New Books in Gender

In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026),
Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization
in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern
structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings
of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous,
African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control
and movement. Deere demonstrates
how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid
patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as
well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a
range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and
Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and
who is excluded—becomes an essential component
of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial
reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency
geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where
landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity.

Don
Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at
Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University
and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from
Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a
Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on
the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary
Continental Philosophy.

Morteza Hajizadeh 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. Twitter.
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Can I Say That: Your Go-To Guide for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is your safe space to learn more about diversity, equity and inclusion, and how you can be a force for change. Most DEI books focus on gender, race or the intersection of those two dimensions. This book adopts a broader intersectional lens while also providing concrete tools for allyship.This book is for you if: you want to know more about diversity, equity, and inclusion but don't know where to start; are worried about saying the wrong thing; feel uncomfortable talking about DEI; are worried conversations might escalate or end in conflict; or don't want to be the only one fighting for change.

By explaining the common fears we all face about DEI, you'll feel empowered to talk with confidence and take action.

Guest: Dr. Poornima Luthra is an author, keynote and Tedx speaker, business consultant, and leading practitioner-academic in the field of talent management and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). As a senior faculty at Imperial Business School and external faculty at Copenhagen Business School, she bridges cutting-edge scholarship with real-world impact. She draws on eighteen years of research, teaching experience, and expertise in the field of talent management and DEI in Asia and Europe. She is the author of Leading Through Bias; The Art of Active Allyship; and Diversifying Diversity, and contributor to Harvard Business Review. Can I Say That? was named as one of the 10 best new management books of 2025.

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the creator, producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.

Playlist for listeners:

Doing The Work of Equity Leadership For Justice And Systems Change

How To Organize Inclusive Events and Conferences

What Might Be

Transforming HSIs for Equity and Justice

Teaching About Race and Racism in the College Classroom

Black Women Ivory Tower

We Are Not Dreamers

Jumping Through Hoops

Speaking While Female

Leading From The Margins

Gay On God's Campus

Empathy Takes Action

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

In The Invention of Order: On the Coloniality of Space (Duke University Press, 2026),
Don Thomas Deere retraces the colonial origins of spatial organization
in the Americas and the Caribbean and its lasting impact on modern
structures of knowledge, power, race, gender as well as understandings
of global modernity. The coloniality of space dispossessed Indigenous,
African, and mixed populations as it constructed new systems of control
and movement. Deere demonstrates
how these developments manifested, among other forms, in urban grid
patterns imposed during the development of Spanish colonial cities as
well as totalizing trade routes crisscrossing the Atlantic. Drawing on a
range of thinkers including Enrique Dussel, Édouard Glissant, and
Sylvia Wynter, Deere reveals how movement—who travels, who settles, and
who is excluded—becomes an essential component
of control under colonial rule. Against the violence of spatial
reordering, Deere outlines how novel forms of resistance and insurgency
geographies still take hold, particularly in the Caribbean, where
landscapes remain excessive, eruptive, and uncaptured by the order of modernity.

Don
Thomas Deere is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at
Texas A&M University. He previously taught at Wesleyan University
and received his PhD with distinction from DePaul University and BA from
Cornell University. He is a Mellon Mays fellow and the recipient of a
Mellon Career Enhancement Faculty Fellowship. His research focuses on
the intersections of Latin American, Caribbean, and Contemporary
Continental Philosophy.

Morteza Hajizadeh 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. Twitter.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Independent
historian Michael Staudenmaier joins Michael Stauch to discuss his new
book about “becoming Puerto Rican” in Chicago. Staudenmaier’s book, White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago (University of North Carolina Press, 2026), describes how generations of Puerto Rican organizers and activists,
facing persistent exploitation, discrimination, and marginalization in
the postwar United States, drew on competing versions of nationalism to
challenge the racial order in one of America’s most segregated cities.

Highlights include:

A description of the historical process of “becoming Puerto Rican” as a racial project;

How class differences between activists and ordinary Puerto Ricans shaped distinct experiences of “becoming Puerto Rican”;

How the gendered experience of migration led one woman to collaborate with the FBI;

The effect of the 1966 Division Street Riot on Puerto Rican identity;

The rise of “panethnic Latinidad” and its possible futures.

Michael Staudenmaier
is an independent historian and serves on the Board of Directors of Dr.
Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School in Chicago.

Michael Stauch is an associate professor of history at the University of Toledo and the author of Wildcat of the Streets: Detroit in the Age of Community Policing, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2025.
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How the sound of the female playback voice impacts Bollywood's cultural, musical, and cinematic environment.

Drawing on sound studies and performance theory, scholar Shikha Jhingan explores the discursive nature of the female playback voice in Bombay film songs in The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema: Voice, Body, Technology (Wayne State UP, 2025). Mapping the production, circulation, and reception of the voices of singing stars—notably Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle—Jhingan situates the singing voice as a cinematic object with limitless possibilities of distribution and dispersal. She employs the perspectives of a diverse range of listeners across a vast media landscape to illustrate how the affective charge of the female playback voice, combined with developments in audio technology, has led to a gradual expansion of opportunities for women in film, popular music, and media and audio production. With nuanced exploration of the way the human voice becomes intertwined with devices such as the microphone, radio, cassettes, and digital technologies, Jhingan argues for the sonic excess of the female voice beyond the narrative and visual. The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema is an authoritative addition to the field of sound studies with implications for gender studies, performance studies, and cinema studies.
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