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Book of the Day/ Economic and Business History

Why We Fight

The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace

Christopher Blattman

Hosted by Javier Mejia
In Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace (Viking, 2022), Chris Blattman explains the five reasons why conflict (rarely) blooms into war, and how to interrupt that deadly process. It's easy to overlook the underlying strategic forces of war, to see it solely as a series of errors, accidents, and emotions gone awry. It's also easy to forget that war shouldn't happen-and most of the time it doesn't …
Eastern European Studies

Jozef Pilsudski

Founding Father of Modern Poland

Joshua D. Zimmerman

Hosted by Piotr Kosicki
In the 1920s, Józef Piłsudski was a household name not just in Poland, but across Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean as well. Yet this complex and contradictory figure – …
On Religion

On Plural Marriage

A Discussion with Philippa J. Meek

Philippa J. Meek

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Philippa J. Meek is a doctoral fellow at the University of Exeter. Meek researches public perceptions versus the realities of plural marriage within Fundamentalist Mormon communities. This episode gives a …
Political Science

Just Health

Treating Structural Racism to Heal America

Dayna Bowen Matthew

Hosted by Lilly Goren
In the United States, systemic racism is embedded in policies and practices, thereby structuring American society to perpetuate inequality and all of the symptoms and results of that inequality. Racial …
Policing, Incarceration, and Reform

The Streets Belong to Us

Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification

Anne Gray Fischer

Hosted by Patrick Reilly
Anne Gray Fischer speaks about her path to and through research, including how sex workers informed her analysis of policing and state violence, the role of law enforcement in struggles over economic …
Italian Studies

Pasta, Pizza and Propaganda

A Political History of Italian Food TV

Francesco Buscemi

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
The three protagonists of Pasta, Pizza and Propaganda: A Political History of Italian Food TV (Intellect, 2022) are food, television and politics. These are the three main characters that interrelate …
High Theory

Lust

A Discussion with Eric Wade

Eric Wade

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Eric Wade speaks with Saronik about lust. They discuss how depictions of sexuality in medieval literature have persisted through literary traditions and shaped modern ideas of Orientalism and the sexual …
Public Policy

City of Refugees

The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town

Susan Hartman

Hosted by Stephen Pimpare
City of Refugees: The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town (Beacon Press, 2022) paints an intimate portrait of the newcomers revitalizing a fading industrial …
Anthropology

At the Limits of Cure

Bharat Jayram Venkat

Hosted by Garima Jaju
Can a history of cure be more than a history of how disease comes to an  end? In 1950s Madras, an international team of researchers demonstrated that antibiotics were effective …
Indian Religions

The Transformation of Tamil Religion

Ramalinga Swamigal and Modern Dravidian Sainthood

Srilata Raman

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Srilata Raman's book The Transformation of Tamil Religion: Ramalinga Swamigal and Modern Dravidian Sainthood (Routledge, 2022) analyses the religious ideology of a Tamil reformer and saint, Ramalinga Swamigal of the 19th …
Neuroscience

A Synthesizing Mind

A Memoir from the Creator of Multiple Intelligences Theory

Howard Gardner

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind was that rare publishing phenomenon--a mind-changer. Widely read by the general public as well as by educators, this influential book laid out Gardner's theory of …
Academic Life

An Inside Look at the American Association of University Professors

Irene Mulvey

Hosted by Christina Gessler
Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: Why the AAUP was formed.Their role in supporting academic freedom. Why the threat to tenure is a threat to …
Asian Review of Books

Everest 1922

The Epic Story of the First Attempt on the World's Highest Mountain

Mick Conefrey

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
It can be hard to think of Everest as unknown anymore. While it’s certainly a challenge to climb the world’s tallest mountain, someone–with enough time and money–has a good chance …
Middle Eastern Studies

The Fate of Abraham

Why the West is Wrong about Islam

Peter Oborne

Hosted by James M. Dorsey
Peter Oborne’s The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam (Simon and Schuster 2022) is as much a history of US, British, and French attitudes towards Islam …
SSEAC Stories

