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Book of the Day/ National Security

Original Sin

Power, Technology and War in Outer Space

Bleddyn E. Bowen

Hosted by Samuel Canter
Space technology was developed to enhance the killing power of the state. The Moon landings and the launch of the Space Shuttle were mere sideshows, drawing public attention away from the real goal: military and economic control of space as a source of power on Earth. Today, as Bleddyn E. Bowen vividly recounts in Original Sin: Power, Technology and War in Outer Space (Oxford UP, 2022), thousands of satellites work silently …
Gender Studies

Between Banat

Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives

Mejdulene Bernard Shomali

Hosted by Fulya Pinar
In Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives (Duke UP, 2023), Mejdulene Bernard Shomali examines homoeroticism and non-normative sexualities between Arab women in transnational Arab literature, art, and …
Anthropology

The Philosophy of Tattoos

John Miller

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
‘History, it seems, is seldom written by the tattooed.’ The Philosophy of Tattoos (British Library, 2021) by Dr. John Miller presents an impressively broad yet personal account, exploring tattooing as …
MIT Press Podcast

Nicolas Collins on Leonardo Music Journal’s 20th Anniversary

Nicolas Collins

Hosted by MIT Press
Nicolas Collins, editor of Leonardo Music Journal and Chair of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, answered our questions about the 20th anniversary issue of LMJ …
Scholarly Communication

To the Collector Belong the Spoils

Modernism and the Art of Appropriation

Annie Pfeifer

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
To the Collector Belong the Spoils: Modernism and the Art of Appropriation (Cornell UP, 2023) rethinks collecting as an artistic, revolutionary, and appropriative modernist practice, which flourishes beyond institutions like …
African American Studies

It's Always Been Ours

Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies

Jessica Wilson

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies (Hachette Go, 2023) eating disorder specialist and storyteller Jessica Wilson challenges us to rethink what having a "good" …
East Asian Studies

One China, Many Taiwans

The Geopolitics of Cross-Strait Tourism

Ian Rowen

Hosted by Li-Ping Chen
One China, Many Taiwans: The Geopolitics of Cross-Strait Tourism (Cornell UP, 2023) shows how tourism performs and transforms territory. In 2008, as the People’s Republic of China pointed over a …
Islamic Studies

In the Shade of the Sunna

Salafi Piety in the Twentieth-Century Middle East

Aaron Rock-Singer

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
Who are the Salafis, and what are the roots of Salafism? What does it even mean to be Salafi? Why is Salafism concerned with ethics of visibility and bodily regulation …
Politics & Polemics

In Praise of Civility

James W. Heisig

Hosted by Takeshi Morisato
Through telling stories in this little book, In Praise of Civility (Resource Publications, 2021), James Heisig aims to provoke second thoughts about the effects of incivility on our lives and the …
Taiwan on Air

Reflecting on Hu Tai-li’s Indigenous Ethnographic Work in Taiwan

A Discussion with Scott Simon

Scott Simon

Hosted by Taiwan on Air
In this episode, our host, Niki Alsford, invites Prof Scott Simon, the Chair of Taiwan Studies at the University of Ottawa, to share his thoughts and reflections on Prof Hu Tai-li …
Literary Studies

Eliot and Beckett's Low Modernism

Humility and Humiliation

Rick de Villiers

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Humility and humiliation have an awkward, often unacknowledged intimacy. Humility may be a queenly, cardinal or monkish virtue, while humiliation points to an affective state at the extreme end of …
Military History

Conquer We Must

A Military History of Britain, 1914-1945

Robin Prior

Hosted by Philip Blood
The First and Second World Wars were separated by a mere two decades, making the period 1914-1945 an unprecedentedly intense and violent era of history. But how did Britain develop …
Think About It

Vivian Gornick on Emma Goldman

Book Talk 58

Vivian Gornick

Hosted by Uli Baer
What Is to Be Done? In her luminous biography Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life (Yale UP, 2011), Vivian Gornick brings us back to this question, originally made …
Nordic Asia Podcast

Rethinking Community in Myanmar

Practices of We-Formation Among Muslims and Hindus in Urban Yangon

Judith Beyer

Hosted by Nordic Asia Podcast
Where does the concept of “community” come from? How does it shape the lives of Hindus and Muslims in metropolitan Yangon? And how do these people navigate between their ethno-religious …
Book of the Day/ Politics & Polemics

