Ritual deposition is not an activity that many people in the Western world would consider themselves participants of. The enigmatic beliefs and magical thinking that led to the deposition of swords in watery places and votive statuettes in temples, for example, may feel irrelevant to the modern day.
However, Dr. Ceri Houlbrook shows in ‘Ritual Litter' Redres ... Show More
Yesterday
Adrienne Domasin ed., "The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: The Last of Us" (Playstory Press, 2025)
The Psychgeist of Pop Culture: The Last of Us (Playstory Press, 2025) explores the psychological themes at the heart of The Last of Us franchise. Authors from media, culture, and fandom studies explore how trauma, grief, morality, survival, and revenge shape the story’s character ... Show More
15m 54s
Yesterday
Jim Cullen, "1980: America's Pivotal Year" (Rutgers UP, 2022)
1980 was a turning point in American history. When the year began, it was still very much the 1970s, with Jimmy Carter in the White House, a sluggish economy marked by high inflation, and the disco still riding the airwaves. When it ended, Ronald Reagan won the presidency in a la ... Show More
41m 44s
Nov 22
Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, "Videotape" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Over the span of a single decade, VHS technology changed the relationship between privacy and entertainment, pried open the closed societies behind the Iron Curtain, and then sank back into oblivion. Its meteoric rise and fall encapsulated the dynamics of the '80s and foreshadowe ... Show More
44m 53s
Oct 2021
Richard J. A. McGregor, "Islam and the Devotional Object" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
In Islam and the Devotional Object: Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Richard J. A. McGregor, Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University, offers a history of Islamic practice through the aesthetic reception of medieval religious objects. Ela ... Show More
1h 5m
Jan 2024
Rishad Choudhury, "Hajj Across Empires: Pilgrimage and Political Culture After the Mughals, 1739-1857" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
In Hajj Across Empires: Pilgrimage and Political Culture After the Mughals, 1739-1857 (Cambridge UP, 2023), Rishad Choudhury presents a new history of imperial connections across the Indian Ocean from 1739 to 1857, a period that witnessed the decline and collapse of Mughal rule a ... Show More
1h 23m
Feb 2022
Phillip A. Cantrell, "Revival and Reconciliation: The Anglican Church and the Politics of Rwanda" (U Wisconsin Press, 2022)
In recent years, the media has depicted Rwanda as a model of unity, development, and recovery. Dr. Cantrell II argues that not all is as it seems in Revival and Reconciliation: The Anglican Church and the Politics of Rwanda (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022). The book argues t ... Show More
51m 59s
Aug 2019
Martin T. Fromm, "Borderland Memories: Searching for Historical Identity in Post-Mao China" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
With China’s northwestern and southern edges justifiably being sources of global attention at present, Martin Fromm’s Borderland Memories: Searching for Historical Identity in Post-Mao China (Cambridge University Press, 2019) has much light to shed on how the country’s ruling Com ... Show More
1h 10m
Jun 2023
Douglas Kerr, "Orwell and Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)
George Orwell was born in India and served in the Imperial Police in Burma as a young man. Douglas Kerr's book Orwell and Empire (Oxford UP, 2022) is a study of his writing about the East and the East in his writing. It argues that empire was central to his cultural identity and ... Show More
42m 30s
Apr 2021
Junaid Quadri, "Transformations of Tradition: Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity" (Oxford UP, 2021)
In his much anticipated and equally brilliant book Transformations of Tradition: Islamic Law in Colonial Modernity (Oxford UP, 2021), Junaid Quadri explores the productive tensions, fissures, and creative interpretive projects enabled by the drive to defend Muslim traditionalism ... Show More
1h 16m