Podcasts by New Books in Language
Interviews with Scholars of Language about their New Books
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Apabhraṃśa from 2022-07-08T08:00
Abhishek Avtans talks about the apabhraṃśa, a word that refers to the middle stage of the Indo-Aryan languages, crucial links between ancient languages like Sanskrit, and modern South Asian languag...
ListenCrosswords from 2022-05-31T08:00
In this episode Kim talks to Adrienne Raphel about crossword puzzles. For lots more about crosswords, check out Adrienne’s book Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling ...
ListenDerek Gaunt, "Ego, Authority, Failure: Using Emotional Intelligence Like a Hostage Negotiator to Succeed as a Leader" (New Degree Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric in the Department of Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo—is joined by co-host and recent Geneseo Graduat...
ListenRichard Averbeck, "Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research" (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For some two hundred years now, Pentateuchal scholarship has been dominated by the Documentary Hypothesis, a paradigm made popular by Julius Wellhausen. Recent decades, however, have seen mounting ...
ListenMary Kate McGowan, "Just Words: On Speech and Hidden Harm" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re all familiar with the ways in which speech can cause harm. For example, speech can incite wrongful acts. And I suppose we’re also familiar with contexts in which a person who occupies a posit...
ListenJohn Pat Leary, "Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism" (Haymarket Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
John Pat Leary's Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism (Haymarket Books, 2019) chronicles the rise of a new vocabulary in the twenty-first century. From Silicon Valley to the White House, from k...
ListenDonnel Stern, "The Infinity of the Unsaid: Unformulated Experience, Language, and the Nonverbal" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Donnel Stern has been a key figure in the advancement of interpersonal and relational psychoanalysis since his initial writings on unformulated experience in the 1980s, in which he offered a fresh ...
ListenA. M. Ruppell, "The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit" (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Why would anyone want to study Sanskrit, an ancient complex tongue? What’s the best way to go about doing so? Sanskrit is the highly sophisticated language of ancient India which remained in vogue...
ListenShonaleeka Kaul, "The Making of Early Kashmir: Landscape and Identity in the Rajatarangini" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Dr. Shonaleeka Kaul is a cultural historian of early South Asia specializing in working with Sanskrit texts. She is Associate Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru Univer...
ListenLeslie Hahner, "To Become an American: Immigrants and Americanization Campaigns of the Early 20th Century" (Michigan State UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (she/they)--Assistant Professor, Dept. of Communication at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Dr. Leslie Hahner--Associate Professor, Dept. of Communicati...
ListenAnne Cheng, "Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface" (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Dr. Anne Cheng (she/hers)--Professor of English and Director of the Program ...
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...
ListenRichard Salomon, "The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandh?ra: An Introduction with Selected Translation" (Wisdom Publications, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this episode of New Books in Buddhist Studies, Dr. Richard Salomon speaks about his book The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandh?ra: An Introduction with Selected Translation (Wisdom Publicatio...
ListenBradford Vivian, "Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture" (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of New Books in Communications, Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews Dr. Bradford Vivian (he/his) of Penn State University on his fabulous new book Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical In...
ListenRichard Gombrich, "Buddhism and Pali" (Mud Pie Slices, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Richard Gombrich's new book, Buddhism and Pali (Mud Pie Slices, 2018), puts the richness of the Pali language on display. He introduces the reader to the origins of Pali, its linguistic character, ...
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...
ListenMark Polizzotti, “Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto” (MIT Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The success of a translator may seem to lie in going unnoticed: the translator ducks out of the spotlight so that the original author may shine. Mark Polizzotti challenges that idea in a provocativ...
ListenMatthieu Villatte, “Mastering the Clinical Conversation: Language as Intervention” (Guilford Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Humans are the only animals that can use language processes to create abstract, symbolic thoughts. This is both a blessing and a curse. Although symbolic processes have many benefits to humans, the...
ListenJ.R. Osborn, “Letters of Light: Arabic Script in Calligraphy, Print, and Digital Design” (Harvard UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Arabic script is astounding! Not only because it represents one of the most commonly spoken languages today –that is, the Arabic language– but because it has represented dozens of other languages ...
ListenAllyson Jule, “Speaking Up: Understanding Language and Gender” (Multilingual Matters, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In a time where concepts such as gender pronouns, sexual assault and harassment, and toxic masculinity are entering and shaping public discourse, knowing the ways in which gender and language inter...
ListenJ. Lester, C. Lochmiller, and R. Gabriel, “Discursive Perspectives on Education Policy and Implementation” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The study of education policy is a scholarly field that sheds light on important debates and controversies revolving around education policy and its implementation. In this episode, we will be talk...
ListenSteven Alvarez, “Brokering Tareas: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies” (SUNY Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this episode, I speak with Steven Alvarez about his book, Brokering Tareas: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies (SUNY Press, 2017). This book highlights a grassroots l...
ListenJohn H. McWhorter, “The Creole Debate” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
John H. McWhorter is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He has written academic books on creole linguistics, including the book we’ll be talking about...
ListenSteven Gimbel, “Isn’t That Clever: A Philosophical Account of Humor and Comedy” (Routledge, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Humor and its varied manifestations—jesting joking around, goofing, lampooning, and so on—pervade the human experience and are plausibly regarded as necessary features of interpersonal interactions...
ListenAndrii Danylenko, “From the Bible to Shakespeare: Pantelejmon Kuliš (1819-1897) and the Formation of Literary Ukrainian” (Academic Studies Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How does a language develop? What are the factors and processes that shape a language and reflect the changes it undergoes? These seemingly routine questions entail a conversation that involves not...
ListenSteven Alvarez, “Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning From Bilingual After-School Programs” (NCTE, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this episode, I speak with Steven Alvarez about his book, Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning From Bilingual After-School Programs (National Council of Teachers of English, 2017). This b...
