Indiana University Press

Why does the narrative of finding your one true love and living happily ever after dominate the romance novel? In her new book Happily Ever After, Catherine M. Roach, alongside her romance-writer alter-ego, Catherine LaRoche, guides the reader deep into Romancelandia where the smart and the witty combine with the sexy and seductive to explore why this genre has such a grip on readers.

On this episode, David Heineman discusses his new book Thinking about Video Games. Heineman's book brings together some of the most iconic, influential, and interesting voices from across the gaming industry. He reveals what he learned about the past, present, and future of video games through his interviews with gaming experts.

On this episode, Peter Schrag discusses When Europe Was a Prison Camp. This book weaves together Peter’s and his father Otto’s memoirs about their experiences in Occupied Europe during World War II. The Schrags were Jews, and Otto was interned in a French prison camp. Schrag shares the compelling story of how he and his family escaped to America.

In Claire Arbogast’s new memoir Leave the Dogs at Home, she writes about her journey to build a better life on the debris of her old one, after her lover Jim dies. On this episode, she discusses how his death forced her to face the hard, evasive truths of their complicated 27-year relationship and pushed her to reinvent herself.

When Edward Snowden began leaking NSA documents in June 2013, his actions sparked impassioned debates about electronic surveillance, national security, and privacy in the digital age. In David Fidler's new book The Snowden Reader, he and other experts analyze the historical, political, legal, and ethical issues raised by Snowden's disclosures. Fidler discusses these disclosures and their aftermath on this episode.

On this episode, Maple Razsa discusses his book Bastards of Utopia. The companion to a feature documentary film of the same name, this book explores the experiences and political imagination of young radical activists in the former Yugoslavia, participants in what they call alterglobalization or "globalization from below."

On this episode, author Ray Boomhower discusses his latest book John Bartlow Martin: A Voice for the Underdog. He examines Bartlow’s career as one of the best reporters of the 20th century, his Indiana upbringing, and his connections to some of the most prominent Democratic politicians.

On this episode, Bob Hammel discusses his latest biography of medical device entrepreneur and philanthropist Bill Cook. In The Bill Cook Story II: The Re-Visionary, Hammel takes us through Cook's final years and the restoration projects he championed, including Beck's Mill in Salem, Indiana; the Old Centrum Church in Indianapolis, Indiana; and the revival of his hometown of Canton, Illinois.

Coined in 1992 by composer/saxophonist John Zorn, “Radical Jewish Culture,” or RJC, became the banner under which many artists in Zorn's circle performed, produced, and circulated their music. On this episode, Tamar Barzel discusses her book New York Noise and how RJC forged a new vision of Jewish identity in the contemporary world.

On this episode, Dean J. Kotlowski discusses his book Paul V. McNutt and the Age of FDR. In this major biography of an important politician and statesman, Kotlowski explores McNutt’s life, his era, and his complex relationship with Franklin Roosevelt.

Performing in a country rife with racism and segregation, the tenor Roland Hayes was the first African American man to reach international fame as a concert performer and one of the few artists who could sell out Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall, and Covent Garden. On this episode, Christopher A. Brooks and Robert Sims discuss their new biography of Hayes and the legacy he left behind as a musician and a champion of African American rights.

On this episode of the IU Press podcast, Ann Folino White talks about her new book Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America. During the Great Depression, farmers were instructed by the New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Act to produce less food in order to stabilize food prices and restore the market economy. Many Americans saw the government action as a senseless waste of food that left the hungry to starve, initiating public outcry. White discusses the protests against the Agricultural Adjustment Act in this interview.

On this episode of the IU Press podcast, Barbara McDonald Stewart discusses her father, US diplomat James G. McDonald, and her experience co-editing To the Gates of Jerusalem, the third volume of his diaries and papers. This book follows his time on the Anglo-American Committee, which was formed shortly after World War II to find a solution to the problem of European Jewish refugees.

Though the collapse of the World Trade Center was “the most photographed disaster in history,” it failed to yield a single noteworthy image of carnage. On this episode, Thomas Stubblefield talks about how the absence within these spectacular images is the paradox of 9/11 visual culture, which foregrounds the visual experience as it obscures the event in absence, erasure, and invisibility.

On this episode, Edward Comentale and Aaron Jaffe poke and prod the rotting corpus of zombie culture to make sense of cult classics and the unstoppable growth of new and even more disturbing work. They discuss how their book The Year's Work at the Zombie Research Center helps readers see that zombie culture today “lives” in shapes as mutable as a zombie horde—and is often just as violent.

On this episode, Brian Wilson discusses his fascinating biography of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. One of the most famous Seventh-day Adventists, Kellogg ran the church’s Battle Creek Sanitarium and was an advocate of “biologic living,” a precursor to the holistic health movement. Wilson traces how Kellogg reconciled his faith and his training as a physician by developing his own innovative theology.

On this episode, John Lachs talks about his latest book Meddling: On the Virtue of Leaving Others Alone. Lachs claims that we are surrounded by people who seem to know what is good for us better than we do ourselves. He discusses how we'd all be better off if we minded our own business and let others lead their lives as they see fit.

On this episode, Olga Dror discusses her new translation of Mourning Headband for Hue by Vietnamese writer Nha Ca. In this book, Nha Ca describes what happened to her and the citizens of Hue during the Tet Offensive and provides an unvarnished and riveting account of war as experienced by ordinary people caught up in the violence.

On this episode, Keren McGinity discusses her new book Marrying Out. She looks at intermarriage and parenthood through the eyes of a post-World War II cohort of Jewish men and discovers what intermarriage has meant to them and their families. This book is a major breakthrough in understanding Jewish men’s experiences as husbands and fathers, how Christian women navigate their roles and identities while married to them, and what needs to change for American Jewry to flourish.

On this episode, Ellen K. Feder discusses her book Making Sense of Intersex. Proposing a philosophical framework for the treatment of children with intersex conditions—one that acknowledges the intertwined identities of parents, children, and their doctors—Feder presents a persuasive moral argument for collective responsibility to these children and their families.