HouseMate

Lessons from Singapore on How to Provide Universal Cheap Homeownership

Cameron Murray

Hosted by Natali Pearson
While Australia prides itself on being an egalitarian society, and owning a detached house on fenced block of land plays a much-revered role in the Great Australian Dream, in practice …
African American Studies

Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions

Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education

Bianca C. Williams, Dian D. Squire, and Frank A. Tuitt

Hosted by Adam McNeil
Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education (SUNY Press, 2021) provides a multidisciplinary exploration of the contemporary university's entanglement with the history of …
Book of the Day/ Critical Theory

The Club on the Edge of Town

A Pandemic Memoir

Alan Lane

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What happened to arts organisations during the pandemic? In The Club on the Edge of Town: A Pandemic Memoir (Salamander Street, 2022), Alan Lane, Artistic Director of SlungLow, a theatre company based in Leeds in the North of England, explores this question by telling the story of the theatre company and the community in 2020. Beginning from the decision to partner with Britain’s oldest working men’s club, through the lockdown, to …
Critical Theory

Automated Media

Mark Andrejevic

Hosted by Reuben Niewenhuis
In this era of pervasive automation, Mark Andrejevic provides an original framework for tracing the logical trajectory of automated media and their social, political, and cultural consequences. Automated Media (Routledge …
Latin American Studies

The Condor Trials

Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America

Francesca Lessa

Hosted by Kenneth Sanchez
In this episode of the New Books in Latin America Studies podcast, Kenneth Sánchez spoke with Dr Francesca Lessa about her interesting new book The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and …
On Religion

On Taoism, Martial Arts, and Mad Monk Manifesto

A Discussion with Monk Yun Rou

Monk Yun Rou

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Monk Yun Rou was ordained in China as a Taoist monk in 2012. His writings and teachings propagate Taoist ideas and focus on environmental conservation, and political and social justice …
Literary Studies

Eternalized Fragments

Reclaiming Aesthetics in Contemporary World Fiction

W. Michelle Wang

Hosted by Gargi Binju
Eternalized Fragments: Reclaiming Aesthetics in Contemporary World Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2020) explores the implications of treating literature as art--examining the evolving nature of aesthetic inquiry in literary studies, with …
Science, Technology, and Society

Inequality

A Genetic History

Carles Lalueza-Fox

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Inequality is an urgent global concern, with pundits, politicians, academics, and best-selling books all taking up its causes and consequences. In Inequality: A Genetic History (MIT Press, 2022), Carles Lalueza-Fox …
Latino Studies

Tejanaland

A Writing Life in Four Acts

Teresa Palomo Acosta

Hosted by Tiffany Gonzalez
Tejanaland: A Writing Life in Four Acts (Texas A&M UP, 2021) by Teresa Palomo Acosta--poet, historian, author, and activist--spans three decades of her writing, from 1988 through 2018. The collection …
High Theory

Archives

A Discussion with Matt Poland

Matt Poland

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Matt Poland talks about the meaning of archives, the nature of their construction, the physical environments that archives engender, and their emancipatory possibilities. Besides his own work on the archives …
Policing, Incarceration, and Reform

Gifts from the Dark

Learning from the Incarceration Experience

Joni Schwartz and John R. Chaney

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
While in no way supporting the systemic injustices and disparities of mass incarceration, in Gifts from the Dark: Learning from the Incarceration Experience (Lexington Books, 2021), Joni Schwartz and John …
Biography

German, Jew, Muslim, Gay

The Life and Times of Hugo Marcus

Marc David Baer

Hosted by Armanc Yildiz
Hugo Marcus (1880–1966) was a man of many names and many identities. Born a German Jew, he converted to Islam and took the name Hamid, becoming one of the most …
Middle Eastern Studies

Nine Quarters of Jerusalem

A New Biography of the Old City

Matthew Teller

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
In Jerusalem, what you see and what is true are two different things. Maps divide the walled Old City into four quarters, yet that division doesn’t reflect the reality of …
Anthropology

Unmasked

Covid, Community, and the Case of Okoboji

Emily Mendenhall

Hosted by Sharonee Dasgupta
Unmasked: Covid, Community, and the Case of Okoboji (Vanderbilt UP, 2022) is the story of what happened in Okoboji, a small Iowan tourist town, when a collective turn from the coronavirus …
Military History

