classroom, by Katina Rogers
The Field Guide to Grad School podcast
This podcast on protecting your wellbeing in graduate school
This podcast on finding good alt-ac jobs
The Connected PhD Part One
The Connected PhD Part Two

Welcome to the Academic Life, where we are inspired and informed by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. Missed any episodes? You’ll find over 150 of the Academic Life podcast episodes archived and freely available to you on the New Books Network website.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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School Authority, Parents' Rights: Rita Koganzon on Early Modern Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Americans have always had mixed emotions about schooling: in popular literature and television, teachers are often depicted as tyrannical authorities, even as in classroom settings they often try to style themselves as "friends." Dr. Rita Koganzon, professor of political science at the University of Houston, discusses the history of the idea of authority in education, dwelling on Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Bodin. Along the way, she covers contemporary issues like homeschooling and parents' rights, and how attitudes towards those concepts have changed from the Early Modern period to the present.

Koganzon is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought (Oxford UP, 2021). Also see her recent article "There Is No Such Thing as a Banned Book: Censorship, Authority, and the School Book Controversies of the 1970s."

Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes.

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School Authority, Parents' Rights: Rita Koganzon on Early Modern Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Joyce Kinkead, "A Writing Studies Primer" (Broadview Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Dr. Joyce Kinkead, Distinguished Professor of English at Utah State University discusses her recent book, A Writing Studies Primer (Broadview Press. 2022). A Carnegie Foundation/CASE US Professor of the Year, Professor Kinkead’s primary scholarly areas are in Writing Studies and Undergraduate Research. She has brought a tremendous amount of her expertise in undergraduate research, writing, and composition to the forefront of A Writing Studies Primer.

Writing is omnipresent in our lives, yet we rarely stop and consider its history and material culture. This volume introduces student readers to the development of writing across time and societies. The book incorporates autoethnography and asks readers to consider writing histories, influences, processes, and tools in their own lives. Designed for composition courses with a Writing about Writing focus or courses in writing studies, A Writing Studies Primer is a unique introduction to writing through its material culture.

Dr. Julia M. Gossard is Associate Dean for Research in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Associate Professor of History at Utah State University.

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Reinhold Martin, "Knowledge Worlds: Media, Materiality, and the Making of the Modern University" (Columbia UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

What do the technical practices, procedures, and systems that have shaped institutions of higher learning in the United States, from the Ivy League and women’s colleges to historically black colleges and land-grant universities, teach us about the production and distribution of knowledge? Addressing media theory, architectural history, and the history of academia, Knowledge Worlds: Media, Materiality, and the Making of the Modern University (Columbia UP, 2021) reconceives the university as a media complex comprising a network of infrastructures and operations through which knowledge is made, conveyed, and withheld.

Reinhold Martin argues that the material infrastructures of the modern university—the architecture of academic buildings, the configuration of seminar tables, the organization of campus plans—reveal the ways in which knowledge is created and reproduced in different kinds of institutions. He reconstructs changes in aesthetic strategies, pedagogical techniques, and political economy to show how the boundaries that govern higher education have shifted over the past two centuries. From colleges chartered as rights-bearing corporations to research universities conceived as knowledge factories, educating some has always depended upon excluding others. Knowledge Worlds shows how the division of intellectual labor was redrawn as new students entered, expertise circulated, science repurposed old myths, and humanists cultivated new forms of social and intellectual capital. Combining histories of architecture, technology, knowledge, and institutions into a critical media history, Martin traces the uneven movement in the academy from liberal to neoliberal reason.

Nushelle de Silva is a PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work examines museums and exhibitions, and how the dissemination of visual culture is politically mediated by international organizations in the twentieth century.

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Education in the World not of the World

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Rich Meyer, president of JSerra High School—named for St. Junípero Serra, the ‘Apostle of California’—in Southern California, discusses what is working in Catholic education today. He and I are both fathers and teachers; and I ask him about his philosophy and his school’s approach about social media and some of the contentious cultural issues of our day. How do we help our children find sure footing on the right path and what is the correct balance of order and freedom, of justice and grace?

JSerra High School website.
JSerra High School podcast: Unplugged.

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Megan Swift, "Picturing the Page: Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin" (U Toronto Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Based on sources from rare book libraries in Russia and around the world, Picturing the Page: Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin (U Toronto Press, 2020) offers a vivid exploration of illustrated children’s literature and reading under Lenin and Stalin – a period when mass publishing for children and universal public education became available for the first time in Russia. By analyzing the illustrations in fairy tales, classic "adult" literature reformatted for children, and war-time picture books, Megan Swift elucidates the vital and multifaceted function of illustrated children’s literature in repurposing the past.

Picturing the Page demonstrates that while the texts of the past remained fixed, illustrations could slip between the pages to mediate and annotate that past, as well as connect with anti-religious, patriotic, and other campaigns that were central to Soviet children’s culture after the 1917 Revolution.

Megan Swift is an associate professor of Russian Studies at the University of Victoria and author of Picturing the Page: Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin (University of Toronto Press, 2020).

Polina Popova is a Ph.D. student at the history department of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Liz Curran, "Better Law for a Better World: New Approaches to Law Practice and Education" (Routledge, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

In Better Law for a Better World: New Approaches to Law Practice and Education (Routledge, 2021) I spoke with Dr Liz Curran about the urgent need for innovation in law, legal practice, and legal education. In her book, she challenges the adversarial and hierarchical nature of the legal system, to uncover the harms that these processes and systems cause by the failure to recognise the person behind the legal problem. Drawing on both quantitive and qualitative research, and also her own wealth of experience as a practitioner and educator, Dr Curran offers insights into the way that the legal system fails the most vulnerable. However, the book, is not without hope; it offers models of better practice, and space for further research provide the incentive and innovation necessary to create better law for a better world.

Dr Liz Curran is an Associate Professor in the School of Law at Nottingham Trent University.

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Bradford Vivian, "Campus Misinformation: The Real Threat to Free Speech in American Higher Education" (Oxford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

If we listen to the politicians and pundits, college campuses have become fiercely ideological spaces where students unthinkingly endorse a liberal orthodoxy and forcibly silence anyone who dares to disagree. These commentators lament the demise of free speech and academic freedom. But what is really happening on college campuses?

Campus Misinformation: The Real Threat to Free Speech in American Higher Education (Oxford UP, 2022) shows how misinformation about colleges and universities has proliferated in recent years, with potentially dangerous results. Popular but highly misleading claims about a so-called free speech crisis and a lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses emerged in the mid-2010s and continue to shape public discourse about higher education across party lines. Such disingenuous claims impede constructive deliberation about higher learning while normalizing suspect ideas about First Amendment freedoms and democratic participation.

Taking a non-partisan approach, Bradford Vivian argues that reporting on campus culture has grossly exaggerated the importance and representativeness of a small number of isolated events; misleadingly advocated for an artificial parity between liberals and conservatives as true viewpoint diversity; mischaracterized the use of trigger warnings and safe spaces; and purposefully confused critique and protest with censorship and "cancel culture." Organizations and think tanks generate pseudoscientific data to support this discourse, then advocate for free speech in highly specific ways that actually limit speech in general. In the name of free speech and viewpoint diversity, we now see restrictions on the right to protest and laws banning certain books, theories, and subjects from schools.

By deconstructing the political and rhetorical development of the free speech crisis, Vivian not only provides a powerful corrective to contemporary views of higher education, but provides a blueprint for readers to identify and challenge misleading language--and to understand the true threats to our freedoms.

Bradford Vivian is Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and past Director of the Center for Democratic Deliberation at Penn State University. His previous books include Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture (OUP 2017) and Public Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of Beginning Again (2010), which received the Winans-Wichelns Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address awarded by the National Communication Association.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Hilary Falb Kalisman, "Teachers as State-Builders: Education and the Making of the Modern Middle East" (Princeton UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 08:00:00 +0000

Today, it is hard to imagine a time and place when public school teachers were considered among the elite strata of society. But in the lands controlled by the Ottomans, and then by the British in the early and mid-twentieth century, teachers were key players in government and leading formulators of ideologies. Drawing on archival research and oral histories, Hilary Falb Kalisman's Teachers as State-Builders: Education and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2022) brings to light educators’ outsized role in shaping the politics of the modern Middle East.

Kalisman's book tells the story of the few young Arab men—and fewer young Arab women—who were lucky enough to teach public school in the territories that became Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine/Israel. Crossing Ottoman provincial and, later, Mandate and national borders for work and study, these educators were advantageously positioned to assume mid- and even high-level administrative positions in multiple government bureaucracies. All told, over one-third of the prime ministers who served in Iraq from the 1950s through the 1960s, and in Jordan from the 1940s through the early 1970s, were former public school teachers—a trend that changed only when independence, occupation, and mass education degraded the status of teaching.

The first history of education across Britain’s Middle Eastern Mandates, this transnational study reframes our understanding of the profession of teaching, the connections between public education and nationalism, and the fluid politics of the interwar Middle East.

Reuben Silverman is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies.

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The Hippie High-Rise: Rochdale College, Toronto’s Communal Living High Rise Free Education Experiment

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 04:00:00 +0000

From 1968 to 1975 one high-rise was the heart of Canada’s counterculture. Rochdale College in Toronto was jammed full with leftist organizers, hippies, draft dodgers, students, artists, and others just looking for a good time. Rochdale wasn’t really a “college”, it was something much bigger: a political, educational, communal, artistic, and psychedelic experiment. During its time, it was endlessly lambasted by conservatives and leftists alike… until it reached its inglorious end.

Today, like much of the counterculture, it’s often remembered for its problems: its ideological contradictions, drug-addled hedonism, bourgeois individualism, sexism, suicide, and more. However, is that the whole story? Were the kids in the hippie high rise onto something, …or was it indeed just one giant waste of time? We investigate with a special documentary presentation, produced by Marc Apollonio.

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Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity Through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 6 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Chris Gondek interviews Mitchel Resnick about his work at the MIT Media Lab, the foundation for his new book, Lifelong Kindergarten.

In kindergartens these days, children spend more time with math worksheets and phonics flashcards than building blocks and finger paint. Kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. In Lifelong Kindergarten, learning expert Mitchel Resnick argues for exactly the opposite: the rest of school (even the rest of life) should be more like kindergarten. To thrive in today's fast-changing world, people of all ages must learn to think and act creatively--and the best way to do that is by focusing more on imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting, just as children do in traditional kindergartens.

Drawing on experiences from more than thirty years at MIT's Media Lab, Resnick discusses new technologies and strategies for engaging young people in creative learning experiences. He tells stories of how children are programming their own games, stories, and inventions (for example, a diary security system, created by a twelve-year-old girl), and collaborating through remixing, crowdsourcing, and large-scale group projects (such as a Halloween-themed game called Night at Dreary Castle, produced by more than twenty kids scattered around the world). By providing young people with opportunities to work on projects, based on their passions, in collaboration with peers, in a playful spirit, we can help them prepare for a world where creative thinking is more important than ever before.

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Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces: Diversity and Free Expression in Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 5 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Chris Gondek interviews author John Palfrey about how diversity and free expression can coexist on a modern campus.

Safe spaces, trigger warnings, microaggressions, the disinvitation of speakers, demands to rename campus landmarks—debate over these issues began in lecture halls and on college quads but ended up on op-ed pages in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, on cable news, and on social media. Some of these critiques had merit, but others took a series of cheap shots at “crybullies” who needed to be coddled and protected from the real world. Few questioned the assumption that colleges must choose between free expression and diversity. In Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces, John Palfrey argues that the essential democratic values of diversity and free expression can, and should, coexist on campus.

Palfrey, currently Head of School at Phillips Academy, Andover, and formerly Professor and Vice Dean at Harvard Law School, writes that free expression and diversity are more compatible than opposed. Free expression can serve everyone—even if it has at times been dominated by white, male, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied citizens. Diversity is about self-expression, learning from one another, and working together across differences; it can encompass academic freedom without condoning hate speech.

Palfrey proposes an innovative way to support both diversity and free expression on campus: creating safe spaces and brave spaces. In safe spaces, students can explore ideas and express themselves with without feeling marginalized. In brave spaces—classrooms, lecture halls, public forums—the search for knowledge is paramount, even if some discussions may make certain students uncomfortable. The strength of our democracy, says Palfrey, depends on a commitment to upholding both diversity and free expression, especially when it is hardest to do so.

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Stephen E. Neaderhiser, "Writing the Classroom: Pedagogical Documents As Rhetorical Genres" (Utah State UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 4 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Writing the Classroom: Pedagogical Documents As Rhetorical Genres (UP of Colorado, 2022) explores how faculty compose and use pedagogical documents to establish classroom expectations and teaching practices, as well as to articulate the professional identities they perform both inside and outside the classroom.

The contributors to this unique collection employ a wide range of methodological frameworks to demonstrate how pedagogical genres—even ones as seemingly straightforward as the class syllabus—have lives extending well beyond the classroom as they become part of how college teachers represent their own academic identities, advocate for pedagogical values, and negotiate the many external forces that influence the act of teaching. Writing the Classroom shines a light on genres that are often treated as two-dimensional, with purely functional purposes, arguing instead that genres like assignment prompts, course proposals, teaching statements, and policy documents play a fundamental role in constructing the classroom and the broader pedagogical enterprise within academia.

Writing the Classroom calls on experienced teachers and faculty administrators to critically consider their own engagement with pedagogical genres and offers graduate students and newer faculty insight into the genres that they may only now be learning to inhabit as they seek to establish their personal teacherly identities. It showcases the rhetorical complexity of the genres written in the service of pedagogy not only for students but also for the many other audiences within academia that have a role in shaping the experience of teaching.

Contributors: Michael Albright, Lora Arduser, Lesley Erin Bartlett, Logan Bearden, Lindsay Clark, Dana Comi, Zack K. De Piero, Matt Dowell, Amy Ferdinandt Stolley, Mark A. Hannah, Megan Knight, Laura R. Micciche, Cindy Mooty, Dustin Morris, Kate Navickas, Kate Nesbit, Jim Nugent, Lori A. Ostergaard, Cynthia Pengilly, Jessica Rivera-Mueller, Christina Saidy, Megan Schoen, Virginia Schwarz, Christopher Toth

This is a conversation with Dr. Stephen Neaderhiser who is an assistant professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. He also coordinates the Professional Writing Studies Program and teachers composition, digital literacies and popular culture. He has written about the disciplinary historiography of composition studies occlusion of pedagogical genres and the metaphoric language associated with teaching.

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Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, "Decolonizing American Spanish: Eurocentrism and the Limits of Foreignness in the Imperial Ecosystem" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 4 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Jeffrey joins the podcast to discuss the prevalence of English in the academic ecosystem and in research publishing. Jeffrey critiques the lackadaisical approach US institutions take towards Spanish language content and research and makes a strong argument to follow the Puerto-Rican model which sees greater opportunity, equality, and sophistication in multilingual academic research. About his book:

Despite a pronounced shift away from Eurocentrism in Spanish and Hispanic studies departments in US universities, many implicit and explicit vestiges of coloniality remain firmly in place. While certain national and linguistic expressions are privileged, others are silenced with predictable racial and gendered results.

Decolonizing American Spanish: Eurocentrism and the Limits of Foreignness in the Imperial Ecosystem (U Pittsburgh Press, 2022) challenges not only the hegemony of Spain and its colonial pedagogies, but also the characterization of Spanish as a foreign language in the United States. By foregrounding Latin American cultures and local varieties of Spanish and reconceptualizing the foreign as domestic, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera works to create new conceptual maps, revise inherited ones, and institutionalize marginalized and silenced voices and their stories. Considering the University of Puerto Rico as a point of context, this book brings attention to how translingual solidarity and education, a commitment to social transformation, and the engagement of student voices in their own languages can reinvent colonized education.

Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera is Professor at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez.

Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts.

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The Iko-Project: A Japanese Project on Intercultural Understanding Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 3 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

What can a classroom experiment teach us about how and when we start shaping our ideas of ‘the other’? Can the results from such an experiment help us challenge the ideas and preconceptions that we have on our own as well as other cultures? In this episode, Tyra Orton speaks to Marie Roesgaard about an ongoing project that she is the participant of, titled; “Programme development for intercultural understanding education for the understanding and coexistence of ‘Iko’”. Born out of discussions from an open forum on how to enhance Japan’s foreign relations at a conference in Japan in 2013, the project has brought together scholars from Japan, China, Korea, and most recently Denmark in a collaboration on fostering intercultural understanding education. Hear Marie’s take on the lessons we can learn from the Iko-project and how it can contribute to intercultural understanding and coexistence across cultures.

Marie Roesgaard is an associate professor of Japan studies at the University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on the Japanese education system, especially topics relating to the reform, globalization, global citizenship, sustainable development goals and moral education.

Tyra Orton is a Master's student of Japan Studies at the University of Copenhagen and a student assistant at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies.

The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) based at the University of Copenhagen, along with our academic partners: the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, and Asianettverket at the University of Oslo.

We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia

About NIAS: www.nias.ku.dk

Transcripts of the Nordic Asia Podcasts: http://www.nias.ku.dk/nordic-asia-podcast

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Are We Done with Higher Education Rankings?

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Why do most of the institutions of higher education in the United States participate in a rankings system? What do the rankings do? And what does it mean when some schools refuse to participate in rankings? This episode explores:

How and why the ranking system got started.
Who creates the ranking.
Why the statics and data collected for it aren’t neutral or even necessarily accurate.
What the rankings mean to prospective students, their families, and even alumni.
Why some schools might have to stay in the ranking system, even as more schools are refusing to participate.

Our guest is: Francie Diep, who is a senior reporter covering money in higher education for The Chronicle of Higher Education. She joined The Chronicle in 2019. Previously, she spent a decade covering health and science, including funding for academic labs, for publications including Pacific Standard, Popular Science, Scientific American, and The New York Times. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California at Los Angeles and her master’s in journalism from New York University.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

"A Third Top 10 Law School Pulls out of US News Rankings" by Francie Diep in The Chronicle of Higher Education
"Is This The Beginning of the End of the US News Rankings Dominance?" by Francie Diep in The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Truth about College Admission: A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together, by Brennan Barnard and Rick Clark
The Merit Myth: How Our Colleges Favor the Rich and Divide America, by Anthony Carnevale et al
Breaking Ranks: How the Rankings Industry Rules Higher Education and What to Do About It, by Colin Diver
This article in the Guardian about the Columbia University rankings whistleblower
This podcast on the book about admissions entitled Get Real and Get In

Welcome to the Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we are inspired and informed by today’s knowledge-producers, working inside and outside the academy. Missed any of our episodes? You’ll find more than 100 of the Academic Life podcast episodes archived and freely available to you on the New Books Network website.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Saida Grundy, "Respectable: Politics and Paradox in Making the Morehouse Man" (U California Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

How does it feel to be groomed as the "solution" to a national Black male "problem"? This is the guiding paradox of Respectable: Politics and Paradox in Making the Morehouse Man (U California Press, 2022), an in-depth examination of graduates of Morehouse College, the nation's only historically Black college for men. While Black male collegians are often culturally fetishized for "beating the odds," the image of Black male success that Morehouse assiduously promotes and celebrates is belied by many of the realities that challenge the students on this campus. Saida Grundy offers a unique insider perspective: a graduate of Spelman college and a former "Miss Morehouse," Grundy crafts an incisive feminist and sociological account informed by her personal insights and scholarly expertise.

Respectable gathers the experiences of former students and others connected to Morehouse to illustrate the narrow, conservative vision of masculinity molded at a competitive Black institution. The thirty-two men interviewed unveil a culture that forges confining ideas of respectable Black manhood within a context of relentless peer competition and sexual violence, measured against unattainable archetypes of idealized racial leadership. Grundy underlines the high costs of making these men—the experiences of low-income students who navigate class issues at Morehouse, the widespread homophobia laced throughout the college's notions of Black male respectability, and the crushingly conformist expectations of a college that sees itself as making "good" Black men. As Morehouse's problems continue to pour out into national newsfeeds, this book contextualizes these issues not as a defect of Black masculinity, but as a critique of what happens when an institution services an imagination of what Black men should be, at the expense of more fully understanding the many ways these young people see themselves.

Mickell Carter is a doctoral student in the department of history at Auburn University. She can be reached at mzc0152@auburn.edu and on twitter @MickellCarter.

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Jonathan W. White and Lydia J. Davis, ed., "My Work Among the Freedmen: The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of Harriet M. Buss" (U Virginia Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 26 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Between 1863 and 1871, Harriet M. Buss of Sterling, Massachusetts, taught former slaves in three different regions of the South, in coastal South Carolina, Norfolk, Virginia, and Raleigh, North Carolina. A white, educated Baptist woman, she initially saw herself as on a mission to the freedpeople of the Confederacy but over time developed a shared mission with her students and devoted herself to training the next generation of Black teachers.

The geographical and chronological reach of her letters is uncommon for a woman in the Civil War era. In each place she worked, she taught in a different type of school and engaged with different types of students, so the subjects she explored in her letters illuminate a remarkably broad history of race and religion in America. Her experiences also offer an inside perspective of the founding of Shaw University, an important historically Black university. Now available to specialists and general readers alike for the first time in My Work Among the Freedmen: The Civil War and Reconstruction Letters of Harriet M. Buss (U Virginia Press, 2021), her correspondence offers an extensive view of the Civil War and Reconstruction era rarely captured in a single collection.

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The Connected PhD, Part Two

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

How can PhD programs prepare graduate students for future paths beyond academia? This episode explores:

The positive effect on students when they are prepared to graduate with multiple career options.
Why most jobs for graduating students will be located outside of academia.
How students can build support networks outside of their own program.
The importance of graduate student internships.
Taking a broader view of what constitutes a “dissertation,” a “project,” and a career.

Our guest is: Dr. Alyssa Stalsberg Canelli, who is the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis.

Our co-guest is: Anna Valcour (she/her) is currently a Ph. D. student in Musicology at Brandeis University while simultaneously earning her M.A. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She holds a M.M. in Voice from the University of North Texas, a B.M. in Vocal Performance, and a B.A. in History from Lawrence University. Her research interests include witchcraft and demonology in Lieder, cultic groups and music, vocal pedagogy, representation in opera and its staging, and voice-based analysis. She is currently the Project Lead for the Connected PhD and is also interning with the African and African American Studies for the creation of their newsletter and alumni collective. Last year, she researched insular plainchant as an assistant under Dr. Karen Desmond. In addition to her scholarly pursuits, Anna is a professional opera singer. She has been a Resident Artist for the Dallas Opera, Toledo Opera, Cedar Rapids Opera, Opera MODO, Ann Arbor Opera, and Main Street Opera.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Being Well in Academia: Ways to Feel Stronger, Safer and More Connected, by Petra Boynton
The Field Guide to Grad School, by Jessica McCrory Calarco
Degrees of Difference: Reflections of Women of Color on Graduate School, by Kimberly McKee and Denise Delgado, eds.
Your PhD Survival Guide: Planning, Writing, and Succeeding in Your Final Year, by Katherine Firth. Liam Connell, and Peta Freestone
Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving in and beyond the Classroom, by Katina Rogers
Imagine PhD, created by the Graduate Career Consortium
The Field Guide to Grad School podcast
This podcast on protecting your wellbeing in graduate school
This podcast on finding good alt-ac jobs
The podcast on dealing with rejection so you can grow your career

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Sara Pugach, "African Students in East Germany, 1949-1975" (U Michigan Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Sara Pugach's African Students in East Germany, 1949-1975 (U Michigan Press, 2022)explores the largely unexamined history of Africans who lived, studied, and worked in the German Democratic Republic. African students started coming to the East in 1951 as invited guests who were offered scholarships by the East German government to prepare them for primarily technical and scientific careers once they returned home to their own countries. Drawn from previously unexplored archives in Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, and the United Kingdom, African Students in East Germany, 1949–1975 uncovers individual stories and reconstructs the pathways that African students took in their journeys to the GDR and what happened once they got there. The book places these experiences within the larger context of German history and the overlapping contexts of the Cold War and decolonization. During this time, nations across the Western and Soviet blocs were inviting Africans to attend universities and vocational schools as part of a drive to offer development aid to newly independent countries and encourage them to side with either the United States or Soviet Union in the Cold War. African leaders recognized their significance to both Soviet and American blocs and played on the desire of each to bring newly independent nations into their folds.

