Best Bristol University Press Podcasts (2025)

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Wang Yi, Hannah Nation ed., "Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement" (IVP Academic, 2022) 1:14:43

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11h ago1:14:43

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In this important body of theology, key writings from the Chinese house church movement have been compiled, translated, and made accessible to English speakers. The documents in Faithful Disobedience: Writings on Church and State from a Chinese House Church Movement (IVP Academic, 2022) give readers an inside look at how the unregistered churches o…

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Alex Vernon, "Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O'Brien" (St. Martin's Press, 2025) 52:16

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The first literary biography of Tim O'Brien, the preeminent American writer of the war in Vietnam and one of the best writers of his generation, drawing on never-before-seen materials and original interviews. "Vietnam made me a writer." —Tim O'Brien Featuring over one hundred interviews with family, friends, peers, and others—not to mention countle…

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Kevin Guyan, "Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 55:00

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Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion (Bloomsbury, 2025) by Dr. Kevin Guyan reveals how the fight for LGBTQ equalities in the UK is shaped – and constrained – by the classifications we encounter every day. Looking across six systems – the police and the recording of hate crimes; dating apps and digital desire; outn…

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John Bardes, "The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930" (UNC Press, 2024) 48:57

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The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930 (UNC Press, 2024) reveals that Americans often assume that slave societies had little use for prisons and police because slaveholders only ever inflicted violence directly or through overseers. Mustering tens of thousands of previously overlooked arrest and pr…

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A Queer Etymology of Punk 50:29

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In the fifth episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with British music critic Jon Savage about how LGBTQ resistance shaped American popular music from the 1950s to the 1980s. Savage discusses the curious and queer roots of the word punk stretching back to the time of Shakespeare when it was used to connote ambiguous and transgressiv…

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Jesse Browner, "Sing to Me" (Little Brown, 2025) 56:39

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Jesse Browner is the author of the novels Sing to Me (Little Brown, 2025) The Uncertain Hour and Everything Happens Today, among others, as well as of the memoir How Did I Get Here? He is also the translator of works by Jean Cocteau, Paul Eluard, Rainer Maria Rilke, Matthieu Ricard and other French literary masters. He lives in New York City. Recom…

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Brent Z. Kaup and Kelly F. Austin, "The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease" (U of California Press, 2025) 55:41

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The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Brent Z. Kaup & Dr. Kelly F. Austin is an exploration of how the rising power and profits of Wall Street underpin the contemporary increases in and inadequate responses to vector-borne disease. Over the past fifty years, insects have t…

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Foreign Aid and State Building in Interwar Romania 32:25

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In this episode of the CEU Review of Books Podcast I sat down with Dr Doina Anca Cretu to talk about her first book, Foreign Aid and State Building in Interwar Romania: In Quest of an Ideal, published by Stanford University Press. In the podcast we talk about Anca’s academic background, how she came to research foreign aid in Romania, any surprises…

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Didi Kuo, "The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't" (Oxford UP, 2025) 53:25

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As the crisis of democratic capitalism sweeps the globe, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't (Oxford University Press, 2025) makes the controversial argument that what democracies require most are stronger political parties that serve as intermediaries between citizens and governments. Once a centralizing force…

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Didi Kuo, "The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't" (Oxford UP, 2025) 55:10

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As the crisis of democratic capitalism sweeps the globe, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't (Oxford University Press, 2025) makes the controversial argument that what democracies require most are stronger political parties that serve as intermediaries between citizens and governments. Once a centralizing force…

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Sounds of the City Collapsing 49:30

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In the fourth episode of Soundscapes NYC, host Ryan Purcell and music historian Jesse Rifkin tour a constellation of seedy bars and venues in the 1970s that nurtured bands during the early days of punk rock. These spaces include well-known clubs like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City and lesser-known haunts like the Mercer Arts Center and Mother’s that s…

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Daanika Kamal, "Domestic Violence in Pakistan: The Legal Construction of 'Bad' and 'Mad' Women" (Oxford UP, 2025) 53:29

2d ago53:29

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Pakistani women are increasingly pursuing legal avenues against acts of domestic violence. Their claims, however, are often dismissed through character allegations that label them as 'bad' women in need of control, or 'mad' women not to be trusted. Domestic Violence in Pakistan: The Legal Construction of 'Bad' and 'Mad' Women (Oxford University Pre…

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Richard K. Payne and Glen A. Hayes eds., "The Oxford Handbook of Tantric Studies" (Oxford UP, 2024) 38:48

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Since the earliest encounters between tantric traditions and Western scholars of religion, tantra has posed a challenge. The representation of tantra, whether in Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Tibet, or Japan, has tended to emphasize the antinomian, decadent aspects, which, as attention-grabbing as they were for audiences in the West, created a one-dimensiona…

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The attack on democracy in the United States, and the new resistance 37:16

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The attack in democracy under President Donald Trump in the United States is both broader and deeper than you think. In this timely conversation with Carl LeVan, Professor and Chair of Politics, Governance, and Economics at American University – but speaking only in his personal capacity – we hear about the way that the government has attempted to …