ListenJi-Yeon O. Jo, “Homing: An Affective Topography of Ethnic Korean Return Migration” (U Hawaii Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For anyone with an interest in Korean studies, the study of diaspora and globalization, and indeed in broader questions around transnational identities and encounters in East Asia and beyond, Homin...
ListenRosina Lozano, “An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States” (U California Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In An American Language: The History of Spanish in the United States (University of California Press, 2018), Rosina Lozano details the entangled relationship between language and notions of individ...
ListenRoderick P. Hart, “Civic Hope: How Ordinary Americans Keep Democracy Alive” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
To find out what Americans really think about their government, University of Texas-Austin Professor Roderick P. Hart read and analyzed approximately 10,000 letters to the editor, from 12 “ordinary...
ListenRuth G. Millikan, “Beyond Concepts: Unicepts, Language, and Natural Information” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Kant famously asked the question, how is knowledge possible? In her new book, Beyond Concepts: Unicepts, Language, and Natural Information (Oxford University Press, 2018), Ruth Garrett Millikan res...
ListenWalter N. Hakala, “Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of Modern South Asia” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For many people language is a central characteristic of their social identity. In modern South Asia, the production of Urdu and Hindi as national languages was intricately tied to the hardening of ...
ListenJeanine Kraybill, “Unconventional, Partisan, and Polarizing Rhetoric: How the 2016 Election Shaped the Way Candidates Strategize, Engage, and Communicate” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Unconventional, Partisan, and Polarizing Rhetoric: How the 2016 Election Shaped the Way Candidates Strategize, Engage, and Communicate (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), Jeanine Kraybill, assistant...
ListenDaniel J. Kapust, “Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Daniel Kapust‘s book, Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art (Cambridge University Press, 2018), is a rich and fascinating exploration of political thought through th...
ListenCynthia Baker, “Jew” (Rutgers UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What is the significance of Jew? How has this word come to have such varied and charged meanings? Who has (and has not) used it, and why? Cynthia Baker explores these questions and more in her new ...
ListenKathryn Woolard, “Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in Twenty-First Century Catalonia” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Kathryn Woolard is Professor Emerita and Research Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She has authored seminal works on language ideology and the sociolinguistic s...
ListenKaren Neander, “A Mark of the Mental: In Defense of Informational Teleosemantics” (MIT Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The two biggest problems of understanding the mind are consciousness and intentionality. The first doesn’t require introduction. The latter is the problem of how we can have thoughts and perception...
ListenMario Luis Small, “Someone to Talk To” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Who do people turn to when they want to talk about serious issues in their life? Do they end up confiding in people they list as confidants? In his new book, Someone to Talk To (Oxford University P...
ListenSarah Rivett, “Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Unscripted America: Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation (Oxford University Press, 2017), Princeton University English Associate Professor Sarah Rivett studies how colonists...
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...
ListenStephanie Brookes, “Politics, Media and Campaign Language: Australia’s Identity Anxiety” (Anthem Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In her new book, Politics, Media and Campaign Language: Australia’s Identity Anxiety (Anthem Press, 2017), Stephanie Brookes, a Lecturer in Journalism at Monash University, explores the power of el...
ListenMichael Flier and Andrea Graziosi, eds. “The Battle for Ukrainian: A Comparative Perspective” (Harvard UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Language is one of the complex systems facilitating communication; language is a system producing the inside and the outside of the individual’s awareness of self and other. However, language is al...
ListenKristian Petersen, “Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Language, and Scripture in the Han Kitab” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his monumental new book, Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Language, and Scripture in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017), Kristian Petersen, Assistant Professor of Religious St...
ListenBruce B. Lawrence, “The Koran in English: A Biography” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As the basis for a major world religion, the Qur’an is one of the most influential books of all time. But when it first appeared, the Qur’an was in Arabic. Most Muslims today are not native-Arabic ...
ListenAlessandro Duranti, “The Anthropology of Intentions: Language in a World of Others” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Alessandro Duranti is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at UCLA, where he served as Dean of Social Sciences from 2009-2016. In his book The Anthropology of Intentions: Language in a World of ...
ListenKarmen MacKendrick, “The Matter of Voice: Sensual Soundings” (Fordham UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Philosophers have long tried to silence the physical musicality of voice in favor of the purity of ideas without matter, souls without bodies. But voices resonate among bodies and texts; they are s...
ListenKees van Deemter, “Computational Models of Referring: A Study in Cognitive Science” (MIT Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sometimes we have to depend on philosophy to explain to us why something apparently simple is in fact extremely complicated. The way we use referring expressions – things that pick out the entities...
ListenSarah Ruden, “The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible” (Pantheon, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this program, we talk to Sarah Ruden about her new book, The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible (Pantheon, 2017). Novelist J. M. Coetzee praised the book, saying, “If...
ListenLewis Glinert, “The Story of Hebrew” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For this episode, New Books in Jewish Studies interviews Lewis Glinert, Professor of Hebrew Studies at Dartmouth College, where he is also affiliated with the Program in Linguistics. His book, The...
ListenAudrey Truschke, “Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Contemporary scholarship on the Mughal empire has generally ignored the role Sanskrit played in imperial political and literary projects. However, in Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal C...
ListenTelesphore Ngarambe, “Practical Challenges in Customary Law Translation: The Case of Rwanda’s Gacaca Law” (OSSREA, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The unprecedented crime of the 1994 Rwandan genocide demanded an unconventional legal response. After failed attempts by the international legal system to efficiently handle legal cases stemming fr...
ListenDovid Katz, “Yiddish and Power” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As described by Dovid Katz, Yiddish is an extraordinarily multifaceted language: a language that is at once acclaimed as sacred and dismissed as deficient, profoundly connected to centuries of reli...
