New Books Network

Federico Alvarez Igarzábal, a game designer turned academic who studies games and well-being, and Emmanuel Guardiola, a game-studies researcher focused on games and mental health, discuss how psychology and design intersect. They cover applied therapeutic games versus personal entertainment, indie tools enabling nuanced portrayals, clinical approvals and research trends, and the value of interdisciplinary collaboration.

Gao Hang, associate professor of Italian studies at UBC who researches China–Italy cultural exchanges, discusses food mobilities and surprising crossovers like Chinese pizzas and Italian dumplings. He traces Chinese restaurants in Italy, media shaping perceptions, shifts after SARS, students’ culinary entrepreneurship, and how transcultural practices reshape taste and identity.

Dr. Blair L.M. Kelley, a historian of African American labor and Southern history, explores how laundresses, Pullman porters, maids, and postal workers shaped community, unions, and citizenship. She uses family archives and oral histories. The conversation highlights archival photos, labor organization, New Deal exclusions, and links between past struggles and today’s labor movements.

Peter H. Wilson, Professor of the history of war at Oxford and author on the Holy Roman Empire, offers a broad 500-year take on German-speaking military history. He challenges the idea of innate German militarism. The conversation covers Prussia, Austria, Swiss neutrality, soldier life, recruitment, and how perceptions of German military prowess formed and changed over centuries.

Nathan Munier, political scientist and author of Zimbabwe's Diamond Trade, explores the 2006 alluvial diamond discovery in eastern Zimbabwe. He discusses how portable diamonds shaped informal mining, ownership restructurings, factional politics, and ZANU-PF consolidation. The conversation also covers international buyers, limits of the Kimberley Process, regional responses in Southern Africa, and comparisons with other resource-rich states.

Peter H. Wilson, Professor of the history of war at Oxford and author of several books on German and European history, challenges the idea of a uniquely German militarism. He compares Holy Roman, Swiss, Austrian, and Prussian military traditions. He traces symbols like the Iron Cross, explores recruitment and militia systems, and reconsiders nineteenth‑century turning points and modern German strategic posture.

Princess Joy L. Perry, an award-winning novelist and fellowship recipient, discusses her novel This Here Is Love. She explores writing across Virginia history, shaping three intertwined lives at the seventeenth-century frontier. Conversations touch on research-driven sensory detail, removing whiteness from the narrative, influences like Toni Morrison, and the novel’s long evolution and title choice.

Mark Harrison, retired economic historian and author, unpacks Soviet secrecy and its effects. He traces the system’s pillars and Stalin’s role. He explains how secrecy sapped government capacity, warped everyday life and international bargaining, and why it persisted. He also compares Soviet reflexive secrecy with modern authoritarian information strategies.

John L. Rudolph, historian of science education and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor, reflects on the purposes behind teaching science. He traces historical reasons like utility and national goals. He critiques fact-focused instruction and explores how people actually use scientific knowledge. He argues for teaching how science knows things and for preparing nontechnical citizens to engage with scientific issues.

Peter Stansky, Emeritus History Professor and longtime Orwell scholar, discusses his book on George Orwell and war. He traces Orwell’s shifting politics from patriotism to democratic socialism. Conversations cover Orwell’s wartime experiences, The Lion and the Unicorn, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the modern political afterlife and appropriation of Orwell’s work.