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153: What Hannah Arendt Has to Teach Us about Anticipatory Despair (JP) 26:33

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John recently published “Lying in Politics: Hannah Arendt’s Antidote to Anticipatory Despair" in Public Books. It makes the case against anticipatory despair in the face of the Trump administration's relentless campaign of lies, half-lies, bluster, and bullshit by turning for inspiration to his favorite political philosopher, Hannah Arendt. Half a …

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S1.E3. How Punk Broke the Binary 1:08:15

2d ago1:08:15

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When singer Debbie Harry helped form Blondie in 1974 she developed a unique stage persona to front the band. Though she may have appeared to fans as a hyper-femme caricature, Harry recalls her role as androgynous or "transexual" in her 2019 memoir Face It. In the third episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with Cornell University p…

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Paul Tucker, "Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order" (Princeton UP, 2024) 49:48

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How to sustain an international system of cooperation in the midst of geopolitical struggle? Can the international economic and legal system survive today’s fractured geopolitics? Democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states that is entangling much of public policy with global security issues. In Global Discord: Values and P…

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Secrets of the Killing State 1:13:40

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In the popular imagination, lethal injection is a slight pinch and a swift nodding off to forever-sleep. It is performed by well-qualified medical professionals. It is regulated and carefully conducted. And it provides a “humane” death. In reality, however, not one of those things is true. Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal In…

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Bridging History, Policy and Place with Bruce Harvey 1:15:06

2d ago1:15:06

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Bruce Harvey is a historian and photographer based in Syracuse, NY, who works at the intersection of memory, place, and public history. As an independent consultant, he helps both public and private clients document historic sites--shaping how we remember, preserve, and sometimes say goodbye to the built environment. In this episode, Bruce reflects…

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Secrets of the Killing State 1:13:40

21h ago1:13:40

1:13:40

In the popular imagination, lethal injection is a slight pinch and a swift nodding off to forever-sleep. It is performed by well-qualified medical professionals. It is regulated and carefully conducted. And it provides a “humane” death. In reality, however, not one of those things is true. Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal In…

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Angela Katrina Lewis-Maddox, "Disrupting Political Science: Black Women Reimagining the Discipline" (SUNY Press, 2025) 55:04

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Political Scientist Angela K. Lewis-Maddox has pulled together an important and useful edited volume focusing on black women political scientists and their experiences in the discipline itself and in studying topics that include race and gender. Political Science, as a discipline, is a bit more than 100 years old, and studies politics, power, insti…

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Zev Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025) 46:54

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For centuries, scribes across East Asia used Chinese characters to write things down–even in languages based on very different foundations than Chinese. In southern China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, people used Chinese to read and write–and never thought it was odd. It was, after all, how things were done. Even today, Cantonese speakers use Chinese …

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The attack on democracy in the United States, and the new resistance 37:16

21h ago37:16

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The attack in democracy under President Donald Trump in the United States is both broader and deeper than you think. In this timely conversation with Carl LeVan, Professor and Chair of Politics, Governance, and Economics at American University – but speaking only in his personal capacity – we hear about the way that the government has attempted to …

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Michael Marmur, "Living The Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) 1:01:30

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Today, most Jewish thinkers have turned away from theology. And if they do, they look into one narrow window into the subject, writing a treatise into topics like the problem of evil or the nature of Jewish chosenness. Not so with today's guest, Michael Marmur. In his newest work, Living The Letters: An Alphabet of Emerging Jewish Thought (Palgrave…

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Michael Cook, "A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:19:02

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A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity (Princeton UP, 2024) by Michael A. Cook This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth cen…

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Sam Dalrymple, "Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia" (HarperCollins UK, 2025) 1:07:00

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As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the ‘Indian Empire’, or more simply as the Raj. It was the British Empire’s crown jewel, a vast dominion stretching from t…

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Timothy Stacey, "Saving Liberalism from Itself: The Spirit of Political Participation" (Bristol UP, 2022) 58:33

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Saving Liberalism from Itself: The Spirit of Political Participation Bristol UP, 2022) By Timothy Stacey In the wake of populism, Timothy Stacey’s book critically reflects on what is missing from the liberal project with the aim of saving liberalism. It explains that populists have harnessed myth, ritual, magic and tradition to advance their ambiti…

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S1.E2. Wayne County at the Trucks (1974) 51:29

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In the second episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with Tony Zanetta. In the late 1960s, Zanetta worked in Off-Off-Broadway theater and ultimately landed a role playing the Andy Warhol character in Pork, an absurdist play based on Warhol’s phone recordings. Zanetta followed the cast to London where he befriended David Bowie who su…

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Craig E. Bertolet and Susan Nakley eds., "The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer" (Routledge, 2024) 1:10:04

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The Routledge Companion to Global Chaucer (Routledge, 2024) offers 40 chapters by leading scholars working with contemporary, theoretical, and textual approaches to the poetry and prose of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340–1400) in a global context. This volume provides post-pandemic, twenty-first century readers a way to teach, learn, and write about Chau…