Metamodern Mysticism with Linda Ceriello

Psychoanalysis and Jewish Languages

There is an academic interest in the "Jewish Freud," aiming to detect Jewish influences on Freud, his own feelings about being Jewish, and suppressed traces of Jewishness in his thought. This book takes a different approach, turning its gaze not on Freud but rather on those who seek out his concealed Jewishness. What is it that propels the scholarly aim to show Freud in a Jewish light? Naomi Seidman explores attempts to "touch" Freud (and other famous Jews) through Jewish languages, seeking out his Hebrew name or evidence that he knew some Yiddish. Tracing a history of this drive to bring Freud into Jewish range, Seidman also charts Freud's responses to (and jokes about) this desire. More specifically, she reads the reception and translation of Freud in Hebrew and Yiddish as instances of the desire to touch, feel, "rescue," and connect with the famous professor from Vienna. Join YIVO for a discussion with Seidman about this newly published book, led by scholar Ken Frieden. Buy the book: here [https://yivo-institute.myshopify.com/products/translating-the-jewish-freud-psychoanalysis-in-hebrew-and-yiddish] This book talk originally took place on June 6, 2024. 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]

Gregg Andrews, "Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970" (LSU Press, 2026)

In Shoe Workers in Hannibal, Missouri: The Rise and Fall of Manufacturing in America’s Hometown, 1890–1970 [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9780807185834] (LSU Press, 2026), Dr. Gregg Andrews examines the history of factory laborers in a celebrated Mississippi River town. In the late 1890s, shoe manufacturing transformed Mark Twain’s boyhood home from a steamboat village to a factory town. By the mid-1920s, the St. Louis–based International Shoe Company, the world’s largest shoe manufacturer at the time, controlled all shoe production in Hannibal and continued to do so until it shut down production lines in the 1960s. The company kept a tight grip on the town as it battled to keep out unions and maintain labor at a low cost and in a malleable state. When Hannibal’s shoe workers claimed their right to organize under the New Deal during the Great Depression, the shoe corporation was defiant. The company’s stance sparked mob violence against outside union organizers, nurtured a company union, pitted unionists against company loyalists, and badly divided Hannibal. At the same time, the town was engaged in yearlong festivities to celebrate the centennial of Mark Twain’s birth and the opening of a museum named in his honor. Dr. Andrews’s study of shoe manufacturing and its production workers is thick in detail and rich with the human stories of those whose lives were shaped by the rise and fall of the shoe industry in Hannibal. Andrews captures the shoe workers—white and Black, men and women—in their own words as they describe their jobs, family struggles, and battles to unionize. Dr. Andrews examines the prevailing conditions that led the company to close its production facilities in Hannibal, leaving shoe workers and the town to confront the early shock waves of deindustrialization. His study of an industry that has virtually disappeared in the United States leaves a record for the families of thousands of American shoe workers and the citizens of Hannibal to better understand their history and the role shoe manufacturing played in it. 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]

Roberta J. Magnusson, "Urban Infrastructure in Medieval England: Sustainability and Resilience" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)

In the bustling market towns and growing cities of medieval England between 1200 and 1600, public works were the lifelines of urban society. In Urban Infrastructure in Medieval England: Sustainability and Resilience [https://bookshop.org/a/12343/9781421454399] (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Dr. Roberta J. Magnusson offers the first comprehensive study of how medieval towns built, financed, and sustained their defenses, bridges, streets, water systems, and harbors. Dr. Magnusson reveals how even modest communities, like the Warwickshire town of Atherstone, boldly pursued projects that reshaped their futures. Grants of tolls and taxes funded paving initiatives, bridge repairs, and fortified walls, while enterprising lords and abbots sponsored sluices, conduits, and quays. These efforts were not confined to England's great cities; small towns with limited means also sought to enhance their competitive edge, even when such investments strained their resources. Drawing on royal records, municipal archives, and archaeological evidence, Dr. Magnusson situates these civic undertakings in their broader social and environmental contexts. She shows how townsmen adapted traditional obligations of labor and charity alongside innovative fiscal tools to sustain projects that could span generations. Yet the balance was fragile. The crises of the fourteenth century—famine, plague, and the harsher climate of the Little Ice Age—undermined local resources, leaving many communities to struggle with maintenance or watch their infrastructures decline. At once a history of engineering, economy, and community, this study illuminates how medieval people conceived of security, health, and prosperity through the material fabric of their towns. By tracing the rise, transformation, and survival of these infrastructures, Dr. Magnusson demonstrates how urban communities navigated centuries of change while shaping the very landscapes in which they lived. 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]