Nicole Coleman is Associate Professor of German at Wayne State University. She tweets @drnicoleman.

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A Primer for Teaching Digital History

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: A Primer for Teaching Digital History: Ten Design Principles (Duke UP, 2022), which is a guide for those who are teaching digital history for the first time, and for experienced instructors who want to reinvigorate their pedagogy. Offering design principles for approaching digital history that represent the possibilities that digital research and scholarship can take, Dr. Jennifer Guiliano outlines potential strategies and methods for building syllabi and curricula. Taking readers through the process of selecting data, identifying learning outcomes, and determining which tools students will use in the classroom, Guiliano outlines popular research methods including digital source criticism, text analysis, and visualization. She also discusses digital archives, exhibits, and collections as well as audiovisual and mixed-media narratives such as short documentaries, podcasts, and multimodal storytelling. Throughout, Guiliano illuminates how digital history can enhance understandings of not just what histories are told but how they are told and who has access to them.

Our guest is: Dr. Jennifer Guiliano, who is a white academic living and working on the lands of the Myaamia/Miami, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, Wea, and Shawnee peoples. She currently holds a position as Associate Professor in the Department of History and affiliated faculty in both Native American and Indigenous Studies and American Studies at IUPUI in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is co-director with Trevor Muñoz of the Humanities Intensive Teaching + Learning Initiative (HILT). She is the author of Indian Spectacle: College Mascots and the Anxiety of Modern America , and of A Primer for Teaching Digital History: 10 Design Principles . She is co-editor with Roopika Risam of Reviews in Digital Humanities, of DevDH.org with Simon Appleford, and of Digital Humanities Workshops with Laura Estill. She is also completing a co-authored work Getting Started in the Digital Humanities (Wiley & Sons).

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication, by Alex D. Ketchum
Envisioning Public Scholarship for Our Time: Models for Higher Education Researchers, by Adriana J. Kezar et al
Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom: A Practical Introduction for Teachers, Lecturers, and Students, by Claire Battershill and Shawna Ross
What is Digital History? by Hannu Salmi
The Unessay as Native-Centered History and Pedagogy [an open journal article]
This episode on teaching about race and racism in the college classroom
This episode on From Equity Talk to Equity Walk with Dr. Tia Brown McNair
This podcast the Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education

Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week, where we learn directly from experts. We embrace the broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life, and are informed and inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy.

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Elisabeth Eittreim, "Teaching Empire: Native Americans, Filipinos, and Us Imperial Education 1879-1918" (UP of Kansas, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

At the turn of the twentieth century, the US government viewed education as one sure way of civilizing “others” under its sway—among them American Indians and, after 1898, Filipinos. Teaching Empire: Native Americans, Filipinos, and Us Imperial Education 1879-1918 (UP of Kansas, 2019) considers how teachers took up this task, first at the Carlisle Indian Boarding School in Pennsylvania, opened in 1879, and then in a school system set up amid an ongoing rebellion launched by Filipinos. Drawing upon the records of fifty-five teachers at Carlisle and thirty-three sent to the Philippines—including five who worked in both locations—the book reveals the challenges of translating imperial policy into practice, even for those most dedicated to the imperial mission.

These educators, who worked on behalf of the US government, sought to meet the expectations of bureaucrats and supervisors while contending with leadership crises on the ground. In their stories, Elisabeth Eittreim finds the problems common to all classrooms—how to manage students and convey knowledge—complicated by their unique circumstances, particularly the military conflict in the Philippines. Eittreim’s research shows the dilemma presented by these schools’ imperial goal: “pouring in” knowledge that purposefully dismissed and undermined the values, desires, and protests of those being taught. To varying degrees these stories demonstrate both the complexity and fragility of implementing US imperial education and the importance of teachers’ own perspectives. Entangled in US ambitions, racist norms, and gendered assumptions, teachers nonetheless exhibited significant agency, wielding their authority with students and the institutions they worked for and negotiating their roles as powerful purveyors of cultural knowledge, often reinforcing but rarely challenging the then-dominant understanding of “civilization.”

Examining these teachers’ attitudes and performances, close-up and in-depth over the years of Carlisle’s operation, Eittreim’s comparative study offers rare insight into the personal, institutional, and cultural implications of education deployed in the service of US expansion—with consequences that reach well beyond the imperial classrooms of the time.

Jane Scimeca is Professor of History at Brookdale Community College. @JaneScimeca1

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The History of Student Loans in the United States

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, an associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago, talks about her book, Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in Debt, with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Indentured Students examines the long history of student loans in the United States, including important turning points in the 1960s. Shermer argues that elected officials have preferred student loans as an answer to an important social problem, the perceived-need for college education, over more structural solutions. Shermer and Vinsel also talk about what this legacy of debt means today as well as what recent public discussions about student debt might portend for the future.

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We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 9 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States. The “Dreamer narrative” celebrates the educational and economic achievements of undocumented youth to justify a path to citizenship, and has promoted the idea that access to citizenship and rights should be granted only to a select group of “deserving” immigrants. The contributors to We Are Not Dreamers—themselves currently or formerly undocumented—counter the Dreamer narrative by grappling with the nuances of undocumented life in this country. Theorizing those excluded from the Dreamer category—academically struggling students, transgender activists, and queer undocumented parents—the contributors call for an expansive articulation of immigrant rights and justice that recognizes the full humanity of undocumented immigrants while granting full and unconditional rights.

Our guest is: Dr. Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales, an Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at University of San Francisco, who is an interdisciplinary scholar of immigration and education. Her academic, activist and community work focuses on the ways undocumented young people are changing the political and legislative terrain around “illegality” and belonging in this country. Her work lies at the intersection of education, immigration, and social movements. She is the co-author of Encountering Poverty: Thinking and Acting in an Unequal World (2016, University of California Press) and co-editor of We Are Not DREAMers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States (2020, Duke University Press).

Our co-guest is: Dr. Leisy J. Abrego, who is Professor in Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the UCLA. She studies the intimate consequences of U.S. foreign and immigration policies for Central American migrants and Latinx families in the United States. She is the author Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor, and Love Across Borders (Stanford University Press, 2014), and co-editor of We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States. Her scholarship analyzing legal consciousness, illegality, and legal violence has garnered numerous awards from the Latin American Studies Association and the American Sociological Association. She dedicates much of her time to supporting and advocating for refugees and immigrants by writing editorials and pro-bono expert declarations in asylum cases.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Negrón-Gonzales, G. (2017). Political possibilities: Lessons from the undocumented youth Movement for resistance to the Trump Administration. Anthropology and Education Quarterly. In press.
Negrón-Gonzales, G. (2017). Constrained inclusion: Access and persistence among undocumented community college students in California’s Central Valley. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 16(2), 105-122.
Negrón-Gonzales, G., Abrego, L., & Coll, K. (2016). Immigrant Latina/o youth and illegality: Challenging the politics of deservingness. Association of Mexican American Educators Journal, 9(3). 7-10.
Gonzales, R. G., Heredia, L. L. & Negrón-Gonzales, G. (2015). Untangling Plyler's legacy: Undocumented students, schools, and citizenship. Harvard Educational Review, 85(3), 318-341.
This podcast on structural inequality in higher education

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Bruce Kuklick, "Fascism Comes to America: A Century of Obsession in Politics and Culture" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 8 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

From the time Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, Americans have been obsessed with and brooded over the meaning of fascism and how it might migrate to the United States. Fascism Comes to America: A Century of Obsession in Politics and Culture (U Chicago Press, 2022) examines how we have viewed fascism overseas and its implications for our own country. Bruce Kuklick explores the rhetoric of politicians, who have used the language of fascism to smear opponents, and he looks at the discussions of pundits, the analyses of academics, and the displays of fascism in popular culture, including fiction, radio, TV, theater, and film. Kuklick argues that fascism has little informational meaning in the United States, but instead, it is used to denigrate or insult. For example, every political position has been besmirched as fascist. As a result, the term does not describe a phenomenon so much as it denounces what one does not like. Finally, in displaying fascism for most Americans, entertainment--and most importantly film--has been crucial in conveying to citizens what fascism is about. Fascism Comes to America has been enhanced by many illustrations that exhibit how fascism was absorbed into the US public consciousness.

Bruce Kuklick is the Nichols Professor of American History, Emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania. He is most recently the author of Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba written with Emmanuel Gerard, and The Fighting Sullivans.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Jeremiah McCall, "Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary History" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary History (Routledge, 2022) is a complete handbook to help pre-service teachers, current teachers, and teacher educators use historical video games in their classes to develop critical thinking skills. It focuses on practical information and specific examples for integrating critical thinking activities and assessments using video games into classes. Chapters cover the core parts of planning, designing, and implementing lessons and units based on historical video games.

Topics include:

Talking to administrators, parents, and students about the educational value of teaching with historical video games.
Selecting games that are aligned to curricular goals by considering the genres of historical games.
Planning and implementing game-based history lessons ranging from whole class exercises, to individual gameplay, to analysis in groups.
Employing instructional strategies to help students learn to play and engage in higher level analysis
Identifying and avoiding common pitfalls when incorporating games into the history class.
Developing activities and assessments that facilitate interpreting and creating established and new media.

Gaming the Past also includes sample unit and lesson plans, worksheets and assessment questions, and a list of historical games currently available, both commercial and freely available Internet games.

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Mike Murawski, "Museums as Agents of Change: A Guide to Becoming a Changemaker" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Museums everywhere have the potential to serve as agents of change—bringing people together, contributing to local communities, and changing people’s lives. So how can we, as individuals, radically expand the work of museums to live up to this potential? How can we more fiercely recognize the meaningful work that museums are doing to enact change around the relevant issues in our communities? How can we work together to build a stronger culture of equity and care within museums? Questions like these are increasingly vital for all museum professionals to consider, no matter what your role is within your institution. They are also important questions for all of us to be thinking about more deeply as citizens and community members. Museums as Agents of Change: A Guide to Becoming a Changemaker (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) is about the work we need to do to become changemakers and demand that that our museums take action toward positive social change and bring people together into a more just, equitable, compassionate, and connected society. It is a journey toward tapping the energies within all of us to make change happen and proactively shape a new future.

Mike Murawski is a consultant, change leader, and educator living in Portland, Oregon. After more than 20 years of work in education and museums, Mike brings his personal core values of collaboration and care along with a deeper understanding of placed-based connections into the work that he leads within organizations, non-profits, schools, and communities. Mike is the author of Museums as Agents of Change, and author of the Substack publication Agents of Change. In 2016, he co-founded Super Nature Adventures LLC, a place-based education and creative design business that partners with parks, government agencies, schools, and non-profits to expand learning in the outdoors and public spaces. When he's not working on place-based projects or supporting change in nonprofits, you can find Mike on long trail runs in the forests and mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

Callie Smith is a poet and museum educator living in Louisiana.

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Truth, Fiction, and Student Loan Forgiveness: A Conversation with Beth Akers

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

You can find more information about Dr. Akers and her recent writing and appearances here.

Annika Nordquist is the Communications Coordinator of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and host of the Program’s podcast, Madison’s Notes.

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The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 Feb 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Why is writing a grant proposal so stressful? Are you supposed to just know how to do it? This episode explores:

How to align your values and interests with a grant opportunity.
Why most of us will end up needing a grant.
Things you can learn from a grant proposal that succeeded, and from one that didn’t.
What your grant reviewer really needs from you and why.
How to use the funder’s guidelines and terminology to your advantage.
Why a guide book can help you write your grant proposal.
A discussion of the Grant Writing Guide.

Today’s book is: The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars (Princeton UP, , 2023) by Dr. Betty S. Lai, which is an essential handbook for writing fundable grants. This easy-to-use guide features writing samples, a glossary of important terms, answers common questions, and explains pitfalls to avoid. Dr. Lai focuses on skills that are universal to all grant writers, not just specific skills for one type of grant or funder. She explains how to craft phenomenal pitches and align them with your values, structure timelines and drafts, communicate clearly in prose and images, solicit feedback to strengthen your proposals, and much more. This incisive book walks you through every step along the way, from generating ideas to finding the right funder, determining which grants help you create the career you want, and writing in a way that excites reviewers and funders.

Our guest is: Dr. Betty S. Lai, who is an associate professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, among others. Her work has been recognized with awards from the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Foundation.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may be interested in:

Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week, to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and embrace the broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Robert O'Mochain and Yuki Ueno, "Sexual Abuse and Education in Japan: In the (Inter)National Shadows" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 1 Feb 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Bringing together two voices, practice and theory, in a collaboration that emerges from lived experience and structured reflection upon that experience, O'Mochain and Ueno show how entrenched discursive forces exert immense influence in Japanese society and how they might be most effectively challenged. With a psychosocial framework that draws insights from feminism, sociology, international studies, and political psychology, the authors pinpoint the motivations of the nativist right and reflect on the change of conditions that is necessary to end cultures of impunity for perpetrators of sexual abuse in Japan.

Evaluating the value of the #MeToo model of activism, the authors offer insights that will encourage victims to come out of the shadows, pursue justice, and help transform Japan's sense of identity both at home and abroad. Ueno, a female Japanese educator and O'Mochain, a non-Japanese male academic, examine the nature of sexual abuse problems both in educational contexts and in society at large through the use of surveys, interviews, and engagement with an eclectic range of academic literature. They identify the groups within society who offer the least support for women who pursue justice against perpetrators of sexual abuse. They also ask if far-right ideological extremists are fixated with proving that so-called "comfort women" are higaisha-buru or "fake victims." Japan would have much to gain on the international stage were it to fully acknowledge historical crimes of sexual violence, yet it continues to refuse to do so.

In Sexual Abuse and Education in Japan: In the (Inter)National Shadows (Routledge, 2022), O'Mochain and Ueno shed light on this puzzling refusal through recourse to the concepts of 'international status anxiety' and 'male hysteria.' An insightful read for scholars of Japanese society, especially those concerned about its treatment of women.

Resources for seeking help in Japan:

AWARE(アウェア) [Jpn&Eng]

Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare No Harassment website [multiple languages]
Tokyo Women's Help Center [Jpn]
Links for regional help centers [Jpn]
Ministry of Justice Human Rights Counseling [multiple languages]

Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing.

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Money or Meaning? A Discussion on Choice, Restlessness, and Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

What kinds of tools do we need to make big decisions, and why aren't our universities training us to make them? Are universities doing students a disservice by occupying them with myriads of boxes to tick? Are students right to prefer money to meaning? Madison Program alumni Ben and Jenna Storey discuss the philosophy of making choices and of restlessness, and critique the way universities treat those topics.

Prof. Barba-Kay's tribute to Leon Kass mentioned during the episode is here.

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Michael T. Rizzi, "Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States: A History" (Catholic U of America Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States: A History (Catholic University of America Press, 2022) provides a comprehensive history of Jesuit higher education in the United States, weaving together the stories of the fifty-four colleges and universities that the Jesuits have operated (successfully and unsuccessfully) since 1789. It emphasizes the connections among the institutions, exploring how certain Jesuit schools like Georgetown University gave birth to others like Boston College by sharing faculty, financial resources, accreditation, and even presidents throughout their history. The book also explores how the colleges responded to common challenges – including anti-Catholic prejudice in the United States, the push from government authorities to modernize their shared curriculum, and the pull from Roman authorities to remain loyal to Catholic tradition.

The story is comprehensive, covering the colonial era to the present, and takes a fresh look at themes like the rise of the research university in the 1880s and the administrative reforms of the 1960s. It also provides a modern and timely perspective on the role of Jesuit colleges in racial justice, women’s education, and other civil rights issues, drawing attention to underappreciated Jesuit contributions in these areas. It draws from both published and archival sources on the history of each institution to construct a single narrative, identifying common themes, challenges, and trends. Through the eyes of Jesuit colleges, it traces the evolution of American higher education and the role of Catholics in the United States over more than two centuries.

Allison Isidore is a Religious Studies Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa and is the Assistant Director for the American Catholic Historical Association. Her research interest is focused on the twentieth-century American Civil Rights Movement and the Catholic Church’s response to racism and the participation of Catholic clergy, nuns, and laypeople in marches, sit-ins, and kneel-ins during the 1950s and 1960s. She tweets from @AllisonIsidore1.

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The Connected PhD, Part One

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Why do PhD programs assume students will become professors, when most people find careers outside academia? How can we better prepare graduate students for the post-grad career path? This episode explores:

What a “Connected PhD” program is, and why it’s necessary.
The negative impact on students when they feel "less than" or as if they have failed when they can't land a tenure-track job.
How to change the PhD so students graduate with multiple career options.
Why faculty need to approach graduate programs differently.
How students can build their mentoring and support network outside of their program, and outside of academia
The Connected PhD program's impact on the culture of doctoral pedagogy.

Our guest is: Dr. Alyssa Stalsberg Canelli, who is the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs at Brandeis.

Our co-guest is: Dr. Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria, who is the Faculty Director of Professional Development at GSAS, and associate professor in the Anthropology department at Brandeis.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University, by Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving in and beyond the Classroom, by Katina Rogers
Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers, by Kathryn Linder, Keven Kelly, and Thomas Tobin
The New PhD: How to Build a Better Graduate Education, by Leonard Cassuto and Robert Weisbuch
Slow Boil: Street Food, Public Space and Rights in Mumbai, by Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria
Urban Navigations: Politics, Space and the City in South Asia, edited by Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria and Colin McFarlane
Imagine PhD, created by the Graduate Career Consortium
This podcast on reimagining the academic conference
This podcast on hope for the humanities PhD

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Engineering and Social Justice

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Donna Riley, professor and head of the school of engineering education at Purdue University, talks about her path, her work, and her 2008 book, Engineering and Social Justice, with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. If technologies and infrastructures embody moral and political values, what should engineering students be taught about their roles in society? Riley and Vinsel also talk about how universities have changed since Riley’s book came out and Riley’s hopes for social justice in engineering education going forward.

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Eric Adler, "The Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today" (Oxford UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

These are troubling days for the humanities. In response, a recent proliferation of works defending the humanities has emerged. But, taken together, what are these works really saying, and how persuasive do they prove? The Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today (Oxford UP, 2020) demonstrates the crucial downsides of contemporary apologetics for the humanities and presents in its place a historically informed case for a different approach to rescuing the humanistic disciplines in higher education. It reopens the passionate debates about the classics that took place in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America as a springboard for crafting a novel foundation for the humanistic tradition.

Eric Adler demonstrates that current defenses of the humanities rely on the humanistic disciplines as inculcators of certain poorly defined skills such as "critical thinking." It criticizes this conventional approach, contending that humanists cannot hope to save their disciplines without arguing in favor of particular humanities content. As the uninspired defenses of the classical humanities in the late nineteenth century prove, instrumental apologetics are bound to fail. All the same, the book shows that proponents of the Great Books favor a curriculum that is too intellectually narrow for the twenty-first century. The Battle of the Classics thus lays out a substance-based approach to undergraduate education that will revive the humanities, even as it steers clear of overreliance on the Western canon. The book envisions a global humanities based on the examination of masterworks from manifold cultures as the heart of an intellectually and morally sound education.

Eric Adler is a Professor of Classics at the University of Maryland. Adler's scholarly interests include Roman historiography, Latin prose, the history of classical scholarship, and the history of the humanities.

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Elizabeth Farfán-Santos, "Undocumented Motherhood: Conversations on Love, Trauma, and Border Crossing" (U Texas Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Claudia Garcia crossed the border because her toddler, Natalia, could not hear. Leaving behind everything she knew in Mexico, Claudia recounts the terror of migrating alone with her toddler and the incredible challenges she faced advocating for her daughter's health in the United States. When she arrived in Texas, Claudia discovered that being undocumented would mean more than just an immigration status—it would be a way of living, of mothering, and of being discarded by even those institutions we count on to care.

Elizabeth Farfán-Santos spent five years with Claudia. As she listened to Claudia's experiences, she recalled her own mother's story, another life molded by migration, the US-Mexico border, and the quest for a healthy future on either side. Witnessing Claudia's struggles with doctors and teachers, we see how the education and medical systems enforce undocumented status and perpetuate disability. At one point, in the midst of advocating for her daughter, Claudia suddenly finds herself struck by debilitating pain. Claudia is lifted up by her comadres, sent to the doctor, and reminded why she must care for herself.

A braided narrative that speaks to the power of stories for creating connection, Undocumented Motherhood: Conversations on Love, Trauma, and Border Crossing (University of Texas Press, 2022) reveals what remains undocumented in the motherhood of Mexican women who find themselves making impossible decisions and multiple sacrifices as they build a future for their families.

Elizabeth Farfán-Santos is a medical anthropologist and the author of Black Bodies, Black Rights: The Politics of Quilombolismo in Contemporary Brazil.

Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press).

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Rens Bod, "A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present" (Oxford UP, 2014)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Many histories of science have been written, but A New History of the Humanities (Oxford UP, 2014) offers the first overarching history of the humanities from Antiquity to the present. There are already historical studies of musicology, logic, art history, linguistics, and historiography, but this volume gathers these, and many other humanities disciplines, into a single coherent account.

Its central theme is the way in which scholars throughout the ages and in virtually all civilizations have sought to identify patterns in texts, art, music, languages, literature, and the past. What rules can we apply if we wish to determine whether a tale about the past is trustworthy? By what criteria are we to distinguish consonant from dissonant musical intervals? What rules jointly describe all possible grammatical sentences in a language? How can modern digital methods enhance pattern-seeking in the humanities? Rens Bod contends that the hallowed opposition between the sciences (mathematical, experimental, dominated by universal laws) and the humanities (allegedly concerned with unique events and hermeneutic methods) is a mistake born of a myopic failure to appreciate the pattern-seeking that lies at the heart of this inquiry.

A New History of the Humanities amounts to a persuasive plea to give Panini, Valla, Bopp, and countless other often overlooked intellectual giants their rightful place next to the likes of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.

Rens Bod is a professor of humanities at the University of Amsterdam.

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How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Davarian L. Baldwin is a professor of American studies and founding director of the Smart Cities Lab at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. His latest book, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type Books, 2021) is a wake-up call to the reality that higher education is no longer the ubiquitous public good it was once thought to be. But as Baldwin shows, there is an alternative vision for urban life, one that necessitates a more equitable relationship between our cities and our universities.

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The Thought of Ivan Illich

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Author L. M. Sacasas talks about the life, thought, and legacy of the Catholic priest, philosopher, and social critic Ivan Illich with Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel. Sacasas and Vinsel discuss Illich’s critiques of bureaucracy, technology, scale, and expertise and how these critiques apply to medicine, education, our credential society, and life with media technologies.

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Harry Gamble, "Contesting French West Africa: Battles Over Schools and the Colonial Order, 1900–1950" (U Nebraska Press, 2017)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

After the turn of the twentieth century, schools played a pivotal role in the construction of French West Africa. But as this dynamic, deeply researched study reveals, the expanding school system also became the site of escalating conflicts. As French authorities worked to develop truncated schools for colonial "subjects," many African students and young elites framed educational projects of their own. Weaving together a complex narrative and rich variety of voices, Harry Gamble explores the high stakes of colonial education.

With the disruptions of World War II, contests soon took on new configurations. Seeking to forestall postwar challenges to colonial rule, French authorities showed a new willingness to envision broad reforms, in education as in other areas. Exploiting the new context of the Fourth Republic and the extension of citizenship, African politicians demanded an end to separate and inferior schools.

