The library is an important partner in academic success for students and professors. So why do so many people overlook this key resource? Karen McCoy takes us inside her job on two college campuses, unpacking what librarians do, and why she’s so happy to help everyone find exactly what they need. Our guest is: Karen B. McCoy, who is a librarian cur…

In Strangers in the Family: Gender, Patriliny, and the Chinese in Colonial Indonesia (SAPP, 2023), Guo-Quan Seng provides a gendered history of settler Chinese community formation in Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period (1816–1942). At the heart of this story lies the creolization of patrilineal Confucian marital and familial norms to the col…

Back in 2019, John spoke with the celebrated comic novelist Stephen McCauley. Nobody knows more about the comic novel than Steve--his latest is You Only Call When You're in Trouble, but John still holds a candle for his 1987 debut, Object of My Affection, made into a charming Jennifer Aniston Paul Rudd movie. And there is no comic novelist Steve lo…

Tyler Neill discusses the new platform Pāṇḍitya, an online graph visualization tool illustrating connections between works and authors in the Pandit Prosopographical Database of Indic Texts. It also facilitates exploration of the Sanskrit E-Text Inventory (SETI) as an overlay on the Pandit network. Tyler's blog "Sanskrit and Tech with Tyler" is her…

Embodying Normalcy: Women’s Work in Neoliberal Times (Lexington Books, 2024) calls attention to how women in the United States do a type of unpaid work to embody the latest trends for the purpose of achieving success in neoliberal culture. Using TLC reality shows, lifestyle and beauty influencers, Brazilian butt lift TikToks, and celebrities like K…

Material Masculinities: Men and Goods in Eighteenth-Century England (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Ben Jackson examines the material and consumer practices of over 1000 men from the middling and upper ranks of eighteenth-century society, c.1650-1850. It draws upon evidence from over 35 archives and museum collections to detail how mater…

In 2022, Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian actress to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. But she wasn’t the first actress of Asian origin to be nominated. In 1935, Merle Oberon was nominated for Best Actress for the role of Kitty Vane in The Dark Angel, only her second film in the U.S. film industry. But no one knew Oberon was Asian. Her pu…

Told through a genre-defying blend of illustrations, photography, and found objects, Remember Us to Life: A Graphic Memoir (Ten Speed Graphic, 2023) chronicles Joanna Rubin Dranger’s investigation into her Jewish family’s history, spanning time, space, and three continents in search of her lost relatives. As discolored photos are retrieved from hal…

Elton John is not only "still standing," he is a living superlative, the ultimate record-breaking, award-winning survivor of the great era of pop and rock music that he helped to shape during his six decades in the music industry. Yet few of his numerous biographies and song guides take him as a historical subject worthy of scholarly study. In cont…

John McPhee has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1965 and has written more than thirty acclaimed books that began on the magazine's pages. But few readers know or fully appreciate the true breadth of his writing. Looking for a Story: A Complete Guide to the Writings of John McPhee (Princeton University Press, 2025) leads readers through…

Syrian Poets and Vernacular Modernity (Edinburgh UP, 2025) examines a poetic movement that rose from under official state discourse in 1970s Syria Closely examines a wealth of unknown primary poetic texts from Syria that make up a new poetics which challenges received ideas about modern Arabic poetry Rereads along transnational lines the works of f…

Donald Trump is putting liberal democracy through its greatest test in 80 years. None of it is original. His style of rule is straight from the democratic backsliders' playbook. To secure long-term power rather than short-term office, rulers must take over the institutions that check and balance majority rule and bend them to their will. Trump has …

Covering her life and sixty-year career from Sonny & Cher to show-stopping solo performer, award-winning actress, fashion icon, and beyond, this is a glorious retrospective of one of the world's most enduring entertainers, Cher. Featuring a foreword by Cyndi Lauper! Commemorating six decades since her first #1 hit in 1965, I Got You Babe (Running P…

Ecologies of Care in Times of Climate Change: Water Security in the Global Context (Policy Press, 2024) investigates and analyses places in Europe, North America and Asia that are facing the immense challenges associated with climate change adaptation. Presenting real-world cases in the contexts of coastal change, drinking water and the cryosphere,…