Podcast Intellectuals, Panel #4

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, 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 fourth panel, Jody Avirgan led a discussion about what it takes for someone to make an academic podcast. Jody Avirgan [https://www.jodyavirgan.com/] is a podcast host, producer, and editor. His production company is Roulette Productions [https://www.roulette.productions/]; Sara McCrea [https://www.saramccrea.com/] is a writer, audio producer, and researcher, who leads podcast strategy and production at Random House Publishing Group. She has produced podcasts for Slate, Pushkin Industries, TED Audio Collective, Audible, and the Center for Humane Technology. She created and produced the "Attention Lab" series for the Strother School of Radical Attention, and wrote and produced the award-winning "McCartney: A Life in Lyrics", a 24-episode narrative journey through Paul McCartney's songwriting, hosted by poet Paul Muldoon; Caleb Zakarin [https://newbooksnetwork.com/hosts/profile/b01b52c7-86e2-42c8-b108-86e1fdd658d7] is the CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.; 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] 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]

Metamodern Mysticism with Linda Ceriello

In this episode, host Pierce Salguero sits down with Linda C. Ceriello, a scholar of mysticism and popular culture from Kennesaw State University in Georgia. Linda is one of the foremost scholars of metamodernism, with particular focus on contemporary spirituality and mystical experiences. She talks with us about what this concept of metamodernism means, and how it can open up new kinds of more capacious thinking. I’m sure you will agree that a lot of what we’ve been doing on the Black Beryl podcast over the past 4 years — juxtaposing different perspectives, exposing our full selves, exploring the dark sides of spirituality, leaning into sincerity, etc. — has all embodied a metamodern sensibility. Anyway, I think she’s the perfect guest to talk with as we launch season 4, and I hope you’ll enjoy the show. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in multidisciplinary conversations about Asian healing and mystical traditions, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members area on Substack (blackberyl.substack.com), as each episode our guests share downloadable PDFs of articles, book chapters, and other materials for you. One last thing: we are planning an “Ask Me Anything” episode coming up soon, so reach out via Substack or my website here [http://piercesalguero.com/], and let me know your questions. Ok, on with the show! Resources mentioned in this episode: * “What is Metamodern?” website [https://whatismetamodern.com/] * “What is Metamodern? Conversations” on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@WhatIsMetamodern] * Bloomsbury Press series: Studies in Metamodernism, Theory and Criticism Across the Disciplines [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/series/studies-in-metamodernism-theory-and-criticism-across-the-disciplines/] * Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Notes on Metamodernism” (2010) [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677?needAccess=true] * Kersten, Polo, Wilbers, Glocal Metamodernisms: European Fiction After Postmodernism (2026) [https://amzn.to/4f6GZst] * Disambiguation video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6BK8RqW1Kg&t=2s] * Recorded lecture: “An Overview of the Academic Research on Metamodernism” (2023) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP6PBWm0EgU] * Recorded panel: “A Bodhisattva Move: Popular Mysticism’s Influence on the Metamodern Turn?” (2021) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lxb7XKC2fY&t=535s] Subscribe on blackberyl.substack.com [http://blackberyl.substack.com/] to unlock our members-only benefits, including these PDFs of Linda’s work: * Metamodern Mysticisms (2018) * “Toward a metamodern reading of Spiritual but Not Religious mysticisms” (2018) * “The Metamodern Bend: Theorizations for Religious Studies” (2022) Black Beryl’s host Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com [http://www.piercesalguero.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]