New Books in Literary Studies
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 network offers over 150 channels and 28,000 episodes, available on their website. Listeners can also subscribe to a free weekly Substack newsletter and follow on social media for updates.
Episodes
An Alaṅkāra Reader: Classical Indian Poetics with Yigal Bronner (Columbia UP, 2026)
Classical Indian poetics prized the skillful use of alaṅkāras, or “ornaments”—literary figures of speech. Across more than a millennium, Sanskrit writers developed and elaborated an account of literary embellishment that is perhaps the world’s most complex and long-standing theory of figuration. Yet it remains the least studied of India’s major classical systems of thought.An Alaṅkāra Reader (Colu
Realism After the Individual: Women, Desire, and the Modern American Novel with Rafael Walker (U Chicago Press, 2025)
The realist novel, so the story goes, isn’t really an American genre but a European and British one. And what the realist novel does—again, according to conventional wisdom—is entrench a liberal model of the individual: the self as autonomous and perfectible. Pushing back against these and other received ideas, Rafael Walker offers a self-professed “heretical” view of the history of the American n
A Room of His Own: Joseph Brodsky and the Making of a Bilingual Poet with Daria S. Smirnova (Academic Studies Press, 2025)
A Room of His Own: Joseph Brodsky and the Making of a Bilingual Poet (Academic Studies Press, 2025) makes the original and persuasive claim that Brodsky’s force as a transnational poet derives paradoxically from an inward-looking stance that privileges “the trope of the room” and a practice of self-translation that is faithful to his own internal poetics rather than the poetic norms
Teaching and Transformation in Popular Confucian Literature of the Late Qing with Katherine L. Alexander (U Michigan Press, 2025)
Teaching and Transformation in Popular Confucian Literature of the Late Qing (U Michigan Press, 2025) by Katherine L. Alexander explores how one late Qing Confucian reformer sought to rebuild society in the aftermath of the Taiping Civil War. Focusing on the prolific writer and teacher Yu Zhi (1809–1874), the book examines how he used writing, printing, education, and performance to promote a visi
David Bentley Hart on Life, Literature, and Baseball (U Notre Dame Press, 2026)
Today I’m speaking with David Bentley Hart about his book, A Gathering of Leaves: Extravagances and Ephemera, from the University of Notre Dame Press. David is a multi-faceted scholar who has contributed to the fields of philosophy, religious studies, and baseball, among others. The volume we will be discussing today is a collection of essays mostly originating from his website, Leaves in the Wind
11.1 Indie Presses and the Literary Ecosystem: Meg Reid and Will Evans
Meg Reid and Will Evans join Mesha Maren to consider what makes up a literary ecosystem. As leaders of two nonprofit independent presses,Hub City Writers Project and Deep Vellum Press, Meg and Will describe their roles as publishers, booksellers, community builders, and advocates working with the many interconnected players in publishing: writers, readers, translators, critics, librarians, dis
The Examination of Religion (Dharmaparīkṣā): A Jain Tradition of Narrative Adaptations with Heleen De Jonckheere (Brill, 2026)
Repetition, reconfiguration, or adaptation form key characteristics of the Indian literary traditions. Jain literature exemplifies this vividly, especially through its rich narrative tradition. The Examination of Religion (Dharmaparīkṣā): A Jain Tradition of Narrative Adaptations (Brill, 2026) studies one such narrative, known as the Dharmaparīkṣā ('Examination of Religion'), which has
Flannery and Regina: The Andalusia Chronicles with Carol Loeb Shloss
The story of two women in the mid-twentieth-century South navigating financial independence, a changing rural landscape, and social norms.Flannery and Regina: The Andalusia Chronicles (NewSouth Books, 2026) tells the story of Flannery O’Connor and her mother, Regina, after Flannery’s lupus diagnosis forced her to move back to Milledgeville, Georgia. Just as her career as one of the twentieth
Ecotexts in the Postcolonial Francosphere with Nsah Mala, Richard Watts and Giulia Champion
Through a postcolonial lens, Ecotexts in the Postcolonial Francosphere (Liverpool, 2025) explores the various ways in which francophone writers, visual artists and activists are responding to the global climate and environmental crises threatening the Earth today.The volume covers most of the francosphere: Africa, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, South America and Polynesia. As well as discussing
