Beyond Pages: A SUNY Press Podcast

The Rediscovery of George "Nash" Walker: : The Price of Black Stardom in Jim Crow America (SUNY Press, 2025) is the first biography dedicated to the life and cultural contributions of this actor, writer, and producer who revolutionized Black American theatre during the early twentieth century. In 1892, Walker left his hometown with a medicine show and quickly formed a partnership with comedian Bert Williams that would last nearly eighteen years. Under the moniker of “The Two Real Coons,” Williams and Walker used their comedy to erode the stereotyped White image of minstrel-style “cooning.” Their theatrical company produced many popular plays, including Clorindy/A Lucky Coon (1899–1900), Policy Players (1900–1901), Sons of Ham (1901–1902), In Dahomey (1902–1905), Abyssinia (1905–1906), Bandanna Land (1907–1909), and Mr. Lode of Koal (1909–1910), even performing on Broadway and abroad. An activist at heart, Walker insisted that audiences receive carefully curated Black entertainment, told from a uniquely Afro-American perspective. Unfortunately, Walker contracted syphilis and was forced to retire in 1909, marking the end of the first golden age of Black theatre. Despite his landmark contributions, Walker’s story has been largely forgotten. Drawing on archival resources, newspaper accounts, memoirs, oral histories, and manifestos written by Walker, this book celebrates the accomplishments of the vanguard generation of Black artists who were active between the close of the Civil War and the start of World War I.Daniel Atkinson’s research and commitment to the legacy of George Walker and his generation is deep and authentic. Listen in on this fantastic conversation and check out also previous episodes with Dr. Cheryl Thompson and Es-pranza Humphry, both scholars of this era. And when you’re finished, head over to the Additions to the Archive Substack where we continued our conversation.Daniel E. Atkinson is an independent scholar who earned his doctorate in ethnomusicology from the University of Washington where he specialized in Afro-American music and culture. You can find Daniel on Instagram and LinkedIn.Subscribe, like, follow, and rate Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer on Instagram, Substack, and wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Contrasts classical Greek ontology ("the science of being in itself") with Confucian "zoetology" ("the art of living"). In Living Chinese Philosophy: Zoetology As First Philosophy (SUNY Press, 2025), Roger T. Ames uses comparative cultural hermeneutics as a method for contrasting classical Greek ontology ("the science of being in itself") with classical Chinese "zoetology" ("the art of living"), which is made explicit in the Yijingor Book of Changes. Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle give us a substance ontology grounded in "being qua being" or "being per se" (to on he on) that guarantees a permanent and unchanging subject as the substratum for the human experience. This substratum or essence includes its purpose for being (telos) and defines the "what-it-means-to-be-a-thing-of-this-kind" (eidos) of any particular thing, thus setting a closed, exclusive boundary and the strict identity necessary for a particular thing to be "this" and not "that." In the Book of Changes, we find a vocabulary that makes explicit cosmological assumptions that are a stark alternative to this substance ontology. It also provides the interpretive context for the canonical texts by locating them within a holistic, organic, and ecological worldview. To provide a meaningful contrast with this fundamental assumption of on or "being," we might borrow the Greek notion of zoe or "life" and create the neologism "zoe-tology" as "the art of living" (shengshenglun). This cosmology begins from "living" (sheng) itself as the motive force behind change and gives us a world of boundless "becomings": not "things" that are but "events" that are happening, a contrast between an ontological conception of human "beings" and a process conception of what the author calls human "becomings." The Host's reading notes: "Being qua being" modality of dealing with change and no-change prioritizes no-change, mistakes stability as eternity, confuses order with hierarchy; zoetological paradigm of change and no-change encourages complexity-enhancing modes of how change happen, nurtures difference-enriching modalities of encounter, decodes stability as adaptability, and considers order as emergent, evolving patterns of co-living and becoming-with. If you are interested in continuing the conversation with Prof. Ames, please contact the host ([email protected]) for Prof. Ames's email address. