New Books in Gender
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network, an academic audio library dedicated to public education. Each episode features scholars discussing their recently published research with another expert in their field. The podcast covers topics related to gender studies. Listeners can explore over 150 channels and browse thousands of episodes on the New Books Network website.
Episodes
Don Thomas Deere, "The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space" (Duke UP, 2026)
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026),
Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization
in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern
structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings
of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous,
African, and mixed populat
Can I Say That: Your Go-To Guide for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Can I Say That: Your Go-To Guide for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is your safe space to learn more about diversity, equity and inclusion, and how you can be a force for change. Most DEI books focus on gender, race or the intersection of those two dimensions. This book adopts a broader intersectional lens while also providing concrete tools for allyship.This book is for you if: you want to know
Don Thomas Deere, "The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space" (Duke UP, 2026)
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026),
Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization
in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern
structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings
of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous,
African, and mixed populat
Michael Staudenmaier, "White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago" (UNC Press, 2026)
Independent
historian Michael Staudenmaier joins Michael Stauch to discuss his new
book about “becoming Puerto Rican” in Chicago. Staudenmaier’s book, White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago (University of North Carolina Press, 2026), describes how generations of Puerto Rican organizers and activists,
facing persistent exploitation, discrimination, and marginalization in
the po
Shikha Jhingan, "The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema: Voice, Body, Technology" (Wayne State UP, 2025)
How the sound of the female playback voice impacts Bollywood's cultural, musical, and cinematic environment.
Drawing on sound studies and performance theory, scholar Shikha Jhingan explores the discursive nature of the female playback voice in Bombay film songs in The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema: Voice, Body, Technology (Wayne State UP, 2025). Mapping the production, circulation, and recept
Jane Kanarek, "Beyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah" (Brandeis UP, 2025)
Beyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah (Brandeis University Press, 2025) draws
on feminist analysis and gender studies to examine tractate Sotah of
the Babylonian Talmud as a literary unit. By interrogating how, why, and
where women are invisible within Bavli Sotah, Jane Kanarek brings to
light a ubiquitous female presence throughout the text. Despite the
brutality of t
Ginger Dellenbaugh, "Maria Callas's Lyric and Coloratura Arias" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
More than 40 years after her death, the legend of Maria Callas, "La Divina Assoluta," remains unsurpassed. Much has been written about her sensational opera career and fraught private life, from her definitive mastery of iconic opera roles to her love affairs and tantrums. The prototype for the 20th century celebrity diva, Callas emblematizes the cliche of tormented talent - genius in the ring wit
Bruno Shirley, "Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215" (ARC Humanities Press, 2026)
Dr. Shirley's monograph, Religion, Gender, and Politics in Medieval Sri Lanka: The Reconstruction of Buddhist Kingship, ca. 1070-1215 (ARC Humanities Press, 2026), is now available open access, thanks to the generous support of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. This book offers a radical
reconsideration of the Poḷon-naruva period, long understood to be a
turning point in the history of Ther
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 e
Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025)
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 w
On The State of Black Men's Studies and Black Masculinist Thought Scholarship
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, it
Kenna Neitch, "A Praxis of Persistence: Central American Feminist Testimony and Sustainable Activism" (SUNY Press, 2026)
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 colle
Chloe Chapin, "Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men" (Oxford UP, 2026)
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 colo
Frances Kneupper, "Prophecy and the Battle for Spiritual Authority, 1360–1400" (Oxford UP, 2025)
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–
Laura Tisdall, "We Have Come to Be Destroyed: Growing Up in Cold War Britain" (Yale UP, 2026)
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 off