The Great Battles of All Time

Jeremy Black

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Cannae and Agincourt, Waterloo and Gettysburg, Stalingrad and Midway, this compact volume, edited by master historian, Professor Jeremy Black, collects the most influential battles and conflicts in history. Covering the …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws

And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities

Adrienne Mayor

Hosted by Mark Klobas
Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights--glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth--embedded in myth, legends …
Scholarly Communication

Combating Fraud and Plagiarism in the Publication of Academic Research

A Discussion with Jason Prevost

Jason Prevost of Brill

Hosted by Avi Staiman
Jason Prevost, coordinating Chair of the Publication Ethics Committee, and Senior Acquisitions Editor at Brill joins Avi Staiman, CEO of Academic Language Experts, to discuss how publishers handle ethical issues …
The Common Magazine

Adoption Day

The Common magazine (Spring, 2022)

Mark Kyungsoo Bias

Hosted by Emily Everett
Mark Kyungsoo Bias speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his poem “Adoption Day,” which appears in The Common’s new spring issue. Mark talks about the inspiration and process behind …
How to Be Wrong

The Career of a Writer

A Discussion with Novelist Douglas Richards

Douglas Richards

Hosted by John Traphagan
In this episode of How To Be Wrong, we talk with novelist New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Douglas Richards, about his career as a writer and how his …
Nordic Asia Podcast

Japan’s Reaction to Russia’s War in Ukraine

Kamila Szczepanska and Silja Keva

Hosted by Ari-Joonas Pitkänen
Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has dramatically affected international politics, and the effects are also felt in East Asia. We have heard a lot about China’s position regarding the war, but …
Burned by Books

Ugly Freedoms

Elisabeth Anker

Hosted by Chris Holmes
With me on today’s show is Professor Elisabeth Anker, whose most recent book, Ugly Freedoms (Duke UP, 2022), works to understand how the idea of freedom, seemingly so fundamental to …
Book of the Day/ Biology and Evolution

Different

Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist

Frans de Waal

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
In Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist (W. W. Norton, 2022), world-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal draws on decades of observation and studies of both human and animal behavior to argue that despite the linkage between gender and biological sex, biology does not automatically support the traditional gender roles in human societies. While humans and other primates do share some behavioral differences, biology offers no justification for existing …
National Security

Proscribing Peace

How Listing Armed Groups as Terrorists Hurts Negotiations

Sophie Haspeslagh

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In Proscribing Peace: How Listing Armed Groups as Terrorists Hurts Negotiations (Manchester UP, 2021), Dr. Sophie Haspeslagh offers a systematic examination of the impact of proscription on peace negotiations. With …
Historical Fiction

The Last Dress from Paris

Jade Beer

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
London, 2017. Lucille will do anything for her beloved grandmother. So when Granny Sylvie volunteers to send her to Paris to retrieve a beloved Dior creation left in the city …
Literary Studies

Ahab Unbound

Melville and the Materialist Turn

Meredith Farmer and Jonathan D. S. Schroeder

Hosted by John Yargo
Today’s guests are Meredith Farmer and Jonathan D.S. Schroeder, the co-editors of a bracing new collection of essays about the figure of Ahab in Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. Meredith is the …
East-West Psychology Podcast

'I Thought Memory Would Be Easy’

Academic and Poetic Borderlands as Decolonial Projects of Recovery

Monica Mody

Hosted by Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay
In this episode, we meet East-West Psychology PhD, Monica Mody, who is a writer, poet, and educator aligned with earth-based and decolonial feminist perspectives. Monica speaks about her approaches to …
Geography

Abolition Geography

Essays Towards Liberation

Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Hosted by Catriona Gold
Gathering together Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s work from over three decades, Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation (Verso, 2022) presents her singular contribution to the politics of abolition as theorist, researcher, and …
Science, Technology, and Society

How to Take Over the World

Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain

Ryan North

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Taking over the world is a lot of work. Any supervillain is bound to have questions: What's the perfect location for a floating secret base? What zany heist will fund …
Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Putting It All on the Line

