Off the Record with UT Press

Mar 05 2025 103 ep. 58 mins 56

Off the Record with UT Press Podcast artwork

Interviews with author of University of Texas Press books.

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Vera Tiesler, "Ancient Maya Teeth: Dental Modification, Cosmology, and Social Identity in Mesoamerica" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Mar 05 2025 47 mins

Dental modification was common across ancient societies, but perhaps none were more avid practitioners than the Maya. They filed their teeth flat or pointy, polished and drilled them, and crafted decorative inlays of jade and pyrite. Unusually, Maya of all social classes, ages, and professions engaged in dental modification. What did it mean to them? Ancient Maya Teeth: Dental Modi

Emine Ö Evered, "Prohibition in Turkey: Alcohol and the Politics of Identity" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Feb 19 2025 56 mins

Historian Emine Ö. Evered’s Prohibition in Turkey: Alcohol and the Politics of Identity (University of Texas Press, 2024) investigates the history of alcohol, its consumption, and its proscription as a means to better understand events and agendas of the late Ottoman and early Turkish republican eras. Through a comprehensive examination of archival, literary, popular culture, me

James Michael Buckley, "City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Jan 18 2025 45 mins

California’s 1849 gold rush triggered creation of the “instant city” of San Francisco as a to base exploit the rich natural resources of the American West. City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry (University of Texas Press, 2024) examines how capitalists and workers logged the state’s vast redwood forests to create the financial capit

Kenny Cupers, "The Earth That Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Dec 17 2024 81 mins

The Earth That Modernism Built: Empire and the Rise of Planetary Design (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Kenny Cupers traces the rise of planetary design to an imperialist discourse about the influence of the earthly environment on humanity. Dr. Cupers argues that to understand how the earth became an object of design, we need to radically shift the terms of analysis. Rathe

Oliver Rosales, "Civil Rights in Bakersfield: Segregation and Multiracial Activism in the Central Valley" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Dec 14 2024 70 mins

In Civil Rights in Bakersfield: Segregation and Multiracial Activism in the Central Valley (University of Texas Press, 2024), Oliver Rosales uncovers the role of the multiracial west in shaping the course of US civil rights history. Focusing on Bakersfield, one of the few sizable cities within California’s Central Valley for much of the twentieth century in a region most commonly

Holly M. Karibo, "Rehab on the Range: A History of Addiction and Incarceration in the American West" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Dec 11 2024 46 mins

In 1929, the United States government approved two ground-breaking and controversial drug addiction treatment programs. At a time when fears about a supposed rise in drug use reached a fevered pitch, the emergence of the nation’s first “narcotic farms” in Fort Worth, Texas, and Lexington, Kentucky, marked a watershed moment in the treatment of addiction. Rehab on the Range is

Victoria Sturtevant, "It's All in the Delivery: Pregnancy in American Film and Television Comedy" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Dec 08 2024 54 mins

Victoria Sturtevant's It’s All in the Delivery: Pregnancy in American Film and Television Comedy (University of Texas Press, 2024) is about how changing depictions of pregnancy in comedy from the start of the twentieth century to the present show an evolution in attitudes toward women’s reproductive roles and rights. Some of the most groundbreaking moments in American film and

Sam Langsdale, "Searching for Feminist Superheroes: Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Marvel Comics" (U Texas Press, 2024)

Nov 30 2024 56 mins

It’s no secret that superhero comics and their related media perpetuate a model of a straight, white, male hero at the expense of representing women and other minorities, but other narratives exist. Searching for Feminist Superheroes: Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Marvel Comics (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Sam Langsdale recognizes that female-led superhero comics, wi

Emily Carman, "Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System" (U Texas Press, 2016)

Sep 22 2024 75 mins

During the heyday of Hollywood’s studio system, stars were carefully cultivated and promoted, but at the price of their independence. This familiar narrative of Hollywood stardom receives a long-overdue shakeup in Emily Carman’s new book. Far from passive victims of coercive seven-year contracts, a number of classic Hollywood’s best-known actresses worked on a freelance basis

Wesley G. Phelps, "Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement" (U Texas Press, 2023)

Aug 24 2024 60 mins

In 2003, in a ruling that bordered on poetic, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in Lawrence v. Texas that sexual behavior between consenting adults was protected under the constitutional right to privacy. This was a landmark case in the course of LGBTQ+ rights in the Untied States, laying the groundwork for cases like 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges. Yet, this case did not em