Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

Today I’m speaking with neuroscientist Stave Ramirez about bullshit and memory. Steve is an associate professor at Boston University, where he runs a lab dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of memory. How memory works, and importantly, how it doesn’t, are crucial questions for understanding everything from the validity of eyewitness testimony to understanding how people overcome traumatic...

The Woman Question in Jewish Studies (Princeton UP, 2025) is a critical look at the difficulties women face in the field of Jewish studies, drawing on quantitative data, personal stories, and the gendered history of the field.The field of Jewish studies has expanded significantly in recent years, with increasing numbers of women entering the field. These scholars have brought new perspectives...

How is finance changing in the contemporary world? In FinTech Capital: The Digital Transformation of Everyday Money and Finance (Princeton University Press, 2026), Paul Langley, a Professor of Economic Geography at Durham Universityand Andrew Leyshon, a Senior Fellow in the Centre for Economy, Policy and Place, Nottingham Trent University and Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the...

The world has changed dramatically in just the past few years and so has negotiation. Traditional negotiating tactics, while still effective, need to be tailored to vastly different situations and circumstances. In Negotiation: The Game Has Changed (Princeton University Press, 2025), Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman , a legendary pioneer in the field of negotiation, shows how to...

Julia Azari, Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, has a new, award-winning[*] book centering on the connection between race and the American presidency, specifically in the reaction to presidents who made progress on the issue of race in the United States. Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History focuses on four different periods in...

In this interview, we speak with Laura B. McGrath, an Assistant Professor of English at Temple University and the author of Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction (Princeton University Press, 2026). Her writings have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and The Atlantic. Middlemen rewrites literary history from the perspective of one of its most important but least...

All of life is profoundly shaped by the daily, monthly, and yearly cycles of our planet, and all creatures have internal timekeeping systems that rely on cues from the surrounding environment. With modern technology, we are changing our environments—and by proxy, the ecosystems around us—to override these innate rhythms of life. But at what cost? Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and...

More than eleven million children in the US live in doubled-up households, sharing space with extended family or friends. These households are even more common among low-income families, families of color, and single-parent families, functioning as a private safety net for many in a country with extremely limited public support for families. Despite their prevalence, we know little about how...

What has happened to Britain? As drivers on its roads can attest, it is the pothole capital of Europe. Once-beautiful towns now feature peeling paint, weeds, and broken railings. Public services are no longer fit for purpose. A malaise seems to infect every aspect of British life: its economy, polity, social order, sense of well-being, domestic regional relationships, and place in the world. In...

Who gets to be a creative worker? In Blame the Intern: On (Not) Breaking Into the Creative Economy, (Princeton University Press, 2026) Alexandre Frenette, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, examines the relationship between work and education in the difficult moment of the early career transition from university to industry. Drawing on a detailed case study of the music...