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In Conversation: An OUP Podcast

New Books Network

Interviews with Oxford University Press authors about their books

arts books

All Episodes

46:26

Ory Amitay, "Alexander the Great in Jerusalem: Myth...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/22

When I sat down with Dr. Ory Amitay, his passion for myth, history, and ancient cultures was infectious. Our conversation about his new book, Alexander the Great in Jerusalem: Myth and History, Oxford University Press, 2025, quickly revealed that for Ory, the real intrigue isn’t whether Alexander literally visited Jerusalem, but how and why this story was created and retold for centuries. Ory traced his fascination with this intersection of myth and reality back to his Israeli upbringing and

38:15

Allan Doig, "A History of the Church through its...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/19

A History of the Church through its Buildings (Oxford University Press, 2021) by Allan Doig takes the reader to meet people who lived through momentous religious changes in the very spaces where the story of the Church took shape. Buildings are about people, the people who conceived, designed, financed, and used them. Their stories become embedded in the very fabric itself, and as the fabric is changed through time in response to changing use, relationships, and beliefs, the architecture becomes the

42:03

Meegan Kennedy, "Writing Embodiment in Victorian...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/18

Writing Embodiment in Victorian Microscopy: Beautiful Mechanism (Oxford UP, 2025) by Dr. Meegan Kennedy examines a revolutionary period in microscopical technology and practice. At first considered a mere toy, by 1900 the microscope rivaled the railway and telegraph as an emblem of modernity and enjoyed an astonishing diversity of applications. This technology could drive scientific debates on subjects like cell theory, vitalism, and bacteriology; guide workers in classrooms, laboratories, and

47:25

David Engerman, "Apostles of Development: Six...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/17

Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made (Oxford University Press and Penguin RandomHouse South Asia, 2025) by Dr. David Engerman recounts the work of six individuals, all former classmates at Cambridge University, who helped make international development--the effort to reduce poverty and inequality around the world--into a juggernaut of the second half of the twentieth century. International development employed millions, affected billions, and spent trillions; it held the

81:23

Juliane Fürst, "Flowers Through Concrete:...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/13

Flowers Through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland (Oxford University Press, 2021) is the first chronological history of Soviet hippies, tracing their beginnings in the 1960s through the movement’s maturity and ritualization in the 1970s. It is also a rich analysis of key aspects of Soviet hippiedom, including ideology, kaif, materiality, and madness - both enacted and imposed. Flowers Through Concrete uncovers, in particular, the lost history of women who participated in the Soviet hippie

51:44

Aggie Hirst, "Politics of Play: Wargaming with the US...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/13

A wargaming renaissance has been underway in the US military. Having proven to be the most effective recruitment tool of the 21st century, games have proliferated across all levels of the military's strategic, operational, training, and rehabilitation architecture. From board games to high-tech digital and virtual reality platforms, wargames enable milarites to learn lessons from the past, play out possible responses to current crises, and explore the effectiveness of future operations and

33:10

Samuel Kline Cohn, "Popular Protest and Ideals of...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/11

Samuel K Cohn, Jr. joins Jana Byars to talk about Popular Protest and the Ideals of Democracy in Late Renaissance Italy (Oxford University Press, 2025). This work, now out in paper, is the first study to analyse popular protest across the Italian peninsula and the Venetian colonies during the early modern period, 1494 to 1559. Drawing on over 100 contemporary chronicles and diaries, the fifty-eight volumes of Marin Sanudo's diplomatic dispatches, mercantile letters, and commentary, and 586

35:04

Ilanit Loewy Shacham, "Empire Inside Out: Religion,...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/10

Examining the interplay of religion, history, and literature through a case study of King Krsnadevaraya's celebrated Telugu poem Āmuktamālyada, Ilanit Loewy Shacham showcases the groundbreaking worldview that this often-overlooked poem embodies. Krsnadevaraya (r.1509-1529) ruled over the Vijayanagara Empire during its heyday, and his monumental poem situates all power and authority not in the imperial center, but in the villages and temples at the empire's outskirts; not in the royal court, but in a

54:07

Seeing China’s Belt and Road with Ed Schatz and...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/09

EPISODE SUMMARY:What becomes visible when you shift the lens away from Beijing to how China’s Belt and Road projects unfold on the ground? Seeing China’s Belt and Road, edited by Edward Schatz and Rachel Silvey, answers this question by reorienting conversations on China’s global infrastructure development to their “downstream” effects. Instead of analyzing the BRI through grand geopolitical narratives or a national strategic lens, the book draws on fieldwork across Asia, Africa, and Latin America

88:08

Janet McIntosh, "Kill Talk: Language and Military...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/09