A Conversation with Austen Mulinder

Austen Mulinder

Hosted by Richard Lucas and Kimon Fountoukidis
Austen Mulinder had a highly successful corporate career, holding several leadership positions at some of the world’s most respected companies. But as soon as his youngest went to college, Austen …
Fantasy

The Justice of Kings

Richard Swan

Hosted by Gabrielle Martin
The Justice of Kings (Orbit, 2022) opens with our young narrator, Helena, traveling from town to town as clerk to the King’s Justice, a learned and idealistic man called Vonvalt …
Indian Religions

The Stories Behind the Poses

The Indian Mythology That Inspired 50 Yoga Postures

Raj Balkaran

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Raj Balkaran's 200th podcast episode: Christa Kuberry interviews him on his beautifully written new book The Stories Behind the Poses: The Indian Mythology That Inspired 50 Yoga Postures (Leaping Hare, 2022), and highlighting their …
On Religion

On the Four Foundations of Mindfulness

A Discussion with Ben Connelly

Ben Connelly

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Ben Connelly is a Minneapolis-based Soto Zen teacher in the Katagiri-lineage. He offers a wide variety of secular mindfulness trainings, including for police departments, corporate settings, correctional facilities, and addiction …
High Theory

WikiVictorian

A Discussion with Helena DiGiusti

Helena DiGiusti

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Helena DiGiusti talks about @WikiVictorian, the Twitter account that she runs. More than a traditional wiki, it embodies the randomness and miscellaneous nature of so much of Victorian cultures. She …
Japanese Studies

Japanese Role-Playing Games

Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG

Rachael Hutchinson and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon

Hosted by Jingyi Li
Rachael Hutchinson and Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon's edited volume Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG (Lexington Books, 2022) examines the origins, boundaries, and transnational effects of the genre, addressing significant …
Literary Studies

Citizens and Rulers of the World

The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire

Mahshid Mayar

Hosted by John Yargo
In this episode of New Books in Literary Studies, John Yargo spoke with Mahshid Mayar about how children’s puzzles and schoolbooks at the turn of the 20th century helped shape …
Literary Studies

Cut/Copy/Paste

Fragments from the History of Bookwork

Whitney Trettien

Hosted by John Yargo
Today’s guest is Whitney Trettien whose book Cut/Copy/Paste: Fragments from the History of Bookwork was published through the University of Minnesota Press in 2022. Trettien is a Professor of English …
Performing Arts

Lovesong (Imperfect)

José Rivera

Hosted by Andy Boyd
José Rivera's Lovesong (Imperfect) (Broadway Play Publishing, 2021) follows a passionate love triangle in an unusual situation: the US government has outlawed death, trees grow lights instead of leaves, and lovers sword …
Book of the Day/ Biblical Studies

Satan and the Problem of Evil

From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers

Archie T. Wright

Hosted by Jackson Reinhardt
Satan's transformation from opaque functionary to chief antagonist is one of the most striking features of the development of Jewish theology in the Second Temple Period and beyond. Once no more than an "accuser" testing members of the human community, Satan, along with his demons, is presented by Jewish apocalyptic texts and the New Testament as a main source of evil in the world. In Satan and the Problem of …
Intellectual History

The Political Writings of Alexander Hamilton

Bradford P. Wilson and Carson Holloway, eds.

Hosted by Hope J. Leman
How much does the average person know about Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757-1804)? Would we have guessed that this hero of many fiscal conservatives wrote, “A national debt, if it …
Asian American Studies

Climate Lyricism

Min Hyoung Song

Hosted by Jennifer Lee
In Climate Lyricism (Duke University Press, 2022), Min Hyoung Song models a climate change-centered reading practice that helps us better understand and respond to climate change by moving from forms …
Irish Studies

The Fadden More Psalter

The Discovery and Conservation of a Medieval Treasure

John Gillis

Hosted by Danica Ramsey-Brimberg
In The Faddan More Psalter: The Discovery and Conservation of a Medieval Treasure Dr. John Gillis explores the conservation, construction, and context of an early medieval psalter discovered by chance in …
Psychology