Harry Gamble's book Contesting French West Africa: Battles Over Schools and the Colonial Order, 1900–1950 (U Nebraska Press, 2017) critically examines the move toward educational integration that took shape during the immediate postwar period. Growing linkages to the metropolitan school system ultimately had powerful impacts on the course of decolonization and the making of postcolonial Africa.

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Neoliberalism and Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 8 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

This episode is a roundtable discussion on the influence of the neoliberal project on higher education. Our guests are Professor Emeritus Frank Fear from Michigan State University, Professor Claire Polster from the University of Regina, and Professor Ruben Martinez from Michigan State University. The conversation is wide-ranging across topics such as the quantification of higher education and the concept of students as customers.

John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations.

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Ellen Cassedy, "Working 9 to 5: A Women's Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie" (Chicago Review Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 6 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Ellen Cassedy about her new book Working 9 to 5: A Women's Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie (Chicago Review Press, 2022).

Many people may identify 9 to 5 with the comic film starring Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin or perhaps only know Parton’s hit song that served as its theme. But 9 to 5 wasn't just a comic film—it was a movement built by Ellen Cassedy and her friends. Ten office workers in Boston started out sitting in a circle and sharing the problems they encountered on the job. In a few short years, they had built a nationwide movement that united people of diverse races, classes, and ages. They took on the corporate titans. They leafleted and filed lawsuits and started a woman-led union. They won millions of dollars in back pay and helped make sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination illegal. The women office workers who rose up to win rights and respect on the job transformed workplaces throughout America. And along the way came Dolly Parton's toe-tapping song and a hit movie inspired by their work. Working 9 to 5 is a lively, informative, firsthand account packed with practical organizing lore that will embolden anyone striving for fair treatment.

Ellen Cassedy was a founder of the 9 to 5 organization in 1973. She is the coauthor with Karen Nussbaum of 9 to 5: The Working Woman's Guide to Office Survival and with Ellen Bravo of The 9 to 5 Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment. Ellen Cassedy is a former columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, was a speechwriter in the Clinton administration, and has contributed to Huffington Post, Redbook, Woman's Day, Hadassah, Philadelphia Inquirer, and other publications.

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Book Talk 56: Roosevelt Montás on "Great Books"

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 6 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Roosevelt Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University. A specialist in Antebellum American literature and culture and in American citizenship, he focuses mainly on the history, meaning, and future of liberal education. This question motivates his book Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation (Princeton University Press, 2021).

“Great Books” dominate “the Core” at Columbia University, where undergraduates must complete two years of non-departmental humanities courses. Montás teaches in the Core and was for ten years the director of the Center for the Core Curriculum. From this vantage point, he considers the function of “great books” today, particularly for members of historically marginalized communities like himself.

In Rescuing Socrates, he recounts how a liberal education transformed his life as a Dominican-born American immigrant. As many academics deem the Western canon to be inherently chauvinistic and the general public increasingly questions the very value of the humanities, Montás takes a different approach. He argues: “The practice of liberal education, especially in the context of a research university, is pointedly countercultural.” The New York Times praised the book for its compelling argument “for the value of a Great Books education as the foundation for receiving the benefits of everything else a school has to offer.”

I spoke with Montás about the complicated value of “great books,” the potential of a humanities education, and his conviction that a teacher in the humanities can trigger for students the beginning of a lifelong investigation of the self.

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Why Did 48,000 UC Workers Go on Strike? A Conversation with Dr. Trevor Griffey

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Why did thousands of workers at prestigious universities in the United States go on strike in 2022? How did we get to this historic moment, and is it really over? This episode explores:

The myriad ways universities can wield power over workers and even their families.
Why university workers are divided into different unions—and why some have no union representation at all.
How inflation, student debt, housing shortages, health insurance access, and the constriction of the tenure-track put unbearable pressure graduate students, adjuncts, and instructors.
The limitations of sympathy strikes.
How higher education became a gig economy.
Why this generation of students and their parents have more power to change academic inequality than they may realize.

Our guest is: Trevor Griffey is a Lecturer in U.S. History at UC Irvine and in Labor Studies at UCLA. He is co-founder of the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project, and co-editor of the book Black Power at Work: Community Control, Affirmative Actiton and the Construction Industry (Cornell University Press, 2010). He currently serves as the Vice President of Legislation for the University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT), which represents non-Senate faculty and librarians in the University of California system.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

This podcast on dealing with structural inequalities in the tenure pipeline
This podcast with the AAUP on how the demise of the tenure system is hurting students, professors, and academic freedom
The podcast on one professor's long road to the dream job in academia
The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University by Adrianna Kezar, Tom DePaola, And Daniel T. Scott
State of the Union: A Century of American Labor - Revised and Expanded Edition, by Nelson Lichtenstein
Nelson Lichtenstein's piece about the UC Strike in Dissent Magazine
This LA Times article, which is one of many pieces in recent years about how graduate students and adjuncts cannot afford housing
The Guardian's article on firings of graduate student strikers in 2020
For teaching US labor and social history, this resource which is free and available online (free registration): https://wba.ashpcml.org/

Welcome to the Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we are inspired and informed by today’s knowledge-producers, working inside and outside the academy. Missed any of our episodes? You’ll find over 130 of the Academic Life podcast episodes archived and freely available to you on the New Books Network website.

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It's Elementary! Catholic Education in the 21st Century

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 5 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Joseph Nagel and Heather Skinner are principal and vice-principal of the School of the Madeleine in Berkeley, California; Mrs. Skinner was also once Joseph’s teacher and mine (your host, Chris Odyniec) and has been at the school for 45 years. Over this time, the school population and broader community has changed significantly. Mrs. Skinner and Mr. Nagel reflect on their experience teaching and working at a beloved and successful Catholic school in a progressive town like Berkeley, California; they discuss the School of the Madeleine, its mission, politics, and role in forming the whole child with the love of God.

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Comedies of 'Fair Use': Lewis Hyde on Owning Art and Ideas

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 1 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +0000

In April 2006, The Institute held a two day symposium about copyright and intellectual property, titled Comedies of Fair Use. In this session, Lewis Hyde talks about owning art and ideas.

Hyde is a cultural critic and scholar, whose work focuses on the nature of imagination, creativity, and property. He is best known for his books, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, and Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art.

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Life After Grad School Both Inside and Outside Academia: Part 4--Careers Beyond the Academy

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Inspired by Bradley Sommer’s tweet this past summer about the ongoing challenges of the Humanities job market in the U.S., this four part podcast (produced by Erica Bennett, an M.A. student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama) talks with an early career scholar now looking for work in academia, a senior scholar with a view from the inside, and those who either earned their doctorate and established a career outside the university or those who decided early on that graduate work was not their preferred career path.

In the fourth and final episode of the series, Erica and Jacob Barrett (himself just starting his Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill) explore careers well outside of the typical tenure-track by speaking with Shannon Trosper Schorey, who holds her Ph.D. in Religious Studies but who has established a successful career in the tech sector.

Shannon Trosper Schorey (Ph.D., UNC Chapel Hill) is a Principal Communications Specialist in the tech industry. She co-wrote and co-produced Day 88, a forthcoming audio play about technology, burnout, and the sonic fever dreams of religious perfection.

About the Study Religion Podcast: this series was first posted in the summer of 2022 on the University of Alabama’s Department of Religious Studies Podcast, which contains a variety of other episodes, all on the wider relevance of scholarship on religion—learn more, or subscribe, here.

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Abdul Alkalimat, "The Future of Black Studies" (Pluto Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

The marginalisation of Black voices from the academy is a problem in the Western world. But Black Studies, where it exists, is a powerful, boundary-pushing discipline, grown out of struggle and community action. In The Future of Black Studies (Pluto Press, 2022), Abdul Alkalimat, one of the founders of Black Studies in the US, presents a reimagining of the future trends in the study of the Black experience.

Taking Marxism and Black Experientialism, Afro-Futurist and Diaspora frameworks, he projects a radical future for the discipline at this time of social crisis. Choosing cornerstones of culture, such as the music of Sun Ra, the movie Black Panther and the writer Octavia Butler, he looks at the trajectory of Black liberation thought since slavery, including new research on the rise in the comparative study of Black people all over the world.

Turning to look at how digital tools enhance the study of the discipline, this book is a powerful read that will inform and inspire students and activists.

Amanda Joyce Hall is a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University in the Department of African American Studies. She's on Twitter @amandajoycehall.

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Life After Grad School Both Inside and Outside Academia: Part 3--Deciding to Leave the Academy

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

In the third episode, Erica and Jacob Barrett (himself just starting his Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill) talk with Jared Powell, formerly a doctoral student in English at UNC, about the reasons why he recently left academia, midway through his Ph.D. program, and decided to investigate careers outside the university.

About the guest: Jared Powell earned a B.A. in English and Religious Studies and then an M.A. in English at the University of Alabama, going on to a Ph.D. in English at UNC Chapel Hill, specializing on the poetry of William Blake. After much deliberation, he recently decided to leave his doctoral program to pivot to a career outside of the academy. He now works as a trainer for a software company, putting his teaching and curriculum design experience to good use.

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Life After Grad School Both Inside and Outside of Academia: Part 2--A View from Inside

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

In the second episode of the series, Erica and Jacob Barrett (himself just starting his Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill) learn of some of the historical but also contemporary factors impacting the academic job market, as well as efforts by faculty to intervene in it, by talking with Pamela Gilbert, an English Professor at the University of Florida.

About the guest: Pamela K. Gilbert was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow (2016) and Society for the Humanities Fellow at Cornell (2016-17) and, most recently, is the author of Victorian Skin: Surface, Self, History. She is on the executive committee for the North American Victorian Studies Association and is the series editor for the SUNY Press book series Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century. She regularly teaches courses in Victorian Literature, Literature and Medicine, and topics in Victorian Gender and Class.

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Daniel Barish, "Learning to Rule: Court Education and the Remaking of the Qing State, 1861-1912" (Columbia UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

The late Qing was a time of great turmoil and upheaval but also a time of great possibility, as scholars, officials, the press, and revolutionaries all sought to find ways to shape China’s future. For many, as explored in Daniel Barish’s new book, Learning to Rule: Court Education and the Remaking of the Qing State, 1861-1912 (Columbia UP, 2022), the solution lay not outside the Qing but within it — with the emperor himself.

Learning to Rule explores the education of the final three Qing emperors, looking at how debates about Western learning, foreign language education, the Manchu Way, and constitutionalism played out in the classrooms of the Qing emperors. Not only is this an intimate and deeply human look at the emperor and court life, it also shows just how involved the Qing was in global conversations about the role and education of a monarch, with many drawing on the examples of rulers in Russia and Japan when proposing their own plans for the Qing. Vividly written, this book will be of interest to any readers looking to learn about the late Qing, modern Chinese history, and the history of global empires — as well as those who might be curious about what it was like to try to teach the Son of Heaven.

Sarah Bramao-Ramos is a PhD candidate in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard. She works on Manchu language books and is interested in anything with a kesike. She can be reached at sbramaoramos@g.harvard.edu

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Life After Grad School Both Inside and Outside Academia: Part 1--The Job Search and Job Market

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

In the first episode of the series, Erica and Jacob Barrett (himself just starting his Ph.D. at UNC Chapel Hill) discuss the challenges of starting a PhD program in the humanities at this particular point in time, gaining some perspective from Bradley Sommer, a recent Ph.D. graduate in History.

About the guest: Bradley J. Sommer earned his Ph.D. in American History from Carnegie Mellon University and is a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C. He is also an online adjunct professor at Miami University in Ohio. Currently, he is working on a book about Toledo, OH, in the latter half of the 20th century, entitled Tomorrow Never Came: The Making of a Postindustrial City.

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Sayan Dey, "Green Academia: Towards Eco-Friendly Education Systems" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 26 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Green Academia: Towards Eco-Friendly Education Systems (Routledge, 2022) can be read as a systemic long-term counter-intervention strategy against any form of impending pandemics in the post-COVID era and beyond. It argues that anti-nature and capitalistic knowledge systems have contributed to the evolution and growth of COVID-19 across the globe and emphasises the merits of reinstating nature-based and environment-friendly pedagogical and curricular infrastructures in mainstream educational institutions. The volume also explores possible ways of weaving ecology and the environment as a habitual practice of teaching and learning in an intersectional manner with Science and Technology Studies. With detailed case studies of the green schools in Bhutan and similar practices in India, Kenya, and New Zealand, the book argues for different forms of eco-friendly education systems and the possibilities of expanding these local practices to a global stage.

This book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of sociology, cultural studies, decolonial studies, education, ecology, public policy social anthropology, sustainable development, sociology of education, and political sociology.

Rituparna Patgiri is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. She has a PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her research interests lie in the areas of food, media, gender and public. She is also one of the co-founders of Doing Sociology. Patgiri can be reached at @Rituparna37 on Twitter.

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Richard Brian Miller, "Why Study Religion?" (Oxford UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Can the study of religion be justified? Scholarship in religion, especially work in "theory and method," is preoccupied with matters of research procedure and thus inarticulate about the goals that motivate scholarship in the field. For that reason, the field suffers from a crisis of rationale. Richard B. Miller identifies six prevailing methodologies in the field, and then offers an alternative framework for thinking about the purposes of the discipline. Shadowing these various methodologies, he notes, is a Weberian scientific ideal for studying religion, one that aspires to value-neutrality. This ideal fortifies a "regime of truth" that undercuts efforts to think normatively and teleologically about the field's purpose and value. Miller's alternative framework, Critical Humanism, theorizes about the ends rather than the means of humanistic scholarship.

Why Study Religion? (Oxford UP, 2021) offers an account of humanistic inquiry that is held together by four values: Post-critical Reasoning, Social Criticism, Cross-cultural Fluency, and Environmental Responsibility. Ordered to such purposes, Miller argues, scholars of religion can relax their commitment to matters of methodological procedure and advocate for the value of studying religion. The future of religious studies will depend on how well it can articulate its goals as a basis for motivating scholarship in the field.

David Gottlieb is the Director of Jewish Studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago. He is the author of Second Slayings: The Binding of Isaac and the Formation of Jewish Memory (Gorgias Press, 2019).

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Sonya Y. Ramsey, "Bertha Maxwell-Roddey: A Modern-Day Race Woman and the Power of Black Leadership" (UP of Florida, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Bertha Maxwell-Roddey: A Modern-Day Race Woman and the Power of Black Leadership (UP of Florida, 2022) examines a life of remarkable achievements and leadership in the desegregated South. Sonya Ramsey modernizes the nineteenth-century term "race woman" to describe how Maxwell-Roddey and her peers turned hard-won civil rights and feminist milestones into tangible accomplishments in North Carolina and nationwide from the late 1960s to the 1990s.

Born in 1930, Maxwell-Roddey became one of Charlotte's first Black women principals of a white elementary school; she was the founding director of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's Africana Studies Department; and she cofounded the Afro-American Cultural and Service Center, now the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Art + Culture. Maxwell-Roddey founded the National Council for Black Studies, helping institutionalize the field with what is still its premier professional organization, and served as the 20th National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., one of the most influential Black women's organizations in the United States.

Using oral histories and primary sources that include private records from numerous Black women's home archives, Ramsey illuminates the intersectional leadership strategies used by Maxwell-Roddey and other modern race women to dismantle discriminatory barriers in the classroom and the boardroom. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey offers new insights into desegregation, urban renewal, and the rise of the Black middle class through the lens of a powerful leader's life story.

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Hester Barron, "The Social World of the School: Education and Community in Interwar London" (Manchester UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

The Social World of the School: Education and Community in Interwar London (Manchester UP, 2022) shows why the study of schooling matters to the history of twentieth-century Britain. Dr. Hester Barron integrates the history of education within the wider concerns of modern social history.

Drawing on a rich array of archival and autobiographical sources, she captures in vivid detail the individual moments that made up the minutiae of classroom life. The book focuses on elementary education in interwar London, arguing that schools were grounded in their local communities as lynchpins of social life and drivers of change. Exploring crucial questions around identity and belonging, poverty and aspiration, class and culture, behaviour and citizenship, Dr. Barron provides vital context for twenty-first century debates about education and society, showing how the same concerns were framed a century ago.

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Misrepresentation on Campus: A Conversation with Michelle Cyca

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

When a professor is not who they say they are, what does it take to get them to resign? This episode explores:

How an anonymous twitter account and a media investigation helped Ms. Cyca reveal the truth about a professor misrepresenting their identity.
Why professors can fail to fully acknowledge all the harm done to the students, staff, and community even after they are exposed.
A discussion of the article The Curious Case of Gina Adams: A “Pretendian” Investigation.

Our guest is: Michelle Cyca, a former employee at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, who currently works as a freelance writer, editor, and content strategist. For over 15 years she has written for numerous print magazines, digital publications, brands and creators. She is the author of The Curious Case of Gina Adams, and many other articles.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in these other articles by Michelle Cyca:

Resilience & Reconnection: Stories of Indigenous Parenting, Romper
Orange Shirt Day Is Not About Buying Orange Shirts, IndigiNews
Learning Cree with My Daughter, Romper
Monuments to What? The Tyee
Tanya Talaga Is Telling the Stories Canada Needs to Hear, Maclean’s
To Honour Lee Maracle’s Life, Read Indigenous Women, The Tyee
Resistance 150: Indigenous Artists Challenge Canadians to Reckon with Our History, Chatelaine

Welcome to The Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we embrace a broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life. We are inspired by knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. Find us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

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Mergers in Higher Education: A Discussion with Beth Hillman

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Beth Hillman discusses the recent merger between Mills College and Northeastern University. Hillman, who served as President of Mills from 2016-22, describes the many strategies that the Oakland, CA-based women’s college attempted before moving forward with the merger, including a potential strategic partnership with its neighbor, UC Berkeley. She shares valuable insights for leaders considering such strategic alliances that offer a means to preserve an institution’s mission and protect its stakeholders even when facing dire financial circumstances.

David Finegold is the president of Chatham University.

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Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, "Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt" (Harvard UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 4 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

It didn't always take thirty years to pay off the cost of a bachelor's degree.

In Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt (Harvard UP, 2021), Elizabeth Tandy Shermer untangles the history that brought us here and discovers that the story of skyrocketing college debt is not merely one of good intentions gone wrong. In fact, the federal student loan program was never supposed to make college affordable.

The earliest federal proposals for college affordability sought to replace tuition with taxpayer funding of institutions. But Southern whites feared that lower costs would undermine segregation, Catholic colleges objected to state support of secular institutions, professors worried that federal dollars would come with regulations hindering academic freedom, and elite-university presidents recoiled at the idea of mass higher education. Cold War congressional fights eventually made access more important than affordability. Rather than freeing colleges from their dependence on tuition, the government created a loan instrument that made college accessible in the short term but even costlier in the long term by charging an interest penalty only to needy students. In the mid-1960s, as bankers wavered over the prospect of uncollected debt, Congress backstopped the loans, provoking runaway inflation in college tuition and resulting in immense lender profits.

Today 45 million Americans owe more than $1.5 trillion in college debt, with the burdens falling disproportionately on borrowers of color, particularly women. Reformers, meanwhile, have been frustrated by colleges and lenders too rich and powerful to contain. Indentured Students makes clear that these are not unforeseen consequences. The federal student loan system is working as designed.

Elizabeth Tandy Shermer has written about labor, politics, and education for the Washington Post, HuffPost, and Dissent. Author of Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics, she is Associate Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Robert Houghton, "Teaching the Middle Ages through Modern Games: Using, Modding and Creating Games for Education and Impact" (de Gruyter, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 4 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Games can act as invaluable tools for the teaching of the Middle Ages. The learning potential of physical and digital games is increasingly undeniable at every level of historical study. These games can provide a foundation of information through their stories and worlds. They can foster understanding of complex systems through their mechanics and rules. Their very nature requires the player to learn to progress.

The educational power of games is particularly potent within the study of the Middle Ages. These games act as the first or most substantial introduction to the period for many students and can strongly influence their understanding of the era. Within the classroom, they can be deployed to introduce new and alien themes to students typically unfamiliar with the subject matter swiftly and effectively. They can foster an interest in and understanding of the medieval world through various innovative means and hence act as a key educational tool.

Teaching the Middle Ages through Modern Games: Using, Modding and Creating Games for Education and Impact (de Gruyter, 2022), edited by Robert Houghton, presents a series of essays addressing the practical use of games of all varieties as teaching tools within Medieval Studies and related fields. In doing so it provides examples of the use of games at pre-university, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels of study, and considers the application of commercial games, development of bespoke historical games, use of game design as a learning process, and use of games outside the classroom. As such, Teaching the Middle Ages through Modern Games is a flexible and diverse pedagogical resource and its methods may be readily adapted to the teaching of different medieval themes or other periods of history.

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When Your Professor Asks You to Cheat: A Conversation with Dr. Joel Heng Hartse

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 1 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +0000

We all know that academic integrity matters. But do we all agree on what academic integrity really is? Somewhere beyond the nuances and gray areas is blatant cheating. And that’s always wrong . . . but what if your professor asks you to cheat? This episode explores:

How well students understand academic integrity.
Why Dr. Heng Hartse designed a course that required cheating.
What he and his students learned from it.
How it feels to cheat, and why some students feel forced to do it.
A discussion of the article “What Happened When I Made My Students Cheat.”

Our guest is: Dr. Joel Heng Hartse, who teaches at Simon Fraser University. He wrote Sects, Love, and Rock and Roll (Cascade Books, 2010); Dancing About Architecture is a Reasonable Things to Do (Cascade Books, 2022); co-authored with Jiang Dong Perspectives on Teaching English at Colleges and Universities in China (TESOL Press, 2015); and is the author of the article “What Happened When I Made My Students Cheat,” published in Inside Higher Ed (November 9, 2022).

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Intellectual Appetite, by Paul Griffiths
“Dishonest Behavior in the Classroom and Clinical Setting: Perceptions and Engagement” by Emily L. McClung and Joanna Kraenzle Schneider
“Literacy Brokers and the Emotional Work of Mediation,” by Ligia Ana Mihut, in Literacy and Composition Studies, volume 2, number 1 (2014)
Jeffrey Moro’s blog article “Against Cop Shit”
The New York Times article on the aftermath of “Harvard cheating scandal”
This podcast on learning from your failed research

Welcome to The Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we embrace a broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life. We view education as a transformative human endeavor and are inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. Find us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Ourboox: A Conversation with Mel Rosenberg

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

In this interview, Mel Rosenberg discusses his love for children's literature, what makes for a memorable picture book, and the company he created, Ourboox. Ourboox is a free site that allows people to create online flipbooks and picture books. Mel's collection is available here.

Mel Rosenberg is a professor emeritus of microbiology (Tel Aviv University, emeritus) who fell in love with children's books as a small child and now writes his own. He is co-founder of Ourboox, a web platform with some 240,000 ebooks that allows anyone to create and share flipbooks comprising text, pictures and videos.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin).

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Gregory Nobles, "The Education of Betsey Stockton: An Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

The life of Betsey Stockton (ca. 1798–1865) is a remarkable story of a Black woman’s journey from slavery to emancipation, from antebellum New Jersey to the Hawai‘ian Islands, and from her own self-education to a lifetime of teaching others—all told against the backdrop of the early United States’ pervasive racism. It’s a compelling chronicle of a critical time in American history and a testament to the courage and commitment of a woman whose persistence grew into a potent form of resistance.

When Betsey Stockton was a child, she was “given, as a slave” to the household of Rev. Ashbel Green, a prominent pastor and later the president of what is now Princeton University. Although she never went to school, she devoured the books in Green’s library. After being emancipated, she used that education to benefit other people of color, first in Hawai‘i as a missionary, then Philadelphia, and, for the last three decades of her life, Princeton—a college town with a genteel veneer that never fully hid its racial hostility. Betsey Stockton became a revered figure in Princeton’s sizeable Black population, a founder of religious and educational institutions, and a leader engaged in the day-to-day business of building communities.