The Struggle for a Decent Politics

On "Liberal" as an Adjective

Michael Walzer

Hosted by Keith Krueger
The national purpose of the American state is to realize and then sustain the democracy and the equality that was the promise of our founding. I believe that requires perennial struggle and … groups like Black Lives Matter are an essential part of that struggle … Those are the social movements I hope to join, support, and that I hope will always be qualified by the adjective ‘liberal’. – Michael …
Urban Studies

Tensions in Diversity

Spaces for Collective Life in Los Angeles

Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan

Hosted by Anna Zhelnina
Urban landscapes are complex spaces of sociocultural diversity, characterized by narratives of both conviviality and conflict. As people with multiple ethnicities and nationalities find their common destinies in thriving globalizing …
Economic and Business History

Pioneers of Capitalism

The Netherlands 1000–1800

Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden

Hosted by Javier Mejia
During the Middle Ages, the Netherlands played a significant role in the emergence of capitalism, which led to the impressive Dutch Golden Age and paved the way for long-term economic …
Military History

The Island of Extraordinary Captives

A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp

Simon Parkin

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A Painter, a Poet, an Heiress, and a Spy in a World War II British Internment Camp (Scribner, 2022 is the “riveting…truly shocking” (The New York …
Japanese Studies

Women and Martial Art in Japan

Kate Sylvester

Hosted by Nathan Hopson
Kate Sylvester’s Women and Martial Art in Japan (Routledge 2023) examines sport, gender, and society in Japan through the author’s extensive experience and ethnographic research as a kendo practitioner both …
Women's History

Women, Empires, and Body Politics at the United Nations, 1946-1975

Giusi Russo

Hosted by Rebecca Turkington
In Women, Empires, and Body Politics at the United Nations, 1946–1975 (University of Nebraska Press, 2023), Giusi Russo focuses on the first decades of the United Nations Commission on the …
MIT Press Podcast

The Sharing of Sound Art

A Discussion with Claire MacDonald and Sarah Parry

Claire MacDonald and Sarah Parry

Hosted by MIT Press
In this podcast, Claire MacDonald and Sarah Parry discuss the history of recording, the sharing of sound art between artists, how recording has shaped communities, the impact of technology on …
Literature

Traces

Patricia L. Hudson

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
An early American adage proclaimed, "The frontier was heaven for men and dogs―hell for women and mules." Since the 1700s, when his name first appeared in print, Daniel Boone has …
Literary Studies

James Baldwin’s Turkish Decade

Erotics of Exile

Magdalena J. Zaborowska

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Between 1961 and 1971 James Baldwin spent extended periods of time in Turkey, where he worked on some of his most important books. In this first in-depth exploration of Baldwin’s …
Canadian Studies

Double Threat

Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II

Ellin Bessner

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Today I talked to Ellin Bessner about her book Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War II (New Jewish Press, 2018). "He died so Jewry should suffer no more." …
Jewish Studies

Is Superman Circumcised?

The Complete Jewish History of the World’s Greatest Hero

Roy Schwartz

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Superman is the original superhero, an American icon, and arguably the most famous character in the world--and he's Jewish! Introduced in June 1938, the Man of Steel was created by …
Scholarly Communication

The Challenge of AI to Publishing

A Discussion with Sally Wilson of Emerald Publishing

Sally Wilson

Hosted by Avi Staiman
Sally Wilson, VP of Publishing at Emerald opens up about the challenges publishers are facing in contending with the onset of the mass adoption of AI tools including ChatGPT, and …
Book of the Day/ Anthropology

Harvard's Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science

The Rise and Fall of the Department of Social Relations

Patrick L. Schmidt

Hosted by Alex Golub
Harvard's Department of Social Relations made history in the 1950s and 1960s as the most ambitious program in social science in the United States. Dedicated to a synthesis of sociology, anthropology, psychology, and other disciplines, the scope of its ambitions were matched only by the scope of its failures. Patrick Schmidt's new volume Harvard's Quixotic Pursuit of a New Science: The Rise and Fall of the Department of Social Relations (Rowman and …
Children's Literature

Publishing Jewish Children's Books

A Chat with Joni Sussman

Joni Sussman

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Joni Sussman talks about her love for children's books and for everything Jewish and how she found her life's mission combining these passions as publisher of Kar-Ben, (part of Lerner …
Chinese Studies

China and Latin America

Development, Agency and Geopolitics

Chris Alden and Alvaro Mendez

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
China's role as an economic powerhouse in Latin America is reshaping a region on the cusp of development and change. Since the turn of the century, bilateral trade between China …
Economics