ListenMatthew Pauly, “Breaking the Tongue: Language, Education, and Power in Soviet Ukraine, 1923-1934” (U. of Toronto Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Matthew Pauly’s Breaking the Tongue: Language, Education, and Power in Soviet Ukraine, 1923-1934 (University of Toronto Press, 2014) offers a detailed investigation of the language policy–officiall...
ListenJennifer Glaser, “Borrowed Voices: Writing and Racial Ventriloquism in the Jewish American Imagination” (Rutgers UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Borrowed Voices: Writing and Racial Ventriloquism in the Jewish American Imagination (Rutgers University Press, 2016), Jennifer Glaser, Associate Professor of English and comparative literature ...
ListenSali Tagliamonte, “Teen Talk: The Language of Adolescents” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Teenagers get a lot of bad press. Whether it’s how they look, how they dress, the things they say, the way they say it – it sometimes seems as if they can’t get anything right. And when it comes to...
ListenEllen Mayock, “Gender Shrapnel in the Academic Workplace” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Recent controversies surrounding sexual harassment and assault on college campuses have sparked heated discussions surrounding the everyday experiences of women on college campuses. Female students...
ListenIngrid Piller, “Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
According to the blurb, Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics (Oxford University Press, 2016) “explores the ways in which linguistic diversity mediate...
ListenSimon Critchley, “ABC of Impossibility” (Univocal Publishing, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
From its opening fragment on “Fragments” to its “Possibly dolorous tropical lyrical coda,” Simon Critchley‘s new book is a pleasure to hold in the hand and the mind. ABC of Impossibility (Univocal...
ListenPrakash Mondal, “Language, Mind and Computation” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
My instinct as a researcher is usually to shy away from confrontation about foundational issues in the philosophy of language, which is probably why I do what I do (that is to say, from a generativ...
ListenAviya Kushner, “The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible” (Spiegel and Grau, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Aviya Kushner grew up in a Hebrew-speaking family, reading the Bible in the original Hebrew and debating its meaning over the dinner table. She knew much of it by heart–and was later surprised when...
ListenKenneth L. Marcus, “The Definition of Anti-Semitism” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press, 2015), Kenneth L. Marcus, the President and General Counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, explains what it...
ListenGeoffrey Sampson, “Writing Systems” (Equinox, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s not always been clear how the study of written language fits into linguistics. As a relatively recent historical development, it’s tempting to see it as a sideshow in terms of questions about ...
ListenKate Pahl, “Materializing Literacies in Communities: The Uses of Literacy Revisited” (Bloomsbury, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Literary practices are often associated with specific social groups in particular social settings. Kate Pahl‘s Materializing Literacies in Communities: The Uses of Literacy Revisited (Bloomsbury, 2...
ListenLiora R. Halperin, “Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920-1948” (Yale UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920-1948 (Yale University Press, 2015), Liora R. Halperin, an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Pro...
ListenChad Engelland, “Ostension: Word Learning and the Embodied Mind” (MIT Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How do we learn our first words? What is it that makes the linguistic intentions of others manifest to us, when our eyes follow a pointing finger to an object and associate that object with a word?...
ListenJames Turner, “Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities” (Princeton University Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
James Turner is Cavanaugh Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, at Notre Dame University. His book Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities (Princeton University Press, 2014) recovers...
ListenCatharine Abell, "Fiction: A Philosophical Analysis" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Fiction: A Philosophical Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2020), Catharine Abell draws our attention to the character of Emma Woodhouse. She is handsome, clever, and rich. Or, at least, that's...
ListenAsya Pereltsvaig and Martin Lewis, “The Indo-European Controversy: Facts and Fallacies in Historical Linguistics” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Who were the Indo-Europeans? Were they all-conquering heroes? Aggressive patriarchal Kurgan horsemen, sweeping aside the peaceful civilizations of Old Europe? Weed-smoking drug dealers rolling acro...
ListenLeigh Thompson, "Negotiating the Sweet Spot: The Art of Leaving Nothing on the Table" (HarperCollins, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Leigh Thompson is a Professor of Dispute Resolution and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. An acclaimed researcher, author, and speaker, she has developed s...
ListenColin McGinn, “Philosophy of Language: the Classics Explained” (MIT Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I must admit that my relationship to philosophy of language is a bit like my relationship to classic literature: I tend to admire it from afar, and rely on the opinions of people who have read it. ...
ListenJ. S. Sutton and M. L. Mifsud, "A Revolution in Tropes: Alloiostrophic Rhetoric" (Lexington Books, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Aristotle, the co-called father of rhetoric, supposedly conceptualized his theory of persuasion as a means of bringing meaning to rest. But what if there’s another story, one in which forgotten tro...
ListenNaomi S. Baron, “Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Screens are ubiquitous. From the screen on a mobile, to that on a tablet, or laptop, or desktop computer, screens appear all around us, full of content both visual and text. But it is not necessari...
ListenMarco Ferrante, "Indian Perspectives on Consciousness, Language and Self" (Routledge, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For many Indian philosophers, language is inextricably tied up with conceptualization. In Indian Perspectives on Consciousness, Language and Self (Routledge, 2020), Marco Ferrante shows how a set o...
ListenJason Stanley, “How Propaganda Works” (Princeton UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Propaganda names a familiar collection of phenomena, and examples of propaganda are easy to identify, especially when one examines the output of totalitarian states. In those cases, language and im...
ListenPieter Seuren, “From Whorf to Montague: Explorations in the Theory of Language” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A colleague once told me that people in linguistics could be divided into two groups: sheep and snipers. I’m not sure whether this is a proper dichotomy – it’s certainly not quite canonical – but w...