Janet Hinson Shope and Richard Pringle, "Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
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—almo
Petal Kimberly Samuel, "The Quiet Zone: Caribbean Expressive Cultures and the Feminist Aesthetics of Disturbance" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
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
Dalit Feminism with Thenmozhi Soundararajan
This 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
Timothy McCall, "Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
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 peninsu
PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)
How 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
Thomas Xavier Sarmiento, "The Heartland of US Empire: Race, Region, and the Queer Filipinx Midwest" (Temple UP, 2026)
Published 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
Fiona Rogers, "Cut Out: A Feminist History of Photo Collage, Montage and Assemblage" (Thames & Hudson, 2026)
Female artists have long employed collage to reflect the ways in
which identity is often constructed from conflicting, contrasting and
contradictory parts. Cut Out: A Feminist History of Photo Collage, Montage and Assemblage (Thames & Hudson and V&A Publishing, 2026) by Fiona Rogers explores the relationship between photography and feminist collage, foregrounding the use of femmage—a radical rec
Angharad N. Valdivia and Isabel Molina-Guzmán, "Rebooting Inequality: Critical Takes on Film and Television Remakes" (NYU Press, 2026)
From Ghostbusters to Will & Grace, One Day at a Time to Jurassic Park, the past decade has seen Hollywood reach a new peak in its obsession with reboots, remakes, and revivals. Spearheaded by media giants like Disney and Netflix, these projects promise progress—more diverse casts, “timely” social commentary, and redemptive nostalgia—yet they often reproduce the very inequalities they claim to addr
Eloise Moss, "The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1918" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Hotels represent nations, hosting visiting monarchs, politicians, and diplomats. Hotels underpin global networks of travel and communication, on which national and international prosperity have increasingly depended since the end of the First World War. Yet hotels are also places where people can be anonymous; where murderers and thieves mix with adulterers and con artists; and where prejudice fin
Tara Mulder, "A Womb of One's Own: Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome" (U California Press, 2026)
In the well-trod history of the Roman Empire, a pivotal moment has long gone unnoticed: It was in ancient Rome that medical men first set their sights on childbirth, the traditional domain of female midwives.Taking us to the dawn of Western obstetrics, A Womb of One's Own: Lost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome (U California Press, 2026) by Dr. Tara Mulder offers a feminist account of how, a
Jue Liang, "Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Conceiving the Mother of Tibet: The Early Literary Lives of the Buddhist Saint Yeshe Tsogyel (Oxford UP, 2026) is the first comprehensive study dedicated to the literary tradition surrounding Yeshe Tsogyel, revered as the foremost matron saint of Tibetan Buddhism. It traces the emergence and development of a rich body of narratives about Yeshe Tsogyel during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
Jewish Anarchist Women 1920–1950: The Politics of Sexuality
Anarchist theory includes the belief in freedom for all - that no one person, nor group of people, should have power over any others; that individuals can best decide how to live (and love). In this presentation Elaine Leeder will discuss eight Jewish women who identified as anarchists, active during the 1920s to 1950s. Through analysis of in-depth interviews Leeder explores the complete sexual fr
Julia Bowes, "Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism" (Princeton UP, 2026)
“Parental rights” is a rallying cry for today’s American conservatives, signaling opposition to mandatory vaccination and “woke” public school curricula. In Every Man's Home a Castle: Parental Rights and the Makings of Modern Conservatism (Princeton UP, 2026), Dr. Julia Bowes traces the origins of the modern parental rights movement to the nineteenth century, when the introduction of compulsory sc
Angela Dimitrakaki, "Feminism. Art. Capitalism" (Pluto Press, 2026)
Can art change the contemporary world? In Feminism, Art, Capitalism Angela Dimitrakaki, a Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory at the university of Edinburgh, offers a Marxist Feminist perspective on a variety of issues in both society and the cultural sector. Engaging with a huge range of examples, as well as theorising key issues such as work and labour, the long modern, communing p
Max Morris, "Not Sex Work: Queer Intimacy, Post-identity, and Incidental Encounters in the Digital Era" (Routledge, 2025)
Max Morris's Not Sex Work: Queer Intimacy, Post-identity, and Incidental Encounters in the Digital Era (Routledge, 2025) brings together feminist theory, media studies, and queer research methodologies to offer new, compelling insight the relationships between money, digital platforms, and sex.
