Episodios

  • Jessica Catherine Reuther, "The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey: Portraits of West African Girlhood, 1720–1940" (Indiana UP, 2025)

    Jessica Catherine Reuther, "The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey: Portraits of West African Girlhood, 1720–1940" (Indiana UP, 2025)
    Nov 15 2025
    From the 1720s to the 1940s, parents in the kingdom and later colony of Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin) developed and sustained the common practice of girl fostering, or "entrusting." Transferring their daughters at a young age into foster homes, Dahomeans created complex relationships of mutual obligation, kinship, and caregiving that also exploited girls' labor for the economic benefit of the women who acted as their social mothers. Drawing upon oral tradition, historic images, and collective memories, Jessica Reuther pieces together the fragmentary glimpses of girls' lives contained in colonial archives within the framework of traditional understandings about entrustment. Placing these girls and their social mothers at the center of history brings to light their core contributions to local and global political economies, even as the Dahomean monarchy, global trade, and colonial courts reshaped girlhood norms and fostering practices. In The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey: Portraits of West African Girlhood, 1720–1940 (Indiana UP, 2025) Reuther reveals that the social, economic, and political changes wrought by the expansion of Dahomey in the eighteenth century, the shift to "legitimate" trade in agricultural products in the nineteenth century, and the imposition of French colonialism in the twentieth all fundamentally altered—and were altered by—the intimate practice of entrusting female children between households. Dahomeans also valorized this process as a crucial component of being "well-raised"—a sentiment that continues into the present, despite widespread Beninese opposition to modern-day forms of child labor. Dr. Jessica Reuther is an associate professor of African and world history at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, USA. She came to Ball State after earning her PhD in African History from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, in 2016. Dr. Reuther is a historian of Africa, specializing in Atlantic West Africa and French West Africa from the 16th century to the present. She has conducted archival and oral history research in Benin, Senegal, France, Switzerland, and the United States. You can learn more about her work here. Afua Baafi Quarshie is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on mothering and childhood in post-independence Ghana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies
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    1 h y 14 m
  • Eric H. Cline, "Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed" (Princeton UP, 2025)

    Eric H. Cline, "Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed" (Princeton UP, 2025)
    Nov 12 2025
    From the acclaimed author of 1177 B.C., a spellbinding account of the archaeological find that opened a window onto the vibrant diplomatic world of the ancient Near East In 1887, an Egyptian woman made an astonishing discovery among the ruins of the heretic king Akhenaten’s capital city, a site now known as Amarna. She found a cache of cuneiform tablets, nearly four hundred in all, that included correspondence between the pharaohs and the mightiest powers of the day, such as the Hittites, Babylonians, and Assyrians. Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed (Princeton University Press, 2025) tells the story of the Amarna Letters and the dramatic world of the Bronze Age they revealed. Blending scholarly expertise with painstaking detective work, Eric Cline describes the spectacular discovery, the fierce competition among dealers and museums to acquire the tablets, and the race by British and German scholars to translate them. Dating to the middle of the fourteenth century BCE and the time of Tutankhamun’s immediate predecessors, Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaten, the Amarna Letters are the only royal archive from New Kingdom Egypt known to exist. In them, we learn of royal marriages, diplomatic negotiations, gift-giving, intrigue, and declarations of brotherly love between powerful rulers as well as demands made by the petty kings in Canaan who owed allegiance to Egypt’s pharaohs. A monumental achievement, Love, War, and Diplomacy transports readers to the glorious age of the Amarna Letters and the colonial era that brought them to light and reveals how the politics, posturing, and international intrigues of the ancient Near East are not so unlike today’s. Eric H. Cline is professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies
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    1 h y 7 m
  • Two Decades On: The African Union, Power, and Africa’s Democratic Future

