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Malcolm X and Black Nationalism
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler
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Feb 19
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Book of the Day
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History
The Way of Bach
Three Years with the Man, the Music, and the Piano
Dan Moller
Hosted by Zachary McCulley
A tale of passion and obsession from a philosophy professor who learns to play Bach on the piano as an adult. Dan Moller grew up listening to heavy metal in the Boston suburbs. But one day, something shifted when he dug out his mother's record of The Art of the Fugue, inexplicably wedged between ABBA's greatest hits and Kenny Rogers. Moller was fixated on Bach ever since. In The Way of Bach …
Medicine
The Filth Disease
Typhoid Fever and the Practices of Epidemiology in Victorian England
Jacob Steere-Williams
Hosted by Claire Clark
Typhoid fever is a food- and water-borne infectious disease that was insidious and omnipresent in Victorian Britain. It was one of the most prolific diseases of the Industrial Revolution. There …
Italian Studies
The Photoromance
A Feminist Reading of Popular Culture
Paola Bonifazio
Hosted by Nicoletta Marini-Maio
Paola Bonifazio’s The Photoromance. A Feminist Reading of Popular Culture (MIT Press, 2020) is the first feminist reading of photoromances that examines both its industry and its fandom, arguing for …
Jewish Studies
They Left It All Behind
Trauma, Loss, and Memory Among Eastern European Jewish Immigrants and their Children
Hannah Hahn
Hosted by Robert Snyder
Hannah Hahn’s They Left It All Behind: Trauma, Loss and Memory Among Eastern European Jewish Immigrants and Their Children (Roman and Littlefield, 2020) explores the impact of conflict, social change …
Philosophy
Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory
Patricia Hill Collins
Hosted by Sarah Tyson
Is intersectionality a critical social theory? What must intersectionality do to be both critical and a social theory? Must social justice be a guiding normative principle? And what does or …
Chinese Studies
Forgotten Ally
China's World War II, 1937–1945
Rana Mitter
Hosted by Keith Krueger
If we wish to understand the role of China in today’s global society, we would do well to remind ourselves of the tragic, titanic struggle which that country waged in …
European Studies
The Constitutional Theory of the Federation and the European Union
Signe Rehling Larsen
Hosted by Tim Jones
“The autarkic European nation-state, if it ever existed, was the exception rather than the rule. Nevertheless it is the myth of the self-sufficient nation-state that lies at the heart of …
Jewish Studies
Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement
A Revolution in the Name of Tradition
Naomi Seidman
Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Sarah Schenirer is one of the unsung heroes of twentieth-century Orthodox Judaism. In Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement: A Revolution in the Name of Tradition (Littman Library of …
Christian Studies
Eating Together, Becoming One
Thomas O'Loughlin
Hosted by Ryan Shelton
In November 2015, Pope Francis made a call to theologians to explore whether Catholic practice ought to be amended to include Christians from different churches in full participation in the …
American Studies
Margaret Mead
A Twentieth-Century Faith
Elesha J. Coffman
Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Elesha J. Coffman's Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith (Oxford UP, 2021) takes a careful look at Mead’s religious origins and influence. As a famous American anthropologist, Mead’s intellectual contributions to mid-century culture …
Islamic Studies
Women and Gender in the Qur'an
Celene Ibrahim
Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
In Women and Gender in the Qur’an (Oxford University Press in 2020), Celene Ibrahim explores key themes related to gender in the Qur’an, focusing on women, such as female sexuality …
Book of the Day
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Political Science
Separate But Faithful
The Christian Right's Radical Struggle to Transform Law and Legal Culture
Amanda Hollis-Brusky and Joshua C. Wilson
Hosted by Susan Liebell
How do we understand the nuances of efforts by Christian conservatives to affect American law – and evaluate their success? What lessons do they hold for other social movements? Dr. Amanda Hollis-Brusky, associate professor of politics at Pomona College and Dr. Joshua C. Wilson, professor of Political Science at the University of Denver join the podcast to discuss Separate But Faithful: The Christian Right's Radical Struggle to Transform Law and Legal …
Mathematics
Math Without Numbers
Milo Beckman
Hosted by Jim Stein
One of the questions I am often asked is exactly what do mathematicians do. The short answer is that they look at different mathematical structures, try to deduce their properties …