Through longstanding engagement with gay, queer, and bisexual men who do not describe themselves as sex
Samira K. Mehta, "God Bless the Pill: The Surprising History of Contraception and Sexuality in American Religion" (UNC Press, 2026)
Most people today understand contraception as central to women’s liberation, and when the birth control pill arrived in 1960, the media thought it would usher in a sexual revolution. But a surprising number of religious Americans in the mid-twentieth century also saw contraception as part of God’s plan—a tool to create happy, prosperous American families in the post–World War II era.In God Bless t
Elena Foulis, "Embodied Encuentros: Oral History Archives of Latina/o/e Experiences" (Ohio State UP, 2026)
In Embodied Encuentros: Oral History Archives of Latina/o/e Experiences (Ohio State UP, 2026), Elena Foulis offers a practical guide for completing ethical fieldwork in Latina/o/e communities, emphasizing equitable and culturally sustaining practices for gathering oral histories. In her critical decolonial model, Foulis centers the agency of the people within these communities while considering th
Rugged Individualism
In this special student edition of High Theory, Andrew Bennett, Jo Hoffman, Kai North, and Ally Sullivan tell us about Rugged Individualism, a concept they link to Marxist theory. They made this episode for an assignment in Professor John Linstrom’s course on Theory and Criticism at Centenary College of Louisiana. The students provided the show notes below.
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Vanda Krefft, "Expect Great Things!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women" (Algonquin Books, 2026)
It’s a safe bet that most of the secretaries on the TV series Mad Men would have attended the Katharine Gibbs School in New York City. The iconic institution was in its heyday in the 1950 and '60s synonymous with supplying secretaries—always properly attired in heels, ladylike hats, and white gloves—to male executives. In Expect Great Things! Vanda Krefft turns the notion of a “Gibbs girl” on its
Sarah Murray, "Powered by Smart: A Prehistory of Everyday AI" (NYU Press, 2026)
Powered by Smart traces the techno-cultural evolutions that made artificial intelligence feel more familiar than futuristic. From wearables and streaming platforms to home voice assistants and AI toasters, smart is an inescapable feature of postdigital life. Today, thousands of products and platforms define smart as routine automation and friendly digital kinship. Yet smartness was not always so d
Abigail Ocobock, "Marriage Material: How an Enduring Institution Is Changing Same-Sex Relationships" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
It is no secret that marriage rates in the United States are at an all-time low. Despite this significant decline, the institution of marriage endures in our society amid historic changes to its meaning and practice. How does the continuing strength of marriage impact the relationships of same-sex couples after the legalization of same-sex marriage?
Drawing on over one hundred interviews with LGB
Eileen G'Sell, "Lipstick" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
From Revlon to Glossier, from Marilyn to Gaga, lipstick is as shape-shifting and unwieldy as femininity itself.Who wears lipstick today – as a matter of routine? And for those who do, is it out of obligation to a strict feminine standard, or some other reason entirely? Lipstick reconsiders the beauty world's most conspicuous – and contentious – tool of artifice. Tossing expired ideas about feminin
Rebecca Buxton and Samuel Ritholtz, "The Way Out: Justice in the Queer Search for Refuge" (U California Press, 2026)
The global refugee regime has shifted under our feet. Over the last forty years, international asylum practices have expanded to include the queer and trans displaced. At least thirty-seven countries now recognize LGBTIQ refugees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, with some states providing specialized support. Yet amid this expansion, backlash has intensified against refugee
Samuel Clowes Huneke, "I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany" (Aevo UTP, 2026)
I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany (Aevo UTP, 2026) brings to life the unrelenting defiance of queer women in fascist Germany.
