Book Bargains, Brews, and Bets
Dozens of Discounts!
This holiday season, we’ve partnered with dozens of university presses to offer exclusive discounts for NBN subscribers. If you’re looking to get the book-lovers in your life something special, check out our discounts page. All you need to do to access these discounts is sign up for a free NBN listener account on our website. Get up to 70% percent off now.
Alternative Angles: Coffee
This month’s segment spotlights the works of a geographer, sociologist, and anthropologist on the topic of coffee. These three interviews explore struggles for economic and social autonomy in coffee production, in addition to coffee culture’s role in shifting political and cultural identities.
In this episode, geographer Lindsay Naylor chats with NBN about her book, Fair Trade Rebels: Coffee Production and Struggles for Autonomy in Chiapas. She investigates the ways that campesinos/as in the highlands of Mexico employ different economic practices and relations to secure their livelihoods. Lindsay draws on decolonial thinking and diverse economies theory to analyze “fair trade” based on the perspectives of these farmers.
In Brewing Resistance: Indian Coffee House and the Emergency in Postcolonial India, sociologist Kristin Plys examines histories of the resistance movement that was launched from New Delhi’s vibrant café culture during India’s brief period of dictatorship (1975-77). Using oral histories and newly discovered evidence, Kristin demonstrates how New Delhi's Indian Coffee House became a space of dissent and debate.
Listen to anthropologist Grazia Ting Deng discuss her book, Chinese Espresso: Contested Race and Convivial Space in Contemporary Italy. Deng explores why and how coffee bars in Italy have increasingly been run by Chinese baristas. Using ethnographic methods, Grazia highlights the ways that Chinese immigrants have drawn on local knowledge and their own family labor to make “Chinese espresso.”
Scholarly Sources
Tim Simpson is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Macau.
Tim is the author of Betting on Macau: Casino Capitalism and China’s Consumer Revolution, published by University of Minnesota Press in 2023.
Q: What are you reading right now?
A: I am just finishing Everyday Life in the Spectacular City: Making Home in Dubai, by Rana AlMutawa. I like how she avoids discussing Dubai’s megamalls as grand hyperreal simulations and instead provides a nuanced, insider account of how Dubai citizens use these spaces in mundane ways. The book resonates with the similar ways that Macau locals use our city’s massive themed megaresorts, often because they offer free parking, gym memberships, and child-friendly attractions, which is not what you normally expect when you think of casino environments.
Q: What is your favorite book or essay to assign to give to people and why?
A: Teaching primarily Chinese students in Macau who are working in English as a second language, I like to assign Jamaica Kincaid’s book A Small Place. Her account of tourism in post-colonial Antigua is relevant for understanding the effects of mass tourism on contemporary Macau, which was a Portuguese colony for nearly 500 years and is now one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. In addition, her powerful social critique, offered in very clear and direct English prose, without academic jargon, is a great model for students who are finding their own voice. Finally, the fact that the book is so brief means that many students actually read it from start to finish, when it is otherwise difficult to convince this generation of the enduring value of books over websites and social media influencers.
Q: Is there a book you read as a student that had a particularly profound impact on your trajectory as a scholar?
A: I remember reading Marshall Berman’s book All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity in a graduate class and realizing what it means to be a scholar. I was taken by Berman’s remarkable grand sweep of modern history and culture, and his vivid characterization of modernity as the existential experience of living in-between the forces of modernization and the aesthetics of modernism. But I was blown away by the final chapter when Berman makes the preceding discussion relevant to understanding the legacy of Robert Moses and the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway in New York. It was a testament to how Marx and Goethe and Baudelaire could be brought to bear to interrogate a real urban event in my own time. The book inspired my doctoral thesis about the contemporary development of Ybor City, an immigrant cigar factory town in Tampa, Florida, that was reborn as a bohemian artist community, and then developed by the city’s Faustian mayor into a ridiculous party zone and nightlife attraction.
Q: Which deceased writer would you most like to meet and why?
A: If you asked me when I was younger, I would have probably said J.D. Salinger, simply because I read his books over and over in my youth and always wished he had been more prolific. But I suspect for some reason that he would not necessarily be very interesting to talk to. If you ask me as an academic, however, I think that Walter Benjamin is one of the most fascinating writers of the twentieth century. Trying to understand Benjamin is a lifelong intellectual pursuit and an effort that would certainly benefit from being able to talk to him. Aside from his own voluminous writings. there is an entire subgenre of secondary Benjamin literature, and I would be especially curious what he thought of these works. My favorite such book is The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project, by Susan Buck-Morss, which was another inspiration in graduate school.
