-
May 16, 2024 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler
Today’s book is: At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans (Columbia UP, 2024), by Tessa Hill and Eric Simons, which takes readers beneath the waves and along the coasts, to explore how climate change and environmental degradation have spurred the most radical transformations in human history. The world’s oceans are changing at a drastic pace. In response, the people who know the ocean most intimately are taking action for the sake of our shared future.
-
Feb 1, 2024 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler
Today’s book is: Black Women, Ivory Tower: Revealing the Lies of White Supremacy in American Education (Broadleaf Books, 2024), by Dr. Jasmine L. Harris, which is an exploration of what it means to be a Black woman in higher education.
-
Jan 25, 2024 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler
How do the pressures of academia affect our relationships with ourselves, our work, and with substance use? Dr. Alicia Andrzejewski joins us for a candid conversation about her recent HuffPost article
on her struggle to get and stay sober.
Our guest is: Dr. Alicia Andrzejewski, who is an assistant professor in the department of English at William & Mary. She is a scholar of early modern literature and culture; queer, feminist, and critical race theory; and the medical humanities.
-
Jan 18, 2024 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler
Today’s book is: Black and Queer on Campus (NYU Press, 2023) by Michael P. Jeffries, which offers an inside look at what life is like for LGBTQ college students on campuses across the United States. Dr. Jeffries shows that Black and queer college students often struggle to find safe spaces and a sense of belonging when they arrive on campus.
-
Nov 30, 2023 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler
Why are college programs offered in some prisons? How are the students selected? Where do the professors come from? What are the logistics of preparing to teach, and to learn, behind the wall? How does the digital divide affect these students?
Today’s book is: Education Behind the Wall: Why and How We Teach College in Prison (Brandeis UP, 2022) edited by Mneesha Gellman, which is an edited volume reflecting on different aspects of teaching in prison and different points of view.
-
Nov 9, 2023 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler
Professor Ruchira Gupta joins us to share her young adult novel I Kick and I Fly (Scholastic, 2023), which was inspired by her experience making the Emmy-award winning documentary The Selling of Innocents. I Kick and I Fly is set on the outskirts of the Red Light District in Bihar, India, where fourteen year old Heera is living on borrowed time until her father sells her into the sex trade to help feed their family and repay his loans.
-
Oct 12, 2023 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler
Today’s book is Indigenous DC: Native Peoples and the Nation’s First Capital (Georgetown UP, 2023), by Dr. Elizabeth Rule, which is the first and fullest account of the suppressed history and continuing presence of Native Americans in Washington, DC. Washington, DC, is Indian land, but Indigenous peoples are often left out of the national narrative of the United States and erased in the capital city.
-
Sep 21, 2023 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler |Michelle Boyd
Today’s book isA Calm and Normal Heart: Stories (The Unnamed Press, 2022)by Chelsea T. Hicks. The heroes of A Calm and Normal Heart are modern-day adventurers—seeking out new places to call their own inside a nation to which they do not entirely belong. A member of the Osage tribe, Hicks’ stories are compelled by an overlooked diaspora happening inside America itself: that of young Native people.
-
Jun 15, 2023 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler |Susan Power |Morgan Talty |Richard Wagamese
Today’s book is: The Lost Journals of Sacajewea (Milkweed Editions, 2023), by Debra Magpie Earling, which is a devastatingly beautiful novel that challenges prevailing historical narratives of Sacajewea. Among the most memorialized women in American history, Sacajewea served as interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery.
-
Mar 2, 2023 | 
newbooksnetwork.com | Christina Gessler
Why do most of the institutions of higher education in the United States participate in a rankings system? What do the rankings do? And what does it mean when some schools refuse to participate in rankings? This episode explores:
How and why the ranking system got started. Who creates the ranking. Why the statics and data collected for it aren’t neutral or even necessarily accurate. What the rankings mean to prospective students, their families, and even alumni.
