New Books in Literary Studies

Celebrated poet, essayist, playwright, and American artist Langston Hughes is one of the few American writers who consistently wrote about democracy from a joyous perspective, and My America explores how his work speaks to the political anxieties and crises we face today. Randal M. Jelks deftly examines the themes in Hughes’s work, including creative expression, communal dignity, class struggle, and human suffering, and what they mean for our inner well-being as democratic persons and political participants.
With care and no-holds-barred insight, My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy (Broadleaf Books, 2026) removes the veneer of respectability often placed on Hughes’s work and life to reveal his political adeptness. In a world threatened by fascism, Hughes’s writing wasn’t afforded the luxury of subtlety. He made a spiritual and political decision to stand on the side of the oppressed. He believed art should be practiced for the sake of justice. And democracy can be practiced with joy.
Dr. Randal Maurice Jelks is an award-winning author, documentary film producer, and professor. He is the author of four books. His writings have appeared in the Boston Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, blogs, journals, and periodicals. You can learn more about him and his work at his website.
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Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea saga has enchanted generations of readers and stands as a foundational classic of the fantasy genre. To mark publication of the definitive Library of America edition, acclaimed writers Karen Joy Fowler and Nghi Vo join volume editor Brian Attebery to kick off the fall LOA LIVE season with a fascinating plunge into these beloved novels of magic, dragons, nature, naming, and identity. LOA associate editor Stefanie Peters moderates. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
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China’s early medieval period, from the fifth through the early seventh century, from the Northern and Southern Dynasties through the unified Sui, was a time of political fragmentation, military strife, and ethnic conflict. It also witnessed brilliant artistic creations as well as a full flowering of court culture, with poetry at its heart. How did poetry come to be regarded as the most potent form of cultural capital, a privileged literary genre, and a foundational skill for members of the elite? How was poetry transformed from an instrument of empire building to a venue for articulating personal trauma and voicing critique of the state?
Tracing the evolution of poetry’s role in Chinese society, Writing Empire and Self: Poetic and Cultural Transformation in Early Medieval China (Columbia University Press, 2026) uncovers the profound cultural changes that took place in the early medieval era. Dr. Xiaofei Tian argues that in this period, a social community, eventually known as the “scholar elite” and treated as if it had always been a permanent fixture of the Chinese social order, came into being. She investigates the formation of this community, which left its mark on all later Chinese arts and letters, through a careful account of its history and textual production. Combining meticulous readings of numerous previously untranslated texts with a long-term, large-scale view of social and cultural history, Writing Empire and Self offers a fresh perspective on poetry’s intricate relationship with the state.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma (Academic Studies Press, 2026) explores transitional post-Soviet cultural consciousness in Ukraine at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The main themes in the book are postcolonial traumas in relation to past empires and old historiographical narratives; post-totalitarian consciousness, which is characterized by sociocultural ruptures, postcolonial resentment, and intergenerational crises; and post-memory as a means of overcoming historical and familial traumas. Against the backdrop of the Chornobyl catastrophe, the book examines the meeting of different generations and views the clown Verka Serduchka as a mediator between the transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet world. The book focuses on three significant Ukrainian novels written between the two Maidans: The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko (2009), Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan (2010), and Notes of a Ukrainian Madman by Lina Kostenko (2010).

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In Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice (Duke University Press, 2026), Catherine A. John addresses the underbelly of spiritual resilience shaping a range of African diasporic institutions, traditions, and practices. John argues that repressed forms of indigenous African knowledge systems manifest in a myriad of culturally embodied ways in African diaspora spaces and places. From mermaid lore in rural Jamaica to hip-hop trance-induced dance in Los Angeles to the stories of two debaters-turned-social-media-influencers, John shows how the descendants of enslaved Africans express the signs and substance of their afroindigenous power through collective creativity. Drawing from scholars such as Vèvè Clark, Hortense Spillers, Dianne M. Stewart, and Sylvia Wynter, Afroindigenization exposes the cultural and spiritual ancestries that lie at the heart of modern Black identities and practices.
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