ListenSeana Shiffrin, “Speech Matters: On Lying, Morality, and the Law” (Princeton UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It is generally accepted that lying is morally prohibited. But theorists divide over the nature of lying’s wrongness, and thus there is disagreement over when the prohibition might be outweighed by...
ListenTerence Cuneo, “Speech and Morality: On the Metaethical Implications of Speaking” (Oxford, from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It is widely accepted that in uttering sentences we sometimes perform distinctive kinds of acts. We declare, assert, challenge, question, corroborate by means of speech; sometimes we also use speec...
ListenDaniel Cloud, “The Domestication of Language” (Columbia UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the most puzzling things about humans is their ability to manipulate symbols and create artifacts. Our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom–apes–have only the rudiments of these abilities...
ListenThom Scott-Phillips, “Speaking Our Minds” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I hope I’m not being species-centric when I say that the emergence of human language is a big deal. John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary rate it as one of the “major transitions in evolution”, pla...
ListenAnne Curzan, “Fixing English: Prescriptivism and Language History” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Language change is like a river. When people tell you how to use language, and how not to use it, they’re attempting to build a dam that will put a stop to linguistic change. But all such efforts a...
ListenRuth Finnegan, “Communicating: the Multiple Modes of Human Communication” (Routledge, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The name of the New Books in Language channel might hint at a disciplinary bias towards “language”. So in some sense Ruth Finnegan‘s Communicating: the Multiple Modes of Human Communication (2nd ed...
ListenJulia Sallabank, “Attitudes to Endangered Languages: Identities and Policies” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As linguists, we’re wont to get protective about languages, whether we see them as data points in a typological analysis or a mass of different ways of seeing the world. Given a free choice, we’d a...
ListenJohn H. McWhorter, “The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The idea that the language we speak influences the way we think – sometimes referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – has had an interesting history. It’s particularly associated with the idea th...
ListenIan Haney Lopez, “Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Ian Haney Lopez is the author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (Oxford UP 2014). He is the John H. Boalt Professor of Law at the...
ListenPeter Gardenfors, “The Geometry of Meaning: Semantics Based on Conceptual Spaces” (MIT Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A conceptual space sounds like a rather nebulous thing, and basing a semantics on conceptual spaces sounds similarly nebulous. In The Geometry of Meaning: Semantics Based on Conceptual Spaces (MIT ...
ListenDavid Adger, “A Syntax of Substance” (MIT Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Nouns are the bread and butter of linguistic analysis, and it’s easy not to reflect too hard on what they actually are and how they work. In A Syntax of Substance (MIT Press, 2013), David Adger tac...
ListenVershawn Young et al., “Other People’s English” (Teacher’s College Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In linguistics, we all happily and glibly affirm that there is no “better” or “worse” among languages (or dialects, or varieties), although we freely admit that people have irrational prejudices ab...
ListenAneta Pavlenko, “The Bilingual Mind And What It Tells Us about Language and Thought” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Big ideas about language often ignore, or abstract away from, the individual’s capacity to learn more than one language. In a world where the majority of human beings are bilingual, is this kind of...
ListenAndrea Bachner, “Beyond Sinology: Chinese Writing and the Scripts of Culture” (Columbia UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Andrea Bachner‘s wonderfully interdisciplinary new book explores the many worlds and media through which the Chinese script has been imagined, represented, and transformed. Spanning literature, fil...
ListenAlistair Knott, “Sensorimotor Cognition and Natural Language Syntax” (MIT Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When big claims are made about neurolinguistics, there often seems to be a subtext that the latest findings will render traditional linguistics obsolete. These claims are often met with appropriate...
ListenDavid Bleich, “The Materiality of Language: Gender, Politics and the University” (Indiana UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
David Bleich‘s book The Materiality of Language: Gender, Politics and the University (Indiana University Press, 2013) is described as a wide-ranging critique of academic practice, which is almost a...
ListenRodney H. Jones, “Health and Risk Communication: An Applied Linguistic Perspective” (Routledge, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Scientists – and I claim to include myself in this category – sometimes seem to be disparaging about the ability of people in general to understand and act upon quantitative data, such as informati...
ListenMikhail Kissine, “From Utterances to Speech Acts” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The recognition of speech acts – classically, things like stating, requesting, promising, and so on – sometimes seems like a curiously neglected topic in the psychology of language. This is odd for...
ListenJody Azzouni, “Semantic Perception: How the Illusion of a Common Language Arises and Persists” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A common philosophical picture of language proposes to begin with the various kinds of communicative acts individuals perform by means of language. This view has it that communication proceeds lar...
ListenAnne Cutler, “Native Listening: Language Experience and the Recognition of Spoken Words” (MIT Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the risks of a telephone interview is that the sound quality can be less than ideal, and sometimes there’s no way around this and we just have to try to press on with it. Under those conditi...
ListenPatrick Hanks, “Lexical Analysis: Norms and Exploitations” (MIT Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s tempting to think that lexicography can go on, untroubled by the concerns of theoretical linguistics, while the rest of us plunge into round after round of bloody internecine strife. For bette...
ListenStephen Crain, “The Emergence of Meaning” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s not surprising that human language reflects and respects logical relations – logic, in some sense, ‘works’. For linguists, this represents a potentially interesting avenue of approach to the m...
ListenJohn E. Joseph, “Saussure” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Pretty much everyone who’s done a linguistics course has come across the name of Ferdinand de Saussure – a name that’s attached to such fundamentals as the distinction between synchrony and diachro...
ListenPerry Link, “An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics” (Harvard UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Rhythm, metaphor, politics: these three features of language simultaneously enable us to communicate with each other and go largely unnoticed in the course of that communication. In An Anatomy of C...
