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New Books in Sociology: Daily Summaries Delivered
by New Books Network
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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- 5 days ago33 min
A Social Contract Under Pressure: Protest Movements in France and Beyond
From student demonstrations in France to youth-led movements elsewhere in the world, growing unrest reflects mounting concerns about inequality, public services, and the future of younger generations. In this episode of International Horizons, John Torpey is joined by sociologists Jean Beaman and Ida Susser to examine the connections between France's student protests, the Yellow Vests, and broader movements challenging state violence and social exclusion. They discuss the changing nature of political solidarity and the growing struggle to defend the promises of the welfare state. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago1h 4m
¡Huelga!: Indigenous Farm Labor Organizing in Mexico with James Daria (U Arizona Press, 2026)
On March 17, 2015, tens of thousands of Mexican farmworkers went on strike in San Quintin, Baja California, to protest horrible working conditions on the farms that produce most of the fresh fruits and vegetables you consume. Calling themselves the "slaves of the twenty-first century," these mostly Indigenous men, women, and children rose up in defiance of the conditions of modern slavery, forced labor, sexual harassment, and "hunger wages." This ethnography provides an in-depth look into how Indigenous farmworkers organize in the fields and their communities to improve wages and working conditions.Since the strike, the farmworkers have organized a union to fight for justice in the fields. In this work, author James Daria accompanies these farmworkers as they struggle for dignity. Daria also charts the tensions inside the farmworker movement as women struggle to gain greater power in the home as well as at work. In an era of complex global integration, Daria shows us how what we eat is tied to the suffering of those who produce our food.¡Huelga!: Indigenous Farm Labor Organizing in Mexico (University of Arizona Press, 2026) highlights and centers the Indigenous workers who struggle for justice in a global food system that connects us all.James Daria is an assistant professor of anthropology and co-director of Food Studies at Spelman College. Dr. Daria is an anthropologist of labor, food, and migration.Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago53 min
Disability, Revolution with Robert McRuer (U California Press, 2026)
What revolutionary disability politics look like today, with lessons for larger liberatory movements. In recent political times, disability identity has been mobilized in ways that paradoxically compound bodily injury and disability. This single-issue approach obscures the oppression of disabled people and prevents solidarity across difference. In Disability, Revolution (U California Press, 2026), Robert McRuer introduces alternatives to "one-dimensional disability," providing an accessible overview of disability justice movements and their relevance to larger emancipatory coalitions. Exploring the most prominent examples from the past several decades, the book focuses on the convergence of queer and crip movements, mad pride, intersectional disability justice work, neurodiversity, and the globalization of disability alliances. Essential for anyone interested in disability politics, this book shows how these multivalent movements help us imagine alternative disabled worlds.Robert McRuer is a writer and speaker whose work is situated at the intersections of the interdisciplinary fields of disability studies and queer theory. His award-winning 2006 book Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability has been translated into three languages. He is a Professor of English at George Washington University, where he teaches queer theory, disability studies, and critical theory more generally.Clayton Jarrard is an interdisciplinary scholar and writer working at the nexus of queer and trans studies, disability and mad studies, and religious studies. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago49 min
The Last Human Job
Today’s book is: The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton UP, 2024), by Dr. Allison Pugh, which explores the human connections that underlie our work, arguing that what people do for each other is valuable and worth preserving. Drawing on in-depth interviews and observations with people in a broad range of professions—from physicians, teachers, and coaches to chaplains, therapists, caregivers, and hairdressers—Dr. Pugh develops the concept of “connective labor,” a kind of work that relies on empathy, the spontaneity of human contact, and a mutual recognition of each other’s humanity. The threats to connective labor are not only those posed by advances in AI or apps; Dr. Pugh demonstrates how profit-driven campaigns imposing industrial logic shrink the time for workers to connect, enforce new priorities of data and metrics, and introduce standardized practices that hinder our ability to truly see each other. She concludes with profiles of organizations where connective labor thrives, offering practical steps for building a social architecture that works. Vividly illustrating how connective labor enriches the lives of individuals and binds our communities together, The Last Human Job is a compelling argument for us to recognize, value, and protect humane work in an increasingly automated and disconnected world.Our guest is: Dr. Allison Pugh, who is Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and the 2024-25 Vice President of the American Sociological Association. She writes about how people forge connections and find meaning and dignity at work and at home. She is the author of The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity and Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture. Her writing has appeared in leading publications such as The New Yorker, the New York Times, and the New Republic.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.Playlist for listeners:Talking To StrangersMaking A Meaningful LifeHow to HumanArtificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the WorldMore Than A GlitchMeditation and the Academic LifeBelonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging DividesWelcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago46 min
