New Books Network

Who’s in the Room?: A Guide to Public Relations from the Black Professional Perspective (Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2025) has been created to serve as a resource that is both an academic and industry text in public relations practice. The book focuses on growth and empowerment in public relations through the implementation of inclusionary practices. It is centered in the voice of the Black public relations professional. Featuring contributions of pioneers and the experiences of current trailblazers, the book explores themes of access, representation, and accountability in the field. The authors examine the nuanced challenges and triumphs of navigating the field as Black professionals. They offer guidance for students and new professionals, as well as actionable recommendations for organizations and individuals seeking to become more equitable and inclusive. Jamila Cupid, Ph.D. is a university professor who trains university students in the practice of public relations. She built her career as a public relations and digital media professional, with expertise in research and strategy, working in New York City and Washington, DC for several years. She earned a BA in English from Boston University, then an MA in Human Communication and PhD in Mass Communication and Media Studies with a certificate in International Communication from Howard University. In addition to her industry experience and academic training in the United States, she has studied and conducted research in the Caribbean and South America. She examines international, intercultural, and multicultural public relations in the areas of campaigns, branding, organizational structure, crisis management, relationship building, and social media. Joell Myescha is an award-winning public relations executive, media strategist, and founder of Morris Street Media, a firm known for high-impact campaigns and storytelling that center underrepresented voices. With over 20 years of experience, she has led successful PR and content initiatives across TV, film, and digital media, including the 2024 PBS GOSPEL Live! campaign, which earned a Silver Anthem Award. Her work blends creative vision with strategic execution, focusing on social justice, cultural impact, and audience engagement. A graduate of Boston University, she holds a BA in International Relations. Reighan Gillam is Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creation. She is the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media (University of Illinois Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

A unique study of the only physical manuscript containing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as both a material and literary object.In this book, Arthur Bahr takes a fresh look at the four poems and twelve illustrations of the so-called “Pearl-Manuscript,” the only surviving medieval copy of two of the best-known Middle English poems: Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In Chasing the Pearl-Manuscript, Bahr explores how the physical manuscript itself enhances our perception of the poetry, drawing on recent technological advances (such as spectroscopic analysis) to show the Pearl-Manuscript to be a more complex piece of material, visual, and textual art than previously understood. By connecting the manuscript’s construction to the intricate language in the texts, Bahr suggests new ways to understand both what poetry is and what poetry can do. Arthur Bahr is professor of literature and MacVicar Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Fragments and Assemblages: Forming Compilations of Medieval London, also published by the University of Chicago Press. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Before the Scientific Revolution, Western medicine was thought in terms of humors: cheerful people were sanguine and had a lot of blood, fiery cholerics had an excess of yellow bile, gloomy Melancholics had black bile, and mellow phlegmatics had phlegm of course. And the balancing of humors—hot and cold, wet and dry—was the key to a healthy life. It sounds medieval, it is, rooted in ancient Greeks, but we Catholics like medieval things, and some of us—especially Juan Domínguez, author: Knight, Monk, King, Prophet: A Christian Man’s Guide to the Four Temperaments—has found wisdom in this way of thinking. And it’s a way of thinking that we hear in some more conservative, or traditional, Catholic circles, so it’s something I’ve been wondering about for some time. I’ve also been interesting in archetypes for since I first read Joseph Campbell and The Hero of a Thousand Faces many years ago. We also talk a bit about how one’s role changes over time and also whether these models are applicable to women as well as men. I really enjoyed the conversation; I think you will too. Juan Domínguez’s book, Knight, Monk, King, Prophet, on Amazon. Juan Domínguez: ‘Simple Men’ on Substack. Juan’s description of the book on Substack. Juan Domínguez with Steven Caswell on Missio Dei. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide (Liveright, 2025), the second work in a trilogy from best-selling author Howard W. French about Africa's pivotal role in shaping world history, underscores Adam Hochschild's contention that French is a "modern-day Copernicus." The title--referring to a brief period beginning in 1957 when dozens of African colonies gained their freedom--positions this liberation at the center of a "movement of global Blackness," with one charismatic leader, Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972), at its head.That so few people today know about Nkrumah is an omission that French demonstrates is "typical of our deliberate neglect of Africa's enormous role in the birth of the modern world." Determined to re-create Nkrumah's life as "an epic twentieth-century story," The Second Emancipation begins with his impoverished, unheralded birth in the far-western region of Ghana's Gold Coast. But blessed with a deep curiosity, a young Nkrumah pursued an overseas education in the United States. Nowhere is French's consummate style more vivid than in Nkrumah's early years in Depression-era America, especially in his mesmerizing portrait of a culturally effervescent Harlem that Nkrumah encountered in 1935 before heading to college. During his student years in Pennsylvania and later as an activist in London, Nkrumah became steeped in a renowned international Black intellectual milieu--including Du Bois, Garvey, Fanon, Padmore, and C.L.R. James, who called him "one of the greatest political leaders of our century"--and formed an ideology that readied him for an extraordinarily swift and peaceful rise to power upon his return to Ghana in 1947.Four years later, in a political landslide he engineered while imprisoned, Nkrumah stunned Britain by winning the first general election under universal franchise in Africa, becoming Ghana's first independent prime minister in 1957. As leader of a sovereign nation, Nkrumah wielded his influence to promote the liberation of the entire continent, pushing unity as the only pathway to recover from the damages of enslavement and subjugation. By the time national military and police forces, aided by the CIA, overthrew him in 1966, Nkrumah's radical belief in pan-African liberation had both galvanized dozens of nascent African states and fired a global agenda of Black power.In its dramatic recasting of the American civil rights story and in its tragic depiction of a continent that once exuded all the promise of a newly won freedom, The Second Emancipation becomes a generational work that positions Africa at the forefront of modern-day history. Howard W. French is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and a former New York Times bureau chief for Central America and the Caribbean, West and Central Africa, Japan and the Koreas, and China, based in Shanghai. The author of six books, including Born in Blackness, French lives in New York City. Ayisha Osori is a lawyer and Director at Open Society Foundations Ideas Workshop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this episode, Sean MacCracken reflects on his experience at the American Academy of Religion, noticing a shift toward more participatory, contemplative, and integrative approaches in religious studies. He discusses his course, Kashmiri Shaivism: Supreme Non-Dualism, highlighting how meditation, contemplation, and embodied practices cultivate awareness, ethical self-reflection, and creative engagement with the world. Sean also explores how his study of Indian philosophy and Tantric traditions opens broader, integral ways of knowing that move beyond reductionist frameworks. He discusses his article, “Regarding Humanism: Some Observations Concerning the Tibetan Buddhist and Transhumanist Dialogue,” showing how Buddhist and Tantric insights deepen our understanding of humanism, development, and collective ethical responsibility. This episode offers listeners a glimpse into how contemplative and Integralist approaches can reshape learning, thinking, and living—showing philosophy as a path toward grounded, ethically engaged, and transformative ways of being in the world. Sean K. MacCracken is adjunct faculty at California Institute of Integral Studies. He recieved a M.A. and Ph.D in Asian and Comparative Studies from CIIS, and a M.A. in Religious Studies from University of Virginia. “Regarding Humanism: Some Observations Concerning the Tibetan Buddhist and Transhumanist Dialogue” https://processcenturypress.com/unprecedented-evolution-continuities-and-discontinuities-between-human-and-animal-life-and-the-future-of-humanity/ The EWP Podcast credits Connect with EWP: Website • Youtube • Facebook Hosted by Stephen Julich (EWP Core Faculty) and Jonathan Kay (EWP PhD grad) Produced by: Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay Edited and Mixed by: Jonathan Kay Music: Mosaic, by Monsoon on the album Mandala Introduction Voiceover: Roche Wadehra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network