A Normative Sociological Approach to Secularism and Multiculturalism

Life 24x a Second: Cinema, Selfhood, and Society (Oxford UP, 2023) highlights the life-sustaining and life-affirming power of cinema. Author Elsie Walker pays particular attention to pedagogical practice and students' reflections on what the study of cinema has given to their lives. This book provides multiple perspectives on cinema that matters for the deepest personal and social reasons-from films that represent psychological healing in the face of individual losses to films that represent humanitarian hope in the face of global crises. Ultimately, Walker shows how cinema that moves us emotionally can move us toward a better world. Life 24x a Second makes the case for cinema as a life force in uplifting and widely relatable ways. Walker zeroes in on films that offer hope in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement (Imitation of Life, 1959, and BlacKkKlansman, 2018); contemporary feminism (Nobody Knows, 2004); rite-of-passage experiences of mortality and mourning (Ikiru, 1952, and A Star Is Born, 2018), and first-love grief (Call Me by Your Name, 2017, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, 2019). Life 24x a Second invites readers to reflect on their own unique film-to-person encounters along with connecting them to others who love cinematic lessons for living well. Peter C. Kunze is an assistant professor of communication at Tulane University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In If All the World Were Paper: A History of Writing in Hindi (Columbia UP, 2024), Tyler W. Williams puts questions of materiality, circulation, and performance at the center of his investigation into how literature comes to be defined and produced within a language, specifically, premodern Hindi. Williams proposes new methods for working with written text artifacts and a new approach to theorizing and writing Hindi literary history. He responds to recent developments in quantitative and qualitative approaches to book history - including tools developed within the digital humanities - by applying new as well as traditional techniques of paleography, codicology, and bibliography to handwritten copies of romances, epics, songbooks, treatises, and scriptures.  To make the book more accessible and enjoyable for cross-disciplinary readers, Williams bookends (so to speak) each chapter with the story of a specific artifact - an ascetic's notebook, a Mughal general's storybook, a pandit's textbook, or a guru's copy of a sacred scripture - in order to pose and then apply the questions about writing, textuality, and performance that the chapter addresses. By combining distant and close reading that is mindful of the materiality of these manuscripts, Tyler reveals literary, intellectual, and religious practices that we would otherwise be unable to see. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today’s book is: We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (Seal Press, 2024) by Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson. Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary, between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.” In We Refuse, historian Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women. The dismissal of “Black violence” as an illegitimate form of resistance is itself a manifestation of white supremacy, a distraction from the insidious, unrelenting violence of structural racism. Force—from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt—has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. But violence is only one tool among many. Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson examines other, no less vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away. Clear-eyed, impassioned, and ultimately hopeful, We Refuse offers a fundamental corrective to the historical record, a love letter to Black resilience, and a path toward liberation. Our guest is: Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, who is the Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. Her book Force and Freedom was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the Museum of African American History Stone Book Award. She is the cohost of the Radiotopia podcast “This Day in Esoteric Political History.” She lives outside of Boston with her husband and three children. 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: This discussion of the book Remembering Lucille with Dr. Polly Bugros McLean This discussion of the book Running From Bondage The Social Constructions of Race: A Discussion with Dr. Brigette Fielder This discussion of the book Never Caught with Dr. Erica Armstrong Dunbar This discussion of the book Black Woman on Board with Dr. Nicol 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Many pundits are rushing to judgement – claiming to identify the “one” reason that Donald Trump won or Kamala Harris lost the 2024 Presidential Election. Today’s Postscript offers a nuanced conversation among four political scientists to gather some key take-aways and interpretive tools for looking forward to the second Trump presidency, midterms, 2028 presidential election, and 2030 redistricting. Julia Azari is Professor of Political Science at Marquette University and a prolific media commentator on politics. Jonathan Bernstein is a political scientist who focuses on political parties, Congress, the presidency, elections, and democracy. Political Parties, Congress the Presid, Elections, and Democracy. Meena Bose is the Executive Dean for Public Policy and Public Service Programs at the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs and director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, both at Hofstra University. Daniel E. Ponder is the L.E. Meador Professor of Political Science and Director of the Meador Center for Politics and Citizenship at Drury University.. Mentioned: Julia Azari and Jennifer K. Smith on informal norms: “Unwritten Rules: Informal Institutions in Established Democracies” Julia Azari’s book on mandates: Delivering the People's Message: The Changing Politics of the Presidential Mandate John Burn-Murdoch’s graph on incumbents losing globally in Financial Times Gallup data on nostalgia for past presidents in Jeffrey M. Jones, Retrospective Approval of JFK Rises to 90%; Trump at 46% Julia and Jonathan’s Good Politics/Bad Politics podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The Ethnographic Optic: Jean Rouch, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and the Turn Inward in 1960s French Cinema (Indiana UP, 2024) traces the surprising role of ethnography in French cinema in the 1960s and examines its place in several New Wave fictions and cinéma vérité documentaries during the final years of the French colonial empire. Focusing on prominent French filmmakers Jean Rouch, Chris Marker, and Alain Resnais, author Laure Astourian elucidates their striking pivot from centering their work on distant lands to scrutinizing their own French urban culture. As awareness of the ramifications of the shrinking empire grew within metropolitan France, these filmmakers turned inward what their similarly white, urban, bourgeois predecessors had long turned outward toward the colonies: the ethnographic gaze. Featuring some of the most canonical and best-loved films of the French tradition, such as Breathless and La Jetée, this is an essential book for readers interested in national identity and cinema. Here's the link to Astourian's essay on Jean Rouch's Moi, Un Noir discussed in the podcast.