Podcasts · Society & Culture

New Books in African Studies

Marshall Poe

300 episodes

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.

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Episodes page 4 of 6

  1. Jenn Hobbs, "Bodily Fluids, Fluid Bodies and International Politics: Feminist Technoscience, Biopolitics and Security" (Bristol University Press, 2024)

    · 56 min · Episode 765

    In recent years, security actors have become increasingly concerned with health issues. Bodily Fluids, Fluid Bodies and International Politics: Feminist Technoscience, Biopolitics and Security (Bristol University…

  2. Sarah Nagaty, "The Collective Dream: Egyptians Longing For A Better Life" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

    · 37 min · Episode 764

    The Collective Dream: Egyptians Longing For A Better Life (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) links two seminal moments in Egypt’s history – the Revolution of 25th January 2011 and the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser – through…

  3. Andrew Smith, "First People: The Lost History of the Khoisan" (Jonathan Ball, 2022)

    · 1 h 11 min · Episode 763

    First people communities are the early groups of hunter gatherers, herders, and the oldest human lineages of Africa, some migrating from as far as East Africa to settle across southern Africa, in countries like…

  4. Jonas Elbousty and Roger Allen, "Reading Mohamed Choukri's Narratives: Hunger in Eden" (Routledge, 2024)

    · 1 h 04 min · Episode 762

    Reading Mohamed Choukri’s Narratives: Hunger in Eden (Routledge, 2024) presents an intricate exploration into the life and literary universe of Mohamed Choukri, a towering figure in 20th-century Moroccan literature.…

  5. Jody Benjamin, "The Texture of Change: Dress, Self-Fashioning, and History in Western Africa, 1700-1850" (Ohio UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 09 min · Episode 211

    The Texture of Change: Dress, Self-Fashioning, and History in Western Africa, 1700 – 1850 (Ohio UP, 2024) examines historical change across a broad region of western Africa—from Saint Louis, Senegal, to Freetown,…

  6. Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré, "Spain’s African Colonial Legacies: Morocco and Equatorial Guinea Compared" (Brill, 2022)

    · 53 min · Episode 17

    The African cities of Bata and Al-Hoceima were created during the Spanish colonial rule of Equatorial Guinea and Morocco. Spain’s African Colonial Legacies: Morocco and Equatorial Guinea Compared (Brill, 2022)…

  7. Aaron Robertson, "The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America" (FSG, 2024)

    · 49 min · Episode 503

    How do the disillusioned, the forgotten, and the persecuted not merely hold on to life but expand its possibilities and preserve its beauty? What, in other words, does utopia look like in black? These questions…

  8. Lorna Gibb, "Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages" (Princeton UP, 2025)

    · 38 min · Episode 119

    An enthralling tour of the world’s rarest and most endangered languages Languages and cultures are becoming increasingly homogenous, with the resulting loss of a rich linguistic tapestry reflecting unique perspectives…

  9. Eleanor Paynter, "Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present" (U California Press, 2024)

    · 49 min · Episode 35

    Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Eleanor Paynter responds to the crisis framings that dominate migration debates in the global north. This…

  10. Las G. Newman, "To Die in Africa’s Dust: West Indian Missionaries in Western Africa in the Nineteenth Century" (Langham, 2024)

    · 1 h 23 min · Episode 30

    Christian mission in the modern era has generally been conceptualized as a Western endeavor: “from the West to the rest.” The rise and explosive growth of world Christianity has challenged this narrative, emphasizing…

  11. Bianca Murillo, "Market Encounters: Consumer Cultures in Twentieth-Century Ghana" (Ohio UP, 2017)

    · 1 h 07 min · Episode 212

    In Market Encounters: Consumer Cultures in Twentieth-Century Ghana (Ohio UP, 2017), Bianca Murillo explores the shifting social terrains that made the buying and selling of goods in modern Ghana possible. Fusing…

  12. Chitra Nagarajan, "The World Was in Our Hands: Voices from the Boko Haram Conflict" (Cassava Republic, 2025)

    · 1 h 10 min · Episode 211

    The World Was in Our Hands: Voices from the Boko Haram Conflict (Cassava Republic Press, 2025) is a moving, often provocative, and ultimately vital collection of first hand accounts of people living through the Boko…

  13. Mingwei Huang, "Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century" (Duke UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 02 min · Episode 525