Home Team Away: Watching European Football in Urban China with Yuan Gong (U Michigan Press, 2026)
Home Team Away: Watching European Football in Urban China (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Yuan Gong calls for a rethinking of sport fandom that is divorced from an attachment to location. As the first comprehensive account of the European football fandom in China, this book explores how the Chinese middle class subjectivity is formed through the cross-cultural, digital consumption of the Big Five leagues. Dr. Gong captures the embodied experiences of fans and fan clubs, fan discourses and activities unfolding on digital platforms on Weibo, Weixin, and Hupu, combining fieldwork in Shanghai and virtual ethnography. Dr. Gong argues that Chinese fans’ decisions to follow and engage with European football result from their material conditions, ideological contestation, and technology appropriation as a new demographic bloc arising during China’s transition to authoritarian digital capitalism. By engaging with their home teams away, the Chinese middle class fans perform as citizens with a global vision despite the resurgence of the nationalist and anti-Western sentiments.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago48 min
The Invisibility Of Religion In Contemporary Art with Jonathan A. Anderson and James Elkins
In this episode of the Books for Better Understanding series from Notre Dame Press, David Carlson hosts Jonathan A. Anderson and James Elkins for a discussion of Anderson's new book, The Invisibility Of Religion In Contemporary Art (U Notre Dame Press, 2025). Order your copy here Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 weeks ago43 min
American Amazigh: Remaking North African Indigeneity and Belonging in the Diaspora with Heide Castañeda (NYU Press, 2026)
American Amazigh: Remaking North African Indigeneity and Belonging in the Diaspora (NYU Press, 2026) by Dr. Heide Castañeda examines the complex identity negotiations of Amazigh people—also known as Berbers—as they build community and claim visibility in the American landscape. These distinct ethnic groups, whose histories predate the arrival of Arabs in North Africa, unsettle categories of race and ethnicity in the U.S., challenging dominant assumptions about what it means to be African, Indigenous, and Muslim. Their experiences also disrupt familiar immigration narratives, revealing the complexities and challenges of legal migration processes such as family reunification and the Diversity Immigrant Visa program.In seeking to make their struggles for recognition legible within the American context, Amazigh communities grapple with conditional belonging while also bearing the legacy of marginalization in their home countries, which is rooted in colonial divisions, postcolonial nationalism, and Arabization policies, fostering systemic discrimination. In the diaspora, Amazigh identity is being actively reshaped as individuals and organizations engage with new ideological frameworks, global Indigenous rights movements, and recent political gains in North Africa, where they have long fought for linguistic, cultural, and legal equality.The Indigenous perspective has been largely missing from the literature on migration. Drawing on four years of ethnographic research, and framed around the concept of diasporic indigeneity, the book explores how the Amazigh people forge new anchors of belonging and create spaces of social cohesion. By uncovering both the opportunities and challenges presented in the American context, the book moves beyond conventional migration narratives to illuminate how identity and belonging are continually translated and reconfigured within new places. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 2 weeks ago36 min
Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City with Elijah Anderson (Norton, 2026)
Inner-city black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence, but in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. This unwritten set of rules-based largely on an individual's ability to command respect-is a powerful and pervasive form of etiquette, governing the way in which people learn to negotiate public spaces. Elijah Anderson's incisive book Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (Norton, 2026) delineates the code and examines it as a response to the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, to the stigma of race, to rampant drug use, to alienation and lack of hope.Michael O. Johnston is Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. His research explores symbolic interaction, leisure, meaning, place, community, and the sociology of everyday life. He is the author of Smalltown Urban: Performing the City in Rural America (Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2027), The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (2023), and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest (2022). His forthcoming book examines how small towns create and perform moments of urbanity through festivals, public gatherings, and community life. Since joining the New Books Network in 2017, he has interviewed more than 100 authors across sociology and the social sciences, helping connect scholars and their work with a broad public audience. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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About New Books in Sociology
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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