Senior Sociopaths

How to Recognize and Escape Lifelong Abusers

Donna Andersen

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Senior Sociopaths: How to Recognize and Escape Lifelong Abusers (Anderly Publishing, 2022) is the first book to examine antisocial behavior in the over-50 crowd. This is a far bigger problem …
Middle Eastern Studies

The Irish Imperial Service

Policing Palestine and Administering the Empire, 1922–1966

Seán William Gannon

Hosted by Roberto Mazza
Seán William Gannon's book The Irish Imperial Service: Policing Palestine and Administering the Empire, 1922–1966 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) explores Irish participation in the British imperial project after ‘Southern’ Ireland’s independence in 1922 …
Literature

Proof of Life

Sheila Lowe

Hosted by G. P. Gottlieb
Proof of Life (Write Choice Ink 2021) is the second book in author Sheila Lowe’s Beyond the Veil paranormal suspense series. In the first book (What she Saw 2013), a …
African American Studies

Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution

The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth

Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks

Hosted by Katrina Anderson
Today I talked to Claire Bellerjeau about her book (co-authored with Tiffany Yecke Brooks) Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth (Lyons Press, 2021). In January 1785 …
General History

Benjamin Franklin

Cultural Protestant

D. G. Hart

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Benjamin Franklin grew up in a devout Protestant family with limited prospects for wealth and fame. By hard work, limitless curiosity, native intelligence, and luck (what he called "providence"), Franklin …
On Religion

On Byzantium and 'Romanland'

A Discussion with Anthony Kaldellis

Anthony Kaldellis

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Anthony Kaldellis is Professor and Chair of the Department of Classics at The Ohio State University. He is the author of many books, including The Christian Parthenon, Hellenism in Byzantium …
Native American Studies

Conversations with LeAnne Howe

Kirstin L. Squint ed.

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
Conversations with LeAnne Howe (UP of Mississippi, 2022) is the first collection of interviews with the groundbreaking Choctaw author, whose genre-bending works take place in the US Southeast, Oklahoma, and beyond …
General History

Who Killed Jane Stanford?

A Gilded-Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of a University

Richard White

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
In 1885 Jane and Leland Stanford cofounded a university to honor their recently deceased young son. After her husband’s death in 1893, Jane Stanford, a devoted spiritualist who expected the …
High Theory

Cognitive Cultural Studies

A Discussion with Torsa Ghosal

Torsa Ghosal

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Torsa Ghosal talks about Cognitive Cultural Studies, a field that entails methodologies that situate the human mind in historical and cultural contexts, sometimes working against models of the mind proceeding …
East Asian Studies

From Policemen to Revolutionaries: A Sikh Diaspora in Global Shanghai, 1885-1945

Yin Cao

Hosted by Shatrunjay Mall
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Shanghai became a cosmopolitan hub with communities of Japanese, British, Russians, Jews, and others including Indians – most of whom were Sikhs …
Biology and Evolution

Extinctions

Living and Dying in the Margin of Error

Michael Hannah

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Today I talked to Michael Hannah about his book Extinctions: Living and Dying in the Margin of Error (Cambridge UP, 2021). Are we now entering a mass extinction event? What can mass …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones

The Future of Philanthropy

A Conversation with Emma Saunders-Hastings

Emma Saunders-Hastings

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
Philanthropists are praise for their generosity but does their desire to keep control of what happens to their donations mean they exercise power in ways that clash with democratic principles …
On Religion

On the Roman Catacombs

A Discussion with William Gruen

Willliam Gruen

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Ever wonder about the Roman catacombs? Look no further. Today I talked to William "Chip" Gruen of Muhlenberg College about his article "Roman Catacombs" from the collection The Reception of Jesus in the First …
Finance

Does Financial Repression Work?

