NBN Book of the Day

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Today I’m speaking with Stephanie Williams, Director of Wayne State University Press, and president of the Association of University Presses. Every year, NBN speaks with the president of AUPresses in anticipation of University Press Week. This year, press week will take place from November 9 through the 13th, with the theme: #PowerUP. To celebrate, I’m thrilled to speak with Stephanie Williams about all things UPs.
University Press Week Info
Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.

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Home Team Away: Watching European Football in Urban China (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Yuan Gong calls for a rethinking of sport fandom that is divorced from an attachment to location. As the first comprehensive account of the European football fandom in China, this book explores how the Chinese middle class subjectivity is formed through the cross-cultural, digital consumption of the Big Five leagues.
Dr. Gong captures the embodied experiences of fans and fan clubs, fan discourses and activities unfolding on digital platforms on Weibo, Weixin, and Hupu, combining fieldwork in Shanghai and virtual ethnography. Dr. Gong argues that Chinese fans’ decisions to follow and engage with European football result from their material conditions, ideological contestation, and technology appropriation as a new demographic bloc arising during China’s transition to authoritarian digital capitalism. By engaging with their home teams away, the Chinese middle class fans perform as citizens with a global vision despite the resurgence of the nationalist and anti-Western sentiments.
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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In this episode of the Books for Better Understanding series from Notre Dame Press, David Carlson hosts Jonathan A. Anderson and James Elkins for a discussion of Anderson's new book, The Invisibility Of Religion In Contemporary Art (U Notre Dame Press, 2025). Order your copy here

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Rongbin Han is a Professor of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, where he studies Chinese politics and the internet. Han’s latest book—and the topic of this New Books Network episode—is Make China Great Again: Online Alt-History Fiction and Popular Authoritarianism (Columbia UP, 2026).
Make China Great Again delves into a subgenre of Chinese web novels that attempt to re-imagine the country’s history in ways that align with Xi Jinping’s “Chinese dream” and the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. In these novels, characters might go back in time to foment a communist revolution decades before the PRC’s establishment, industrialize the late Ming dynasty, or bring elements of democratic elections to the Song dynasty.
Given the popularity of web novels in China—almost half of Chinese netizens read internet literature—such alternate histories provide a window into how an authoritarian state can negotiate the consent of its citizenry using popular culture.
Anthony Kao is a writer who intersects international affairs and cultural criticism. He founded/edits Cinema Escapist—a publication exploring the sociopolitical context behind global film and television—and also writes for outlets like The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, and Eater.

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