Literary Studies
Forms of Poetic Attention
Lucy Alford
Hosted by Britton Edelen
In this episode, I interview Lucy Alford, professor of English Literature at Wake Forest University, about her book Forms of Poetic Attention, recently published by Columbia University Press. Alford argues …
History
London and the Seventeenth Century
The Making of the World's Greatest City
Margarette Lincoln
Hosted by Joshua Tham
Margarette Lincoln's London and the Seventeenth Century (Yale University Press, 2021) explores the ups and downs of life in Stuart London through the eyes of those who lived through it. The Gunpowder Plot, the …
Anthropology
Streetwalking
LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic
Ana-Maurine Lara
Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Streetwalking: LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic (Rutgers University Press, 2020), Dr. Ana-Maurine Lara examines the dominant modes of power that seek to suppress LGBTQ lives and …
Film
The Brothers Mankiewicz
Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics
Sydney Stern
Hosted by Joel Tscherne
Herman J. (1897–1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture’s only …
Russian and Eurasian Studies
Only Among Women
Philosophies of Community in the Russian and Soviet Imagination, 1860–1940
Anne Eakin Moss
Hosted by Colleen McQuillen
In Only Among Women: Philosophies of Community in the Russian and Soviet Imagination, 1860–1940 (Northwestern University Press, 2019), Anne Eakin Moss examines idealized relationships between women in Russian literature and …
Science
Viral BS
Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them
Seema Yasmin
Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Can your zip code predict when you will die? Should you space out childhood vaccines? Does talcum powder cause cancer? Why do some doctors recommend e-cigarettes while other doctors recommend …
History
A New History of England
Jeremy Black
Hosted by Charles Coutinho
'Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life.' Cecil Rhodes's characteristically nineteenth-century confidence rings rather hollow as England enters the twenty-first …
Russian and Eurasian Studies
The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917
Roger R. Reese
Hosted by Aaron Weinacht
Roger Reese’s recent book, The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917 (University of Kansas, 2019), takes a deep dive into the internal workings of the Russian army …
Book of the Day
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African American Studies
Women's War
Fighting and Surviving the Civil War
Stephanie Mccurry
Hosted by Jerrad Pacatte
In Women's War: Fighting and Surviving the Civil War (Harvard UP, 2019), the award-winning author of Confederate Reckoning challenges the idea that women are outside of war, through a trio of dramatic stories revealing women's transformative role in the American Civil War. We think of war as a man's world, but women have always played active roles in times of violence and been left to pick up the pieces in societies decimated …
Christian Studies
Yours, Till Heaven
The Untold Love Story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon
Ray Rhodes Jr.
Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Enter the remarkable untold love story of Charles and Susie Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon is esteemed for his writing, preaching, and passion for the Lord. But behind the great man was …
National Security
Strategic Instincts
The Adaptive Advantages of Cognitive Biases in International Politics
Dominic D. P. Johnson
Hosted by Kyle Beadle
In Strategic Instincts: The Adaptive Advantages of Cognitive Biases in International Politics (Princeton University Press, 2020), Dominic Johnson challenges the assumption that cognitive biases led to policy failures, disasters …
Jewish Studies
How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish
Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert
Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Is it possible to conceive of the American diet without bagels? Or Star Trek without Mr. Spock? Are the creatures in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are based on …
Literature
The Good Luck Stone
A Novel
Heather Bell Adams
Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Heather Bell Adams’ first novel, Maranatha Road (West Virginia University Press 2017), won the gold medal for the Southeast region in the Independent Publisher Book Awards and was selected for …
German Studies
Diagnosing Dissent
Hysterics, Deserters, and Conscientious Objectors in Germany During World War One
Rebecca Ayako Bennette
Hosted by Michael O'Sullivan
Although physicians during World War I, and scholars since, have addressed the idea of disorders such as shell shock as inchoate flights into sickness by men unwilling to cope with …
Popular Culture
Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus!