A Conversation with Michael Pettis

Michael Pettis

Hosted by Robert Kowit
Michael Pettis is Professor of Finance at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. He started his career in banking in 1987 just in time for the tidal wave of emerging …
Book of the Day/ Food

Edible Insects

A Global History

Gina Louise Hunter

Hosted by Amir Sayadabdi
From grasshoppers to grubs, an eye-opening look at insect cuisine around the world. An estimated two billion people worldwide regularly consume insects, yet bugs are rarely eaten in the West. Why are some disgusted at the thought of eating insects while others find them delicious? Edible Insects: A Global History (Reaktion Books, 2021) provides a broad introduction to the role of insects as human food, from our prehistoric past to current …
German Studies

Fear of the Family

Guest Workers and Family Migration in the Federal Republic of Germany

Lauren K. Stokes

Hosted by Paul Lerner
Beginning in 1955, West Germany recruited millions of people as guest workers from Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and especially Turkey. This labor force was essential to creating the postwar …
Medicine

Partial Stories

Maternal Death from Six Angles

Claire L. Wendland

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
A close look at stories of maternal death in Malawi that considers their implications in the broader arena of medical knowledge. By the early twenty-first century, about one woman in …
Genocide Studies

Torture, Humiliate, Kill

Inside the Bosnian Serb Camp System

Hikmet Karčić

Hosted by Christopher Davey
Half a century after the Holocaust, on European soil, Bosnian Serbs orchestrated a system of concentration camps where they subjected their Bosniak Muslim and Bosnian Croat neighbors to torture, abuse …
History of Science

Women Healers

Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia

Susan H. Brandt

Hosted by Corinne Doria
In her eighteenth-century medical recipe manuscript, the Philadelphia healer Elizabeth Coates Paschall asserted her ingenuity and authority with the bold strokes of her pen. Paschall developed an extensive healing practice …
Indian Religions

Krishnamacharya on Kundalini

The Origins and Coherence of His Position

Simon Atkinson

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Krishnamacharya on Kundalini: The Origins and Coherence of His Position (Equinox Publishing, 2022) explores a distinctive teaching of 'the father of modern yoga', T. Krishnamacharya. Whereas most yoga traditions teach …
Geography

Discard Studies

Wasting, Systems, and Power

Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
An argument that social, political, and economic systems maintain power by discarding certain people, places, and things. Discard studies is an emerging field that looks at waste and wasting broadly …
Economic and Business History

Leave Me Alone and I'll Make You Rich

How the Bourgeois Deal Enriched the World

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey and Art Carden

Hosted by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo
The economist and historian Deirdre Nansen McCloskey has been best known recently for her Bourgeois Era trilogy, a vigorous defense, unrivaled in scope, of commercially tested betterment. Its massive volumes …
African American Studies

The Families' Civil War

Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice

Holly A. Pinheiro Jr.

Hosted by Omari Averette-Phillips
The Families' Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice (U Georgia Press, 2022) tells the stories of freeborn northern African Americans in Philadelphia struggling to maintain families …
Anthropology

Queer Companions

Religion, Public Intimacy, and Saintly Affects in Pakistan

Omar Kasmani

Hosted by Mathew Gagné
In Queer Companions: Religion, Public Intimacy, and Saintly Affects in Pakistan (Duke UP, 2022), Omar Kasmani theorizes saintly intimacy and the construction of queer social relations at Pakistan's most important …
Literature

Furnace Creek

Joseph Boone

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Taking its inspiration from Great Expectations, Furnace Creek (Eyewear Publishing, 2021) teases us with the question of what Pip might have been like had he grown up in the American …
On Religion

On the Rise, Fall, and Resurgence of the Religious Left

A Discussion with L. Benjamin Rolsky

L. Benjamin Rolsky

Hosted by Gregory Soden
L. Benjamin Rolsky received his PhD from Drew University in American Religious Studies. His work has appeared in a variety of academic and popular venues including Method and Theory in …
High Theory

Sextuality

A Discussion with Stephen Guy-Bray

Stephen Guy-Bray

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Stephen Guy-Bray talks about sexuality, a concept that brings together the the use of sexual metaphors in the description of textual production and the erotics that inhere in reading praxes …
Religion

Taking ‘Religion’ Seriously

Essays on the Discursive Study of Religion

Teemu Taira

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
Teemu Taira's book Taking ‘Religion’ Seriously: Essays on the Discursive Study of Religion (Brill, 2022) demonstrates through methodological reflections and carefully chosen case studies a new way to conduct the study …
Human Rights

The Human Tragedy in Yemen

A Discussion with Noria al-Hossini, Communications Director of Mwatana for Human Rights