Aarthi Vadde has a Platform (JP)
It is fair to say Aarthi Vadde's wonderful new book, We The Platform, demostrates "how literature changes our perspective on the internet." But you also need to add that it "respond[s] to decline narratives about literature and literary study and to offer an alternative to prevailing sense of defeat and nostalgia that guides them.”Her conversation with John, like the book itself, aims to narrate t
Ilan Stavans on Building Restless Books and Publishing in Translation
How does an independent press survive by publishing the books the Big Five overlook? Amherst College professor and Spanglish scholar Ilan Stavans joins Sarah Russo to talk about Restless Books, the press he founded to champion immigrant writers, literature in translation, and the books that live between languages. Ilan shares the origin of Restless Books (including the investor who told him to tak
Wastelands and Wonderlands: Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature with Matthew Leggatt (SUNY Press, 2026)
Wastelands and Wonderlands: Utopias and Dystopias in Film and Literature with Matthew Leggatt (SUNY Press, 2026) is an edited collection exploring utopias ad dystopias in films and literature. It challenges readers, in these uniquely dystopian times, to reevaluate their ideas about utopia and dystopia. The book brings together film, literary, and utopian studies scholars from across the
Fitness for Freedom: Disability, Degeneration, and Modern Irish Writing with Marion Quirici (Syracuse UP, 2025)
Fitness for Freedom: Disability, Degeneration, and Modern Irish Writing (Syracuse UP, 2025) explores the legacy of intersectional stereotypes of disability, race, gender, sexuality, class, and religion that justified imperial rule in Ireland and the forms of oppression that continued after independence. Marion Quirici identifies models of citizenship and creative autonomy in Irish moder
Water Logics: Materialist Epistemologies for the Environmental Humanities with yasser elhariry and Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (U Virginia Press, 2026)
Water Logics: Materialist Epistemologies for the Environmental Humanities (U Virginia Press, 2026) examines the epistemological adjustments that take place when we make water the source and medium for thinking about the world. Eschewing metaphorical readings of rivers, seas, and oceans, it brings together leading voices from across the social sciences and the humanities to argue rather for a disti
Playing with Plays: Drama and Early Modern Chinese Media Ecologies with Yinghui Wu (Brill, 2025)
How was drama experienced in early modern China? It was not tied to a single medium such as the page or the stage, but operated in a media ecology—an environment in which it integrated other arts and media while being refashioned in a variety of arts and media. Playing with Plays: Drama and Early Modern Chinese Media Ecologies (Brill, 2025)explores a wide range of cultural experimentation, co
Emmy Waldman, "Filial Lines: Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Comics Form" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Filial Lines: Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Comics Form (Cambridge UP, 2026) by Dr. Emmy Waldman is the first book to place the autobiographical projects of canonical comics authors Art Spiegelman and Alison Bechdel alongside each other, focusing on new and neglected works (and with an epilogue on the Pulitzer Prize-winning tour-de-force debut of Tessa Hulls). The book offers a lively cast o
Tess Chakkalakal, "A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)
In A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt (St. Martin's Press, 2025), Tess Chakkalakal gives readers the first comprehensive biography of Charles W. Chesnutt. A complex and talented man, Chesnutt was born in 1858 in Cleveland to parents who were considered “mixed race.” He spent his early life in North Carolina after the Civil War. Though light-skinned, Chesnutt
Nathan Wainstein, "Bad Writing in the Modernist Novel" (JHU Press, 2026)
What does it mean for a modernist novel to fail?Modernism famously celebrates rupture, difficulty, and deviance from literary norms—but that very embrace of formal experimentation creates a paradox: how can we tell the difference between daring innovation and genuinely bad writing? Bad Writing in the Modernist Novel (JHU Press, 2026) takes up this long-overlooked question and argues that
