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.

More about the show

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Episodes page 5 of 6

  1. Amín Pérez, "Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire: Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggle" (Polity Press, 2023)

    · 37 min · Episode 493

    How did the Algerian war of independence shape contemporary sociology? In Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire: Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggle (Polity Press, 2023), Amin Perez, an Assistant Professor of…

  2. Anette Hoffmann, "Knowing by Ear: Listening to Voice Recordings with African Prisoners of War in German Camps (1915–1918)" (Duke UP, 2024)

    · 40 min · Episode 9

    During World War I, thousands of young African men conscripted to fight for France and Britain were captured and held as prisoners of war in Germany, where their stories and songs were recorded and archived by German…

  3. Doyle D. Calhoun, "The Suicide Archive: Reading Resistance in the Wake of French Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 08 min · Episode 137

    A note about content: This episode involves discussion of suicide, specifically in the contexts of slavery, colonization and empire. Please use your discretion and take care if you decide to listen. If you or someone…

  4. Mara Kardas-Nelson, "We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky: The Seductive Promise of Microfinance" (Metropolitan Books, 2024)

    · 40 min · Episode 6

    In this deeply researched and compelling narrative, journalist Mara Kardas-Nelson examines the complex history and impact of microfinance - the practice of giving small loans to poor people, particularly women, that…

  5. Mirin Fader, "Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon" (Hachette, 2024)

    · 41 min · Episode 279

    It’s now the norm for NBA and collegiate teams to have international players dotting their rosters. The Olympics are no longer a gimme for Team USA. Both via fans streaming from all over the globe and leagues starting…

  6. Corey Ross, "Liquid Empire: Water and Power in the Colonial World" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 17 min · Episode 1491

    In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a handful of powerful European states controlled more than a third of the land surface of the planet. These sprawling empires encompassed not only rainforests, deserts, and…

  7. Christian Velasco, "Commercial Banking in Kenya: A History from Colonisation to Digital Age" (Routledge, 2024)

    · 51 min · Episode 113

    Commercial Banking in Kenya: A History from Colonisation to Digital Age (Routledge, 2024) investigates the impact of commercial banks in Kenya right through from their origins, to their role during the colonial period,…

  8. Sharad Chari, "Apartheid Remains" (Duke UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 15 min · Episode 200

    Over the course of the 20th century, the South African state attempted to construct a “White Man’s Country” on the African continent using the biopolitical tools and spatial and economic planning strategies that…

  9. Migration, Constraints, and Suffering

    · 34 min · Episode 33

    A key part of the experience of migration is not being in full control of one’s circumstances and doing. In this episode, Ingrid Piller speaks with Marco Santello about his research with Gambian migrants in Italy. The…

  10. Uroš Kovač, "The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon" (Berghahn Books, 2022)

    · 1 h 10 min · Episode 326

    A compelling work that explores the lives and aspirations of young footballers with deep nuance and insight, The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon (Berghahn…

  11. Caree A. Banton, "More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of an African Republic" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

    · 1 h 20 min · Episode 199

    Caree A. Banton's book More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of an African Republic (Cambridge UP, 2019) chronicles the migration of Afro-Barbadians to Liberia. In 1865, 346…

  12. Joanna Allan, "Silenced Resistance: Women, Dictatorships, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea" (U Wisconsin Press, 2019)

    · 53 min · Episode 198

    Spain's former African colonies-Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara-share similar histories. Both are under the thumbs of heavy-handed, postcolonial regimes, and are known by human rights organizations as being among…

  13. Why Almost Everything You Think about Protests in Africa is Wrong

    · 33 min · Episode 21

    For decades, media and academic analysis of African politics has emphasised instability, political violence, and male dominance. Yet a brilliant new article by Zoe Marks for the Journal of Democracy entitled “African…

  14. David Zeitlyn, "Mambila Divination: Framing Questions, Constructing Answers" (Routledge, 2021)

    · 59 min · Episode 320

    Professor David Zeitlyn’s book offers a major contribution to the study and analysis of divination, based on continuing fieldwork with the Mambila in Cameroon. It seeks to return attention to the details of divinatory…

  15. Aditi Malik, "Playing with Fire: Parties and Political Violence in Kenya and India" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

    · 41 min · Episode 735

    Drawing on a rare cross-regional comparison, Playing with Fire: Parties and Political Violence in Kenya and India (Cambridge UP, 2024) develops a novel explanation about ethnic party violence. Combining rich…

  16. Robin E. Möser, "Disarming Apartheid: The End of South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Programme and Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1968–1991" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

    · 43 min · Episode 41

    South Africa remains the only state that developed a nuclear weapons capability, but ultimately decided to dismantle existing weapons and abandon the programme. Disarming Apartheid: The End of South Africa's Nuclear…

  17. Marie-Eve Desrosiers, "Trajectories of Authoritarianism in Rwanda: Elusive Control Before the Genocide" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

    · 1 h 04 min · Episode 197

    Marie-Eve Desrosiers (Univ. of Ottawa) has written a wonderful book. Trajectories of Authoritarianism in Rwanda: Elusive Control Before the Genocide (Cambridge University Press, 20203) challenges scholarly and policy…

