New Books in Education

By Marshall PoeScience Social Sciences

New Books in Education episodes

August 29 Educating for an Uncertain Future in Interwar Poland
In the two decades between the First and Second World Wars, Jewish parents in Poland faced a proliferation of choices when it came to educating their children. Each choice offered a vision of what future Polish Jews desired, what they expected, and the gap between the two. State schools taught in Polish (sometimes with a schedule to accommodate traditional religious observance), secularist Yiddish schools with strong ties to Jewish socialism and the labor movement, Hebraist schools promoting political and cultural Zionism, and religious schools that retained--or innovated upon--traditionalist educational models reflected different opinions for what Jewish children in interwar Poland would need in the present to secure their future.
In this lecture, Elena Hoffenberg draws upon materials held by YIVO to explore how projections about the future in terms of work, culture, and politics guided parents, educational activists, and young people themselves. Choices as reflections of competing political and religious commitments, as well as material constraints, to better understand what Polish Jews expected for their individual and communal futures.
This lecture originally took place on March 2, 2026.
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57 min
August 29 Stefan Collini, "Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Stefan Collini
The
study and teaching of English literature is generally regarded as one
of the central disciplines in the modern university, yet for much of its
history it struggled to gain academic legitimacy and was frequently
derided as 'a soft option'. Its early professors responded by
emphasizing its scholarly character, foregrounding philology and
literary history in ways that marked the syllabus far into the twentieth
century.
Stefan Collini provides here the first full account of the
discipline's development from its late-eighteenth-century beginnings up
to the early 1960s. Paying special attention to institutional settings,
he challenges numerous assumptions about the character of universities
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the detailed
exploration of syllabuses, exam papers, and other institutional records,
the impact of literary criticism is revealed to be later and more
partial than is commonly assumed. Rather than seeing the early teaching
of English literature as 'a substitute for religion' or 'a means to
soften class conflict', Collini emphasizes the role of ideals of
learnedness and scholarship, as well as of external factors such as
opportunities for employment in the civil service and secondary
school-teaching. There are full discussions of the parts played by such
figures as John Churton Collins, A.C. Bradley, George Saintsbury, and
Walter Raleigh, together with sceptical analyses of the decisive
significance usually attributed to Matthew Arnold, T.S. Eliot, I.A.
Richards, and F.R. Leavis. Separate chapters are devoted to neglected
aspects of the story such as the role of Classics, the importance of the
subject for women's higher education, and the connections with English
teaching in schools.
Drawing on extensive use of institutional
archives and records as well as the writings of contemporary
participants, the book offers a vivid and wide-ranging history of
English-as-discipline and its centrality across academic, literary,
cultural, and educational life over the past two year hundred years, as
well as a resounding testament to its continued importance and relevance
today.
Stefan Collini, Professor Emeritus of Intellectual
History and English Literature, University of Cambridge. Stefan Collini
was educated at Cambridge and Yale. Following a Research Fellowship at
St John's College, Cambridge, he was Lecturer, then Reader, in
Intellectual History at the University of Sussex 1974-86; Lecturer, then
Reader, then Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature
at the University of Cambridge 1986-2014. He is a Fellow of the British
Academy, and a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, and Guardian.
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.
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1 hr 11 min
August 19 Taking The Scenic Route To High Quality Education For Indigenous Students
In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Dr Agnes Bodis talks to Hannah Madin and Catherine White. Hannah is a Teaching and Learning Officer at the Department of Education in the Northern Territory (Australia), and Catherine White is a Teaching and Learning Coach in secondary education.
