New Books Network

Margo LaPierre, a poet and freelance literary editor with an MFA from UBC, reads from Ajar (Guernica, 2025). She talks about writing openly about bipolar psychosis, the book's visceral sensory imagery, and the craft choices behind centos and revision. Conversations also touch on fertility, bisexuality and suicide risk, and how motherhood and recovery reshape the poems.

Anupama Rao, historian at Columbia who studies colonialism, gender, and caste politics. Suraj Yengde, scholar, public intellectual, and anti-caste activist. They explore how caste is defined as a power-based social order. They compare caste and race globally. They trace historical turns, discuss Ambedkar’s Buddhist rupture, lived Dalit imaginaries, and why Wilkerson’s book struck a chord.

Michael Hurley, an independent scholar of Southeast Asian urban waterways, reflects on Bangkok’s Chaophraya River and its role in history and culture. He explores the city’s waterborne traditions, shifting livelihoods as roads replaced canals, and the impacts of flooding, pollution, and memory on urban life. The conversation also traces ethnic communities and hints at a new project on rain and monsoon rituals.

Jeremy Black, prolific military historian and Professor Emeritus at Exeter, revisits the Revolutionary War with fresh research. He contrasts Continental insurgency with conventional British strategy. Topics include intelligence gaps across the empire, why key campaigns like Canada and Yorktown unfolded as they did, the global impact of French and Spanish intervention, and the war’s civil dimensions and aftermath.

Andreas Killen, historian and professor at CUNY who studies the history of science and psychiatry. He traces 1950s breakthroughs that made the living brain visible. Short tales of patients and methods like EEG, awake neurosurgery, sensory deprivation, and psychopharmacology appear. Cold War fears of conditioning, the rise of brainwashing myths, and links to MKUltra and later interrogations are explored.

Vanessa R. Sasson, a professor of religious studies who retells early Buddhist lives, brings the first women seekers to vivid life. She explains her blend of scholarship and storytelling. Listeners hear why Vimala and others were chosen, how communal renunciation shaped their path, and the political risks and leadership involved in their request for ordination.

Gina Schouten, philosophy professor and author of The Anatomy of Justice, reorients liberal egalitarianism toward an “anatomy of justice.” She explains evaluative discernment over prescriptive principles. Short takes cover mutual respect as a thick political ideal, how relational and distributive equality fit together, and how the anatomy guides judgments about institutions, culture, and individual responsibility.

Stevan Harrell, professor emeritus of anthropology and environmental and forest sciences with decades studying China’s environment. He discusses ecological history and a systems-focused view of China’s transformation. He frames the Great Leap Forward as an ecological catastrophe. He explores mechanized agriculture, rigidity traps from infrastructure, and hopes like reforestation alongside persistent worries about water, soil, floods, and emissions.

Michael Casiano, assistant professor and author of Let Us Alone, traces how Baltimore built a modern, racialized system of policing and carceral control. He discusses striking archival images, vagrancy laws, school and social‑work surveillance, courtroom injustices, and how reformers shaped professionalized police power. The conversation maps sites of state control and the city's role in broader national trends.

Danielle N. Boaz, a lawyer-historian who studies persecution of Africana religions, examines how the anglicized term "voodoo" became a racial slur. She traces its 1860s U.S. origins, links to empire and migration policy, and how media used it to denigrate Black religion and politics. She urges care with the word and centers devotees' own identities.