Joe P. L. Davidson, "Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times" (MIT Press, 2026)

Audio and Ideas: Exploring the Possibilities for Scholarly Podcasting, Panel #1

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 & 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 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 first panel, podcaster Benjamen Walker discusses Tuning Time, a podcast about the politics of time stretching technology, with NYU media and disability studies professor Mara Mills.  [https://maramills.org/]Professor Mills teaches in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication  [https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/departments/media-culture-and-communication]and is Director of the NYU Center for Disability Studies [https://disabilitystudies.nyu.edu/]. Her work on “disability and media” spans disability arts and technoscience, with a focus on the history, politics, and cultures of electronics and digital media. Benjamen Walker is one of the co-founders of the podcast network Radiotopa [https://www.radiotopia.fm/] from PRX, and for a decade hosted and produced his award winning program Benjamen [https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/] Walker’s Theory of Everything [https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/]. [https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/] The panel continues with a presentation by NYU musicologist Fanny Gribenski in which she discusses her current project, The Elephant in the Piano: Music, Ecology, Empire. The book, and podcast, is an investigation of the 19th century piano through a material history of its primary components: ivory, wood, felt, and metal. Professor Gribenski is a historical musicologist who specializes in the history of musical and sonic practices. Her first book, L'Église comme lieu de concert. Pratiques musicales et usages de l'espace (Paris, 1830–1905) analyzes the role of music in the production of sacred spaces. Tuning the World: The Rise of 440 Hertz in Music, Science, and Politics, 1859-1955 [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo186006661.html] (University of Chicago, 2023) traces the rocky path towards international pitch standardization. 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]

Samantha Ellis, "Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture" (Pegasus Books, 2026)

I had the privilege of speaking with writer Samantha Ellis about her deeply moving new book, Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Culture [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9798897100286] (Pegasus Books, 2026). Our discussion explored not only the story of a disappearing language, but also the broader questions of memory, identity, and what it means to inherit a fragile cultural legacy. At the heart of Ellis’s book is Judeo-Iraqi Arabic—also known as Baghdadi Jewish Arabic or Hakimalna—a language once spoken by the Jews of Iraq. Rich with layers of Hebrew and Judeo-Babylonian Aramaic, it reflects over two millennia of Jewish life in the region. Today, however, it stands on the brink of extinction. As Ellis shared, a language is considered endangered when it is no longer passed on to children, and Judeo-Iraqi Arabic may have only about a thousand speakers remaining worldwide. Within a generation, it could fall silent. Ellis described a powerful turning point in her own awareness: a casual question from another parent about why she was not sending her son to a nursery that spoke “her language.” Her spontaneous response—“my language is dead”—became the catalyst for the journey that led to this book. That moment captures the quiet grief of linguistic loss, but also the urgency of preservation. Our conversation traced the long arc of Iraqi Jewish history, beginning with the Babylonian exile in 597 BCE. Iraqi Jews lived in the region long before the arrival of Arabic, shifting over centuries from Hebrew to Aramaic and later to Arabic, while preserving distinctive linguistic features from earlier eras. This layered history lives on in the language itself. Yet the mass departures of Iraqi Jews in the mid-20th century—particularly the 1950–51 airlift—fractured this continuity. Today, only a handful of Jews remain in Iraq. And yet, as Ellis emphasized, culture does not disappear all at once. Language may fade, but other forms of transmission endure. Food, in particular, becomes a powerful vessel of memory. Ellis initially resisted including recipes in her book, but came to understand that cooking is itself a kind of language—a sensory bridge to the past. The image of her mother carrying three rolling pins from Iraq is emblematic of this continuity: tangible objects that hold intangible heritage. Even the book’s title gesture—“always carry salt”—evokes protective practices familiar across Mizrahi communities, small rituals that encode belief, memory, and identity. We also discussed the remarkable story of the Iraqi Jewish Archive, discovered in 2003 in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein’s secret police headquarters. The archive contains hundreds of thousands of documents—school records, letters, communal registers—offering an intimate portrait of everyday Jewish life in Iraq. Today, innovative projects are using AI to transcribe and translate these materials across multiple scripts, making them accessible to descendants and scholars alike. Yet the archive’s ultimate fate remains uncertain, raising complex questions about ownership, memory, and cultural restitution. A particularly resonant theme in our conversation was Ellis’s struggle with authenticity. As a second-generation Iraqi Jew raised in the UK, she grappled with whether she had the “right” to tell this story, especially without having visited Iraq herself. Her resolution—to be “authentic to me”—offers an important model for thinking about diasporic identity. Preservation, she suggests, does not require perfect replication. It allows for adaptation, creativity, even reinvention. One can honor tradition while also “messing with it,” whether by adjusting a recipe or reimagining inherited practices. Ellis introduces a beautiful concept she calls “milk language”—the language absorbed in early childhood, through intimacy and care, even if it is not the dominant language of one’s environment. This idea invites us to reconsider how language lives within us, not only as a tool of communication but as a carrier of emotional and cultural memory. As an educator, I was especially struck by Ellis’s closing insight and her implicit call to action: to speak with our elders while we still can. There is a profound difference between hearing fragments of family stories in childhood and sitting down, as an adult, to listen fully and intentionally. These conversations do more than preserve history; they create connection, continuity, and a deeper sense of self. Always Carry Salt is not only a memoir. It is an invitation—to remember, to document, and to carry forward what might otherwise be lost. In a time when so many cultural threads are at risk of unraveling, Ellis’s work reminds us that preservation begins with attention, with curiosity, and with the willingness to listen. 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]

