New Books in Gender

Mollie Barnes, "Paper Heroines: Women Writers in Conversation and Community Across the Sea Islands, 1838-1902" (U South Carolina Press, 2026)

In Paper Heroines: Women Writers in Conversation and Community Across the Sea Islands, 1838-1902 (U South Carolina Press, 2026), Dr. Mollie Barnes studies the ways women represented their own and one another's lives in their personal diaries and their biographies of their contemporaries. By reading these women writers—Black and white, obscure and well-known—in conversation, Dr. Barnes presents entirely new portraits of these freedom fighters of the nineteenth-century South Carolina Lowcountry. Like feminist and anti-racist leaders in our own moment, the women in Paper Heroines were often flawed. White women reformers sometimes created tensions, silences, revisions, and erasures within their print-culture networks, obscuring the lives and contributions of Black women. Black women developed counternarratives and counter-networks as they sought to reclaim their own life histories. What emerges from Barnes's exploration of these textual conversations is a story of complicated relationships that reveal the dynamism of women's lives in a place and time that was equally tumultuous and consequential. Key terms and names is this episode include: close reading, archival silences, the peripheries, life writing, The Penn School, Port Royal, Beaufort, Combahee River, St. Helena, Relief Workers, Harriet Tubman, Fanny Kemble, Psyche, Teresa, Laura Towne, Charlotte Forten, Mr. Holland, and Sarah Hopkins Bradford. Guest: Dr. Mollie Barnes is Associate Professor of English at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, Vice President of the Margaret Fuller Society, and Vice President of Organizational Matters for the Society for the Study of American Women Writers. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on 19th century women writers, and is the author of Paper Heroines, which received funding support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Host: Dr. Christina Gessler holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore which stories we tell, and what happens to those we never tell. She is an academic writing coach and editor. She created, produces and hosts of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Writing Biography Running From Bondage Jumping Through Hoops Never Caught Speaking While Female Women Reformers and The House on Henry Street We Refuse 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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025)

Yesterday00:59:03Tap to summarize

Prior to the American Revolution, the urban centers of colonial North America had little direct experience of war. With the outbreak of violence, British forces occupied every major city, invading the most private of spaces: the home. By closely considering the dynamics of the household—how people moved within it, thought about it, and wielded power over it—The Home Front reveals the ways in which occupation fundamentally upended the structures of colonial society and created opportunities for unprecedented economic and social mobility. In occupied cities, British officers usurped male authority to quarter themselves with families, patriot wives governed households in their husbands' absence, daughters flirted with officers, domestic servants disappeared with soldiers, and enslaved kin absconded to British lines in pursuit of freedom. As Lauren Duval shows, the unique conditions of occupation produced an aggrieved American population bound by shared emotional distress and domestic disorder. In the wake of this deeply disorienting experience, elite Americans deliberately reconsecrated the private home as a national symbol that epitomized masculine authority. Building on a stunning wealth of primary sources, Duval vividly captures daily life during the Revolution through the eyes and ears of those who intimately experienced it, showing how men and women of all races, statuses, and states of freedom understood its implications for their lives, families, and the nascent American Republic. In this episode Dr. Lauren Duval (University of Oklahoma) and Leah Cargin (University of Oklahoma and Journal of Women’s History) discuss The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence ( Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025). We begin the episode by discussing what the home meant to men and women in the revolutionary era. Next, we discuss revisionist histories and how violence has often been obscured from the revolutionary narrative. I commend Duval for her extensive archival research and she shares about the satisfying feeling of finding sources that speak to one another from across the Atlantic. Last, Duval gives us a sneak peek at her next project! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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On The State of Black Men's Studies and Black Masculinist Thought Scholarship

