Shelley Fisher Fishkin, "Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade" (Yale UP, 2025)

Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting, Panel #2

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s  [https://uchv.princeton.edu/]Center for Human Values [https://uchv.princeton.edu/] hosted a day-long conference titled  [https://uchv.princeton.edu/events/audio-ideas-exploring-possibilities-scholarly-podcasting]Audio & Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting [https://uchv.princeton.edu/events/audio-ideas-exploring-possibilities-scholarly-podcasting]. [https://uchv.princeton.edu/events/audio-ideas-exploring-possibilities-scholarly-podcasting] It was co-sponsored by Princeton’s  [https://journalism.princeton.edu/]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 second panel, Chenjerai Kumanyika led a discussion about the aesthetics of podcasting. Professor Kumanyika [https://journalism.nyu.edu/graduate/programs/podcasting-and-audio-reportage/faculty/] is an assistant professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute [https://journalism.nyu.edu/], who specializes in using narrative non-fiction audio journalism to critique the ideology of American historical myths about issues such as race, the Civil War, and policing. His podcast Empire City [https://crooked.com/podcast-series/empirecity/], was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best podcasts of 2024. He was the co-creator, co-executive producer and co-host of Uncivil [https://www.iheart.com/podcast/309-uncivil-28416157/], a podcast on the Civil War, and he is the collaborator for Scene on Radio [https://sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/]’s Season 2 “Seeing White,” [https://sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/] and Season 4 on the history of American democracy. [https://sceneonradio.org/the-land-that-never-has-been-yet/] His current podcast is Unruly Subjects [https://rowhomeproductions.com/unrulysubjects]. The panel included Vinson Cunningham [https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/vinson-cunningham], a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he has written about theatre and television. He is a Spring 2026 McGraw Professor of Writing in the Program in Journalism at Princeton University. He is the author of the novel, Great Expectations [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690565/great-expectations-by-vinson-cunningham/]; Julia Barton [https://juliabarton.com/] is an award-winning podcast, audiobook, and radio editor. She was the executive editor of Pushkin Industries, where she helped develop Revisionist History [https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history] and Against the Rules [https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/against-the-rules]. She’s the editor of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Bomber Mafia [https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobooks/the-bomber-mafia], Michael Specter’s Fauci [https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobooks/fauci], and Michael Lewis’s unabridged Liar’s Poker [https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobooks/liars-poker]  [https://www.pushkin.fm/audiobooks/liars-poker]and companion podcast. Her 2019 series, Spacebridge [https://www.radiotopia.fm/showcase/spacebridge], was called “dazzling” by The New Yorker. She writes the audio history newsletter, Continuous Wave [https://continuous-wave.beehiiv.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]

Jackie M. Blount, "Straighten Up, Girls and Boys: How Schools Have Shaped Sexuality and Gender" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

In Straighten Up, Girls and Boys: How Schools Have Shaped Sexuality and Gender [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9798895570814] (Harvard Education Press, 2026), acclaimed historian and educator Jackie M. Blount exposes the hidden history of how American schools have carefully shaped and policed gender and sexuality--affecting every student and educator, past and present. With clarity and compassion, she invites readers not only to understand these forces, but to take action for positive change in their own school communities. Drawing on centuries of school design, hiring practices, and classroom curriculum, Blount uncovers how seemingly neutral decisions--from the layout of restrooms to textbooks and teacher roles--have been used to enforce binary gender norms and rigid expectations around sexuality. She explores the implications for both students and educators, highlighting moments of resistance and progress, but also the persistence of exclusion and harm. Through vivid historical storytelling and fresh analysis, Blount connects the dots between age-old anxieties and today's most pressing debates around LGBTQ+ issues in schools. This book empowers educators with the knowledge and historical context needed to question entrenched practices and build more supportive school cultures. Encouraging both critical reflection and practical action, Blount's work is a vital resource for anyone committed to fostering respect and opportunity for every member of the school community. Jackie M. Blount is professor emeritus of educational studies at the Ohio State University. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. 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]

Mesrob Vartavarian, "Privileged Minorities: A History of Wealth Concentration on South Africa" (Ohio UP, 2026)

Mesrob Vartavarian has written a wonderful book. Privileged Minorities: A History of Wealth Concentration on South Africa [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780821426753] (Ohio UP, 2026) argues that the rise of privileged minorities – small, exclusive groups that dominate political and economic life – parallels the development of successful anticolonial movements. Vartavarian traces how distinct sociocultural groups in South Africa navigated and negotiated these advantages from the Dutch colonial era through the rise and decline of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). He then demonstrates why ANC elites have not dismantled minority privilege, and how challenges from marginalised groups have served to reshape entrenched advantages by incorporating new actors into existing structures. These dynamics have produced composite systems of accumulation that have deepened socio-economic inequality. Privileged Minorities offers a compelling framework for understanding how structural advantage persists and evolves, even in the wake of promised liberation from political and economic elites. Mesrob Vartavarian recommends two books for further learning at the end of our interview. They are: Anthony Butler (2025). Presidential Power [https://jacana.co.za/product/presidential-power-a-jacana-pocket-history/], Jacana Media; and Jeffrey A. Winters (2012). Oligarchy, [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/oligarchy/5CC556B4483F7F3FDE1CADF928C04671] Cambridge University Press. 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]

Shelley Fisher Fishkin, "Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade" (Yale UP, 2025)

Mark Twain’s Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully drawn Black fathers in American fiction. Haunted by the family he has left behind, Jim acts as father figure to Huck, the white boy who is his companion as they raft the Mississippi toward freedom. Jim is also a highly polarizing figure: he is viewed as an emblem both of Twain’s alleged racism and of his opposition to racism; a diminished character inflected by minstrelsy and a powerful challenge to minstrel stereotypes; a reason for banning Huckleberry Finn and a reason for teaching it; an embarrassment and a source of pride for Black readers. In Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780300268324] (Yale UP, 2025) eminent Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin probes these controversies, exploring who Jim was, how Twain portrayed him, and how the world has responded to him. Fishkin also follows Jim’s many afterlives: in film, from Hollywood to the Soviet Union; in translation around the world; and in American high school classrooms today. The result is Jim as we have never seen him before—a fresh and compelling portrait of one of the most memorable Black characters in American fiction. Shelley Fisher Fishkin is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, professor of English, and professor (by courtesy) of African and African American Studies at Stanford University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee and Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African American Voices, and editor of the twenty-nine-volume Oxford Mark Twain. She lives in Stanford, CA. Morteza Hajizadeh [https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos] is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here [https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos] 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]

Gareth Doherty, "Landscape Fieldwork: How Engaging the World Can Change Design" (U Virginia Press, 2025)

Landscape architecture is at a crossroads. The ability to draw upon interdisciplinary perspectives and generate insights from the combined vantage points of design, environmental studies, and the social sciences puts it in a prime position to address the most pressing issues of our time, such as climate change and social inequality. Its current reliance on digital and technological solutions, however, has increasingly caused landscape architects to lose sight of the ways in which humans actually use spaces. And while landscapes are designed all over the world, the discipline remains inordinately centered on the Global North. Dr. Gareth Doherty's Landscape Fieldwork: How Engaging the World Can Change Design [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780813952642] (University of Virginia Press, 2025) alters that long-standing paradigm through real-life examples that provide tools for practitioners to engage more deeply with multidimensional, diverse landscapes and the communities that create, live in, and use them. 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]