13.4 - Zumretay Arkin

We are not what we think we are. Our self-image as natural individuated subjects is determined behind our backs: historically by political forces, cognitively by the language we use, and neurologically by sub-personal mechanisms, as revealed by scientific and philosophical analyses. Under contemporary capitalism, as the gap between this self-image and reality becomes an ever greater source of social and mental distress, these theoretical insights are potential dynamite. Shifting his explorations from the sonic to the social, amplifying alienation and playing with psychic noise, artist and performer Mattin finally lights the fuse. The noise is here to stay. Alienation is a constitutive part of subjectivity and an enabling condition for exploring social dissonance—the territory upon which we already find ourselves, the condition we inhabit today. Mattin speaks (and sings) to Pierre d’Alancaisez about his performance score Social Dissonance, in which the audience is the instrument and the legacy of the Marxist theory of alienation. Mattin is an artist, musician and theorist working conceptually with noise and improvisation. Through his practice and writing, he explores performative forms of estrangement as a way to deal with structural alienation. Mattin has exhibited and toured worldwide. He has performed in festivals such as Performa and Club Transmediale and lectured in institutions such as Dutch Art Institute, Cal Arts, Bard, and Goldsmiths. Mattin is part of the bands Billy Bao and Regler and has over 100 releases on different labels worldwide. He co-hosts the podcast Social Discipline. Mattin took part in 2017 in documenta14 in Athens and Kassel. Information on the Social Dissonance concert at Documenta 14 A video recording of one of the performances Social Discipline podcast Pierre d’Alancaisez is a contemporary art curator, cultural strategist, researcher. Sometime scientist, financial services professional. 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, Chella Ward and Claudia Radiven were in conversation with Zumretay Arkin, discussing the Uyghur genocide in East Turkestan. Zumretay is Chair of the Women’s Committee at the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). The WUC is an international organization acting as an umbrella organization representing and advocating for Uyghurs around the world whether in East Turkestan or the diaspora. In our conversations, we discussed the nature of colonial occupation, genocide, and how organisation and individuals can work to raise awareness and promote solidarity in situations of Islamophobic repression. 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

David Beito's new book brings to bear the latest historical scholarship to shed light on the life and achievements of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Professor Beito traces the irresistible political rise of Roosevelt, a scion of inherited wealth who never posed as a man of the people but was always perceived as a genial aristocrat. As well as eyebrow-raising disclosures on FDR's private life, Beito's narrative brings out Roosevelt's ruthless opportunism, and his susceptibility to all the prejudicial views fashionable at the time, on race, sex, nationalism, and economics. 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

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.  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

What is space? What is time? Where did the universe come from? The answers to mankind's most enduring questions may lie in science's greatest enigma: black holes.A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This can occur when a star approaches the end of its life. Unable to generate enough heat to maintain its outer layers, it shrinks catastrophically down to an infinitely dense point.When this phenomenon was first proposed in 1916, it defied scientific understanding so much that Albert Einstein dismissed it as too ridiculous to be true. But scientists have since proven otherwise. In 1971, Paul Murdin and Louise Webster discovered the first black hole: Cygnus X-1. Later, in the 1990s, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope found that not only do black holes exist, supermassive black holes lie at the heart of almost every galaxy, including our own. It would take another three decades to confirm this phenomenon. On 10 April 2019, a team of astronomers made history by producing the first image of a black hole.A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage (Apollo, 2025)is the story of how black holes came in from the cold and took cosmic centre stage. As a journalist, Marcus Chown interviews many of the scientists who made the key discoveries, and, as a former physicist, he translates the most esoteric of science into everyday language. The result is a uniquely engaging page-turner that tells one of the great untold stories in modern science. 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

What is space? What is time? Where did the universe come from? The answers to mankind's most enduring questions may lie in science's greatest enigma: black holes.A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. This can occur when a star approaches the end of its life. Unable to generate enough heat to maintain its outer layers, it shrinks catastrophically down to an infinitely dense point.When this phenomenon was first proposed in 1916, it defied scientific understanding so much that Albert Einstein dismissed it as too ridiculous to be true. But scientists have since proven otherwise. In 1971, Paul Murdin and Louise Webster discovered the first black hole: Cygnus X-1. Later, in the 1990s, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope found that not only do black holes exist, supermassive black holes lie at the heart of almost every galaxy, including our own. It would take another three decades to confirm this phenomenon. On 10 April 2019, a team of astronomers made history by producing the first image of a black hole.A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage (Apollo, 2025)is the story of how black holes came in from the cold and took cosmic centre stage. As a journalist, Marcus Chown interviews many of the scientists who made the key discoveries, and, as a former physicist, he translates the most esoteric of science into everyday language. The result is a uniquely engaging page-turner that tells one of the great untold stories in modern science. 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

How do we know through atmospheres? How can being affected by an atmosphere give rise to knowledge? What role does somatic, nonverbal knowledge play in how we belong to places? Atmospheric Knowledge takes up these questions through detailed analyses of practices that generate atmospheres and in which knowledge emerges through visceral intermingling with atmospheres. From combined musicological and anthropological perspectives, Birgit Abels and Patrick Eisenlohr investigate atmospheres as a compelling alternative to better-known analytics of affect by way of performative and sonic practices across a range of ethnographic settings. With particular focus on oceanic relations and sonic affectedness, Atmospheric Knowledge centers the rich affordances of sonic connections for knowing our environments. A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. 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 episode features Dr. J. Stephen Yuille, Professor of Church History and Spiritual Formation at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Director of Puritan Publishing at Reformation Heritage Books. Yuille shares with the NBN about his new five-volume edition of The Works of John Cotton (Soli Deo Gloria, 2025). John Cotton (1585–1652) was among the most influential Puritan pastors of his age, shaping church life in both England and New England. Yuille explains how this new edition traces Cotton’s thought across his major works—from his devotional classics, to his defense during the Antinomian Controversy, his exchanges on religious liberty, his writings on Congregational church government, and his apocalyptic sermons on Revelation and the Song of Solomon. Together, this 5 volume set Cotton's complete works, published together for the first time since their original printing 400 years ago, reveals his vision of grace, godliness, and community that helped define early American religion. Listen as Stephen Yuille reflects on John Cotton’s enduring relevance for theology, history, and the study of faith in public life. Your host, Ryan Shelton (Ph.D. Queen's University Belfast 2024), is a historian of seventeenth-century Christian literature and theology. His research focuses the development of covenant theology in trans-Atlantic puritanism and the poetry of John Milton. 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

Naomi Bakes joins Jana Byars to talk about Voices of Thunder: Radical Religious Women of the Seventeenth Century (Reaktion Books, 2025), a book that explores the stories of early modern Protestant women, including Rose Thurgood, Anna Trapnel, and Jane Lead, who defied the religious authority of their age. Voices of Thunder illuminates the stories and beliefs of a dozen seventeenth-century radical Protestant women, including a Colchester woman who feared that her four children would starve to death and a former maidservant from Yorkshire who was granted an audience with the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Their belief in spiritual equality empowered them to resist the status quo, questioning the authority of those who sought to lord it over them. From mostly humble backgrounds, they found ways to make their voices heard, creating some of the earliest autobiographical accounts in English and allowing us a rare and precious glimpse of the lives and experiences of women in the early modern era. 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

Every year, NBN speaks with the president of AUPresses in anticipation of University Press Week. This year, press week will take place from November 10 through the 14th, with the theme: #TeamUP. To celebrate, I’m thrilled to have Dennis Lloyd, director of the University of Wisconsin Press, and president of the Association of University Presses, on the podcast. Learn more about UP Week 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