In his latest book, award-winning historian Samuel Clowes Huneke shows how love, queer resistance, and collective action survived in the harrowing circumstances of Nazi rule. Drawing on a decade of archival research, Huneke takes readers into a hidden wo
Gwyneth Lonergan, "Borders, Citizenship, and Pregnancy: Migrant Women’s Experiences of Pregnancy and Maternity Care in the UK" (Bristol UP, 2025)
Using the analytical framework of reproductive justice, Borders, Citizenship, and Pregnancy: Migrant Women’s Experiences of Pregnancy and Maternity Care in the UK (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Gwyneth Lonergan examines migrant women’s experiences of pregnancy and maternity care within the broader context of gendered and racialised discourses and policies around health, reproduction and citizenship, au
Daphne A. Brooks, "Blackstar Rising and the Purple Reign: The Sonic Afterlives of David Bowie and Prince" (Duke UP, 2026)
Blackstar Rising and the Purple Reign: The Sonic Afterlives of David Bowie and Prince (Duke UP, 2026) is the first critical anthology dedicated to exploring the legacies of the pop music icons David Bowie and Prince. Daphne A. Brooks brings together an extraordinary array of writers, artists, and scholars, including Greg Tate, Jack Halberstam, Kara Keeling, Eric Lott, and Ann Powers, to offer fres
Gabriel S. Estrada, "Queer Indigenous Cinemas: Sovereign Genders from Seven Directions" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
In Queer Indigenous Cinemas, scholar Gabriel S. Estrada offers an analysis of queer Indigenous media from the Americas, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. This groundbreaking work uses Indigenous directional space and sovereign mapping methods to uncover the emotional, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of queer Indigenous lives. The book's seven chapters--each one of the directions--look closely at
Katharina Wiedlack, "Under Western Eyes: Vulnerable Minorities and the Russian State in New Cold War Cultures" (Academic Studies Press, 2025)
Under Western Eyes: Vulnerable Minorities and the Russian State in New Cold War Cultures (Academic Studies Press, 2025) examines the New Cold War between Anglophone Western and Russian media, focusing on its coverage of LGBTIQ+ topics and representations of Russian femininity, masculinity, racial and gender diversity, and disability. It interrogates how the Anglophone media constructs images of v
Beans Velocci, "Sex Isn't Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Sex Isn’t Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary (Duke UP, 2026), Beans Velocci traces the history of current high stakes attempts to define sex and to create a world devoid of trans life. Drawing on lab notes, family genealogies, medical case studies, and more, Velocci follows scientists and clinicians from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century and across five disciplines
Nurhaizatul Jamil, "Faithful Transformations: Islamic Self-Help in Contemporary Singapore" (U Illinois Press, 2025)
Nurhaizatul Jamil’s Faithful Transformations: Islamic Self-Help in Contemporary Singapore (U Illinois Press, 2025) is a complex and meticulous ethnography of recent trends in Islamic self-help circles based in Singapore. Drawing on research conducted with primarily young, college-educated and working professional Malay Muslim women, Jamil details how they negotiate aspirational pursuits related to
Leslie Barnes, "Sex Work in Southeast Asia: Scenes of Ambivalence in Literature and Film" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
In Sex Work in Southeast Asia: Scenes of Ambivalence in Literature and Film (Edinburgh UP, 2025), Leslie Barnes examines the ambivalences that mark Southeast Asian sex industries under global imperialism. She explores the multi-layered subjectivities of sex workers, procurers and clients, and interrogates the frameworks in which discourses surrounding sex work circulate. Engaged with debates conce
Emotions of LGBT Rights
In this episode of High Theory, Saronik talks to Senthorun Raj about the Emotions of LGBT Rights. Emotions from disgust and fear to love and joy shape the legal frameworks that attempt to govern human sexual behavior around the world. Sen cautions against dividing emotions into good and bad, but instead asks us to take a critical stance on all emotions, to understand how they shape our policies.