Q: What's the best book you've read in the past year?
A: I would say From Village to City: Social Transformations in a Chinese County Seat, by Andrew Kipnis. This book was recommended by an anonymous reviewer of an article I submitted to an academic journal, and it taught me a lot about the urbanization of China’s countryside and its consequences for local communities. I also appreciate how Kipnis makes Walter Benjamin relevant to explaining contemporary China.
Q: Have you seen any films, documentaries, or museum exhibitions that left an impression on you recently?
A: Mostly what I see is restricted to Netflix or the occasional in-flight entertainment system when I am traveling overseas. So instead of noting a film I recently viewed, I will mention one that I am looking forward to seeing. Lawrence Osborne’s novel The Ballad of a Small Player, which is set in Macau’s casinos, is being made into a feature film starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton. Some scenes were filmed in Macau last summer. The book does a great job of describing the superstitions surrounding baccarat, which is Macau’s most popular casino game, and also involves ghosts and other Chinese apparitions. I am curious to see how the story translates to film.
Q: What do you plan on reading next?
A: I am a big fan of hip-hop music and culture, so next on my list are two books in that genre: Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm, by Dan Charnas, and Bring that Beat Back: How Sampling Built Hip Hop, by Nate Patrin.
Q: Who should read Betting on Macau: Casino Capitalism and China’s Consumer Revolution and why?
A: I tried to write the book so that it would appeal to a variety of potential audiences, and could be read on several different levels. Of course, the book is relevant for anyone with an interest in Macau’s remarkable recent transformation into the most lucrative site of casino gaming in global history, and one of the world’s wealthiest territories. But it is also the story of Macau’s unlikely role in the 500-year history of global capitalism, stretching from medieval Venice to post-Mao China. Some readers may be surprised to find that the book begins with Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1862 account of a visit to London’s Crystal Palace, the site of the first world’s fair and the birth of contemporary consumer culture. Dostoyevsky thought the Crystal Palace augured the apocalyptic end of a certain kind of humanism, and I understand it as an architectonic precursor to Macau’s massive casino megaresorts.
Finally, however, the subtext of my book is a rumination on Fernand Braudel’s definition of “real capitalism,” a phenomenon exemplified by many characters I discuss. These people range from the Portuguese explorers who founded Macau in 1557, to billionaire Hong Kong businessman Stanley Ho who controlled the city’s casino monopoly for 40 years, to Chinese organized crime figures such as “Broken Tooth” Koi, Macau’s most notorious gangster. But perhaps the quintessential example of real capitalism is American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who both remade Macau’s contemporary gaming industry and enabled Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency. In fact, Trump himself once made an unsuccessful bid for a Macau casino concession. For these reasons, the book should be interesting to anyone who enjoys a good non-fiction story about the disconcerting global reverberations of casino capitalism.
January 9th Philosophy Event
P&T Knitwear, in partnership with the Gotham Philosophical Society, welcomes New Books in Philosophy host Robert B. Talisse for a discussion of his newest book, Civic Solitude. We featured an interview with Professor Talisse last month about his new book.
The event takes place in Manhattan on Thursday, January 9th, 2025 @ 6:30PM - 8:00PM. After the event, NBN will host an after party nearby.
Get your ticket(s) here: P&T Knitwear Event
Graduate Students Corner: Job Application Tips
Our Q&A with Lauren Sperandio Phelps, Graduate Students of Arts and Sciences Writing Studio Director at Columbia University. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: Should people approach their applications for different kinds of jobs (Post-Docs, Visiting Assistant, non-Tenure track, Tenure Track) differently?
A: I loved that this was the first question because you addressed the elephant in the room right off the bat. Yes, you need to approach every application differently because even within a specific category like postdocs, each individual postdoc is just slightly different. It can be really intimidating and frustrating, but based on conversations with different hiring committees and search committees and working with students on their applications, the thing that really sets people apart is giving clear attention to detail to that specific application. Most hiring committees pick up on when someone is blasting out the same materials for every single application. That just extra level of care puts you at a bit of an advantage, and starts you off on the right foot. The nice thing is once you finish a couple of applications for each type of job, the changes get easier and faster. The first set of applications takes a long time, but when you start making adjustments you realize what works and what sounds like you.
Q: What advice do you have for anyone overwhelmed with the process and getting started?