Photographs from the Sacred Steel Community
Robert L. Stone
Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
Folklorist Robert L. Stone presents a rare collection of high-quality documentary photos of the sacred steel guitar musical tradition and the community that supports it. The introductory text and extended …
African American Studies
Liner Notes for the Revolution
The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound
Daphne A. Brooks
Hosted by Amanda Joyce Hall
Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound (Harvard University Press, 2021) by Dr. Daphne Brooks is a lyrical masterpiece that takes readers on an exhilarating …
Eastern European Studies
Empire of Friends
Soviet Power and Socialist Internationalism in Cold War Czechoslovakia
Rachel Applebaum
Hosted by Jill Massino
The familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends: Soviet Power and Socialist Internationalism in Cold …
American West
This Land Is My Land
Rebellion in the West
James R. Skillen
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
On January 6th, 2021, when right wing supporters of Donald Trump staged an insurrection at the US Capitol building, they were participating in a long tradition of conservative rebellion with …
Literary Studies
Fictions of America
The Book of Firsts
Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal
Hosted by Miranda Corcoran
In this episode of New Books in Literary Studies, Miranda Corcoran speaks to Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal about their unique anthology, Fictions of America: The Book of Firsts (Warbler Press …
Book of the Day
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Christian Studies
God's Cold Warrior
The Life and Faith of John Foster Dulles
John D. Wilsey
Hosted by Zachary McCulley
When John Foster Dulles died in 1959, he was given the largest American state funeral since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in 1945. President Eisenhower called Dulles—his longtime secretary of state—“one of the truly great men of our time,” and a few years later the new commercial airport outside Washington, DC, was christened the Dulles International Airport in his honor. His star has fallen significantly since that time, but his influence remains …
Neuroscience
The Puzzle Solver
A Scientist's Desperate Hunt to Cure the Illness That Stole His Son
Tracie White and Ronald W. Davis
Hosted by Victoria Reedman
Based on a viral article, the gripping medical mystery story of Ron Davis, a world-class Stanford geneticist who has put his career on the line to find the cure for …
East Asian Studies
A Roundtable on the History of the Japanese Student Movement
A Discussion with Naoko Koda and Chelsea Szendi Schieder
Naoko Koda and Chelsea Szendi Schieder
Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Chelsea Szendi Schieder’s Co-Ed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left and Naoko Koda’s The United States and the Japanese Student Movement, 1948-1973: Managing a Free World provide new …
Science, Technology, and Society
The Innovation Delusion
How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most
Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russell
Hosted by Matthew Jordan
It’s hard to avoid innovation these days. Nearly every product gets marketed as being disruptive, whether it’s genuinely a new invention or just a new toothbrush. But in this manifesto …
East Asian Studies
Buddhism after Mao
Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions
Zhe Ji, Gareth Fisher, André Laliberté
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
With over 100 million followers, Buddhism in the People's Republic of China now fosters the largest community in the world of individuals who self-identify as Buddhists. Although Buddhism was harshly persecuted …
Chinese Studies
Writing for Print
Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China
Suyoung Son
Hosted by Aliki Semertzi
Suyoung Son’s book Writing for Print: Publishing and the Making of Textual Authority in Late Imperial China (Harvard UP, 2018) examines the widespread practice of self-publishing by writers in late imperial …
Japanese Studies
African Samurai
The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan
Geoffrey Girard and Thomas Lockley
Hosted by Jingyi Li
The remarkable life of history's first foreign-born samurai and his astonishing journey from Northern Africa to the heights of Japanese society. When Yasuke arrived in Japan in the late 1500s …
American West
Cinematic Settlers
The Settler Colonial World in Film
Janne Lahti and Rebecca Weaver-Hightower
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
The medium of cinema emerged during the height of Victorian-era European empires, and as a result, settler colonial imperialism has thematically suffused film for well over a century. In Cinematic …
Critical Theory
Penguin Books and Political Change
Britain's Meritocratic Moment, 1937–1988
Dean Blackburn
Hosted by Dave O'Brien
Why do books and publishing matter to the contemporary history of Britain? In Penguin Books and Political Change: Britain's Meritocratic Moment, 1937–1988 (Manchester UP, 2020), Dean Blackburn, a Lecturer in Modern …
Scholarly Communication
Writing in Disciplines
A Discussion with Shyam Sharma
Shyam Sharma
Hosted by Daniel Shea
Listen to this interview of Shyam Sharma, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University. We talk about how mutually appreciative …
Indian Religions
Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab
Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of Knowledge, 1880-1947
Michale P. Brunner
Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Michael P. Brunner's Education and Modernity in Colonial Punjab: Khalsa College, the Sikh Tradition and the Webs of Knowledge, 1880-1947 (Palgrave, 2020) explores the localisation of modernity in late colonial India. As a …
Book of the Day
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Political Science
Madam President?
