New Books Network

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New Books Network episodes

July 13 Wednesdae Reim Ifrach, "Queer Expressions: Expressive Art and Somatic Therapy Practices for Healing Body Trauma" (North Atlantic Books, 2026)
A creative, body-based guide to healing for queer, trans, and
gender-expansive readers—somatic tools and expressive arts to feel safer
in your body, rewrite your story, and sustain connection. Queer Expressions: Expressive Art and Somatic Therapy Practices for Healing Body Trauma (North Atlantic Books, 2026) is
a practical, consent-centered guide to healing body trauma through
embodiment and creativity. Drawing on somatic therapy—grounding, breath,
orientation, gentle movement—and expressive arts—collage, drawing,
clay, movement, music, voice—within a harm-reduction frame of pacing,
choice, and safety plans, Wednesdae Reim Ifrach (REAT, ATR-BC, LPC)
shares grounded practices, case vignettes, and simple rituals to help
you move from shut down or on high alert into steadier, more connected
living. The book follows a simple arc: first, feel and steady your
nervous system; next, turn those sensations into art and story; and
finally, build rituals and relationships that help the changes
last—whether you’re navigating dysphoria, ED recovery, chronic stress,
or nervous system dysregulation. Inside you’ll find: Body check-ins
(quick prompts to name sensations and needs), short breath &
movement practices (1–10 minutes), and sensory prompts
(sight/sound/touch/smell/taste) Art invitations (collage, drawing,
movement, sound/voice) with step-by-step guidance and safety notes
Consent & harm-reduction tools (opt-in/out menus, pacing, crisis
planning) to keep the work manageable Community practices & rituals
(altar-making, release-writing, witness circles) to anchor change in
daily lif A queer-centered lens on healing, embodiment, and creativity
Warm, inclusive, and usable on your own or with a therapist, Queer
Expressions helps you build a more livable relationship with your
body—and a story big enough to hold who you are becoming.
Wednesdae Reim Ifrach
is a trans/non-binary art therapist and counselor dedicated to
providing gender-affirming, trauma-informed care that emphasizes
healing-centered engagement, body justice, intersectional social
justice, and equitable access to eating disorder treatment. They co-own
and operate Rainbow Recovery,
offering clinical supervision, consultations, trainings, workshops,
counseling, and art therapy services to clients in Connecticut and
Pennsylvania. As a full-time professor at Moravian University, Wednesdae
teaches mental health counseling, social work, and expressive art
courses, inspiring future professionals. Over the past decade, they have
led trainings and workshops for organizations such as the American Art
Therapy Association, National Alliance for Eating Disorders, and Yale
University, among others. Previously, Wednesdae founded the country’s
first 2sLGBTQIA+ Eating Disorder Program, served on Project HEAL’s
Board, and presided over the Connecticut Art Therapy Association. They
currently co-chair the Health Professionals in Training Program on the
GLMA Board. Their expertise addresses LGBTQ+ concerns and trauma,
honoring each client’s identity.
Helena Vissing,
PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California
and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She
can be reached at [email protected]. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023).
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55 min
July 13 Rod Phillips, "Cats: A History" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
For
more than 10,000 years, cats have prowled at the edges of human life.
But, starting only a few decades ago, hundreds of millions of them
became pets. In Cats: A History
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Professor Rod Phillips shares a
sweeping cultural and social history of felines, tracing their shifting
place across societies and centuries, from ancient Egypt's revered
hunters to Europe's suspected familiars of witches and from shipboard
rodent controllers to cherished internet icons.
Professor
Phillips illustrates how cats have always occupied spaces both familiar
and mysterious and how their perceived independence and disruptive
nature—and their associations with women, the supernatural, and
outsiders—have shaped humans' attitudes toward these fascinating
creatures. Cats have been lauded as companions and vermin-killers,
reviled as threats to moral and ecological order, and cherished for the
very qualities that make them hard to control. This richly textured
portrait of cats explores their significance in religion, politics,
gender, literature, warfare, and pop culture. It also provides profound
insights into our relationships with other animals, especially dogs and
rodents.