A: I think the most important advice is to sit down and ask yourself “what are my priorities?” There are all of these external expectations from your committee, your program, your department or even your university. Ask yourself, “what do I really want?” You're starting the job process and you feel like you’re supposed to apply for X, or that you are expected to want this tenure-track job. On the other hand, you may feel so burnt out with school that you're like “I never want to work in a university again.” So it’s important to sit down and ask: “What do I want my work-life balance to look like? Do I want teaching or research to be a priority if applying to academic jobs? Are there particular sizes of universities, public or private, and are there cities or states or locations that you definitely do, or don’t, want to live in?”
Stay organized with your materials and your time. I recommend keeping a spreadsheet to keep track of everything. You should have the link to the job description, what type of job it is, all the different types of materials that they're asking for, the deadline, the reference deadline, whether it requires Interfolio and how far out you need to request those things. I also recommend scheduling time each week to work on job applications so that you are always on top of new job postings and can stay aware of any deadlines. I also recommend that you cap that time because you can also spend way too much time on them.
Connect with other people. Find someone who's in a similar position that you can share in that process with. It could be someone in your cohort, or someone outside of it, but have someone you can share materials with to keep you accountable and your spirits up. Also, ask for help! I don't think I've ever talked to anyone that likes writing these materials, and no one likes to write about themselves. It can be helpful to ask someone to look over your materials because they can help you evaluate and help you hone in on your applications.
Q: When writing job applications, what should graduate students focus on conveying about themselves and their work in the materials they submit?
A: Think about all of the materials that you're sending as a cohesive document, and make sure that each individual item is saying something different. The biggest mistake that a lot of people make is that their CV, cover letter, teaching statement, and research statement all say exactly the same thing. Each one of those should serve its own discrete function and complement the others. They can be in conversation, and they can kind of refer to each other across documents.
The Cover Letter: You do not want that to just restate everything that's on the CV. It should be adding extra things that show them who you are. The cover letter usually poses the biggest challenge so I recommend sitting down with someone and listing off everything you've done so that you can convey all of your accomplishments. It's also the opportunity to highlight things that are maybe a little bit hidden. If there are program specific things that need clarification you can also add that here.
The CV: It is a lot more flexible in terms of the format than something like a business resume that can only be 1-2 pages outside of academia. You can add bullet points for fellowships and accomplishments that expand on the skills you gained and clarify relevant experiences. Often the cover letter is the only thing that we see individualized in job applications, but it never hurts to look at your CV. For example, look at the order of the information. If you're applying for a teaching intensive tenure track job, you may want to reverse the order of your teaching and research sections in your CV and put the teaching first. Similarly, if it's an R1 tenure track position, the research should definitely be in front of the teaching.
Teaching, Research, and Diversity Statements: These can be adjusted and tailored to a specific job. That's the part that unfortunately takes extra time, but if they talk about their campus climate or their campus environment in the job description, find a way to work those things into the teaching or diversity statement. Whenever possible, add examples that truly paint a picture . Include an example of something that you do in the classroom, an interaction that you had with a student or a class, or an assignment you designed. It's one thing to just say, “I encourage diverse voices in my classroom,” and it's another to actually show the committee that's looking at those documents, exactly what you've actually done to that end, and demonstrate how you've designed your assignment or managed your classroom in a particular way. With the research statement, the thing that can really set you apart is describing your research process and your writing process by giving a glimpse of how you actually conduct your research. What are you mindful of? Do you make a point of including diverse and emerging scholars in the research that you're working on? Do you employ really unique methodologies, things that may not be apparent from your writing sample? Draw attention to the fact that you have that care and attention in your research.
Finally, tailoring a sentence or two at the beginning or end of those statements can really go a long way in kind of showing not just that you want a job, but that you want that job. I remember sitting in a meeting where it was a faculty meeting and they were voting on which candidate they brought three candidates to campus for campus visits. What set the candidate they offered the job to apart was that the candidate made a point of emphasizing that they wanted to be there. It wasn't just that they wanted a job. They made it clear in their interactions and their materials that they were actually interested and enthusiastic about that specific job. You want to be wanted as the applicant, but making that school feel like this is somewhere that you want to be and that you could see myself working goes a long way.
Q: How can job applicants differentiate themselves and get the attention of hiring committees?