ListenJonathan Bobaljik, “Universals of Comparative Morphology” (MIT Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Morphology is sometimes painted as the ‘here be dragons’ of the linguistic map: a baffling domain of idiosyncrasies and irregularities, in which Heath Robinson contraptions abound and anything goes...
ListenStephen E. Nadeau, “The Neural Architecture of Grammar” (MIT Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Although there seems to be a trend towards linguistic theories getting more cognitively or neurally plausible, there doesn’t seem to be an imminent prospect of a reconciliation between linguistics ...
ListenStanley Dubinsky and Chris Holcomb, “Understanding Language Through Humor” (Cambridge UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A problem with doing linguistics is that once you start, it’s kind of inescapable – you see it everywhere. At some point a few months back, I was watching a DVD of a comedy series and came to the c...
ListenElly van Gelderen, “The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In language, as in life, history is constantly repeating itself. In her book The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty (Oxford University Press, 2011), Elly van Gelderen tackle...
ListenWillem J. M. Levelt, “A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The only disappointment with A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era (Oxford UP, 2012) is that, as the subtitle says, the story it tells stops at the cognitive revolution, before Pim ...
ListenNick J. Enfield, “The Anatomy of Meaning: Speech, Gesture, and Composite Utterances” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Linguists are apt to get excited when a language is identified that exhibits exotic properties, and gladly travel halfway round the world to document it, particularly if they think it’s going to su...
ListenJames R. Hurford, “The Origins of Grammar (Language in the Light of Evolution, Vol. 2)” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Building upon The Origins of Meaning (see previous interview), James R. Hurford‘s The Origins of Grammar (Language in the Light of Evolution, Vol. 2) (Oxford University Press, 2012) second volume s...
ListenJames R. Hurford, “The Origins of Meaning (Language in Light of Evolution, Vol. 1)” (Oxford UP, 2007) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Evolutionary approaches to linguistics have notoriously had a rather chequered history, being associated with vague and unfalsifiable claims about the motivations for the origins of language. It se...
ListenTony Veale, “Exploding the Creativity Myth: The Computational Foundations of Linguistic Creativity” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In these days of increasing automation, the prospect of obsolescence is an alarming one for those of us who make a living by stringing words together instead of doing something demonstrably useful....
ListenPeter Trudgill, “Sociolinguistic Typology: Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you had to bet your life on learning a language in three months, which language would you choose? Peter Trudgill’s first choice wouldn’t be Faroese or Polish; and in his book, Sociolinguistic Ty...
ListenAvner Baz, “When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy” (Harvard University Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In When Words Are Called For: A Defense of Ordinary Language Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 2012), Avner Baz sets out to make a case for the reconsideration of Ordinary Language Philosophy, ...
ListenJoshua Miller, “Accented America: The Cultural Politics of Multilingual Modernism” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Recent political debates around language have often been controversial, sometimes poorly informed, and usually unedifying. It’s striking to consider that such debates have, at least in the USA, bee...
ListenSherry Simon, “Cities in Translation: Intersections of Language and Memory” (Routledge, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The idea that bilingualism can be enriching and beneficial for an individual is a popular one. But what about for a city? Here the associations are less positive, particularly if we automatically t...
ListenBart Geurts, “Quantity Implicatures” (Cambridge UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s now well over 100 years since John Stuart Mill noted that, if I say “I saw some of your children today”, you get the impression that I didn’t see all of them. This idea – that what we don’t sa...
ListenSam Leith, “Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama” (Basic Books, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What’s the connection between Sarah Palin and Plato? The response that leaps to mind is that they’ve both never heard of one another. But another similarity is their scepticism about high-flown rhe...
ListenAlexander Maxwell, “Choosing Slovakia: Slavic Hungary, the Czechoslovak Language, and Accidental Nationalism” (Tauris Academic Studies, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On 1 January 1993 Slovakia became an independent nation. According to conventional Slovak nationalist history that event was the culmination of a roughly thousand year struggle. Alexander Maxwell a...
ListenAlexander Clark and Shalom Lappin, “Linguistic Nativism and the Poverty of the Stimulus” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In linguistics, if a book is ever described as a “must read for X”, it generally means that (i) it is trenchantly opposed to whatever X does and (ii) X will completely ignore it. Alexander Clark an...
ListenMargaret Thomas, “Fifty Key Thinkers on Language and Linguistics” (Routledge, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the preface to Fifty Key Thinkers on Language and Linguistics (Routledge, 2011), devoted to short but attentively researched biographical sketches of major figures in the language sciences, Marg...
ListenTore Janson, “The History of Languages: An Introduction” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s a sobering thought that, but for the spread of English, I wouldn’t be able to do these interviews. In particular, I don’t speak Swedish, and I’m not going to try to speak Latin to a world exp...
ListenJeanne Fahnestock, “Rhetorical Style: The Uses of Language in Persuasion” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A thing I enjoy about this job is being encouraged to read books that unexpectedly turn out to be profoundly relevant to my own interests. Jeanne Fahnestock‘s new book, Rhetorical Style: The Uses o...
ListenRobert F. Barsky and Noam Chomsky, “Zellig Harris: From American Linguistics to Socialist Zionism” (MIT Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Zellig Harris’s name is famous in linguistics primarily for his early work on transformational grammar and his influence on his most famous student, Noam Chomsky. However, much of his linguistic wo...
ListenJulie Sedivy and Greg Carlson, “Sold on Language: How Advertisers Talk to You and What This Says About You” (Wiley, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’ve never been in a more crowded marketplace, with more corporations shouting for our attention and custom. Yet this choice is an illusion, as detailed in Sold on Language: How Advertisers Talk t...
