Xian Aubin Wang, "Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Bjørn Berge, "Smell: The Tale of a Fading Sense" (Reaktion Books, 2026)

The sense of smell is often linked to the dark, the antisocial, the primitive—the very opposite of modernity and progress. Today we live in an almost odorless world, where everything is reduced to images. Yet smell plays a vital role in how we relate to others and our surroundings, forming our experiences and our memories. Tracing a history of smell from the first ancient cities, through medieval plagues and the Industrial Revolution to the present day, Smell: The Tale of a Fading Sense [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781836392507](Reaktion, 2026) is a tribute to the sense of smell in all its beauty and disgust. Along the way, Bjørn Berge introduces us to twenty iconic scents—from blood and soil to the ocean—and invites readers to reflect on and reawaken their senses. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/securing-peace-in-angola-and-mozambique-9781350407930/] focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher [https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/special-series/new-books-with-miranda-melcher], wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network]

250 Years of Special Providence: On American Grand Strategy Since the Declaration with Walter Russell Mead

To celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary, Madison’s Notes is having a special Fourth of July episode to close out the season. So in Episode 12 of Season 5, I have as our guest Walter Russell Mead [https://hamilton.ufl.edu/people/walter-russell-mead/] to talk about American grand strategy since the Declaration of Independence. A Yale graduate, Mr. Mead is a professor at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School and a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Foreign Affairs contributor and a Wall Street Journal columnist, as well as the host of the podcast, “What Really Matters.” Drawing on his book, Special Providence [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112767/special-providence-by-walter-russell-mead/] (2001), we discuss the history of the four American schools of foreign policy—the Hamiltonians, Jeffersonians, Jacksonians, and Wilsonians—and how his analysis of the American traditions has held up nearly a quarter of a century later. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison’s Footnotes [https://madisonsnotes.substack.com/].” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network]

Podcast Intellectuals Podcast Panel #3 with Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s Center for Human Values [https://uchv.princeton.edu/] hosted a day-long conference titled Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting. It was co-sponsored by Princeton’s Journalism program [https://journalism.princeton.edu/], and the NYU Podcast Initiative. Over the course of four panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research. In the third panel, Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne discussed the relationship between podcasting and science. Carruth [https://allisoncarruth.com/] is a professor at Princeton’s Effron Center for the Study of America [https://effroncenter.princeton.edu/] and the High Meadows Environmental Institute [https://environment.princeton.edu/]. At Princeton, she directs the Program in Environmental Studies and leads Blue Lab [http://bluelab.princeton.edu/], an environmental media and storytelling studio. Her research and teaching areas include climate storytelling, environmental art and narrative, contemporary food movements and the evolving relationships between technology and environmentalism in American culture. She is the author of Global Appetites: American Power and the Literature of Food [https://effroncenter.princeton.edu/about/bookshelf/global-appetites]. [https://effroncenter.princeton.edu/about/bookshelf/global-appetites] Horne [https://journalism.nyu.edu/graduate/programs/podcasting-and-audio-reportage/faculty/] directs the Podcasting and Audio Reportage concentration [https://journalism.nyu.edu/graduate/programs/podcasting-and-audio-reportage/] at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her research is focused on performance, documentation, the perception of authority in voice, labor and production in audio and podcasting. Horne was producer for Admissible: Shreds of Evidence [https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1164809981/admissible-shreds-of-evidence], a 13-episode investigative podcast that told the story of shocking misconduct at a Virginia state crime lab. Admissible won the Gold Award for Best Documentary at the Signal Awards; an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the Public Media Award NETA for Best Podcast. Horne was an executive producer at Audible and an executive producer for WNYC’s Radiolab. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network]

Podcast Intellectuals Podcast Panel #3 with Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s Center for Human Values [https://uchv.princeton.edu/] hosted a day-long conference titled Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting. It was co-sponsored by Princeton’s Journalism program [https://journalism.princeton.edu/], and the NYU Podcast Initiative. Over the course of four panels, scholars, podcasters, and journalists discuss how academics might employ the techniques of narrative audio as part of their research. In the third panel, Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne discussed the relationship between podcasting and science. Carruth [https://allisoncarruth.com/] is a professor at Princeton’s Effron Center for the Study of America [https://effroncenter.princeton.edu/] and the High Meadows Environmental Institute [https://environment.princeton.edu/]. At Princeton, she directs the Program in Environmental Studies and leads Blue Lab [http://bluelab.princeton.edu/], an environmental media and storytelling studio. Her research and teaching areas include climate storytelling, environmental art and narrative, contemporary food movements and the evolving relationships between technology and environmentalism in American culture. She is the author of Global Appetites: American Power and the Literature of Food [https://effroncenter.princeton.edu/about/bookshelf/global-appetites]. [https://effroncenter.princeton.edu/about/bookshelf/global-appetites] Horne [https://journalism.nyu.edu/graduate/programs/podcasting-and-audio-reportage/faculty/] directs the Podcasting and Audio Reportage concentration [https://journalism.nyu.edu/graduate/programs/podcasting-and-audio-reportage/] at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her research is focused on performance, documentation, the perception of authority in voice, labor and production in audio and podcasting. Horne was producer for Admissible: Shreds of Evidence [https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1164809981/admissible-shreds-of-evidence], a 13-episode investigative podcast that told the story of shocking misconduct at a Virginia state crime lab. Admissible won the Gold Award for Best Documentary at the Signal Awards; an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the Public Media Award NETA for Best Podcast. Horne was an executive producer at Audible and an executive producer for WNYC’s Radiolab. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network]

Xian Aubin Wang, "Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024 [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781501787201] (Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Xian Aubin Wang investigates decades of contentious relations between the Communist party-state of China and the Muslim community of southern Yunnan centered on the village of Shadian, site of an incident of state violence in 1975 that resulted in 1600 civilian deaths. Examining the causes and legacies of the Shadian massacre, Dr. Wang draws on an extensive review of internal official documents, original written testimonies, and firsthand interviews with Muslim villagers. By exploring interactions among Beijing, the Yunnan provincial government, county officials, CCP Muslim cadres, and Shadian villagers against the backdrop of the CCP's nationwide political campaigns since the early 1950s, Dr. Wang shows how Islam and Maoism influenced the ways that local villagers and party cadres saw and dealt with each other—and how these encounters shaped the developing conflict and its aftermath. Providing an in-depth account of Chinese religious groups living under the CCP, Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan reveals how religion and politics shaped Muslim villagers' responses to the party-state's efforts to control and secularize them. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book [https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/securing-peace-in-angola-and-mozambique-9781350407930/] focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher [https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/special-series/new-books-with-miranda-melcher], wherever you get your podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices] Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network [https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network]