Hilary Matfess, "After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions" (Stanford UP, 2026)
War offers opportunities for women to liberate their communities and build a better life for themselves. When women join rebel groups, they often take on new roles, cultivate new social networks, and develop new skills. These rebel women often gain the respect of rebel leaders, their comrades-in-arms, and the communities they're fighting for. When the guns are silenced, however, women have struggl
Susan Goodier and Karen Pastorello, "Women Will Vote: Winning Suffrage in New York State" (Cornell UP, 2017)
The book, Women Will Vote: Winning Suffrage in New York State (Cornell UP, 2017) is Susan Goodier and Karen Pastorello’s efforts to account for the origins and strategies of the women's suffrage movement in the New York State. The book dwelled on evolution of the women’s suffrage movement in the progressive era and discusses the various suffragist strategies employed in quest for women’s right to
Isabelle Held, "Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies" (Duke UP, 2026)
Bullet bras, bazookas, bombshells, bikinis. In Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Isabelle Held challenges the usual narratives of how war technologies enter domestic use by following plastics on their journey into women’s bodies. Dr. Held explores the effects of military-industrial science and the emergence of nylon, silicone, and plastic foams on embodied
The Club: Where American Artists Found Refuge in Belle Epoque Paris
In Belle Époque Paris, the Eiffel Tower was newly built, France was experiencing remarkable political stability, and American women were painting the town and gathering at a female-only Residence known as The American Girls' Club in Paris. Opened in 1893, The Club was the center of expatriate living and of dedication to a calling in the fine arts, and singularly harbored a generation of independen
Lee Ann S. Wang, "The Violence of Protection: Policing, Immigration Law, and Asian American Women" (Duke UP, 2026)
The Violence of Protection: Policing, Immigration Law, and Asian American Women (Duke UP, 2026) examines U.S. laws designed to rescue immigrant survivors from gender and sexual violence only if they agree to cooperate with policing. Drawing upon ethnographic stories with legal and social service advocates who work with Asian immigrant women, the book engages abolition feminisms and antiblackness t
Derek Krueger "Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and the Love of God in Medieval Constantinople" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Derek Krueger Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and Love of God in Medieval Constantinople (Cambridge UP, 2026)
The Byzantine Abbot Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) transgressed the homophobic norms of medieval Orthodox society. His longing for God was distinctly homoerotic, and he depicted union with the divine as a queer sort of marriage. His Orthodox theology of theosis, the dei
Megan Peiser, "British Women Novelists and the Review Periodical" (JHU Press, 2026)
At the turn of the nineteenth century, British women novelists were publishing more fiction than their male counterparts, yet their place in literary history remains precarious. In British Women Novelists and the Review Periodical (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Dr. Megan Peiser offers a compelling new perspective on this pivotal period by examining the overlooked power of the review perio
Tulasi Srinivas, "The Goddess in the Mirror: An Anthropology of Beauty" (Duke UP, 2025)
In The Goddess in the Mirror: An Anthropology of Beauty (Duke UP, 2025), Tulasi Srinivas offers a pathbreaking ethnography of contemporary Indian beauty parlors in Bangalore. Exploring the gendered world of beauty in the intimate spaces of the salon, whose popularity has exploded amid an urban tech revolution, Srinivas invites us to consider what beauty is and what it does. Visiting diverse salon
How Authoritarians Exploit Gender
Gender is becoming a central battleground in contemporary authoritarian politics, but how do autocrats manipulate these debates to their own advantage? Some regimes now pursue a double strategy of simultaneous “gender bashing” and “gender washing”: mobilising anti-gender rhetoric and “traditional values” to attack feminists and roll back equality, while at the same time promoting loyal women into
Satya Shikha Chakraborty, "Colonial Caregivers: Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Colonial Caregivers: Ayahs and the Gendered History of Race and Caste in British India (Cambridge UP, 2025) offers a compelling cultural and social history of ayahs (nannies/maids), by exploring domestic intimacy and exploitation in colonial South Asia. Working for British imperial families from the mid-1700s to the mid-1900s, South Asian ayahs, as Chakraborty shows, not only provided domestic lab
Deirdre Flynn and Mary McGill eds., "Irish Digital Cultures: Identity, Contexts, Space" (Routledge, 2025)
Irish Digital Cultures: Identity, Contexts, Space (Routledge, 2025) explores how questions of Ireland and Irishness are represented in online environments, and what these phenomena say about contemporary Irish identities both within the country and globally. It will interest Irish Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology, Race, Gender, Identity, and New Media.