From China's Lost Generation to American Private Equity Professor

A Discussion with Weijian Shan

Weijian Shan

Hosted by Keith Krueger
Having lived through both China’s Great Leap Forward during primary school, then the Cultural Revolution and the closing of schools for ten years, Beijing-born Weijian Shan, instead of a secondary …
Military History

White Knights in the Black Orchestra

The Extraordinary Story of the Germans Who Resisted Hitler

Tom Dunkel

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
They were a small group of conspirators who risked their lives by plotting relentlessly to obstruct and destroy the Third Reich from within. The Gestapo nicknamed this shadowy confederation of …
Literary Studies

Medieval English Manuscripts and Literary Forms

Jessica Brantley

Hosted by John Yargo
Today’s guest is Jessica Brantley, Professor of English at Yale University. Professor Rosenberg is the author of the previous monograph, Reading in the Wilderness, published by the University of Chicago …
Japanese Studies

The God Susanoo and Korea in Japan’s Cultural Memory

Ancient Myths and Modern Empire

David Weiss

Hosted by Raditya Nuradi
The God Susanoo and Korea in Japan’s Cultural Memory: Ancient Myths and Modern Empire (Bloomsbury, 2022) traces reiterations and reinterpretations of the deity Susanoo regarding his relationship with Korea vis-a-vis Japan. Through …
Literary Studies

The Postmodern Representation of Reality in Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton

Arya Aryan

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Arya Aryan's book The Postmodern Representation of Reality in Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton (Cambridge Scholars, 2022) explores the postmodernist representation of reality and argues that historiographic metafictional texts, such as Peter Ackroyd’s …
Art

Autonomy

The Social Ontology of Art under Capitalism

Nicholas Brown

Hosted by Kaveh Rafie
In Autonomy: The Social Ontology of Art under Capitalism (Duke University Press, 2019), Nicholas Brown offers a fresh perspective on aesthetic autonomy and its political value, one of the great debates of the twentieth century …
MIT Press Podcast

Anti-Irish Prejudice in the Trial of Dominic Daley and James Halligan (Northampton, Massachusetts, 1806)

A Discussion with Bill Fowler, Michael Dukakis and Dick Brown

Bill Fowler, Michael Dukakis, and Dick Brown

Hosted by MIT Press
Bill Fowler, member of the editorial board of The New England Quarterly, Professor Dick Brown, and Governor Michael Dukakis discuss Brown's recent NEQ article, “'Tried, Convicted, and Condemned, in Almost …
Military History

Mercy

Humanity in War

Cathal J. Nolan

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
Mercy: Humanity in War (Oxford University Press, 2022) gathers and explores acts of singular mercy, giving them form and substance across wars, causes, and opposing uniforms. These acts demand our attention …
Christian Studies

White Lilies

Letters, Conversations, & Poems from Prison

Valeriu Gafencu. Translated by Octavian Gabor.

Hosted by Adrian Guiu
Valeriu Gafencu was born in 1921 in the Bessarabia region of Romania. In 1941, he was arrested and imprisoned, remaining so until his death in 1952. Two years into his incarceration …
Book of the Day/ Sports

Unsung

Not All Heroes Wear Kits

Alexis James

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Unsung: Not all Heroes Wear Kits (Pitch Publishing, 2022) by Alexis James introduces the sports stars you don't know, telling the stories you can't miss. It shines a rare spotlight behind the scenes of professional sport, with overlooked heroes such as F1 mechanics, athletics starters, football chaplains, rugby medics and cycling moto pilots revealing previously untold tales of intrigue, ambition and dedication. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher …
Genocide Studies

From Discrimination to Death

Genocide Process Through a Human Rights Lens

Melanie 0'Brien

Hosted by Kelly McFall
Melanie 0'Brien's book From Discrimination to Death: Genocide Process Through a Human Rights Lens (Routledge, 2022) studies the process of genocide through the human rights violations that occur during genocide. Using …
Law

Better Law for a Better World

New Approaches to Law Practice and Education

Liz Curran

Hosted by Jane Richards
In Better Law for a Better World: New Approaches to Law Practice and Education (Routledge, 2021) I spoke with Dr Liz Curran about the urgent need for innovation in law, legal practice, and legal …
Journalism

Borderland

Decolonizing the Words of War

Chrisanthi Giotis

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Every two seconds a person is displaced, caught in one of the more than 40 active conflicts around the world that show no sign of ending. Since 1994, there has …
Irish Studies