We are zooming in on learning English as an additional language or dialect in remote communities in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT). There are numerous Aboriginal languages spoken there as well as dialects of English. However, the language of schooling remains Standard Australian English.
We discuss this mismatch between first or home languages, language of education, and teacher preparedness. Hannah and Catherine outline a collaborative project by the NT Department of Education to remove these barriers to learning in the school context. The project is called “Roadmap to Stage 1 Essential English and Mathematics” and includes not only the creation of teaching support materials, but the creation of an online Community of Practice, a professional learning program and school visits.
For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here.
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34 min
August 12 Lauren Stara, "Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Planning Library Spaces: A Practical Guide for Library Building Projects (Bloomsbury, 2025)
is a book designed for librarians, trustees, local government
officials, architects, and interior designers who are designing or
planning to build, renovate, or reconfigure library spaces. Most
librarians embark upon a library building project with little experience
in space planning, architecture, or construction. Written by a
registered architect and professional librarian, this is a guidebook for
librarians embarking on a library building project. It includes a brief
history of library facilities, placing them in the context of public
buildings. An introduction to library planning principles and a
discussion of library design concepts and trends are presented,
including the impact of the 2020 pandemic on library design. Sections on
working with architects, building design/construction terminology and
the basics of reading architectural drawings provide insight into
unfamiliar jargon and visual communication. Extensive illustrations and
photographs show examples of library layouts and furniture and
equipment, and the final chapter addresses the challenges inherent in a
major building project. As library services change, buildings must adapt
to accommodate and provide these new innovations. Buildings are living
things, and this book will offer guidance to those embarking on a
project of any scale or size.
Guest: Lauren Stara is a registered architect and a
librarian, specializing in library building design. Her past library
experience includes everything from front desk clerk to director. As a
Library Building Specialist for the Massachusetts Board of Library
Commissioners, Lauren administers grant funds and provides technical
assistance and advice from initial planning through construction of
public library projects. She writes, consults, and speaks on library
design, service design, and future trends in libraries and is coauthor
of Responding to Rapid Change in Libraries: A User Experience Approach (2020).
Host: Dr. Michael LaMagna is the Information Literacy Program &
Library Services Coordinator and Professor of Library Services at
Delaware County Community College.
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52 min
August 09 Chad Wellmon, "After the University: Higher Education and the Future of Intellectual Work" (JHU Press, 2026)
What is a university for? Is it a sanctuary for disciplined study, or has it become something else entirely? In After the University: Higher Education and the Future of Intellectual Work (JHU Press, 2026), Chad Wellmon traces the long and often uneasy relationship between higher learning and the institutions that claim to protect it. Moving from the guilds of medieval Paris and the knowledge factories of Enlightenment-era Göttingen to the research empires of Berlin and Berkeley, Wellmon shows how the modern university has repeatedly reshaped itself to serve shifting social and political demands.
Across centuries, the goods of disciplined study—the joy of reading, the virtues of intellectual rigor, and the possibility of self-formation—have been overshadowed by the pursuit of external rewards such as money, prestige, and power. Part institutional history and part philosophical reflection, After the University examines how today's institutions defend themselves not in the name of learning but in the language of productivity, innovation, and economic utility. Drawing on his experiences as a scholar, teacher, administrator, and witness to crises such as white supremacist marches and the COVID-19 pandemic, Wellmon illustrates how universities justify themselves through the outputs of graduates, research discoveries, and workforce training while leaving unmentioned the very practices that once defined them.
