Jim Gaona Ellis, "Educators As Designers: The Hidden Architecture of Learning" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

What happens to foreign aid (and to women’s status) when the global development landscape shifts away from U.S. dominance? In this episode of International Horizons, John Torpey speaks with sociologist Mary-Collier Wilks about her book Reimagining Aid: Foreign Donors, Women’s Health, and New Paths for Development in Cambodia (Stanford UP, 2026). They discuss the contrasting approaches of U.S., Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese donors, the rise of competing regional models of development, and what the changing aid landscape means for gender equality and local actors in Cambodia.

Queer Resistance: Contesting State, Family, and Inequality in Post-Socialist China (U California Press, 2026) by Dr. Susanne Yuk-Ping Choi examines transformations in intimate lives in post-socialist China through the experiences and resistance of LGBTQ+ people.

Who has the “right” to learn Mandarin Chinese? In Multiracial Mandarin: Asian Americans and Impossible Language (U Minnesota Press, 2026), Dr. David Shuang Song examines how matters of race and privilege shape US Mandarin language education and who has access to it. Through a two-year ethnographic study of two Bay Area high schools where diasporic and heritage speakers learn Mandarin alongside Black and Latinx students, Song advances a sociological and educational–linguistic inquiry into how language interacts with our understanding of identity and equity.

How AI is rewiring our social fabric—and how we can better shape our future.

As overdose deaths continue to mount and debates rage over harm reduction, drug policy, and homelessness, Hit Doctors: Care, Harm, and the Art of Survival (U California Press, 2026) offers a crucial on-the-ground perspective pointing to a humane future.