New Books In European Studies

NB: An earlier version of this podcast has been replaced with a new file in which the the technical problems of the first were corrected. -NBn, 7/11/17 At the end of World War II, Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia lay in ruins. Modernist architects believed they could build a new city that would match the modernization goals of the new communist government. In Designing Tito’s Capital: Urban Planning, Modernism, and Socialism in Belgrade (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014) , Brigitte Le Normand reveals the ideals that under girded these architects plans for Belgrade, along with the postwar realities that thwarted their attempts to foster a new society through a modernist built environment. She analyzes the political, social, and ideological implications of urban planning and the built environment, demonstrating how modernist architects were able to mold their ideal cityscape to fit Yugoslavia’s third way after the Tito-Stalin split and how market socialism created expectations that undermined

A revealing exploration of representative modes of medievalism, Medievalism: A Critical History (Boydell & Brewer; hardcover 2015, paperback 2017), by David Matthews, examines the people, institutions, and moments that have driven societies around the world to reimagine and revive a medieval past. Eschewing shallow comprehensiveness, David Matthews instead offers a careful and extended handling of significant moments of medieval revival. From Sir Walter Scott and Cardinal Newman embracing structures of medieval ceremony in the early nineteen century to today’s medieval reenactments and medieval markets that employ touristic capital by celebrating a medieval inheritance, Matthews explores the positive vision of the romantic middle ages. Imagined as a world of chivalry and preindustrial economy defined by courtesy and noblesse, the romantic medieval offers connection to the land, more primitive, and more peaceful, social relations, to those who long for a world before industrialism and global capitali

Since the publication of this book five years ago, Steven Seegel has become a leading authority on map-making in the Russian Empire with particular expertise on the western borderlands.Mapping Europe’s Borderlands: Russian Cartography in the Age of Empire (University of Chicago Press, 2012) provided a firm foundation for his reputation by exploring how imperial priorities shaped map-making of he dismemberment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and how these changed over the long century during which a fully independent Polish state did not exist. While focused primarily on Russian cartography is the primary focus of this work, Seegel places those developments in context with discussion of Polish nationalist map-making and a discussion of Habsburg map-making of the region as well. In so doing, he also offers intriguing portraits of the cartographers who ultimately made this research possible. It was a pleasure to interview him at last about this book and I invite you to listen to our discussion of hi

In A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), David I. Shyovitz, Associate Professor of History, and of Jewish and Israel Studies, at Northwestern University, plumbs the worldview and theology of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, the Jewish Pietists, who flourished in the Rhine Valley and in Regensburg in the 12th and 13th centuries. Professor Shyovitz marshals compelling evidence to show that the Pietists submitted both the natural world and the human body to close and disciplined empirical study. While they were fascinated by inexplicable phenomena, bodily transformation, spells and incantations, and even bodily and effluvia and excrement, the Pietists’ fascination was driven by their effort to forge links between the natural world and their theological worldview. David Gottlieb is a PhD Candidate in the History of Judaism at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His research focuses on interpretations of the Binding of Isaac and

At once wonderfully clear and bursting with complexity, the title of Bruno Perreau‘s book, Queer Theory: The French Response (Stanford University Press, 2016) is one of my favorites of the past several years. An interrogation of the meanings of queer, theory, French, and response, the book is anchored around the anti-gay marriage demonstrations and activisms that proliferated in France during the lead-up to the passage of the 2013 Loi Taubira (a.k.a. “marriage pour tous”). The book focuses on a central claim of French opponents of gay marriage and adoption: the notion that (American) gender and queer theory is responsible for spreading homosexuality in France, and has thus contributed to the undoing of the French family and the nation as a whole. Throughout its four chapters, the book considers the French response to queer theory in terms of fantasy and echo. This is not a book about reception in a passive or uncomplicated sense. Rather it is the study of a set of reverberations back and for

In Feminist Activism at War: Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists in the 1990s (Routledge, 2017), Macedonian researcher, peace-worker, and activist Ana Miskovska Kajevska analyses the way feminists in Belgrade and Zagreb reacted to the (post-)Yugoslav wars, with an emphasis on their discourses and activities regarding (sexual) war violence and on each other. Using a Bourdieu-based methodology supplemented by interviews, she challenges common assumptions that were not subject to scholarly debate before.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the capital of the African nation of Angola today stands a statue to Njinga, the 17th century queen of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms. Its presence is a testament to her skills as a diplomat, warrior, and leader of her people, all of which she demonstrated over the course of a reign described by Linda Heywood in Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen (Harvard University Press, 2017). The daughter of the Ndongo king Mbande a Ngola, Njinga grew up in a west central Africa that was facing growing encroachment by Portugal, who were major customers in the regions slave trade. Seeking to extend their control, the Portuguese challenged Njinga’s succession to the throne in 1624, prompting a war that lasted for three decades. To persevere, Njinga had to navigate the complex politics of the region, gaining control of the Matamba kingdom and pursuing ties with both the Vatican and the Dutch to provide a counterweight to the Portuguese. The treaty signed with Portugal in 1656 was a testament to her succ