Despite this transformation, Wellmon argues that the university's current state of turmoil exposes a new, enticing possibility: recognizing the practices of disciplined study as goods worth valuing in and of themselves rather than simply as means to other ends. With insight and urgency, After the University asks whether our institutions can still nurture intellectual desire—or whether we must find new homes for the life of the mind.
Soumyadeep Guha is a fourth-year PhD student in the History Department at Binghamton University, New York. He is interested in historical research focusing on themes such as Agrarian/Environmental History, History of Science and Tech, Global History, and their intersections.
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57 min
August 05 Katharina Stevens, "The Ethics of Argumentation" (Routledge, 2025)
The Ethics of Argumentation (Routledge, 2025) offers a new approach to the theory of argumentation that conceptualizes argumentation as a fundamentally ethical activity whose norms are grounded in, and must be selected according to, moral reasons. Current normative approaches to argumentation do not treat ethics as an integral part of argumentation theory. This is at least in part due to a methodological commitment not to address internal states of the arguers, such as intentions and beliefs, which makes moral theorizing about argumentation difficult. This book presents three arguments for why ethics ought to be a central element in normative theorizing about argumentation. First, it shows that ethics is needed for providing normative argumentation theory with its foundation and for offering arguers reliable guidance for decision-making both about which norms ought to govern their arguing and how they should shape each argument they make. Second, it addresses some of the most persistent problems faced by currently dominant normative approaches to argumentation, most notably that they are only reliable under the assumption that unrealistic background conditions are fulfilled. Finally, it provides the groundwork for a systematic ethics of argumentation. It does so by showing how a function of argumentation can be justified via moral reasons and by providing the outlines for both an applied ethics of (meta-level) normative argument design and an applied role-ethics of object-level arguing. The Ethics of Argumentation (Routledge, 2025) is essential reading for researchers and graduate students in a wide range of disciplines-including philosophy, communication studies, linguistics, and rhetoric-who are interested in argumentation, critical thinking and social epistemology"
Katharina Stevens is a philosopher and argumentation theorist working at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. She is one of the editors of the journal Informal Logic and one of the directors of the Critical Thinking and Citizen Engagement Lab at the University of Lethbridge.
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57 min
August 01Posen Library: Jewish Studies Teaching Modules
Bring the breadth of Jewish history and civilization into your classroom with ready-to-use teaching modules curated by experts.
The Posen Library is an educational resource grounded in primary sources and made broadly accessible through the creation and curation of engaging contextual material. Its goal is to highlight the varieties of Jewish culture and civilization across time and space for English-speaking audiences and to be the first stop for those, in university settings and beyond, who are interested in teaching about the significant breadth of Jewish experiences.
Originally conceived as a 10-volume print anthology, the Posen Library’s free digital platform makes the published content globally accessible. Content from print volumes is added to the site as the volumes are published by Yale University Press. Nine out of the ten volumes have been published to date.
The Jewish Studies Curriculum Initiative comprises teaching modules centered around core teaching topics. Each module consists of an overview and curricular material that can be used in four class meetings, focusing on 20–25 primary sources (texts, images, and other media) with interpretive content and supplementary resources for both students and instructors. Posen Library curricula offer flexibility and are designed to be easily integrated into coursework in a variety of ways—perfect for launching a new class or refreshing a syllabus to include new perspectives and voices.
Sarah Bunin Benor is Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Linguistics at Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles.
Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah is assistant professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and the Senior Scholar for Pedagogy at the Posen Library.
Geraldine Gudefin is a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore.
Mentioned in this episode:
Posen Library Teaching modules: here

