Podcast · Arts & Books

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast

by New Books Network · English · Arts & Books

Interviews with Oxford University Press authors about their books

New episodes: Daily
Typical length: 53 min
Latest: 10 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

10 Oct 2026 · 39 min

Europe in the Eleventh Century: Beyond Revolution and Reform with Charles West (Oxford UP, 2025)

Eleventh-century Europe was diverse and fast-changing. Historians have often debated this change through two sets of competing arguments, one about the shifting role of the Church and the Papacy, and the other about the rise of castellan lords and a proliferation in violence. Yet these arguments about 'Church Reform' and 'Feudal Revolution' only really apply to one part of Europe, the Latin West. Europe in the Eleventh Century: Beyond Revolution and Reform (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Professor Charles West takes its cue from contemporary perceptions of Europe, and includes Byzantium…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

E2026 · 9 Oct 2026 · 40 min
The Technocratic International: Experts and the Making of a World from Nowhere with Jan Eijking (Oxford UP, 2026)
Most international organisations today-from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the World Health Organisation-present themselves as technical institutions separate from political concerns. And yet they are frequently accused, whether by the public or by governments, of hiding behind this technocratic veil only to privilege a few rich and powerful nations. Experts appear as guardians of stability and protectors of an unequal status quo. Scholars of International Relations (IR) and international law have illuminated the production and contestation of expertise. But its historical…
E2027 · 8 Oct 2026 · 49 min
A Pacific Power: Liberal Imperialism in German Samoa with Matthew P. Fitzpatrick (Oxford UP, 2025)
Before the First World War Germany was a global empire with colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Annexed to this empire in 1900 was Samoa, a thriving Polynesian trading hub which had previously been the site of conflict between Britain, Germany, and the United States. A Pacific Power: Liberal Imperialism in German Samoa (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Dr. Matthew Fitzpatrick brings to light an often-overlooked history of German imperialism in the Pacific. Focusing on Samoa, it shows the tension between German rulers and Samoan subjects, as well as the variety of ways the Germans…
E2025 · 26 Sep 2026 · 43 min
Weaponizing Civilian Protection: Counterinsurgency and Collateral Damage in Afghanistan with Thomas Gregory (Oxford UP, 2025)
Thomas Gregory is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His new book, Weaponizing Civilian Protection (Oxford UP, 2025), exposes how coalition efforts to minimize and mitigate civilian casualties during the recent conflict in Afghanistan also worked to rationalize the harm inflicted upon Afghan civilians. Drawing on declassified documents and interviews with coalition officials, the book traces how civilian protection was reimagined as a martial tactic rather than a humanitarian imperative, with coalition officials reframing…
E2023 · 17 Sep 2026 · 52 min
Andrew Seth Meyer, "To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China, from Confucius to the First Emperor" (Oxford UP, 2026)
The Warring States Period is one of the most important times in China’s history. It marked the end of one dynasty–the Zhou–and the beginning of a new imperial era, under the Qin. It’s an era that historian Andrew Seth Meyer describes as one of the most important revolutions in world history: The fall of the old aristocratic order, the birth of Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism, and the creation of the imperial system that would shape China for over two thousand years. Andrew has put together one of the first English comprehensive histories of the Warring States period in his new book To…
E1893 · 10 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 6 min
Robert A. Wilson, "Kin Matters: Relational Beings in the Fragile Sciences" (Oxford UP, 2026)
What is kinship? This central question in cultural anthropology is standardly answered in terms of culturally constructed relationships that are unconstrained by biological relationships. In Kin Matters: Relational Beings in the Fragile Sciences (Oxford UP, 2026), Robert Wilson proposes an alternative view that does not separate kin relations from biological facts about reproduction that are universally known, such as the fact that human females are pregnant before they give birth. On the Progenerative View, kinship is the cultural elaboration of reproductive relations, which act as…
E1892 · 5 Sep 2026 · 43 min
Meghan Garrity, "Mass Expulsion: The Politics of Forced Population Removal" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, governments around the world have expelled, en masse, more than 30 million people. Yet despite its prevalence, mass expulsion remains an understudied phenomenon as scholarly attention has been directed toward the gravest atrocities—genocide and mass killing—or toward forced migration more broadly. Mass Expulsion: The Politics of Forced Population Removal (Oxford UP, 2026) by Dr. Meghan Garrity examines why and how governments expel, providing a systematic, cross-regional account of mass expulsion over the longue durée. Using the original…
E1891 · 4 Sep 2026 · 53 min
Shaun Gallagher, "The Self and its Disorders" (Oxford UP, 2024)
