Podcasts by New Books in Folklore
Interviews with Scholars of Folklore about their New Books
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On "Grimms' Fairytales" from 2022-11-02T08:00
You probably already know the story of Snow White—as well as Little Red Riding Hood, Briar Rose, The Frog Prince, and so many others. These tales have a rich history of oral storytelling. They’ve t...
ListenJames P. Leary, “Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937–1946” (U Wisconsin Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937–1946 (University of Wisconsin Press) first appeared in 2015 when it comprised of a hardback book, five CDs, and one DVD. ...
ListenMarsha MacDowell, Clare Luz, and Beth Donaldson, “Quilts and Health” (Indiana UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Quilts and Health (Indiana University Press, 2017), Marsha MacDowell and her colleagues examine the phenomenon of health-related quilts, of which there are millions around the world. In fact, an...
ListenRobert D. Miller II, “The Dragon, the Mountain, and the Nations: An Old Testament Myth, Its Origins, and Its Afterlives” (Eisenbrauns, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
People have long been captivated by stories of dragons. Myths related to dragon slaying can be found across many civilizations around the world, even among the most ancient cultures including ancie...
ListenAnn K. Ferrell, “Burley: Kentucky Tobacco in a New Century” (U Press of Kentucky, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Ann K. Ferrell is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Folk Studies program at Western Kentucky University, and also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of American Folklore. Her first book, B...
ListenChristina Maags and Marina Svensson, “Chinese Heritage in the Making: Experiences, Negotiations, and Contestations” (Amsterdam UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Chinese Heritage in the Making: Experiences, Negotiations, and Contestations (Amsterdam University Press, 2018), edited by Christina Maags and Marina Svensson, gathers authors from a variety of ...
ListenErik Mueggler, “Songs for Dead Parents: Corpse, Text, and World in Southwest China” (U Chicago Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Lòlop’ò of Southwest China’s Yunnan Province have a folktale in which they, Han Chinese, and Tibetans were given the technology of writing. The Han man was wealthy, purchased paper, and wrote o...
ListenJoseph Sciorra, “Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in NYC” (U Tennessee Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New Y...
ListenRuth von Bernuth, “How the Wise Men Got to Chelm: The Life and Times of a Yiddish Folk Tradition” (NYU Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In How the Wise Men Got to Chelm: The Life and Times of a Yiddish Folk Tradition (New York University Press, 2017), Ruth von Bernuth, Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic and Slavic La...
ListenJo Farb Hernandez, “Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments” (Raw Vision, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments (Raw Vision, 2013) is an audacious tome. A comprehensive survey of 45 art environments on the Spanish mainland, ...
ListenDorothy Noyes, “Humble Theory: Folklore’s Grasp on Social Life” (Indiana UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Humble Theory: Folklore’s Grasp on Social Life (Indiana University Press, 2016) is an anthology of essays from Dorothy Noyes, professor of English and Comparative Studies at the Ohio State Universi...
ListenJean R. Freedman, “Peggy Seeger: A Life of Music, Love, and Politics” (U Illinois Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When folklorist Jean Freedman first met Peggy Seeger in 1979, Freedman was an undergraduate on her junior year abroad in London, while her American compatriot had been living in the UK for two deca...
ListenC. Grant and H. Schippers, “Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: An Ecological Perspective” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sustainable Futures for Music Cultures: An Ecological Perspective (Oxford University Press, 2016), a multi-authored volume co-edited by Catherine Grant and Huib Schippers, examines a range of music...
ListenClaire Schmidt, “If You Don’t Laugh, You’ll Cry: The Occupational Humor of White Wisconsin Prison Workers” (U Wisconsin Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Claire Schmidt is not a prison worker, rather she is a folklorist and an Assistant Professor at Missouri Valley College. However, many members of her extended family in her home state of Wisconsin ...
ListenRay Cashman, “Packy Jim: Folklore and Worldview on the Irish Border” (U Wisconsin Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How do individuals on national or societal peripheries make use of tradition and to what ends? How can narratives discursively construct a complex worldview? These are some of the questions Ray Cas...
ListenFranz Rickaby, et al., “Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era” (U Wisconsin Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Gretchen Dykstra‘s career to date has been both impressive and wide-ranging. She was the founding President of the Times Square Alliance, the former Commissioner of the NYC Department of Consumer A...