Yoshiko Nakano and Georgina Challen, "Meiji Graves in Happy Valley: Stories of Early Japanese Residents in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)

The connections between Hong Kong and Japan began much earlier than most would imagine. Yet, it is only now that the historic Japanese community in Hong Kong is receiving the profound attention it deserves, thanks to a captivating new book: Meiji Graves in Happy Valley: Stories of Early Japanese Residents in Hong Kong [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9789888876853] (Hong Kong UP, 2024). Its authors, Dr. Yoshiko Nakano and Georgina Challen, take us on a journey into the Meiji era, unrolling a historical scroll woven entirely from the lives of ordinary people. The book even features encounters with literary giants like Mori Ōgai and Natsume Sōseki, whose enduring fame makes their historical connections to the city impossible to ignore. During our interview, Yoshiko discussed her intention to frame this research within a unique historical matrix connecting East and West, a cross-cultural dynamic that is beautifully mirrored in her own collaborative partnership with Georgina. Perhaps the most moving element for readers is the authors' deep compassion toward Kiya Saki, a karayuki-san (sex worker) from Nagasaki who migrated to Hong Kong, only for her life to end in tragedy and suicide. The way Yoshiko and Georgina spoke during our interview about discovering her story was incredibly touching. Like Saki, both authors understand the experience of living miles away from home, working hard to build a life as a sojourner. Saki’s tragic end stirred deep emotions at the bottom of their hearts, serving as the ultimate inspiration for them to look deeper into the lives of early Japanese residents by meticulously investigating the 470 graves in Happy Valley. However, looking past individual tragedies reveals that the identity of this diaspora before the early 20th century was fraught with an intense internal dilemma. While the Meiji state desperately sought to project a polished, civilized image of a rising global power, the raw social reality on the ground in Hong Kong was split into a "community of two halves." The elite corporate circles—such as prominent managers of Mitsubishi—and the marginalized underclass of karayuki-san and boarding house runners existed in a state of profound social tension. Yet, out of this very dilemma arose a powerful story of collective survival and mutual responsibility. Over time, these two disparate halves found ways to support one another through the establishment of crucial community institutions, such as the Japanese Benevolent Society and the Hong Kong Japanese Club. Driven by a deep-seated need for solidarity in a foreign colonial port, the wealthy merchant class actively funded these organizations to provide healthcare, financial relief, and dignified burials for the most vulnerable members of their diaspora. In doing so, they transformed a fractured group of sojourners into a highly organized, resilient community. This complex social dynamic aligns perfectly with Michel Foucault’s concept of the Heterotopia, which frames the cemetery as a singular counter-site where people are brought together regardless of class, gender, or status. This democratic spatial reality is vividly reflected among the Meiji graves. A co-dependent reality that the living community often tried to obscure in life is permanently exposed in death; the marginalized karayuki-san have their graves closely laid out alongside those belonging to the highest echelons of the upper circle. This postmortem link provides a permanent window into a history shaped by colonization, human trafficking, global trade, and the geopolitical transformation of Japan from a small island nation into a global power. Beautifully narrated and enriched with vivid archival details, Meiji Graves in Happy Valley represents a vital piece of scholarship that bridges a critical gap in the histories of both Hong Kong and Japan. Through its pages, readers are invited to witness the parallel development of these two distinct spaces, reflected entirely through the intimate, recovered stories of Hong Kong's early Japanese residents. Yoshiko Nakano is a professor in the Department of International Design Management at Tokyo University of Science. She previously taught Japanese studies at the University of Hong Kong. Georgina Challen holds an MA in literary and cultural studies from the University of Hong Kong. Born in England, she grew up in Switzerland and has called Hong Kong home since 1990. Bing Wang receives her PhD at the University of Leeds in 2020. Her research interests include the exploration of overseas Chinese cultural identity and critical heritage studies. She is also a freelance translator. 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]