    Two Decades On: The African Union, Power, and Africa’s Democratic Future
    Nov 10 2025
    When the African Union was founded in 2002, it promised to deliver a more united, prosperous, and people-centred continent. Two decades later, Africa’s political landscape tells a more complex story: one of ambition and frustration, democratic progress and reversal, renewed activism, and enduring inequality. How far has the AU come in shaping “The Africa We Want”, and what does its evolving role reveal about power, governance, and the continent’s place in a rapidly changing world? In this episode, CEDAR host Temitayo Odeyemi talks to Dr Adeoye Akinola about his new co-edited volume African Union and Agenda 2063: The Past, Present, and Future (UJ Press, 2025) to unpack what over two decades of continental politics teach us about Africa’s democratic future, regional integration, and global voice. Adeoye O. Akinola is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, where he leads the African Union Studies Unit. His research spans African political economy, governance, peace and security, and regional integration. His other publications include The Resurgence of Military Coups and Democratic Relapse in Africa (Palgrave 2024) and The Political Economy of Xenophobia in Africa (Springer 2018). Temitayo Isaac Odeyemi is a Research Fellow in Democratic Resilience at the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR). His research examines institutions, actors, and democratic engagement in Africa. The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Election, Democracy, Accountability and Representation at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Join us to better understand the forces that promote and undermine democratic government around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies
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    37 m
  • Martha Biondi, "We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation" (U California Press, 2025)

    Martha Biondi, "We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation" (U California Press, 2025)
    Nov 8 2025
    Explores forgotten solidarity with African liberation struggles through the life of Black Chicagoan Prexy Nesbitt. For many civil rights activists, the Vietnam War brought the dangers of US imperialism and the global nature of antiracist struggle into sharp relief. Martha Biondi tells the story of one such group of activists who built an internationalist movement in Chicago committed to liberation everywhere but especially to ending colonialism and apartheid in Africa. Among their leaders was Prexy Nesbitt. Steeped from an early age in stories of Garveyism and labor militancy, Nesbitt was powerfully influenced by his encounters with the exiled African radicals he met in Dar es Salaam, London, and across the United States. Operating domestically and abroad, Nesbitt's cohort worked closely with opponents of Portuguese and white minority rule in Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. Rather than promoting a US conception of Black self-determination, they took ideas from African anticolonial leaders and injected them into US foreign policy debates. The biography of a man but even more so of a movement, We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation (U California Press, 2025) reveals the underappreciated influence of a transformative Black solidarity project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies
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    42 m
  • Loic De Canniere, "The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labour Markets and Welfare" (Anthem, 2025)

    Loic De Canniere, "The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labour Markets and Welfare" (Anthem, 2025)
    Nov 4 2025
    The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labor Markets and Welfare explores the major trends that will define the face of the sub-Saharan continent in the next three decades. The near doubling of Africa’s population by 2050 will lead to more than twenty million new job seekers entering the African labor market every year until then. Right now, Africa doesn’t seem able to offer jobs to this many people, resulting in possible unrest and intra-African or intercontinental migration flows, including to Europe. Climate change creates additional migratory pressure as it threatens the future of agriculture and livestock. The author explores the opportunities for increased job creation in Africa. Fortunately, Africa has some major strengths. Africans excel in market-creating innovation: the ability to see market opportunities and innovations that others do not. Many Africans create their own jobs through micro and small enterprises. A young well-trained middle class, familiar with digital technologies, is emerging. Africa’s abundant natural resources attract global powers like China aspiring to secure access to critical raw materials. The author challenges pessimistic message about the continent and provides an optimistic view of Africa’s future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies
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    1 h y 8 m
  • Loic De Canniere, "The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labour Markets and Welfare" (Anthem, 2025)