Randal Maurice Jelks, "My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy" (Broadleaf Books, 2026)
Celebrated poet, essayist, playwright, and American artist Langston Hughes is one of the few American writers who consistently wrote about democracy from a joyous perspective, and My America explores how his work speaks to the political anxieties and crises we face today. Randal M. Jelks deftly examines the themes in Hughes’s work, including creative expression, communal dignity, class s
Exploring Earthsea: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Fantasy Masterpiece
Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea saga has enchanted generations of readers and stands as a foundational classic of the fantasy genre. To mark publication of the definitive Library of America edition, acclaimed writers Karen Joy Fowler and Nghi Vo join volume editor Brian Attebery to kick off the fall LOA LIVE season with a fascinating plunge into these beloved novels of magic, dragons, nature, naming,
Tamara Hundorova, "Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma" (Academic Studies Press, 2026)
Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma (Academic Studies Press, 2026) explores transitional post-Soviet cultural consciousness in Ukraine at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The main themes in the book are postcolonial traumas in relation to past empires and old historiographical narratives; post-totalitarian consciousness, which is characterized by sociocultural ruptures, postcolo
Xiaofei Tian, "Writing Empire and Self: Poetic and Cultural Transformation in Early Medieval China" (Columbia UP, 2026)
China’s early medieval period, from the fifth through the early seventh century, from the Northern and Southern Dynasties through the unified Sui, was a time of political fragmentation, military strife, and ethnic conflict. It also witnessed brilliant artistic creations as well as a full flowering of court culture, with poetry at its heart. How did poetry come to be regarded as the most potent for
Catherine A John, "Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice (Duke University Press, 2026), Catherine A. John addresses the underbelly of spiritual resilience shaping a range of African diasporic institutions, traditions, and practices. John argues that repressed forms of indigenous African knowledge systems manifest in a myriad of culturally embodied ways in African diaspora spaces and places.
Christopher Freeburg, "Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life" (Yale UP, 2026)
Today’s guest, Christopher Freeburg, is the author of Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life (Yale University Press, 2026). This book explores the US history of black cultural life as a history of soul – a spiritual lived practice rooted in communally fostered music, religion, and politics. It makes the case that soul is forged through black community connections and that it’s sustained by m
A Nation Wrestles With God: American Prophets, Philosophers, and Firebrands
Spanning more than 400 years of spiritual transformation and imagination, A Nation Wrestles With God (Restless Books, 2026) collects diverse writers—poets, novelists, theologians, scientists, musicians, politicians, comedians, artists, mavericks, naturalists, futurists, and more—whose daring texts incited change and continue to influence a growing nation. In this anthology, you will find the stor
Leonhard Emmerling, "The Idiots: The History of the Homo Nullus" (Seagull Books, 2026)
In a world obsessed with expertise and control, the figure of the idiot illuminates deeper truths about society. In this interview, Morteza Hajizadeh interviews Leonhard Emmerling about his book The Idiots: The History of the Homo Nullus (Seagull Books, 2026)
Dostoevsky and Nietzsche wrote about him; Dadaists and punks idolized him; artists like Warhol and Beuys made him their icon. From hol
Lucas L. Johnson II, "Remembering Roots: How an American Classic Transformed the World" (Broadleaf Books, 2026)
As we approach the 50th anniversaries of Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Roots (1976) and its landmark television adaptation (1977), journalist and storyteller Lucas L. Johnson II reflects on the enduring legacy of Haley’s work through the voices of those it continues to move, including scholars, artists, genealogists, students, and original cast members like LeVar Burton and Ben Vereen.