Gender and Politics on the Road to the White House
Lori Cox Han and Caroline Heldman
Hosted by Lilly Goren
Lori Cox Han and Caroline Heldman, both scholars of gender and politics as well as scholars of the American Presidency, have assembled a wide array of essays[*] to revisit the question about whether “we” are ready for the first female president of the United States, and what the path might look like to arrive at that glass-ceiling shattering event. Cox Han and Heldman had edited a previous version of this …
Law
Protecting Art in the Street
A Guide to Copyright in Street Art and Graffiti
Enrico Bonadio
Hosted by Nick Pozek
There has recently been a sharp increase in cases where corporations have been sued by street and graffiti artists because their artworks had been used and exploited without the artists’ …
Science
Gory Details
Adventures from the Dark Side of Science
Erika Engelhaupt
Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Would your dog eat you if you died? What are face mites? Why do clowns creep us out? In this illuminating collection of grisly true science stories, journalist Erika Engelhaupt …
Science Fiction
The Phlebotomist
Chris Panatier
Hosted by Rob Wolf
Humans have found many ways to divide and stratify—by skin color, ancestry, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, health status, body type or size, and so on. The list is …
Performing Arts
Maybe the People Would Be the Times
Luc Sante
Hosted by Andy Boyd
Maybe the People Would Be the Times (Verse Chorus Press, 2020) could be described as a memoir in essay form. Collecting pieces from the past two decades, this book covers Luc Sante's …
Academic Life
Exploring STEM, Insulin Research, and Why We Get Sick
A Discussion with Benjamin Bikman
Benjamin Bikman
Hosted by Christina Gessler
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts …
Asian Review of Books
Bombay Hustle
Making Movies in a Colonial City
Debashree Mukherjee
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
In 1935, the writer Baburao Patel writes the following about Bombay’s film industry: “In India, with financing conditions still precarious, the professional film distributor thrives. . . . He comes …
Indian Religions
The Mahabharata
Bibek Debroy
Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins the Pandavas and the Kouravas but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight
Overground Railroad
The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America
Candacy Taylor
Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Candacy Taylor about her book Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America (Abrams Press, 2020) Taylor is an award-winning author …
SSEAC Stories
A Thai Contemporary Artist on Identity, Power, and the Space In-Between
A Discussion with Phaptawan Suwannakudt
Phaptawan Suwannakudt
Hosted by Natali Pearson
As a Thai-Australian woman artist, Phaptawan Suwannakudt has long battled prejudice and discrimination relating to her gender. This disappointment with society’s dictates features at the heart of Phaptawan’s artistic practice …
Book of the Day
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History
Pirating and Publishing
The Book Trade in the Age of Enlightenment
Robert Darnton
Hosted by Zachary McCulley
In the late-18th century, a group of publishers in what historian Robert Darnton calls the "Fertile Crescent" — countries located along the French border, stretching from Holland to Switzerland — pirated the works of prominent (and often banned) French writers and distributed them in France, where laws governing piracy were in flux and any notion of "copyright" very much in its infancy. Piracy was entirely legal and everyone acknowledged — …
History
Ruling Culture
Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy
Fiona Greenland
Hosted by Jana Byars
Today we are joined by Fiona Greenland, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, to talk about her new book, Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Raiders, and the …
Christian Studies
@ Worship
Liturgical Practices in Digital Worlds
Teresa Berger
Hosted by Ryan Shelton
Digital dualism, or a sharp division between online and offline activity as "virtual" or "real" has long been a feature of liturgical studies and discussions around worship gatherings for theorists and …
National Security
Reset
Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society
Ronald J. Deibert
Hosted by John Sakellariadis
Ronald Deibert is a professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and the Director of The Citizen Lab, a public interest research organization that uncovers privacy and human …
Ethnographic Marginalia
Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation
Sovereignty, Witnessing, Repair
Deborah A. Thomas
Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
How can ethnographers use multimedia presentations of their work to reach new audiences, build different relationships with their participants, and promote new practices of witnessing and representation? On today’s episode …
Islamic Studies
Terror Epidemics
Islamophobia and the Disease Poetics of Empire
Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb
Hosted by Kristian Petersen
Terrorism is a cancer, an infection, an epidemic, a plague. For more than a century, this metaphor has figured insurgent violence as contagion in order to contain its political energies …
East Asian Studies
The Sea and the Sacred in Japan
Aspects of Maritime Religion
Fabio Rambelli
Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
In The Sea and the Sacred in Japan: Aspects of Maritime Religion (Bloomsbury 2018), Fabio Rambelli invites various fifteen scholars of Japanese religions to reflect on a well taken-for-granted fact: although the sea …
Australian and New Zealand Studies
Eating with My Mouth Open
Sam van Zweden
Hosted by Bede Haines
Wow! Food, family, memory, insight, body, mind - worth the effort this one. Eating with My Mouth Open (NewSouth, 2021) is food writing like you’ve never seen before: honest, brave, and …
South Asian Studies
Rethinking Markets in Modern India
Embedded Exchange and Contested Jurisdiction
A. Gandhi, B. Harriss-White, D. E. Haynes and S. Schwecke
Hosted by Saronik Bosu
Modern markets and exchange, compared with other social and political spheres, are seen through technical abstractions. This intellectual compartmentalization has political consequences: if capitalism operates through arcane, objective, and rational …
Religion
Dangerous Religious Ideas
The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Rachel S. Mikva
Hosted by Yakir Englander
Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Beacon, 2020) reveals how faith traditions have always passed down tools for self-examination and debate, because …
The Common Magazine
Weeds and Flowers
Bina Shah
Hosted by Emily Everett
Bina Shah speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her short story “Weeds and Flowers,” which appears in Issue 19 of The Common magazine. In this conversation, Shah talks about …