Land and Liberalism

Henry George and the Irish Land War

Andrew Phemister

Hosted by Aidan Beatty
Andrew Phemister is Research Associate at Newcastle University. He has previously held postdoctoral positions in History at NUI Galway, the University of Oxford, and Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in …
Native American Studies

Allotment Stories

Indigenous Land Relations Under Settler Siege

Daniel Heath Justice and Jean M. O'Brien

Hosted by John Cable
Daniel Heath Justice and Jean M. O'Brien's book Allotment Stories: Indigenous Land Relations Under Settler Siege (U Minnesota Press, 2021) collects more than two dozen chronicles of white imperialism and Indigenous …
Architecture

Climate Justice and Community Renewal

Resistance and Grassroots Solutions

Brian Tokar and Tamra Gilbertson

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Brian Tokar and Tamra Gilbertson's book Climate Justice and Community Renewal: Resistance and Grassroots Solutions (Routledge, 2020) brings together the voices of people from five continents who live, work, and research …
Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Running a Cutting Edge Family Office

A Conversation with Sameer Narula

Hosted by Richard Lucas and Kimon Fountoukidis
In this episode, Kimon and Richard speak with Sameer Narula, Managing Partner of August One, a private investment firm. Despite self-identifying as an engineer, Sameer has an entrepreneurial mind. Prior …
Shakespeare For All

Shakespeare's "Macbeth" Part 1: the Story

A Discussion with Emma Smith

Emma Smith

Hosted by Zachary Davis
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most concentrated and thrilling tragedies. Macbeth is a warrior lord living in medieval Scotland who starts the play by saving his king — only to …
Russian and Eurasian Studies

Picturing the Page

Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin

Megan Swift

Hosted by Polina Popova
Based on sources from rare book libraries in Russia and around the world, Picturing the Page: Illustrated Children’s Literature and Reading under Lenin and Stalin (U Toronto Press, 2020) offers …
MIT Press Podcast

China's Century?

Why America's Edge Will Endure

Michael Beckley

Hosted by MIT Press
Much has been made of the rise of China's economy, and some fear that China will surpass the United States as the world's largest economy in the coming years. Michael …
Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast

Just as Deadly

The Psychology of Female Serial Killers

Marissa A. Harrison

Hosted by Mark Klobas
You've heard of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. But have you heard of Amy Archer-Gilligan? Or Belle Gunness? Or Nannie Doss? Women have committed some of the most disturbing …
Popular Culture

Play Like a Man

My Life in Poster Children

Rose Marshack

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In Play Like a Man: My Life in Poster Children (University of Illinois Press, 2023), Poster Children bassist Rose Marshack details her life in the 80s and 90s as part of a …
Peoples & Things

Left to Our Own Devices

A Conversation with Julia Ticona

Julia Ticona

Hosted by Lee Vinsel
Over the past three decades, digital technologies like smartphones and laptops have transformed the way we work in the US. At the same time, workers at both ends of the …
Book of the Day/ Critical Theory

Combat Trauma

Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in Post-9/11 America

Nadia Abu El-Haj

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
One of the most recognizable tropes in American society in the past few decades is the scarred war veteran, returning from foreign lands with wounds both visible and invisible. His experiences are incomprehensible to those who’ve not served, but we owe him everything, and it is our duty as American citizens to honor him with nonjudgmental empathy so that he might eventually heal and reintegrate into the national community …
Catholic Studies

Bede the Theologian

History, Rhetoric, and Spirituality

John P. Bequette

Hosted by Jackson Reinhardt
Revered by contemporaries and posterity for both his sanctity and his scholarship, Bede (672-735) is a pivotal figure in the history of the Church. Known primarily as an historian for …
Historical Fiction

The White Lady

Jacqueline Winspear

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
It’s just after World War II, and Elinor White (born Elinor de Witt, which also means “white”), a single woman in her mid-forties, lives as a recluse in a village …
Military History

Liberty Is Sweet

The Hidden History of the American Revolution

Woody Holton

Hosted by AJ Woodhams
A “deeply researched and bracing retelling” (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious …
African American Studies

Driving the Green Book

A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance

Alvin Hall

Hosted by Nicole Trujillo-Pagan
For countless Americans, the open road has long been a place where dangers lurk. In the era of Jim Crow, Black travelers encountered locked doors, hostile police, and potentially violent …
Sociology