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Martha Feldman, "Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome" (Zone Books, 2026)
Around 1830, opera houses stopped using castrati, and Rome and the Vatican became home to their glorious singing, engineered by surgery and intensive vocal training. Castrati were long mired in secrecy, obfuscations, and lies about their origin and conditions, not least the last of them, Alessandro Moreschi. In Castrato Phantoms: Moreschi, Fellini, and the Sacred Vernacular in Rome (Zone Books, 20
The Collective Cure: Upstream Solutions for Better Public Health
A powerful blend of deeply human stories and rigorous research, The Collective Cure: Upstream Solutions for Better Public Health (Beacon Press, 2026) reveals how social and structural factors like income, occupation, race and ethnicity, neighborhood conditions, and social connections, profoundly shape our well-being. Dr. Monica Wang, an award-winning public health researcher, educator, and work
Karen McNally ed., "Women in Hollywood's Dream Factory: Tales of Inequality, Abuse, and Resistance" (U Illinois Press, 2026)
The #MeToo revelations put a twenty-first-century stamp on the age-old story of women’s mistreatment in Hollywood. In Women in Hollywood's Dream Factory: Tales of Inequality, Abuse, and Resistance (U Illinois Press, 2026) Karen McNally edits a collection focused on examining and revising film history in the aftermath of the women’s stories, past and present, that have come to light.The collectio
Katelyn E. Stauffer, "The Politics of Perception: How Beliefs About Women’s Inclusion Shape Democratic Legitimacy in the U.S." (Oxford UP, 2025)
Katelyn Stauffer, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia, has an excellent new book focusing on how voters and citizens perceive the legitimacy and functionality of political institutions, especially when they think there are women elected to those institutions. The Politics of Perception: How Beliefs About Women’s Inclusion Shape Democratic Legitimacy in the United
What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life
Mothers and fathers use their time differently, with women spending roughly twice as many hours on family labor as men. But what about the gendered differences in the ways women and men think? What’s on Her Mind examines the cognitive labor that families depend on, and reveals why this essential aspect of family life is disproportionately handled by women—even in couples that aspire to practice eq
Maud Anne Bracke, "Reproductive Rights in Modern France: Reproductive Rights in Modern France: Feminism, Contraception, and Abortion, 1950-1980 (Oxford UP, 2025)
The introduction of the principle of women's reproductive liberty in France, tentatively by the family planning movement after 1960 and explicitly by the women's liberation movement after 1970, marked a deep shift, transforming public discourses. Yet this principle remained fiercely contested, and moderate and conservative actors responded by foregrounding notions of 'reproductive responsibility',
Mattie Armstrong-Price, "Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways" (U California Press, 2026)
Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways (U California Press, 2026) by Dr. Mattie Armstrong-Price offers a social and cultural history of railway labor in Britain and colonial India from the 1840s through World War I. The book treats the railway industry as a microcosm through which to study the history of capitalism in the liberal imperial era
Daniel Brook, "The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)
More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, dubbed the "Einstein of Sex," grew famous (and infamous) for his liberating theory of sexual relativity. Today, he's been largely forgotten.
In The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)journalist Daniel Brook retraces Hirschfeld's rollicking life and reinvigorates his legacy, recovering one of
Jennifer Randles, "Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood" (U California Press, 2026)
Many of us take diapers for granted. Yet diaper insecurity is a common, often hidden consequence of poverty in the US, where nearly half of American families with young children struggle to get enough diapers.
Drawing on interviews with mothers dealing with this overlooked issue, in Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood (U California Press, 2026) Dr. Jennifer Randle
Eleanor Gordon et al., "Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939 (Oxford UP, 2025) by Professor Eleanor Gordon, Professor Katie Barclay, and Dr. Jeff Meeks is the first book-length study of the history of working-class courtship and marriage in Scotland, from the establishment of civil registration to the introduction in 1939 of legislation which abolished irregular marriage and introduced ci
Lorraine Grimes, "Single Mothers in Twentieth-century Ireland and Britain: Pregnancy, Migration and Institutionalization" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Throughout the twentieth century, many women in Ireland and Britain endured shame and institutionalisation for becoming pregnant outside of marriage. In Single Mothers in Twentieth-century Ireland and Britain: Pregnancy, Migration and Institutionalization (Bloomsbury, 2025), Dr. Lorraine Grimes examines the journeys made by hundreds of pregnant Irish women to Britain as they fled to escape their l
Jennifer Boum Make, "Decolonial Care: Reimagining Caregiving in the French Caribbean" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Decolonial Care: Reimagining Caregiving in the French Caribbean (Rutgers UP, 2025) examines the relationship between the legacies of colonialism and the dynamics of caregiving that have emerged from the French Caribbean. Putting in dialogue postcolonial studies and care studies, this book elucidates how caring and uncaring have been historically shaped by colonialism and shows how media and narrat
Coming Out as Dalit with Yashica Dutt
This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance of the memoir as a genre of Dalit writing, the politics around passing as upper caste, and what her mother’s role in the life taught her about Dalit feminism as a counter to Brahminical patriarchy. We then moved on to what her work as a jour
Sophie Salvo, "Articulating Difference: Sex and Language in the German Nineteenth Century"(U Chicago Press, 2024)
Drawing on a wide range of texts, from understudied ethnographic and scientific works to canonical literature and philosophy, Sophie Salvo uncovers the prehistory of the inextricability of gender and language. Taking German discourses on language as her focus, she argues that we are not the inventors but, rather, the inheritors and adapters of the notion that gender and language are interrelated.
