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Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast

New Books Network

Interviews with Columbia University Press authors.

arts books

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62:02

Ainehi Edoro, "Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/03/29

Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the forest to experiment with worldbuilding and to imagine new futures. This groundbreaking book explores the life of the forest in African fiction, showing how writers have used it to reinvent the novel’s formal, aesthetic, and political possibilities.Ainehi Edoro argues in Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think (Columbia UP, 2026) that forests

60:02

Zheng Liu, "Cultural Mavericks: The Business and...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/03/28

In recent decades, self-proclaimed “independent bookstores” have arisen across China. In the West, such retailers represent an alternative to corporations and chains. In China, by contrast, they differentiate themselves from not only the state-owned Xinhua Bookstore but also other privately owned shops through an emphasis on intellectual independence and the free exchange of ideas. Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China (Columbia UP, 2026) by Dr. Zheng Liu

74:24

Karima Moyer-Nocchi, "The Epic History of Macaroni...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/03/20

Today, macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food, a staple of weeknight dinners, family gatherings, and Soul Food restaurants. Humble though the dish may seem, its history is filled with surprising twists and turns. Renaissance cardinals and popes dined on elaborate pasta-and-cheese concoctions laced with costly spices. In the eighteenth century, wealthy young Englishmen made macaroni a symbol of continental sophistication. Black women, whose contribution has long been overshadowed, played a

75:43

A.J. Bauer, "Making the Liberal Media: How...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/03/18

In Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against The Press (Columbia UP, 2026), A.J. Bauer examines the history of the idea of a “liberal media bias.” Rather than trying to show whether or not “liberal media bias” is an accurate description, Bauer shows how this idea has been an animating force for conservative political activists and media figures. Bauer shows the lineage of “liberal media bias” criticism going back to early leaders in the modern conservative movement and

35:30

Renny Thomas and Sasanka Perera, "Decolonial...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/02/26

Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes (Columbia UP, 2025) presents a set of keywords and concepts embedded in the languages of South Asia and its vast cultural landscape. It reiterates specific attitudes, ways of seeing and methods of doing, which are embedded in the historical and contemporary experiences in the region. The words, concepts, ideas and attitudes in the volume explore the contexts of their production and how their meanings might have changed at different historical

65:55

Anne Mendelson, "Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/02/22

Why is cows' milk, which few nonwhite people can digest, promoted as a science-backed dietary necessity in countries where the majority of the population is lactose-intolerant? Why are gigantic new dairy farms permitted to deplete the sparse water resources of desert ecosystems? Why do thousands of U.S. dairy farmers every year give up after struggling to recoup production costs against plummeting wholesale prices?Exploring these questions and many more, Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as

54:06

Jie-Hyun Lim, "Victimhood Nationalism: History and...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/02/21

Nationalism today depends on the perception of victimhood. The historical memory of past suffering endows nationalist movements with political legitimacy and a sense of moral superiority. Koreans recall Japanese colonial atrocities, while Japan commemorates the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Israel sanctifies the Holocaust and Poland trumpets the Nazi and Soviet occupations. Even Germany and Russia, perpetrators of historical crimes, today cast themselves as victims by pointing to

58:49

Ted Striphas, "Algorithmic Culture Before the...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/02/18

In this episode, Ted Striphas, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Alex Rivera Cartagena discuss Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet (Columbia University Press 2023), considering how some pre-digital human systems functioned through repetitive structures and automated processes that have similarities to electronic algorithms. They discuss how cognition has become digitized, dispersed across algorithmic and biological systems, and how digital tools attempt to overtake lived experiences and knowledges

58:53

Kristin Roebuck, "Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/02/10

In her book Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War (Columbia UP, 2025), historian Kristin Roebuck grapples with the question: Why did Japan embrace “mixed blood” as an authoritarian empire yet turn to xenophobic racial nationalism as a Cold War democracy? Through in-depth and rigorous historical archival research, Roebuck traces the fraught history of sex, reproduction, race and empire building in Japan from the 1930s to 1950s. Through her scholarship, she crucially demonstrates

55:51

Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, "By the Power Vested in...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/30

In both the United States and France, each side of the legal battle over same-sex marriage and parenthood relied heavily on experts. Despite the similarity of issues, however, lawmakers in each country turned to different sets of authorities: from economists and psychoanalysts to priests and ordinary people. They even prized different types of expertise—empirical research in the United States versus abstract theory in France.Exploring the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States and

27:09

Terry Williams, "Life Underground: Encounters with...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/26

Aboveground, Manhattan’s Riverside Park provides open space for the densely populated Upper West Side. Beneath its surface run railroad tunnels, disused for decades, where over the years unhoused people have taken shelter. The sociologist Terry Williams ventured into the tunnel residents’ world, seeking to understand life on the margins and out of sight. He visited the tunnels between West Seventy-Second and West Ninety-Sixth Streets hundreds of times from 1991 to 1996, when authorities cleared them