    In Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century (Duke UP, 2024), Mingwei Huang traces the development of new forms of racial capitalism in the twenty-first century. Through fieldwork in one of…

  14. Les Sosnowski and Monique Sosnowski, "Operation Crevette: Benin, Mercenaries, and the Survival of a New State" (Lexington Books, 2024)

    · 1 h 48 min · Episode 752

    Freshly out from under French colonial rule in 1960, the West African nation of Dahomey (now Benin) became home to the largest number of coups d’état in history, earning the reputation of the “sick child of Africa.”…

  15. Katherine Hallemeier, "African Literature and US Empire: Postcolonial Optimism in Nigerian and South African Writing" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

    · 40 min · Episode 342

    African Literature and US Empire Postcolonial Optimism in Nigerian and South African Writing (Edinburgh UP, 2024) demonstrates how African literature grapples with the enforced optimism of US empire that circulates in…

  16. Tycho van der Hoog, "Comrades Beyond the Cold War: North Korea and the Liberation of Southern Africa" (Hurst, 2025)

    · 38 min · Episode 15

    North Korea was an important player in the decolonisation of Africa. Freedom fighters across the continent received vital assistance from Pyongyang, and almost all southern African independence leaders travelled to the…

  17. William Blakemore Lyon, "Forged in Genocide: Migrant Workers Shaping Colonial Capitalism in Namibia, 1890-1925" (de Gruyter, 2024)

    · 1 h 21 min · Episode 209

    Forged in Genocide traces the early history of colonial capitalism in Namibia with a central focus on migrants who came to be key to the economy during and as a result of the German genocide of the Herero and Nama…

  18. Arwen P. Mohun, "American Imperialist: Cruelty and Consequence in the Scramble for Africa" (Chicago UP, 2023)

    · 42 min · Episode 275

    This biography of “African explorer” Richard Dorsey Mohun, written by one of his descendants, reveals how American greed and state power helped shape the new imperial order in Africa. Richard Dorsey Mohun spent his…

  19. Alexander Smalls and Nina Oduro, "The Contemporary African Kitchen: Home Cooking Recipes from the Leading Chefs of Africa" (Phaidon Press, 2024)

    · 24 min · Episode 494

    The Contemporary African Kitchen: Home Cooking Recipes from the Leading Chefs of Africa (Phaidon Press, 2024) is an elegant collection of 120 home cooking recipes from Africa’s most exciting culinary voices today.…

  20. Philip A. Martin, "Strong Commanders, Weak States: How Rebel Governance Shapes Military Integration after Civil War" (Cornell UP, 2025)

    · 58 min · Episode 123

    In Strong Commanders, Weak States: How Rebel Governance Shapes Military Integration after Civil War (Cornell University Press, 2025), Dr. Philip A. Martin investigates a fundamental political challenge faced by…

  21. Kara Cooney, "Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches" (American U in Cairo Press, 2024)

    · 54 min · Episode 5

    Today I talked to Kara Cooney about Recycling for Death: Coffin Reuse in Ancient Egypt and the Theban Royal Caches (American U in Cairo Press, 2024). The book is a meticulous study of the social, economic, and…

  22. Rhiannon Stephens, "Poverty and Wealth in East Africa: A Conceptual History" (Duke UP, 2022)

    · 44 min · Episode 208

    In Poverty and Wealth in East Africa: A Conceptual History (Duke UP, 2022), Rhiannon Stephens offers a conceptual history of how people living in eastern Uganda have sustained and changed their ways of thinking about…

  23. Lindsay O'Neill, "The Two Princes of Mpfumo: An Early Eighteenth-Century Journey Into and Out of Slavery" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

    · 47 min · Episode 207

    In 1716 two princes from Mpfumo—what is today Maputo, the capital of Mozambique—boarded a ship licensed by the East India Company bound for England. Instead, their perfidious captain sold them into slavery in Jamaica.…

  24. Samar Al-Bulushi, "War-Making as Worldmaking: Kenya, the United States, and the War on Terror" (Stanford UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 01 min · Episode 121

    Since Kenya's invasion of Somalia in 2011, the Kenyan state has been engaged in direct combat with the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab, conducting airstrikes in southern Somalia and deploying heavy-handed police…

  25. Raphael Chijioke Njoku, "Queen Elizabeth II and the Africans: Narrating Decolonization, Postwar Commonwealth, and Africa’s Development, 1947-2022" (Leuven UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 05 min · Episode 206