Jewish Studies Curriculum Initiative Fellowship: here

Sarah Bunin Benor’s “Jewish Culture around the world” Module: here

Lila Corwin Berman’s “Who Is American? Citizenship, Law, and Jewish History in the United States” Module: here

Geraldine Gudefin’s “Jewish Emancipation, Citizenship, and Belonging” Module: here

Geoffrey Levin’s “Jews of the Middle East and North Africa: Empire, Colonialism, and Identity” Module: here

Karen E. H. Skinazi’s “Sephardic Journeys: Literature, Memory, and Jewish Culture” Module: here

Jewish Language Project: here

Jewish Cultures on the Map: here

Jewish English Lexicon: here
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53 min
July 27 Matthew Ritger, "Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
Today’s guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe’s first house of correction, which was overseen by the humanist reformer Richard Grafton. It makes the case that the Bridewell prison and workhouse were central to the history of humanism in ways that both challenge idealized notions of European humanism and illustrate its commitments to civic and Christian reform. The book explores Bridewell’s mission to discipline the poor and the “idle” through hard labor, vocational training, and basic education, while also exposing its coercive and exploitative practices, which included whippings, forced labor, and the infliction of fear.
Houses of Correction also explores how Bridewell contributed to a broader humanist culture of correction, which united textual methods with practical forms of knowledge, and which extended to rhetorical and textual forms, as well as literary productions. The book’s five chapters connect the history and influence of Bridewell to a range of literary texts, including Thomas More’s Utopia, Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest, and Milton’s Of Educationand Samson Agonistes.
Through its interrogation of the logic of carceral humanism, Houses of Correction demonstrates the crucial role that Bridewell played in cultivating a culture of correction that pervaded humanist education, textual practices, and literary representations.
Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance.
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46 min
July 27 New Trends in YIVO Scholarship
Since 1925, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has been a pioneer in the field of Jewish studies. At the core of YIVO since its founding was its commitment to scholarship which supported the Jewish “folk.” This manifested in a variety of initiatives, including youth autobiography contests and a youth research division (yugfor), an Economic-Statistical section (ekstat), and the establishment of various YIVO branches. These YIVO's activities continue to pique the interests of scholars, who have recently produced new scholarship analyzing these initiatives through the lens of new pioneering research methods.
Join YIVO for a panel discussion sharing new research on these historic YIVO initiatives featuring presentations by William Pimlott, Kamil Kijek, and Nicolas Vallois, followed by a conversation led by Jessica Kirzane.
This panel discussion originally took place on June 11, 2025.
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1 hr 26 min
July 27David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab eds., "Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Visual Anthropology" (Berghahn, 2025)
In this episode I discuss the book Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Anthropology (Berghahn, 2025) with co-editors David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab, a posthumous collection of writings by the late anthropologist Marcus Banks. Banks was a key the figures in development of visual anthropology, but his work remains of continuing relevance. This volume brings together several of his essays on film, photography, archive work, as well as reflections of visual methods such as photo-elicitation and ways of teaching visual anthroplogy.
The conversation begins with Marcus Banks himself, his place within anthropology, his influence on visual anthropology, and the broader effort to preserve and extend his work through a set of posthumous collections. From there, the discussion turns to one of the central themes that emerge from across several essays, namely, that images are not simply illustrations or transparent representations, but socially and temporally situated objects with disctinct social lives. From there, we discuss Banks’s interest in the materiality of the visual and how the circulation and afterlives of images gather new meaning over time.
A substantial part of the interview focuses on Banks’s film Raju and His Friends (1988), which proved foundational to his later reflections on ethnographic filmmaking, and especially on the ethics and politics of representation. As well as providing an introduction to Marcus Banks’s work and serving as a tribute to a scholar whose influence continues to shape the field, many of the topics covered in the interview touches on many broader questions in anthropology itself, and as such will be of interest not only to students of visual anthropology, but to anthropology students and anthropologists more generally.
David Zeitlyn is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. His work spans visual anthropology, photography and archives, religion and divination, and long-term fieldwork in Cameroon. He also collaborated with Marcus Banks on the second edition of Visual Methods in Social Research.
Chihab El Khachab is Associate Professor in Visual Anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Wolfson College. He is a social anthropologist specializing in visual and media anthropology, especially Egyptian media production, and is the author of Making Film in Egypt: How Labor, Technology, and Mediation Shape the Industry.
Further reading and resources mentioned in the recording
Jainism as Social and Visual Practice: Anthropological Perspectives
Marcus Banks. Edited by John E. Cort, David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2026. This posthumous volume gathers Banks’s writings on Jain social organization and visual representation.

The revived HADDON catalogue of ethnographic films
Originally created by Marcus Banks in the 1990s, HADDON is an online catalogue of archival ethnographic film. The revived site presents a restored version of the database, now hosted through Paul Henley’s Silent Time Machine project.

Raju and His Friends (1988)
The film discussed at length in this episode, and a key reference point for Banks’s later reflections on visual anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking.
Marcus Banks was Professor of Visual Anthropology at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA), University of Oxford until he passed away in 2020. He was a pioneer in integrating visual approaches into the mainstream of social and cultural anthropology. With Howard Morphy, he edited the influential volume Rethinking Visual Anthropology (Yale University Press, 1999).
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1 hr 1 min

About New Books in Education

From the publisher's feed

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.