In The Education of Betsey Stockton: An Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom (U Chicago Press, 2022), Gregory Nobles illuminates both a woman and her world, following her around the globe, and showing how a determined individual could challenge her society’s racial obstacles from the ground up. It’s at once a revealing lesson on the struggles of Stockton’s times and a fresh inspiration for our own.

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Christopher Willoughby, "Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in US Medical Schools" (UNC Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Medical science in antebellum America was organized around a paradox: it presumed African Americans to be less than human yet still human enough to be viable as experimental subjects, as cadavers, and for use in the training of medical students. By taking a hard look at the racial ideas of both northern and southern medical schools, Christopher D. E. Willoughby reveals that racist ideas were not external to the medical profession but fundamental to medical knowledge.

In this history of racial thinking and slavery in American medical schools, the founders and early faculty of these schools emerge as singularly influential proponents of white supremacist racial science. They pushed an understanding of race influenced by the theory of polygenesis—that each race was created separately and as different species—which they supported by training students to collect and measure human skulls from around the world. Medical students came to see themselves as masters of Black people's bodies through stealing Black people’s corpses, experimenting on enslaved people, and practicing distinctive therapeutics on Black patients. In documenting these practices Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in US Medical Schools (UNC Press, 2022) charts the rise of racist theories in U.S. medical schools, throwing new light on the extensive legacies of slavery in modern medicine.

Claire Clark is a medical educator, historian of medicine, and associate professor in the University of Kentucky’s College of Medicine.

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Rhonda F. Levine, "When Race Meets Class: African Americans Coming of Age in a Small City" (Routledge, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

In When Race Meets Class: African Americans Coming of Age in a Small City (Routledge, 2019), Rhonda Levine provides a 15-year ethnography that follows the lives of individual, low-income African American youth from the beginning of high school into their early adult years. Levine shows how their interaction and experience with multiple institutions (family, school, community) and individuals (parents, friends, teachers, coaches, strangers) shape their hopes, fears, aspirations, and worldviews. Levine explores the volatility and constraints underlying their decision-making and behaviors.

Rhonda Levine is Professor of Sociology, Emerita, at Colgate University, USA.

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Scholar Skills: Unraveling Faculty Burnout

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

“I’m burned out” is a familiar phrase in higher ed these days. This episode explores:

What burnout is and is not.
One scholar’s personal experience with burnout.
How higher ed’s culture and the “expectation escalation” encourage burnout.
Academic capitalism and its relationship to faculty burnout.
The missing voices from the conversation on burnout.
Imposter syndrome and how it plays out for women, especially, in the academy.

Our guest is: Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark, Director of the Office of Faculty Professional Development at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is the author of Unraveling Faculty Burnout: Pathways to Reckoning and Renewal (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) and Agile Faculty: Practical Strategies for Managing Research, Service, and Teaching (The University of Chicago Press, 2017) as well as the coeditor of Redesigning Liberal Education: Innovative Design for a Twenty-First-Century Undergraduate Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).

Our host is: Dr. Dana M. Malone, co-producer and co-host of The Academic Life channel. Dana is energized by facilitating meaningful conversations and educational experiences for folks across the academy and beyond. Dana is the author of From Single to Serious: Relationships, Gender, and Sexuality on American Evangelical Campuses, (Rutgers University Press).

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

This Chronicle of Higher Education article on how to cope with Covid-19 burnout.
This Inside Higher Ed article on beating pandemic burnout.
The Maslach Burnout Inventory for Educators (MBI-ES).
This Academic Life conversation on community building and how we show up.
This Academic Life conversation on being well in academia.
This Academic Life conversation on finding your people and making meaningful connections.

Welcome to The Academic Life! You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Here on the Academic Life channel, we embrace a broad definition of what it means to be an academic and to lead an academic life. We view education as a transformative human endeavor and are inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DMs us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Adam Laats, "Creationism USA: Bridging the Impasse on Teaching Evolution" (Oxford UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Who are America's creationists? What do they want? Why do they think Jesus rode around on a dinosaur? In Creationism USA: Bridging the Impasse on Teaching Evolution (Oxford UP, 2021), Adam Laats reveals that common misconceptions about creationism have led Americans into a full century of unnecessary culture-war histrionics about evolution education and creationism. In fact, America does not now and never has had deep, fundamental disagreement about evolution. Not about the actual science of evolution, that is, and not in ways that truly matter to public policy. Americans do have significant disagreements about creationism, though, and Laats offers a new way to understand those battles. By describing the history of creationism and its many variations, this book demonstrates that the real conflict about evolution is not between creationists and evolution. The true landscape of American creationism is far more complicated than headlines suggest.

Your host, Ryan Shelton (@_ryanshelton) is a social historian of British and American Protestantism and a PhD researcher at Queen’s University Belfast.

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Transforming the Urban University: Northeastern University, 1996-2006

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

It is rare to see colleges and universities achieve major and rapid changes in their national rankings. Richard Freeland, the president emeritus of Northeastern University, discusses how they were able to achieve this at Northeastern during his decade leading one of the nation’s largest private universities by doubling down and improving their historic strength in co-operative education. In parallel, Northeastern was able to achieve dramatic improvements in retention and graduation rates, from just 44% to over 70%. He also shares insights from his tenure leading the Massachusetts public higher education system.

David Finegold is the president of Chatham University.

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Naomi A. Moland, "Can Big Bird Fight Terrorism?: Children's Television and Globalized Multicultural Education" (Oxford UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Sesame Street has taught generations of Americans their letters and numbers, and also how to better understand and get along with people of different races, faiths, ethnicities, and temperaments. But the show has a global reach as well, with more than thirty co-productions of Sesame Street that are viewed in over 150 countries. In recent years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided funding to the New York-based Sesame Workshop to create international versions of Sesame Street. Many of these programs teach children to respect diversity and tolerate others, which some hope will ultimately help to build peace in conflict-affected societies. In fact, the U.S. government has funded local versions of the show in several countries enmeshed in conflict, including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Pakistan, Jordan, and Nigeria.

Can Big Bird Fight Terrorism?: Children's Television and Globalized Multicultural Education (Oxford UP, 2019) takes an in-depth look at the Nigerian version, Sesame Square, which began airing in 2011. In addition to teaching preschool-level academic skills, Sesame Square seeks to promote peaceful coexistence-a daunting task in Nigeria, where escalating ethno-religious tensions and terrorism threaten to fracture the nation. After a year of interviewing Sesame creators, observing their production processes, conducting episode analysis, and talking to local educators who use the program in classrooms, Naomi Moland found that this child-focused use of soft power raised complex questions about how multicultural ideals translate into different settings. In Nigeria, where segregation, state fragility, and escalating conflict raise the stakes of peacebuilding efforts, multicultural education may be ineffective at best, and possibly even divisive. This book offers rare insights into the complexities, challenges, and dilemmas inherent in soft power attempts to teach the ideals of diversity and tolerance in countries suffering from internal conflicts.

Sharonee Dasgupta is currently a graduate student in the department of anthropology at UMass Amherst.

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Where Does Research Really Begin?

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s book is: Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World) (U Chicago Press, 2022) by Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea, which tackles the two challenges every researcher faces with every new project: “How do I find a compelling problem to investigate—one that truly matters to me, deeply and personally? How do I then design my research project so that the results will matter to anyone else?” This easy-to-follow workbook guides you to find research inspiration within yourself, and in the broader world of ideas.

Our guest is: Dr. Thomas S. Mullaney, who is Professor of History at Stanford University and Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, by courtesy; the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society at the Library of Congress; and a Guggenheim Fellow. He is the author or lead editor of 7 books and the forthcoming The Chinese Computer—the first comprehensive history of Chinese-language computing. His writings have appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies, Technology & Culture, Aeon, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, and his work has been featured in the LA Times, The Atlantic, the BBC, and in invited lectures at Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and more. He holds a PhD from Columbia University.

Our guest is: Dr. Christopher Rea, who is a literary and cultural historian. His research focuses on the modern Chinese-speaking world, and his most recent publications concern research methods, cinema, comedy, celebrities, swindlers, cultural entrepreneurs, and the scholar-writers Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang. At University of British Columbia, he is a faculty member and Associate Head, External of the Department of Asian Studies; former Director of the Centre for Chinese Research; an associate of the Hong Kong Studies Initiative; and a Faculty Fellow of St. John’s College. He co-authored with Tom Mullaney, Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World).

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

The Craft of Research, by Wayne Booth et al
The Research Companion, by Petra Boynton
How to Write a Thesis, by Umberto Eco
The Art of Creative Research, by Philip Gerald
This podcast on learning from your failed research

Welcome to The Academic Life! We reach across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish a project to how to take care of your beautiful mind. On the Academic Life channel we embrace a broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life. We view education as a transformative human endeavor and are inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. DMs us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Andrew Fiss, "Performing Math: A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom" (Rutgers UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 9 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Performing Math: A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom (Rutgers University Press, 2020) by Dr. Andrew Fiss tells the history of expectations for math communication—and the conversations about math hatred and math anxiety that occurred in response.

Focusing on nineteenth-century American colleges, this book analyzes foundational tools and techniques of math communication: the textbooks that supported reading aloud, the burnings that mimicked pedagogical speech, the blackboards that accompanied oral presentations, the plays that proclaimed performers’ identities as math students, and the written tests that redefined “student performance.” Math communication and math anxiety went hand in hand as new rules for oral communication at the blackboard inspired student revolt and as frameworks for testing student performance inspired performance anxiety.

With unusual primary sources from over a dozen educational archives, Performing Math argues for a new, performance-oriented history of American math education, one that can explain contemporary math attitudes and provide a way forward to reframing the problem of math anxiety.

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Nancy Woloch, "The Insider: A Life of Virginia C. Gildersleeve" (Columbia UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 9 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Virginia C. Gildersleeve was the most influential dean of Barnard College, which she led from 1911 to 1947. An organizer of the Seven College Conference, or “Seven Sisters,” she defended women's intellectual abilities and the value of the liberal arts. She also amassed a strong set of foreign policy credentials and, at the peak of her prominence in 1945, served as the sole woman member of the U.S. delegation to the drafting of the United Nations Charter. But her accomplishments are undercut by other factors: she had a reputation for bias against Jewish applicants for admission to Barnard and early in the 1930s voiced an indulgent view of the Nazi regime.

In this biography, historian Nancy Woloch explores Gildersleeve’s complicated career in academia and public life. At once a privileged insider, prone to elitism and insularity, and a perpetual outsider to the sexist establishment in whose ranks she sought to ascend, Gildersleeve stands out as richly contradictory. The book examines her initiatives in higher education, her savvy administration, her strategies for gaining influence in academic life, the ways that she acquired and deployed expertise, and her drive to take part in the world of foreign affairs. Woloch draws out her ambivalent stance in the women’s movement, concerned with women’s status but opposed to demands for equal rights. Tracing resonant themes of ambition, competition, and rivalry, The Insider: A Life of Virginia C. Gildersleeve (Columbia UP, 2022) masterfully weaves Gildersleeve’s life into the histories of education, international relations, and feminism.

Jane Scimeca is Professor of History at Brookdale Community College.

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Making the Most of Academic Conferences: Insights and Tips from Dr. Thomas Tobin

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 8 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

You’re going to an academic conference—and maybe even presenting a project! Whether you are going virtually or in person, for the first time or the tenth, presenting or just attending, you want to feel prepared. Are you? This podcast episode explores:

Why we need to go to academic conferences.
Why it can be difficult to navigate them.
How can you get the most of out of it.

Our guest is: Dr. Thomas J. Tobin, who is a founding member of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is an internationally recognized speaker and author on quality in technology-enhanced education. His latest book is Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers, written with Katie Linder and Kevin Kelly, from Stylus Publishing. You can find him on Twitter @ThomasJTobin and at his website, Thomasjtobin.com.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender and an introvert, who has presented in dozens of academic conference, and like many of our listeners, she is still learning how to make the most of an academic conference.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

The Chronicle of Higher Ed article “How to Make the Most Out of An Academic Conference”
The Chronicle of Higher Ed article “How to Make the Most of a Virtual Conference”
The Chronicle of Higher Ed article “How To Cope With Presentation Anxiety”
This article on The Introverts’ Guide to Speaking Up
Quiet: The Power of Introverts, by Susan Cain
The Craft of Research, by Wayne Booth et al
The Research Companion, by Petra Boynton
The Art of Creative Research, by Philip Gerald

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Mental Health In Academia 7: Bullying in Academia

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 8 Nov 2022 09:00:00 +0000

We are delighted to welcome you at All for One and One for All: Public Seminar Series on Mental Health in Academia and Society. All for One and One for All talks shine the light on and discuss mental health issues in academia across all levels – from students to faculty, as well as in wider society. Speakers include academics, organisations, and health professionals whose work focuses on mental health. Live Q and A sessions will be held after each talk. For live webinar schedule please visit Lashuel lab website. Follow us on Twitter: @LashuelLab

Today’s talk is hosted by Prof. Hilal Lashuel and Galina Limorenko, and we are happy to welcome Prof. Morteza Mahmoudi to discuss bullying in academia.

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Gurpinder Singh Lalli, "Schools, Space and Culinary Capital" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 3 Nov 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Gurpinder Singh Lalli's book Schools, Space and Culinary Capital (Routledge, 2022) introduces the notion of culinary capital to investigate socialisation and school mealtime experiences in an academy school based in the UK. Drawing on interviews collated from children, teachers and staff within the school, the text sheds light on food insecurity in society and schools as being a major issue in educational policy. The book examines schools as a microcosm for society with school food space being the playground for socialisation. It shows how forms of culinary capital can be extended in the school dining hall where social space is negotiated with notions of inclusion and exclusion during mealtime. The book uses gender, class and race to understand the school dining hall as a space where culinary capital can be exchanged and learnt. Thorough research accompanied by ethnographic visuals, field notes and observations, it also explores the sensory impact of school gardens. As such the book will be of interest to students, teachers, school leaders, educators and policy makers in the fields of Education, Sociology, Social Policy and Food Studies.

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Timothy W. Burns, "Leo Strauss on Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education" (SUNY Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 3 Nov 2022 08:00:00 +0000

There are few thinkers who engender as much debate about their legacy as Leo Strauss (1899 –1973). His critics and biographers often don’t even agree about what scholarly discipline he practiced. Political theory or philosophy? Was he a proto-neoconservative or a middle-of-the-road Cold War defender of liberal democracy? He is often depicted as a major intellectual influence on sections of the national security state right, especially during the presidency of George W. Bush when he was portrayed as a puppeteer pulling from the grave the strings of such notable hawks as Paul Wolfowitz.

But the writings of Strauss often go unexamined. That is partly because they lean towards the abstruse. Strauss was not a general-audience-friendly public intellectual in his day and much of the homage to and attacks on him at this point are to be found in the pages of academic journals and in the halls of think tanks.

We are fortunate, therefore, that we can turn to the 2021 book, Leo Strauss on Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education by Timothy W. Burns for elucidation of Strauss's thinking about how we can preserve liberal democracy in the face of apathy from moderates, classical liberals and traditional conservatives flummoxed by the rise of an aggressive left that questions whether the United States is a democracy at all and an alienated alt-right that regards liberal democracy as now practiced as a character-sapping anachronism leading to civilizational decline.

We learn from Burns of Strauss's admiration for Winston Churchill and touting of him as an exemplar of greatness within democracy. In one of the most absorbing sections of the book we learn of a 1941 lecture by Strauss entitled, “German Nihilism” in which he examined the arguments of such groups as rightist German students in the 1920s that liberal democracy fostered moral mediocrity.

Burns contrasts in detail the ideas of Strauss and Martin Heidegger and shows that Strauss foresaw that the other man’s emphasis on resoluteness would metastasize into Heidegger’s support for Nazism. Burns tells us that Strauss can speak to us today via his call to defend democratic constitutionalism and its spiritual and religious traditions.

That call can lead to charges of elitism against Strauss because it entailed his championing of the idea of an “aristocracy within democracy,” a cadre of cultivated, well-educated leaders who would help maintain the intellectual and cultural moorings of democracies.

Let’s hear now from Professor Burns about who Leo Strauss was and what he actually wrote and thought.

Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher.

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Richard V. Reeves, "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It" (Brookings Institution, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 3 Nov 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Today I talked to Richard Reeves about his important new book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It (Brookings Institution, 2022).

The statistics are stunning. Men have a 9% lower graduation rate from college. One in three men without a completed high school education are now out of the workforce. About 40% of births take place outside of marriage (up from 11% in 1970). And men are 50% more likely to die from Covid-19 than women after contracting the virus. The long and short of it, while also advocating for full, real opportunities for women, short shrift is often being given to the problems men face. Neither ignoring the problem (the liberal choice, often) or suggesting we turn-back-the-clock to the 1950s (the conservative choice, often) will suffice. In this episode, Richard Reeves dares to propose some real solutions regarding education reforms, workplace opportunities, and pro-childrearing roles for all dads, married or otherwise.

Richard Reeves is a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. He’s the author of the 2017 book Dream Hoarders and is also a regular contributor to The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.

Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His newest book is Emotionomics 2.0: The Emotional Dynamics Underlying Key Business Goals. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com.

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Barbara W. Sarnecka, "The Writing Workshop: Write More, Write Better, Be Happier in Academia" (2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 2 Nov 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Listen to this interview of Barbara Sarnecka, Professor of Cognitive Sciences and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies for Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine. We talk about putting your mind in print. She is the author of The Writing Workshop: Write More, Write Better, Be Happier in Academia.

Barbara Sarnecka : "The more quantitative a person's field of study is, the more likely they are to say that they just don't think that writing is a big requirement in their field. And they'll say, 'Well, writing isn't very important. I'm a biologist.' They imagine that writing is somehow for people in the humanities, or it's for playwrights or novelists, or something like that. But whenever anyone fails to be productive as a scientist, it's because they're not writing. It's because they're not publishing manuscripts or they're not producing funding proposals that are getting funded. It's not because they don't have enough ideas for experiments, or because they didn't collect enough data, or because they didn't learn to analyze the data properly. Those things are all kind of trivially easy, and that's why we can subcontract them to graduate students or the statistical consulting center or somebody to do them for us. You can't get somebody else to think for you, and you can't get somebody else to write for you."

Find about more about Barbara, including why she chose to self-publish, in this interview.
Read the research on Barbara's writing-shop intervention here.
Read the research on cascading mentorship here and here.
Contact Barbara's editor at michael.dylan.rogers@gmail.com

Daniel Shea is committed to helping scientists write at their best. Contact me at daniel.shea@kit.edu

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Elizabeth Drame et al., "The Resistance, Persistence and Resilience of Black Families Raising Children with Autism" (Peter Lang, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 1 Nov 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The Resistance, Persistence and Resilience of Black Families Raising Children with Autism (Peter Lang, 2020) presents nuanced perspectives in the form of counternarratives of what Black families who have children with autism experience at the intersection of race, class, disability and gender. It intentionally centers the expertise of Black parents, challenging what is considered knowledge, whose knowledge counts, and how knowledge can be co-generated for learning, sharing and advocacy. The book speaks directly to Black parents on the autism journey.

To right systemic racial inequities and to cultivate culturally responsive practices, it is critical for practitioners and professionals to understand what is known about Black families' experiences with autism in general and how these experiences differ because of our intersecting identities. University faculty and students in programs involving medicine, speech and language pathology, occupational therapy, nursing, political science, school psychology, teaching, special education and leadership can benefit from the wisdom offered by these parents. This text is perfect for several courses, including those in departments of anthropology, women and gender studies, health sciences, psychology, special education, teacher education and administrative leadership. In addition, given the uniquely Black perspective presented in the text, this text is relevant to other fields, including ethnic studies, cultural studies, urban studies and African American studies. It is relevant to individuals who wish to better understand how issues of race and intra-racial differences shape lived experiences with disability in American society.

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Scholar Skills: Managing and Re-Envisioning the Academic Mid-Career

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Ever felt uncertain about how to manage the academic mid-career stage? This episode explores:

Why the mid-career stage is so important to mid-career faculty.
Strategies for taking control of your mid-career advancement plans.
Equity issues surrounding women, academic mothers, and faculty of color.
The importance of the department chair for mid-career faculty.
Being strategic about your mentoring needs in mid-career.
Two critical considerations for mid-career faculty developing programs.

Our guest is: Dr. Vicki L Baker, author of Managing Your Academic Career: A Guide to Re-Envision Mid-Career (Routledge). Vicki is the E. Maynard Aris Endowed Professor in Economics and Management at Albion College and serves as the Faculty Director of the Albion College Community Collaborative (AC3), Co-Chair of the Economics & Management Department, and instructor for Penn State University’s World Campus. Prior to joining the academy as a faculty member, Vicki worked at Harvard Business School (Executive Education) and AK Steel Corporation. Vicki is the author of 90 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, invited works, and several books. Recognized as a “Top 100 Visionary” in Education by the Global Forum for Education and Learning (20-21), Vicki is at the forefront of innovation and strategy in faculty and leadership development; her goal is to help faculty members and colleges and universities thrive. She earned her PhD (Higher Education) and MS (Management & Organization) from Penn State University, MBA from Clarion University and BS from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Vicki also holds a certificate in Human Resource Management from Villanova University and is a certified professional in HR from the Society for Human Resource Management.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

New Directions in Higher Education volume, Bridging the Research-Practice Nexus: Resources, Tools, and Strategies to Navigate Mid-Career in the Academy. Edited by Vick L. Baker and Aimee LaPointe Terosky.
The Evolving Faculty Affairs Landscape - a compilation of publications from Inside HigherEd focused on faculty (several focused at mid-career).
This Academic Life channel conversation with Vicki Baker on navigating mid-career choices as a faculty member.
This Academic Life channel conversation with Laura Gail Lunsford on how to create a mentor network.
How to Chair a Department by Kevin Dettmar (Johns Hopkins).
Unraveling Faculty Burnout: Pathways to Reckoning and Renewal by Rebecca Pope-Ruark (Johns Hopkins).

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Kelisha B. Graves, ed., "Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Pioneer, 1900-1959" (U Notre Dame Press, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961) is just one of the many African American intellectuals whose work has long been excluded from the literary canon. In her time, Burroughs was a celebrated African American (or, in her era, a race woman) female activist, educator, and intellectual. Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Pioneer, 1900-1959 (U Notre Dame Press, 2019) represents a landmark contribution to the African American intellectual historical project by allowing readers to experience Burroughs in her own words. This anthology of her works written between 1900 and 1959 encapsulates Burroughs's work as a theologian, philosopher, activist, educator, intellectual, and evangelist, as well as the myriad of ways that her career resisted definition. Burroughs rubbed elbows with such African American historical icons as W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, and Mary McLeod Bethune, and these interactions represent much of the existing, easily available literature on Burroughs's life. This book aims to spark a conversation surrounding Burroughs's life and work by making available her own tracts on God, sin, the intersections of church and society, black womanhood, education, and social justice. Moreover, the volume is an important piece of the growing movement toward excavating African American intellectual and philosophical thought and reformulating the literary canon to bring a diverse array of voices to the table.

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Doron Taussig, "What We Mean by the American Dream: Stories We Tell about Meritocracy" (Cornell UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The American Dream is built on the idea that Americans end up roughly where we deserve to be in our working lives based on our efforts and abilities; in other words, the United States is supposed to be a meritocracy. When Americans think and talk about our lives, we grapple with this idea, asking how a person got to where he or she is and whether he or she earned it. In What We Mean by the American Dream: Stories We Tell about Meritocracy (Cornell UP, 2021), Taussig tries to find out how we answer those questions.

Weaving together interviews with Americans from many walks of life--as well as stories told in the US media about prominent figures from politics, sports, and business--What We Mean by the American Dream investigates how we think about whether an individual deserves an opportunity, job, termination, paycheck, or fortune. Taussig looks into the fabric of American life to explore how various people, including dairy farmers, police officers, dancers, teachers, computer technicians, students, store clerks, the unemployed, homemakers, and even drug dealers got to where they are today and whether they earned it or not.

