In the 2012 presidential race two major issues are ever present but never mentioned: Mormonism and homosexuality. According to opinion polls, a significant number of Americans either won’t vote or are wary of voting for a Mormon. Likewise, though opinions are rapidly changing a large plurality or slight majority (depending upon the poll you consult) of Americans oppose gay marriage.

Craig Harline boldly takes on both controversial issues in his new book, Conversions: Two Family Stories from the Reformation and Modern America (Yale University Press, 2011). Written in an innovative and accessible fashion, Conversions delves into both issues and discusses them in a subtle yet profound manner. In an age where partisans tune into the cable news show that best jibes with their pre-conceived notions Harline’s work is most welcome. Do yourself a favor, listen to our discussion and go out and buy the book.

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Lisa Garcia Bedolla and Melissa Michelson are the co-authors of Mobilizing Inclusion: Transforming the Electorate through Get-Out-The-Vote Campaigns (Yale University Press 2012). Lisa is associate professor of social and cultural studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and Melissa Michelson is professor of political science at Menlo College. Their book takes up the challenge to better understand how effective voter mobilization efforts actually are. Using field experiments across California conducted in partnership with community organizations, they demonstrate what works and what doesn’t work to get ethnoracial voters out to the polls. The book can be read by scholars and practitioners alike who are interested in the civic engagement, political behavior, and democracy.

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It’s traditional in Plato scholarship to divide his dialogues in various ways. One common division is a temporal one that distinguishes among early, middle and late dialogues. Another is by content: there are the so-called erotic dialogues, which include Symposium, Phaedrus and Alcibiades I, where themes of love and friendship are explicitly treated, and then the rest, which deal with such non-erotic themes as language and knowledge and ontology. Jill Gordon, Charles A. Dana Professor of Philosophy at Colby College, argues that this second division deeply misinterprets the role of eros in the Platonic corpus. In her new book, Plato’s Erotic World: From Cosmic Origins to Human Death (Cambridge University Press, 2012), she argues that paradigmatically non-erotic dialogues, such as Theaetetus, Parmenides and Phaedo, are in fact deeply erotic, and that the theme of eros unifies the corpus rather than divides it. For example, the Socratic dialectic, or elenchus, is a give-and-take that is erotic in nature, and doing philosophy itself is an erotic endeavor akin to naked exercise in the gymnasium. Her argument begins with a close reading of Timaeus, Plato’s creation myth, and the role of eros in the immortal human soul, and comes full circle with a reading of Phaedo in which Socrates’ growing rigidity as the hemlock takes hold is an erotic pun.

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In Trafficking Women’s Human Rights (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), Julietta Hua analyzes how discourse on human trafficking creates the boundaries of victimhood and thereby restricts concepts of punishment, remedy, and citizenship. Analyzing legislation, public discourse, and interview materials, Dr. Hua traces how gender, nationality, and racial identities become inscribed into the concept of sex trafficking. The subject matter is heavy, but Dr. Hua presents a delightfully rigorous theoretical framework, careful interpretation of proffered data, and poignant illustrations.

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The 2012 presidential election might be closely contested but the battleground states are almost all exclusively outside of the Old Confederacy. Florida, Virginia, and, to a lesser extent, North Carolina might be contested but only because these states have become remarkable less Southern. Indeed, southern Virginians refer to the northern parts of their state as “occupied Virginia.” In terms of American political history, specialists call the South’s evolution to the GOP “realignment.’ Typically, historians and political scientists explain the South’s remarkable political change in one word “racism.”

In his fine Strom Thurmond’s America (Hill and Wang, 2012), Joseph Crespino muddies that clear and simple explanation. In his work, the South’s realignment is more complicated than pure and simple bigotry. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

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Christopher Nugent‘s wonderful recent book will change the way you read.

At the very least, Manifest in Words, Written on Paper: Producing and Circulating Poetry in Tang Dynasty China (Harvard University Asia Center, 2010) will transform the way we think and write about medieval poetry in China. Nugent’s book urges readers to reconsider what we can assume about the authorship and authorial control of Tang poems, showing us the ways that our understanding and appreciation of literature can be radically altered when we reconsider poems as material objects. The analysis begins with a story of textual variation in a set of manuscript copies of a long narrative poem, preserved together in the Dunhuang caves, that reads the material history of the poem through traces of scribal practices and errors. The book then moves through a discussion of memory practices in medieval China, offering a useful comparative perspective from the scholarly literature on memory arts in medieval Europe, and shows how memorial practices shaped the circulation of Tang poetry. This is followed by chapter-long reflections on the functions and meanings of orality and writing in Tang poetic culture, as poems were circulated, were inscribed on public walls, and were stumbled upon in postal stations. A final chapter looks closely at Tang practices of compiling and collecting the poetic works of a single author, and relates these practices to the very different collecting strategies of the Song period. With broad-ranging implications for scholarship in history and religious studies, as well as literature, Nugent’s book is exceptionally rich and was the basis for a great conversation. Enjoy!