ListenTheo van Leeuwen, “The Language of Colour: An Introduction” (Routledge, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Theo van Leeuwen comes to the academic discipline of social semiotics – the study of how meanings are conveyed – from his previous career as a film and TV producer. His interest in the makings of v...
ListenJonathan Green, “Green’s Dictionary of Slang” (Hodder Education, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Over the last thirty years, Jonathon Green has established himself as a major figure in lexicography, specialising in English slang. During this time he has accumulated a database of over half a mi...
ListenKeith Gilyard, “True to the Language Game: African American Discourse, Cultural Politics, and Pedagogy” (Routledge, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the preface to this book, Keith Gilyard describes his career as 30 years of roaming the areas of rhetoric, composition, sociolinguistics, creative writing, applied linguistics, education theory,...
ListenDebra Aarons, “Jokes and the Linguistic Mind” (Routledge, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I favour any book that applies the logic of Wittgenstein to quotes from the Goon Show. (Often in linguistics the reverse is true.) So I was delighted to have the opportunity to talk to Debra Aarons...
ListenNeil Smith, et al., “The Signs of a Savant: Language Against the Odds” (Cambridge UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
“Every once in a while Nature gives us insight into the human condition by providing us with a unique case whose special properties illumine the species as a whole. Christopher is such an example.”...
ListenPeter Ludlow, “The Philosophy of Generative Linguistics” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The human capacity for language is always cited as the or one of the cognitive capacities we have that separates us from non-human animals. And linguistics, at its most basic level, is the study of...
ListenRon Christie, “Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur” (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his new bookActing White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010), former White House aide Ron Christie recounts the history of the pejorative term “acting white.” He tra...
ListenAdam Hodges, “The ‘War on Terror’ Narrative” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Many entries in our lexicon have an interesting history, but it’s very seldom the case that the currency of a phrase has global repercussions. In his book The ‘War on Terror’ Narrative (Oxford Univ...
ListenDavid Crystal, “Just a Phrase I’m Going Through: My Life in Language” (Routledge, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In an enormously prolific writing and editing career, David Crystal has excelled in supplying volumes hitherto missing from the field: here a balanced and accessible introduction to general linguis...
ListenRobert Lane Greene, “You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity” (Delacorte Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Isn’t it odd how the golden age of correct language always seems to be around the time that its speaker was in high school, and that language has been going to the dogs ever since? Such is the angu...
ListenCoulter George, "How Dead Languages Work" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
After reading How Dead Languages Work (Oxford University Press 2020), Coulter George hopes you might decide to learn a bit of ancient Greek or Sanskrit, or maybe dabble in a bit of Old Germanic. Bu...
ListenGregory Forth, "A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path: Animal Metaphors in an Eastern Indonesian Society" (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Gregory Forth, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Alberta and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has studied the Nage people of the eastern Indonesian island of Flores for ...
ListenChris Heffer, "All Bullshit and Lies?: Insincerity, Irresponsibility, and the Judgment of Untruthfulness" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The implied answer to the titular question of All Bullshit and Lies? (Oxford University Press 2020) is no, it’s not. In this book, subtitled Insincerity, Irresponsibility, and the Judgment of Untru...
ListenEQ Spotlight Special: Roundtable on the 2020 Presidential Race from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What are we to make of the year’s first presidential debate? Listen in as John R. Hibbing, Jonathan Weiler and I discuss this question and others surrounding the 2020 presidential race. Hibbing is ...
ListenSarah Shulist, "Transforming Indigenity: Urbanization and Language Revitalization in the Brazilian Amazon" (U Toronto Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Transforming Indigenity: Urbanization and Language Revitalization in the Brazilian Amazon (University of Toronto Press) examines the role that language revitalization efforts play in cultural polit...
ListenKatherine Kinzler, "How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do - And What It Says About You" (HMH, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We gravitate toward people like us; it's human nature. Race, class, and gender shape our social identities, and thus who we perceive as "like us" or "not like us". But one overlooked factor can be ...
ListenB. Cope and M. Kalantzis, "Making Sense: Reference, Agency, and Structure in a Grammar of Multimodal Meaning" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What do all these have in common: Disneyland and the Dreamtime, the shopping mall and the planned economy, Chomsky's Syntactic Structures and Halliday's Functional Grammar, Unicode and door handles...
ListenMarco Puleri, "Ukrainian, Russophone, (Other) Russian: Hybrid Identities and Narratives in Post-Soviet Culture and Politics" (Peter Lang, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Marco Puleri’s Ukrainian, Russophone, (Other) Russian: Hybrid Identities and Narratives in Post-Soviet Culture and Politics (Peter Lang, 2020) examines a complex process of identity formation in th...
ListenAlessandro Graheli, "The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Philosophy of Language" (Bloomsbury, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
he Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Philosophy of Language (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) spans over two thousand years of inquiry into language in the Indian subcontinent. Edited by Alessandro ...
ListenBeata Stawarska, "Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology: 'The Course in General Linguistics' after a Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology: The Course in General Linguistics after a Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Beata Stawarska guides us to consider Ferdinand de Saussur...
ListenAllison L. Rowland, "Zoetropes and the Politics of Humanhood" (Ohio State UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The way that we talk about living beings can raise or lower their perceived value. On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (s/t) interviews Dr. Allison L. Rowland (s) about zoetrop...
ListenNate Marshall, "Finna: Poems" (One World, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Finna: Poems (One World), his new collection of poetry, Nate Marshall examines the way that pop culture influences Black vernacular, the role of storytelling, family, and place. Marshall defines...
ListenDavid Tavárez, "Words and Worlds Turned Around: Indigenous Christianities in Colonial Latin America" (U Colorado Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Professor David Tavárez’s edited volume, Words & Worlds Turned Around: Indigenous Christianities in Colonial Latin America (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2017), is a collection of eleven e...