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Engages with the life and ideas of the twelfth-century Shaiva mystic and philosopher-poet Allama Prabhu. In his last, profoundly innovative work Allama Prabhu and the Shaiva Imagination, D. R. Nagaraj (1954-1998) engages with the twelfth-century Shaiva mystic and philosopher-poet Allama Prabhu, whose enigmatic writings have perplexed many and thus resisted analysis. Nagaraj situates Allama in three intellectual contexts: the medieval philosophical world built around the worship of Shiva; the pan-Indian bhakti tradition; and, most broadly, Indian mystical thought. This framework enables a reconstruction of Allama through the poet's engagement with fellow poet-spiritualists (vachanakaras) such as Basava, as well as with the Kashmiri Shaiva philosopher Abhinavagupta and the founder of Hindu monasticism Gorakhnath. Nagaraj's close readings of Allama's vachanas offer a vision of Shaiva bhakti that seems to contradict the erotic and romantic expressive modes of Sringara rasa while tracing the limits of language for an understanding of the divine. Allama, Nagaraj suggests, is an epistemological iconoclast who expands the horizons of language and thought.Through these explorations, Nagaraj decolonizes the standard modes of inquiry and critiques certain settled notions in Indian philosophy, revealing himself as a postcolonial scholar whose "hermeneutics of suspicion" leads to a novel understanding of Indian texts and traditions. Unifying literary criticism with critical theory, philosophical inquiry, and the history of ideas, the book's focus on a specific religious tradition--Virashaivism--is never singular, making it as much a work for scholars of Indian spiritualism and religious thought as for those interested in frameworks that transgress Eurocentricism. Translated into English by Kannada philosopher N. S. Gundur, this is a major contribution to studies of Indian philosophy and literature. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Joel Dinerstein's The Last of the Ellis Island Jews (SUNY Press, 2026) is a tragicomic memoir of a dysfunctional, working-class Brooklyn Jewish family that illuminates both the vitality of urban life in the twentieth century and the social turmoil of white flight. As a child of immigrants born to older parents, Dinerstein has a unique perspective on four generations--from his grandparents escaping Russia's pogroms to his parents' embattled marriage to his older Boomer siblings (split between feminist and Republican politics) to his own hippie hopes. As a white teenager in majority Black public schools, Dinerstein's firsthand experience led to his academic career as a scholar of race and music. Yet his family fits no paradigm of Jewish success due to a father with rage and gambling problems, resulting in the four siblings escaping early to the Brooklyn streets. As a family growing up with a diasporic identity, the Dinersteins provide a primer of ethnic Jewish culture through iconic scenes: a selfish Seder, a chaotic Bar Mitzvah, a videotaped bris, an allergy attack at Dachau, a staring contest with the Rebbe. Most of all, The Last of the Ellis Island Jews is a chronicle of lost worlds. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Wastelands and Wonderlands: Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature with Matthew Leggatt (SUNY Press, 2026) is an edited collection exploring utopias ad dystopias in films and literature. It challenges readers, in these uniquely dystopian times, to reevaluate their ideas about utopia and dystopia. The book brings together film, literary, and utopian studies scholars from across the world. As an interdisciplinary collection, it covers a wide range of utopias and dystopias, from those of visionaries as varied as William Morris and George Lucas to such fresh new and distinctive voices like Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and N. K. Jemisin. Contributors dismantle myths about utopian and dystopian film, literature, and television. Several chapters analyse the nature of utopian and dystopian fiction and its important relationship to our present moment. What's the future of utopia? What does it mean to be a utopia today? Do we still need the warnings of dystopia? Whether through ecocritical work, work aimed at decolonizing utopian studies, debates about our relationship with technology and the nonhuman, forms of utopian hope and pessimism, or new thinking about cinematic and literary techniques and production, the essays offer fresh insight into the subject area and something to interest any reader. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Uses the everyday histories of Brahmin clans, communities, and families in a prominent small town in the Indian Himalaya to challenge the assumption that only grand metanarratives such as colonialism and nationalism matter. This everyday history of clans, communities, and elite families in Almora, a prominent town in the Indian Himalaya, puts questions of belonging at the heart of an expansive examination of elite Hinduism. Studying a mountainous region sometimes considered marginal within Indian history, Sanjay Joshi explores critically important mainstream concerns via attention to the periphery in Brahmins of the Himalaya: Upper-Caste Ways of Belonging, 1850-1950 (SUNY Press, 2026). Revealing the connections between two meanings of "belonging"--one as a source of identity, the other indicating possession--he addresses large questions: What is the idea of belonging among upper-caste Hindus? How do their ideas of belonging and community change over time? And to what effect? Refusing to conflate the ordinary and everyday with the trivial, Joshi challenges the frequent assumption that only metanarratives such as colonialism and nationalism matter. His exploration of big issues incorporates a plea for attention to the local and the quotidian as equally essential for a proper historical understanding. In addition to state and institutional archives, Joshi draws on unconventional and previously untapped sources: novels, poetry, local-language newspapers, and over six hundred family papers, including rare examples of women's writing within family contexts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change (SUNY Press, 2026), edited by Bruce Dearstyne and published by SUNY Press, examines what the volume calls the “unfinished revolutions” of the Empire State. In sixteen essays by a varied cast of authors, the book explores efforts to achieve what the editor describes as the full promise of the revolution. Central to the book are ordinary New Yorkers who faced great challenges, such as the Oneida who tried to maintain sovereignty in the era of the American Revolution, women winning the vote, and African American soldiers who served in the United States Army in World War I. Together, Dearstyne writes, they tell a story of “the two-and-a-half century struggle to realize the Revolution’s ideals and bring increased freedom and opportunities to marginalized populations.” Dearstyne is the editor of this volume and the author of several books, including The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State’s History and The Crucible of Public Policy: New York Courts in the Progressive Era. Robert Snyder, interviewing for the New Books Network and the Gotham Center for New York Cit History, is professor emeritus of Journalism and American Studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers (Cornell, 2025), winner of the Fiorello LaGuardia Book Prize. [email protected] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A Praxis of Persistence: Central American Feminist Testimony and Sustainable Activism (SUNY Press, 2026) by Dr. Kenna Neitch establishes persistence as a framework for understanding methods of feminist activism in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Blending literary and ethnographic approaches, Dr. Neitch analyzes texts produced by activist movements from the 1980s to 2020—from collective testimonio to institutional publications (encuentros) to social media—and connects them to the movements' cultural impact and organizing practices, such as generative conflict, horizontal cross-border networks, and what she terms strategic adaptability. What these texts and practices have in common, Dr. Neitch argues, is feminist persistence—a balance of action, preservation, and creation adaptable across contexts. A Praxis of Persistence provides one of the first scholarly accounts of #MeToo in Central America while remaining grounded in the region's lineage of activism against sexual violence. Through the framework of persistence, this book highlights the vitality of Central American women's activism and offers a repertoire of methods for reckoning with the realities of uneven progress in feminist struggle. 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rehumanizing People of the Past: Bioarchaeology, Medical Museums and Archives, and the Human Remains Trade (SUNY Press, 2026) argues that much of the technical communication used to reference human remains--including reports in bioarchaeology, labels and descriptions in medical museums and archives, and web content in the human remains trade--does not adequately recognize the humanity of the individuals represented by those remains. The book presents "rehumanizing language" as a solution to this dehumanization problem, framing it as advocacy and social justice work in technical communication. Building from concepts and ethical standards in bioarchaeology, medical museums and archives, and the human remains trade along with technical communication and rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM), each chapter presents a framework for developing rehumanizing language in various contexts to better honor, dignify, and respect the people represented by human remains. These frameworks are also applied to several original studies, which explore existing technical communication and the ways it uses rehumanizing language or could be adapted to be more rehumanizing. Overall, this book is a tool for both technical communicators and practitioners in numerous fields, offering practical guidance for emphasizing the humanity of the dead. Kristin LaFollette is Associate Professor of English at the University of Southern Indiana. She is the author of Hematology, a full-length collection of poetry, and coeditor of Queer Approaches: Emotion, Expression, and Communication in the Classroom. Victoria Oana Lupașcu is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Asian Studies at University of Montréal. Her areas of interest include medical humanities, visual art, 20th and 21st Chinese, Brazilian and Romanian literature and Global South studies. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Jain tradition, with roots in ancient India but now spread across the globe, is anything but static and monolithic. In Engaged Jainism, an interdisciplinary cohort of academics and practitioners explore the manifold ways in which Jains and Jain ideas become engaged in social worlds—historically, philosophically, philologically, and anthropologically. Following the legacy of Engaged Buddhism, the groundbreaking volume edited by Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King, this volume shows how Jain traditions become engaged in everyday life, puts Jain ideas in dialogue with Western philosophical traditions, and examines the ways in which Jains have maintained Jain identity in their engagement with other religious traditions and cultural influences in the past and present. Across all of these disciplinary approaches, Jainism emerges as a dynamic, protean, and diverse tradition. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.