New Books in British Studies

By: Marshall Poe
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • Interviews with Scholars of Britain about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies
    New Books Network
    Show more Show less
Social Sciences World
Show more Show less
Episodes
  • Matthew McCormack, "Shoes and the Georgian Man" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

    Matthew McCormack, "Shoes and the Georgian Man" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
    Jan 24 2025
    Shoes are everyday objects but they are loaded with meaning. Shoes and the Georgian Man (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Matthew McCormack reveals how shoes played a powerful role in the wider story of shifts in gender relations in 18th-century Britain. It focuses on the relationship of shoes with the body and its movements, and therefore how what we wear on our feet relates closely to social, occupational and gender roles. It also uses footwear to explore topics such as politics, war, dance and disability. Thinking about shoes as material objects, Dr. McCormack studied historic shoes first-hand in museums, in order to ascertain their physical properties and what they would have been like to wear. Worn shoes preserve traces of the wearer's body in their indentations, stretches and scuffs, providing a unique primary source about their wearer. This approach forges new connections between the histories or material culture, gender and the body, and sheds new light on what it meant to be a man in the 18th century. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies
    Show more Show less
    39 mins
  • "Kazuo Ishiguro is Not Writing World Literature"

    "Kazuo Ishiguro is Not Writing World Literature"
    Jan 23 2025
    How has a writer known principally for his contained domestic novels come to represent the most dynamic elements of world literature? In Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2025), Chris Holmes expands our understanding of how world literature engages with the most pressing crises of the 20th and 21st centuries by examining Ishiguro's fascination with characters who are profoundly constrained in their ability to understand global systems to which they are subject. Rather than following the established pattern of so-called global novels, which crisscross the planet exhibiting a knowing cosmopolitanism, Ishiguro's fictional engagement with the world comes principally in the form of characters who are cut off from the global systems that abuse them. By examining the ways in which Ishiguro foregrounds the in-process thinking of those who fail to comprehend their place in the flow of politics, culture, and ideas, Holmes positions Ishiguro as the great chronicler of everyday lives, and as such, prepares a mode of reading world literature that questions the assumptions for how we live and think with others when each of us is deeply limited. Chris Holmes is Associate Professor and Chair of Literatures in English at Ithaca College. He is the host of the literary interview podcast, Burned by Books, and he is host and co-producer on Novel Dialogue, the podcast of the Society of Novel Studies, both of which are New Books Network partners. His most recent essays appear in NOVEL, MFS, Critique, and Public Books. Caroline Levine is David and Kathleen Ryan Professor of the Humanities at Cornell University. She is the author most recently of The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis, and Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies
    Show more Show less
    55 mins
  • Andy Wightman, "The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How They Got it" (Birlinn, 2025)

    Andy Wightman, "The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How They Got it" (Birlinn, 2025)
    Jan 22 2025
    Who owns Scotland? How did they get it? What happened to all the common land in Scotland? Has the Scottish Parliament made any difference? Can we get our common good land back? In this updated edition of The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How They Got it (Birlinn, 2024), Andy Wightman updates the statistics of landownership in Scotland and explores how and why landowners got their hands on the millions of acres of land that were once held in common. He tells the untold story of how Scotland's legal establishment and politicians managed to appropriate land through legal fixes. Have attempts to redistribute this power more equitably made any difference, and what are the full implications of the recent debt-fuelled housing bubble, the Smith Commission and the new Scottish Government's proposals on land reform? For all those with an interest in urban and rural land in Scotland, this updated edition of The Poor Had No Lawyers provides a fascinating analysis of one the most important political questions in Scotland. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies
    Show more Show less
    58 mins

What listeners say about New Books in British Studies

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available