New Books with Miranda Melcher

Episódios Disponíveis

5 de 1036

Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich and Seth Denizen, "Thinking Through Soil: Wastewater Agriculture in the Mezquital Valley" (Harvard UP, 2025)
To think through soil is to engage with some of the most critical issues of our time. In addition to its agricultural role in feeding eight billion people, soil has become the primary agent of carbon storage in global climate models, and it is crucial for biodiversity, flood control, and freshwater resources. Perhaps no other material is asked to do so much for the human environment, and yet our basic conceptual model of what soil is and how it works remains surprisingly vague. In cities, soil occupies a blurry category whose boundaries are both empirically uncertain and politically contested. Soil functions as a nexus for environmental processes through which the planet’s most fundamental material transformations occur, but conjuring what it actually is serves as a useful exercise in reframing environmental thought, design thinking, and city and regional planning toward a healthier, more ethical, and more sustainable future. Through a sustained analysis of the world’s largest wastewater agricultural system, located in the Mexico City–Mezquital hydrological region, Thinking Through Soil: Wastewater Agriculture in the Mezquital Valley (Harvard UP, 2025) by Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich & Dr. Seth Denizen imagines what a better environmental future might look like in central Mexico. More broadly, this case study offers a new image of soil that captures its shifting identity, explains its profound importance to rural and urban life, and argues for its capacity to save our planet. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
1:01:53
--------
1:01:53
Rachel Jean-Baptiste, "Multiracial Identities in Colonial French Africa: Race, Childhood, and Citizenship" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Despite increasingly hardened visions of racial difference in colonial governance in French Africa after World War I, interracial sexual relationships persisted, resulting in the births of thousands of children. These children, mostly born to African women and European men, sparked significant debate in French society about the status of multiracial people, debates historians have termed 'the métis problem.' Drawing on extensive archival and oral history research in Gabon, Republic of Congo, Senegal, and France, in Multiracial Identities in Colonial French Africa: Race, Childhood, and Citizenship (Cambridge UP, 2023) Dr. Rachel Jean-Baptiste investigates the fluctuating identities of métis. Crucially, she centres claims by métis themselves to access French social and citizenship rights amidst the refusal by fathers to recognize their lineage, and in the context of changing African racial thought and practice. In this original history of race-making, belonging, and rights, Dr. Jean-Baptiste demonstrates the diverse ways in which métis individuals and collectives carved out visions of racial belonging as children and citizens in Africa, Europe, and internationally. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
56:43
--------
56:43
James Sears, "Queering Rehoboth Beach: Beyond the Boardwalk" (Temple UP, 2024)
“Create A More Positive Rehoboth” was a decades-long goal for progress and inclusiveness in a charming beach town in southern Delaware. Rehoboth, which was established in the 19th century as a Methodist Church meeting camp, has, over time, become a thriving mecca for the LGBTQ+ community. In Queering Rehoboth Beach: Beyond the Boardwalk (Temple UP, 2024), historian and educator Dr. James Sears charts this significant evolution. Dr. Sears draws upon extensive oral history accounts, archival material, and personal narratives to chronicle the "Battle for Rehoboth,” which unfolded in the late 20th century, as conservative town leaders and homeowners opposed progressive entrepreneurs and gay activists. He recounts not just the emergence of the gay and lesbian bars, dance clubs, and organizations that drew the queer community to the region, but also the efforts of local politicians and homeowners, among other groups who fought to develop and protect the traditional identity of this beach town. Moreover, issues of race, class, and gender and sexuality informed opinions as residents and visitors struggled with the AIDS crisis and the legacy of Jim Crow. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
56:04
--------
56:04
Sylvia D. Hoffert, "Wagging Tongues and Tittle Tattle: Gossip, Rumor, and Reputation in a Small Southern Town" (U Georgia Press, 2025)
In Wagging Tongues and Tittle Tattle: Gossip, Rumor, and Reputation in a Small Southern Town (University of Georgia Press, 2025), Dr. Sylvia Hoffert calls on a particularly rich collection of primary sources, including diaries, letters, oral histories, census data, court documents, church records, and psychiatric hospital logs, all relating to Hillsborough, North Carolina, to argue that gossip and rumor were central to the formation of interpersonal relationships and an integral part of small-town life in the antebellum South. They exposed the insecurities and anxieties of the town’s inhabitants. Indeed, they served as important weapons in the power struggle between the white slaveholding elite—who tried to exert, maintain, and consolidate their control over community life—and the Black, white, and mixed-race men and women, free and enslaved, who did their best to challenge the socioeconomic status quo. And they exposed fissures in the social fabric that discretion, good manners, and historical amnesia could not obscure. The result was that, on a day-to-day basis, the shady streets of Hillsborough may have seemed peaceful to the casual observer. But underneath all that tranquility, the town was ripe with competition and conflict as the inhabitants used gossip to negotiate relationships with their neighbors and make places for themselves in the social, economic, and political hierarchy of the community. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
46:21
--------
46:21
José Blanco F. and Raúl J. Vázquez-López, "Dress, Fashion, and National Identity in Puerto Rico: Taínos to Beauty Queens" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Analyzing dress, costume, and fashion in Puerto Rico, Dress, Fashion, and National Identity in Puerto Rico: Taínos to Beauty Queens (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. José Blanco F. & Raúl J. Vázquez-López utilizes case studies that explore national identity and nation formation as well as past and current practices in Puerto Rican visual culture.As the last Spanish-speaking colony with an ever-growing diaspora, Puerto Rico presents a unique opportunity to study national identity and nation formation through dress and fashion. In Dress, Fashion, and National Identity in Puerto Rico, José Blanco F. and Raúl J. Vázquez-López combine new material and previously published essays that review diverse aspects of visual culture in Puerto Rico.The book is divided into three sections that define and redefine the terms "dress", "costume", and "fashion" through case studies that include the resurgence of native Taíno imagery, the Young Lords' resistance through dress, the iconic Jíbaro peasants, festival and dance costumes, and the fashion of Puerto Rican Miss Universe contestants. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
--------
1:00:14
--------
1:00:14