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Book Review - Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines by Joy Buolamwini
Joy Buolamwini (2024). Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines Book review by Angelica Kalika Dr. Joy Buolamwini is an award-winning researcher, poet of code, and activist. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League and now is an Inaugural Senior Fellow of Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford. Her work at the MIT Media lab, where she received her PhD in 2022, was the focus of a Netflix documentary Coded Bias. Her research focuses on algor
Jul 165 min read


Book Review - Shakespeare, Race and Anglophone Popular Culture edited by Mark Thornton Burnett , Vanessa I. Corredera , L. Monique Pittman
Book review by Anagha Gopal Shakespeare, Race and Anglophone Popular Culture (2026) edited by Vanessa I. Corredera and L. Monique Pittman operates at the intersections of Shakespeare, race, and popular culture. What sets the book apart is its engagement with references to Shakespeare that may not at first glance seem to be significant to the texts that they are in. However, as the editors acknowledge, popular culture references are how the majority of people come into contact
Jul 73 min read


Book Review - The Spectacle of Online Life, edited by Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo, Christopher T. Conner, and Matthew N. Hannah
Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo, Christopher T. Conner, and Matthew N. Hannah (eds.). (2025). The Spectacle of Online Life Book review by Shadab Zaveri The Spectacle of Online Life (2025) edited by Danielle Antoinette Hidalgo, Christopher T. Conner and Matthew N. Hannah is a collection published under the series titled The Frankfurt School in New Times. It brings together critical theory and digital humanities, studying the real term effects of digital culture on society. The con
Jun 253 min read


Book Review - Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage: Marine Archaeology’s Greatest Threat? by Sean A. Kingsley
Sean A. Kingsley. (2016). Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage: Marine Archaeology’s Greatest Threat? Bloomsbury Publishing. Book review by Heba Fatima Sean A. Kingsley is a marine archaeologist, historian and the Director of Wreck Watch International, a consulting firm that focuses on the protection of maritime heritage against threats across the globe. He has authored several books on underwater heritage, maritime trade and shipwrecks. Fishing and Shipwreck Heritage: Marine Archa
Jun 82 min read


Book Review - Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression by Steven Feld
Steven Feld. (1990, second ed.) Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kaluli Expression. University of Pennsylvania Press. Book review by Heba Fatima, Lecturer in English, Birupa College (affiliated to Utkal University, Odisha) Steven Feld is an American anthropologist, ethnomusicologist and sound artist known for his research on the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea. The Kaluli are a group of indigenous people residing in the rain forest regions near Mt.
May 273 min read


Book Review - Pacific Literatures as World Literature, edited by Hsinya Huang and Chia-hua Yvonne Lin
Huang, Hsinya, and Chia-hua Yvonne Lin, eds. Pacific Literatures as World Literature. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2023. Book Review by Shane Gomes, Tennessee State University The collection Pacific Literatures as World Literatures is an ambitious volume that actively tries to define how cultural texts from Oceania[1] should be incorporated into the corpus collectively known as “World Literature” while addressing the specific concerns of the geography, history, and cultures of
May 278 min read


Book Review - The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion-Our Social Skin by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. (1993). The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion-Our Social Skin, 2nd ed. The University of Chicago Press. Book review by Shadab Zaveri The Spiral of Silence: Public Opinion-Our Social Skin, second edition, by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann was published in 1993, and the first edition released in 1984. The book is extremely important in media and communication studies, as the theoretical concept of The Spiral of Silence (1993) offers insights into how public
May 243 min read


Book Review - Health, Healing, and Illness in African History by Rebekah Lee
Rebekah Lee. (2021). Health, Healing, and Illness in African History. Bloomsbury Publishing. Book review by Protichi Chatterjee Rebekah Lee, currently employed at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, specialises in the biomedical history of sub-Saharan Africa. Her latest publication Health, Healing, and Illness in African History (2021) synthesises her classroom teaching and archival research on sub-Saharan public cultures of illness and healing in two parts. Part O
Apr 303 min read


Book Review - Female Body Image and Beauty Politics in Contemporary Indian Literature and Culture
Srirupa Chatterjee and Shweta Rao Garg, ed. Female Body Image and Beauty Politics in Contemporary Indian Literature and Culture . Temple University Press, 2024 Book review by Debadrita Saha, Ashoka University The economic liberalisation of India in 1991 “transformed its economic policies from the erstwhile License Raj, or the control economy”, to embrace laissez-faire capitalism (Garg 234). Female Body Image and Beauty Politics in Contemporary Indian Literature and Culture ,
Mar 84 min read


Book Review - Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture: Perspectives on Education and Work
Marie Buscatto, Sari Karttunen, and Mathilde Provansal, ed. Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture: Perspectives on Education and Work . Open Book Publishers, 2025. Book review by Debadrita Saha, Ashoka University In the aftermath of the #MeToo movement in the Hollywood film industry, the origins of which can be traced to the exposure of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual crimes by women survivors in October 2017, artistic and cultural sectors across the world faced a reckonin
Jan 85 min read


Book Review - Tea Fit For A Queen: Recipes & Drinks For Afternoon Tea
Tea Fit For A Queen: Recipes & Drinks For Afternoon Tea Published in association with Historic Royal Palaces Book review by Hannah Sophie Schiffner Tea Fit For A Queen is not only a cookbook. It is a guide through the history of England and its royal houses. The introduction by Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces in Britain, explores tea’s evolution from a novel and expensive drink to its prominent role in everyday British life. She delves further into
Dec 22, 20253 min read


Aimee Loiselle’s Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class Wins the 2023 Peter C. Rollins Book Prize
The Northeast Popular Culture Association is proud to honor Aimee Loiselle’s Beyond Norma Rae with the 2023 Peter C. Rollins Book Prize....
Sep 20, 20251 min read
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