New Books Network

Kyoto is known as a pinnacle of Japanese history and culture, drawing visitors of more than double its resident population many times over every year. In this and the subsequent episode we explore Kyoto neighbourhoods and the houses in them to see what transformations are happening, and what is at risk of being lost in the process.

In today’s episode Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano discusses her research on Japanese traditional urban dwellings, known as "machiya" (町家), and the attached concept of "seikatsu bunka" (生活文化, culture of everyday life) shaped by living in traditional houses and neighbourhoods.

Dr. Chiara Rita Napolitano is a JSPS Postdoctoral Researcher at Kyoto university. She received her PhD from the University of Naples in 2024.

Julia Olsson is a PhD student at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University. Her dissertation project focuses on depopulation processes and the vacant house phenomenon in rural Japan.

Links to Dr. Napolitano’s profiles and works:

LinkedIn profile

Meridiani giapponesi: Mappe, intersezioni, orientamenti

Modern Kyoto research website

The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners:

• Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia)

• Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland)

• Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania)

• Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden)

• Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland)

• Norwegian Network for Asian Studies

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This is an unabridged bilingual, fully annotated edition of Tullia d’Aragona’s epic poem The Wretch. This mid-century epic reflects the many historical and religious changes taking place in the first half of the sixteenth century in Europe and the burgeoning literary debates following the publication of another Italian epic poem, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. The Wretch recounts the adventures of Guerrino, a nobleman captured by pirates as an infant and sold into slavery. His famous quest in search of his parents and his identity involves abductions, same-sex seductions, and skirmishes with fantastical beasts as he travels through Europe, Turkey, Africa, India, Arabia, and the Purgatory of St. Patrick. The poem occupies an important position in the development of the prestigious epic genre, the highest step on the ladder to literary recognition and fame, and Tullia’s work paved the way for the epics of other women writers in subsequent decades.

Edited by Julia L. Hairston, with an Introduction by Julia L. Hairston, translated by John C. McLucas

Kate Driscoll is Assistant Professor of Italian and Romance Studies at Duke University. She is a specialist of early modern Italian and European literary and cultural history, with interests in women’s and gender studies, performance history, and the cultures of diplomacy and reception. Her monograph, Tasso and Women Readers: Literary Hospitality in Early Modern Italy (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press) won the 28th annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies.

Email: [email protected].

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The media and creative industries thrive on passion, but that passion often comes at a cost. Behind the glamour of journalism, filmmaking, games, music, advertising, and online content creation lies a growing crisis-one of burnout, anxiety, substance abuse, and exhaustion. Why do so many creative professionals report feeling both deeply fulfilled and profoundly unwell?

Mark Deuze investigates the systemic issues that make creative work both exhilarating and unsustainable. Drawing on extensive research and in-depth interviews with media professionals, he notes the hidden downsides of doing what you love and offers a candid analysis of how workplace structures, high workloads, and perceived injustices contribute to mental and physical distress.

But this book is not just about what's broken; it's about what can be done. Deuze provides a roadmap for rethinking the culture of creative industries and offers strategies for balancing passion with sustainability. A practical resource for media scholars and those navigating the highs and lows of a creative career, this work challenges us to imagine a healthier future for our labour of love.

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A radical history of England, Contested Commons: A History of Protest and Public Space in England (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Katrina Navickas is a gripping overview of increasingly restrictive policing and legislation against protest in public spaces. It tells the long history of contests over Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Cable Street and Kinder Scout, as well as sites in towns and rural areas across the country. Dr. Navickas reveals how protesters claimed these spaces as their own commons, resisting their continuing enclosure and exclusion by social and political elites. She investigates famous and less well-known demonstrations and protest marches, from early democracy, trade union movements and the Suffragettes to anti-fascist, Black rights and environmental campaigners in more recent times. Contested Commons offers positive as well as troubling lessons on how we protect the right to protest.

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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In Appropriated Tales: Race and the Disney Fairy-Tale Mode (Wayne State UP, 2025), scholar Michelle Anya Anjirbag examines Disney's method of fairy-tale storytelling to determine how the corporation has shaped public understanding of what fairy tales are and who belongs within them. Covering a span of years "from mermaid to mermaid"—from the 1989 animated The Little Mermaid to the 2023 live-action remake starring Halle Bailey—she deconstructs and interrogates Disney's corporate commodification of multiculturalism and diversity, centering its impact on misrepresented people and cultures over the stated intentions of the producers. Further, Anjirbag demonstrates that Disney shapes childhood experiences and imagination in a way that strategically promotes American cultural imperialism. Through close film analysis, applied critical theory, and social analysis of the Disney corporation, Anjirbag unearths a new framework for studies of Disney fairy tales and how they shape popular culture.