ListenDavid Hopkin, “Voices of the People in Nineteenth-Century France” (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The author of this book, David Hopkin, is Professor of European Social History at Hertford College, Oxford. He is also my brother. However, I’m not featuring him on New Books in Folklore because of...
ListenJason Josephson-Storm, “The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences” (U. Chicago, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We tend to think of ourselves—our modern selves–as disenchanted. We have traded magic, myth, and spirits for science, reason, and logic. But this is false. Jason Josephson-Storm, in his exciting ne...
ListenLuisa Del Giudice, ed. “On Second Thought: Learned Women Reflect on Profession, Community, and Purpose” (U. Utah Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On Second Thought: Learned Women Reflect on Profession, Community, and Purpose (University of Utah Press, 2017) is a collection of thirteen essays by women, all in the second half of their lives, i...
ListenIan Brodie, “A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy” (UP of Mississippi, 2014). from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In A Vulgar Art: A New Approach to Stand-Up Comedy (The University Press of Mississippi, 2014), Ian Brodie, an associate professor of folklore at Cape Breton University, brings a folkloristic appro...
ListenMichael Youngblood, “Cultivating Community: Interest, Identity, and Ambiguity in an Indian Social Mobilization” (South Asian Studies Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Cultivating Community: Interest, Identity, and Ambiguity in an Indian Social Mobilization by Michael Youngblood, a cultural anthropologist based in San Francisco, was published in November, 2016 by...
ListenYuval Harari, “Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah” (Wayne State UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jewish Magic Before the Rise of Kabbalah (Wayne State University Press, 2017) opens new vistas not only on the history of the practice of magic throughout Jewish history, but on the variety and syn...
ListenLaura J. Olson and Svetlana Adonyeva, “The Worlds of Russian Village Women: Tradition, Transgression, Compromise” (U. Wisconsin Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Worlds of Russian Village Women: Tradition, Transgression, Compromise (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013) by Laura J. Olson and Svetlana Adonyeva casts a new look at the traditional represent...
ListenPeter Gottschalk, “Religion, Science, and Empire: Classifying Hinduism and Islam in British India” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When did religion begin in South Asia? Many would argue that it was not until the colonial encounter that South Asians began to understand themselves as religious. In Religion, Science, and Empire:...
ListenRebecca Williams, “Muhammad and the Supernatural: Medieval Arab Views” (Routledge, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Rebecca Williams‘ book Muhammad and the Supernatural: Medieval Arab Views (Routledge, 2013) is one of the newest additions to the Routledge Studies in Classic Islam series. Despite the Qur’anic pro...
ListenKristin Andrews, “Do Apes Read Minds?: Toward a New Folk Psychology” (MIT Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The ability to figure out the mental lives of others – what they want, what they believe, what they know — is basic to our relationships. Sherlock Holmes exemplified this ability by accurately simu...
ListenJack Zipes on Life as a Folklorist, Folklore Studies and Publishing Fairy Tales from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Today I talked with Jack Zipes about a life in Folklore Studies, about some of his many publications, and about publishing fairy tales. Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German at the University...
ListenD. T. Lawrence and E. J. Lawless, "When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri" (UP of Mississippi, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The town of Pinhook in Missouri was founded in the 1940s by southern Black farmers who were looking for land that they could purchase and own in the face of limited options. It was low land that wa...
ListenRachel V. González, "Quinceañera Style: Social Belonging and Latinx Consumer Identities" from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A quinceañera is a traditional fifteenth birthday celebration for young women (though in contemporary times, it can also be for young men) in many Latinx communities. While the celebration has root...
ListenJack Santino, "Public Performances: Studies in the Carnivalesque and Ritualesque" (UP Colorado, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Public Performances: Studies in the Carnivalesque and Ritualesque (University Press of Colorado) offers a deep and wide-ranging exploration of relationships among genres of public performance and o...
ListenWilliam G. Pooley, "Body and Tradition in 19th-Century France: Félix Arnaudin and the Moorlands of Gascony, 1870-1914" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The moorlands of Gascony are often considered one of the most dramatic examples of top-down rural modernization in nineteenth-century Europe. From an area of open moors, they were transformed in on...