Jonathan Swift and David Womersley ed., "Gulliver's Travels: Cambridge Anniversary Edition" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Gulliver's Travels is one of the landmarks of world literature. Gulliver's adventures with the tiny but spirited Lilliputians, the giant inhabitants of Brobdingnag, the flying island of Laputa, and the rational horses of Houyhnmhnmland have become globally famous for their satirical wit and visionary creativity. Early editions credited Gulliver himself as the author, and many readers believed him
Agnes Mueller, "Holocaust Migration in German Jewish Literatures" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In Holocaust Migration in German Jewish Literatures (Cambridge UP, 2026), analysing the past two decades of literature on Holocaust memory and migration stories, Agnes Mueller engages with writers such as W.G. Sebald, Thomas Bernhard, Edgar Hilsenrath, Benjamin Stein, Mirna Funk, Fred Wander, Barbara Honigmann, Julia Franck, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Olga Grjasnowa, and Kat Kaufmann to explore c
The Political Philosophy of Mark Twain: On His Absurd, Noble Americans with Ivan Kenneally
While many know that Mark Twain created some of the most famous characters in literature—Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Puddn’head Wilson—too few have understood that the Missouri author wasn’t only America’s greatest humorist, but also one of its most subtle political thinkers. But what was the political philosophy of the elusive and ironic Mark Twain for his new democratic America?
To
Aonghus MacKechnie, "Edinburgh: City of Romanticism" (Lund Humphries, 2026)
Romanticism made Scotland famous. It critically shaped the course of
Scottish culture, while impacting on cultures elsewhere and inaugurating
the country’s still-flourishing
and lucrative tourist industry. This book is about Edinburgh’s most
emblematic architecture over the long 19th century: the castellated and
stone built
cityscape of national revivalist architecture. It reveals why Scotla
María Angélica Thumala Olave, "The Love of Books: Attachment to a Changing Cultural Object" (Manchester UP, 2026)
Why do people read? In The Love of Books: Attachment to a Changing Cultural Object (Manchester University Press, 2026) María Angélica Thumala Olave, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Social and Political Science, explores people’s relationship to books and to reading, demonstrating the pleasure and importance books provide in contemporary life. Moving beyon
Courtney Weikle‑Mills, "Sugarcoated Ethics: Children’s Literature and Atlantic Enslavement" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
What if children’s literature was never as innocent as we imagine?
In Sugarcoated Ethics: Children’s Literature and Atlantic Enslavement (Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2026), the relationship between childhood
reading and Atlantic slavery is brought into sharp focus. The book
argues that children’s literature did not merely emerge alongside the
plantation economy; it was deeply shaped by it
Stefan Collini, "Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Stefan Collini
The
study and teaching of English literature is generally regarded as one
of the central disciplines in the modern university, yet for much of its
history it struggled to gain academic legitimacy and was frequently
derided as 'a soft option'. Its early professors responded by
em
Transcending Disciplinary Confinements With(in) Beckett Studies
This is Dr. Swati Joshi's inaugural episode on the New Books Network. In this episode, she interviews Dr. Lucy Jeffery about her monograph, Transdisciplinary Beckett: Visual Arts, Music, and the Creative Process (ibidem Press, 2021). She is also co-editor and author of Replaying Communism: Trauma and Nostalgia in European Cultural Production, published by CEU Press and AUP in 2026. She is co-found
Sabrina Inowlocki, "Ancient Apologetics and the Bibliographic Imagination" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Ancient apologetics is usually treated as a literary genre or a branch of early theology. This Element offers a different account. It argues that many Jewish and Christian texts conventionally labeled 'apologetic' are better understood through a bibliographic and archival lens: They produce authority not only by defending doctrines, but by organizing books, constructing corpora, mobilizing archive
Patricia A. Billingsley, "Lorca in Vermont: The Spanish Poet and His American Lover" (High Road Books, 2026)
A groundbreaking reassessment of the relationship between Federico García Lorca and American poet Philip Cummings and its impact on the poems in Lorca's landmark collection, Poet in New York.In August 1929, Spanish poet Federico García Lorca left New York City to spend ten days with his friend and lover Philip Cummings at a lakeside cottage in northern Vermont. Lorca in Vermont: The Spanish Poet a
Joseph Acquisto, "Baudelaire's Objects" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Baudelaire's Objects (Bloomsbury,
2026) examines Baudelaire's multifaceted use of natural, domestic,
