Episodes

  • Martin Herskovitz, "Son of the Shoah: Poems from a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor" (McFarland, 2025)

    Martin Herskovitz, "Son of the Shoah: Poems from a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor" (McFarland, 2025)
    Dec 26 2025
    As a third generation Holocaust survivor, this was an important conversation with a second generation survivor. Marty has been conducting workshops on writing memory for quite a while and that's where we met - in his workshops with Jewish Ethiopians in Israel. Son of the Shoah: Poems from a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor is his emotional reckoning with his parents and the world as being born into a world of pain and distance. At times I saw my own parents in the discussion and at times I would hear my friend whose family is descended from Jews tortured in the Inquisitions. This was an intimate and powerful discussion which will help the field of memory and Holocaust studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
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    33 mins
  • Anna Hájková, "People without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

    Anna Hájková, "People without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
    Dec 26 2025
    Queerness remains one of the most stigmatized and overlooked aspects of Holocaust history, often erased due to the lingering homophobia of survivors. People Without History Are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust (U Toronto Press, 2025) challenges this silence, weaving together compelling stories of German, Dutch, Czech, and Polish Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors – including Anne Frank, Molly Applebaum, Margot Heuman, and Gad Beck – whose experiences help illuminate the hidden history of queerness in a time of genocide. Drawing on extensive archival research, this groundbreaking book uncovers the lives of those who were doubly marginalized, not only persecuted as Jews but also as queer individuals. In doing so, it confronts the ways in which history has excluded or minimized their experiences, urging us to question normative accounts of the Holocaust. By shedding light on these long-overlooked stories, People Without History Are Dust deepens our understanding of identity, survival, and memory, reminding us why an inclusive and complex approach to history is essential – not just for the sake of the past, but in service to the present and the future as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
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    34 mins
  • Mark Celinscak and Mehnaz Afridi, eds., "Global Approaches to the Holocaust: Memory, History and Representation" (U Nebraska Press, 2025)

    Mark Celinscak and Mehnaz Afridi, eds., "Global Approaches to the Holocaust: Memory, History and Representation" (U Nebraska Press, 2025)
    Dec 16 2025
    The field of contemporary Holocaust studies is increasingly international in perspective. These approaches do not detach themselves from European history; rather, they incorporate perspectives and voices not always considered in more traditional Holocaust studies. The contributors to Global Approaches to the Holocaust: Memory, History and Representation (U Nebraska Press, 2025) take such an approach as they examine the Holocaust, adding to the historical and memorial reach of the subject through an international range of voices. Global Approaches to the Holocaust asks: What happens when scholars shift their focus from an exclusively European perspective of the Holocaust? What new insights are gained from exploring the impact of the Holocaust from outside the European milieu? How do countries that were not directly affected by Nazi policies of occupation and extermination remember the Holocaust? What does an expansive approach to the Holocaust entail? With essays about North and South Africa, Mauritius, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, the Philippines, the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, Palestine, Colombia, New Zealand, and more, Global Approaches to the Holocaust seeks to create a critical voice in Holocaust studies that encompasses not only Europe but also Asia, Africa, South and North America, Australia, and the Middle East. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Adam Jones, "Sites of Genocide" (Routledge, 2022)

    Adam Jones, "Sites of Genocide" (Routledge, 2022)
    Nov 23 2025
    Adam Jones will be familiar to anyone interested in the field of genocide studies. He's published one of the leading textbooks in the field. He's been influential in drawing attention to the intersection of gender and mass violence. And he's particpated in the emergence of attention to genocides of indigenous peoples over the past decade. Sites of Genocide (Routledge, 2022) is a compilation of Jones' work over the past ten years. The book is comprised of essays, interviews and reflections. Each individual piece stands alone. But together the pieces reflect a decade-long discussion of mass violence. A careful reading of the section on gender reveals, among other things, the gradual emergence of male victims of gender-based violence as an area of interest for Jones. Also prominent is a wrestling with an ever-deeper understanding of mass violence in Central Africa and how to write about this truthfully in a politically fraught environment. These are only two of several throughlines of the essays. The book is valuable for anyone interested in the subject. But graduate students in particular will benefit from witnessing an expert wrestle with ideas over time. Kelly McFall is Professor of History and Director of the Honors Program at Newman University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Radio ReOrient 13.4: “The Repression of the Uyghurs,” with Zumretay Arkin, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Marchella Ward

