NBN Book of the Day

Dr. Leslie James, Reader in Global History at Queen Mary University of London and author of The Moving Word, explores how West African and Caribbean newspapers fueled Black political thought. Small presses became a transatlantic forum. Topics include clipping and reprinting networks, shapeshifting journalistic forms, debates across Garveyite, Marxist, and Ethiopianist lines, and how professionalization reshaped the press as independence neared.

Nina Bandelj, Chancellor's Professor of Sociology at UC Irvine and author of Overinvested, studies how parenting became an emotional and financial project. She traces the historical shift to treating children as priceless investments. The conversation covers skyrocketing tutoring and education costs, parental debt, burnout and gendered emotional labor, the parenting industry, inequality reproduction, and proposals to share responsibility more broadly.

Andrew Billing, Professor of French and Francophone Studies and author of Animal Rhetoric and Natural Science, explores how Rousseau, Diderot, La Mettrie, Quesnay, and Rétif weave animal imagery with Enlightenment science. He traces political zoology, Buffon’s influence, debates on anthropomorphism, machine metaphors in physiology and politics, and animal roles in economics, morality, and utopian fiction.

Sam Holley-Kline, anthropologist and author who studies the political economy of archaeology in Mexico. He recounts discovering El Tajín and explores land tenure, oil and vanilla economies, and the labor of custodios and administrativos. He highlights how extraction, infrastructure, and everyday work shaped the site and local histories.

Luca Cottini, associate professor of Italian studies and creator of the Italian Innovators YouTube channel, explores Italy’s fascination and friction with the rising United States around 1888–1919. He traces migration laws, Columbus symbolism, American visitors and products reshaping Italian culture, and Woodrow Wilson’s wartime soft power and its fallout. Short, vivid stories reveal transatlantic cultural exchange and contested admiration.

Michael Hurley, an independent scholar and ethnographer of Southeast Asia, explores Bangkok’s Chaophraya River and its cultural grip on the city. He discusses the river’s role in daily waterborne life, the shift from canals to roads, and the mix of ethnic communities along the waterways. Conversation also touches on flooding, pollution, and his next project on monsoon rain.

Gaoheng Zhang, associate professor of Italian studies who researches China–Italy cultural exchanges. He traces the surprising pairings of Italian dumplings and Chinese pizzas. He maps how restaurants, students, media, and migration reshaped food scenes. He outlines transcultural movements, stereotypes, and future work on architecture and memorials.

Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, Associate Professor at Université Toulouse and author of By the Power Vested in Me, studies how experts shape debates over same-sex marriage and parenthood. He contrasts U.S. reliance on empirical research with France's turn to psychoanalysis and legal theory. Short segments examine expert selection, credibility, cultural resources, and how expertise shapes policy and public narratives.

Stephen Bezruchka, an epidemiologist studying how social forces shape population health, lays out how politics, inequality, and early-life stress drive poor U.S. health. He compares U.S. rankings to other nations. He examines historical roots, racial and regional gaps, cultural supports, and postwar policy lessons. He ends with policy ideas to reset national health goals.

Saundra Weddle, professor of architecture who studies how built environments shaped women’s lives in early modern Italy. She explores Venice’s sex trade across alleys, gondola landings, bathhouses and brothels. Short takes on archival sleuthing, mapping methods, neighborhood differences, institutional controls, and how mobility and networks reshaped urban life.