urban, and esthetic objects in his verse and prose poetry, as well as
the ways his poems reshape our understanding of objects and how those
objects destabilize, yet preserve, the subject-object relation. Charles
Baudelaire's representation of objects in the natural world establishes a
relatio
Emily Sibley, "The Poetics of Incivility: Satire and Subversion in Modern Arab Culture" (Cornell UP, 2026)
The Poetics of Incivility: Satire and Subversion in Modern Arab Culture (Cornell UP, 2026) explores impolite modes of expression—satire, crude humor, and rudeness—as a critical lens for both aesthetic innovation and sociopolitical critique. In the Arab world—from Cairo's Tahrir Square and the thoroughfares of Beirut to war-torn Gaza—political demands have been framed by satirical cartoons and gra
Xiaofan Amy Li, "The Aesthetics of Risk in Franco-East Asian Literatures" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
The Aesthetics of Risk in Franco-East Asian Literatures (Cambridge UP, 2026) is the first book that examines the concept of risk in non-anglophone world literature. Focusing on how risk is produced and reshaped by literary aesthetics, Li argues that risk is a creative rather than negative force in world literature. Instead of disaster narratives, Li approaches risk from the fresh perspective of lu
Aarthi Vadde, "We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature (Columbia UP, 2026)
We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature (Columbia University Press 2026) by Aarthi Vadde is a groundbreaking account of mass writing in the twenty-first century, identifying rarely recognized forms of literary possibility amid the profound upheavals in traditional publishing. Aarthi Vadde examines the explosion of textuality across digital platforms: countless wri
Caroline Bicks, "Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King" (Hogarth, 2026)
After Caroline Bicks was named the University of Maineʼs inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, she became the first scholar to be granted extended access by King to his private archives, a treasure trove of manuscripts that document the legendary writerʼs creative process—most of them never before studied or published. The year she spent exploring King’s early drafts and hand-written rev
Lauren Delapenha, "Supermarketing" (Spring, 2026)
Lauren Delapenha speaks to Emily Everett about her poems “Supermarketing” and “If You Are Learning English,” which appear in The Common’s spring issue. Lauren also discusses her process and revision methods, her time at the Disquiet Literary Program in Lisbon, and how balancing both teaching and writing challenges her.
Lauren is a Jamaican poet and English teacher. She earned her master’s in creat
Jarvis C. McInnis, "Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global Black South" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Built on the grounds of a former cotton plantation, the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington, offered agricultural and industrial education as a strategy for Black self-determination. There―and in many other communities in the U.S. South, the Caribbean, and Central America―Black people repurposed and regenerated what had been a place of enslavement into a site for imagining alt
Bridget Hourican on Frank Callanan's "James Joyce: A Political Life" (Princeton UP, 2026)
The young James Joyce (1882–1941) was forged in the smithy of Irish political controversies, and he took into his European exile a depth of political insight unrivalled among his fellow modernists. In this biography of Joyce in his youth and early exile James Joyce: A Political Life (Princeton UP, 2026), acclaimed Irish historian and biographer Frank Callanan reveals a Joyce who is markedly mor
Michael R. Griffiths, "The Death of the Author and Anticolonial Thought" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
The Death of the Author and Anticolonial Thought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) promises
to transform a decades old debate in literary studies about the
relation between structure and agency, form and intention by giving a
detailed account—previously unstudied—of the way colonized writers have
responded to, learned from, and critiqued the death of the author
postulate declared by Roland Barthes i
Caro Pirri, "Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Today’s guest, Caro Pirri, is the author of Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement (Oxford University Press, 2025). This book explores how early modern colonial travel writing informed the London theater’s spatial and placemaking conventions. It suggests that what the stage found most compelling about narratives of colonial settlement was their failure
Naomi Kanakia, "What's So Great About the Great Books?: Why You Should Read Classic Literature (Even Though It Might Destroy You) (Princeton UP, 2026)
Writer Naomi Kanakia has spent her adult life reading the so-called “great books,” those classic works of literature which are–depending who you ask–either deeply unfashionable, or a time-honored testament to human accomplishment.