Even casual observers of the military will notice the unique ways that service members use language. With all of the acronyms and jargon, some even argue that membership in the military requires learning a whole language. But rather than treat military-specific language as a cultural difference of the institution or a technical requirement for the job, Dr. Janet McIntosh examines how military language works to enable its members to both kill and imagine themselves as killable. In her book Kill Talk:

37:33

Jennifer Crane, "'Gifted Children' in Britain and the...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/04

Who are 'gifted' children? In ‘Gifted Children’ in Britain and the World: Elitism and Equality since 1945 Jennifer Crane, a senior lecturer in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol (Oxford UP, 2025) tells the social and cultural history of this category of young people. The book charts the individuals, organisations, policymakers, and media activities that aimed to identify children as ‘gifted’, lobbying for their social status and the potential benefit they might bring to

53:25

Didi Kuo, "The Great Retreat: How Political Parties...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/04

As the crisis of democratic capitalism sweeps the globe, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't (Oxford University Press, 2025) makes the controversial argument that what democracies require most are stronger political parties that serve as intermediaries between citizens and governments.Once a centralizing force of the democratic process, political parties have eroded over the past fifty years. Parties now rank among the most unpopular institutions in

38:48

Richard K. Payne and Glen A. Hayes eds., "The Oxford...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/07/03

Since the earliest encounters between tantric traditions and Western scholars of religion, tantra has posed a challenge. The representation of tantra, whether in Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Tibet, or Japan, has tended to emphasize the antinomian, decadent aspects, which, as attention-grabbing as they were for audiences in the West, created a one-dimensional understanding, and hampered the academic study of the field for more than a century. Additionally, the Western perspective on religion has been

65:20

Yonatan Y. Brafman, "Critique of Halakhic Reason:...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/06/30

For centuries, Jewish thinkers have asked two parallel questions. First, what is the reasoning behind an individual commandment and second, why bother heeding a command at all, something Dr. Brafman terms “reasons for” vs “reasons of” the commandments. In his newest book, Critique of Halakhic Reason: Divine Commandments and Social Normativity (Oxford UP, 2024), Dr. Brafman looks closely at the second of these questions. After considering answers from some of the most important Jewish thinkers of

56:44

Bryan D. Jones, The Southern Fault Line: How Race,...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/06/27

The Southern Fault Line: How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History (Oxford University Press, 2025) explores the under-appreciated division in the South between the oligarchic rule of plantation owners and industrialists on the one hand, and the more democratic mindset of the mountain-dwelling small farmers on the other. These two mindsets were in continual tension from the 1800s to the 1960s, when the adherents of the more democratic side of the struggle capitulated to the oligarchical

36:17

Louis P. Masur, "A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison,...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/06/26

Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on horseback. This "northern journey" came at a moment of tension for the new nation, one in whose founding these Virginians and political allies had played key roles. The Constitution was ratified and President Washington was in his first term of office. Whether the country could overcome regional and political differences and remain unified, however, was

38:38

Kevin J. Hayes, "Undaunted Mind: The Intellectual...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/06/23

An exploration of the mind of one of America's most beloved Founding Fathers and most brilliant minds, through the books he read and his social circles in the United States and Europe. Arguably the most intellectual, creative, cosmopolitan, and curious of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin is the only top-tier Founder not to have served as president. Despite not becoming the Chief Executive, Franklin played an active role in American politics and served the aspiring and young United States in

90:45

Jonathan Teubner, "Charity After Augustine:...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/06/23

Jonathan Teubner, Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West (Oxford UP, 2025)Through a unique blend of the personal and historiographical, Charity after Augustine is an exploration of why the Augustinian tradition’s attempts to build solidarity or social cohesion in the societies of the Latin West have ended in disaster just as often as they have brought about justice. The conceit at the heart of the book is that the concrete practices of love or

39:18

Prema Kurien, "Claiming Citizenship: Race, Religion,...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/06/19

Claiming Citizenship: Race, Religion, and Political Mobilization Among New Americans (Oxford UP, 2025) looks at Indian Americans, currently the second-largest group of immigrants in the United States, and a group that has seen significant representation in the three most recent presidential administrations. Prema Kurien asks how Indian Americans have become a rising political force given that they have not followed the traditional, recommended model of political influence. She examines the

62:45

Carolin Duttlinger, "Attention and Distraction in...

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast ·

2025/06/17

Carolin Duttlinger is Professor of German Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford (UK) and Co-Director of the Oxford Kafka Research Centre, where she is currently leading a three-year UKRI-funded research project,Kafka's Transformative Communities. She has published widely on German literature from the eighteenth century to the present; on Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt School; the history of psychology; and on photography and visual culture. Selected publications: Kafka and

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In Conversation: An OUP Podcast

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