New Books in Women's History

This episode features a conversation with the founding members of the Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, also known as the Auntylectuals. We began with each of them reflecting on their pathway into Hindu Studies and how the questions of caste and gender shaped their approaches to this field. We then discussed their motivations for starting the collective and what interventions they hoped to make through it. This took us deeper into some thorny topics: caste as a form of embodied knowledge that is often accompanied by the denial of its continued social power; the politics of Hinduism in North America where Hindus are both predominantly upper caste and a racial minority; the relationship between Hinduism and Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism; the traffic in language and tactics between Hindutva and Zionism; and the efforts to push back against the movement to make caste a protected category in U.S. anti-discrimination law.

Guests:

Shreena Gandhi: Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State University

Harshita Kamath: Professor of Telugu Culture, Literature, and History, Emory University

Sailaja Krishnamurti: Professor of Gender Studies, Queen’s University

Shana Sippy, Professor of Religion, Centre College

Mentioned in the episode:

Rajiv Malhotra: an ideologue of the Hindu nationalist movement in the U.S. and founder of Infinity Foundation

Harshita Kamath, Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance

Amar Chitra Katha: an Indian comic book publisher whose comics are hugely popular and widely available in India and the Indian diaspora.

Sailaja Krishnamurti, “Learning about Hindu Religion through Comics and Popular Culture,” David Yoo and Khyati Y Joshi eds. Envisioning Religion, Race and Asian Americans, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 207-226, 2020.

Babri Masjid: a 16th century mosque that became the target of Hindu nationalist mobilization and was destroyed by vigilante mobs in December 1992.

Marko Geslani, “A Model Minority Religion: The Race of Hindu Studies,” American Religion, forthcoming.

Thenmozhi Soundarajan, The Trauma of Caste

Sarah Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others

Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, “Feminist Critical Hindu Studies in formation”

Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, “Hindu fragility and the politics of mimicry in North America”

Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective, “Hinduphobia is a smokescreen for Hindu nationalists”

Shana Sippy and Sailaja Krishnamurti, “Not all Hinduism is Hindutva, but Hindutva is in fact Hinduism”

Shana Sippy, “Strange and Storied Alliances: Hindus and Jews, India and Israel,” manuscript in progress

Shana Sippy, "Victimization, Supremacism, Solidarity, and the Affective and Emulative Politics of American Hindus"

Tomako Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions, Or How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism

Shreena Gandhi, “Framing Islam as American Religion Despite White Supremacy”

Equality Labs is a South Asian Dalit civil rights organization.
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When young people began disappearing in Argentina, their mothers searched for answers. Despite laws prohibiting protests and political gatherings, the women still met to walk the Plaza de Mayo, a central square in Buenos Aires near the president’s residence. The government worked to deny their reports of the missing, to discredit the women, and to erode their standing among their peers. But the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo persisted.

Dr. Laura Tedesco joins us to share about her own childhood in Argentina during the military junta of the 1970s, her expertise on the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, and what authoritarianism then and now looks like, as we take a deep dive into her article “How Government Killings and Kidnappings in Argentina drove mothers to resist and revolt – and eventually win,” published in The Conversation on January 27, 2026.

This episode explores: features of authoritarianism, liberation theology, the death flights, Nunca Mas, human rights, fear, mothers’ activism, and how a society can react to state terrorism.

Our guest is: Dr. Laura Tedesco, who is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations. She specializes in Latin American Politics, Political Leadership, Political Corruption, and the dynamics of Authoritarianism and Democracy. From 2016 to 2024, she led a research grant funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), focusing on the political role of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR) in Cuba. Additionally, from 2009 to 2021, she directed a research project sponsored by the Open Society Institute, examining political leadership in Latin America. Since 2024, Dr. Tedesco has served as the Associate Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences at Saint Louis University's Madrid campus.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics. She is the creator and producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Playlist for listeners:

The First and Last King of Haiti

A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders

Thanks To Life

Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins Efforts to Aid Refugees From Nazi Germany

Secret Harvests

Preparing for War

Living Right

The Library of Lost Maps

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!
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When young people began disappearing in Argentina, their mothers searched for answers. Despite laws prohibiting protests and political gatherings, the women still met to walk the Plaza de Mayo, a central square in Buenos Aires near the president’s residence. The government worked to deny their reports of the missing, to discredit the women, and to erode their standing among their peers. But the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo persisted.