Historically, foreign policy has been seen as a sphere shaped and determined by the concerns of men alone. In ‘Guilty Women’: Foreign Policy and Appeasement in Inter-War Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Julie Gottlieb demonstrates the fallacy of such a view when applied to understanding how Britain responded to the growing aggressiveness of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. By highlighting the activities of politically-engaged women from across the ideological spectrum, she details the range of efforts they undertook from hosting social engagements with politically prominent individuals to lobbying on key issues in their efforts to sway the development of foreign policy. As she reveals, much of the debate over appeasement was framed in gendered terms, often citing the concerns of women as justification for concessions to avoid war. Gottlieb also assesses the attitudes of British women generally towards appeasement, drawing upon the fledgling efforts of public opinion polling to identify their position

Most accounts about the naval battles of the First World War focus upon the stalemate between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet, or the German raiders who attempted to disrupt Allied commerce. In Securing the Narrow Sea: The Dover Patrol 1914-1918 (Seaforth Publishing, 2017; distributed in the US by Naval Institute Press), Steve Dunn focuses on the often overlooked service of the British naval forces stationed in the English Channel during the conflict. The eclectic collection of destroyers, converted yachts, and requisitioned trawlers that comprised the patrol made for a considerable contrast with the dreadnoughts at Scapa Flow, yet, as Dunn demonstrates, they played a vital role in securing the Channel for the safe transport of British troops to France and in opposing the transit of German U-boats to their stations. In describing the admirals who commanded the station over the course of the war, the lives of the men who served aboard the ships, and the various engagements which they fou

Jeanette Jouili‘s fascinating new book Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe (Stanford University Press, 2015) navigates practices and challenges of living pious ethical lives in inhospitable conditions. Through a finely textured analysis of quotidian practices of piety among conservative Muslim women in France and Germany, this book offers a nuanced and analytically rich examination of the intersection of ethics, secular conditions, and religious normative imaginaries. The strength of this book lies in the way it brilliantly hues the tensions of everyday life with sharp theoretical reflections on questions of ethics, moral agency, and gender. Although a commentary of aspirations of piety among Muslim women in Europe, this book also shows fractures in European promises of pluralism. SherAli Tareen is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and mo

How do you make taxpayers comply? Lotta Bjorklund Larsen‘s ethnography, Shaping Taxpayers: Values in Action at the Swedish Tax Agency (Berghahn Books, 2017) offers a vivid, yet nuanced account of knowledge making at one of Sweden’s most esteemed bureaucracies: the Swedish Tax Agency. In its aim to collect taxes and minimize tax faults, the Agency mediates the application of tax law to ensure compliance and maintain legitimacy in society. This volume follows one risk assessment project’s passage through the Agency, from its inception, through the research phase, in discussions with management to its final abandonment. With its fiscal anthropological approach, Shaping Taxpayers reveals how diverse knowledge claims–legal, economic, cultural–compete to shape taxpayer behaviour. Nivedita Kar is a student at the University of Southern California, having graduated from UCLA with a double major in Anthropology and Statistics and a masters degree from Northwestern University in biostatis

In the Name of the Mother: Italian Americans, African Americans, and Modernity from Booker T. Washington to Bruce Springsteen (Dartmouth, 2017) emphasizes the racial “in-betweenness” of Italian Americans rearticulated as “invisible blackness,” a view that enlarges and complicates the color-based dimensions of American racial discourse. This strikingly original work will interest a wide spectrum of scholars in American Studies and the humanities. The author examines the cultural relationship between African American intellectuals and Italian American writers and artists, and how it relates to American blackness in the twentieth century. He also explores the links between African American literature and the Mediterranean tradition of Italian immigrants, and then examines both against the white intellectual discourse that defines modernism in the West. This previously unexamined encounter offers a hybrid, transnational model of modernity capable of producing democratic forms of aesthetics

In this episode, I speak with Tim Walker, the author of Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms (W. W. Norton & Company, 2017). This book stems from recent interest in Finland’s educational system resulting from its success on international assessments and explains how policy translates into classroom routines and structures as well as what American teachers can learn from their Finnish counterparts. We discuss how the two countries take different views on what makes good teachers and learning outcomes as well as ways teachers can promote well-being in any school context. He recommends the following books for listeners interested in his work and our conversation: Finnish Lessons 2.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? by Pasi Sahlberg The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way by Amanda Ripley The Well-Balanced Teacher: How to Work Smarter and Stay Sane Inside the Classroom and Out by Mike Anderson Walker joins New Books in Education fo

In her new book, Jazz Italian Style: From its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Anna Harwell Celenza examines the arrival of jazz in Italy after World War I and the role of Mussolini in promoting jazz throughout Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. With the technology of the radio and gramophone, jazz became part of the local music culture and ethnic and national identities were not viewed across the new mediums. In Jazz Italian Style Celenza explores how Italians made jazz their own, creating a genre distinguishable from American varieties and influencing Italian-American musicians. Well researched and documented, Celenza’s work presents a narrative of jazz that is seldom heard and must be remembered. In addition, Celenza uses @JazzItalianStyl to promote Italian Jazz and share some of the music she recovers in her book. Rebekah Buchanan is an Assistant Professor of English at Western Illinois University. Her work examines the role of narrative–both

