Author: Carla Nappi

Podcasts

Yellow River: An Interview

David A. Pietz’s new book argues that China’s water challenges are historically grounded, and that these historical realities are not going to disappear anytime soon. Using a careful history of water and environmental management to inform our understanding of water-related challenges in contemporary China, Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2015) asks, how did China reach its current state of water … Continue reading Yellow River: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

Spark from the Deep: An Interview

“In a sense, all life consists of the colonization of an electric world. But to see that, we have to go back to the very beginning.” William J. Turkel’s new book traces the emergence and inhabiting of an electric world through the span of human history and beyond. Embracing a “big history” approach to the archive, Spark from the Deep: How Shocking Experiments with Strongly Electric Fish … Continue reading Spark from the Deep: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

Two Tibetan Studies Readers: An Interview

Two new books have recently been published that will change the way we can study and teach Tibetan studies, and Gray Tuttle and Kurtis Schaeffer were kind enough to talk with me recently about them. The Tibetan History Reader (Columbia University Press, 2013), edited by Tuttle and Schaeffer, is a chronologically-organized set of essays that collectively introduce key topics and themes in Tibetan history from prehistory all the way through the … Continue reading Two Tibetan Studies Readers: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

Bitter Roots: An Interview

Abena Dove Osseo-Asare’s wonderful new book is a thoughtful, provocative, and balanced account of the intersecting histories and practices of drug research in modern Ghana, South Africa, and Madagascar. Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa (University of Chicago Press, 2014) tells the stories of six plants, all sourced in African countries, that competing groups of plant specialists have tried to transform into pharmaceuticals since … Continue reading Bitter Roots: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

Waverings: An Interview

David Hull’s new translation of Mao Dun’s Waverings (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014) (Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014) is both a beautiful literary work and a boon for scholars and teachers working in the field of modern Chinese studies. Waverings is the second work in the Eclipse trilogy, three books that were published serially in The Short Story Magazine beginning in 1927. These are the first … Continue reading Waverings: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

Native American DNA: An Interview

Bringing together STS, Native American and Indigenous Studies, histories of science and race, ethnography, and cultural studies, Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) traces a genealogy of “Native American DNA” as an object, an instrument, and an idea. Gripping and important on many levels, Kim TallBear’s book situates the emergence of genetic notions of racial and … Continue reading Native American DNA: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History: An Interview

In his fascinating new book, Rian Thum explores the craft, materiality, nature, and readership of Uyghur history over the past 300 years. The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History (Harvard University Press, 2014) argues that understanding Uyghur history in this way is crucial for understanding both Uyghur identity and continuing relationships with the Chinese state. Rather than writing a narrative of “Xinjiang,” Thum instead crafts his history as a story … Continue reading The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

Imperial Illusions: An Interview

Kristina Kleutghen’s beautiful new book offers a fascinating window into the culture of illusion in China in the eighteenth century and beyond. Imperial Illusions: Crossing Pictorial Boundaries in the Qing Palaces (University of Washington Press, 2015) guides readers into the scenic illusions of the Qing dynasty, focusing on pictorial illusions and the technologies that helped create and contextualize them in high Qing palaces, and especially under the … Continue reading Imperial Illusions: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

Flight Ways: An Interview

Thom van Dooren’s new book is an absolute must-read. Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (Columbia University Press, 2014) is a beautifully written and evocative meditation on extinction. The book offers (and implicates us in) stories about five groups of birds – albatrosses, vultures, Little Penguins, whooping cranes, and Hawaiian crows – that build upon one another and collectively enable us to explore … Continue reading Flight Ways: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi
Podcasts

The Archaeology of Tibetan Books: An Interview

Agnieszka Helman-Wazny’s new book is a fascinating contribution to both book history and Tibetan studies, bringing these fields together through careful attention to the physicality of print and manuscript materials. The Archaeology of Tibetan Books (Brill, 2014) explores a wide range of printed works and manuscripts in Tibetan, focusing especially on the nearly 50 Tibetan manuscripts from the Dunhuang “Library Cave,” early printed editions of Tibetan Kanjurs, … Continue reading The Archaeology of Tibetan Books: An Interview

Unknown's avatarCarla Nappi