Taussig's frank assessment of the state of the US workforce and its dreams allows him to truly and meaningfully ask the question that underpins so many of our political debates and personal frustrations: Did you earn it? By doing so, he sheds new light on what we mean by--and how we can deliver on--the American Dream of today.

Doron Taussig is Visiting Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Ursinus College, and a fellow with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. Prior to becoming a Professor he was a journalist for ten years.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Sherry Boschert, "37 Words: Title IX and Fifty Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination" (New Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 08:00:00 +0000

A sweeping history of the federal legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in education, published on the fiftieth anniversary of Title IX.

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” —Title IX’s first thirty-seven words

By prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education, the 1972 legislation popularly known as Title IX profoundly changed the lives of women and girls in the United States, accelerating a movement for equal education in classrooms, on sports fields, and in all of campus life.

Sherry Boschert's book 37 Words: Title IX and Fifty Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination (New Press, 2022) is the story of Title IX. Filled with rich characters—from Bernice Resnick Sandler, an early organizer for the law, to her trans grandchild—the story of Title IX is a legislative and legal drama with conflicts over regulations and challenges to the law. It’s also a human story about women denied opportunities, students struggling for an education free from sexual harassment, and activists defying sexist discrimination. These intersecting narratives of women seeking an education, playing sports, and wanting protection from sexual harassment and assault map gains and setbacks for feminism in the last fifty years and show how some women benefit more than others. Award-winning journalist Sherry Boschert beautifully explores the gripping history of Title IX through the gutsy people behind it.

In the tradition of the acclaimed documentary She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, 37 Words offers a crucial playbook for anyone who wants to understand how we got here and who is horrified by current attacks on women’s rights.

Jane Scimeca is Professor of History at Brookdale Community College.

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Miriam Plotinsky, "Hover Less, Teach More: How to Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom" (Norton, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 08:00:00 +0000

What does it take to create a classroom environment in which students take the initiative in their learning and teachers can let go of the 'exhaustive hyper control' that so often leads to burnout? Miriam Plotinsky has written an engaging, honest and practical book that offers a pathway for teachers who want to make this happen. In this interview, we discuss four stages that Plotinsky identifies as crucial to increasing student autonomy: a teacher mindset shift, the development of deeper relationships, planning for meaningful engagement and choice-based, hands-off instruction.

While informed by research, Hover Less, Teach More: How to Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom (Norton, 2022) draws strongly on Plotinsky's school-based experience as a teacher and instructional specialist and leaves behind academic jargon. It addresses essential questions in classroom teaching practice in a pithy way that will speak to time-poor teachers seeking fresh ideas.

Miriam Plotinsky is an instructional specialist with Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, and the author of Teach More, Hover Less: How to Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom. Also a National Board Certified Teacher and certified administrator, she lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. On Twitter: @MirPloMCPS

Alice Garner is a historian, teacher and performer with a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

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SOAS’ Yoga Studies Online

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Raj Balkaran speaks with Jacqui Hargreaves & Ruth Westoby about SOAS’ exciting new online learning platform: Yoga Studies Online.

Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com.

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Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, "The Quantified Scholar: How Research Evaluations Transformed the British Social Sciences" (Columbia UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

How do metrics and quantification shape social science? In The Quantified Scholar: How Research Evaluations Transformed the British Social Sciences (Columbia UP, 2022), Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, an Associate Professor in sociology at the University of California, San Diego, explores this question using a case study of British academia. The book combines a rich array of quantitative and qualitative analysis, demonstrating the transformation of working conditions, institutional contexts, and research areas since the introduction of a metrics and quantification regime during the 1980s. Highlighting the complexity and ambivalences of metrics and quantification, as well as the uneven distribution of positive and negative impacts, the book offers essential reading for every academic, irrespective of the nation or institution in which they work. It also will be important for those seeing to better understand the role of metrics and markets in contemporary life.

Dave O'Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Sheffield.

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K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 15:25:00 +0000

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years working on a PhD, or if you’re a faculty member whose career has basically consisted of higher ed, switching isn’t so easy. PhD holders are mostly trained to work as professors, and making easy connections to other careers is no mean feat. Because the people you know were generally trained to do the same sorts of things, an easy source of advice might not be there for you.

Thankfully, for anybody who wishes there was a guidebook that would just break all of this down, that book has now been written. Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers (Stylus Publishing, 2020) by Kathryn E. Linder, Kevin Kelly, and Thomas J. Tobin offers practical advice and step-by-step instructions on how to decide if you want to leave behind academia and how to start searching for a new career. If a lot of career advice is too vague or too ambiguous, this book corrects that by outlining not just how to figure out what you might want to do, but critically, how you might go about accomplishing that.

Zeb Larson is a recent graduate of The Ohio State University with a PhD in History. His research deals with the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. To suggest a recent title or to contact him, please send an e-mail to zeb.larson@gmail.com.

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College Baseball in the Offseason: Meet the Savannah Bananas

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

The hard work of balancing academics and sports when you attend college on an athletic scholarship.
Kyle’s original dream for his life after college, and where he is now.
Why you need someone to have your back, and who that person has been in Kyle’s life for the last five years.
How playing ball in the college off-season for the Savannah Bananas reminded him about the importance of having fun, and what he had liked about the sport as a kid.
How learning to dance taught him not to take himself too seriously.

Our guest is: Kyle Luigs, who is the pitcher for the Savannah Banana’s professional premier team. He also works as their camp instructor. Kyle attended the University of North Georgia on a baseball scholarship, and graduated in 2021 with a kinesiology degree. From 2018 to 2021, he played summer baseball for the Savannah Bananas on the CPL team. He played his last year of college baseball at Jacksonville State University, while working on a masters in Sports Management.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the co-producer of the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Ballparks: A Journey Through the Fields of the Past, Present, and Future, by Eric Enders
The Savannah Bananas
University of North Georgia baseball
This discussion of How to College
This discussion about making a meaningful life
A Wonderful Life: Insights on Finding a Meaningful Existence, by Frank Martela

You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Here on the Academic Life channel, we embrace a broad definition of what it means to be an academic and to lead an academic life. We view education as a transformative human endeavor and are inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DMs us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

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Jennifer Clary-Lemon et al., "Try This: Research Methods for Writers" (CSU Open Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Try This: Research Methods for Writers (CSU Open Press, 2022) explores interdisciplinary research methods employed in research in writing studies but rarely drawn upon in undergraduate courses. This shifts writing instruction from a model of knowledge delivery and solitary research to a pedagogy of knowledge-making and an acknowledgment of research writing as collective, overlapping, and distributed. Each chapter is organized around methods to approach a particular kind of primary data--texts, artifacts, places, and images. Accompanying "Try This" invention projects in each chapter invite readers to "try" the research methods. Some projects are designed to try during class time and take 5 to 15 minutes, while others are extensive and will take days to accomplish. Each research writing opportunity introduced in a "Try This" invention project is designed to scaffold a research project. Each chapter offers different genres that allow research to circulate and connect meaningfully with audiences, including digital research posters, data visualizations, and short-form presentations.

This book is also available as an open access ebook through the WAC Clearinghouse.

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Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea, "Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World)" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The hardest part of research isn't answering a question. It's knowing what to do before you know what your question is. Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World) (University of Chicago Press, 2022) tackles the two challenges every researcher faces with every new project: How do I find a compelling problem to investigate--one that truly matters to me, deeply and personally? How do I then design my research project so that the results will matter to anyone else?

This book will help you start your new research project the right way for you with a series of simple yet ingenious exercises. Written in a conversational style and packed with real-world examples, this easy-to-follow workbook offers an engaging guide to finding research inspiration within yourself, and in the broader world of ideas.

Read this book if you (or your students):

have difficulty choosing a research topic
know your topic, but are unsure how to turn it into a research project
feel intimidated by or unqualified to do research
worry that you're asking the wrong questions about your research topic
have plenty of good ideas, but aren't sure which one to commit to
feel like your research topic was imposed by someone else
want to learn new ways to think about how to do research.

Thomas S. Mullaney is professor of history at Stanford University and a Guggenheim fellow. His books include The Chinese Typewriter: A History and Your Computer is on Fire.

Christopher Rea is professor of Asian studies at the University of British Columbia. His books include Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949 and The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin).

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Hope for the Humanities PhD

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

Why a humanities degree actually opens many career paths.
The importance of curiosity.
The contingency crisis in higher ed.
How we can re-evaluate “academic success.”
Advice for students and faculty.

Our guest is: Dr. Katina Rogers, the author of Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving in and beyond the Classroom (Duke University Press, 2020). In 2021, she founded Inkcap Consulting to help universities build more supportive and sustainable graduate programs. Her career has included work at The Graduate Center, CUNY, the Modern Language Association, the Scholarly Communication Institute, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She has two young kids and a deep frustration with higher education, that is inextricably bound up with hope. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who has effectively used her humanities degrees for interesting jobs both inside and outside the academy. She is the co-producer of the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Imagine PhD, created by the Graduate Career Consortium:
Next Generation Dissertations
Inkcap and its resources
Get Sorted: How to Make the Most of Your Student Experience, by Jeff Gill and Will Medd
Where Research Begins: Choosing A Research Project that Matters to You, by Thomas Mullaney and Christopher Rea
Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers, by Kathryn Linder, Keven Kelly, and Thomas Tobin
The Employability Journal, by Barbara Bassot
Candid Advice for New Faculty Members, by Marybeth Gasman

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Bruce J. Dierenfield and David A. Gerber, "Disability Rights and Religious Liberty in Education: The Story Behind Zobrest V. Catalina Foothills School District" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In 1988, Sandi and Larry Zobrest sued a suburban Tucson, Arizona, school district that had denied their hearing-impaired son a taxpayer-funded interpreter in his Roman Catholic high school. The Catalina Foothills School District argued that providing a public resource for a private, religious school created an unlawful crossover between church and state. The Zobrests, however, claimed that the district had infringed on both their First Amendment right to freedom of religion and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

In Disability Rights and Religious Liberty in Education: The Story Behind Zobrest V. Catalina Foothills School District (U Illinois Press, 2020), Bruce J. Dierenfield and David A. Gerber use the Zobrests' story to examine the complex history and jurisprudence of disability accommodation and educational mainstreaming. They look at the family's effort to acquire educational resources for their son starting in early childhood and the choices the Zobrests made to prepare him for life in the hearing world rather than the deaf community. Dierenfield and Gerber also analyze the thorny church-state issues and legal controversies that informed the case, its journey to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the impact of the high court's ruling on the course of disability accommodation and religious liberty.

David A. Gerber taught American History at the University at Buffalo (SUNY) from 1971 to his retirement in 2012. He was founding Director of the Center for Disability Studies at UB, and served in that capacity from 2009 through 2012. His interests in History have been grown over the course of years to encompass manifestations of personal and social identity in a wide variety of groups and individuals including during the course of his career: African Americans; American Jews; American Catholics; European immigrants, and people with disabilities.

Bruce Dierenfield has long been interested in the history of American race relations, and has written a popular textbook on the civil rights movement and another on African-American leadership since enslavement. As Peter Canisius Distinguished Teaching Professor, Dierenfield organized the “African-American Experience,” led student trips to West Africa and the Deep South, and invited distinguished historians and many influential activists of the 1960s to speak on campus

Shu Wan is currently matriculated as a doctoral student in history at the University at Buffalo. As a digital and disability historian, he serves in the editorial team of Digital Humanities Quarterly and Nursing Clio.

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Finding Your Purpose

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

This episode is the edited version of a live event held on June 17 2022 to celebrate the launch of Finding Your Purpose: a Higher Calling Workbook for Justice-Oriented Scholars in an Unjust World.

Higher Calling is a project for everyone who decided to become a scholar because they believed in the mission of higher education, and specifically, for everyone who saw participating in and working for higher education as a way to turn the pursuit of justice into a career. It aims to help you understand how to better align a career in academia with your sense of purpose; how to recognize when your purposes are no longer served by academia; how to pursue scholarly purpose outside of an academic career; and when and how to fight back against the broken system which is higher education in the United States.

At times, one may wonder if the compromises are too great, the labor conditions untenable, or the barriers to doing meaningful work too high. This project aims to help you navigate these moments alone and in community through essays, exercises, and rituals.

You can download the workbook here.

Speakers:

Hannah Alpert-Abrams organizes the Visionary Futures Collective, and writes about labor, technology, and higher education.
Matt Cohen is a professor of English and scholar of Early American literature at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Sonya Donaldson is a professor of English and scholar of Africana studies at New Jersey City University.
Quinn Dombrowski is an academic technology specialist and digital humanist at Stanford University.
Carter Hogan is a writer and new trans folk musician based in Austin, Texas.

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Nathan Long on Growth Strategies for Small Private Universities

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Nathan Long shares insights from his career leading successful growth strategies for two small private universities. Saybrook University was formed in the 1970s by some of the leading scholars and practitioners in the field of humanist psychology and was an early pioneer in online/hybrid and residential conference education. Long discusses the many benefits to Saybrook of being part of the TCS Education System (see earlier interview with TCS founder Michael Horowitz), one of the few national, non-profit systems of higher education.

David Finegold is the president of Chatham University.

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William C. Kirby, "Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China" (Harvard UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, a bill purportedly meant to revive U.S. dominance in research and development. “We used to rank number one in the world in research and development; now we rank number nine,” Biden said at the signing ceremony. “China was number eight decades ago; now they are number two.”

And a recent study from Japan’s science ministry reported that China now leads the world not just in quantity of scientific research, but in quality too.

The success of the U.S.--and perhaps China, into the future–is due to the “research university”, an academic institution that offers professors the freedom to study and research, and students the freedom to learn, leading to high-quality academic output. Those universities are the subject of Professor William Kirby’s Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China (Harvard University Press, 2022).

In this interview, Professor Kirby and I talk about the research university: Humboldt, Harvard, Berkeley, Tsinghua, Nanjing, and the University of Hong Kong. We also discuss what it means for China, and Chinese institutions, to play a bigger role in world academia. How might that change things?

William C. Kirby is Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration and T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University, as well as Chair of the Harvard China Fund and Faculty Chair of the Harvard Center Shanghai. His many books include Can China Lead? Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth (Harvard Business Review Press: 2014)

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Empires of Ideas. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon.

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The Two Keys to Student Retention: A Discussion with Aaron Basko

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 8 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

Why Aaron Basko thinks we are looking at student success backwards.
How asking alums why they stayed at a school often tells us more about student needs than asking the students who are withdrawing why they leave.
What the “Big Six” for student success is.
What two things to evaluate as you decide which college or university will be the right “fit” for you.
His advice to parents and incoming students.

Our guest is: Aaron Basko, who currently serves as Associate Vice President for Enrollment Services at the University of Lynchburg, in Lynchburg Virginia. With 25 years of experience serving as an enrollment growth specialist and student success strategist for multiple institutions, Aaron has been part of the leadership team that engineered historic growth comebacks at three different colleges and universities. Aaron specializes in creating cross-functional teams for strategic enrollment planning and retention success. A thought leader and author, Aaron has written for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The Times Higher Education, and the State Department’s Fulbright blog. As a 2015 Fulbright International Education Administrator and capacity building specialist, Aaron also assists institutions with student mobility and international partnership initiatives. Aaron loves to create “a-ha moments” and to help institutions clarify the distinctive voice that will resonate with the right students.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who holds a PhD in American history. She is the co-producer of the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Aaron Basko’s article in Inside Higher Ed on how to attract more liberal arts college students to campus : Liberal arts colleges need new strategies (opinion)
“Have We Gotten Student Success Completely Backwards?” and Aaron’s other articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education: Aaron Basko (chronicle.com)
This discussion about the college admissions process.
Get Real and Get In: How to Get Into the College of Your Dreams by Being Your Authentic Self, by Aviva Legatt
This conversation about navigating the ups and downs of student life:
How To Human: An Incomplete Manual for Living in a Messed-Up World, by Alice Connor
How to College: What to Know Before You Go (and When You’re There), by Andrea Malkin Brenner and Lara Hope Schwartz
This conversation about rejection-recovery and dealing with mistakes

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Phillip B. Levine, "A Problem of Fit: How the Complexity of College Pricing Hurts Students—and Universities" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 6 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

According to A Problem of Fit: How the Complexity of College Pricing Hurts Students—and Universities (U Chicago Press, 2022) a college education doesn't come with a sticker price and perhaps, he argues, it should. Millions of Americans miss out on the economic benefits of a college education because of concerns around the costs. Financial aid systems offer limited help and produce uneven distributions. In the United States today, the systems meant to improve access to education have in fact added a new layer of deterrence. In A Problem of Fit Levine examines the role of financial aid systems in facilitating (and discouraging) access to college. If markets require prices in order to function optimally, then the American higher-education system--rife as it is with hidden and variable costs--amounts to a market failure. It's a problem of price transparency, not just affordability. Ensuring that students understand exactly what college will cost, including financial aid, could lift the lid on not only college attendance for more people, but for greater representation across demographics and institutions. As he illustrates, our conversations around affordability and free tuition miss a larger truth: that the opacity of our current college-financing systems is a primary driver of inequities in education and society. A Problem of Fit offers a bold, trenchant new argument for an educational reform that is well within rea

Phillip B. Levine is the Katharine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at Wellesley College, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of five books devoted to statistics, the analysis of social policy, and its effect on individual behavior.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Claire Nader, "You Are Your Own Best Teacher!: Sparking the Imagination and Intellect of Tweens" (Essential Books, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 6 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

You Are Your Own Best Teacher!: Sparking the Imagination and Intellect of Tweens (Essential Books, 2022) provides a variety of teachable antidotes to the punishing forces bearing down on youngsters from harmful marketing, the insidious grip of 'virtual reality' and the tyranny of peer groups. Apprehensive parents and burdened teachers will delight in the lessons of this book for Tweens (9-12 year olds). Tweens, who are whipsawed by relentless distractions, profit-driven manipulations and oncoming addictions, are guided toward elevating their own sense of significance, protection and realizable achievements. Claire Nader introduces the young to Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass and Helen Keller to illustrate their profound awareness and discipline.

Claire Nader is a social scientist and activist.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin).

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Decoteau Irby, "Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership" (Harvard Education Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 5 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

An incisive case study of changemaking in action, Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership (Harvard Education Press, 2021) analyzes the complex process of racial equity reform within K-12 schools. Scholar Decoteau J. Irby emphasizes that racial equity is dynamic, shifting as our emerging racial consciousness evolves and as racism asserts itself anew. Those who accept the challenge of reform find themselves "stuck improving," caught in a perpetual dilemma of both making progress and finding ever more progress to be made. Rather than dismissing stuckness as failure, Irby embraces it as an inextricable part of the improvement process.

Irby brings readers into a large suburban high school as school leaders strive to redress racial inequities among the school's increasingly diverse student population. Over a five-year period, he witnesses both progress and setbacks in the leaders' attempts to provide an educational environment that is intellectually, socioemotionally, and culturally affirming.

Looking beyond this single school, Irby pinpoints the factors that are essential to the work of equity reform in education. He argues that lasting transformation relies most urgently on the cultivation of organizational conditions that render structural racism impossible to preserve. Irby emphasizes how schools must strengthen and leverage personal, relational, and organizational capacities in order to sustain meaningful change.

Stuck Improving offers a clear-eyed accounting of school-improvement practices, including data-driven instructional approaches, teacher cultural competency, and inquiry-based leadership strategies. This timely work contributes both to the practical efforts of equity-minded school leaders and to a deeper understanding of what the work of racial equity improvement truly entails.

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Cassidy Puckett, "Redefining Geek: Bias and the Five Hidden Habits of Tech-Savvy Teens" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Picture a typical computer geek. Likely white, male, and someone you’d say has a “natural instinct” for technology. Yet, after six years teaching technology classes to first-generation, low-income middle school students in Oakland, California, Cassidy Puckett has seen firsthand that being good with technology is not something people are born with—it’s something they learn. In Redefining Geek: Bias and the Five Hidden Habits of Tech-Savvy Teens (U Chicago Press, 2022), she overturns the stereotypes around the digitally savvy and identifies the habits that can help everyone cultivate their inner geek.

Drawing on observations and interviews with a diverse group of students around the country, Puckett zeroes in on five technology learning habits that enable tech-savvy teens to learn new technologies: a willingness to try and fail, management of frustration and boredom, use of models, and the abilities to use design logic and identify efficiencies. In Redefining Geek, she shows how to measure and build these habits, and she demonstrates how many teens historically marginalized in STEM are already using these habits and would benefit from recognition for their talent, access to further learning opportunities, and support in career pathways. She argues that if we can develop, recognize, and reward these technological learning habits in all kids—especially girls and historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups—we can address many educational inequities and disparities in STEM.

Revealing how being good with technology is not about natural ability but habit and persistence, Redefining Geek speaks to the ongoing conversation on equity in technology education and argues for a more inclusive technology learning experience for all students.

Joao Souto-Maior is PhD Candidate in Sociology of Education at the New York University.

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Opening Up the University for Displaced Students

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

The Open Learning Initiative (OLIve) operating out of Central European University.
The importance of language related to students experiencing displacement.
How our guests center theory-informed practice in their work.
Three proposals for opening up the university to promote transformative experiences.
Advice to others in the field initiating programs for displaced students.

Our guests are: Dr. Ian M. Cook and Dr. Prem Kumar Rajaram, two of the three editors of Opening Up the University: Teaching and Learning with Refugees. Dr. Celine Cantat is also an editor on the volume. Ian M. Cook is Director of Studies at the Open Learning Initiative (OLIve), Budapest located at Central European University (CEU). An anthropologist by training, his work focuses on urban India, environmental justice, access to higher education, and podcasting. He strives to make scholarly practice more collaborative and multimodal. He is part of the Allegra Lab editorial collective.

Dr. Prem Kumar Rajaram is Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University and Head of the OLIve unit at the same university. He works on issues to do with race, capitalism, and displacement in historical and contemporary perspective.

Our host is: Dr. Dana M. Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner energized by facilitating meaningful conversations and educational experiences. She specializes in college student relationships, gender, sexuality, and religious identities as well as student success and assessment planning.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

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Brian Cafarella, "Community College Mathematics: Past, Present, and Future" (CRC Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

In Community College Mathematics: Past, Present, and Future (CRC Press, 2022), Brian Cafarella addresses the key questions: How can we build a future model for community college gatekeeper math classes that is both successful and sustainable? Additionally, how can we learn from the past and the present to build such a model? From the 1970’s to the pandemic in the early 2020’s, the book uses interviews with 30 community college faculty members from seven community colleges to explore math curricula as well as trends, initiatives, teaching practices, and mandates that have impacted community college mathematics.

Brian Cafarella is a professor in mathematics at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio. He has taught a variety of courses ranging from developmental math through pre-calculus. Brian is a past recipient of the Roeche Award for teaching excellence and a past recipient of the Ohio Magazine Award for excellence in education.

Marc Goulet is Professor in mathematics and Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

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The Journal of Higher Education in Prison

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

How both of today’s guests became involved in higher education in prison.
Why this work is personal to them.
Funding and representation issues in higher education in prison.
The complexities of supporting students who are incarcerated without supporting the carceral system.
And a discussion of the Journal of Higher Education in Prison.

Our guest is: Dr. Erin Corbett, who earned her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, where her dissertation examined the relationship between educational attainment level and post-release employment outcomes for formerly incarcerated people in Connecticut. While pursuing her doctorate, Erin launched a nonprofit that provides not-for-credit, postsecondary level courses in three correctional facilities in Connecticut. She has also taught in correctional facilities in Rhode Island with College Unbound, and guest lectured to incarcerated students in the Iowa through the University of Iowa Liberal Arts Beyond Bars (UI LABB) program. Erin was the Assistant Director for Applied Research at the Institute for Higher Education Policy focusing on federal policy related to the intersection of higher education policy and policy related to educational access for justice-impacted people; and she was the Director of Policy at the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice before transitioning to working with SCEA full time and consulting.