Forbidden Intimacies

Polygamies at the Limits of Western Tolerance

Melanie Heath

Hosted by Rituparna Patgiri
In the past thirty years, polygamy has become a flashpoint of conflict as Western governments attempt to regulate certain cultural and religious practices that challenge seemingly central principles of family …
Critical Theory

The Politics of Precarity

Spaces of Extractivism, Violence, and Suffering

Gediminas Lesutis

Hosted by Shraddha Chatterjee
Based on critical theory and ethnographic research, Gediminas Lesutis' book The Politics of Precarity: Spaces of Extractivism, Violence, and Suffering (Routledge, 2021) explores how intensifying geographies of extractive capitalism shape human …
General History

Christendom

The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300

Peter Heather

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
In the fourth century AD, a new faith grew out of Palestine, overwhelming the paganism of Rome and resoundingly defeating a host of other rival belief systems. Almost a thousand …
Burned by Books

American Mermaid

A Novel

Julia Langbein

Hosted by Chris Holmes
Broke English teacher Penelope Schleeman is as surprised as anyone when her feminist novel American Mermaid becomes a best-seller. Lured by the promise of a big payday, she quits teaching …
Disability Studies

Families We Need

Disability, Abandonment, and Foster Care's Resistance in Contemporary China

Erin Raffety

Hosted by Shu Wan
Set in the remote, mountainous Guangxi Autonomous Region and based on ethnographic fieldwork, Families We Need: Disability, Abandonment, and Foster Care's Resistance in Contemporary China (Rutgers UP, 2022) traces the …
Policing, Incarceration, and Reform

Injustice, Inc.

How America's Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor

Daniel L. Hatcher

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Injustice, Inc.: How America's Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor (U California Press, 2023) exposes the ways in which justice systems exploit America's history of racial and economic inequality to …
Jewish Studies

Jewish Antifascism and the False Promise of Settler Colonialism

Max Kaiser

Hosted by Miriam Schulz
Max Kaiser's book Jewish Antifascism and the False Promise of Settler Colonialism (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) takes a timely look at histories of radical Jewish movements, their modes of Holocaust memorialisation, and …
Literature

The Field

Victoria Garza

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Victoria Garza begins her poetic memoir with her ten-year-old self learning that her little sister and cousin have died in a car accident. She painstakingly recalls lovely moments with her …
Book of the Day/ Critical Theory

Imperfect Victims

Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism

Leigh Goodmark

Hosted by Kendall Dinniene
Leigh Goodmark’s new book, Imperfect Victims: Criminalized Survivors and the Promise of Abolition Feminism (U California Press, 2023), uses the stories of individual criminalized survivors of gender based violence to illuminate the ways that the criminal legal system perpetuates violence against the very women, transgender people, and gender non-conforming people it claims to protect. Leigh argues that reform is not the answer to this problem, and that instead of limiting …
Art

Visual Culture and the Forensic

Culture, Memory, Ethics

David Houston Jones

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
The relationship between images and truth has a complicated history. In the Western tradition, the Kantian settlement on aesthetic judgment as detached from external interests gave rise to artistic production …
Christian Studies

Corporeal Theology

The Nature of Theological Understanding in Light of Embodied Cognition

Tobias Tanton

Hosted by Frazer MacDiarmid
Appropriating insights from empirical findings and theoretical constructs of 'embodied cognition', Corporeal Theology: The Nature of Theological Understanding in Light of Embodied Cognition (Oxford UP, 2023) explores how theological understanding is …
Ukrainian Studies

How Patronal Networks Shape Opportunities for Local Citizen Participation in a Hybrid Regime

A Comparative Analysis of Five Cities in Ukraine

Oleksandra Keudel

Hosted by John Vsetecka
In How Patronal Networks Shape Opportunities for Local Citizen Participation in a Hybrid Regime: A Comparative Analysis of Five Cities in Ukraine (Ibidem, 2022), Oleksandra Keudel proposes a novel explanation for why some …
Food

Italy on a Plate

Travels, Memories, Menus

Susan Gravely

Hosted by Laura Goldberg
In her debut memoir and cookbook, Susan Gravely celebrates 40 years as Founder and Creative Director of VIETRI. In Italy on a Plate: Travels, Memories, Menus (Vietri Publishing, 2023), she …
American West

Rim to River

Looking Into the Heart of Arizona

Tom Zoellner

Hosted by Daniel Moran
Tom Zoellner walked across the length of Arizona to come to terms with his home state. But the trip revealed more mountains behind the mountains. Rim to River: Looking …
Buddhist Studies