With What’s So Great About the Great Books: Why You Should Read Classic Literature (Even Though It May Destroy You) (Princeton UP, 2026) Kanakia, a devoted lay reader,
Edlie Wong, "Empire, Race, and Print Culture in the Black Pacific" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Empire, Race, and Print Culture in the Black Pacific (Cambridge University Press, 2026) is an Element which centers the 'Black Pacific' as a generative site for comparative and intersectional methodologies and transnational frameworks for thinking about racial formations, post-national literary forms, and cultural histories. At the end of the nineteenth century, US overseas expansion into the Paci
Emma Parker, "Life Writing and the End of Empire: Homecoming in Autobiographical Narratives" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Life Writing and the End of Empire: Homecoming in Autobiographical Narratives (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024) examines how autobiographical writing reflects the psychological and cultural afterlives of the British Empire. Rather than treating decolonization as a completed historical moment, Emma Parker shows how empire continues to haunt personal memory, identity, and ideas of home. Through close read
In The Scholar’s Workshop: Hidden Histories of Collaboration and Authorship
For centuries, many of the world’s most influential thinkers relied on helpers who performed tasks such as taking dictation, correcting, indexing, composing, and endless copying. In the Scholar’s Workshop: Hidden Histories of Collaboration and Authorship (Princeton UP, 2026) introduces readers to these unsung scribes, assistants, and collaborators, showing how the scholarly enterprise is rarely as
Sara Pappas, "Naturalism's Imaginary Museum, French Art, and the Eclectic Nineteenth Century" (U Toronto Press, 2024)
Naturalism's Imaginary Museum, French Art, and the Eclectic Nineteenth Century (University of Toronto Press, 2024) examines one of the most revered art historical narratives of Western
art: the famous turning point for painting and sculpture usually
emblematized by the works of Édouard Manet and then the Impressionists.
Instead of the usual revaluation of this turning point, Sara Pappas
argues
Paulina Banas, "Visualizing Egypt: European Travel, Book Publishing, and the Commercialization of the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century" (American University in Cairo Press, 2025)
Following Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 campaign in Egypt, new possibilities of travel and improvements in printing technology saw an emergence of publishing ventures in France and Britain dedicated to the production of albums and travel accounts featuring images of Muslim Egypt and Islamic architecture and catering to a growing European fascination with the East. In her debut book, Visualizing Egypt:
Abdelwahab Meddeb, "Returns to Marrakesh / Retour à Marrakech" (Syracuse UP, 2026)
Abdelwahab Meddeb’s Returns to Marrakesh, co-translated by Claudia Esposito and Laura Reeck and published by Syracuse University Press in 2026, chronicles Meddeb’s successive visits to the Red City from 1968 through the 1990s, tracing both his personal journey and Marrakesh’s transformation across three pivotal decades. Through his distinctive blend of poetic prose and attentive observation, Medde
Mikhail Pelevin, "Love, Honour and God: Pashto Writings of Early Modern Times" (Brill, 2025)
In this episode of New Books Network, I speak with Mikhail Pelevin about his book Love, Honour and God: Pashto Writings of Early Modern Times (Iran and the Caucasus Monographs, vol. 5, Brill, 2025).
Love, Honour and God is a survey of three centuries of Pashto
literary and educational writing, from roughly 1530 to 1830,
the period Pelevin identifies as classical in the history of Pashto
letter
The Letters of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was a letter writer before she was a poet. And it was through letters that she shared prose reflections–alternately humorous, provocative, affectionate, and philosophical–with her extensive community. While her letters often contain poems, and some letters consist entirely of a single poem, they also constitute a rich genre all their own. Through her correspondence, Dickinson appea
Kathleen W. Taylor Kollman, "The Fictional Female Presidency in Film, Television, and Literature: Representations from 1932 to 2024" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026)
Kathleen W. Taylor Kollman has a new book out that focuses on the reality of women running for president in the United States, and the fictional representations of this idea that we have seen over the past hundred years. The Fictional Female Presidency in Film, Television, and Literature: Representations from 1932 to 2024 (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026) takes up a number of different and intriguing ex
Siri Carpenter on Why She Self-Published First — and How It Led to a Traditional Book Deal
What does it take to turn a self-published book into a traditional publishing deal? Science writer Siri Carpenter — executive director of The Open Notebook and author of The Craft of Science Writing — joins host Sarah Russo on The Publishing Playbook to break down her path from self-publishing to an expanded second edition with University of Chicago Press.
