New Books in Communications

By: Marshall Poe
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  • Summary

  • Interviews with Scholars of Media and Communications about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications
    New Books Network
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Science Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at the New Yorker

    The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at the New Yorker
    Feb 19 2025
    Our book is: The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at the New Yorker (Mariner Books, 2024) by Dr. Amy Reading, which is a lively and intimate biography of trailblazing and era-defining New Yorker editor Katharine S. White. White helped build the magazine’s prestigious legacy and transform the 20th century literary landscape for women. In the summer of 1925, Katharine Sergeant Angell White walked into The New Yorker’s midtown office and left with a job as an editor. The magazine was only a few months old. Over the next thirty-six years, White would transform the publication into a literary powerhouse. This exquisite biography brings to life the remarkable relationships White fostered with her writers and how these relationships nurtured an astonishing array of literary talent. She edited a young John Updike, to whom she sent seventeen rejections before a single acceptance, as well as Vladimir Nabokov, with whom she fought incessantly, urging that he drop needlessly obscure, confusing words. White’s biggest contribution, however, was her cultivation of women writers whose careers were made at The New Yorker—Janet Flanner, Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Bishop, Jean Stafford, Nadine Gordimer, Elizabeth Taylor, Emily Hahn, Kay Boyle, and more. She cleared their mental and financial obstacles, introduced them to each other, and helped them create now classic stories and essays. She propelled these women to great literary heights and, in the process, reinvented the role of the editor, transforming the relationship to be not just a way to improve a writer’s work but also their life. Based on years of scrupulous research, acclaimed author Amy Reading creates a rare and deeply intimate portrait of a prolific editor—through both her incredible tenure at The New Yorker, and her famous marriage to E.B. White—and reveals how she transformed our understanding of literary culture and community. Our guest is: Dr. Amy Reading. Her book, The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker, is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. She is also the author of The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the New York Public Library, among others. She lives in upstate New York, where she serves on the board of her local independent bookstore, Buffalo Street Books. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. She uses her PhD in history to explore what stories we tell, and what happens to those we never tell. Listeners may enjoy this playlist: Claire Myers Owens and the Banned Book Dear Miss Perkins Leaving Academia The Misadventures of A Rare Bookseller We Take Our Cities With Us Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 240+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications
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    56 mins
  • Peter Boxall, "The Possibility of Literature: The Novel and the Politics of Form" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

    Peter Boxall, "The Possibility of Literature: The Novel and the Politics of Form" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
    Feb 19 2025
    The Possibility of Literature: The Novel and the Politics of Form (Cambridge University Press, 2024) is a collection of Peter Boxall's essays over twenty years, the earliest from 1996. These essays cover a vast timespan, from the 17th century to contemporary times; a multiplicity of authors ranging from canonical, such as Cervantes, to underappreciated, such as Kelman; and various traditions, from realism to 'deathwriting'. Despite the richness of material, Boxall's penetrating and refreshing vision never loses sight of two central questions: what makes literature possible and what does literature generate? The essays are clustered into three sections, 'On Writers', 'On Literary Tradition', and 'On the Contemporary'. Exploring questions such as 'The Idea of Beauty', the nature of 'Mere Being', or the possibilities of Rereading, the author anatomises the myriad forces that shape the literary imagination. At the same time, he gives vivid critical expression to the imaginative possibilities of literature itself – those unique forms of communal life that literature makes possible in a dramatically changing world, and that lead us towards a new shared future. Peter Boxall is the Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature at New College, University of Oxford. His publications include Don DeLillo: The Possibility of Fiction (2002), Since Beckett: Contemporary Writing in the Wake of Modernism (2009) and The Prosthetic Imagination: A History of the Novel as Artificial Life (2020). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Brain Rot: What Our Screen Are Doing to Our Minds (3)

    Brain Rot: What Our Screen Are Doing to Our Minds (3)
    Feb 19 2025
    In the third podcast of this series, “Brain Rot: What Our Screen Are Doing to Our Minds,” host Dr. Karyne Messina, psychologist, psychoanalyst and author talked about the problems that can emerge in Erik Erikson’s Identity versus Identity Diffusion stage of development along with Dr. Harry Gill, a psychiatrist who has a PhD in neuroscience. The two mental health professionals discussed major difficulties they see in their young patients when they are exposed to too much screen time. For one thing, excessive screen time during this stage of development can have significant effects on pruning which leads to structural changes in the brain. This is a crucial process in adolescent brain development that involves the elimination of unnecessary neural connections to enhance efficiency while optimizing brain functioning. They also focused on the impact of social media on the formation of identity, a critical part of healthy personality development. Drs. Messina and Gill shared the challenges young people have navigating in the digital age, which can include exposure to people who are inauthentic on social media, role confusion, and addiction to video games. They emphasized the importance of limiting screen time, encouraging adolescents to have real-life experiences versus having mainly on-line relationships while fostering healthy habits to support brain development and overall well-being during this crucial stage of development. Dr. Messina highlighted the importance of solidifying one’s identity during adolescence or early adulthood, adding that this task can be difficult to achieve later in life if it isn’t developed when searching for a sense of self is a central task of development. Dr. Gill talked about ways parents can mitigate too much screen time. He suggested that they limit the time their children have access to their screens. He also believes that adolescents should have chores every day which can give them a sense of accomplishment. Watching movies and shows on television as a family was another suggestion he made. He believes that time spent discussing what everyone has seen can provide a sense of understanding that adolescents may not have while fostering a sense of community within the family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications
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    41 mins

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