Adrian Ciani, "Contesting Zion: The Vatican, American Catholics, and the Partition of Palestine" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025)

The modern relationship between the Vatican and the State of Israel is rooted in a long history of hostility between Judaism and Roman Catholicism. Through the centuries, popes and theologians marginalized the Jewish people, assigning them collective guilt for the death of Jesus Christ and claiming that the sacred territory of Palestine was the true patrimony of the Roman Catholic Church. With the advent of political Zionism in the nineteenth century, Catholic fears of a Jewish-dominated Palestine were renewed. Contesting Zion: The Vatican, American Catholics, and the Partition of Palestine [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780228024613] (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025) examines the relationship between the Vatican and the Zionist movement from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to the first decade of Israeli statehood. Adrian Ciani considers the transnational nature of Catholic responses to Zionism and the creation of Israel, with a focus on the Catholic Church in the United States. From the 1920s through the 1950s, American Catholic leaders became crucial intermediaries between Washington and the Vatican. Speaking as both loyal American citizens and devout Catholics, they were uniquely positioned to articulate the Vatican’s policy objectives to the American government, including on the future of Palestine. American Catholics were also instrumental in advocating the church’s Palestine policy at the United Nations, playing a central role in the Holy See’s attempts to shape the twentieth-century international order. Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast [https://shows.acast.com/jerusalemunplugged] and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com [robbymazza@gmail.com]. Blusky and IG: @robbyref 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]

Joe P. L. Davidson, "Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times" (MIT Press, 2026)

There is no alternative. The End of History. Climate Apocalypse. It seems that our contemporary moment is defined by the idea that things can only get worse or, in the most optimistic reading, perhaps stay as they are. Ideas for things getting better, utopian ideas, seem in short supply. It is this which Joe Davidson confronts in his book Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780262385725] (MIT Press, 2026). Davidson links this apparent decline in utopian thinking to a change in ‘time consciousness’, the ways in which our sense of the future seems less open to possibility than it once was. Despite this he notes the persistence of utopianism in a new form, the ‘postdystopian utopia’ which takes account of the assumption the future will be worse and uses this as a spur to utopian thinking. He then explores how this manifests itself in various utopian works in different traditions, from Black utopianism considering the tragedy of the slave trade, feminism mining the nostalgia of previous battles to consider how things could be different and climate change utopianism confronting catastrophe. In our discussion we explore the changing fortunes and forms of utopianism over time, the value of ‘utopian studies’, why Silicon Valley tech-bros might be as utopian (or dystopian) as they make out and think about why it is important we all imagine the possibility of different worlds. Joe also makes a number of reading recommendations for postdystopian utopian novels. Your host, Matt Dawson [https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/staff/mattdawson/] is Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow and the author of G.D.H. Cole and British Sociology: A Study in Semi-Alienation [https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-75484-5] (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and co-editor of The Anthem Companion to Henri Lefebvre [https://anthempress.com/books/the-anthem-companion-to-henri-lefebvre-hb] (Anthem Press, 2026) along with other texts. 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]