2d ago01:11:42Tap to summarize

Wide ranging interview with Dr. Ronald L. Jackson II, Professor and Department Chair of Communication Studies, the University of Miami. Interview explores Dr. Jackson's pioneering scholarship in Black Masculinist Thought, its contribution to Black Studies, its intercultural conversations with Black Feminist Thought, the State of Black Men's Studies and its relationship to Black Women's Studies, its interface with the public spheres of Manosphere and Womanosphere, as well as the future of Black Masculinist Thought Scholarship and Black Gender Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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Kenna Neitch, "A Praxis of Persistence: Central American Feminist Testimony and Sustainable Activism" (SUNY Press, 2026)

3d ago00:46:11Tap to summarize

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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Chloe Chapin, "Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men" (Oxford UP, 2026)

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How did black suits become so ubiquitous? Why has men's business clothing been so plain for the last 250 years? How did a style adopted by the Founding Fathers to differentiate themselves from European contemporaries become the dominant style for men around the globe? Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men (Oxford University Press, 2026) traces the shift from the colorful, flamboyant attire of the eighteenth century to the plain dark suit of the nineteenth century, characterizing this style evolution as a "Sartorial Revolution." In this book, American historian and costume designer Chloe Chapin traces the evolution of masculine style from the American Revolution through the Civil War and shows how men's suits shaped relationships of gender and power. Drawing on a wealth of visual and written sources, she shows how the plainness of suits symbolized new ideals of rationality and democracy and played a crucial role in framing the lasting identity and authority of American men. This richly illustrated book analyzes fashion history's impact on gender dynamics and emphasizes the dynamic relationships between bodies, clothing, and personal identity. Suitable demonstrates the significance of fashion beyond mere appearance, illustrating the key role modern men's suits have played in shaping the modern world. Chloe Chapin holds a PhD in American Studies from Harvard University and master's degrees in fashion and textile studies from the Fashion Institute of Technology and costume design from the Yale School of Drama. She has taught fashion history, costume design, gender studies, and anthropology. As a costume designer for over twenty years, her credits include Broadway musicals, opera, and Shakespeare. She works at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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Frances Kneupper, "Prophecy and the Battle for Spiritual Authority, 1360–1400" (Oxford UP, 2025)

1w ago00:58:28Tap to summarize

The end of the fourteenth century was a time of upheaval and contested authority among the traditional institutions of medieval Europe. In response to these conditions, a number of people began to claim their own authority, as prophets speaking the word of God. They came from outside of the clerical elite and were mostly women and reformers. Prophecy and the Battle for Spiritual Authority, 1360–1400: Outsiders, Women, and Reformers (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Dr. Frances Kneupper examines the battle over authority which ensued. Prophetic women and other non-elites successfully used prophecy to exert influence and to enter the corridors of power, while educated male clerics insinuated that prophecy was the product of demonic influence and therefore a hazard to the public. Surprisingly, a third faction also emerged—an international network of clerical men who wrote in support of female prophecy. This volume traces the arguments made by these three groups, the clashes that erupted, and the long-term impacts of this battle on ideas of spiritual authority. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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Laura Tisdall, "We Have Come to Be Destroyed: Growing Up in Cold War Britain" (Yale UP, 2026)

1w ago00:36:43Tap to summarize

What was life like for young people in twentieth century Britain? In We Have Come to Be Destroyed: Growing Up in Cold War Britain (Yale University Press, 2026), Dr Laura Tisdall, a Senior Lecturer in Modern British History at Newcastle University tells the story of this era through the eyes of children and young people, offering a radical reinterpretation of Britain’s Cold War age. The book offers a wide range of perspectives, from young people’s hopes and anxieties for the future, through popular culture during the Cold War, to changes in schools and the education system. The analysis also draws on detailed engagements with feminist and gay rights campaigns, and highlights the experiences of young people of colour, blending microhistories of individual experience with a broader narrative that transforms our existing knowledge of the Cold War. The book will be essential reading across the arts and humanities, as well as for social science scholars and anyone interested in knowing more about recent British history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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Janet Hinson Shope and Richard Pringle, "Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

