New Books in Women's History

Apr 06 2025 1621 ep. 55 mins 115
New Books in Women's History Podcast artwork

Discussions with scholars of women's history about their new books

  Arts  History  Science
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Loretta Vandi, "Eufrasia Burlamacchi" (Getty Publications, 2025)

Apr 06 2025 47 mins  
Eufrasia Burlamacchi (Getty Publications, 2025) by Dr. Loretta Vandi is a timely exploration of the skilful illuminated manuscripts of Sister Eufrasia Burlamacchi (1478–1548) demonstrates her artistry within this sometime neglected artistic medium. Within the convent walls of San Domenico in Lucca where she lived and worked, Burlamacchi attained high levels of artistic proficienc

Sally King, "Menstrual Myth Busting: The Case of the Hormonal Female" (Policy Press, 2025)

Apr 02 2025 47 mins  
In Menstrual Myth Busting: The Case of the Hormonal Female (Policy Press, 2025), Dr. Sally King interrogates the diagnostic label of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) to expose and challenge sexist assumptions within medical research and practice. She powerfully demonstrates how the concept of the ‘hormonal’ premenstrual woman is merely the latest iteration of the ‘hysterical’ fe

D. D. Miller, "Eight-wheeled Freedom: The Derby Nerd's Short History of Flat Track Roller Derby" (Wolsak and Wynn, 2016)

Mar 30 2025 64 mins  
NBN host Hollay Ghadery chats with author D. D. Miller about the fascinating sport of roller derby. As the Derby Nerd, Miller covered roller derby since 2009, travelling to games across Canada and the United States, including two world championships, reporting back to an ever-growing audience the details of the sport. In this entertaining and thorough book he explains roller derby

Bruce L. Vernarde, "The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France" (Cornell UP, 2024)

Mar 28 2025 69 mins  
Murder in a cathedral, horrific illnesses and deformities, narrow escapes from injury and death, a vengeful dragon, a wandering eyeball, a bawdy monk and other sinners redeemed—the accounts of miracles performed by the Virgin Mary gathered and translated in The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France (Cornell UP, 2024) provide vivid glimpses into medieval life and beliefs. Bru

Lucy Adlington, "Four Red Sweaters: Powerful True Stories of Women and the Holocaust" (HarperCollins, 2025)

Mar 27 2025 66 mins  
The New York Times bestselling author of The Dressmakers of Auschwitz tells the stories of four Jewish girls during the Holocaust, strangers whose lives were unknowingly linked by everyday garments, revealing how the ordinary can connect us in extraordinary ways. Jock Heidenstein, Anita Lasker, Chana Zumerkorn, and Regina Feldman all faced the Holocaust in different ways. While the

Farah Ahamed, "Period Matters: Menstruation in South Asia" (Pan Macmillan, 2022)

Mar 26 2025 49 mins  
Period Matters is a groundbreaking anthology edited by Farah Ahamed that explores the cultural, social, and political dimensions of menstruation in South Asia. Through a diverse collection of essays, personal narratives, poetry, and artwork, the book sheds light on the stigma, myths, and challenges surrounding periods. Featuring contributions from writers, activists, academics, and

Mary Anne Hunting and Kevin D. Murphy, "Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism" (Princeton UP, 2025)

Mar 24 2025 65 mins  
In the decades preceding World War II, professional architecture schools enrolled increasing numbers of women, but career success did not come easily. Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Dr. Mary Anne Hunting and Dr. Kevin D. Murphy tells the stories of the resilient and resourceful women who surmounted barriers of sexism, racis

Heather Akou, "Afterthought: A Family Story" (Indiana U Libraries, 2025)

Mar 22 2025 55 mins  
Afterthought: A Family Story (Indiana University Bloomington Libraries Publishing, 2025) by Dr. Heather Akou focuses on the life of her grandmother, Lila Slaback, who grew up in a dysfunctional, working-class family in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in the 1930s. In her short adult life, she gave birth to seven children with at least four different men and died in 1958 at age thirty-six. Sh

Amy Cox Hall, "The Taste of Nostalgia: Women, Race, and Culinary Longing in Peru" (U Texas Press, 2025)

Mar 21 2025 51 mins  
From the late 1940s to the mid 1960s, Peru’s rapid industrialization and anti-communist authoritarianism coincided with the rise of mass-produced cookbooks, the first televised cooking shows, glossy lifestyle magazines, and imported domestic appliances and foodstuffs. Amy Cox Hall’s The Taste of Nostalgia (U Texas Press, 2025) uses taste as a thematic and analytic thread to exa

Holly Grout, "Playing Cleopatra: Inventing the Female Celebrity in Third Republic France" (LSU Press, 2024)

Mar 19 2025 48 mins  
Questions about the meaning of womanhood and femininity loomed large in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French culture. In Playing Cleopatra: Inventing the Female Celebrity in Third Republic France (LSU Press, 2024), Dr. Holly Grout uses the theater—specifically, Parisian stage performances of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra by Sarah Bernhardt, Colette, and Josephine Ba