Dive Deeper on the UNC Press Presents Podcast

Join UNC Press authors and dive deeper into their books on the UNC Press Presents podcast. The podcast, produced in partnership with the New Books Network, features authors talking about their books & areas of expertise. In this post we’re highlighting some of our recent episodes but you can browse all episodes on the UNC Press Presents webpage, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Learn more about the history of the cassette tape in this episode with Marc Masters, author of High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape

The cassette tape was revolutionary. Cheap, portable, and reusable, this small plastic rectangle changed music history. This entertaining book charts the journey of the cassette from its invention in the early 1960s to its Walkman-led domination in the 1980s to decline at the birth of compact discs to resurgence among independent music makers.

Joseph M. Thompson is in conversation with Katie Coldiron about his new book Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism

Country music maintains a special, decades-long relationship to American military life, but these ties didn’t just happen overnight. Filled with familiar stars like Elvis Presley and George Strait this readable history reveals how country music’s Nashville-based business leaders partnered with the Pentagon to sell their audiences on military service while selling the music to service members.

Tune in for a conversation with Shardé M. Davis about her book Being Black in the Ivory: Truth-Telling about Racism in Higher Education

When Shardé M. Davis turned to social media during in 2020, she meant only to share how racism affects her personally. But her hashtag, #BlackintheIvory, went viral, fostering a flood of Black scholars sharing similar stories. This curated collection of original personal narratives from Black scholars across the country seeks to continue the conversation that started with #BlackintheIvory.

In this episode R. J. Boutelle talks about his book The Race for America: Black Internationalism in the Age of Manifest Destiny

Finalist, 2024 Pauli Murray Book Prize, African American Intellectual History Society

As Manifest Destiny took hold in the national consciousness, what did it mean for African Americans who were excluded from its ambitions for an expanding American empire that would shepherd the Western Hemisphere into a new era of civilization and prosperity? R. J. Boutelle explores how Black intellectuals engaged this cultural mythology to theorize and practice Black internationalism.