ListenAdheesh Sathaye, “Crossing the Lines of Caste" (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What does it mean to be a Brahmin, and what could it mean to become one? The ancient Indian mythological figure Vi?v?mitra accomplishes just this, transforming himself from a king into a Brahmin by...
ListenKathryn Hume, "The Metamorphoses of Myth in Fiction since 1960" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Why do contemporary writers use myths from ancient Greece and Rome, Pharaonic Egypt, the Viking north, Africa's west coast, and Hebrew and Christian traditions? What do these stories from premodern...
ListenBrian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, a...
ListenÉva Guillorel, "Rhythms of Revolt: European Traditions and Memories of Social Conflict in Oral Culture" (Routledge, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The culture of insurgents in early modern Europe was primarily an oral one; memories of social conflicts in the communities affected were passed on through oral forms such as songs and legends. Thi...
ListenSteve Zeitlin, "The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness" (Cornell UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This is a book of encounters. Part memoir, part essay, and partly a guide to maximizing your capacity for fulfillment and expression, The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awaren...
ListenKevin McGrath, "Vy?sa Redux: Narrative in Epic Mah?bh?rata" (Anthem Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Vy?sa Redux: Narrative in Epic Mah?bh?rata (Anthem Press, 2019), Kevin McGrath examines the complex and enigmatic Vy?sa, both the primary creative poet of the Sanskrit epic Mah?bh?rata and a key...
ListenMartin Shaw, "Courting the Wild Twin" (Chelsea Green, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Today I interview Martin Shaw. In Shaw’s new book, Courting the Wild Twin (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2020), he writes, “Here’s a secret I don’t share very often. Myths are not only to do with a lon...
ListenLeslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. Brophy, is the first edited collection of schola...
ListenMagda Teter, "Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth" (Harvard UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The myth of Jews killing Christian children emerged in 1144 CE, with the death of a boy named William in Norwich, England. Over the course of several centuries, this myth gained traction and became...
ListenMatt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like ra...
ListenLijun Zhang and Ziying You, "Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice" (Indiana UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The discipline of folkloristics in the People’s Republic of China is robust and well-funded. With thousands of scholars across the country, it is surprising then that there is relatively little und...
ListenPhillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Phillipa Chong, assistant professor in sociology at McM...
ListenCharlene Makley, "The Battle for Fortune: State-led Development, Personhood, and Power among Tibetans in China" (Cornell UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Rebgong, in the Northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau (China’s Qinghai Province), is in the midst of a ‘Battle for Fortune.’ That is, a battle to both accumulate as much fortune, but also a batt...
ListenK. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years work...
ListenAndrea Kitta, "The Kiss of Death: Contagion, Contamination, and Folklore" (Utah State UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Disease is a social issue and not just a medical one. This is the central tenet underlying The Kiss of Death: Contagion, Contamination, and Folklore (Utah State University Press 2019) by Andrea Kit...
ListenEleanor Parker, "Dragon Lords: The History and Legends of Viking England" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For all of their prominence in the popular imagination today, the historical record of the Viking presence in England is limited, with much of what we know about them dependent upon the literary ac...
ListenAlberto Cairo, "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information" (Norton, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics, and diagrams ubiquitous?and easier to sh...
ListenKathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books in that most of them are what you might...
ListenJ. Neuhaus, "Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers" (West Virginia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that developing expertise requires -- do not nec...
ListenOren Harman, "Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World" (FSG, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
“There are only two ways to live your life,” said Albert Einstein, “One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle.” Oren Harman clearly agrees with Einstein’...
ListenTim Frandy, "Inari Sami Folklore: Stories from Aanaar" (U Wisconsin Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Inari Sámi Folklore: Stories from Aanaar (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019) is rich multivoiced anthology of folktales, legends, joik songs, proverbs, riddles, and other verbal art, this is the ...
ListenS. Ingram, W. G. Mullins, and T. Richardson, "Implied Nowhere: Absence in Folklore Studies" (UP of Mississippi, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Implied Nowhere: Absence in Folklore Studies (University Press of Mississippi, 2019) authors Shelley Ingram, Willow G. Mullins, and Todd Richardson talk about things folklorists don't usually ta...
