New Books in Folklore
An Arts podcast featuring Miranda Melcher, Caleb Zakarin and Armin Firouzi Haj
New Books in Folklore
Episodes
Episodes of New Books in Folklore
Mark All
Who are you, how are you supposed to live, and what about happiness? Answers to age-old questions are offered in classic myths about heroes, gods, and monsters, and at the ballgame.In The Ancient Wisdom of Baseball (Greenleaf, 2025), author Ch
Monsters, in all their terrifying glory, have preoccupied humans since we began telling stories. But where did these stories come from?In Monsterland: A Journey Around the World’s Dark Imagination (Scribe, 2025), award-winning author Nicholas
Rough Music: Folk Customs, Transgression and Alternative Britain (Reaktion, 2025) by Liz Williams explores transgression and shame in British folklore and customs from ancient Britain to the present day. From Bonfire Night to Wassail, Morris da
Iconic as a novelist and popular cultural figure, Zora Neale Hurston remains underappreciated as an anthropologist. Is it inevitable that Hurston's literary authority should eclipse her anthropological authority? If not, what socio-cultural and
In this episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with David Gordon White, a distinguished indologist and scholar of Tantra. Our conversation focuses on David’s most recent project tracing the transregional histories of spirits, gods, demons, and
Audun Kjus joins Jana Byars to talk about Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum (Utah State Press, 2025), eds. Audun Kjus, Jakob Löfgren, Cliona O’Carroll, Simon Poole & Ida Tolgensbakk. Utah State Press, 2025).The junctions between play and
Ann Schmiesing, Ph.D. is Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder, with research interests spanning 18th and 19th-century German and Norwegian literature and culture. In our interview we discuss her new
Sara Burdorff joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Maternity, Monstrosity and Heroic (Im)mortality from Homer to Shakespeare (Amsterdam University Press, 2025). This work uses an adaptation of monster theory to rethink the foundations o
Jana Byars talks to Veronica Strang about her new book Water Beings: From Nature Worship to the Environmental Crisis (Reaktion, 2023). Looking to the vast human history of water worship, a crucial study of our broken relationship with all thing
A. L. McClanan's Griffinology: The Griffin's Place in Myth, History and Art (Reaktion, 2024) is a fascinating exploration of the mythical creature's many depictions in human culture. Drawing on a wealth of historical and literary sources, this
Kalīlah and Dimnah: Fables of Virtue and Vice by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, translated by Michael Fishbein and James E. Montgomery, with a foreword by Marina Warner (Library of Arabic Literature, NYU Press, 2022), is a vibrant new rendition of a literary
Vaughn Scribner joins Jana Byars on the occasion of the paperback edition of Merpeople: A Human History (Reaktion, 2024) People have been fascinated by merpeople and merfolk since ancient times. From the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey to Hans Christ
An Unholy Rebellion, Killing the Gods: Political Ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Andean Huarochiri Manuscript (University of Nebraska Press, 2024) is the first comprehensive comparison of two of the greatest epics of th
With Go to Hell: A Traveler's Guide to Earth's Most Otherworldly Destinations (National Geographic, 2024) by Erika Engelhaupt, you can go to hell and back with the help of this one-of-a-kind illustrated travel guide to real-life underworld dest
The 13 essays collected in Cities and Strongholds of Middle-earth: Essays on the Habitations of Tolkien's Legendarium (Mythopoeic Press, 2024) foreground processes of making and constructing Arda -- either within the Secondary world or for read
A perpetual tension exists between history and change, which is an issue long explored by historians and social scientists. Reckoning with Change in Yucatán: Histories of Care and Threat on a Former Hacienda (Routledge, 2023) engages with how b
Roswell, 1947. Washington, DC, 1952. Quarouble, 1954. New Hampshire, 1961. Pascagoula, 1973. Petrozavodsk, 1977. Copley Woods, 1983. Explore how sightings of UFOs and aliens seized the world's attention and discover what the fascination with fl
Professor David Zeitlyn’s book offers a major contribution to the study and analysis of divination, based on continuing fieldwork with the Mambila in Cameroon. It seeks to return attention to the details of divinatory practice, using the questi
What makes us human? What, if anything, sets us apart from all other creatures? Ever since Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the answer to these questions has pointed to our own intrinsic animal nature. Yet the idea that, in one way or anot
In Japan, a country popularly perceived as highly secularized and technologically advanced, ontological assumptions about spirits (tama or tamashii) seem to be quite deeply ingrained in the cultural fabric. From ancestor cults to anime, spirits
Folksongs of Another America: Field Recordings from the Upper Midwest, 1937–1946 (University of Wisconsin Press) first appeared in 2015 when it comprised of a hardback book, five CDs, and one DVD. It went on to win the “Best Historical Research
Nguzunguzu is the traditional figurehead which was formerly affixed to canoes in the Solomon Islands. In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to Rodolfo Maggio, a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki about his book project on the dr
Imagine: it's the year 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they've been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you're facing a trial. Maybe you're looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do?In medieval an
According to Vālmīki's Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa (early centuries CE), Śambūka was practicing severe acts of austerity to enter heaven. In engaging in these acts as a Śūdra, Śambūka was in violation of class- and caste-based societal norms prescribed e
Discover everything you’ve ever wondered about the legendary spirits, creatures, and figures of Japanese folklore including how they have found their way into every corner of our pop culture from the creator of the podcast Uncanny Japan.Welcom
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