    Loic De Canniere, "The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labour Markets and Welfare" (Anthem, 2025)
    Nov 4 2025
    The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labor Markets and Welfare explores the major trends that will define the face of the sub-Saharan continent in the next three decades. The near doubling of Africa’s population by 2050 will lead to more than twenty million new job seekers entering the African labor market every year until then. Right now, Africa doesn’t seem able to offer jobs to this many people, resulting in possible unrest and intra-African or intercontinental migration flows, including to Europe. Climate change creates additional migratory pressure as it threatens the future of agriculture and livestock. The author explores the opportunities for increased job creation in Africa. Fortunately, Africa has some major strengths. Africans excel in market-creating innovation: the ability to see market opportunities and innovations that others do not. Many Africans create their own jobs through micro and small enterprises. A young well-trained middle class, familiar with digital technologies, is emerging. Africa’s abundant natural resources attract global powers like China aspiring to secure access to critical raw materials. The author challenges pessimistic message about the continent and provides an optimistic view of Africa’s future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies
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    1 h y 8 m
  • Claudia Gastrow, "The Aesthetics of Belonging: Indigenous Urbanism and City Building in Oil-Boom Luanda" (UNC Press Books, 2024)

    Claudia Gastrow, "The Aesthetics of Belonging: Indigenous Urbanism and City Building in Oil-Boom Luanda" (UNC Press Books, 2024)
    Oct 31 2025
    After centuries of colonial rule, the end of Angola’s three-decade civil war in 2002 provided an irresistible opportunity for the government to reimagine the Luanda cityscape. Awash with petrodollars cultivated through strategic foreign relationships, President José Eduardo dos Santos rolled out a national reconstruction program that sought to transform Angola’s capital into what he considered to be a modern, world-class metropolis. Until funds dried up in 2014, the program—in conjunction with sweeping private investments in real estate—involved mass demolitions of vernacular architecture to make way for high-rise buildings, large-scale housing projects, and commercial centers. The program thus underestimated the values enshrined in the materials and designs of Luanda’s existing “informally” constructed neighborhoods, or musseques. The Aesthetics of Belonging: Indigenous Urbanism and City Building in Oil-Boom Luanda (University of North Carolina Press, 2024) explores the political significance of aesthetics in the remaking of the city. Dr. Claudia Gastrow’s archival and ethnographic work, which includes interviews with city planners, architects, nonprofit leaders, and urban dwellers, shows how government infrastructure projects and foreign-inspired designs came to embody displacement and exclusion for many. This, Dr. Gastrow argues, catalyzed a countermovement, an aesthetic dissent rooted in critically reframing informal urbanism as Indigenous—a move that enabled the possibility of recognizing the political potential of informal settlements as spaces that produce belonging. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies
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    58 m
  • Aria Fani, "Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism" (U Texas Press, 2024)

    Aria Fani, "Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism" (U Texas Press, 2024)
    Oct 31 2025
    The dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through literature. Contrary to the presumption that literary nationalism in the Global South emerged through contact with Europe alone, Reading Across Borders: Afghans, Iranians, and Literary Nationalism (University of Texas Press, 2024) demonstrates how the cultural forms of Iran and Afghanistan as nation-states arose from their shared Persian heritage and cross-cultural exchange in the twentieth century. In this book, Aria Fani charts the individuals, institutions, and conversations that made this exchange possible, detailing the dynamic and interconnected ways Afghans and Iranians invented their modern selves through new ideas about literature. Fani illustrates how voluntary and state-funded associations of readers helped formulate and propagate "literature" as a recognizable notion, adapting and changing Persian concepts to fit this modern idea. Focusing on early twentieth-century periodicals with readers in Afghan and Iranian cities and their diaspora, Fani exposes how nationalism intensified—rather than severed—cultural contact among two Persian-speaking societies amidst the diverging and competing demands of their respective nation-states. This interconnected history was ultimately forgotten, shaping many of the cultural disputes between Iran and Afghanistan today. Aria Fani is an associate professor and director of Persian and Iranian Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. He serves as the current deputy editor of Iranian Studies and is a co-investigator of the Translation Studies Hub at UW. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies
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    52 m