    The road to Queen Elizabeth II’s implementation of African reforms was rough, especially in the first two decades following her ascension to the throne. In Queen Elizabeth II and the Africans (Leuven UP, 2024), Raphael…

  26. Frank Gerits, "The Ideological Scramble for Africa: How the Pursuit of Anticolonial Modernity Shaped a Postcolonial Order, 1945-1966" (Cornell UP, 2023)

    · 52 min · Episode 205

    In The Ideological Scramble for Africa, Frank Gerits examines how African leaders in the 1950s and 1960s crafted an anticolonial modernization project. Rather than choose Cold War sides between East and West,…

  27. A. G. Hopkins, "Capitalism in the Colonies: African Merchants in Lagos, 1851–1931" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    · 49 min · Episode 121

    In Capitalism in the Colonies: African Merchants in Lagos, 1851–1931 (Princeton UP, 2024), A. G. Hopkins provides the first substantial assessment of the fortunes of African entrepreneurs under colonial rule. Examining…

  28. Rachel Marie Niehuus, "An Archive of Possibilities: Healing and Repair in Democratic Republic of Congo" (Duke UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 01 min · Episode 344

    In An Archive of Possibilities: Healing and Repair in Democratic Republic of Congo (Duke UP, 2024), anthropologist and surgeon Rachel Marie Niehuus explores possibilities of healing and repair in the eastern Democratic…

  29. Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, "Architecture of Migration: The Dadaab Refugee Camps and Humanitarian Settlement" (Duke UP, 2023)

    · 1 h 02 min · Episode 118

    Environments associated with migration are often seen as provisional, lacking both history and architecture. As Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi demonstrates in Architecture of Migration: The Dadaab Refugee Camps and…

  30. Casey Golomski, "God's Waiting Room: Racial Reckoning at Life's End" (Rutgers UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 05 min · Episode 342

    Can older racists change their tune, or will they haunt us further once they're gone? Rich in mystery and life's lessons, God's Waiting Room: Racial Reckoning at Life's End (Rutgers University Press, 2024) considers…

  31. Benjamin H. Bradlow, "Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    · 46 min · Episode 400

    Why some cities are more effective than others at reducing inequalities in the built environment. For the first time in history, most people live in cities. One in seven are living in slums, the most excluded parts of…

  32. Jonathan R. Beloff, "The Strategy to End the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda" (Lexington Books, 2025)

    · 1 h 16 min · Episode 734

    Utilizing Strategic Theory as a framework for warfare and incorporating the testimonies and experiences of eight genocide survivors as well as military personnel, Jonathan R. Beloff's The Strategy to End the Genocide…

  33. Caitlín Eilís Barrett, "Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens" (Oxford UP, 2019)

    · 1 h 40 min · Episode 11

    Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens (Oxford University Press, 2019) is the first contextually-oriented monograph on Egyptian imagery in Roman households. Caitlín Eilís Barrett, Associate…

  34. Emily Marker, "Black France, White Europe: Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era" (Cornell UP, 2022)

    · 1 h 01 min · Episode 138

    Thinking together the histories of European integration and African decolonization, Emily Marker's Black France, White Europe: Youth, Race, and Belonging in the Postwar Era (Cornell University Press, 2022) is a…

  35. Nicholas R. Jones, "Cervantine Blackness" (Penn State UP, 2024)

    · 55 min · Episode 329

    There is no shortage of Black characters in Miguel de Cervantes’s works, yet there has been a profound silence about the Spanish author’s compelling literary construction and cultural codification of Black Africans and…

  36. Fela Kuti and the Black Atlantic

    · 1 h 17 min · Episode 38

    This summer, sound artist and “guerrilla academic” Ben Coleman got in touch to say how much he enjoys Phantom Power. He also suggested we check out another podcast he’s into called Love is the Message. We’re glad we…

  37. Chelsea Berry, "Poisoned Relations: Healing, Power, and Contested Knowledge in the Atlantic World" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

    · 42 min · Episode 114

    By the time of the opening of the Atlantic world in the fifteenth century, Europeans and Atlantic Africans had developed significantly different cultural idioms for and understandings of poison. Europeans considered…

  38. Anne K. Bang, "Zanzibari Muslim Moderns: Islamic Paths to Progress in the Interwar Period" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    · 58 min · Episode 86