Until Nirvana's Time

Buddhist Songs from Cambodia

Trent Walker

Hosted by Jessica Zu
A unique Buddhist tradition, accessible in English for the first time—translations of forty-five Cambodian Dharma songs, with contextualizing essays and a link to audio of stunning vocal performances.  Trent Walker's …
MIT Press Podcast

Present at the Creation

Edward Mead Earle and the Depression-Era Origins of Security Studies

Sean Lynn-Jones and David Ekbladh

Hosted by MIT Press
Edward Mead Earle was a historian, scholar, professor, and international relations expert; he was also a founding father of the field we know as Security Studies. Listen as David Ekbladh …
Sociology

Counseling Women

Kinship Against Violence in India

Julia Kowalski

Hosted by Rituparna Patgiri
Women’s rights activists around the world have commonly understood gendered violence as the product of so-called traditional family structures, from which women must be liberated. Counseling Women: Kinship Against Violence …
Folklore

Oral Traditions in Contemporary China

Healing a Nation

Juwen Zhang

Hosted by Timothy Thurston
Oral Traditions in Contemporary China: Healing a Nation (Lexington Books, 2022) is the newest monograph from Professor Juwen Zhang of Willamette College. Through a historical survey and analyses of oral traditions like …
African Studies

Five Hundred African Voices

A Catalog of Published Accounts by Africans Enslaved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1586-1936

Aaron Spencer Fogleman and Robert Hanserd

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
The importance of published accounts by African slave ship survivors is well-known but not their existence in large numbers. Fogleman and Hanserd catalog nearly five hundred discrete accounts and more …
Big Ideas

Time Patterns in Big History

Cycles, Fractals, Waves, Transitions, and Singularities

David LePoire

Hosted by Stephen Satkiewicz
There is the common saying, “history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Are there any discernible patterns in history, and if so, what are these patterns? These are the …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones

The Future of Genes and Equality

A Discussion with Kathryn Paige Harden

Kathryn Paige Harden

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
If your genes make you better suited to succeed, is that fair? And if not, can anything be done about it? Kathryn Paige Harden – professor psychology at University of …
Book of the Day/ Psychology

Capitalism and Desire

The Psychic Cost of Free Markets

Todd McGowan

Hosted by Eugenio Duarte
If you have ever gotten excited over buying a new object only to feel let down once you acquire it, then today’s discussion will be relevant to you. My guest is Todd McGowan, author of the book Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets (2016, Columbia University Press). We discuss his critique of capitalism as a system that encourages us to forever chase satisfactions that never come. And …
Women's History

Goldwater Girls to Reagan Women

Gender, Georgia, and the Growth of the New Right

Robin M. Morris

Hosted by Jane Scimeca
Goldwater Girls to Reagan Women: Gender, Georgia, and the Growth of the New Right (U Georgia Press, 2022) is a statewide study of women’s part in the history of conservatism …
Academic Life

The Top Ten Struggles in Writing A Book Manuscript (and What to Do About It)

A Discussion with Laura Portwood-Stacer

Laura Portwood-Stacer

Hosted by Christina Gessler
Is writing a nonfiction book harder than you thought it would be? This episode explores: What your reader needs from you, and why.Which writing struggles are the most common, and …
Indian Religions

Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia

Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from the Margins

Andrea Acri and Paolo Eugenio Rosati

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia: Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from the Margins (Routledge, 2022) explores the cross- and trans-cultural dialectic between Tantra and intersecting 'magical' and …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight

The Art of Grace

On Moving Well Through Life

Sarah L. Kaufman

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Sarah L Kaufman about her book The Art of Grace: On Moving Well Through Life (Norton, 2016). Grace as a word comes from Greek, conveying a sense of …
Political Science

Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters

Reflections of Political Theory from Antiquity to the Age of COVID

Lee Trepanier

Hosted by Lilly Goren
Political Theorist Lee Trepanier has a new edited volume focusing on thinking about human responses to disasters and diseases. Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters: Reflections of Political Theory from …
East Asian Studies

China’s Cold War Science Diplomacy

Gordon Barrett

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
During the early decades of the Cold War, the People’s Republic of China remained far outside mainstream international science — right?  Gordon Barrett’s new book, China’s Cold War Science Diplomacy …
Ukrainian Studies