ListenLinda Goddard, "Savage Tales: The Writings of Paul Gauguin" (Yale UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Savage Tales: The Writings of Paul Gauguin (Yale University Press, 2019), Linda Goddard investigates the role that Paul Gauguin’s writings played in his artistic practice and in his negotiation ...
ListenPritipuspa Mishra, "Language and the Making of Modern India: Nationalism and the Vernacular in Colonial Odisha, 1803-1953" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The province of Odisha, previously “Orissa,” was the first linguistically organized province of India. In Language and the Making of Modern India: Nationalism and the Vernacular in Colonial Odisha,...
ListenBo Mou, "Philosophy of Language, Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy" (Brill, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Contributors to?Philosophy of Language, Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, edited by Bo Mou, professor of philosophy at the San Jose State University, bring together work on the syntax and seman...
ListenJohannes Bronkhorst, "A ?abda Reader: Language in Classical Indian Thought" (Columbia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In A ?abda Reader: Language in Classical Indian Thought (Columbia University Press, 2019), Johannes Bronkhorst, emeritus professor at the University of Lausanne, makes the case through an extensive...
ListenBrian F. Harrison, "A Change is Gonna Come: How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The United States takes pride in its democratic model and the idea that citizens deliberate in a process to form political opinions. However, in recent years, division and partisanship have increas...
ListenMelissa K. Merry, "Warped Narratives: Distortion in the Framing of Gun Policy" (U Michigan Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If gun violence kills so many Americans, why don’t we see more effective solutions? How much does the way we frame an issue impact how we feel about it? How often are hot button issues deeply polar...
ListenGina Anne Tam, "Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860-1960" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The question of how a state decides what its official language is going to be, or indeed whether it even needs one, is never simple, and this may be particularly true of China which covers a contin...
ListenRuth Leys, "The Ascent of Affect: Genealogy and Critique" (University of Chicago Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews Dr. Ruth Leys (she/hers), Professor Emeritus of Johns Hopkins University, on The Ascent of Affect: Genealogy and Criti...
ListenJustin Tosi and Brandon Warmke, "Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
College courses in Ethics tend to focus on theories of the moral rightness or wrongness of actions. This emphasis sometimes obscures the fact that morality is a social project: part of what makes a...
ListenD. Conley and J. Eckstein, "Cookery: Food Rhetorics and Social Production" (U Alabama Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (s/t) interviews editors Donovan Conley and Justin Eckstein about their new book Cookery: Food Rhetorics and Social Production (University o...
ListenDavid R. Grimes, "The Irrational Ape: Why Flawed Logic Puts Us All at Risk, and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World" (Simon and Schuster, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What are some of the prevalent ways in which we lie to ourselves and limit our flexibility? Today I discussed this and other questions with David R. Grimes, the author of The Irrational Ape: Why F...
ListenLuke Winslow, "American Catastrophe: Fundamentalism, Climate Change, Gun Rights, and the Rhetoric of Donald J. Trump" (Ohio State UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee M Pierce (s/t) interviews Luke Winslow of Baylor University on the book Luke Winslow, American Catastrophe: Fundamentalism, Climate Change, Gun Rights,...
ListenJay Timothy Dolmage, "Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Construction of Race" (OSU Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (s/t) interviews Jay Timothy Dolmage of the University of Waterloo on the new book Disabled Upon Arrival: Eugenics, Immigration, and the Constru...
ListenShiu-Yin Sharon Yam, "Inconvenient Strangers: Transnational Subjects and the Politics of Citizenship" (Ohio State UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (s/t interviews Shiu-Yin Sharon Yam of University of Kentucky on the new book, Inconvenient Strangers: Transnational Subjects and the Politics o...
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...
ListenThomas A. Discenna, "Discourses of Denial: The Rhetoric of American Academic Labor" (Routledge, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (they/she) interviews Thomas A. Discenna of Oakland University about the myriad ways that the labor of those employed by universities is situate...
ListenJennifer Mercieca, "Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump" (Texas A&M UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Polarization, a disaffected and frustrated electorate, and widespread distrust of government, media, and traditional politicians set the stage in 2016 for an unprecedented presidential contest. For...
ListenDiana Senechal, "Mind over Memes: Passive Listening, Toxic Talk, and Other Modern Language Follies" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Mind over Memes: Passive Listening, Toxic Talk, and Other Modern Language Follies (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), Diana Senechal examines words, concepts, and phrases that demand reappraisal. Targ...
ListenJames M. Jasper, "Public Characters: The Politics of Reputation and Blame" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Did Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency in 2016 because he was a master of character work – able to sum up opponents in pithy epithets that encourage the public to see them as weak or immoral? Wha...
ListenE. Michele Ramsey, "Major Decisions: College, Career, and the Case for the Humanities" (U Penn Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews E. Michele Ramsey of PennState Berks on Major Decisions: College, Career, and the Case for the Humanities (University of P...
ListenJohn R. Gallagher, "Update Culture and the Afterlife of Writing" (Utah State UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode, Lee Pierce (she/they interviews John R. Gallagher of University of Illinois about Update Culture and the Afterlife of Digital Writing (Utah State University Press, 2020) a dynamic ...
ListenJ. Packer and E. Stoneman, "A Feeling of Wrongness: Pessimistic Rhetoric on the Fringes of Popular Culture" (Penn State UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode, Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews Joe Packer of Central Michigan University about A Feeling of Wrongness: Pessimistic Rhetoric on the Fringes of Popular Culture (Penn State UP, 2019...
ListenM. R. Michelson and B. F. Harrison, "Transforming Prejudice: Identity, Fear, and Transgender Rights" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Since the mid-1990s, there has been a seismic shift in attitudes toward gay and lesbian people, with a majority of Americans now supporting same-sex marriage and relations between same-sex, consent...
