In this week’s episode, Dr. Ed Simon talks about his latest book Writing During the Apocalypse Reflections on the Great Unraveling (Bloomsbury).

Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren't ill placed. And yet, art and literature persist. In his new book, Ed grapples with the notion that writers and their work ought to distract readers from our currently dire situation. Ed argues that to craft imaginative spaces through the magic of words isn't superfluous. Instead it exists at the core of human experience – as it always has and always will.

What is it like to write during what could be the last decades of human civilization?

In this episode, Dr. Jinwon Kim discusses her new book, Koreatown NYC: The Consumption of a Transnational Brand, NYU Press.

Jinwon discusses how in the past decade, Korean entertainment has gained global recognition, with movies and TV shows winning Oscars and Emmys, and K-Pop groups becoming wildly popular. In Manhattan, Koreatown has become a popular destination for both locals and tourists, drawing them in with its bars, restaurants, and day spas - learn more about the neighbourhood, and its important place in NYC and globally.

How does Manhattan's Koreatown function as a new kind of ethnic enclave?

In this episode we speak to the author of The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea, Dr. Japonica Brown-Saracino.

Published by Princeton University Press, her new book traces how the concept - originally intended to describe the brick-and-mortar transformation of neighborhoods - has come to characterize transformations that have little to do with cities.

What is gained and what is lost when a word that once narrowly referred to neighborhood change takes on a life all its own?