The many roles that cats have played throughout history
illuminate a variety of contradictions in humans' perceptions of them:
as affectionate yet aloof, adorable
and evil, ordinary and exceptional. This book is the definitive story
of the feline presence in human history—an elegant study of how we live
with animals whom we see as living by their own rules.
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
59 min
July 13 Philippa Gander, "Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We’re Disrupting Them" (Princeton UP, 2025)
All of life is profoundly shaped by the daily, monthly, and yearly cycles of our planet, and all creatures have internal timekeeping systems that rely on cues from the surrounding environment. With modern technology, we are changing our environments—and by proxy, the ecosystems around us—to override these innate rhythms of life. But at what cost? Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We're Disrupting Them (Princeton University Press, 2025) reveals how Earth’s rotations shape our biology, what human sleep cycles looked like before the advent of artificial light, and why technology can’t free us from the constraints of our circadian clocks.
Philippa Gander explores the science behind the biological rhythms that animate us and our world, blending captivating storytelling with illuminating examples ranging from migratory birds and hibernating squirrels to jet-lagged pilots and astronauts in space. She shows how genetic circadian clocks are an ancient evolutionary adaptation that we share with all life on the planet, and how our rapidly expanding use of artificial light at night disrupts the time cues for entire ecosystems. Gander explains why cutting back on sleep adversely affects our well-being, safety, and longevity, and how breakthroughs in sleep science offer solutions to bring our lives more in harmony with nature’s rhythms.
An astonishing journey of scientific discovery, Life in Sync unlocks the mysteries of biological time—and offers new perspectives for anyone who has ever given up a good night’s sleep for the sake of their hectic waking hours.
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57 min
July 13 Nelson Lichtenstein on Clinton and Neoliberalism
We are joined by Nelson Lichtenstein, one of the deans of American labor history. The conversation ranges widely, from the tragedy of the Clinton administration and what might have been, to the importance of studying capitalism, to the politics of baby boomer self-loathing—all key parts of the history of the 1990s!
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1 hr 16 min
July 12 Sara Farhan, "Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors, 1869–1959" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
Medical Education and the Making of Iraqi Doctors, 1869–1959
(Edinburgh University Press, 2025) by Dr. Sara Farhan offers a rigorous
social and cultural history of the formation of medical professionals
in modern Iraq and their role in shaping public health institutions.
Tracing developments from late Ottoman medical reforms to the
establishment of the Medical College of Mosul, the book examines the
institutionalization of medical education as a critical element of the
social transformation of Iraq. It reveals how shifting imperial,
colonial and national frameworks sought
to cultivate a cadre of physicians who would serve state and society.
These experts, however, often found themselves navigating competing
ideological imperatives.
This
extensively researched study highlights a wealth of rarely consulted
sources gathered from 14 archives, family collections, medical journals,
student newspapers, film
and oral interviews. Drawing on these materials, it interrogates the
contradictions inherent in state-driven efforts, wherein doctors
functioned as agents of reform and subjects of bureaucratic oversight.
Through this, Dr. Farhan reveals the nexus between medical pedagogy,
professional authority, public health policy and the broader political
transformations that continually redefined medicine in Iraq.
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
50 min
July 12 The Emerging Anocracy: AI, Tech Oligarchs, and the Future of Democracy with Alexis Cruz
In this episode of International Horizons, RBI Acting Director Eli Karetny sits down with Alexis Cruz, founder of Enough Consulting and former strategic advisor for governance at Meta. Cruz explores how the proliferation of AI and digital platforms has shifted global politics into an "anocracy"—a precarious gray zone situated between traditional democracy and authoritarianism.
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1 hr
July 12 Stephen G. Covell, "The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)
How have Buddhist teachings come to be in modern and contemporary
Japan and how are they taught? This pioneering work seeks to answer
these questions by highlighting the public teachings of Temple Buddhism
institutions, in particular Temple Buddhism kindergartens and Buddhist
secondary schools and colleges. The community outreach provided by these
Buddhist facilities is far greater than any other with the possible
exception of funerals yet until now it has received little attention
from scholars of Japanese religion.
