Hans A. Harmakaputra, "Christian-Muslim Relations in Post-Reformation Indonesia: Resistance, Identity and Belonging" (Edinburgh UP, 2026)

Kate Dannies, "Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law and War" (Edinburgh UP, 2026)

Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law and War  [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781399563055](Edinburgh UP, 2026) by Dr. Kate Dannies examines the gender and family dimensions of mobilisation for the First World War in the Ottoman Empire, situating the war in a long-nineteenth-century social history of Ottoman military reform for the first time. It focuses on the military legal concept of muinsizlik (sole breadwinning) and how this concept shaped Ottoman military policy – namely, how militarisation and mobilisation were supported by the exploitation of women’s care and social reproductive labour, as well as the extraction of material and physical resources from Ottoman families. In exploring how war worked at the level of the body, the individual and the family, this book demonstrates how Ottoman society and war became imbricated through processes of militarisation that led to significant consequences during the First World War and its aftermath. Based on a gendered reading of Ottoman military and bureaucratic archives, it addresses a pivotal moment in the modern history of the Middle East that has long awaited further study from a bottom-up perspective. 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.

Marta Dominguez Diaz, "Tunisia's Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

Tunisia’s Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781474428019] (Edinburgh UP, 2025) tells the captivating story of those Andalusians, descendants of Muslims expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century, who sought refuge in Tunisia. Rather than simply replicating Iberian traditions, Andalusian culture in Tunisia stands as a vibrant and evolving phenomenon, shaped by complex dynamics of interaction and adaptation over four centuries. The book dismantles the romanticised view of Andalusian culture as a mere transplantation of al-Andalus, analysing distinctive cultural features that distinguish Andalusians as an ethnic group within Tunisia’s diverse social fabric. Drawing on historical records and contemporary ethnographic data, including personal accounts and family archives, the book sheds light on how Andalusians navigate their unique cultural position amidst a Tunisian national narrative often focused on Arabo-Muslim homogeneity. By examining the complexities of cultural preservation and assimilation, the book offers a nuanced perspective on Andalusian identity, revealing its dynamism and resilience in the face of changing social, political, and economic circumstances.

Charles J. Stivale, "Unfolding the Deleuze Seminars, 1970–1987: Summaries and Commentary" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

From the inside flap: “A rich resource of Deleuze’s research that is unavailable in his published writing * Includes summaries of 216 seminar sessions available in transcripts and recordings * Summaries are based on research for the Deleuze Seminars project (co-directed by Charles J. Stivale and Daniel W. Smith), where full transcripts and translations, to which readers will have access for simultaneous or subsequent consultation, have been developed by an international team of scholar-translators * Alongside summaries, an attached critical apparatus provides references to corresponding links within Deleuze’s writings, seminars, and other sources to facilitate additional research The texts in this volume - summaries of the 216 seminars taught by Gilles Deleuze - provide unique insight into the latter half of Deleuze’s teaching career. Deleuze understood his seminars as a laboratory for developing his ongoing research, and this volume is a guide to the creative becomings in the development of his philosophical works through teaching. From Anti-Oedipus (1972) to The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque (1987), Deleuze examined a wide range of philosophical perspectives in pursuit of successive thematic topics. These summaries and commentaries serve as incitement for further research, allowing readers familiar with Deleuze’s work to find new angles of approach and providing greater access to readers coming to his work for the first time." New Books Network: * Stivale, Charles J., and Daniel W. Smith. (2025-10-21). "Gilles Deleuze, On Painting" [https://newbooksnetwork.com/on-painting#entry:419840@1:url] Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour: * Stivale, Charles J., Taylor Adkins, and Cooper Cherry. (2025-08-12). "Deleuze and Guattari – How Do You Make Yourself A Body Without Organs" [https://www.patreon.com/posts/deleuze-and-how-138243795] * Stivale, Charles J., Daniel W. Smith. (2023-06-29). "Deleuze on Painting and Cinema" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kjwJHcZXjs]. The Deleuze Seminars: here [https://deleuze.cla.purdue.edu/] Nathan Smith is a PhD candidate in Music Theory at Yale University nathan.smith@yale.edu [nathan.smith@yale.edu]

Benjamin Dalton, "Catherine Malabou and Contemporary French Literature and Film: Witnessing Plasticity" (Edinburgh UP, 2026)

Our bodies and brains are radically transformable, mutable and plastic. From the neuroplasticity of the brain to the epigenetic malleability of our bodies and of all organic life, the work of the contemporary French philosopher Catherine Malabou invites us to consider our plasticity as both a creative resource and an ethical challenge. Catherine Malabou and Contemporary French Literature and Film: Witnessing Plasticity [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781399540551] (Edinburgh UP, 2026) brings Malabou's philosophy into dialogue with contemporary literature and film. It reads conceptions of plasticity and neuroplasticity in Malabou through the mutant bodies of Leos Carax's films; the shape-shifting bodies of Marie Darrieussecq's novels and theatre; the terrifying, traumatic metamorphoses depicted in the fiction of Marie NDiaye; and the anarchic sexualities and identities celebrated in the cinema and writing of Alain Guiraudie. It argues that, in different ways, Malabou's philosophy and literary and filmic texts develop modes of bearing witness to plasticity which can supplement, challenge and extend scientific understandings of biological plasticity, constituting ethical and creative sites of exploration.

Edith Szanto, "Twelver Shi'i Self-flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)

Edith Szanto’s Twelver Shi'i Self-Flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab  [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781399548281](Edinburgh UP, 2025) is a striking and deeply immersive ethnographic study that takes the reader into the shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab in Syria. This town was a vibrant center of Shi‘i life, pilgrimage, and healing, especially for Iraqi refugees until the 2011 Syrian uprising. By combining meticulous fieldwork conducted between 2004 and 2010 with rich historical and social context, Szanto shows how these contested rituals served as both spiritual expression and pathways to worldly and psychological healing. The book examines controversial Muharram practices, especially self-flagellation, not simply as ritual acts but as deeply meaningful responses to trauma, displacement, and the search for justice and healing. In doing so, Szanto pays close attention to how people actually live their religion: through relationships with saints, engagement with religious authorities, media, ritual performance, and forms of spiritual healing. In this conversation, Szanto and I explore specific Muharram practices, including self-flagellation, the wedding of Qasim, and other ritualized forms of mourning, as well as gendered dynamics in who participates and why. We discuss what these practices looked like on the ground—what Muharram in Sayyida Zaynab felt like, how different communities understood and debated these rituals, and what purposes they served for those who participated in them. We talk about the Zaynabiyya seminary and how changes in its physical and institutional structure reshaped how knowledge was taught and who held authority. We also discuss relationships with saints, spiritual healers like Shaykh Abu Ahmad, and the ways that media, music, and ritual performance mediate piety. Szanto also treats us to reflecting on some of her experiences observing and engaging with these rituals. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in Islamic studies generally, Shi‘i studies, Middle Eastern religious life, or the ways that communities navigate devotion, trauma, and healing through ritual.