Podcast
New Books in Gender
Hosted by New Books Network · EN
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com
Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
64episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Kenna Neitch, "A Praxis of Persistence: Central American Feminist Testimony and Sustainable Activism" (SUNY Press, 2026)
Yesterday00:46:11Tap to summarizeA 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
Transcribe →Chloe Chapin, "Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men" (Oxford UP, 2026)
2d agoTap to summarizeHow 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
Transcribe →Frances Kneupper, "Prophecy and the Battle for Spiritual Authority, 1360–1400" (Oxford UP, 2025)
5d ago00:58:28Tap to summarizeThe 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
Transcribe →Janet Hinson Shope and Richard Pringle, "Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
6d ago00:58:22Tap to summarizeCampus 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
Transcribe →Laura Tisdall, "We Have Come to Be Destroyed: Growing Up in Cold War Britain" (Yale UP, 2026)
6d ago00:36:43Tap to summarizeWhat 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
Transcribe →Petal Kimberly Samuel, "The Quiet Zone: Caribbean Expressive Cultures and the Feminist Aesthetics of Disturbance" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
1w ago01:12:36Tap to summarizeA 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
Transcribe →Timothy McCall, "Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
1w ago00:03:45Tap to summarizeLooking 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
Transcribe →Dalit Feminism with Thenmozhi Soundararajan
1w ago00:51:03Tap to summarizeThis episode features a conversation with Thenmozhi Soundararajan, founder Equality Labs and author of The Trauma of Caste. We discussed her own coming to consciousness of caste as the child of Dalit parents who were “passing” and how her work as an organizer has involved sustained engagement with anticaste thought, Black feminism, and Indigenous epistemologies. The conversation then turned to the practice of solidarity as the building of meaningful and not just transactional relationships and the importance of recognizing the potential of political alignments that may be foreclosed at one moment, only to be given new life in another. Finally, we addressed the need, in our current moment of dying empires and failing democracies, to both work with and beyond the law in order to open new horizons of political imagination and practice. Guest bio Thenmozhi Soundararajan is founder of the Dalit feminist organization, Equality Labs, and author of The Trauma of Caste. References Thenmozhi Soundararajan, The Trauma of Caste Shramanic faiths: ancient Indian traditions focusing on asceticism, self-reliance, and liberation from the cycle of rebirth that rejected the authority of the Vedas and Brahmanical authority. Ravidassia: religion based on the teachings of Guru Ravidas, a 14th century Indian saint. It was considered a sect within Sikhism until 2009 when it was proclaimed a distinct religion. Bhopal gas tragedy: On 3 December 1984, a leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, resulted in what is considered the world’s worst industrial disaster. Reservation: India’s system of caste-based affirmative action. Linda Burnham: activist and writer who co-founded the Women of Color Resource Center and was a leader in the Third World Women’s Alliance. Combahee River Collective: pioneering Black lesbian feminist organization formed in Boston in 1974. Gloria Anzaldúa: American philosopher and scholar of Chicana feminism, cultural theory, and queer theory Iyothee Thass: Tamil anti-caste thinker and writer who converted to Buddhism and called upon members of his own Paraiyar caste to do the same. Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule: anti-caste social reformers and pioneers of women’s education from Maharashtra. Ruth King: Founder of the Mindful of Race Institute Rhonda Magee: Professor Emerita at University of San Francisco and teacher of mindfulness Resmaa Menakem: psychotherapist and creator of Somatic Abolitionism. Eduardo Duran: Native American clinical psychologist, scholar, teacher and healer Collective Future Fund: a philanthropic intermediary fund that works with movements mobilizing toward a collective future free from violence. Kolar Gold Fields: former gold mining region in Karnataka, India Equality Labs: a South Asian Dalit civil rights organization. BAPS: The Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey is the largest modern Hindu temple outside India. It is the subject of a lawsuit filed by Dalit workers from India accusing the temple of human trafficking and labor exploitation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
Transcribe →PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)
1w ago01:17:27Tap to summarizeHow does coloniality shape the sociosomatic possibilities of our bodies? More importantly, how do gender-nonconforming people not only resist the limitations of that coloniality but also make, connect to, and revitalize other possibilities? How do displaced people use old and radical practices of embodiment to enact decolonial life now? In Sideways Selves: Travesti and Joetría Struggles Across the Américas (U Texas Press, 2025), PJ DiPietro listens carefully across many registers to the creative work of making and living sideways selves. Their work offers paths to decolonial worlds we may need to develop new eyes to see. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
Transcribe →Thomas Xavier Sarmiento, "The Heartland of US Empire: Race, Region, and the Queer Filipinx Midwest" (Temple UP, 2026)
1w ago01:03:43Tap to summarizePublished by Temple University Press in 2026, The Heartland of US Empire: Race, Region, and the Queer Filipinx Midwest examines Filipinx cultural representations in the Midwest since the early twentieth century. In it, Dr. Thomas Xavier Sarmiento shrewdly considers the impact of American exceptionalism and U.S. imperialism in a region where white, middle-class, heterosexual, and Christian is the norm. He employs a queer, decolonial Filipinx methodology that traces how narratives of America’s heartland position Filipinxs in the region as non-normative due to their racial, gender, sexual, and national statuses. As a result, The Heartland of US Empire locates queer Filipinxs in the geographic center of the nation and at the center of cultural narratives, thereby mapping alternative images of diasporic Filipinx identity and experience alongside U.S. regional and national identities, histories, and realities. Tom Sarmiento is an associate professor of English and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at Kansas State University. He specializes in Filipinx American and queer literature and culture and teaches courses in Asian American literature, Cultural Studies, film adaptation, and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. His works have appeared in MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, The SAGE Encyclopedia on Filipina/o/x America Studies, Asian American Literature Discourse and Pedagogies, and in a special issue he guest edited for American Studies. In addition to his work in Literature & Cultural Studies, he is invested in helping students see writing as a nonlinear process and as a tool for social change. Donna Doan Anderson is an assistant professor in History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies
Transcribe →