Siri shares how she landed an agent after
Matthew Ritger, "Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
Today’s guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe’s first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the h
Leah Pope Parker, "Light of the Everlasting Life: Disability and Crip Eschatology in Old English Literature" (U Michigan Press, 2025)
From disability metaphors to narratives structured around bodies presented as aberrant, early medieval English thoughtworlds conveyed the promise of resurrection and the hope of salvation through crip and disabled bodies. Light of the Everlasting Life: Disability and Crip Eschatology in Old English Literature (U Michigan Press, 2025) argues that early medieval Christian eschatology, as manifested
Ashton Lazarus, "Performing Transgression: Crowds and Bodies in Heian Japan" (Harvard UP, 2026)
What happens when performance defies social and political boundaries? Performing Transgression: Crowds and Bodies in Heian Japan (Harvard University Press, 2026) offers
a new cultural history of non-elite spectacle in Heian Japan
(794–1185), uncovering how performances on the margins—boisterous
dengaku music and dance, daring sangaku acrobatics, and the infectious
lyrics of imayō songs—challen
Marie Léticée, "Camille's Lakou" (Vanderbilt UP, 2025)
Camille’s Lakou (Vanderbilt UP, 2025), a novel by Guadeloupean writer and educator Marie Léticée, tells the story of Camille, a young Caribbean girl living with her single‑parent mother in a 1960s urbanized zone at the edge of Pointe‑à‑Pitre, Guadeloupe, following her through her adult life as a Caribbean migrant in Florida. Léticée explores neocolonial culture clash and identity conflict theme
Laura B. McGrath, "Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction" (Princeton UP, 2026)
In this interview, we speak with Laura B. McGrath, an Assistant Professor of English at Temple University and the author of Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction (Princeton University Press, 2026). Her writings have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and The Atlantic.
Middlemen rewrites
literary history from the perspective of one of its most important but
leas
Ute Hüsken and Suganya Anandakichenin eds., "Pathika: Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions" (HAS, 2026)
A conversation featuring the editors of the new Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing series Pathika - Studies of South Asian Texts and Traditions (HAS, 2026)
Pathika – Sanskrit for "traveler" or "one who follows a path" – is a new series dedicated to the textual traditions of South Asia, engaging with the rich landscape of South Asian literary and religious traditions. The series encompasses criti
Inside Science Fiction Studies
In this episode, the editors and managing editor of Science Fiction Studies offer an inside look at the journal, discussing its place in the field and revisiting notable articles that have contributed to the study of science fiction. Science Fiction Studies is published three times a year by University of California Press. For more information about the journal, including subscription and subm
Sarah Rosenson, "Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026)
Can creative writing become a form of biblical interpretation?
That is the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Sarah Rosenson about her new book, Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026).
The modern phenomenon of fan fiction involves readers writing
creative pieces that answer questions
Krzysztof Rowiński, "Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film" (Routledge, 2026)
Today’s guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film
(Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive
failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of
success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept
functions between literature, critical theory, and other fiel
Katherine Krauss, "Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Exemplarity and Allusion in Macrobius' Saturnalia (Oxford UP, 2026) offers a new framework for interpreting interactions with classical source material in Macrobius’ Saturnalia. It argues that the Saturnalia, an educational dialogue from the fifth century ce, does not view its Greco-Roman models as hegemonic sources of authority but engages with these texts in dynamic and critical ways. In particu
Rachel Silveri, "The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
With The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris: Ethics and Self-Making in Dada, Simultanism, and Surrealism (University of Chicago Press, 2026),
Rachel Silveri takes a fresh look at the desire to unify art and life,
an ambition long regarded as foundational to the European historical
avant-gardes. She reveals how many early twentieth-century artists saw
their own everyday lives—their bodies, ide
Kevin Reilly, "Gregory Ghosts: Haunting Irishness" (Peter Lang, 2026)