Dam Duchess

Svetlana Lavochkina

Hosted by Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed
Svetlana Lavochkina's book Dam Duchess (Whiskey Tit, 2018) invites readers to take a surreal journey into the past: the construction of Dnipro Dam, the Stalinist regime, the fate of the aristocrats of …
Why We Argue

Seeing Truth in the Climate Crisis

A Conversation with Artist Alexis Rockman about Art and the Environment

Alexis Rockman

Hosted by Alexis Boylan
Feeling bad about the environment? You should. Artist Alexis Rockman talks about his art, the potential for real change, and his ongoing relationship with the American Museum of Natural History …
MIT Press Podcast

The Revolutionary Worlds of Lexington and Concord Compared

Mary Babson Fuhrer

Hosted by MIT Press
Bill Fowler, member of the editorial board of The New England Quarterly, Mary Babson Fuhrer, and Robert A. Gross discuss Fuhrer's recent NEQ article, “The Revolutionary Worlds of Lexington and …
Almost Good Catholics

Education in the World not of the World

A Catholic School Director and Father Talks about Forming the Whole Child

Rich Meyer

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
Rich Meyer, president of JSerra High School—named for St. Junípero Serra, the ‘Apostle of California’—in Southern California, discusses what is working in Catholic education today. He and I are both …
Asian Review of Books

Money Machine

A Trailblazing American Venture in China

Weijian Shan

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
In 2010, Ping An took over Shenzhen Development Bank, ending an experiment that had never been tried before, and not been tried since: a foreign company owning and managing a …
High Theory

ACLA 2023

How Will Critique Save the World?: Popular Theory and Public Humanities

Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
This episode of High Theory is based upon a conference paper Saronik and Kim wrote for the American Comparative Literature Association Conference in 2023. It departs from our usual conversational …
Book of the Day/ Religion

Intimate Alien

The Hidden Story of the UFO

David J. Halperin

Hosted by David Kunsman
In his book Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO (Stanford University Press, 2020), David J. Halperin explores the phenomena of UFO's through a psychological lense. UFOs became part of our cultural landscape in 1947, and they've been with us ever since. Debunked innumerable times, they refuse to go away. Made the subject of great expectations by their believers, they invariably disappoint. They've been called a myth, both in disparagement and …
Medicine

Dr. Nurse

Science, Politics, and the Transformation of American Nursing

Dominique A. Tobbell

Hosted by Claire Clark
An analysis of the efforts of American nurses to establish nursing as an academic discipline and nurses as valued researchers in the decades after World War II. Nurses represent the …
South Asian Studies

Migrants and Machine Politics

How India's Urban Poor Seek Representation and Responsiveness

Adam Michael Auerbach and Tariq Thachil

Hosted by Sneha Annavarapu
How poor migrants shape city politics during urbanization As the Global South rapidly urbanizes, millions of people have migrated from the countryside to urban slums, which now house one billion …
Latin American Studies

Catholic Women and Mexican Politics, 1750–1940

Margaret Chowning

Hosted by Ethan Fredrick
Historians have long looked to networks of elite liberal and anti-clerical men as the driving forces in Mexican history over the course of the long nineteenth century. This traditional view …
African Studies

Breakup

A Marriage in Wartime

Anjan Sundaram

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Anjan Sundaram is an award-winning journalist who has written three books on African people and places: Democratic Republic of Congo in Stringer, Rwanda in Bad News and now Central African …
Burned by Books

Flux

Jinwoo Chong

Hosted by Chris Holmes
Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a …
South Asian Studies

Merchants of Virtue

Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia

Divya Cherian

Hosted by Sanjukta Poddar
Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia (U California Press, 2022) explores the question of what it meant to be Hindu in precolonial South Asia. Divya …
Archaeology

Unseen Art

Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica

Claudia Brittenham

Hosted by Sarah Newman
In Unseen Art: Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica (U Texas Press, 2023), Claudia Brittenham unravels one of the most puzzling phenomena in Mesoamerican art history: why many of …
American West

Making America's Public Lands

The Contested History of Conservation on Federal Lands

Adam Sowards

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Over one quarter - some 640 million acres - of the United States consists of public land owned, not privately, but by the federal government, much of it in the …
Irish Studies

Animals and Sacred Bodies in Early Medieval Ireland

Religion and Urbanism at Clonmacnoise

John Soderberg

Hosted by Danica Ramsey-Brimberg
Clonmacnoise was among the busiest, most economically complex, and intensely sacred places in early medieval Ireland. In Animals and Sacred Bodies in Early Medieval Ireland: Religion and Urbanism at Clonmacnoise (Lexington …
MIT Press Podcast

Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks

A Discussion with Maximilian Schich, Isabel Meirelles, and Roger Malina

Maximilian Schich, Isabel Meirelles, and Roger Malina

Hosted by MIT Press
Maximilian Schich, Isabel Meirelles, and Roger Malina discuss the contents and creation of the new article collection, Arts, Humanities, and Complex Networks, which explores the application of the science of …
Children's Literature

Pew!