In this interview, Shaun Gallagher discusses The Self and its Disorders (Oxford University Press, 2024) A ground-breaking theory of the self as a pattern Interdisciplinary, drawing on philosophy of mind, phenomenology, cognitive psychology, psychiatry, and dynamical systems analysis Discusses the role of self-narrative in self-formation, its breakdown in various psychopathologies, and its role in therapy Explores the phenomenology of agency and its disruption in various psychopathologies Outlines a 4E (embodied, embedded, extended and enactive) approach to understanding the effects of…
E1890 · 4 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 13 min
Baruch Fischhoff, "Bounded Disciplines and Unbounded Problems: A Vision for Management Science" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Baruch Fischhoff's Bounded Disciplines and Unbounded Problems: A Vision for Management Science (Oxford University Press, 2025), part of the Clarendon Lectures in Management series) tackles a central tension in academia that disciplines are organized around narrow, bounded methods and theories, while the real-world problems society faces such as climate change, public health, financial crises, technology risk are messy, unbounded, and refuse to respect departmental boundaries. Fischhoff argues that business schools are uniquely positioned to bridge this gap because they already house faculty…
E1889 · 29 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 19 min
Stefan Collini, "Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain (Oxford University Press, 2025) by Stefan Collini The study and teaching of English literature is generally regarded as one of the central disciplines in the modern university, yet for much of its history it struggled to gain academic legitimacy and was frequently derided as 'a soft option'. Its early professors responded by emphasizing its scholarly character, foregrounding philology and literary history in ways that marked the syllabus far into the twentieth century. Stefan Collini provides here the first full account of the…
E1888 · 27 Aug 2026 · 41 min
Jamie L. Brummitt, "Protestant Relics in Early America" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Edward Blum interviews Dr. Jamie L. Brummitt on how new book Protestant Relics in Early America. In Protestant Relics in Early America (Oxford UP, 2025), Jamie L. Brummitt upends long-held assumptions about religion and material culture in the early United States. Brummitt chronicles how American Protestants cultivated a lively relic culture centered around collecting supernatural memory objects associated with dead Christian leaders, family members, and friends. These objects materialized the real physical presences of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and souls of the dead on earth.As…
E1887 · 25 Aug 2026 · 56 min
Niharika Pandit, "Occupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Our recent conversation about Occupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir (Oxford UP, 2026), with author Niharika Pandit, covers the journey of how critical methodology meets the weight of lived experience. This book examines the everyday politics of militarized control in Kashmir following the Indian government’s August 5, 2019, decision to de-operationalize Jammu and Kashmir’s nominal autonomy. The core of our reflection centered on how one theorizes through such an intense archive. The book avoids abstract distance, relying instead on a rigorous…
E1886 · 25 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
Chenchen Zhang, "Easting the West: Theorizing the Postliberal Conjuncture from China" (Oxford UP, 2026)
With commentary on the emergence of a ‘multipolar’ world, of transatlantic rifts and the rise of ‘middle powers’ ubiquitous, tales of the decline of something called ‘the West’ seem to be everywhere. Yet the meanings the idea of ‘the West’ acquires in spaces beyond it tell us at least as much about the state of the world as portents of its demise. Based on a combination of cultural analysis of historical writings and—most strikingly—deep immersion in often very spicy Chinese social media fora, Chenchen Zhang’s new book Easting the West: Theorizing the Postliberal Conjuncture from China…
E1885 · 23 Aug 2026 · 39 min
Travis Bruce, "Constructing the Medieval Maritime State: Identity, Violence, and Connection in the Mediterranean" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Constructing the Medieval Maritime State: Identity, Violence, and Connection in the Mediterranean (Oxford University Press, 2026) by Professor Travis Bruce explores how the small medieval kingdom of Denia in Spain became a powerful maritime state after the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate. Its rulers built authority, not only through war and seafaring raids but also by connecting Denia to wider Mediterranean trade, diplomacy, and culture. The rise and evolution of the taifa of Denia is a powerful case study for understanding the construction of medieval maritime states in the…
E1884 · 20 Aug 2026 · 44 min
Aleksandar Uskokov, "Deciphering the Hidden Meaning: Language and the Highest Good in Early Advaita Vedānta" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Deciphering the Hidden Meaning: Language and the Highest Good in Early Advaita Vedānta (Oxford UP, 2026) presents a transformative history of one of the most significant ideas in Indian philosophy: liberation. Taking the great philosopher Śaṅkara as the focal point, Aleksandar Uskokov analyzes the relationship between liberation, language, and scripture. While modern portraits of Śaṅkara often cast him as a mystic or a religious reformer, the book paints a more complex portrait of the historical Śaṅkara. As a theologian of liberation, Śaṅkara was a maverick within the prevailing Brahmanical…
E1883 · 14 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 3 min