Kevin P. Reilly is President Emeritus and Regent Professor with the University of Wisconsin System, having served as President from 2004-13. Kevin grew up in Manhattan and the Bronx, and went on to earn his B.A. at the University of Notre Dame, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, all in English. He has published on higher education policy and accreditation, autobiography and b
In Praise: A Conversation with Texas Poet Laureate & Founder of Torch Literary Arts, Amanda Johnston
In 2006 poet Amanda Johnston went in search of community and, when she didn’t find what she was looking for, Amanda built her own. Today, Torch Literary Arts is a resource and a destination for Black women writers and readers across the diaspora. Fueled by wisdom and writings from poets, novelists, and screenwriters, the organization’s exceptional programming and award-winning magazine amplify Bla
“O Albany”: Novelist William Kennedy on His Great Cycle of the City
Monday, June 22—William Kennedy is to Albany what Joyce is to Dublin and Faulkner to Mississippi, a fictional alchemist who transforms his native place into novels at once deeply evocative of their setting and movingly universal in their human resonances. In The Albany Trilogy, just out from Library of America, three of Kennedy’s masterpieces—including his beloved novel Ironweed—take readers from
John K. Roth, "Saving the American Dream: Meditations for Dark Times" (Wipf and Stock, 2026)
The American Dream at its best is an ethical ideal and a moral
compass. If respected and sustained, it can guide the United States
through Trump 2.0. Anchored in the US Constitution, Saving the American Dream: Meditations for Dark Times (Wipf and Stock, 2026) features
meditations for dark times. Meditations are intentional acts of focused
attention.Its fundamental premise is that individuals m
What Running Your Own Imprint for 15 Years Teaches You about Books, Readers, and Risk with Sarah Crichton
Great books don't happen by accident. Sarah Crichton, one of publishing's most respected voices and the founder of Sarah Crichton Books at FSG, joins host Sarah Russo for an unfiltered conversation about what it takes to acquire, edit, and launch books that last. They cover everything: crashing books in secret, fighting for the right jacket design, discovering A Long Way Gone by child soldier, Ism
Christina Williams "Work of Fiction: Making a Living from Writing in the UK" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024)
Just how difficult is a career as a writer? In Work of Fiction: Making a Living from Writing in the UK (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024) Christina Williams, a Lecturer in Media Communications at Bath Spa University examines contemporary writing as a paradoxical and precarious occupation. Foregrounding the experiences of a range of different writers, the book shows the range of work writers actually do
Shelley Fisher Fishkin, "Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade" (Yale UP, 2025)
Mark Twain’s Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he
Alexander Vandewalle, "Characters and Characterization in Mythological Video Games" (Bloomsbury, 2026)
The first book-length study on mythology reception in video games, Characters and Characterization in Mythological Video Games (Bloomsbury, 2026) examines how video games characterize mythological characters from the perspectives of classical reception and game studies. Characters are vital to most stories, and many video games. They allow us to enter the fiction of a game, and facilitate our embo
Michael D. Nichols, "Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films" (McFarland, 2026)
Fans of Batman are used to seeing the Caped Crusader associate with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but what if one were to put the Dark Knight into the company of figures such as Beowulf, Robin Hood, Oedipus, and Sun Tzu, among others? Batman and the Classics: Echoes of Mythology, Literature and Philosophy in the Comics and Films (McFarland, 2026) is the first book to compare famous Batma
173* Novel Dialogue Crossover: Aaron Gwyn goes West (Sean McCann, JP)
RTB's sister podcast, Novel Dialogue, spoke recently with Aaron Gwyn. He is the author of four novels: The World Beneath, Wynne’s War, and, most recently, two wonderfully linked historical novels, All God’s Children, which won the Oklahoma Book award, and The Cannibal Owl. In his conversation with Sean McCann of Wesleyan (A Pinnacle of Feeling: American Literature and Presidential Government and G
The Legacy of Chaim Grade
Chaim Grade was born in 1910 in Vilna, Poland. In his youth, Grade was a student of the Novaredok Musar Yeshiva and of Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz. He was also a founding member of the Yung-Vilne literary group, known for its leftist politics, secular Jewish thinking, and literary influence. After losing both his mother and wife during the Holocaust, he emerged as one of the most prolific and definin
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