The Stinky and Legen-Dairy Gift from Colonel Thomas S. Meacham

Cathy Stefanec Ogren

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
In this interview with third time author Cathy Stefanec Ogren, we celebrate the launch of her new picture book, Pew! The Stinky and Legen-Dairy Gift from Colonel Thomas S. Meacham …
Nordic Asia Podcast

The Great Goa Land Grab

A Discussion with Heather Plumridge Bedi, Solano da Silva, Fredrick Noronha, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen

Heather Plumridge Bedi, Solano da Silva, Fredrick Noronha, and Kenneth Bo Nielsen

Hosted by Arve Hansen
The small Indian state of Goa has witnessed a veritable land rush over many decades, with shifting state governments, leading politicians, and private investors moving in to acquire large tracts …
Book of the Day/ Economics

Moving the Needle

What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor

Katherine S. Newman and Elisabeth S Jacobs

Hosted by John Emrich
Katherine S. Newman and Elisabeth S Jacobs' book Moving the Needle: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor (U California Press, 2023) is a timely investigation reveals how sustained tight labor markets improve the job prospects and life chances of America’s most vulnerable households. Most research on poverty focuses on the damage caused by persistent unemployment. But what happens when jobs are plentiful, and workers are hard to come by …
Buddhist Studies

Toward a New Image of Paramartha

Yogacara and Tathagatagarbha Buddhism Revisited

Ching Keng

Hosted by Jessica Zu
Today I talked to Ching Keng about his book Toward a New Image of Paramartha: Yogacara and Tathagatagarbha Buddhism Revisited (Bloomsbury, 2022). Yogacara and Tathagatagarbha are often regarded as antagonistic Indian Buddhist …
LGBTQ+ Studies

Violent Inheritance

Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West

E. Cram

Hosted by Clayton Jarrard
Violent Inheritance: Sexuality, Land, and Energy in Making the North American West (U California Press, 2022) deepens the analysis of settler colonialism's endurance in the North American West and how …
Architecture

Out of Architecture

The Value of Architects Beyond Traditional Practice

Jake Rudin and Erin Pellegrino

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Jake Rudin and Erin Pellegrino's book Out of Architecture: The Value of Architects Beyond Traditional Practice (Routledge, 2022) is both a call to reassess the architecture profession and its education, and a toolkit …
Native American Studies

Lakhota

An Indigenous History

Rani-Henrik Andersson and David C. Posthumus

Hosted by Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez
The Lakȟóta are among the best-known Native American peoples. In popular culture and even many scholarly works, they were once lumped together with others and called the Sioux. This book …
Middle Eastern Studies

The Lives and Deaths of Jubrail Dabdoub

Or, How the Bethlehemites Discovered Amerka

Jacob Norris

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
This is the fantastical, yet real, story of the merchants of Bethlehem, the young men who traveled to every corner of the globe in the nineteenth century. These men set …
Biology and Evolution

Mushroom

Sara Rich

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
They are the things we step on without noticing and the largest organisms on Earth. They are symbols of inexplicable growth and excruciating misery. They are grouped with plants, but …
Finance

Does the FOMC Have a Viable Strategy for Controlling Inflation?

Robert L. Hetzel

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
Robert L. Hetzel presented a paper at the Dallas Fed conference on February 9th, 2023 titled, “Does the Federal Open Market Committee Have a Viable Strategy for Controlling Inflation?” The Federal Open …
Medicine

Photos from the Front Lines

A Year on the Streets of Alameda County

Derek Hanley

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Photos from the Front Lines follows medics from Falck Alameda County ambulance during one of the most tumultuous years in recent collective memory - 2020. From a global pandemic to demonstrations …
How to Be Wrong

War, Optimism, Humility

A Conversation with Literary Critic Mariia Shuvalova

Mariia Shuvalova

Hosted by John Traphagan
This episode of How To Be Wrong is a conversation with Mariia Shuvalova, a lecturer at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Fulbright Scholar (Harriman Institute, Columbia University in the …