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It was the last in a long line of ‘Acts’ designed to ensure better colonial governance for the Indian sub-continent. It was an Act which was vociferously opposed by, amongst others, Winston Churchill. It is the Act upon which the Constitution of modern India is for the most part based. Andrew Muldoon‘s new book, Empire, Politics and the Creation of the 1935 India Act: Last Act of the Raj (Ashgate, 2009) is all about the Government of India Act, 1935.

The Act was long in the making; it replaced the eponymous 1919 Act, and there were many who were interested in it- politicians Indian and British, commercial conglomerates, and of course, your average Indian or Briton. When it took shape, after six years of ‘legislative, administrative and political’ work, it met with receptions ranging from the welcoming to the hostile; despite everything, it became the blueprint for the development of post Independence Indian polity and its impact may be yet be discerned today. It was an act which provided for a federal structure for British India, under the ultimate control of a Central power. So the 1935 Act was not a just a major piece of legislation; it was also an event that said much about prevailing ideas of Empire, identity, autonomy and governance.

 

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In 1853, the Japanese were required to consider what the word religion meant when western powers compelled the Tokugawa government to ensure freedom of religion to Christian missionaries. The challenge this request posed was based on the fact that prior to the nineteenth century Japanese language had no parallel terminology for the category of religion. In The Invention of Religion in Japan (University of Chicago Press, 2012), Jason Josephson, Assistant Professor of Religion at Williams College, delineates a genealogy of the Japanese construction of the category of religion, which was catalyzed by this political encounter between East and West. Josephson argues that opposed to the common notion that religion is an ethnographic or academic creation that we can place religion through diplomatic and legal discourses that invent or manufacture an identifiable, yet elastic, category. Prior to this political demand, contact between different Japanese and western social groups were discussed in bilateral descriptions of orthodoxy and heresy, either from a Christian or Buddhist perspective. Added to this developing understanding of terminology were the influences of western science, the negotiation of local practices, and the rise of nationalism. The Japanese depiction of Shinto poses the greatest challenge to customary notions of religion because it is described as a national or political science that is markedly nonreligious. Overall, Josephson demonstrates that in the defining of legal and social categories there was a trinary creation of religion, superstition, and the secular. In our conversation we discuss theocentric and heirocentric definitions of “religion,” the role of the demonic, heresy, varieties of Shinto, theories of secularization, superstition, civilizing projects, personal interior belief versus external behavior, and the institutional confirmation of these beliefs in legal contexts.

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In The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Ali Ansari traces the nationalist movement in Iran from the Tobacco Revolt of 1891 up to the current government led by president Ahmadinejad. Ansari explains how the events of the early 20th century led to the more well known events of Iran’s recent history, providing detailed insight into the key people that have been a part of Iran’s nationalist movement. The book explains the internal struggles that the movement has faced in the past century, along with the outside influences that effected its development. Ansari describes how Ahmadinejad has used nationalism to his advantage, and what he sees as the future for political participation in Iran.

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What if genocide scholars have been approaching the field the wrong way?

When I first opened Extremely Violent Societies in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2010), I was immediately struck by the immense depth of research and learning. Christian Gerlach chooses his case studies from among the lesser studied cases of genocide and immersed himself in the literature. Moreover, he surveys the history and theory of counterinsurgency warfare in roughly 20 countries over the space of 50 years. His knowledge of the field is encyclopedic, and one must admire his tenacity, not to mention the persuasiveness clearly necessary to persuade the publisher to include such an extensive set of notes.

More important, however, than the breadth and depth of research are the conclusions Gerlach reaches. For Gerlach’s book argues that people who study genocide need to approach the subject in a different way, one that is broader, is more grounded in primary research, and one that uses the categories of race and ethnicity much more carefully. Whether you agree with this contention or not, it’s a book that makes you think hard about your own ideas–one of the highest compliments you can pay an author.

I have no doubt that Gerlach’s book will be one of the most talked about works in the field. I hope you find the interview just as stimulating.

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