Dr. Laura Tedesco joins us to share about her own childhood in Argentina during the military junta of the 1970s, her expertise on the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, and what authoritarianism then and now looks like, as we take a deep dive into her article “How Government Killings and Kidnappings in Argentina drove mothers to resist and revolt – and eventually win,” published in The Conversation on January 27, 2026.

This episode explores: features of authoritarianism, liberation theology, the death flights, Nunca Mas, human rights, fear, mothers’ activism, and how a society can react to state terrorism.

Our guest is: Dr. Laura Tedesco, who is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations. She specializes in Latin American Politics, Political Leadership, Political Corruption, and the dynamics of Authoritarianism and Democracy. From 2016 to 2024, she led a research grant funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), focusing on the political role of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR) in Cuba. Additionally, from 2009 to 2021, she directed a research project sponsored by the Open Society Institute, examining political leadership in Latin America. Since 2024, Dr. Tedesco has served as the Associate Dean for Humanities and Social Sciences at Saint Louis University's Madrid campus.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics. She is the creator and producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.

Playlist for listeners:

The First and Last King of Haiti

A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders

Thanks To Life

Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins Efforts to Aid Refugees From Nazi Germany

Secret Harvests

Preparing for War

Living Right

The Library of Lost Maps

Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jane Armstrong Tucker was a Boston stenographer scrabbling to get by as a single woman in the Gilded Age, until she was offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Madeleine Pollard was a Kentuckian with humble roots who had used charisma to work her way into the parlors of the Washington, DC, elite. Tucker hid behind an alias―Agnes Parker―but Pollard had a secret, too.

Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy (UP of Kentucky, 2025) details the story of Jane Tucker, who took a job as an undercover detective with a ten-week mission. Her target: Madeleine Pollard, former mistress of Congressman William C. P. Breckinridge, whom she had sued for breach of promise when he failed to marry her. Exploring the intricacies of this trial and a scandal that captivated the nation, author Elizabeth A. DeWolfe demonstrates that a shared lack of power did not always lead to alliances among women. DeWolfe uncovers the strategies women used to make their way in the world, drawing parallels between the previously forgotten and incomplete tales of Tucker, Pollard, and the women who testified in the trial―from formerly enslaved persons, to white socialites, to single government clerks, to divorced physicians.Written in engaging prose with all the intrigue and suspense of a detective tale, Alias Agnes chronicles the lives of women at the cusp of the twentieth century―the opportunities that beckoned them and the challenges that thwarted their dreams.

New Books in Women’s History Podcast

Jane Scimeca, Professor of History at Brookdale Community College

Website here

@janescimeca.bsky.social 
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Linda Connolly is a professor of sociology at Maynooth University, with research focusing on gender, Irish society, family studies, migration, and Irish studies. Dr Tina O'Toole is a literary scholar with research expertise in Irish and diasporic writing, gender studies, and the history of sexualities; she is a senior lecturer at the University of Limerick.
In this interview, they discuss their well-known text Documenting Irish Feminisms, first published in 2005 and now re-released.
Documenting Irish Feminisms: The Second Wave (Arlen House, 2022) is a wide-ranging volume that traces the development of second-wave feminism in Ireland. The work draws upon a diversity of rare primary sources, including documents, photos, and publications. Connolly and O’Toole explore several themes in Irish feminist politics from the 1970s to the 1990s, including the emergence of pioneering feminist groups and organizations; reproductive rights and activism; the legal system and the state; the development of cultural projects; feminism and Northern Ireland; lesbian activism; and class and education. This book is an invaluable resource in the fields of history, sociology, politics, Irish studies, and women’s studies.
Aidan Beatty is a historian at the Honors College of the University of Pittsburgh.
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