After determining what is taught in Buddhist education and how,
Stephen Covell introduces readers to a select group of monks who undergo
some of the most grueling practices in Japanese Temple Buddhism to
determine if the public-facing teachings of Buddhist education are
unique or similar to those of elite Buddhist practitioners. The
teachings and sites of teaching examined here include but are not
limited to classical doctrinal studies and temples focused on the
education of Buddhist clergy. Covell uncovers the arguments made by
priests involved in morals education, the dharma talks of famous
ascetics, and the ways in which laws and legal codes have changed
Buddhist education. He looks at what is taught on the ground, online,
and in popular texts to discuss the current teachings embraced as
Buddhism within the institutions of Temple Buddhism. Among his numerous
findings is such teachings and worldview are remarkably similar to those
of New Religions and Buddhist lay movements as outlined by Japan
religion scholars and government bodies in charge of education.
The Teaching and Teachings of Temple Buddhism in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2024) will
be welcomed by students and scholars in Japanese religious studies and
early childhood and higher education as well as those interested in
current Buddhist practice and teachings in general.
Dr. Victoria Montrose is the James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Religion at Furman University. Her recent research, “From Disciples to Dissidents: Student Protests and Reform Movements in Meiji-Era Buddhist Universities” was published in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies in late 2025.
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1 hr 2 min
July 12 Rachel Bachman on What Makes an Excellent Picture Book
In this insightful interview, librarian, writer, blogger, Rachel Bachman
shares her astute thoughts on what makes an excellent picture book,
discussing both fiction and nonfiction, the advantages and disadvantages of being a female vs. male author, traditional vs. self-publishing, the celebrity pitfall, why some books are great and others not so, and who gets to decide.
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50 min
July 12 Dan Altman, "Taking Territory: The Persistence of Conquest Since 1945" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Taking Territory: The Persistence of Conquest Since 1945 (Cornell University Press, 2026) is an eye-opening account of why territorial conquest persists today.
The end of World War II seemingly brought about a decline in territorial
conquest. Many have argued that a strong territorial integrity norm in
the postwar era explains this decline. Yet as Dan Altman shows, states
have seized territory numerous times since 1945. Large-scale conquests
have waned, but small, targeted seizures have persisted. The
relationship between conquest and war has also shifted. While states
attempting conquest before 1945 often initiated war and sought to occupy
large territories, challengers today more often seize small regions and
try to avoid war. This strategy, the fait accompli, has become the
predominant mode of conquest.
Drawing on his original data, which
include 175 conquest attempts between 1918 and 2024, Altman explains
why conquest persists, what motivates it, when it turns violent, and
when it succeeds. He shows how miscalculated fait accompli have sparked
many post-1945 wars, and why the motives behind many territorial grabs
are often about image, domestic politics, and the ambitions of military
officers. Incisive and illuminating, Taking Territory cuts against what we think we know about post-1945 conquest to reveal its true causes and consequences.
Our guest is Dan Altman, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University.
Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of Volatile States in International Politics (Oxford University Press, 2023).
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34 min
July 12 M. A. Carrick, "The Eye of Leviathan" (Orbit, 2026)
The Eye of Leviathan (Orbit, 2026) begins with a deal between Teresa—wife of an abusive Hidalgo living in 1500s Spain—and her friend the fairy Castaña, who agrees to become a changeling, taking the form of an infant boy and the place of Teresa’s daughter, who will instead be raised by fairies. Teresa gets protection for a child that would otherwise be killed and Castaña, now Estevan, gets access to the human world, where he can hopefully learn enough to stop the increasing violence against his people. The Eye of Leviathan imagines a world where Spain focuses not on the Americas as its primary target for colonization, but on the Sea Beyond, the realm of the fae.
In this interview Carrick describes the myriad of historical sources they used to build the novel and the impact that the inclusion of the fae had on the mythology and history of the world. We chat about map making, gender in early modern Spain, and the various islands of the Sea Beyond. We also discuss the initial European discovery of the Sea Beyond, which is covered in a prequel story available to read at Adventitious.
The Eye of Leviathan is a rich and detailed novel full of adventure and the struggle towards justice in the face of violent cruelty. It was a joy to discuss with the authors.
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55 min