Our guest is: Dr. Breea Willingham, incoming Associate Professor of Criminology at UNC Wilmington. Dr. Willingham earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo. As an interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Willingham’s research examines the intersections of race, gender, higher education, and the injustice system. She is particularly interested in examining Black women’s pathways to incarceration, their experiences with higher education in prison, and providing a platform for Black women impacted by the injustice system to tell their stories. Influenced by her experiences as a sister and aunt of two men serving life sentences, Dr. Willingham’s research also focuses on the societal ramifications of mass incarceration, especially its impact on families. Her work on incarcerated fathers and their children, Black women’s prison narratives, teaching in women’s prisons, and Black women and police violence has been published in academic journals and edited collections. In 2020, Dr. Willingham was appointed Managing Editor of the Journal for Higher Education in Prison, a peer-reviewed journal that publishes on the topics and issues in higher education in prison.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator of the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode might also be interested in:

The Journal of Higher Education in Prison
The Alliance for Higher Education in Prison
Ear Hustle, a podcast hosted by persons who are incarcerated at San Quentin
A conversation about the Emerson Prison Initiative
Dr. Erin Corbett on Beyond Prisons
Abolition. Feminism. Now. edited by Angela Davis et al.
Punishment and Society, by Breea Willingham
Privilege and Punishment, by Matthew Clair
No Mercy Here, by Sarah Haley

You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you experts about everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Here on the Academic Life channel, we embrace a broad definition of what it means to be an academic and to lead an academic life. We view education as a transformative human endeavor and are inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DMs us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN.

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Ann Garcia, "How to Pay for College: A Complete Financial Plan for Funding Your Child's Education" (Harriman House, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Providing your children with a good education is one of the best gifts you can give. But it’s not straightforward.

Education costs and student loan debt are skyrocketing. In some cases, college costs upwards of $300,000 for four years. And calculations for financial aid and merit awards are complex and opaque.

How do you find the best education options that fit your budget and are right for your child? And how do you save for your kids’ college without wrecking your own retirement, or putting your other goals completely out of reach?

Ann Garcia―known as The College Financial Lady―is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and college finance expert, and is here to help.

In How to Pay for College, Ann shows you how to develop a financial plan for college that really works, including:

How to save and how much to save.
How to find good college choices that fit your budget.
How to get scholarships and tax benefits.
How to talk to your kids about the costs and benefits of going to college.

Plus invaluable information and inside tricks to help you crack the college financial challenge.

Detailed explanations of the key elements in planning for college―the FAFSA’s methodology, merit awards, 529 plans, AP credits, student loans, financial aid awards, budgeting, and more―are paired with worksheets and exercises to give you a full picture of your family’s college financial position.

This definitive guide gives you everything you need to give your children the best education possible, at a price you can all afford.

John Emrich has worked for decades years in corporate finance, business valuation and fund management. He has a podcast about the investment space called Kick the Dogma.

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Jo Mackiewicz and Isabelle Thompson, "Talk about Writing: The Tutoring Strategies of Experienced Writing Center Tutors" (Routledge, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Listen to this interview with Jo Mackiewicz, professor of rhetoric and professional communication at Iowa State University, and with Isabelle Thompson, emerita professor of technical and professional communication and former coordinator of the English Center at Auburn University. We talk about their book Talk about Writing: The Tutoring Strategies of Experienced Writing Center Tutors (Routledge, 2018) and writing.

Jo Mackiewicz : "The more I think about writing center interactions and write books about it, the more I think that the value a tutor brings to learning is this: to show students a thinking process, to show students an analysis process about writing — to show them a self-questioning of yourself as writer, and also a questioning of any sort of text, a questioning of your relationship to the text, a questioning of what you know about the subject matter, of how you evaluate your handling of that subject matter. Tutors model this process for student writers."

Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com.

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Tarez Samra Graban and Wendy Hayden, "Teaching Through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, and Activism" (Southern Illinois UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Archives are much more than silent repositories of historical material. They are rich sites for teaching and learning, for collaboration and for creative and critical exploration of our past, present and future. In their new book, Teaching through the Archives: Text, Collaboration, and Activism (Southern Illinois University Press, 2022), Tarez Samra Graban and Wendy Hayden bring together 37 contributors to explore the many possible uses of archival collections in the teaching of writing and history and in generating scholarly collaboration, pedagogical experimentation and community building within and beyond the university.

Section I focuses on how approaching the archive primarily as text fosters habits of mind essential for creating and using archives, for critiquing or inventing knowledge-making practices, and for being good stewards of private and public collections.

Section II argues for conducting archival projects as collaboration through experiential learning and for developing a preservationist consciousness through disciplined research.

Section III details praxis for revealing, critiquing, and intervening in historic racial omissions and gaps in the archives.

The book’s contributors see archives as sites of activism, as places where students can develop critical skills, test and question established research methodologies while also learning to appreciate the specialist knowledge of archivists.

Educators in disciplines including rhetoric and composition, literature, history and archival studies will find many inspiring ideas in this book. While the chapters offer university-based case studies, many of the ideas could also be adapted to the secondary classroom and to non-institutional educational settings.

In this episode, Alice Garner interviews Tarez Graban about the genesis of the book, the important lessons and possibilities she and Wendy Hayden sought to draw out from the contributors’ research, as well as Dr Graban’s recent work in transnational and postcolonial Southern African archival research and repatriation.

Katherine L. Carroll, "Building Schools, Making Doctors: Architecture and the Modern American Physician" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 9 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In the late nineteenth century, medical educators intent on transforming American physicians into scientifically trained, elite professionals recognized the value of medical school design for their reform efforts. Between 1893 and 1940, nearly every medical college in the country rebuilt or substantially renovated its facility. In Building Schools, Making Doctors: Architecture and the Modern American Physician (U Pittsburgh Press, 2022), Katherine Carroll reveals how the schools constructed during this fifty-year period did more than passively house a remodeled system of medical training; they actively participated in defining and promoting an innovative pedagogy, modern science, and the new physician.

Interdisciplinary and wide ranging, her study moves architecture from the periphery of medical education to the center, uncovering a network of medical educators, architects, and philanthropists who believed that the educational environment itself shaped how students learned and the type of physicians they became. Carroll offers the first comprehensive study of the science and pedagogy formulated by the buildings, the influence of the schools’ donors and architects, the impact of the structures on the urban landscape and the local community, and the facilities’ privileging of white men within the medical profession during this formative period for physicians and medical schools.

Rachel Pagones is an acupuncturist, educator, and author based in Cambridge, England. Her book, Acupuncture as Revolution: Suffering, Liberation, and Love (Brevis Press) was published in 2021.

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Nicholas Rowe, "The Realities of Completing a PhD: How to Plan for Success" (Routledge, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 8 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Listen to this interview of Nicholas Rowe, researcher and educator based in Finland. We talk his book The Realities of Completing a PhD: How to Plan for Success (Routledge, 2021) and about what needs to change.

Nicholas Rowe : "Writing for different purposes, for different audiences is a huge skill, because people are going to need this communication skill in their research proposal when they present their ideas to advisors, but also in their publications when they share their ideas with colleagues. Now, of courses, everybody's systems and processes are different, but the key communicative skills that you need are fairly much the same, and if you don't need them at one stage of a project, you're going to need them at another."

Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com.

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Heide Hinrichs and Jo-Ey Tang, "Shelf Documents: Art Library as Practice" (Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 5 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

How can a library change the world? How can an art library change the art school or the gallery? Or even an art practice? In Shelf Documents: Art Library as Practice (Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, 2021), artists, writers, curators, teachers, and librarians reflect on how they can use the beloved library as a source of inspiration or a field of action.

In thinking about diversity in collections, the publication proposes art libraries as sites of intersubjective communion. shelf documents is rooted in a collaborative book acquisition project, initiated by the artist Heide Hinrichs at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, in which her group integrated over 200 new titles in art libraries as a way to fill gaps, to amplify voices, and seek out the self-initiated or the overlooked.

Heide Hinrichs, Elizabeth Haines, and Jo-ey Tang speak to Pierre d’Alancaisez about working with institutions, working slowly, and working together to interfere with the permanence of libraries.

Heide Hinrichs is an artist who works with found and existing materials. For the first Kathmandu Triennale, she developed the project On Some of the Birds of Nepal. In 2018, she published Silent Sisters/Stille Schwestern, an unauthorised German translation of Theresa Hak Kyng Cha’s novel Dictee.

Elizabeth Haines is a historian and Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Bristol. Her interdisciplinary interest in the materiality of knowledge productions draws on her education in fine arts.

Jo-ey Tang is an artist, curator, and writer. He was previously the director of exhibitions at the Beeler Galery at Columbus College of Art & Design and is currently the director of Kadist, San Francisco.

The list of books involved in the project is available at second-shelf.org.

Pierre d’Alancaisez is a contemporary art curator, cultural strategist, researcher. Sometime scientist, financial services professional.

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Covering Higher Ed: A Chat with Sara Custer of Times Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 5 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

A special opportunity to hear from Sara Custer, editor of The Campus (Times Higher Education), about the role of journalism and reporting in higher education. Avi and Sara cover topics ranging from the role of media in increasing cross-institution collaboration and sharing during the pandemic to how universities can do a better job supporting their junior scholars. Also, don't miss out on the opportunity to learn how you can publish in Times Higher Education yourself!

Avi Staiman is the founder and CEO of Academic Language Experts.

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Victoria Reyes, "Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope" (Stanford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope (Stanford University Press, 2022), sociologist Victoria Reyes combines her personal experiences with research findings to examine how academia creates conditional citizenship for its marginalized members. Reyes draws from her family background, experiences during routine university life, and academic scholarship to theorize the academic outsiders as those who "are constantly reminded that our presence in the academy is contingent and in constant flux" (10-11). She elaborates on how love and worth are assessed in the university and her experiences as a mother in the academy. The final chapter calls for academic justice and offers practical strategies to combat the academy's exclusionary practices. In this book Reyes contributes to important conversations in the university on the experiences of people of color, women, and those from marginalized backgrounds. This book will be of interest to those who experience the academy's conditional citizenship, those who want to understand how the university perpetuates inequality, and those who want to challenge these conditions.

Victoria Reyes is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of California, Riverside. She is the author of Global Borderlands (Stanford, 2019).

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Paul A. Djupe et al. "The Knowledge Polity: Teaching and Research in the Social Sciences" (Oxford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Paul A. Djupe, Anand Edward Sokhey, and Amy Erica Smith, The Knowledge Polity: Teaching and Research in the Social Sciences (Oxford UP, 2022) explores a more holistic understanding of knowledge production in the social sciences, moving beyond the publication process often required by those in tenure/tenure-track positions to thinking about the role of community in the construction of knowledge. Political Scientists Paul A. Djupe (Denison University), Anand Edward Sokhey (University of Colorado-Boulder), and Amy Erica Smith (Iowa State University) emphasize the idea of academics as citizens in communities and institutions, endowed with certain rights and responsibilities with regard to knowledge production, exchange, and promotion. These actions go beyond simply research; knowledge production incorporates teaching, reviewing, blogging, podcasting, commenting, mentoring, and other similar actions, all of which inherently depend on collaboration and community.

Djupe, Smith, and Sokhey all have first-hand experience in the “publication pipeline” process. They accurately and intricately detail aspects of community that are overlooked within the academia. The collaborative nature of The Knowledge Polity speaks to the power of co-authorship in political science and sociology. The research indicates that building relationships with peers and mentors alike provides scholars with access to people whose advice is trusted, people who they consider friends, and people who know other scholars whose advice can also be trusted and valued. Similar to co-authorship, peer review is another dimension of knowledge exchange, collaboration, and the rights and responsibilities of the knowledge polity. The review process is reciprocal, and there is an innate sense that it is a duty, especially when the authors discuss “reviewer debt” (reviewing fewer papers than one is submitting) and how it is usually “paid off” when scholars reach tenure and have more time and capacity to give back to the community. Most academics would like to do more reviews, proving there is a powerful desire to participate in this important act of knowledge production.

The authors use data from an extensive Professional Activity in the Social Sciences (PASS) study, which sampled responses from 1,700 sociology and political science faculty about their publications, and experiences with regard to the process. They integrate different aspects of all of these findings in each chapter, examining for differences across disciplines, methodology, gender, race, and age, among other variables. The Knowledge Polity: Teaching and Research in the Social Sciences integrates a diversity of empirical research, qualitative inputs, and sophisticated analysis to better understand knowledge production within the social sciences. It becomes clear that the idea of the solitary scholar, alone in his/her office, creating knowledge is much more of a myth, since the reality is that knowledge production is much more of a collective undertaking and experience.

Emma R. Handschke assisted in the production of this podcast.

Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj.

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Nick Huntington-Klein, "The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality" (CRC Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 4 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality (Routledge, 2021) is about methods for using observational data to make causal inferences. It provides an extensive discussion of causality and the variety of both obvious and subtle challenges to inferring a causal relationship between the variables, using causal diagrams. It then goes through the major techniques that economists use to address these challenges, including regression, matching, simulation, fixed effects, event studies, differences-in-differences, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity. The book is designed to be accessible to students or practitioners without the extensive math background that is taken for granted in typical econometrics textbooks. Instead, the emphasis is on the intuition behind the techniques and how to implement them with the widely-used programming languages R, Stata, and Python.

Nick C. Huntington-Klein is an Assistant Professor at Seattle University. His research focuses on econometrics and higher education. His work has been published in the Economics of Education Review, AEA Papers and Proceedings, Economic Inquiry, Empirical Economics, and the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. His book can be read online for free or purchased in print, and is accompanied by a wealth of teaching materials on the same website. Nick can also be found on Youtube and on Twitter.

Host Peter Lorentzen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of San Francisco, where he leads a new Master's program in Applied Economics focused on the digital economy. His own research focus is the political economy of governance in China.

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Lindsay Pérez Huber and Susana M. Muñoz, "Why They Hate Us: How Racist Rhetoric Impacts Education" (Teachers College Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 3 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Why They Hate Us: How Racist Rhetoric Impacts Education (Teachers College Press, 2021) examines how racist political rhetoric has created damaging and dangerous conditions for Students of Color in schools and higher education institutions throughout the United States. The authors show how the election of the 45th president has resulted in a defining moment in U.S. history where racist discourses, reinforced by ideologies of white supremacy, have affected the educational experiences of our most vulnerable students. This volume situates the rhetoric of the Trump presidency within a broader historical narrative and provides recommendations for those who seek to advocate for anti-racism and social justice. As we enter the uncharted waters of a global pandemic and national racial reckoning, this will be invaluable reading for scholars, educators, and administrators who want to be part of the solution.

Dr. Lindsay Pérez Huber is a professor of education at California State University-Long Beach as well as a visiting scholar at the UCLA Center for Critical Race Studies. Her research analyzes racial inequities in education, the impact on marginalized urban students of color, and how students and their communities respond to those inequities through strategies of resistance. Dr. Susana Muñoz is an associate professor of education at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on issues of access, equity, and college persistence for undocumented Latina/o students.

Autumn Wilke works in higher education as an ADA coordinator and diversity officer and is also an author and doctoral candidate with research/topics related to disability and higher education.

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Vivian Kao and Julia Kiernan, "Writing STEAM: Composition, STEM, and a New Humanities" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Listen to this interview of Vivian Kao, Associate Professor of Composition and Coordinator of the First-Year Writing Program, and Julia Kiernan, Assistant Professor of Communication and Coordinator of Technical and Professional Communication — both at Lawrence Technological University, Michigan. It's more than just hot air — we talk about their STEAM, and their book Writing STEAM: Composition, STEM, and a New Humanities (Routledge, 2022).

Vivian Kao : "Writing is really central to the project of STEM. And I'm talking about writing very capaciously, so that is, composing in multiple modes, in multiple media — that is, learning how to communicate to many different audiences and how to utilize many different genres. Because writing is a way of thinking and a way of understanding your place in the world."

Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com.

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Classroom as a Sacred Space and Presence as Radical Respect

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 2 Aug 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode we speak to EWP PhD graduate and EWP and ITP adjunct faculty Holly Adler from her classroom in Oakland, CA. As a teacher of underprivileged and marginalized youth, Holly discusses alternative approaches to education beyond the mythos and narratives of neoliberal normativity, which aims to help students critically engage with culturally constructed values systems based on commercial production and consumption. Holly shares her approach to an experimental pedagogy based on cultivating the classroom as a sacred space, and she considers experiences of how conscious and engaged presence in their lives can create structures of unconditional support and radical respect, an essential factor in empowering students to reconstruct themselves in their own image based on their own goals of becoming. Our discussion addresses contemporary problems of cultural disillusionment, the role of technology, and the importance of spiritual self-transcendence in overcoming hegemonic regimes of discipline and control. The podcast ends discussing how music can offer alternative models of individual and collective becoming.

Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook • EWP Podcast Website

Music at the end of the episode titled The Architect, from Monsoon’s Arrival by the band Monsoon, released on Monsoon-Music Record Label

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The Science Wars: Post-Truth and the Nature of Science

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to the final day of our weeklong deep dive into the politics of education. Today, we’ve got another episode of Cited for you. If you haven’t heard a Cited episode before, it’s the documentary show that came before Darts and Letters and it specialised in immersive storytelling.

This piece takes us on a journey through a little-known, long-past set of debates on the nature of science in democratic society: the Science Wars. They may seem lost to time, but some scholars say the Science Wars might just explain how we got our 'post-truth' moment. Learn about the bold hoax that became a determining factor in the Science Wars and how that moment in history might have foretold the wars on science to come.

Next week, we’ll be bringing you episodes on a whole new theme - activism and academia. You won’t want to miss it. And you really won’t want to miss our brand-new episodes, launching on the New Books Network from September 18th.

—————————-SUPPORT THE SHOW—————————-

If you want to do a little more we would love if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to write to us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweet Gordon directly.

———-CREDITS———-

Today’s episode was produced by Gordon Katic, and edited by Cited's Sam Fenn.

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Humility and the Academic Administrator

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

This episode of How To Be Wrong explores questions of leadership and humility with Dr. Bill Tsutsui, Chancellor and Professor of History at Ottawa University, a private comprehensive university with residential campuses in Kansas and Arizona. Dr. Tsutsui has written extensively on Godzilla, among other things Japanese, and has developed a distinguished career both as an historian and in higher education administration, having held positions as associate dean for international studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Kansas, Dean of Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and the presidency of Hendrix College. Our conversation explores questions of diversity in higher education, as well as ways in which deeply learning about other cultures can influence approaches to leadership. We also discuss some of the major issues confronting higher education.

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Anthony Abraham Jack, "The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students" (Harvard UP, 2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors—and their coffers—to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In this bracing exposé, Anthony Jack shows that many students’ struggles continue long after they’ve settled in their dorms. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This powerfully argued book documents how university policies and campus culture can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why some students are harder hit than others.

Joao Souto-Maior is a PhD Student in Sociology of Education at the New York University.

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John Waterbury, "Missions Impossible: Higher Education and Policymaking in the Arab World" (American U in Cairo Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

John Waterbury's book Missions Impossible: Higher Education and Policymaking in the Arab World (American U in Cairo Press, 2020) is a rigorous examination of higher education policymaking in the Arab world. None of the momentous challenges Arab universities face is unique either in kind or degree. Other societies exhibit some of the same pathologies--insufficient resources, high drop-out rates, feeble contributions to research and development, inappropriate skill formation for existing job markets, weak research incentive structures, weak institutional autonomy, and co-optation into the political order. But, it may be that the concentration of these pathologies and their depth is what sets the Arab world apart.

Missions Impossible seeks to explain the process of policymaking in higher education in the Arab world, a process that is shaped by the region's politics of autocratic rule. Higher education in the Arab world is directly linked to crises in economic growth, social inequality and, as a result, regime survival. If unsuccessful, higher education could be the catalyst to regime collapse. If successful, it could be the catalyst to sustained growth and innovation--but that, too, could unleash forces that the region's autocrats are unable to control. Leaders are risk-averse and therefore implement policies that tame the universities politically but in the process sap their capabilities for innovation and knowledge creation. The result is sub-optimal and, argues John Waterbury in this thought-provoking study, unsustainable. Skillfully integrating international debates on higher education with rich and empirically informed analysis of the governance and finance of higher education in the Arab world today, Missions Impossible explores and dissects the manifold dilemmas that lie at the heart of educational reform and examines possible paths forward.

Shu Cao Mo's interests span continental philosophy, existential psychology and history of performance art. She previously served as the Asia representative for a global traveling university. She holds an Ed.M. in Arts in Education from Harvard and a B.A. in Political Philosophy and Theater from Duke. Her email address is shm785@mail.harvard.edu

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Koch Block My Campus: How Big Money Corrupts Academia

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Why is so much right-wing money being funnelled at such a furious pace into universities across the US? Libertarian-minded billionaires like the Kochs and their partners have funded scholars and think tanks across the US, and similar things go on in Canada too. The money shows us that the right spends it because they care about education, for their own ideological reasons - and universities are all too happy to sell out.

For today’s episode on the politics of education, we look at how big money seeks to corrupt academic freedom and integrity - and how campus activists are fighting to un-Koch their schools.

This is another instalment of our Darts and Letters summer programming here on the New Books Network. We’ll be launching brand-new episodes starting on September 18th. Until then, tune in to our favourite past episodes - each week is a new theme!

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————

Visit UnKoch My Campus to learn about the organization and their work, including groundbreaking reports and their campaigns. Plus, read more from Jasmine Banks in The Nation, including “The Radical Capitalist Behind the Critical Race Theory Furor.”
Visit James L. Turk’s academic page at the Centre for Free Expression. And check out his edited 2014 book Academic Freedom in Conflict: The Struggle Over Free Speech Rights in the University.
Read the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ report on the relationships between Canadian universities and corporations Open for Business on What Terms? An Analysis of 12 Collaborations Between Canadian Universities and Corporations, Donors, and Governments.
Dig into related works from the episode, and more on the Koch’s and their influence, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy Maclean and Jane Meyer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Plus, read more of Jane’s work on dark money in the New Yorker.

—————————-SUPPORT THE SHOW—————————-

If you want to do a little more we would love if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to write to us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweet Gordon directly.

———-CREDITS———-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic. Our lead producer is Jay Cockburn and our assistant producer this week was Jason Cohanim. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. David Moscrop is our research assistant and wrote the show notes. This episode had research and advising from Franklynn Bartol and Professor Marc Spooner. Our theme song and music was created by Mike Barber, our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop, and our marketing was done by Ian Sowden.

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Michael S. Roth, "Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist's Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses" (Yale UP, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

From the president of Wesleyan University, a compassionate and provocative manifesto, Safe Enough Spaces (Yale UP, 2021) on the crises confronting higher education In this bracing book, Michael S. Roth stakes out a pragmatist path through the thicket of issues facing colleges today to carry out the mission of higher education. With great empathy, candor, subtlety, and insight, Roth offers a sane approach to the noisy debates surrounding affirmative action, political correctness, and free speech, urging us to envision college as a space in which students are empowered to engage with criticism and with a variety of ideas. Countering the increasing cynical dismissal--from both liberals and conservatives--of the traditional core values of higher education, this book champions the merits of different diversities, including intellectual diversity, with a timely call for universities to embrace boldness, rigor, and practical idealism.

Michael S. Roth is president of Wesleyan University and a historian, curator, and teacher. His previous books include Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin).

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The Grift of Meritocracy: All About Grifting (Inside and Outside of the Academy)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Our society is dominated by grifters. Cheats, cons, frauds: people who don’t really believe what they tell you. They’re just what they need to do to get ahead or to sell you something. Isn’t that that really what capitalism is about? The grift!