500 years ago, a German monk and professor named Martin Luther started a well-intentioned movement to reform “the Church” (Jesus founded only one, after all). Luther’s object was not to split the Church, but to bring it into conformity with what he thought was the “true Christianity,” the one he discovered (and, he claimed, any believer could discover) in the Scriptures. Things didn’t work out the way he wanted it to, for the Church did split. And split, and split, and split. There are a lot of different kinds of Protestants. In alphabetical order (and not an exhaustive list by any means): Adventists, Anabaptists, Anglicans, Baptists, Calvinists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostalists, Pietists, Presbyterians, Unitarians, and Quakers. Each of these confessions can be further subdivided. For example, I was raised in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), not the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. What happened? Why can’t the Protestants get

Caterina Corner lived a life that was composed of a mixture of adventure, power, and tragedy. The daughter of a Venetian patrician and merchant, she was married to the king of Cyprus while barely a teenager. Within two years of voyaging to her new home in 1472, she became a mother, a widow, and the ruler of Cyprus, over which she reigned until she was dethroned by her Venetian benefactors in 1489. In Daughter of Venice: Caterina Corner, Queen of Cyprus and Woman of the Renaissance (Yale University Press, 2015), Holly Hurlburt describes the life and artistic legacy of this remarkable woman. As she explains, much of our image of her is shaped by the portraits and other artwork of her, both from her reign and afterward. In combination with the extant documentary record, they reveal how Caterina maintained and projected her authority as queen in a tumultuous time while facing challenges from several Mediterranean powers. Ever after her removal to a community in northern Venice, she maintained her influence and di

Raz Chen-Morris‘s new book traces a significant and surprising notion through the work of Johannes Kepler: in order to account for real physical motions, one has to investigate artificially produced shadows and reflections. Measuring Shadows: Kepler’s Optics of Invisibility (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016) beautifully places Kepler’s optics into conversation with the art and literature of the period. It looks carefully at the crucial ways that changing notions of visibility set Kepler’s optics up as the cornerstone to his radical Copernican astronomy as Kepler made three moves that helped him bridge the visual gap between the heavens and its observers: (1) He defined light as a mathematical body, (2) He showed how instruments of observation could be manipulated mathematically to achieve exact representation of distant and almost invisible heavenly occurrences, and (3) He helped develop a new language for scientific observation by reformulating the relationship of mathema

From the early days of the BBC in 1922, women were everywhere in the broadcasting company’s offices. They were absent, however, argues Dr. Kate Murphy from most of the historiography devoted to this illustrious institution. In this vibrant monograph, Murphy sets out to find these hidden female figures. A former producer of the long-running program Woman’s Hour and currently a Senior Lecturer at Bournemouth University in the UK, Murphy is cognizant both of women’s contribution to the BBC and of the challenges they face working there. In Behind the Wireless: A History of Women at the BBC (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), Murphy delivers on the titles promises. First, she offers a detailed portrait of the BBC in the interwar period as a unique workplace complete with medical services, a subsidized canteen, and a country-club for its workers. She demonstrates why the fact that the company was created around on a new technology made it especially suitable for women in general, and ambitious ones in par

The prowess of the Roman empire was imbued with courage and militarism. Symbolised by the combative male soldier, Michael Edward Stewart‘s tool of historical enquiry is masculinity. In his book, The Soldier’s Life: Martial Virtues and Manly Romanitas in the Early Byzantine Empire (Kismet Press, 2016), Stewart explores whether theological constructions of manhood as ascetic and pacifist changed the contours of manly Romanitas. From the martial metaphors of Synesius of Cyrene, to the third gender of Eunuchs, to the paganism of Emperor Julian to the piety of Theodosius I – The Soldier’s Life reminds us that gender has been constructed for centuries. The fluidity of boundaries and power in this ancient construct of masculinity makes a poignant case against restrictive binaries and static hegemony. Published by Kismet press, this book is available online as part of a larger project for making knowledge, history and scholarship accessible.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/

Meredith K. Ray’s new book contextualizes and translates a range of seventeenth-century letters, mostly between Margherita Sarrocchi (1560-1617) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), that collectively offer a fascinating window into the correspondence of two brilliant early modern writers and intellectuals. Margherita Sarrocchi’s Letters to Galileo: Astronomy, Astrology, and Poetics in Seventeenth-Century Italy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) traces the relationship between Sarrocchi, a Naples-born writer, famous for her salons and for writing an epic poem that emphasized the significance of women as knowers of the natural world, with Galileo. The letters feature three major themes: Sarrocchi consulting Galileo for writerly advice as she revised her epic poem, Sarrocchi’s efforts to defend Galileo’s discoveries to the scientific community in Italy, and Sarrocchi and Galileo’s shared interest in judicial astrology and natal charts or nativities. The slim volume will be a resource not just f