The road novel is often dismissed as a mundane, nostalgic genre: Jack, Sal, and other tedious white men on the road trying to recapture an authentic youth and American past that never existed. Yet, new road novels appear every year, tackling unexpected questions and spanning new geographies, from Mexico, Brazil, Bulgaria, Palestine, Ukraine, and fo…

Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Rochelle Rojas tells riveting stories of witchcraft in everyday life in early modern Navarra. Belief in witchcraft not only emerged in moments of mass panic but was woven into the fabric of village life. Some villagers believed witc…

Join us on Madison's Notes as we sit down with George Selgin, senior fellow and director emeritus of the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Georgia. In this insightful conversation, Selgin unpacks the myths and realities of FDR’s New Deal through the lens of his b…

In Episode 8, Dr. Messina and Dr. Gill, the host and co-host of this podcast, talked about the emotional toll that is associated with lost time---time that cannot be reclaimed. While there are many things in life that can be found or recovered when lost, time is not among them; once it is gone, it is lost forever. They highlighted the impact of tec…

The argument that authoritarian governments are better at dealing with the climate emergency is gaining ground, fuelled by the idea that undemocratic states face fewer constraints and so can operate more efficiently and effectively. Some are even arguing that this isn’t just a necessary evil but a legitimate policy response to pending environmental…

Rav Kook’s Vision: Halakhah, Secular Knowledge, and the Renewal of Judaism. Those of us who know something about Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook’s life and philosophy know about his being stuck outside of the Land of Israel during WWI, being the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, and his encouragement of the secular Zionis…

An open access Asia Shorts edited volume from AAS. The spring of 2020 will remain etched in collective memory as a moment of profound upheaval. The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools and universities around the world to close their doors, reshaping education overnight. Teachers scrambled to reimagine their classrooms in online spaces, while students …

The Rise of Unmanned Warfare: Origins of the Us Autonomous Military Arsenal (Oxford UP, 2023) tells the fascinating story of the people, processes, and beliefs that led to the contemporary American unmanned arsenal. It takes an expansive look at automated and autonomous technologies, from mines and torpedoes to guided bombs and missiles, satellites…

Gospel singer and seven-time Grammy winner Andraé Crouch (1942-2015) hardly needs introduction. His compositions--"The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power," "Through It All," "My Tribute (To God be the Glory)," "Jesus is the Answer," "Soon and Very Soon," and others--remain staples in modern hymnals, and he is often spoken of in the same "genius" panth…

A massive oil spill in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Barbara, California, in 1969 quickly became a landmark in the history of American environmentalism, helping to inspire the creation of both the Environmental Protection Agency and Earth Day. But what role did the history of Santa Barbara itself play in this? In Natural Attachments: The Domesticati…

Edinburgh's Unruly Women: Gender, Discipline, and Power, 1560-1660 (Routledge, 2024) examines experiences of church discipline across parish communities through Edinburgh and its environs. The book argues that experiences of discipline were not universal, varying according to any number of factors such as age, gender, marital status, and social ran…

Widow City: Gender, Emotion, and Community in Renaissance Italy (University of Delaware Press, 2025) investigates the ever-evolving role of the widow in medieval and early modern Italian literature, from canonical authors such as Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, to the numerous widowed writers who rose to prominence in the sixteenth century—includin…

Katherine Addison’s novel The Tomb of Dragons (Tor, 2025) is the concluding novel in her Cemeteries of Amalo Trilogy. The novels follow Thara Celehar, a once-obscure prelate in an industrializing empire who once garnered unwanted attention by uncovering the people behind the assassination of the old emperor. Now he lives in the city of Amalo, on th…

An ambitious genre-crossing exploration of Black speculative imagination, The Dark Delight of Being Strange: Black Stories of Freedom (Columbia University Press 2024) combines fiction, historical accounts, and philosophical prose to unveil the extraordinary and the surreal in everyday Black life. In a series of stories and essays, James B. Haile, I…