About this episode
Adam Szetela discusses his book on the impact of cancel culture and social media on the publishing industry.
We were delighted to have the chance to speak with Adam Szetela about his new book , That Book Is Dangerous! How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars Are Remaking Publishing . Adam shares what he learned from authors, agents, and editors about the effects of cancel culture in the publishing industry. His behind-the-scenes account is fascinating and sobering in equal measure. Show Notes * For more info on Adam Szetela, check out his website * Here is the official MIT Press link to Adam’s book * The Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie audio clips come from her 2022 Reith Lecture on Free Speech (listen here ; read the transcript here ) * Matt Yglesias coined the term “The Great Awokening” in this 2019 Vox essay * “a rapid change in discourse and norms around social justice issues”: That’s a quote from Stony Brook sociologist Musa al-Gharbi , one of the nation’s foremost chroniclers of “The Great Awokening” * see Musa’s 2024 book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite * here are two Banished episodes featuring Musa: You Can’t Be an Egalitarian Social Climber & Who Speaks the Language of Social Justice? * The Harper’s Letter * Michael Hobbes, “Don’t Fall…
People in this episode
Hosts: Amna Khalid, Jeff Snyder
Guest: Adam Szetela
Topics covered
- cancel culture
- publishing industry
- moral panic
- social media
- culture wars
- free speech
Keywords
- cancel culture
- publishing
- social media
- moral panic
- culture wars
- free speech
- authors
- agents
- editors
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: MIT Press, Harper’s, HuffPo, New York Review of Books
Books & works: That Book Is Dangerous!, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite
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- Who Speaks the Language of Social Justice? · February 8, 2025 · 18 min
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