We’re new here on the network, so we’re introducing Darts and Letters with some highlights of our past episodes. Each week over the summer has a different Darts theme! It’s day two of our “politics of education” themed week, and today we’re bringing back a favourite episode of ours about a pillar of our society: grifters.

Wanna hear an interview with an academic paper writer-for-hire? Ever wondered just what the “professional managerial class” is? This is the show for you. And don’t forget: we’ll have new episodes coming out on the New Books Network starting on September 18th! (We promise you it’s legit.)

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————

Abebe, Nitsuh. “Why Are We Suddenly Surrounded by Grift?” The New York Times Magazine. Dec. 4, 2018.
Dante, Ed. “The Shadow Scholar.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Nov. 12, 2010.
Gold, Lyta. “Presenting the 2020 ‘Griftie Awards’.” Current Affairs. Dec. 31, 2020.
Liu, Catherine. Virtue Hoarders. University of Minnesota Press, 2021.
Mishan, Logaya. “The Distinctly American Ethos of the Grifter.” The New York Times Style Magazine. Sept. 12, 2019.

—————————-SUPPORT THE SHOW—————————-

If you want to do a little more we would love if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to write to us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweet Gordon directly.

———-CREDITS———-

Darts and Letters’ lead producer is Jay Cockburn, and our chase producer is Marc Apollonio. With research and support from David Moscrop. Our theme song was created by Mike Barber, and our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth, "It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The protests of summer 2020 led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors?

It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approaching this question from two angles—one, the question of when a professor's intramural or extramural speech calls into question his or her fitness to serve, and two, the question of how to manage the simmering tension between the academic freedom of faculty and the antidiscrimination initiatives of campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion—they argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech.

In recent years, those with traditional liberal ideals have had very limited effectiveness in responding to the resurgence of white supremacism in American life. It is time, Bérubé and Ruth write, to ask whether that resurgence requires us to rethink the parameters and practices of academic freedom. Touching as well on contingent faculty, whose speech is often inadequately protected, It's Not Free Speech insists that we reimagine shared governance to augment both academic freedom and antidiscrimination initiatives on campuses.

Michael Bérubé (interviewed here) is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University; Jennifer Ruth is a professor of film at Portland State University. Both have served in various roles within the American Association of University Professors, and also coauthored The Humanities, Higher Education, and Academic Freedom: Three Necessary Arguments (2015).

Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office's role in the Cold War. She can be reached by email or on Twitter.

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Effective Altruism: What it is, What it Does, and How You Can Help

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

80,000 Hours provides research and support to help students and graduates switch into careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems.

Benjamin Todd is the president and co-founder of 80,000 Hours. He managed the organisation while it grew from a lecture, to a student society, to the organization it is today. He also helped to get effective altruism started in Oxford in 2011.

Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network (Twitter: @caleb_zakarin).

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Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner, "The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be" (MIT Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

For The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be (MIT Press, 2022), Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner analyzed in-depth interviews with more than 2,000 students, alumni, faculty, administrators, parents, trustees, and others, which were conducted at ten institutions ranging from highly selective liberal arts colleges to less-selective state schools. What they found challenged characterizations in the media: students are not preoccupied by political correctness, free speech, or even the cost of college. They are most concerned about their GPA and their resumes; they see jobs and earning potential as more important than learning. Many say they face mental health challenges, fear that they don't belong, and feel a deep sense of alienation. Given this daily reality for students, has higher education lost its way? Fischman and Gardner contend that US universities and colleges must focus sharply on their core educational mission.

Fischman and Gardner, both recognized authorities on education and learning, argue that higher education in the United States has lost sight of its principal reason for existing: not vocational training, not the provision of campus amenities, but to increase what Fischman and Gardner call "higher education capital"--to help students think well and broadly, express themselves clearly, explore new areas, and be open to possible transformations. Fischman and Gardner offer cogent recommendations for how every college can become a community of learners who are open to change as thinkers, citizens, and human beings.

Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland.

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Jason Resnikoff, "Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work" (U Illinois Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Labor's End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work (U Illinois Press, 2021) traces the discourse around automation from its origins in the factory to its wide-ranging implications in political and social life. As Jason Resnikoff shows, the term automation expressed the conviction that industrial progress meant the inevitable abolition of manual labor from industry. But the real substance of the term reflected industry's desire to hide an intensification of human work--and labor's loss of power and protection--behind magnificent machinery and a starry-eyed faith in technological revolution. The rhetorical power of the automation ideology revealed and perpetuated a belief that the idea of freedom was incompatible with the activity of work. From there, political actors ruled out the workplace as a site of politics while some of labor's staunchest allies dismissed sped-up tasks, expanded workloads, and incipient deindustrialization in the name of technological progress.

A forceful intellectual history, Labor's End challenges entrenched assumptions about automation's transformation of the American workplace.

Jason Resnifoff is Assistant Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Groningen (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) in the Netherlands.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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The Cornell Sweatshirt Tweet

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

Dr. Ruby Tapia’s viral Cornell sweatshirt tweet.
How witnessing domestic violence, and the aftermath of her father’s suicide, influenced her decision to go to college far from home.
Difficulties she faced freshman year both on and off campus.
The professor who called her in to office hours, and how that changed her academic path.
The meaning she’s made of these experiences, and how they changed her.
Her hopes for future generation of college students, including her own daughters.

Our guest is: Dr. Ruby C. Tapia, who is Chair of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies, and Associate Professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. Her work engages the intersections of photography theory, feminist and critical race theory, and critical prison studies. She is co-editor of Interrupted Life: Experiences of Incarcerated Women in the United States, co-editor of the University of California book series Reproductive Justice: New Visions for the 21st Century, and author of American Pietàs: Visions of Race, Death and the Maternal. Her current book project, The Camera in the Cage, interrogates the intersections of prison photography and carceral humanism and puts forth an argument and methodology for abolitionist aesthetics. She has facilitated creative writing workshops via the Prison Creative Arts Project at Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Michigan, is a member of the Theory Group Think Tank at Macomb Correctional Facility for men and is the lead faculty member of the Critical Carceral Visualities component of the Documenting Criminalization and Confinement project at UM's Humanities Collaboratory.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-producer of the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Borderlands, by Gloria Anzaldua
Academic Outsider, by Victoria Reyes
The Abortionist, by Rickie Solinger
Welfare, by Rickie Solinger
Ruby Tapia’s Avidly article “What I Was Looking For Was Green”
Ruby Tapia’s Avidly article “Never Been A Scared Bitch”
A discussion of Presumed Incompetent

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Jonna Perrillo, "Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands (U Chicago Press, 2022) begins with the 144 children of Nazi scientists who moved to El Paso, Texas, in 1946 as part of the military program called Operation Paperclip. These German children were bused daily from a military outpost to four El Paso public schools. Though born into a fascist enemy nation, the German children were quickly integrated into the schools and, by proxy, American society. Their rapid assimilation offered evidence that American public schools played a vital role in ensuring the victory of democracy over fascism.

Jonna Perrillo not only tells this fascinating story of Cold War educational policy, but she draws an important contrast with another, much more numerous population of children in the El Paso public schools: Mexican Americans. Like everywhere else in the Southwest, Mexican American children in El Paso were segregated into "Mexican" schools, where the children received a vastly different educational experience. Not only were they penalized for speaking Spanish--the only language all but a few spoke due to segregation--they were tracked for low-wage and low-prestige careers, with limited opportunities for economic success. Educating the Enemy charts what two groups of children--one that might have been considered the enemy, the other that was treated as such--reveal about the ways political assimilation has been treated by schools as an easier, more viable project than racial or ethnic assimilation.

Listen to an interview with the author here and read an interview in Time and a piece based on the book in the Boston Review.

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Lorna Down and Therese Ferguson, "Education for Sustainable Development in the Caribbean: Pedagogy, Processes and Practices" (U West Indies Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 15 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Education for Sustainable Development in the Caribbean: Pedagogy, Processes and Practices (University of the West Indies Press, 2022) offers a unique perspective on educational approaches to creating a sustainable world. Lorna Down and Therese Ferguson complement their theoretical discussions with practical, “real world” engagements. Case studies and current research ground teaching and learning for sustainability and enable diverse communities of learners, inside and outside of classrooms, to transform their societies.

With its emphasis on the crucial role of education for the transformation to a peaceful, just, inclusive and environmentally sustainable world, this book is a valuable resource for students, lecturers and researchers working in education for sustainable development across disciplines. It also is a significant text for those working in community-based, non-governmental and intergovernmental fields.

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Mergers in Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

This episode is the latest in the series of cases we’ve profiled focusing on mergers within higher education. We speak with Bryon Grigsby, President of Moravian University and David Rowe, who served as Interim President of Lancaster Theological Seminary (LTS) who discuss how they partnered to integrate LTS into Moravian to operate alongside the existing Moravian Seminary. Moravian is the 6th oldest college in the U.S. and was the first to admit women. They describe how the vision for the merger evolved during their initial discussions from having LTS move to Moravian’s campus in Bethlehem, to enabling LTS to retain its historic campus and expanding it to serve as a branch campus for Moravian. They share the hard-earned lessons with all of the regulatory and other hurdles that need to be cleared to complete a successful merger.

David Finegold is the president of Chatham University.

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Penny Jane Burke et al., "Gender in an Era of Post-truth Populism: Pedagogies, Challenges and Strategies" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Why does gender matter in our troubled global times? In Gender in an Era of Post-truth Populism: Pedagogies, Challenges and Strategies (Bloomsbury, 2022), the editors Penny Jane Burke, Rosalind Gill, Akane Kanai, and Julia Coffey have assembled a collection of interventions that seek to think through the relationship between the populism that seems to dominate many nation’s contemporary politics and the continuing need for feminist perspectives. The chapters range from feminist philosophical and theoretical reflections on the meaning of truth, through empirical work on digital feminism, to considerations on the role and purpose of education and the university. Across 11 chapters, with an agenda setting introduction, the book is essential reading for all in the humanities and social sciences, as well as for anyone seeking to understand the current post-truth populist crisis and how to intervene for change.

Dave O'Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Sheffield.

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J. S. Antony et al., "The College President Handbook: A Sustainable and Practical Guide for Emerging Leaders" (Harvard Education Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 6 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

An indispensable manual for the most demanding position in higher education, The College President Handbook: A Sustainable and Practical Guide for Emerging Leaders (Harvard Education Press, 2022) supports campus leaders in becoming powerful and effective stewards of their institutions.

This comprehensive guidebook offers clear counsel in the form of candid essays by highly regarded current and former college and university presidents from across the nation. It pairs their expert appraisals with research and data to examine the critical issues that define the role today.

The book's contributors acknowledge the broad skill set that presidents, and their executive teams, must cultivate in order to achieve success. Beginning with a macro view, the contributors address the universal questions of vision that each higher education leader must consider critically and understand strategically: Why be a president? How should campus leadership engage with our board of trustees? What tone should our actions communicate to stakeholders?

The book's chapters offer concrete tactical advice in a range of key leadership areas and emphasize essential career skills such as managing financial resources and strategic planning. The contributors speak to student-facing concerns as well as institutional interests, and discuss personal issues specific to the office, such as weathering controversy, attaining work–life balance, and planning for post-presidential life.

Drawing on the unique expertise of peers and predecessors, this work will prove to be a core resource for anyone who is or aspires to become a president or chancellor in higher education.

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Nilanjana Paul, "Bengal Muslims and Colonial Education, 1854–1947: A Study of Curriculum, Educational Institutions, and Communal Politics" (Routledge, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 5 Jul 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Dr. Nilanjana Paul of the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley speaks about her new monograph, Bengal Muslims and Colonial Education, 1854-1947: A Study of Curriculum, Educational Institutions and Communal Politics (Routledge, 2022). The book is a micro history of the spread of education among Muslims in Colonial Bengal. Dr. Paul discusses the role played by Muslim leaders such as Abdul Latif and Fazlul Huq in the spread of education and examines how segregation in education, supported by the British fueled Muslim anxiety and separatism. By examining the conflict of interest between Hindu elites and Muslim aristocrats over education and employment, Dr. Paul shows how discriminatory colonial education policies and pedagogy amplified religious separatism that would eventually culminate in the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan.

Bekeh Ukelina is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center of Gender and Intercultural Studies at State University of New York, Cortland. Twitter: @bekeh/ Instagram @mwalimuwakusafiri/

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An Inside Look at the American Association of University Professors

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

Why the AAUP was formed.
Their role in supporting academic freedom.
Why the threat to tenure is a threat to higher education.
The importance of collective bargaining, and of transparency in academic salaries.

Our guest is: Dr. Irene Mulvey, who is a Professor of Mathematics at Fairfield University where she has been teaching for 37 years. She has been fighting to protect academic freedom, to promote shared governance, and to uphold AAUP principles and standards at the campus, state and national level for over 30 years. In 2020, she was elected to a four-year term as President of the AAUP on a platform pledging progress toward making the AAUP an anti-racist organization and dismantling structural racism in all aspects of higher education.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator of the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode might also be interested in:

The AAUP
The AAUP Foundation
Chronicle of Higher Education article on the Adjunct Problem
LA Times editorial about the adjunct crisis in California and how that affects Academic Freedom
Statement on academic freedom from the American Federation of Teachers
Academic Life interview with an Adjunct Professor
NBN episode on the future of tenure

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Bianca C. Williams et al., "Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education" (SUNY Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education (SUNY Press, 2021) provides a multidisciplinary exploration of the contemporary university's entanglement with the history of slavery and settler colonialism in the United States. Inspired by more than a hundred student-led protests during the Movement for Black Lives, contributors examine how campus rebellions—and university responses to them—expose the racialized inequities at the core of higher education. Plantation politics are embedded in the everyday workings of universities—in not only the physical structures and spaces of academic institutions, but in its recruitment and attainment strategies, hiring practices, curriculum, and notions of sociality, safety, and community. The book is comprised of three sections that highlight how white supremacy shapes campus communities and classrooms; how current diversity and inclusion initiatives perpetuate inequality; and how students, staff, and faculty practice resistance in the face of institutional and legislative repression. Each chapter interrogates a connection between the academy and the plantation, exploring how Black people and their labor are viewed as simultaneously essential and disruptive to university cultures and economies. The volume is an indispensable read for students, faculty, student affairs professionals, and administrators invested in learning more about how power operates within education and imagining emancipatory futures.

Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

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Eli Friedman, "The Urbanization of People: The Politics of Development, Labor Markets, and Schooling in the Chinese City" (Columbia UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Amid a vast influx of rural migrants into urban areas, China has allowed cities wide latitude in providing education and other social services. While millions of people have been welcomed into the megacities as a source of cheap labor, local governments have used various tools to limit their access to full citizenship.

The Urbanization of People: The Politics of Development, Labor Markets, and Schooling in the Chinese City (Columbia University Press, 2022) by Eli D. Friedman reveals how cities in China have granted public goods to the privileged while condemning poor and working-class migrants to insecurity, constant mobility, and degraded educational opportunities. Using the school as a lens on urban life, Eli Friedman investigates how the state manages flows of people into the city. He demonstrates that urban governments are providing quality public education to those who need it least: school admissions for nonlocals heavily favor families with high levels of economic and cultural capital. Those deemed not useful are left to enroll their children in precarious resource-starved private schools that sometimes are subjected to forced demolition. Over time, these populations are shunted away to smaller locales with inferior public services.

Based on extensive ethnographic research and hundreds of in-depth interviews, this interdisciplinary book details the policy framework that produces unequal outcomes as well as providing a fine-grained account of the life experiences of people drawn into the cities as workers but excluded as full citizens.

Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. His most recent research, “The Queen and Her Royal Court: A Content Analysis of Doing Gender at a Tulip Queen Pageant,” was published in Gender Issues Journal. He researches culture, social identity, placemaking, and media representations of social life at festivals and celebrations. He is currently working on a book titled Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River. You can learn more about Dr. Johnston on his website, Google Scholar, on Twitter @ProfessorJohnst, or by email at johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu.

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The Great Resignation: In, Out, and Around Higher Education

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

Our guest Eric Frans’ career path into, out of, and around higher education
Key factors that influenced his decision to pursue employment outside the academy
The transition from higher education to a different industry
How he plans to use his doctorate in the future
His advice to those inside higher ed considering switching to other industries

Our guest is: Eric Frans, a career development professional currently working as a Talent Acquisition Manager for PrimePay, a human resources software company. Eric holds a master’s degree in Higher Education Counseling/Student Affairs from West Chester University (WCU) and is pursuing a doctorate in Higher Education Policy, Planning, and Administration from WCU. Eric worked as a career development professional at SUNY Oswego and WCU before moving into his current role at PrimePay. Eric was born in Ghana and raised in Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania. As an undergraduate student, Eric studied psychology at WCU and was highly engaged in campus life; he was a member of the men’s basketball team, a resident assistant, and an orientation leader.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Inside Higher Ed article: 7 Steps for Discerning Whether to Leave Higher Ed by Beth Godbee
Chronicle article: Many Student Affairs Officials are Considering Leaving the Field
Jenny Blake’s Book: Pivot: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One (Portfolio/Penguin) - https://www.pivotmethod.com/
Dawn Graham’s book: Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers and Seize Success (Harper Collins Leadership)
The Academic Life episode: The Self-Care Stuff: Considering Whether to Stay or Drop Out

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Jennifer Guiliano, "A Primer for Teaching Digital History: Ten Design Principles" (Duke UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

A Primer for Teaching Digital History: Ten Design Principles (Duke UP, 2022) is a guide for college and high school teachers who are teaching digital history for the first time or for experienced teachers who want to reinvigorate their pedagogy. It can also serve those who are training future teachers to prepare their own syllabi, as well as teachers who want to incorporate digital history into their history courses. Offering design principles for approaching digital history that represent the possibilities that digital research and scholarship can take, Jennifer Guiliano outlines potential strategies and methods for building syllabi and curricula. Taking readers through the process of selecting data, identifying learning outcomes, and determining which tools students will use in the classroom, Guiliano outlines popular research methods including digital source criticism, text analysis, and visualization. She also discusses digital archives, exhibits, and collections as well as audiovisual and mixed-media narratives such as short documentaries, podcasts, and multimodal storytelling. Throughout, Guiliano illuminates how digital history can enhance understandings of not just what histories are told but how they are told and who has access to them.

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Louis M. Maraj, "Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics" (Utah State UP, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics (Utah State University Press, 2020) explores notions of Blackness in white institutional—particularly educational—spaces. In it, Louis M. Maraj theorizes how Black identity operates with/against ideas of difference in the age of #BlackLivesMatter. Centering Blackness in frameworks for antiracist agency through interdisciplinary Black feminist lenses, Black or Right asks how those racially signifying “diversity” in US higher education (and beyond) make meaning in the everyday. Offering four Black rhetorics as antiracist means for rhetorical reclamation—autoethnography, hashtagging, inter(con)textual reading, and reconceptualized disruption—the book uses Black feminist relationality via an African indigenous approach.

Maraj examines fluid, quotidian ways Black folk engage anti/racism at historically white institutions in the United States in response to violent campus spaces, educational structures, protest movements, and policy practice. Black or Right’s experimental, creative style strives to undiscipline knowledge from academic confinement. Exercising different vantage points in each chapter—autoethnographer, digital media scholar/pedagogue, cultural rhetorician, and critical discourse analyst—Maraj challenges readers to ecologically understand shifting, multiple meanings of Blackness in knowledge-making. Black or Right’s expressive form, organization, narratives, and poetics intimately interweave with its argument that Black folk must continuously invent “otherwise” in reiterative escape from oppressive white spaces. In centering Black experiences, Black theory, and diasporic Blackness, Black or Right mobilizes generative approaches to destabilizing institutional whiteness, as opposed to reparative attempts to “fix racism,” which often paradoxically center whiteness. It will be of interest to both academic and general readers and significant for specialists in cultural rhetorics, Black studies, and critical theory.

Anna E. Lindner is a doctoral candidate in the Communication Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. On Twitter.

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A Discussion with Lynn Pasquerella, President of the American Association of Colleges & Universities

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

This episode features a wide-ranging discussion with Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, the President of the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). She shares her experience as a community college student that launched her on a successful academic career as a philosopher and medical ethicist, and how she became president of Mt. Holyoke College. We also discuss her new book, What We Value: Public Health, Social Justice, and Educating for Democracy (U Virginia Press, 2022), which summarizes many of the hot button issues on today’s college campuses and provides a robust defense of the central importance of a liberal arts education to both prepare individuals for a highly uncertain economic future and to help safeguard our democracy.

David Finegold is the president of Chatham University.

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Danya Glabau, "Food Allergy Advocacy: Parenting and the Politics of Care" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

A detailed exploration of parents' fight for a safe environment for their kids, interrogating how race, class, and gender shape health advocacy The success of food allergy activism in highlighting the dangers of foodborne allergens shows how illness communities can effectively advocate for the needs of their members.

In Food Allergy Advocacy: Parenting and the Politics of Care (U Minnesota Press, 2022), Danya Glabau follows parents and activists as they fight for allergen-free environments, accurate labeling, the fair application of disability law, and access to life-saving medications for food-allergic children in the United States. At the same time, she shows how this activism also reproduces the culturally dominant politics of personhood and responsibility, based on an idealized version of the American family, centered around white, middle-class, and heteronormative motherhood. By holding up the threat of food allergens to the white nuclear family to galvanize political and scientific action, Glabau shows, the movement excludes many, including Black women and disabled adults, whose families and health have too often been marginalized from public health and social safety net programs. Further, its strategies are founded on the assumption that market-based solutions will address issues of social exclusion and equal access to healthcare. Sharing the personal experiences of a wide spectrum of people, including parents, support group leaders, physicians, entrepreneurs, and scientists, Food Allergy Advocacy raises important questions about who controls illness activism. Using critical, intersectional feminism to interrogate how race, class, and gender shape activist priorities and platforms, it shows the way to new, justice-focused models of advocacy.

Danya Glabau is a medical anthropologist and science and technology studies scholar who researches patient activism, the political economy of the global pharmaceutical industry, and feminist cybercultures. She is a faculty member at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and the Director of the Science and Technology Studies Program.

Autumn Wilke works in higher education as an ADA coordinator and diversity officer and am also an author and doctoral candidate with research/topics related to disability and higher education.

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Scholar Skills: Editing a Book Collection Through a Professional Organization

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 9 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

Dr. Karin Lewis’s experience pitching and winning the book bid
Karin and the editorial team’s vision for an inclusive and diverse collection
The process of working as a team to develop an idea into a book
The realities of editing a large volume with many authors
Blurring the lines of traditional scholarship with artistic and creative submissions
Her advice to other scholars considering editing an established collection

Our guest is: Dr. Karin A. Lewis, an associate professor in the Department of

Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley. She teaches educational psychology in the areas of cognition, learning, human development, and adult learning at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. Her scholarship explores complexities of identity and agency from a multicultural, social justice perspective via transdisciplinary discourses and collaborative, collective ethnographic methodologies. Dr. Lewis is the Lead Editor for The Kaleidoscope of Lived Curriculum: Learning Through a Confluence of Crisis, 13th Annual Curriculum and Pedagogy Group, 2021 Edited Collection, published through Information Age Publishing.

Our host is: Dr. Dana M. Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner specializing in college student relationships, gender, sexuality, and religious identities as well as student success and assessment planning. Dana first met Karin as a doctorate student at the University of Kentucky when Karin hired her as a graduate TA to teach courses offered through the university’s academic success unit. Dana has always been impressed with Karin’s dedication to students, love of teaching, and the grace with which she moves through the world.

Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:

Curriculum and Pedagogy Group Edited Collections
Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy
About the Curriculum and Pedagogy Group
The Academic Life episode on writing a book proposal

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On Teaching Religious Studies in College

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 8 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Dr. Chris Jones holds a Bachelor of Arts from Oklahoma Baptist University, a Master of Theology from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, and a PhD from Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the sole religious studies professor at Washburn University.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

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Brooklyn L. Raney, "One Trusted Adult: How to Build Strong Connections & Healthy Boundaries with Young People" (2019)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 7 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In a world facing more shootings, suicides, substance abuse, and sexual violence than ever before, there is more that we can do as educators, as parents, and as adults committed to leaving this world better than we found it. Research shows that just one trusted adult can have a profound effect on a child’s life, influencing that young person toward positive growth, greater engagement in school and community activities, better overall health, and prevention of risky and threatening behaviors. From educators to piano teachers, camp counselors to aunts and uncles, and athletic coaches to babysitters, every adult who encounters a young person holds the privilege of shaping that child’s life—and also the significant responsibility. With news headlines dominated by stories of abuse in schools, camps, and churches, those of us who guide or mentor adolescents must understand how to build trust with young people while simultaneously establishing boundaries that keep the relationship healthy.

Packed with real-life stories and invaluable tips, One Trusted Adult: How to Build Strong Connections & Healthy Boundaries with Young People inspires all adults to build strong connections, embrace sustainable career practices, break the silence around boundary violations and abuse, be present for the young people in their lives—and, in doing so, ensure that the young people in their care are growing into their greatest potential.

Brooklyn Raney is an experienced teacher, coach, and administrator who has spent the last decade working in independent schools. She is the founder and director of the Girls’ Leadership Camp, a group that hosts a one-week summer camp for middle school girls, as well as one-day boosts and leadership conferences. She is also a co-founder of Generation Change, a nonprofit that seeks to embolden youth to be empathic and compassionate change makers through cross-generational mentorship. Brooklyn is a workshop facilitator, speaker, and consultant for schools, camps, and other youth-serving organizations nationally and internationally. You can find out more about her and her programs at www.onetrustedadult.com

Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher with offices in Brookline and Norwood, MA. You can follow her on Instagram or visit her website.

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Welding Technical Communication: Teaching and Learning Embodied Knowledge

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 6 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Listen to this interview of Jo Mackiewicz, Professor of Rhetoric and Professional Communication at Iowa State University and editor of the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. We talk about welds that hold and about sentences that stand.

Jo Mackiewicz : "Oh, I'd definitely agree that people can be motivated in what they're learning when they appreciate the art of it. I mean, for instance in welding, you need to put in a certain number of hours in order to have your mind and your body work as one in this technique — you know, you need to become the technique. And that kind of thing doesn't just happen. Your body has to do it over and over and over again for you to become an artist, or in the terms I use in the book, an expert. And those hours that you spend practising in a welding program, or in a writing program for that matter — those hours are all just building up your practice hours, building up your technique, and you keep continuing on towards true expertise."

Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com.

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Samaa Badawi et al., "School Farms: Feeding and Educating Children" (Routledge, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 3 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

School Farms: Feeding and Educating Children (Routledge, 2021) highlights the potential of school farms to fight hunger and malnutrition by providing access to locally produced, fresh, and healthy food as well as providing young students with educational opportunities to learn, interact with nature, and develop their skills.

Hunger is one of the most pressing concerns we face today and there is a clear need to provide alternative sources of food to feed a fast-growing population. School farms offer a sustainable opportunity to produce food locally in order to feed underprivileged students who rely on school meals as an integral part of their daily diet. Approaching the concept of school farms through four themes, Problem, People, Process, and Place, the book shows how they can play an essential role in providing sustainable and healthy food for students, the critical role educational institutions can play in promoting this process, and the positive impact hands-on farming can have on students' mental and physical well-being. Utilising the authors' personal hands-on experiences, and drawing on global case studies, the book provides a theoretical framework and practical guidance to help with the establishment of school farms and community-based gardening projects and an education system which promotes a sustainable and healthy approach to food, agriculture, and the environment.

This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of food security, agriculture, healthy and sustainable diets, education for sustainable development, and urban studies. It will also be of great interest to practitioners and policymakers involved in food policy, developing school and community projects, global health and international development, as well as education professionals.

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Sheila L. Macrine and Jennifer M. B. Fugate, "Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning" (MIT Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 3 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning (MIT, 2022), Sheila L. Macrine (Professor in Cognitive Science, UMass Dartmouth) and Jennifer M. B. Fugate (Associate Professor in Health Psychology, Kansas City University) bring together experts to translate the latest findings on embodied cognition to inform teaching and learning pedagogy.

Embodied cognition represents a radical shift in conceptualizing cognitive processes, in which cognition develops through mind-body environmental interaction. If this supposition is correct, then the conventional style of instruction—in which students sit at desks, passively receiving information—needs rethinking. Movement Matters considers the educational implications of an embodied account of cognition, describing the latest research applications from neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science and demonstrating their relevance for teaching and learning pedagogy.

After a discussion of the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of embodied cognition, contributors to the book describe its applications in language, including the areas of handwriting, vocabulary, language development, and reading comprehension; STEM areas, emphasizing finger counting and the importance of hand and body gestures in understanding physical forces; and digital learning technologies, including games and augmented reality. Finally, they explore embodied learning in the social-emotional realm, including how emotional granularity, empathy, and mindfulness benefit classroom learning.

Movement Matters introduces a new model, translational learning sciences research, for interpreting and disseminating the latest empirical findings in the burgeoning field of embodied cognition. The book provides an up-to-date, inclusive, and essential resource for those involved in educational planning, design, and pedagogical approaches.

Alice Garner is a historian, teacher and performer with a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

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Margie Meacham, "AI in Talent Development: Capitalize on the AI Revolution to Transform the Way You Work, Learn, and Live" (ASTD, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 2 Jun 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In AI in Talent Development: Capitalize on the AI Revolution to Transform the Way You Work, Learn, and Live (ASTD, 2020), Margie Meacham describes the benefits, uses, and risks of AI technology and offers practical tools to strengthen and enhance learning and performance programs. In layman's terms, Meacham demonstrates how we can free time for ourselves by employing a useful robot "assistant," create a chatbot for specific tasks (such as a new manager bot, a sales coach bot, or new employee onboarding bot), and build personalized coaching tools from AI-processed big data. She concludes each of the six chapters with helpful tips and includes a resource guide with planning tools, templates, and worksheets.

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Charlie Eaton, "Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 31 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Elite colleges have long played a crucial role in maintaining social and class status in America while public universities have offered a major stepping-stone to new economic opportunities. However, as Charlie Eaton reveals in Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education (U Chicago Press, 2022), finance has played a central role in the widening inequality in recent decades, both in American higher education and in American society at large.

With federal and state funding falling short, the US higher education system has become increasingly dependent on financial markets and the financiers that mediate them. Beginning in the 1980s, the government, colleges, students, and their families took on multiple new roles as financial investors, borrowers, and brokers. The turn to finance, however, has yielded wildly unequal results. At the top, ties to Wall Street help the most elite private schools achieve the greatest endowment growth through hedge fund investments and the support of wealthy donors. At the bottom, takeovers by private equity transform for-profit colleges into predatory organizations that leave disadvantaged students with massive loan debt and few educational benefits. And in the middle, public universities are squeezed between incentives to increase tuition and pressures to maintain access and affordability. Eaton chronicles these transformations, making clear for the first time just how tight the links are between powerful financiers and America's unequal system of higher education.

Charlie Eaton is an economic sociologist and Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Merced. He studies the role of social ties, organizations, and politics in the interplay between financiers, other elites, and subordinate social groups. His work has been published in Socio-Economic Review, Politics & Society, The Review of Financial Studies, Socius, Sociology Compass, and PS: Political Science and Politics.

Tom Discenna is Professor of Communication at Oakland University whose work examines issues of academic labor and communicative labor more broadly.

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Skills for Scholars: How Can Mindfulness Help?

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Tue, 31 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about:

The science that explains our busy minds
What mindfulness is
The difference between mindfulness and meditation
How changing our habits is a small-step by small-step process
A discussion of the book Bettter Daily Mindfulness Habits: Simple Changes with Lifelong Impact

Today’s book is: Better Daily Mindfulness Habits: Simple Changes with Lifelong Impact Mindfulness by Kristen Manieri. Mindfulness is a powerful tool for staying calm, centered, and steady―but it can be challenging to remember to stay mindful. Better Daily Mindfulness Habits helps practitioners of any level. Rooted in proven habit-building methodology, the book contains 40 practices designed to orient your attention to the present. In as little as a few minutes at a time, it can become easier to practice self-compassion and connect with others, your work, and yourself more mindfully.

Our guest is: Kristen Manieri, a certified habits coach as well as a certified mindfulness teacher. Kristen believes that when we actively engage in our growth and evolution, we can begin to live a more conscious, connected, and intentional life. She is the author of Bettter Daily Mindfulness Habits: Simple Changes with Lifelong Impact.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

Listeners to this episode might also be interested in:

Atomic Habits by James Clear
Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg
Create Your Own Calm: A Journal for Quieting Anxiety by Meera Lee Patel
The Mindfulness Journal by Worthy Stokes
Quick Calm: Easy Meditations to Short-Circuit Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroscience by Jennifer Wolkin
The 60 Mindful Minutes podcasts with Kristen Manieri
This discussion of meditation

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The Path to a New Learning Paradigm: A Conversation with Sophie Adelman

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 30 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Sophie Adelman is the co-founder of Multiverse and The Garden, two companies that are innovating the way people learn and enhance their personal skills. Multiverse offers professional apprenticeships as an alternative to traditional college approaches, and The Garden is launching a platform for building and educating a diverse community of people who share a passion for learning.

Sophie’s path to success began with no clear entrepreneurial role model, nor a precise idea of what she wanted to do with her professional life. After studies at Cambridge, Harvard, and Stanford Business School, she worked in a variety of positions in the corporate world, including stints in headhunting, banking, and finance.

But along the way, Sophie knew one thing for certain—she wanted to change the world, and she believed that meaningful change could begin at the organisational level. Today, her innovative learning models are levelling the playing field for people and businesses that want access to top-tier educational opportunities. Tune in and find out for yourself how it works.

About our guest:

As co-founder of Multiverse and The Garden, Sophie Adelman is on her way to pursuing her overriding dream—which is nothing less than trying to make the world a better place for everyone. How does she plan to do it? By levelling the playing field between those who can and those who traditionally didn’t have access to equal educational opportunities.

Sophie’s passion for driving change doesn’t stop there. She is also co-founder and president of WhiteHat, a tech scale-up committed to creating a whole new generation of leaders. In many ways, she is just getting started. Who knows where her passion for leadership and change will eventually lead her?

About NBN:

The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate, inform and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal stories of carefully selected guests—all in an informal atmosphere of unscripted conversations and open, personal accounts.

Find links to past episodes here.

About our Hosts:

Kimon Fountoukidis:

Kimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. He founded both companies in the mid-90s with zero capital, and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. He is passionate about sharing his success with others and working entrepreneurs of all kinds to help them achieve their goals. Listen to his story here. Kimon's on Twitter here.

Richard Lucas:

Richard is a business and social entrepreneur who has founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network.

Richard has been a TEDx event organiser for years, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels. He was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991, where continues to invest in promising companies and helps other entrepreneurs realise their dreams. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here. Richard is on Twitter here.

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Ilana M. Horwitz, "God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion's Surprising Impact on Academic Success" (Oxford UP, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 30 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion's Surprising Impact on Academic Success (Oxford University Press, 2022), Ilana M. Horwitz offers a revealing and at times surprising account of how teenagers' religious upbringing influences their educational pathways from high school to college. Religious students orient their life around God so deeply that it alters how they see themselves and how they behave, inside and outside of church.

Ilana M. Horwitz is an Assistant Professor and Fields-Rayant Chair of Contemporary Jewish Life at Tulane University.

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Shoko Yamada, "Dignity of Labour for African Leaders: The Formation of Education Policy in the British Colonial Office and Achimota School" (Langaa RPCIG, 2018)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 26 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The Prince of Wales College, Achimota School, opened in 1927 north of Accra in the Gold Coast (Ghana). Achimota was to be a ‘model’ school—but a model of what, exactly? And for whom? Shoko Yamada’s book 'Dignity of Labour' for African Leaders: The Formation of Education Policy in the British Colonial Office and Achimota School (Langaa RPCIG, 2018) delves into the multiple discourses and contested politics that resulted in Achimota. Her careful analysis pulls apart the different strands of American and British educational models that influenced Achimota, while also attending to the specificities of Gold Coast politics that shaped the school’s creation. Yamada then tracks how those influences combined, in the context of the 1920s and 1930s Gold Coast, to create an entirely new colonial institution.

Elisa Prosperetti is an Assistant Professor in International History at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. Her research focuses on the connected histories of education and development in postcolonial West Africa. Contact her at here.

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Rachel Sagner Buurma and Laura Heffernan, "The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 26 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Rachel Buurma and Laura Heffernan's The Teaching Archive: A New History for Literary Study (University of Chicago Press, 2020) is an excavation of a discipline through the work of its teachers, the traces of the tremendous and varied labour that went into preparing for and practicing literary study in classrooms from the first decades of the twentieth century to the 1970s. Exploring the teaching papers of scholars and instructors at institutions private and public--prestigious and privileged universities, extension schools, and HBCUs--the authors revisit the work of some of the scholars frequently identified as "founders" of the discipline, including T.S. Eliot, I.A. Richards, Cleanth Brooks. They also show how the work of women and other scholars/teachers neglected as shapers of literary critical methods before the 1960s and 1970s was indeed essential to the development of the ideas and practices at the heart of the discipline.

At once an intellectual and a labor history, the book emphasizes practices, complicating the stories literary study has told about itself about innovation, canon, and more while making a meaningful and moving contribution to urgent contemporary discussions of higher education more broadly. It is a book for anyone interested in what happens inside classrooms, how their content and form has changed over time, and how what takes place there is always already imbricated with research, with lives and contexts "outside." It is also just a wonderful read, written truly collaboratively from start to finish by two scholars and teachers deeply committed to an inclusive history of their field, to their work in the present, and to a better future for all of us.

Roxanne Panchasi is an Associate Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada who specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century France and its empire. If you have a recent title to suggest for the podcast, please send her an email (panchasi@sfu.ca).

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Sean J. Drake, "Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb" (U California Press, 2022)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 25 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb (U California Press, 2022), sociologist Sean J. Drake addresses long-standing problems of educational inequality from a nuanced perspective, looking at how race and class intersect to affect modern school segregation. Drawing on more than two years of ethnographic observation and dozens of interviews at two distinct high schools in a racially diverse Southern California suburb, Drake unveils hidden institutional mechanisms that lead to the overt segregation and symbolic criminalization of Black, Latinx, and lower-income students who struggle academically. His work illuminates how institutional definitions of success contribute to school segregation, how institutional actors leverage those definitions to justify inequality, and the ways in which local immigrant groups use their ethnic resources to succeed. Academic Apartheid represents a new way forward for scholars whose work sits at the intersection of education, race and ethnicity, class, and immigration.

Mickell Carter is a doctoral student in the department of history at Auburn University. She can be reached at mzc0152@auburn.edu and on twitter @MickellCarter.

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Ellen Schrecker, "The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Mon, 23 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s (University of Chicago Press, 2021) is a magisterial examination of the turmoil that rocked American universities in the 1960s, with a unique focus on the complex roles played by professors as well as students.

The 1950s through the early 1970s are widely seen as American academia’s golden age, when universities—well funded and viewed as essential for national security, economic growth, and social mobility—embraced an egalitarian mission. Swelling in size, schools attracted new types of students and professors, including radicals who challenged their institutions’ calcified traditions. But that halcyon moment soon came to a painful and confusing end, with consequences that still afflict the halls of ivy. In The Lost Promise, Ellen Schrecker—our foremost historian of both the McCarthy era and the modern American university—delivers a far-reaching examination of how and why it happened.

Schrecker illuminates how US universities’ explosive growth intersected with the turmoil of the 1960s, fomenting an unprecedented crisis where dissent over racial inequality and the Vietnam War erupted into direct action. Torn by internal power struggles and demonized by conservative voices, higher education never fully recovered, resulting in decades of underfunding and today’s woefully inequitable system. As Schrecker’s magisterial history makes blazingly clear, the complex blend of troubles that disrupted the university in that pivotal period haunts the ivory tower to this day.

Ellen Schrecker is a retired professor of history at Yeshiva University and the author of numerous books, including No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, and The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom, and the End of the American University.

Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security, subjectivity and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office's role in the Cold War. She can be reached by email or on Twitter.

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Roslyn Petelin, "How Writing Works: A Field Guide to Effective Writing" (Routledge, 2021)

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Fri, 20 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Listen to this interview of Roslyn Petelin, Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, Australia. We talk about her book How Writing Works: A Field Guide to Effective Writing (Routledge, 2021) writing well and knowing why.

Roslyn Petelin : "My book caters for all kinds of writers: student writers, creative writers, technical writers, journalistic writers, corporate writers, all of whom need to be able to write well, write successfully, for either personal or corporate credibility."

Contact Daniel at writeyourresearch@gmail.com.

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On Teaching Religion in High School

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Thu, 19 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

George Coe is a religious studies, current events, and world history teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia. He runs a popular blog with teaching resources here.

This conversation talks about constitutionality of teaching about religion; how to arrange a semester of teaching high school religious studies, a wide-range of resources that he and I have used to with success in our own classrooms, and a deep dive investigation of a typical religious studies class in a typical United States high school. This is a snapshot of a hardworking teacher doing great work for teenagers in the United States.

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Pandemic Perspectives 11: The Covid Pandemic and Learning about Learning

caleb@newbooksnetwork.com (Marshall Poe) — Wed, 18 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to renowned cognitive psychologist Stephen Kosslyn about how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced, or didn't influence, our understanding of the learning process.

Ideas Roadshow's Pandemic Perspectives Project consists of three distinct, reinforcing elements: a documentary film (Pandemic Perspectives), book (Pandemic Perspectives: A filmmaker's journey in 10 essays) and a series of 24 detailed podcasts with many of the film's expert participants. Visit www.ideasroadshow.com for more details.

Howard Burton is the founder of Ideas Roadshow and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at howard@ideasroadshow.com.

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New Books in Education

Jim Gaona Ellis, "Educators As Designers: The Hidden Architecture of Learning" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

Hanna David, "Erika Landau’s Contribution to the History of Gifted Education: Family Characteristics of Gifted Children" (Springer, 2025)

Michelle Adams, "The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North " (FSG, 2025)

Chika Watanabe, "Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Deirdre Mayer Dougherty, "Race and Place: School Desegregation in Prince George's County, Maryland" (Rutgers UP, 2025)

The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars

Educating for an Uncertain Future in Interwar Poland

Stefan Collini, "Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Taking The Scenic Route To High Quality Education For Indigenous Students

Lauren Stara, "Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

Chad Wellmon, "After the University: Higher Education and the Future of Intellectual Work" (JHU Press, 2026)

Katharina Stevens, "The Ethics of Argumentation" (Routledge, 2025)

Posen Library: Jewish Studies Teaching Modules

Matthew Ritger, "Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

New Trends in YIVO Scholarship

David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab eds., "Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Visual Anthropology" (Berghahn, 2025)

David I. Waddington, "The Hidden Curriculum of Video Games" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)

Heart-Centered Connections: Seven Essential Skills for Helping Neurodiverse and Marginalized Children Thrive

Stephen G. Covell, "The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)

Becoming the System

Max Weinreich and the Meaning of Yiddish

Bryan Alexander, "Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

Ranita Ray, "Slow Violence: Confronting Dark Truths in the American Classroom" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)

Andy Byford, "Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia" (Oxford UP, 2020)

The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest

Rebecca Kosick, "Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press" (Wayne State UP, 2026)

Shelley Fisher Fishkin, "Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade" (Yale UP, 2025)

Jackie M. Blount, "Straighten Up, Girls and Boys: How Schools Have Shaped Sexuality and Gender" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting, Panel #2

Amy J. Heineke and Kristin J. Davin, "Pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy: Promoting Multilingualism in Elementary and Middle Schools" (Georgetown UP, 2026)

Inside the Mississippi Marathon: How Mississippi Dramatically Improved Its Education System with Rachel Canter

Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting, Panel #1

Kristen Abbott Bennett, "Teaching Shakespeare's Theatre of the World" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Natalia Rogach Alexander, "Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey" (Columbia UP, 2025)

Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)

Mary R. Lanni, "Using Nursery Rhymes with Today’s Kids: Their Legacy and Evolution" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Romani Grassroots Language Learning

Cultural Competence Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All: Talking culturally responsive teaching with Dr Remy Low

Julie J. Park, "Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: College Admissions in a New Era" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

Learning Languages on Social Media

Barry Devine and Ellen Scheible eds., "Teaching James Joyce in the Twenty-First Century" (UP of Florida, 2025)

Reflection-In-Motion

Fabio Rojas, "From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline" (JHU Press, 2010)

Dennis Sherwood, Missing the Mark: Why So Many School Exam Grades are Wrong – and How to Get Results We Can Trust" (Canbury Press, 2022)

Carol Rittner and John K Roth, "This Time: Teaching the Holocaust Today" (‎iPub Cloud, 2026)

The Religion Department: An Online Learning Platform with Andrew Mark Henry and Andrew Ali Aghapour

Ana Fernández-Aballí et al. eds., "Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education: Teaching Handbook for Use in Classrooms, Museums and Organizations" (U Groningen Press, 2025)

William R. Brody, "Uncommon Sense: Rethinking Ordinary Problems in Extraordinary Ways" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

Emely Rumble, "Bibliotherapy in The Bronx" (Row House, 2025)

Amanda Anderson and Simon During, "Humanities Theory" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Yingyi Ma, "Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education" (Columbia UP, 2020)

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want

Gabriel S. Estrada, "Queer Indigenous Cinemas: Sovereign Genders from Seven Directions" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

Flower Darby, "The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes" (﻿U Oklahoma Press, 2026)

David M. Perry, "The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook" (JHU Press, 2026)

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Nick Juravich, "Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education" (U ﻿Illinois Press, 2024)

Mark Hlavacik, "Willing Warriors: A New History of the Education Culture Wars" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Sarah Jaffe, "Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone" (Bold Type Books, 2021)

Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Helmut Schuster and David Oxley, "Artificial Death of a Career: A Tale of Professional Obsolescence and How to Avoid It" (Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2025)

Sam Illingworth and Rachel Forsyth, "GenAI in Higher Education: Redefining Teaching and Learning" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Upper Caste Liberalism with Ravikant Kisana

Suzanne Bost, "Quiet Methodologies: Humility in the Humanities" (U Minnesota Press)

Podcast Intellectuals Panel #3 with Joy Connolly, Barry Lam, and Aurora Hutchinson

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Tamara Kay, "Sesame Street Around the World: Culture, Politics, and Transnational Organizational Partnerships" (Oxford UP, 2025)

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Jessi Streib, "The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay After College" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education

Bin Chen, "Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern China: Education, Frontier Politics, and Nation-State" (Routledge, 2025)

Ruixue Jia et al., "The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China" (Harvard UP, 2025)

Claire Nicolas, "Une si longue course: Sport, genre, et citoyenneté au Ghana et en Côte d’Ivoire (années 1900-1970)" (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2024)

Nina Bandelj, "Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Educated Out: How Rural Students Navigate Elite Colleges—And What It Costs Them

Arnoud S. Q. Visser, "On Pedantry: A Cultural History of the Know-it-All" (Princeton UP, 2025)

John L. Rudolph, "Why We Teach Science (and Why We Should)" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Jose Eos Trinidad, "Subtle Webs: How Local Organizations Shape US Education" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Ofer Sharone, "The Stigma Trap: College-Educated, Experienced, and Long-Term Unemployed" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Natalia Rogach Alexander, "Growing People: The Enduring Legacy of John Dewey" (Columbia UP, 2025)

Flower Darby, "The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes" (U Oklahoma Press, 2026)

Nick Juravich, "Para Power: How Paraprofessional Labor Changed Education" (U Illinois Press, 2024)