76:52

Daniel Wyche, "The Care of the Self and the Care of...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/17

In The Care of the Self and the Care of the Other: From Spiritual Exercises to Political Transformation (Columbia UP, 2025), Daniel Wyche examines the political implications of what he calls practices of ethical self-change. These include Pierre Hadot’s notion of “spiritual exercises”; what the French sociologist of labor Georges Friedmann terms “interior effort”; Michel Foucault’s ethics of the “care of the self”; Martin Luther King Jr.’s understanding of “self-purification” as integral to direct

45:23

Gonzalo Lizarralde, "Unnatural Disasters: Why Most...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/17

Unnatural Disasters: Why Most Responses to Risk and Climate Change Fail But Some Succeed (Columbia UP, 2021) offers a new perspective on our most pressing environmental and social challenges, revealing the gaps between abstract concepts like sustainability, resilience, and innovation and the real-world experiences of people living at risk. Gonzalo Lizarralde explains how the causes of disasters are not natural but all too human: inequality, segregation, marginalization, colonialism, neoliberalism,

61:53

Rafael Yuste, "Lectures in Neuroscience" (Columbia...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/16

The human brain is perhaps the most intricate and fascinating object in the known universe. Through a mysterious process, the activity of billions of neurons within a few pounds of matter generates the unfathomable complexity of the mind.Lectures in Neuroscience is a conversational and accessible introduction to the brain. Beginning from basic elements of neuroscience, the acclaimed scientist Rafael Yuste guides readers through increasingly sophisticated topics, developing a unified framework for

39:51

Madhuri Deshmukh, "The Unraveling Heart: Women's Oral...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/15

In this interview we discuss The Unraveling Heart: Women's Oral Poetics and Literary Vernacularization in Marathi (Columbia UP, 2025). Women’s songs of the grind mill are among the oldest oral traditions in South Asia. They have been sung to accompany a daily household labor, making flour using a stone hand mill, for many centuries. Even today, grind mill songs are still well known in Maharashtra, testifying to the endurance of a remarkable genre. Yet these songs have long been understood through

53:58

Q. Edward Wang, "Staple to Superfood: A Global...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/14

Sweet potatoes were among the American crops Christopher Columbus brought back to Europe—where they were thought to be an aphrodisiac. In China, this versatile root became a staple that fueled rapid population growth. Introduced to Japan to stave off famine, sweet potatoes later sustained the country’s imperial expansion. Because this hardy plant can thrive in almost any soil, it has long been cultivated as a subsistence crop in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Oceania. In recent years, Western health

52:08

Stuart Klawans, "Crooked, But Never Common: The Films...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/10

In a burst of creativity unmatched in Hollywood history, Preston Sturges directed a string of all-time classic comedies from 1939 through 1948--The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek among them--all from screenplays he alone had written. Stuart Klawans' Crooked, But Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges (Columbia UP, 2023) pays close attention to Sturges' celebrated dialogue, but also to his films surprisingly intricate

55:25

Megan Bryson and Kevin Buckelew eds., "Buddhist...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2026/01/02

While early Buddhists hailed their religion's founder for opening a path to enlightenment, they also exalted him as the paragon of masculinity. According to Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha's body boasts thirty-two physical features, including lionlike jaws, thighs like a royal stag, broad shoulders, and a deep, resonant voice, that distinguish him from ordinary men. As Buddhism spread throughout Asia and around the world, the Buddha remained an exemplary man, but Buddhists in other times and places

44:08

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2025/12/14

The Hidden Face of Local Power: Appointed Boards and the Limits of Democracy (Temple UP, 2025) by Dr. Mirya Holman explicates the purpose, role, and consequences of appointed boards in U.S. cities. Dr. Holman finds cities create strong boards that generate policy, consolidate power, and defend the interests of businesses and wealthy and white residents. In contrast, weak boards pacify agitation from marginalized groups to give the appearance of inclusivity, democratic deliberation, and

65:25

Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Anya Foxen, "The...

Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast ·

2025/12/04

The Serpent’s Tale: Kundalini, Yoga, and the History of an Experience (Columbia UP, 2025) traces the intricate global histories of Kuṇḍalinī, from its Sanskrit origins to its popularity in the West. Ranging from esoteric texts to global gurus, from the cliffs of California to the charnel grounds of Assam, they show that there has never been one single “authentic” model of Kuṇḍalinī but a multiplicity of visions. Bridging the gaps between textual and historical analysis and the complexities of

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Off the Page: A Columbia University Press Podcast

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