A: I think one of the biggest things is showing that you've done your research. Look at things like the school website and department website for the specific programs that you're applying for and find ways to weave that into what you’re talking about. That's especially important, I think, once you get past the application to the interview process, but even in the application process, if you can show that this department or this particular school is known for something special, showing that you're aware it exists can really go a long way. If you have any personal connection, either to the area, to the school, anything like that, that's also always a nice thing to add.
Take your time to write and rewrite and revise the materials so that they actually sound like you. One thing that can confuse review committees is if, for example, they have a writing sample that sounds one way and then your cover letter and other statements sound like a completely different person wrote them. It is okay to have a little bit of style and a little bit of personality that shows through that kind of lets them know who you are and that you're a person.
Q: What tips do you have for revisions of application materials?
A: To strike a balance between being personable without being unprofessional, let yourself write in your own style and then let someone else that you trust look at your materials. That can be someone different than the person who's looking at your dissertation or other publications. You will have revised the cover letter several times for different jobs, and you’ll have tweaked all these different parts multiple times so at some point there's going to be an issue. There are going to be errors that you're completely reading past because you've looked at it so many times, so someone else absolutely has to read it in the later stages of the application process.
Q: What are some ways that graduate students who aren’t yet on the job market can prepare for when the time comes?
A: I highly recommend preparing early and building your CV early because the biggest stressor that I see is people applying for jobs, trying to publish articles, and writing their dissertation at the same time. It's a lot easier if you publish before you get to that stage. It’s a double-edged sword because you don't want to try to publish while you're in coursework when you're not ready or while you should be working on your dissertation. However, if there is a natural way to turn a seminar paper or a conference paper into an article, or if there's a special issue of a journal where one of your dissertation chapters would fit then having a publication or two on your CV before you're applying for jobs really eliminates that panic. I had a professor say that nothing that you write for a class should ever go to waste, meaning that if you're writing something for a class, why not get something else out of it? Thinking about your work as building your CV and figuring out how things can serve a dual purpose right from day one can be really helpful.
Networking is also very helpful, don’t be afraid to ask questions and talk to people. Most people are always willing to share and offer advice. I think the idea that you’re on your own in academia and that bootstraps mentality is a bit of a myth. I think a lot of people are willing to build community so you can build some really awesome networks as a student, even just attending conferences or talking to people in your programs that you'll continue to talk to after you graduate and move on to one of those jobs that you're applying for.
Q: Any other advice, or anything else you’d like to share?
A: One of the important things to keep in mind in this process is that it feels incredibly competitive but on the flip side of that, you have tremendously qualified and brilliant pools of applicants. So, I think it's important to remember to not take it personally–of course it's your livelihood and it's the future of your career–but you never know what that specific program or department or office is looking for. You can apply for what, on paper, looks like the exact same job at two completely different places. One of them will offer you the job and one of them won't even give you an interview. You don't know what that program is looking for, or what other applicants they're looking at. You can't control what the other people are going to submit, how many more publications they have than you, or anything like that. The only thing you can control is putting your best foot forward. The right job is going to recognize you. And so it's a matter of quantity, staying organized, and applying for all the jobs that you think will be the right fit, because it just takes one of them to see that potential and to hire you.
Keep reminding yourself of what you want because at some point, you're going to get discouraged. This process can seem dire if you're reading on certain forums, but the right thing will come along. It's important to keep your support network included in the process and to not isolate yourself. Let people know when you're applying so they can cheer you on. It's okay if people ask about it and you say that you never heard back or got rejected because those networks are also going to be the networks that you turn to when you're publishing in the future, or when you're applying for tenure or another opportunity.
Episode Spotlights
Recent Book of the Day: In this episode Eric Drott, Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Texas at Austin, discusses his recently published book Streaming Music, Streaming Capital. After being fascinated by the music streaming ecosystem and its implications for music culture, Eric began this project to explore the relationship between music and capital through analysis of music production, circulation, and consumption.
Revisit this Episode: Listen to Dia Da Costa in her 2016 NBN interview about her book Politicizing Creative Economy: Activism and a Hunger Called Theater. In her multi-sited ethnography of two activist theater troupes in Delhi and Ahmedabad, Dia highlights the importance of critically studying the diversity of left politics and the value of politics of affect and emotion to create successful social mobilization.
Hosted Podcast—High Theory: In “Biopic,” Laura Stamm comes on the podcast to discuss the biographical picture, and her recent book The Queer Biopic in the AIDS Era. She investigates why queer filmmakers frequently produced biographical films of queer people in the years surrounding the AIDS crisis.