ListenM. D. Foster and J. A. Tolbert, "The Folkloresque: Reframing Folklore in a Popular Culture World" (Utah State UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This volume introduces a new concept to explore the dynamic relationship between folklore and popular culture: the "folkloresque." With "folkloresque," Foster and Tolbert name the product created w...
ListenEmily Wilcox, "Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy" (U California Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What is “Chinese dance,” how did it take shape in during China’s socialist period, and how has this socialist form continued to influence Post-Mao expressive cultures in the People’s Republic of Ch...
ListenFernando Orejuela and Stephanie Shonekan, "Black Lives Matter and Music: Protest, Intervention, Reflection" (Indiana UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Music has always been integral to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, with songs such as Kendrick Lamar’s "Alright," J. Cole’s "Be Free," D’Angelo and the Vanguard's "The Charade,...
ListenSusan Lepselter, "The Resonance of Unseen Things: Poetics, Power, and UFOs in the American Uncanny" (U Michigan Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When we talk about stories of alien abduction in the United States, we often do so through a framework of belief vs. disbelief. Do I think this story is true, or do I think it’s false? Anthropologi...
ListenAnand Prahlad, "The Secret Life of a Black Aspie: A Memoir" (U Alaska Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Anand Prahlad was born on a former plantation in Virginia in 1954. This memoir, vividly internal, powerfully lyric, and brilliantly impressionistic, is his story. For the first four years of his li...
ListenLevi S. Gibbs, "Song King: Connecting People, Places and Past in Contemporary China" (U Hawaii Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How does music link people across time and space? How do singers modulate their repertoires to forge links with audiences both within and across local, regional and national borders? What are the c...
ListenDiscussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic. How can publishers and authors contri...
ListenAlexander Langlands, "Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts" (Norton, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Alexander Langlands is a British archaeologist, historian, writer, and broadcaster. His most recent book, Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts, was published b...
ListenDavid J. Puglia, "Tradition, Urban Identity, and the Baltimore 'Hon': The Folk in the City" (Lexington Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Folklorist David J. Puglia is an assistant professor at the City University of New York and in his latest book - Tradition, Urban Identity, and the Baltimore “Hon": The Folk in the City (Lexington ...
ListenBen Gatling, "Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan" (U Wisconsin Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
George Mason University professor Ben Gatling’s debut book, Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018), is a beautifully written ethnography exploring the lives...
ListenPatrick B. Mullen, "Right to the Juke Joint: A Personal History of American Music" (U Illinois Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On its back cover, Patrick B. Mullen’s Right to the Juke Joint: A Personal History of American Music(University of Illinois Press, 2018) is aptly described as “part scholar's musings and part fan's...
ListenMcKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty...
ListenLee Bidgood, “Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe” (U Illinois Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Although bluegrass music is typically associated with the bluegrass state of Kentucky and Appalachia, the genre is actually played in many pockets all around the world. In Czech Bluegrass: Notes f...
ListenKate Parker Horigan, “Consuming Katrina: Public Disaster and Personal Narrative” (UP of Mississippi, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Kate Parker Horigan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology at Western Kentucky University, and a co-editor of the Journal of American Folklore. In Consuming Ka...
ListenBill Ivey, “Rebuilding an Enlightened World: Folklorizing America” (Indiana UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Bill Ivey’s Rebuilding an Enlightened World: Folklorizing America (Indiana University Press, 2018) advances the idea that we are entering a post-enlightenment world increasingly characterized by al...
ListenKristin Andrews, “Do Apes Read Minds?: Toward a New Folk Psychology” (MIT Press, 2012) from 2012-09-15T22:14:09
The ability to figure out the mental lives of others – what they want, what they believe, what they know — is basic to our relationships. Sherlock Holmes exemplified this ability by accurately simu...
ListenKristin Andrews, “Do Apes Read Minds?: Toward a New Folk Psychology” (MIT Press, 2012) from 2012-09-15T22:14:09
The ability to figure out the mental lives of others – what they want, what they believe, what they know — is basic to our relationships. Sherlock Holmes exemplified this ability by accurately simu...
Listen