New Books in Caribbean Studies

By Marshall PoeSociety & Culture History

New Books in Caribbean Studies episodes

October 07 Valuing Nature at the Ends of the World: Natural Capital and Climate Disaster in Belize with Patrick M. Gallagher (Columbia UP, 2026)
Belize is often described as a “pristine” ecotourism destination with a landscape that is “naturally” valuable. Yet for much of the twentieth century, British Honduras—as the country was known under colonial rule—was seen as lacking value, an unprofitable backwater. Valuing Nature at the Ends of the World: Natural Capital and Climate Disaster in Belize (Columbia UP, 2026) explores how Belize’s precarious coastal environment has become a site for a new kind of capitalist value production, in which landscapes and ecosystems derive worth from their vulnerability or looming destruction in the era of climate change.
Drawing on a decade of ethnographic research, Dr. Patrick M. Gallagher offers a critical account of market-oriented conservation in the Caribbean that ranges across everyday coastal life, emergent ecological science, and climate policy spaces. He shows how the long material and social histories of racialized colonialism shape the making of technocratic tools for valuing nature. Gallagher traces how new forms of capitalist value emerge from the interaction among colonial pasts, contemporary conservation practices, and vivid scenarios of imminent climate change–driven disaster and loss. He also examines how people and policymakers in Belize imagine and create new ways of life in a changing environment. Ethnographically grounded and rich in theoretical insight, this book illuminates how the Anthropocene environment, newly visible and valuable at the moment of its presumed disappearance, came into being in Belize and around the world.
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.

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51 min
September 20 Pablo F. Gomez, "Bloody Numbers: The Early Atlantic Slave Trade and the Invention of Modern Corporeality" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
In my conversation with Professor Pablo F. Gómez about his new book, Bloody Numbers: The Early Atlantic Slave Trade and the Invention of Modern Corporeality, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2026.
Our conversation explored the unsettling relationship between slavery, the body, measurement, and knowledge. What does it mean to measure a human body within a system that has already reduced that person to a commodity? And what happens when numbers that appear neutral become entangled with violence, commerce and exploitation?
What stayed with me is the book’s invitation to think differently about numbers. Behind measurements of height, weight, health, disease and mortality were human beings whose lives could not be contained by the data recorded about them.
These questions are not only historical. We live in an increasingly quantified world, where bodies, health, productivity and risk are constantly measured and transformed into data.
So perhaps one question we should keep asking is: Who is doing the counting, why are they counting, and what happens to the people being counted?
I invite you to listen to our conversation and reflect with us on the histories behind the numbers we encounter today.

Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands.

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53 min
September 15 Catherine A John, "Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice (Duke University Press, 2026), Catherine A. John addresses the underbelly of spiritual resilience shaping a range of African diasporic institutions, traditions, and practices. John argues that repressed forms of indigenous African knowledge systems manifest in a myriad of culturally embodied ways in African diaspora spaces and places. From mermaid lore in rural Jamaica to hip-hop trance-induced dance in Los Angeles to the stories of two debaters-turned-social-media-influencers, John shows how the descendants of enslaved Africans express the signs and substance of their afroindigenous power through collective creativity. Drawing from scholars such as Vèvè Clark, Hortense Spillers, Dianne M. Stewart, and Sylvia Wynter, Afroindigenization exposes the cultural and spiritual ancestries that lie at the heart of modern Black identities and practices.
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46 min
September 10 Patrick Griffin, "The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World" (Yale UP, 2023)
David Gellman interviews Patrick Griffin on The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World
The Age of Atlantic Revolution was a defining moment in western history. Our understanding of rights, of what makes the individual an individual, of how to define a citizen versus a subject, of what states should or should not do, of how labor, politics, and trade would be organized, of the relationship between the church and the state, and of our attachment to the nation all derive from this period (c. 1750–1850).
Historian Patrick Griffin shows that the Age of Atlantic Revolution was rooted in how people in an interconnected world struggled through violence, liberation, and war to reimagine themselves and sovereignty. Tying together the revolutions, crises, and conflicts that undid British North America, transformed France, created Haiti, overturned Latin America, challenged Britain and Europe, vexed Ireland, and marginalized West Africa, Griffin tells a transnational tale of how empires became nations and how our world came into being.
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59 min
July 11 Cécile Bishop, "Forms of Blackness: Race and Visibility in the French-Speaking World" (Duke UP, 2026)
What does Blackness look like? In Forms of Blackness: Race and Visibility in the French-Speaking World (Duke University Press, 2026),
Cécile Bishop argues that this seemingly simple question has no
straightforward answer. Instead of treating race as something
immediately visible, she explores how Blackness emerges through the
interplay of perception, language, and history.
A central theme of the book is that visibility is never neutral.
Through examples ranging from photographs of the Liberation of Paris to
works of art such as Portrait of a Black Woman, Bishop shows that
Blackness cannot be reduced to what is seen. Instead, she introduces the
idea of Blackness as form, emphasizing the importance of representation, opacity, and aesthetic experience.
Engaging with thinkers such as Édouard Glissant and Frantz Fanon,
Bishop invites readers to rethink the assumption that seeing is the same
as knowing. Forms of Blackness offers a thoughtful and original account of how race is shaped not simply by appearance, but by the ways we learn to see.
Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an
Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of
religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African
diasporic communities in the Netherlands.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/caribbean-studies