    Radio ReOrient 13.4: “The Repression of the Uyghurs,” with Zumretay Arkin, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Marchella Ward
    Nov 7 2025
    In this episode, Chella Ward and Claudia Radiven were in conversation with Zumretay Arkin, discussing the Uyghur genocide in East Turkestan. Zumretay is Chair of the Women’s Committee at the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). The WUC is an international organization acting as an umbrella organization representing and advocating for Uyghurs around the world whether in East Turkestan or the diaspora. In our conversations, we discussed the nature of colonial occupation, genocide, and how organisation and individuals can work to raise awareness and promote solidarity in situations of Islamophobic repression. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Elizabeth R. Hyman, "The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising" (Harper, 2025)

    Elizabeth R. Hyman, "The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising" (Harper, 2025)
    Nov 3 2025
    The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is one of the most storied events of the Holocaust, yet previous accounts of have almost entirely focused on its male participants. In The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto: The True Story of Five Courageous Young Women Who Sparked an Uprising (Harper, 2025), Holocaust historian Elizabeth Hyman introduces five young, courageous Polish Jewish women—known as “the girls” by the leadership of the resistance and “bandits” by their Nazi oppressors—who were central to the Jewish resistance as fighters, commanders, couriers, and smugglers. They include:Zivia Lubetkin, the most senior female member of the Jewish Fighting Organization Command Staff in Warsaw and a reluctant legend in her own time, who was immortalized by her code name, "Celina"Vladka Meed, who smuggled dynamite into and illegal literature out of the Warsaw Ghetto in preparation for the uprisingDr. Idina “Inka” Blady-Schweiger, a young medical student who became a reluctant angel of mercyTema Schneiderman, a tall, beautiful and fearless young woman who volunteered for smuggling and rescue missions across Nazi-occupied Eastern EuropeTossia Altman, a heroic courier with a poetic soul, who helped bring arms into the Warsaw Ghetto, fought in the Uprising, and ferried communiques to the outside worldInterspersed with the stories of other Jewish women who resisted, The Girl Bandits of the Warsaw Ghetto rescues these women from the shadows of time, bringing to light their resilience, bravery, and cunning in the face of unspeakable hardship—inspiring stories of courage, daring, and resistance that must never be forgotten. Elizabeth Hyman is the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Polish Jews who fled their homeland in 1939 and ultimately made their way, as refugees, to the United States. She earned dual master’s degrees in History and Library and Information Science from the University of Maryland-College Park, and has written the history blog, “HISTORICITY (was already taken),” since 2011. She lives in New Paltz, New York. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
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    41 mins
  • Mark Mazower, "On Antisemitism: A Word in History" (Penguin Press, 2025)

    Mark Mazower, "On Antisemitism: A Word in History" (Penguin Press, 2025)
    Oct 26 2025
    What do we mean when we talk about antisemitism? A thoughtful, vital new intervention from the award-winning historian. For most of history, antisemitism has been understood as a menace from Europe’s political Right, the province of blood-and-soil ethno-nativists who built on Christendom’s long-standing suspicion of its Jewish population and infused it with racist pseudo-science. Such threats culminated in the nightmare of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The landscape is very different now, as Mark Mazower argues in On Antisemitism: A Word in History (Penguin Press, 2025). More than four-fifths of the world’s Jews now live in Israel and the United States, with the former’s military dominance of its region guaranteed by the latter while the loudest voices decrying antisemitism see it coming from the Left not the Right. Mazower clearly and carefully shows us how we got here, seeking to illuminate rather than blame. Very few words have the punch of ‘antisemitism’ and yet no term is more liable to be misunderstood in ways affecting free speech and foreign policy alike. On Antisemitism is a vitally important attempt to draw a line that must be drawn. Mark Mazower is the Ira D. Wallach Professor of History at Columbia University. Roland Clark is a Reader in Modern European History at the University of Liverpool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
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    46 mins
  • Hamid Dabashi, "After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization" (Haymarket, 2025)

    Hamid Dabashi, "After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization" (Haymarket, 2025)
    Oct 15 2025
    In this episode, we speak with Hamid Dabashi about his new book, After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization (Haymarket, 2025), published by Haymarket Books. Written amid the ongoing war in Gaza, the book confronts what Dabashi describes as the moral and philosophical crisis of the modern West. After Savagery challenges long-standing traditions of Western thought, arguing that their universal claims often conceal a history of exclusion and erasure. Dabashi calls for readers to reckon with the intellectual foundations that have shaped contemporary understandings of humanity, violence, and colonialism. At the same time, he finds hope in art, literature, and film — works that, in his view, keep alive the possibility of a shared and liberated imagination. For Dabashi, Palestine becomes both a specific struggle and a universal metaphor for resistance and renewal.Joe WilliamsHistory PhD researcher at the University of Coimbra and translator website- Censorship and Sacralisation of Politics in the Portuguese Press during the Spanish Civil War- "Year X of the National Revolution" — Salazarist Palingenetic Myth in the Diário da Manhã Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
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    37 mins