    Zanzibari Muslim Moderns: Islamic Paths to Progress in the Interwar Period (Oxford UP, 2024) is a historical study of Zanzibar during the interwar years. This was a period marked by rapid intellectual and social change…

  39. Leila Ullrich, "Victims and the Labour of Justice at the International Criminal Court: The Blame Cascade" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    · 56 min · Episode 236

    Victim participation at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has routinely been viewed as an empty promise of justice or mere spectacle for audiences in the Global North, providing little benefit for victims. Why,…

  40. Joanna Allan, "Saharan Winds: Energy Systems and Aeolian Imaginaries in Western Sahara" (WVU Press, 2024)

    · 48 min · Episode 204

    As climate crisis ensues, a transition away from fossil fuels becomes urgent. However, some renewable energy developments are propagating injustices such as landgrabs, colonial dispossession, and environmentally…

  41. Kenny Cupers, "The Earth That Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design" (U Texas Press, 2024)

    · 1 h 14 min · Episode 1523

    The Earth That Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Kenny Cupers traces the rise of planetary design to an imperialist discourse about the influence of the…

  42. Nathanael Homewood, "Seductive Spirits: Deliverance, Demons, and Sexual Worldmaking in Ghanaian Pentecostalism" (Stanford UP, 2024)

    · 59 min · Episode 203

    In this fascinating interview, Nathanael J. Homewood discusses his new book,Seductive Spirits: Deliverance, Demons, and Sexual Worldmaking in Ghanaian Pentecostalism (Stanford University Press, 2024). Pentecostalism,…

  43. Emanuela Trevisan Semi, "Taamrat Emmanuel: An Ethiopian Jewish Intellectual, Between Colonized and Colonizers" (Centro Primo Levi, 2018)

    · 1 h 29 min · Episode 585

    Emanuela Trevisan Semi’s Taamrat Emmanuel: An Ethiopian Jewish Intellectual, Between Colonized and Colonizers (Centro Primo Levi, 2018) is an insightful biographical study of a key figure among Ethiopian Jews of the…

  44. Ana Lucia Araujo, "Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

    · 1 h 07 min · Episode 1519

    During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, more than twelve million enslaved Africans were forcibly transported to the Americas in cramped, inhumane conditions. Many of them died on the way, and those who survived had…

  45. Meredith McKittrick, "Green Lands for White Men: Desert Dystopias and the Environmental Origins of Apartheid" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

    · 55 min · Episode 201

    In 1918, South Africa’s climate seemed to be drying up. White farmers claimed that rainfall was dwindling, while nineteenth-century missionaries and explorers had found riverbeds, seashells, and other evidence of a…

  46. Marlene L. Daut, "The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe" (Knopf, 2025)

    · 1 h 05 min · Episode 267

    The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe (Knopf, 2025) is the essential biography of the controversial rebel, traitor, and only king of Haiti. Henry Christophe is one of the most richly…

  47. Caroline Séquin, "Desiring Whiteness: A Racial History of Prostitution in France and Colonial Senegal, 1848-1950" (Cornell UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 33 min · Episode 1509

    Since the French Revolution of 1789, the absence of laws banning interracial marriages has served to reinforce two myths about modern France--first, that it is a sexual democracy and second, it is a color-blind nation…

  48. Beverly Tomek and Matthew J. Hetrick, "New Directions in the Study of African American Recolonization" (UP of Florida, 2017)

    · 48 min · Episode 1506

    New Directions in the Study of African American Recolonization (UP of Florida, 2017) examines the movement to resettle black Americans in Africa, an effort led by the American Colonization Society during the nineteenth…

  49. Roberta Pergher, "Mussolini's Nation-Empire: Sovereignty and Settlement in Italy's Borderlands, 1922–1943" (Cambridge UP, 2017)

    · 1 h 06 min · Episode 1502

    With Mussolini's Nation-Empire: Sovereignty and Settlement in Italy's Borderlands, 1922–1943 (Cambridge UP, 2017), Roberta Pergher transforms our understanding of Fascist rule. Examining Fascist Italy's efforts to…

  50. Samuel Fury Childs Daly, "Soldier's Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)

    · 48 min · Episode 201

    In Soldier's Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire (Duke UP, 2024), Samuel Fury Childs Daly tells the story of how Africa’s military dictators tried and failed to transform their societies into martial utopias.…

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