Daniel Byman, "American Pogroms: How Forgotten Massacres Shape America" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Amidst heightened rhetoric and increasing polarization in the United States, American Pogroms: How Forgotten Massacres Shape America (Oxford University Press, 2026) chronicles the causes and consequences of two centuries of mob violence in American history, highlighting exactly what's at stake when we allow leaders to legitimate violence and the mob to rule. For much of American history, members of the majority population of the United States indiscriminately attacked and terrorized minority communities. In some parts of the country, mob violence seemed a near-constant part of the region's…
E1882 · 13 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
Kathleen J. Frydl, "Liberalism and the Reinvention of the Modern Corporation" (Oxford UP, 2025)
This is a really good book. Really good. Liberalism and the Reinvention of the Modern Corporation (Oxford UP, 2025) takes the reader on a fascinating, and perhaps unexpected, journey through Catholic hospitals, the expansion of the carceral state, and corporate and union access to the protections of First Amendment freedom of speech. All the while, Kathleen J. Frydl is rigorously constructing an understanding and positioning of the modern corporation within the governmental structures and protections of the American political system. This is a deeply and thoroughly researched book, with…
E1881 · 10 Aug 2026 · 51 min
Caro Pirri, "Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Today’s guest, Caro Pirri, is the author of Colonial Failure and Theatrical Form in Early Modern England: Stages of Unsettlement (Oxford University Press, 2025). This book explores how early modern colonial travel writing informed the London theater’s spatial and placemaking conventions. It suggests that what the stage found most compelling about narratives of colonial settlement was their failure to claim interpretive control over unfamiliar places and people. The book goes on to link colonial misreadings of places and people to theatrical strategies for staging disorientation, which Pirri…
E1880 · 10 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 13 min
Christopher Campo-Bowen, "Visions of the Village: Ruralness, Identity, and Czech Opera" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The Bartered Bride, a comic opera by Bedrich Smetana, premiered in Prague on March 30, 1866. Its pastoral love story and setting in a rural Czech village eventually became an enduring symbol of Czech nationalism. In Visions of the Village: Ruralness, Identity, and Czech Opera (Oxford University Press, 2025), Christopher Campo-Bowen examines how a particular image of the rural village in a set of Czech operas written between 1866 and 1904 became a powerful signifier for Czech ethnoracial and nationalist identity. He follows this conception of Czech identity and its entanglement with opera…
E1879 · 9 Aug 2026 · 1 hr
Caryl Flinn and Dana B. Polan, "The Patty Duke Show and the American Sixties: Hot Dogs and Crêpes Suzette" (Oxford UP, 2026)
In The Patty Duke Show and the American Sixties: Hot Dogs and Crêpes Suzette (Oxford UP, 2026), the first ever published on The Patty Duke Show (1963-66), Caryl Flinn and Dana Polan examine the significance of this classic US sitcom within popular culture and within American society at the time. Child acting sensation Patty Duke plays the all-American Patty as well as her staid British counterpart Cathy, who comes to live with Patty's family in Brooklyn. Far from being a frivolous show, the show's use of twin girls--and their comic antics--offers glimpses into different identities and…
E1878 · 8 Aug 2026 · 57 min
Russia’s Jews in World War I
When World War I began, the Russian Empire was home to more than 5.7 million Jews, the most densely settled Jewish population in the world. Thirty years later, by 1945, only remnants of this civilization remained. The years of World War I, from 1914 to 1918, launched nearly all the forces that led to this epic destruction. In A Nation of Refugees: Russia's Jews in World War I, Polly Zavadivker tells how Jewish civilians experienced that war and its epicenter of violence on the Eastern Front. World War I transformed the lives of East European Jews in ways that were second only to the…
E1877 · 8 Aug 2026 · 48 min
Deborah Barer, "Going Off Script: Improvisational Judgment in the Talmud" (Oxford UP, 2026)
What does it really mean to go "beyond the letter of the law"? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with scholar Deborah Barer to discuss her book Going Off Script: Improvisational Judgment in the Talmud, which offers a surprising new interpretation of one of the Talmud's most enduring ethical concepts: lifnim mi-shurat ha-din. For generations, lifnim mi-shurat ha-din has been understood to mean acting "beyond the letter of the law"—choosing generosity or compassion over strict legal obligation. Barer challenges that assumption. Through a close reading of classical rabbinic texts, she…
E1876 · 8 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
Edward T. G. Anderson, "Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Diaspora: Transnational Politics and British Multiculturalism" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Hindu nationalism is transforming India as an increasingly dominant ideology and political force. But it is also a global phenomenon, with sections of India’s vast and influential diaspora drawn to, or actively supporting, right-wing Hindu nationalism. Indians overseas can be seen as an important, even inextricable, aspect of the movement. This is not a new dynamic—diasporic Hindutva has grown over many decades. Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Diaspora: Transnational Politics and British Multiculturalism (Oxford University Press, 2024) explores how and why the movement became popular…
