New Books Network

Jens Ludwig, a University of Chicago crime and public policy professor and Crime Lab director, discusses why most shootings arise from fleeting interpersonal conflicts rather than premeditated malice. He explores behavioral causes, neighborhood differences, low-cost de-escalation and community intervention strategies, and how targeted, time-place approaches could reduce gun violence.

A rollicking look at a 1934 screwball comedy propelled like a runaway train. They revel in John Barrymore’s audacious, over-the-top performance and the film’s hammy theatrical energy. Conversation highlights include the director-as-god persona, the creation and control of a star, iconic comic set pieces, and how tragedy and comedy collide in showbiz chaos.

Iida Turpeinen, a Finnish novelist and literary scholar now writing amid museum skeletons, talks about the sea cow that inspired her debut Beasts of the Sea. She explores archival discoveries, narrating extinction through fiction. Short reflections touch on early naturalists, hidden women in collections, museum ethics, and the book recommendations that shaped her voice.

Jessica Lake, senior lecturer in media law at the University of Melbourne and author of Special Damage, explores the gendered history of defamation law. She traces landmark cases like Mary Smith’s 1788 suit, the Slander of Women reforms across the Anglophone world, and how race, class, and colonial politics shaped protections for women. Short, vivid stories reveal surprising transnational legal connections.

Allison Caine, an environmental anthropologist and assistant professor at the University of Wyoming, recounts two years living and herding with Quechua alpaca herders high in the Peruvian Andes. She explores k'ita, or restlessness, animal behavior and human-animal communication. Topics include gendered herding labor, glacier retreat, land tenure changes, youth migration, and shifting religious and communal ties.

Luca Cottini, associate professor of Italian studies at Villanova University and creator of the Italian Innovators channel, explores Italy’s entangled relationship with the United States around 1888–1919. He traces debates on emigration, Columbian symbolism, American tourists and products in Italy, and Woodrow Wilson’s cultural and political influence during and after World War I.

Gregory T. Chin, Associate Professor of Political Economy at York University who studies international money and China’s role in global governance. He discusses China’s shift from rule-taker to rule-shaker to rule-maker. Short takes cover China’s hybrid inside-out strategy with Bretton Woods institutions, its push for alternative banks and digital currency, and changing ties with African partners and Western cooperation.

Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and specialist in late antique and Ethiopian sources. He explores John of Nikiu’s Chronicle, its Ge'ez transmission, and how a post-Roman writer retools Roman historiography to explain crises. Conversation covers identity, piety, omens, Hypatia, daily life after 642, and the Chronicle as a coping text.

Arnoud S. Q. Visser, professor of textual culture and director of the Huizinga Institute, explores 2,500 years of intellectual irritation. He traces pedantry from Socrates and sophists through Renaissance schoolmasters to modern culture wars. Short, lively takes examine satire, education, gendered tropes, and how displays of learning became a social and political weapon.

Jason S. Roberts, a political ecologist and anthropologist who studies resource extraction and development, discusses life on New Hanover, Papua New Guinea. He explores logging’s ecological toll and failed agroforestry schemes. He traces how hopes for development are formed, frustrated, and repeatedly renewed. He also describes subsistence resilience amid dispossession and unequal distribution of benefits.