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New Books in American Studies

New Books in American Studies

By: New Books Network
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 This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studiesNew Books Network Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • Clarissa E. Francis, "Black Women's Bodily Autonomy, Sexual Freedom, and Pleasure: Explorations of the Hot Girl Movement" (Routledge, 2025)

    Clarissa E. Francis, "Black Women's Bodily Autonomy, Sexual Freedom, and Pleasure: Explorations of the Hot Girl Movement" (Routledge, 2025)
    Feb 28 2026
    Black Women's Bodily Autonomy, Sexual Freedom, and Pleasure: Explorations of the Hot Girl Movement (Routledge, 2025) explores scholarship, practice, and advocacy for Black women’s pursuit of bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and pleasure. Inspired by Megan Thee Stallion’s song "Hot Girl Summer" and pleasure activism, Dr. Clarissa E. Francis ("The Real Hot Girl Doc") examines the cultural and social impacts of "hot girl" music and its transformative effects on Black women’s sexual liberation journeys. Francis introduces readers to the Hot Girl Movement, addressing intergenerational trauma, denial of bodily autonomy, and pleasure politics. This book offers a historical review and current documentation of Black women’s role in the evolving movement for sexual liberation in the United States, with a particular focus on Atlanta, Georgia. Chapters delve into the history of systemic oppression, presenting research on Black women’s experiences with gendered racism while demonstrating the socio-cultural influences shaping Black women’s sexual liberation. The book centers Black women’s narratives, featuring the work of sexologists, clinicians, somatic practitioners, and community organizers in guiding Black women to achieve sexual liberation. The final chapter outlines conclusions of the research on the Hot Girl Movement and provides recommendations for participating in and supporting this movement. This interdisciplinary text is essential reading for scholars, clinicians, healing practitioners, birthworkers, and activists, including those in fields of sexuality, sex therapy, sociology, gender studies, Black/Africana studies, public health, and social justice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, "Lincoln and the Jews: A History" (NYU Press, 2025)

    Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, "Lincoln and the Jews: A History" (NYU Press, 2025)
    Feb 28 2026
    In this expanded edition to a groundbreaking work, now in paperback, Lincoln and the Jews: A History (NYU Press, 2025), Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell reveal how Abraham Lincoln's unprecedentedly inclusive relationship with American Jews broadened him as president, and, as a result, broadened America. A conversation with Professor Jonathan D. Sarna. Co-authored with collector and scholar Benjamin Shapell, the book began as a lush coffee-table volume built around Shapell’s remarkable Civil War–era collection: letters, photographs, and documents that reveal Lincoln’s Jewish connections in real time. It has since been reissued in paperback by NYU Press, making it far easier to teach, carry, and assign. The shift mirrors the project’s purpose: from a beautiful artifact to a working tool for rethinking Lincoln’s world. Sarna stresses that Lincoln didn’t “know Jews” in the abstract; he knew particular Jews who mattered. Abraham Jonas, an early ally, saw Lincoln as presidential material and encouraged the Republican Party to build a coalition of “outsiders,” explicitly including Jews. Lincoln also developed ties with German-speaking Jewish “48ers,” refugees of the failed 1848 revolutions who brought democratic ideals and anti-slavery commitments. Even in Illinois, Lincoln’s visits to Jewish clothing stores signaled a new kind of everyday encounter between Americans and Jewish merchants. The book opens with a table of concentric circles of relationships between Lincoln and the Jews. Equally important is Lincoln’s religious formation. Raised in a Protestant culture steeped in the Hebrew Bible and divine providence, he drew heavily on biblical language. His letters and speeches are studded with scriptural echoes, reflecting a worldview in which Jews remain central to God’s historical drama rather than a superseded people. This helps explain his “live and let live” stance toward religious difference at a time when some ministers were moving toward more exclusionary theologies. Our conversation touched on Lincoln’s reference to Haman from the Book of Esther in a letter to Joshua Speed. In an age of deep biblical literacy, Haman was a recognizable symbol of evil, later applied by some Jews to Grant after General Orders No. 11. Sarna also recounted the visit of a self-proclaimed prophet named Monk, who asked Lincoln to endorse a plan to “free the Jews” worldwide. Lincoln’s witty, biblically informed response (from the book of Joel) both acknowledged Jewish suffering abroad and rejected the idea of a special “Jewish problem” in the United States. We also explored how 19th-century debates over the Mortara affair in Italy—where a secretly baptized Jewish child was taken from his parents by papal authorities—intersected with American slavery. President Buchanan’s refusal to condemn Rome, Sarna noted, reflected fears that criticizing Church-sanctioned child removal could invite scrutiny of the United States’ own separation of enslaved families. Lincoln and the Jews ultimately invites us to place Jews back into the center of the American story. Lincoln’s friendships, his Hebrew Bible–shaped imagination, and his commitment to equality created a landscape in which Jews were not an abstract “question,” but neighbors and citizens. To understand Lincoln fully, Sarna suggests, we must see the Jews who walked beside him—and to understand American Jewish history, we must see how deeply it is entwined with Lincoln’s moral and political world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
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    49 mins
  • Garrett M. Graff, "When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)

    Garrett M. Graff, "When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
    Aug 13 2025
    June 6, 1944—known to us all as D-Day—is one of history’s greatest and most unbelievable military triumphs. The surprise sunrise landing of more than 150,000 Allied troops on the beaches of occupied northern France is one of the most consequential days of the 20th century. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist Garrett M. Graff, historian and author of The Only Plane in the Sky and Watergate, brings them all together in a one-of-a-kind, bestselling oral history that explores this seminal event in vivid, heart-pounding detail.The story begins in the opening months of the 1940s, as the Germany army tightens its grip across Europe, seizing control of entire nations. The United States, who has resolved to remain neutral, is forced to enter the conflict after an unexpected attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. For the second time in fifty years, the world is at war, with the stakes higher than they’ve ever been before. Then in 1943, Allied leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Casablanca to discuss a new plan for victory: a coordinated invasion of occupied France, led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Failure is not an option. Over the next eighteen months, the large-scale action is organized, mobilizing soldiers across Europe by land, sea, and sky. And when the day comes, it is unlike anything the world has ever seen.These moments and more are seen in real time. A visceral, page-turning drama told through the eyes of those who experienced them—from soldiers, nurses, pilots, children, neighbors, sailors, politicians, volunteers, photographers, reporters and so many more, When the Sea Came Alive “is the sort of book that is smart, inspiring, and powerful—and adds so much to our knowledge of what that day was like and its historic importance forever” (Chris Bohjalian)—an unforgettable, fitting tribute to the men and women of the Greatest Generation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
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    54 mins
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