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50 min
June 25 Michelle Chase and Isabella Cosse eds., "The Cuban Revolution and the New Left: Transnational Histories of Gender, Sexuality, and Family" (U Florida Press, 2026)
Understanding overlooked dimensions of the Cuban Revolution and its
impact on the global left in the 1960s and beyond. This volume, The Cuban Revolution and the New Left: Transnational Histories of Gender, Sexuality, and Family (University of Florida Press, 2026) reconsiders
revolutionary Cuba's global influence by shifting the focus from
high-level political leaders to perspectives traditionally sidelined,
offering new insights into how everyday lives, family dynamics, and
notions of gender and sexuality impacted revolutionary transformation.
Its expansive scope uncovers ties between Cuba and Latin America, the
United States, Africa, and Asia, examining the interplay of global
forces including new models of mass consumption, feminist and LGBTQ+
movements, and national liberation struggles. Chapters include analyses
of Chinese reinterpretations of a Cuban play, Angela Davis's influential
visits to the island, Cuba's complex relations with Black militants in
Angola, and a Mexican transgender and disability activist who reimagined
Che Guevara's legacy. They also present research on Cuba's solidarity
campaigns with Vietnam, foreign journalists who covered the revolution,
the role of consumption and fashion, and the lasting impact of the
revolution's refugee policies on exiled children and families from the
Southern Cone. Through its interdisciplinary sociocultural approach,
this volume challenges conventional top-down narratives by foregrounding
the interplay between grassroots actors and transnational affairs. It
is an essential resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested
in the multilayered stages of the Cuban Revolution and its continued
relationship with global politics and culture. A volume in the series Caribbean Crossroads: Race, Identity, and Freedom Struggles,
edited by Lillian Guerra, Devyn Spence Benson, April Mayes, and
Solsiree del Moral Publication of this work made possible by a
Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from
the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Contributors: Tanya Harmer | Emily Snyder | Felipe CesarCamilo Caro
Romero | Ailynn Torres Santana | Robert Franco | MichelleChase |
Isabella Cosse | Siwei Wang | Ximena Espeche | Sarah J. Seidman | Rafael
Cesar | Alexis Baldacci
Michelle Chase is an associate professor of history at Pace University.
Isabella Cosse is a professor of history at Universidad Nacional de
San Martín and researcher at Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones
Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET)
Katie L. Coldiron is a librarian and doctoral candidate in history at Florida International University.
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45 min
June 11 Don Thomas Deere, "The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space" (Duke UP, 2026)
In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026),
Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization
in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern
structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings
of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous,
African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control
and movement. Deere demonstrates
how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid
patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as
well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a
range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and
Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and
who is excluded—becomes an essential component
of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial
reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency
geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where
landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity.
Don
Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at
Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University
and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from
Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a
Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on
the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary
Continental Philosophy.
Morteza Hajizadeh is
a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New
Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory;
Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies;
18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.
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47 min
June 10 Justin F Jackson, "The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines" (UNC Press, 2025)
In 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, the US Army seemed minuscule and ill-equipped for global conflict. Yet over the next fifteen years, its soldiers defeated Spain and pacified nationalist insurgencies in both Cuba and the Philippines. Despite their lack of experience in colonial administration, American troops also ruled and transformed the daily lives of the 8 million people who inhabited these tropical islands.
How was this relatively small and inexperienced army able to wage wars in Cuba and the Philippines and occupy them? American soldiers depended on tens of thousands of Cubans and Filipinos, both for military operations and civil government. Whether compelled to labor for free or voluntarily working for wages, Cubans and Filipinos, suspended between civilian and soldier status, enabled the making of a new US overseas empire by interpreting, guiding, building, selling sex, and many other kinds of work for American troops. In The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines (UNC Press, 2025), Justin Jackson reveals how their labor forged the politics, economics, and culture of American colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines and left an enduring imprint on these islands and the US Army itself. Jackson offers new ways to understand the rise of American military might and how it influenced a globalizing imperial world.
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1 hr 16 min
June 09 Tania Sengupta and Stuart King eds., "Reclaiming Colonial Architecture" (Routledge, 2024)
Reclaiming Colonial Architecture (Routledge, 2024) explores the built inheritance of colonialism and considers how architects, heritage practitioners, students, communities, and activists might narrate, care for, transform, or challenge them today. Awarded the SAHGB’s Colvin Medal in 2025, the book draws on a variety of authors to combine historical context with thematically organised case studies across urban and architectural scales.
This interview was conducted by Matthew Wells, Senior Lecturer in Architectural History at the University of Manchester. His research explores nineteenth-century European architecture, focusing on artistic techniques, technology, and political economy. Wells is the author of Modelling the Metropolis: The Architectural Model in Victorian London (2023).
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53 min
May 26 Petal Kimberly Samuel, "The Quiet Zone: Caribbean Expressive Cultures and the Feminist Aesthetics of Disturbance" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
A serene beach. The classroom of an elite private school. The still nights in an upscale residential neighborhood. An acclaimed poet with a quiet, dignified mode of address. The sonic etiquette and experience of quiet is integral to each of these scenes. The Quiet Zone: Caribbean Expressive Cultures and the Feminist Aesthetics of Disturbance (Rutgers UP, 2026) examines what the emergence of quiet as an elite aesthetic, privilege, and entitlement means for minoritized people who are often narrated as loud, disruptive, and disturbing, sonically, visually, and otherwise. Taking the Caribbean and its diasporas as its key sites of study, the book explores what we can learn from efforts to transform the region into the quintessential site of quiet leisure, in part, through the enactment of regimes of sonic discipline and surveillance directed against its majority Black population. Analyzing the work of Afro-Caribbean artists that catalog and critique sonic surveillance, the book questions the ways that quiet gets produced both as a regulatory ideal of racial, gender, sexual, national, and civilizational belonging and as a universal object of desire.
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1 hr 15 min

About New Books in Caribbean Studies

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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.