Joanna Bourke, "Five Evil Women: Hindley, West, Wuornos, Homolka, Tucker" (Reaktion, 2026)
Why do certain women become icons of evil? Five Evil Women: Hindley, West, Wuornos, Homolka, Tucker (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Joanna Bourke offers the first comparative, non-sensationalist account of five of the most reviled women in the modern Anglophone world: Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Aileen Wuornos, Karla Homolka and Karla Faye Tucker. It examines their lives, crimes and cultural recept
Clarissa E. Francis, "Black Women's Bodily Autonomy, Sexual Freedom, and Pleasure: Explorations of the Hot Girl Movement" (Routledge, 2025)
Black Women's Bodily Autonomy, Sexual Freedom, and Pleasure: Explorations of the Hot Girl Movement (Routledge, 2025) explores scholarship, practice, and advocacy for Black women’s pursuit of bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and pleasure. Inspired by Megan Thee Stallion’s song "Hot Girl Summer" and pleasure activism, Dr. Clarissa E. Francis ("The Real Hot Girl Doc") examines the cultural and social
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, "Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism" (Princeton UP, 2025)
The revelatory and urgent story of how an explosion of misogyny is driving a surge of mass and far-right violence throughout the West--from an internationally recognized extremism expert and media commentator
What two things do most mass shooters, terrorists, or violent extremists have in common? Most of us know the first: they are almost always men or boys. But the second? They are almost always
Sarah Jones Weicksel, "A Nation Unraveled: Clothing, Culture, and Violence in the American Civil War Era" (UNC Press, 2026)
During the American Civil War, clothing became central to the ways people waged war and experienced its cost. Through the clothes they made, wore, mended, lost, and stole, Americans expressed their allegiances, showed their love, confronted their social and economic challenges, subverted expectations, and, ultimately, preserved their history. As the collections they left behind make clear, Civil W
Michèle Schaal, "Grrrl Writing: Virginie Despentes's Authorial Politics" (Peter Lang, 2026)
When Virginie Despentes (1969) published her provocative debut novel Baise-moi in 1994, no one could have anticipated how she would gradually become a literary, feminist, and punk icon. This book is the first holistic, interdisciplinary approach to Despentes's novels and evolution as an author. Using feminist, queer, literary, and punk theories, the book examines how Despentes has developed and re
Andrea Mansker, "Matchmaking and the Marriage Market in Postrevolutionary France" (Cornell UP, 2024)
Matchmaking and the Marriage Market in Postrevolutionary France (Cornell UP, 2024) gives an historical account of the evolution of the matchmaking business during the Second Empire in France. The book explores how the matchmaking industry at the Postrevolutionary France was shaped by commodified stories of hope and fantasy, including democratization of the matchmaking business, which aroused the
Lynda Nead, "British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Post-War Britain" (Yale UP, 2025)
In the 1950s, American glamour swept into a war-torn Britain as part of a broader transatlantic exchange of culture and commodities. But in this process, the American ideal of the blonde became uniquely British—Marilyn Monroe transformed into Diana Dors.
British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Post-War Britain (Yale UP, 2025) by Professor Lynda Nead examines postwar Britain through the cha
Jessica Martin, "Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Is the home still a site for feminist resistance? In Feminisms and Domesticity in Times of Crisis: The Rise of the Austerity Celebrity Jessica Martin, a Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, examines the rise of postfeminist celebrities in the era of covid and the cost-of-living crisis. Drawing on 4 case studies, the book demonstrates how much of the seemingly feminis
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