  18. Carole Ammann, "Women, Agency, and the State in Guinea: Silent Politics" (Routledge, 2020)

    · 1 h 27 min · Episode 196

    Women, Agency, and the State in Guinea: Silent Politics (Routledge, 2020) examines how women in Guinea articulate themselves politically within and outside institutional politics. It documents the everyday practices…

  19. Vanessa S. Oliveira, "Slave Trade and Abolition: Gender, Commerce, and Economic Transition in Luanda" (U Wisconsin Press, 2021)

    · 1 h 01 min · Episode 1470

    Well into the early nineteenth century, Luanda, the administrative capital of Portuguese Angola, was one of the most influential ports for the transatlantic slave trade. Between 1801 and 1850, it served as the point of…

  20. Abbey Stockstill, "Marrakesh and the Mountains: Landscape, Urban Planning, and Identity in the Medieval Maghrib" (Penn State UP, 2024)

    · 52 min · Episode 72

    Over the course of the Almoravid (1040–1147) and Almohad (1121–1269) dynasties, mediaeval Marrakesh evolved from an informal military encampment into a thriving metropolis that attempted to translate a local and…

  21. Andrew R. Basso, "Destroy Them Gradually: Displacement as Atrocity" (Rutgers UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 07 min · Episode 211

    Perpetrators of mass atrocities have used displacement to transport victims to killing sites or extermination camps to transfer victims to sites of forced labor and attrition, to ethnically homogenize regions by moving…

  22. Catherine Boone, "Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 06 min · Episode 195

    Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design (Cambridge University Press, 2024) by Dr. Catherine Boone integrates African countries into broader comparative theories of how spatial inequality…

  23. Andrew Denning, "Automotive Empire: How Cars and Roads Fueled European Colonialism in Africa" (Cornell UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 07 min · Episode 194

    In Automotive Empire: How Cars and Roads Fueled European Colonialism in Africa (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Andrew Denning uncovers how roads and vehicles began to transform colonial societies across Africa…

  24. Jane-Marie Collins, "Emancipatory Narratives & Enslaved Motherhood: Bahia, Brazil, 1830-1888" (Liverpool UP, 2023)

    · 1 h 18 min · Episode 469

    Jane-Marie Collins's book Emancipatory Narratives & Enslaved Motherhood: Bahia, Brazil, 1830-1888 (Liverpool UP, 2023) examines three major currents in the historiography of Brazilian slavery: manumission,…

  25. Will Urban Youth Fundamentally Change African Politics?

    · 39 min · Episode 18

    Will Africa’s increasingly youthful population lead to new democratic and development breakthroughs? Or will it generate fresh instability as frustrated young people demand economic opportunities their governments…

  26. Michael J. Sheridan, "Roots of Power: The Political Ecology of Boundary Plants" (Routledge, 2023)

    · 57 min · Episode 317

    Roots of Power: The Political Ecology of Boundary Plants (Routledge, 2023) tells five stories of plants, people, property, politics, peace, and protection in tropical societies. In Cameroon, French Polynesia, Papua New…

  27. Kirsten Moore-Sheeley, "Nothing But Nets: A Biography of Global Health Science and Its Objects" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)

    · 57 min · Episode 6

    Distributed to millions of people annually across Africa and the global south, insecticide-treated bed nets have become a cornerstone of malaria control and twenty-first-century global health initiatives. Despite their…

  28. Toby Green, "A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

    · 43 min · Episode 499

    All too often, the history of early modern Africa is told from the perspective of outsiders. In his book A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (University of Chicago…

  29. Miranda Melcher, "Securing Peace in Angola and Mozambique: The Importance of Specificity in Peace Treaties" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

    · 1 h 12 min · Episode 99

    Explaining how and why there are such diverging outcomes of UN peace negotiations and treaties, this book offers a detailed examination of peace processes in order to demonstrate that how treaties are negotiated and…

  30. Holly Ashford, "Development and Women's Reproductive Health in Ghana, 1920-1982" (Routledge, 2022)

    · 51 min · Episode 96

    Between the 1920s and 1980s, the choices that Ghanaian women made regarding their reproductive health were defined by development policy and practice. Spanning the colonial and immediate postcolonial periods, Holly…

  31. Kehbuma Langmia, "Black 'Race' and the White Supremacy Saga" (Anthem Press, 2024)

    · 45 min · Episode 467

    Dr. Langmia's book Black 'Race' and the White Supremacy Saga (Anthem Press, 2024) examines the conundrum that has haunted the Black and White ancestry for ages on what supremacy actually means. Is it Black or White…

  32. Life in a New Language, Part 3: African Migrants

    · 29 min · Episode 22

    This episode of the Language on the Move Podcast is part of the Life in a New Language series. Life in a New Language is a new book just out from Oxford University Press. Life in a New Language examines the language…