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The advance of technology has revolutionized nearly everything in our world, bringing changes which have led to much confusion regarding faith and practice. Here, Rabbi Gil Student stands as a pioneer with his online periodical Torah Musings, which explores timely issues of faith and meaning in the contemporary world based on classic Jewish texts. His recent book, Articles of Faith (Kodesh Press, 2024), marks the twentieth anniversary of his in-depth analyses of controversial topics of Jewish belief in Torah Musings. Join us as we speak with Rabbi Gil Student about his book, Articles of Faith. Rabbi Gil Student is the Editor of TorahMusings.com, a leading website on Orthodox Jewish scholarly subjects, and Director of the Halacha Commission of the Rabbinical Alliance of America. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

A Slight Angle (India Viking: 2024), the newest novel from Indian writer Ruth Vanita, is a story about love. Difficult love–her six characters are growing up in 1920s India, which takes a dim view of same-sex relationships, and those that transcend religious boundaries. Like Sharad, the jewelry designer who falls in love with his teacher, Abhik–only for the embarrassment to keep them apart for decades. Ruth Vanita is the author of many books, most recently The Broken Rainbow: Poems and Translations (Copper Coin Publishing: 2023); the novel Memory of Light (Penguin Random House India: 2022); The Dharma of Justice in the Sanskrit Epics: Debates on Gender, Varna and Species (Oxford University Press: 2022); Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriages in Modern India (Penguin Books India: 2005). She has translated several works from Hindi to English, including Mahadevi Varma’s My Family (Penguin Books India: 2021). She co-edited the path-breaking Same-Sex Love in India, and edited and translated On the Edge: A Hundred Years of Hindi Fiction on Same-Sex Desire (India Viking: 2023). You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of A Slight Angle. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) sits down with Cathie Carmichael (University of East Anglia) to talk about her new book with CEU Press, The Habsburg Garrison Complex in Trebinje: A Lost World. In the podcast we talked about the importance of Trebinje as a garrison town for the Habsburgs, the role of women in the town and the importance of microhistories. The book is available Open Access thanks for the Opening the Future programme here. Or you can purchase a physical copy through here. You can also find out about CEU Press’ Opening the Future programme here. The CEU Press Podcast delves into various aspects of the publishing process: from crafting a book proposal, finding a publisher, responding to peer review feedback on the manuscript, to the subsequent distribution, promotion and marketing of academic books. We also talk to series editors and authors, who will share their experiences of getting published and discuss their series or books. Interested in CEU Press’s publications? Click here to find out more: https://ceupress.com/ Stay tuned for future episodes and subscribe to our podcast to be the first to be notified. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Growing up in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn’s Borough Park, Sara Glass knew one painful truth: what was expected of her and what she desperately wanted were impossibly opposed. Tormented by her attraction to women and trapped in a loveless arranged marriage, she found herself unable to conform to her religious upbringing and soon, she made the difficult decision to walk away from the world she knew, which she details in Kissing Girls on Shabbat: A Memoir (Atria, 2024). Sara’s journey to self-acceptance began with the challenging battle for a divorce and custody of her children, an act that left her on the verge of estrangement from her family and community. Controlled by the fear of losing custody of her two children, she forced herself to remain loyal to the compulsory heteronormativity baked into Hasidic Judaism and married again. But after suffering profound loss and a shocking sexual assault, Sara decided to finally be completely true to herself. Kissing Girls on Shabbat is not only a love letter to Glass’s children, herself, and her family—it is an unflinching window into the world of ultra-conservative Orthodox Jewish communities and an inspiring celebration of learning to love yourself. Interviewee: Sara Glass is a psychotherapist and the clinical director of Soul Wellness NYC, a private psychotherapy practice in Midtown Manhattan. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This is episode three Cited Podcast’s new season, the Use & Abuse of Economic Expertise. This season tells stories of the political and scholarly battles behind the economic ideas that shape our world. For a full list of credits, and for the rest of the episodes, visit the series page. For much of the 20th century, few economists studied inequality. “Watching the study of inequality was like watching the grass grow,” is the way inequality scholar James K. Galbraith put it to us. Yet, the inequality studies grass is growing today–really, it’s something of a lush jungle. Arguably, the return of inequality studies is biggest change that has happened in economics over the last decade or so. Why did it return? Just as importantly, how could it have possibly disappeared? On this episode, we survey the broad political and intellectual history of inequality studies in economics. First, economist Branko Milanovic, author of Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War, introduces us to a few of the reasons why inequality was marginalized, including the mathematization of the economic mainstream. In short, we sidelined the political in political economy. Then, political theorist Michael Thompson, author of The Politics of Inequality: A Political History of the Idea of Economic Inequality in America, introduces us to the work of Frank Knight and other market-friendly economists who provided ideological justification for widening inequality. Finally, inequality scholar Poornima Paidipaty, speaks to us about the return of inequality studies, particularly through the landmark work of Thomas Piketty. Yet, Paidipaty and her co-author Pedro Ramos Pinto highlight some of the limits of Picketty’s vision in their article “Revisiting the “Great Levelling”: The limits of Piketty’s Capital and Ideology for understanding the rise of late 20th century inequality.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network