New Books in Gender

Pushpesh Kumar et al. eds., "Sociology of Gender in India: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Sociology of Gender in India brings together feminist and queer scholarship to chart the changing landscape of gender debates in Indian sociology. Spanning over five deca

Rosie Findlay, "Dressays: An Anthology" (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2026)

The clothes we inherit, covet, purchase, borrow, wear, store, destroy, or give away are intricately woven into our ideas about who we are and how we relate to others and

Bryant Simon, "For Customers Only: Public Bathrooms and the Making of American Inequality" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

Americans have nowhere to go. Nationwide, countless public spaces lack one crucial thing: bathrooms, never mind ones that are safe and functional. Yet in the past, politi

Christina E. Firpo, "Beauty and the Nation: Women, Culture, and the National Image in Interwar Vietnam" (Columbia UP, 2025)

During the interwar years, Vietnamese society witnessed a rapid change in the way women looked. Rejecting the model of a sequestered maiden with blackened teeth and long

Leda M Perez, "Searching for Democracy: Women, Domestic Work, and Social Reproduction in Latin America" (Temple UP, 2026)

How can we achieve lasting social and political equality for women? Dr. Leda Pérez tackles this thorny question in Searching for Democracy: Women, Domestic Work, and Soci

Isabela Seong Leong Quintana, "Urban Borderlands: Multiracial Histories and Gendered Borders in Los Angeles" (UNC Press, 2026)

Los Angeles in the late nineteenth century was bustling with the rise of industrialization, but the growing labor force that propelled it, mostly consisting of Mexican an

Erin Maglaquel "Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body" (Astra House, 2026)

Erin Maglaque's new book Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body (Astra House, 2026), is a work of early modern history and an account of what it is like to study t

Ketil Slagstad, "Standardizing Sex: A History of Trans Medicine" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Standardizing Sex: A History of Trans Medicine (U Chicago Press, 2025) traces the emergence of trans medicine in Scandinavia in the twentieth century, exploring the const

Sara McDougall, "Justice for Jehanne: The Tale of a Medieval Survivor" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In the winter of 1472, the city of Dijon, France, became the stage for a remarkable legal drama. On the mayor’s orders, an investigator named Jaques Borestel went door-to

Leah Kim, "Mom, Unfiltered: Maternal Mental Health and Finding Freedom Through Motherhood (Bloomsbury, 2026)

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Leah Kim about her powerful book, Mom, Unfiltered: Maternal Mental Health and Finding Freedom Through Motherhood (Blo

Autumn Lorimer Linford, "Extra! Extra! A History of America's Girl Newsies" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)

American pop culture loves newsies. The children who bawled out headlines and sold newspapers on city streets in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have be

Eran A. Zelnik, "American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850" (JHU Press, 2025)

A joke is never just a joke—not even in the eighteenth century. In American Laughter, American Fury: Humor and the Making of a White Man's Democracy, 1750–1850 (JHU Press

Catherine Reyes-Housholder, "How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America" (Temple UP, 2026)

Between 1990 and 2020, women candidates won only 6% of the world’s presidential races. How Women Win Presidential Elections in Latin America (Temple University Press, 202

Diego Galego, "Queering Public Policy: A Disruptive Yet Inclusive Framework for Policymaking" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026)

For years, LGBTQ+ policies worldwide have been crafted based on heteronormative views, needs, and practices. However, this has gradually changed over the last two decad

Niharika Pandit, "Occupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Our recent conversation about Occupying the Everyday: Militarisation and Gendered Politics of Living in Kashmir (Oxford UP, 2026), with author Niharika Pandit, covers the

Shelly Lundberg "How Economics Discovered Women: Bringing Gender Economics into the Twenty-First Century" (U California Press, 2026)

In the 1970s, as women started to enter the labor force in unprecedented numbers, economists began to examine their roles as economic actors. The result was the rise of g

Jane Draycott, "Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome" (Yale UP, 2025)

Fulvia was born into wealth, privilege, and prestige around the year 80 BCE, yet there was nothing inherently special about her—she was not a saint, an empress, or a quee

Sandip Roy, "Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal" (Seagull Books, 2026)

Chapal Rani was one of India’s most famous performers of jatra, Bengal’s popular theater. Traditionally, all the roles, including female roles, were played by men—and Cha

Linda Williams and eds. Christine Gledhill et al., "Melodrama As Provocateur" (Duke UP, 2026)

The centerpiece of Melodrama as Provocateur (Duke UP, 2026) is an essay by Linda Williams (1946–2025). Williams was Professor of Film Studies and Rhetoric at the Universi

Yulia Gradskova et al., "Good Mothers, Nations and Nationalisms: Cases from Lithuania, Russia and Sweden" (CEU Press, 2026)

In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press, 2026) talks with Yulia Gradskova and Ieva Bisigirskaitė, two of the three authors behind Good Mothers, Nations and Nation