New Books in African Studies

Nov 16 2024 725 ep. 60 mins 1.5k
New Books in African Studies Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of Africa about their New Books

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  Society & Culture
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Samuel Fury Childs Daly, "Soldier's Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)

Nov 16 2024 53 mins  
In Soldier's Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire (Duke UP, 2024), Samuel Fury Childs Daly tells the story of how Africa’s military dictators tried and failed to transform their societies into martial utopias. Across the continent, independence was followed by a wave of military coups and revolutions. The soldiers who led them had a vision. In Nigeria and other former Brit

Amín Pérez, "Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire: Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggle" (Polity Press, 2023)

Nov 09 2024 38 mins  
How did the Algerian war of independence shape contemporary sociology? In Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire: Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggle (Polity Press, 2023), Amin Perez, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of Quebec in Montreal, explores the sociological practice and friendship of Pierre Bourdieu and Abdelmalek Sayad. Using a range of archival and cont

Anette Hoffmann, "Knowing by Ear: Listening to Voice Recordings with African Prisoners of War in German Camps (1915–1918)" (Duke UP, 2024)

Nov 09 2024 44 mins  
During World War I, thousands of young African men conscripted to fight for France and Britain were captured and held as prisoners of war in Germany, where their stories and songs were recorded and archived by German linguists. In Knowing by Ear: Listening to Voice Recordings with African Prisoners of War in German Camps (1915–1918) (Duke University Press, 2024), Anette Hoffmann

Doyle D. Calhoun, "The Suicide Archive: Reading Resistance in the Wake of French Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)

Nov 06 2024 73 mins  
A note about content: This episode involves discussion of suicide, specifically in the contexts of slavery, colonization and empire. Please use your discretion and take care if you decide to listen. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, you are not alone. You can reach out to the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 or contact the Crisis Text Line by

Mara Kardas-Nelson, "We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky: The Seductive Promise of Microfinance" (Metropolitan Books, 2024)

Nov 05 2024 45 mins  
In this deeply researched and compelling narrative, journalist Mara Kardas-Nelson examines the complex history and impact of microfinance - the practice of giving small loans to poor people, particularly women, that was once hailed as a revolutionary solution to global poverty. Through intimate portraits of borrowers in Sierra Leone and extensive interviews with key figures in the

Mirin Fader, "Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon" (Hachette, 2024)

Nov 02 2024 46 mins  
It’s now the norm for NBA and collegiate teams to have international players dotting their rosters. The Olympics are no longer a gimme for Team USA. Both via fans streaming from all over the globe and leagues starting in countries throughout the world, the international presence of the game of basketball is a force to be reckoned with. That all started with Hakeem “the Dream”

Corey Ross, "Liquid Empire: Water and Power in the Colonial World" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Oct 17 2024 82 mins  
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a handful of powerful European states controlled more than a third of the land surface of the planet. These sprawling empires encompassed not only rainforests, deserts, and savannahs but also some of the world’s most magnificent rivers, lakes, marshes, and seas. Liquid Empire: Water and Power in the Colonial World (Princeton University P

Christian Velasco, "Commercial Banking in Kenya: A History from Colonisation to Digital Age" (Routledge, 2024)

Oct 15 2024 56 mins  
Commercial Banking in Kenya: A History from Colonisation to Digital Age (Routledge, 2024) investigates the impact of commercial banks in Kenya right through from their origins, to their role during the colonial period, the process of adaptation following independence, and up to their responses to new challenges and economic policies in the twenty-first century. The British colonisa

Sharad Chari, "Apartheid Remains" (Duke UP, 2024)

Oct 13 2024 80 mins  
Over the course of the 20th century, the South African state attempted to construct a “White Man’s Country” on the African continent using the biopolitical tools and spatial and economic planning strategies that characterized modern statecraft. My guest today, the geographer Sharad Chari, examines how racialized subaltern populations of Blacks, Indians, and coloureds resisted

Migration, Constraints, and Suffering

Oct 12 2024 37 mins  
A key part of the experience of migration is not being in full control of one’s circumstances and doing. In this episode, Ingrid Piller speaks with Marco Santello about his research with Gambian migrants in Italy. The focus is on Marco’s recent article in Language in Society about migrant experiences of constraints and suffering. For additional resources, show notes, and transc