For a limited time, Wayne State University Press is offering a discount when customers use the code RHOLIDAY.

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From Argentina’s recent vote under the shadow of a threatened $20 billion U.S. aid package to Russia’s covert operations in the 2016 U.S. election, foreign meddling at the ballot box is more common and more dangerous than many citizens realize. In this episode of International Horizons, RBI interim director, Eli Karetny speaks with Dov Levin, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Hong Kong and author of Meddling in the Ballot Box (Oxford University Press). Drawing on a unique global dataset, Levin explains how often great powers intervene in elections, why most operations are “inside jobs” coordinated with local elites, and why overt interventions frequently work better than covert ones. The conversation explores dirty tricks, founding elections, democratic backsliding, and how new voting technologies could reopen the door to old-fashioned ballot manipulation.

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In The Land Trap (Portfolio / Penguin), Mike Bird—Wall Street editor at The Economist—reveals how this ancient asset still exerts outsize influence over the modern world. From the speculative land grabs of colonial America to China's real estate crisis today, Bird shows how fortunes are built—and destroyed—on the bedrock of land. Tracing three centuries of history, Bird explores how land quietly became the linchpin of the global banking system, driving everything from soaring housing prices to rising geopolitical tensions. As governments wrestle with inequality and land grows ever scarcer, The Land Trap offers a powerful new framework for understanding the hidden force behind today's most urgent challenges. This is the book for anyone who wants to see beyond markets and money to the real game being played on a foundation as old as civilization itself. Timely, provocative, and essential, The Land Trap will change how you see the ground beneath your feet.

Reed Schwartz (@reedschwartzsf) holds an MPhil in Intellectual History from the University of Cambridge.

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From Argentina’s recent vote under the shadow of a threatened $20 billion U.S. aid package to Russia’s covert operations in the 2016 U.S. election, foreign meddling at the ballot box is more common and more dangerous than many citizens realize. In this episode of International Horizons, RBI interim director, Eli Karetny speaks with Dov Levin, Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Hong Kong and author of Meddling in the Ballot Box (Oxford University Press). Drawing on a unique global dataset, Levin explains how often great powers intervene in elections, why most operations are “inside jobs” coordinated with local elites, and why overt interventions frequently work better than covert ones. The conversation explores dirty tricks, founding elections, democratic backsliding, and how new voting technologies could reopen the door to old-fashioned ballot manipulation.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

For as long as cats have coexisted with humans, they have been feared, revered and respected. They appear as dynamic hunters in Palaeolithic carvings and cave paintings; were venerated as gods in ancient Egypt; and still have the power to fascinate and frighten us, as the popularity of Joe Exotic, the self-styled Tiger King, shows.

How did we go from hunting, and being hunted by, cats to keeping them as pets in our homes? In Cat Tales: A History (Thames & Hudson, 2025), Dr. Jerry Moore presents a wide-ranging and captivating history, charting cats’ journey from the African plains of the Pleistocene through the first human settlements in the Near East and on to ships setting sail for the Americas. What emerges is a complex picture of mutual domestication: cats chose to live with us as much as we chose to live with them, and as our growing cities bring the world’s wild cats into closer contact with humans, we must learn new ways to live together.

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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The Hidden Face of Local Power: Appointed Boards and the Limits of Democracy (Temple UP, 2025) by Dr. Mirya Holman explicates the purpose, role, and consequences of appointed boards in U.S. cities. Dr. Holman finds cities create strong boards that generate policy, consolidate power, and defend the interests of businesses and wealthy and white residents. In contrast, weak boards pacify agitation from marginalized groups to give the appearance of inclusivity, democratic deliberation, and redistributional policymaking. Cities preserve this strong board/weak board dichotomy through policymaking power, institutional design, and by controlling who serves on the boards.

The Hidden Face of Local Power examines the role of boards in the development of urban political institutions, the allocation of power in local politics, and the persistence of inequality. Holman enhances our understanding of how political institutions have contributed to racism and their impact on how people use and live in urban spaces. In her shrewd analysis of the creation and use of boards as political institutions, Dr. Holman proves that neither weak or strong boards achieves the goal they are advertised to achieve. In doing so, she provides a new view of the failures of local democracy along with ideas for improvement.

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.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network