1w ago00:58:22Tap to summarize

Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors (Rutgers University Press, 2026) examines how personal knowledge about student sexual assault circulates within college campus communities. Based upon both qualitative and quantitative survey data, Dr. Janet Hinson Shope and Dr. Richard Pringle's research demonstrates that students who have been sexually assaulted tell someone—almost always a friend. Most college students know someone who has been assaulted. Simply knowing, by means of relationships, that one or more peers have been assaulted affects the knowers, and the effects reverberate unevenly across campuses. Dr. Shope and Dr. Pringle highlight the structural properties that prohibit relational knowledge from becoming official institutional knowledge, confining it to whispers and secrecy within informal spheres of knowledge. The rules governing the circulation of such knowledge create an uneven epistemic field of sexual assault. This uneven field is consequential for the communities, affecting survivors and their confidants and shaping student views of the college community. Campus Whisper Networks demonstrates how personal and institutional avoidance, both the “need to not know” and “no need to know,” creates knowledge gaps that hide the community’s wounds and prevent personal knowledge from becoming social knowledge. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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Petal Kimberly Samuel, "The Quiet Zone: Caribbean Expressive Cultures and the Feminist Aesthetics of Disturbance" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

1w ago01:12:36Tap to summarize

A serene beach. The classroom of an elite private school. The still nights in an upscale residential neighborhood. An acclaimed poet with a quiet, dignified mode of address. The sonic etiquette and experience of quiet is integral to each of these scenes. The Quiet Zone : Caribbean Expressive Cultures and the Feminist Aesthetics of Disturbance (Rutgers UP, 2026) examines what the emergence of quiet as an elite aesthetic, privilege, and entitlement means for minoritized people who are often narrated as loud, disruptive, and disturbing, sonically, visually, and otherwise. Taking the Caribbean and its diasporas as its key sites of study, the book explores what we can learn from efforts to transform the region into the quintessential site of quiet leisure, in part, through the enactment of regimes of sonic discipline and surveillance directed against its majority Black population. Analyzing the work of Afro-Caribbean artists that catalog and critique sonic surveillance, the book questions the ways that quiet gets produced both as a regulatory ideal of racial, gender, sexual, national, and civilizational belonging and as a universal object of desire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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Timothy McCall, "Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

1w ago00:03:45Tap to summarize

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood. Timothy McCall's book Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy (Reaktion, 2023) explores the images, objects, and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts, seduced mistresses, flaunted splendor in lavish rituals of knighting, and demonstrated prowess through the hunt--all ostentatious performances of masculinity and the drive to rule. Hardly frivolous pastimes, these activities were essential displays of privilege and virility; indeed, violence underlay the cultural veneer of the Italian Renaissance. Timothy McCall investigates representations and ideals of manhood in this time and provides a historically grounded and gorgeously illustrated account of how male identity and sexuality proclaimed power during a century crucial to the formation of Early Modern Europe.Jana Byars is an independent scholar located in Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

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All episodes

Mollie Barnes, "Paper Heroines: Women Writers in Conversation and Community Across the Sea Islands, 1838-1902" (U South Carolina Press, 2026)

Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" ﻿(﻿Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025)

On The State of Black Men's Studies and Black Masculinist Thought Scholarship

Kenna Neitch, "A Praxis of Persistence: Central American Feminist Testimony and Sustainable Activism" (SUNY Press, 2026)

Chloe Chapin, "Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Frances Kneupper, "Prophecy and the Battle for Spiritual Authority, 1360–1400" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Laura Tisdall, "﻿We Have Come to Be Destroyed: Growing Up in Cold War Britain" (Yale UP, 2026)

Janet Hinson Shope and Richard Pringle, "Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

Petal Kimberly Samuel, "The Quiet Zone: Caribbean Expressive Cultures and the Feminist Aesthetics of Disturbance" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

Timothy McCall, "Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025)

Laura Tisdall, "We Have Come to Be Destroyed: Growing Up in Cold War Britain" (Yale UP, 2026)