E1875 · 6 Aug 2026 · 53 min
Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz and Alaka Atreya Chudal "The Swasthani Vrata Katha" (Oxford UP, 2026)
The Swasthani Vrata Katha is the most widely read, recited, and listened to Hindu devotional text, especially of local indigenous origin, among Hindu laity in Nepal. Dedicated to and itself the physical embodiment of a local goddess named Swasthani, Nepali Hindus recite the Swasthani every year from cover to cover over the winter month of Magh (January–February). It is a collection of widely circulating Hindu myths about gods, demons, and divine dalliances that forefront Shiva, Sati, and Parvati but it is also a local folk story about women’s real, everyday hardships and the rewards of…
E1874 · 3 Aug 2026 · 42 min
Emily Sneff, "When the Declaration of Independence Was News" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Amy Weitzman interviews Emily Sneff on her new book When the Declaration of Independence Was News and the graduate school experience. In 1776 people could hear the Declaration of Independence proclaimed in public squares and could read it in the pages of their local newspapers. Stories of the Declaration typically recount the work that took place inside the Continental Congress, focusing on the men tasked with drafting the text. Although Congress declared independence, the work of spreading the news involved printers, post riders, ship captains, civic leaders, soldiers, clerks, orators,…
E1873 · 30 Jul 2026 · 51 min
Elijah Wald, "Rock ‘N’ Roll: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Rock 'n' roll appeared in the 1950s as the high-energy, electrically amplified music of young dancers and listeners, first in the United States and then around the globe, and from the beginning it symbolized more than music. First popularized as a marketing rubric to sell African-American rhythm and blues to white teenagers, it stood for racial integration, sexual freedom, youthful rebellion, and for change and modernity. It was never a single kind of music, and historians disagree about when it began and which artists or records should be included in its canon--but it was always a…
E1872 · 29 Jul 2026 · 57 min
Steven K. Green, "American Infidelity: The Gilded Age Battle Over Freethought, Free Love, and Feminism" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Today I'm speaking with Steven K. Green, Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of History and Religious Studies at Willamette University. We are discussing his book, American Infidelity: The Gilded Age Battle Over Freethought, Free Love, and Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2026). Since the first permanent Protestant settlement in Jamestown in 1607, Protestant Christianity has waxed and waned through a series of revivals, migrations, and challenges from alternative faiths like Catholicism and Mormonism. The Gilded Age, from roughly 1870 to 1900, was a unique period for…
E1871 · 28 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth, "Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions" (Oxford UP, 2026)
In Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions (Oxford University Press, 2026), Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth reveal the vast and complex world of France's Atlantic enterprises in the premodern era. Drawing upon years of archival work, Hodson and Rushforth demonstrate how France's overseas activities created its empire, intentionally or not, and how these distant places built the French state and used it for their own ends. Beyond the Ocean covers an impressive sweep of history, from the late eleventh century through the early…
E1870 · 28 Jul 2026 · 52 min
Jenny R. Labendz, "Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective" (Oxford UP, 2026)
In Beyond Hope: Rabbinic Eschatology of Late Antiquity in Comparative Perspective (Oxford UP, 2026) Jenny Labendz addresses distinct patterns within rabbinic eschatology that have been overlooked in scholarship and in Jewish thought. Contrary to what is usually expected of eschatology, this book demonstrates that the rabbis held a sustained eschatology of irresolution. While the rabbis occasionally waxed poetic along the lines of a perfected new world in the eschaton, a vast store of rabbinic texts depicts a deeply imperfect eschaton. This is the profound difference between rabbinic and…
E1869 · 28 Jul 2026 · 21 min
Anna Lively, "Revolutionary Connections: Russia and Ireland, 1905-1923" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Anna Lively is a historian of modern Ireland, Britain, and Russia. Awarded her PhD in History from the University of Edinburgh in 2022, she is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in History at the University of Strathclyde. Prior to this she held the Roy Foster Irish Government Research Fellowship in the History and Culture of Ireland at Hertford College, University of Oxford, and was a Teaching Fellow in Modern History at the University of Aberdeen. She has published in multiple journals on the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and on the Irish Save the Children Fund. From…

About In Conversation: An OUP Podcast

Interviews with Oxford University Press authors about their books

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast is a English arts & books podcast from New Books Network. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: New Books Network
Language: English
Category: Arts & Books
New episodes: Daily
Typical length: 53 min
Latest episode: 10 Oct 2026
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