ListenAdam J. MacLeod, "The Age of Selfies: Reasoning About Rights When the Stakes Are Personal" (Rowland and Littlefield, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Incivility in our public discourse is limiting our ability to get things done as a nation and preventing us from expressing ourselves in workplaces and classrooms for fear of offending those with r...
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...
ListenChelsea McCracken, "A Grammar of Belep" (Walter de Gruyter, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Chelsea McCracken talks about her new book A Grammar of Belep (Walter de Gruyter, 2019). McCracken is Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at Dixie State University and Senior R...
ListenAmy Koerber, “From Hysteria to Hormones: A Rhetorical History" (Penn State UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of New Books in Language, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews Dr. Amy Koerber (she/hers), Professor at Texas Tech University, on the groundbreaking book From Hysteria to Hormones:...
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...
ListenAndrew Ollett, "Language of the Snakes" (U California Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Andrew Ollett, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, argues in his book, Language of the Snakes: (University of California Pre...
ListenDennis Baron, "What's Your Pronoun?: Beyond He and She" (Liveright, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Today Dennis Baron talks about his new book What's Your Pronoun?: Beyond He & She (Liveright, 2020). Baron is professor emeritus in English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has wr...
ListenElise Berman, "Talking Like Children: Language and the Production of Age in the Marshall Islands" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Since World War II, the fate of the Marshal Islands has been tied to the United States. The Marshalls were a site of military testing, host a US military base, and many Marshallese migrate to the U...
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...
ListenKate Lockwood Harris, "Beyond the Rapist: Title IX and Sexual Violence on US Campuses" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo--interviews Dr. Kate Lockwood Harris (s...
ListenDavid Adger, "Language Unlimited: The Science Behind Our Most Creative Power" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
David Adger is Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary University of London, where he is Head of the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film. He has served as President of the Linguistics Associat...
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...
ListenEleanor Gordon-Smith, "Stop Being Reasonable: How We Really Change Our Minds" (PublicAffairs, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
With today's furious political and cultural divisions, it's easy to shake our heads in exasperation at those who disagree with us. In this episode with Australian writer and philosopher, Eleanor Go...
ListenH. Suzanne Woods and L. A. Hahner, "Make America Meme Again: The Rhetoric of the Alt-Right" (Peter Lang, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo--interviews Heather Suzanne Woods (she/...
ListenTimothy J. Shaffer, "A Crisis of Civility? Political Discourse and its Discontents" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There are a lot of calls these days to “revive civility” in politics. While there are plenty of examples of uncivil behavior, there’s far less agreement about what civility should look like in 2019...
ListenCéline Carayon, "Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas" (UNC Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Taking a fresh look at the first two centuries of French colonialism in the Americas, Eloquence Embodied: Nonverbal Communication among French and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas (University of ...
ListenAlexandra D'Arcy, "Discourse-Pragmatic Variation in Context: Eight hundred years of LIKE" (John Benjamins, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Like is a ubiquitous feature of English with a deep history in the language, exhibiting regular and constrained variable grammars over time. Alexandra D'Arcy's book Discourse-Pragmatic Variation in...
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...
ListenPatricia Roberts-Miller, "Demagoguery and Democracy" (The Experiment, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When you think of the word “demagogue,” what comes to mind? Probably someone like Hitler or another bombastic leader, right? Patricia Roberts-Miller is a rhetoric scholar and has spent years tracin...
ListenDaniel Schwartz, "Ghetto: The History of a Word" (Harvard UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The word “ghetto” has taken on different meanings since its coinage in the 16th century. The uses of this term have varied considerably, from its original understanding as a compulsory Jewish quart...
ListenJonathan Rosa, "Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jonathan Rosa's new book Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad (Oxford University Press, 2019) examines the emergence of linguistic...
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...
ListenAndreas Bernard, "Theory of the Hashtag" (Polity, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his short book, Theory of the Hashtag (Polity, 2019), Andreas Bernard traces the origins and career of the hashtag. Following the history of the # sign through its origins in the Middle Ages and...
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...
ListenDon Kulick, "A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea" (Algonquin Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Called "perhaps the finest and most profound account of ethnographic fieldwork and discovery that has ever entered the anthropological literature" by the Wall Street Journal, A Death in the Rainfor...
ListenMalcolm Keating, "Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy" (Bloomsbury, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Philosophy of Language was a central concern in classical Indian Philosophy. Philosophers in the tradition discussed testimony, pragmatics, and the religious implications of language, among other ...
ListenJonathan G. Kline, "Keep Up Your Biblical Greek in 2 Minutes a Day" (Hendrickson, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The last few years have seen a proliferation of helps for those of us who struggle to consolidate and develop our knowledge of ancient languages. But here is one of the most helpful of these new re...
ListenAnne A. Cheng, "Ornamentalism" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo--Dr. Anne Cheng (she/hers)--Professor of English and Director of...
ListenSharon Kirsch, "Gertrude Stein and the Reinvention of Rhetoric" (U Alabama Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Dr. Sharon Kirsch (she/hers)--Associate Prof. of English and rhetorical studies in the New College at...
ListenRobert Lane Greene, “You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity” (Delacorte Press, 2011) from 2011-07-11T15:29:40
Isn’t it odd how the golden age of correct language always seems to be around the time that its speaker was in high school, and that language has been going to the dogs ever since? Such is the angu...
ListenRobert Lane Greene, “You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity” (Delacorte Press, 2011) from 2011-07-11T15:29:40
Isn’t it odd how the golden age of correct language always seems to be around the time that its speaker was in high school, and that language has been going to the dogs ever since? Such is the angu...
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