  33. Thomas Hendriks, "Rainforest Capitalism: Power and Masculinity in a Congolese Timber Concession" (Duke UP, 2021)

    · 1 h 03 min · Episode 311

    In this episode we are joined by Thomas Hendriks, an anthropologist studying capitalism and resource extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hendriks' work is amongst the most innovative in the anthropological…

  34. Edward A. Alpers and Thomas F. McDow, "A Primer for Teaching Indian Ocean World History: Ten Design Principles" (Duke UP, 2024)

    · 1 h 17 min · Episode 84

    A Primer for Teaching Indian Ocean World History: Ten Design Principles (Duke UP, 2024) is a guide for college and high school educators who are teaching Indian Ocean histories for the first time or who want to…

  35. PhDing While Parenting

    · 52 min · Episode 217

    An increasing number of students worldwide attend graduate school while simultaneously navigating a variety of competing responsibilities in their personal lives. For many students, this includes both parenting and…

  36. Stephen Marr and Patience Mususa, "DIY Urbanism in Africa: Politics and Practice" (Zed Books, 2023)

    · 45 min · Episode 27

    Protracted economic crises, accelerating inequalities, and increased resource scarcity present significant challenges for the majority of Africa's urban population. Limited state capacity and widespread infrastructure…

  37. Asaf Elia-Shalev, "Israel's Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation's Founding Myth" (U California Press, 2024)

    · 1 h 00 min · Episode 58

    Asaf Elia-Shalev's book Israel's Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation's Founding Myth (U California Press, 2024) tells the story of the young and impoverished Moroccan Israeli Jews who challenged their…

  38. Aaron Eddens, "Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa" (U California Press, 2024)

    · 50 min · Episode 193

    In Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa (University of California Press, 2024), Dr. Aaron Eddens rewrites an enduring story about the past—and future—of global…

  39. Vince Brown, Caribbean Vectors (EF, JP)

    · 42 min · Episode 129

    The largest slave uprising in the 18th century British Caribbean was also a node of the global conflict called the Seven Year’s War, though it isn’t usually thought of that way. In the first few days of the quarantine…

  40. Jennifer Hart on African Mobility and Infrastructure

    · 1 h 06 min · Episode 73

    Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks to Jennifer Hart, Professor and Chair of the History Department at Virginia Tech, about her work on the history and ethnography of mobility and infrastructure in Ghana. Hart’s…

  41. Polo B. Moji, "Gender and the Spatiality of Blackness in Contemporary AfroFrench Narratives" (Routledge, 2022)

    · 56 min · Episode 131

    Polo B. Moji's book Gender and the Spatiality of Blackness in Contemporary AfroFrench Narratives (Routledge, 2022) approaches the study of AfroEurope through narrative forms produced in contemporary France, a location…

  42. South Africa Goes to the Polls

    · 54 min · Episode 192

    On May 29, South Africans voted in the seventh election since the end of political apartheid in the early 1990s. This is the first election in which the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), is polling…

  43. Nisrin Elamin on the Conflict in Sudan

    · 59 min · Episode 191

    Nisrin Elamin is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto whose work investigates the connections between land, race, belonging, and empire-making in Sudan and the broader Sahel region.…

  44. Democratic Crisis in Senegal

    · 54 min · Episode 190

    Senegalese President Macky Sall has postponed the country’s presidential elections originally scheduled for February 25. It's part of a series of concerning moves by Sall to extend his stay in power. The Ufahamu Africa…

  45. Stuart A. Reid, "The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination" (Knopf, 2023)

    · 50 min · Episode 36

    Today I talked to Stuart Reid about his new book The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination (Knopf, 2023). It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation.…

  46. Christopher Tounsel, "Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity" (Cornell UP, 2024)

    · 49 min · Episode 189

    Christopher Tounsel's book Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity (Cornell UP, 2024) explores the history of Black America's intellectual and cultural engagement with the modern…

  47. Shelley X. Liu, "Governing After War: Rebel Victories and Post-War Statebuilding" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    · 41 min · Episode 717

    Governing After War: Rebel Victories and Post-war Statebuilding (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Shelley X. Liu explores how wartime processes affects post-war state-building efforts when rebels win a civil war…

  48. Maggie Messitt, "Newspaper" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

    · 58 min · Episode 76

    Newspaper (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Dr. Maggie Messitt is about more than news printed on paper. It brings us inside our best and worst selves, from censorship and the intentional destruction of historic record, to…

  49. Zvenyika Eckson Mugari, "Press Silence in Postcolonial Zimbabwe: News Whiteouts, Journalism and Power" (Routledge, 2020)

    · 2 h 07 min · Episode 188

    Zvenyika Eckson Mugari's book Press Silence in Postcolonial Zimbabwe: News Whiteouts, Journalism and Power (Routledge, 2020) focuses on news silence in Zimbabwe, taking as a point of departure the (in)famous blank…

  50. Boubacar N’Diaye, "Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization" (Routledge, 2017)

    · 1 h 32 min · Episode 187

    Boubacar N’Diaye's book Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization (Routledge, 2017), the result of more than a decade of research, focuses on the socio-political dynamics…

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