Noria al-Hossini

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
The civil war in Yemen has going on since 2014. Noria al-Hossini, Communications Director of Mwatana for Human Rights, discusses the war and the numerous human right violations that have occurred …
Book of the Day/ National Security

Home, Land, Security

Deradicalization and the Journey Back from Extremism

Carla Power

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In the Pulitzer Prize finalist book Home, Land, Security: Deradicalisation and the Journey Back from Extremism (One World, 2021), Carla Power explores: what are the roots of radicalism? Journalist Carla Power came to this question well before the January 6, 2021, attack in Washington, D.C., that turned the US’ attention to the problem of domestic radicalization. Her entry point was a different wave of radical panic—the way populists and pundits …
Economics

Formal Models of Domestic Politics

Scott Gehlbach

Hosted by Peter Lorentzen
Formal mathematical models have provided tremendous insights into politics in recent decades. Formal Models of Domestic Politics (Cambridge UP, 2021) is the leading graduate textbook covering the crucial models that …
Academic Life

Exploring Public-Facing Humanities

A Conversation with Ellen Synder-Grenier

Ellen Synder-Grenier

Hosted by Christina Gessler
Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: Ellen Synder-Grenier’s career as a curator and public historianHow Henry Street helped its neighbors survive the 1918 pandemic A …
Women's History

Subversive Habits

Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle

Shannen Dee Williams

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
In Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle (Duke UP, 2022), Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the …
Literary Studies

Apocalypse and Heroism in Popular Culture

Allegories of White Masculinity in Crisis

Katherine E. Sugg

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
Stories of world-ending catastrophe have featured prominently in film and television lately. Zombie apocalypses, climate disasters, alien invasions, global pandemics, and dystopian world orders fill our screens—typically with a singular …
Asian Review of Books

The Immortal King Rao

A Novel

Vauhini Vara

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
King Rao–one of the protagonists from Vauhini Vara’s novel The Immortal King Rao (W. W. Norton & Company: 2022)—is like many of the tech founders we idolize today. King …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight

Emotion By Design

Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike

Greg Hoffman

Hosted by Dan Hill
Today I talked to Greg Hoffman about his new book Emotion By Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike (Twelve, 2022). For this week’s guest Greg Hoffman, the characteristics …
General History

Open Hearts, Closed Doors

Immigration Reform and the Waning of Mainline Protestantism

Nicholas T. Pruitt

Hosted by Lane Davis
Open Hearts, Closed Doors: Immigration Reform and the Waning of Mainline Protestantism (NYU Press, 2021) uncovers the largely overlooked role that liberal Protestants played in fostering cultural diversity in America …
Human Rights

War and Peace

America's Humane War and the Crisis in Ukraine

Samuel Moyn, Silja Vöneky, Frauke Lachenmann, and James Cavallaro

Hosted by Jim Cavallaro
This podcast is a recorded panel discussion on “War and Peace: America's Humane War and the Crisis in Ukraine.” The panel was part of the Annual Conference of the …
Irish Studies

The Case of Ireland

Commerce, Empire and the European Order, 1750-1848

James Stafford

Hosted by Aidan Beatty
James Stafford teaches at Columbia University, where he specializes in the political and intellectual history of Ireland, Britain and Western Europe since 1750, with a particular interest in questions of …
On Religion

On Evangelicals in Antebellum America

A Discussion with Brett Grainger

Brett Grainger

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Dr. Brett Malcolm Grainger is a scholar of American religion and an award-winning journalist. He is Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University and the author of Church …
High Theory

Teletherapy

A Discussion with Hannah Zeavin

Hannah Zeavin

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Hannah Zeavin talks about teletherapy, from Freud’s letters to suicide hotlines to therapy apps. If therapy is always mediated, teletherapy is any form of therapy in which that mediation is …
Performing Arts

Brecht and the Bible

A Study of Religious Nihilism and Human Weakness in Brecht's Drama of Morality and the City

G. Ronald Murphy

Hosted by Andy Boyd
In Brecht and the Bible: A Study of Religious Nihilism and Human Weakness in Brecht's Drama of Morality and the City (UNC Press, 2020), Father G. Ronald Murphy argues that Brecht, atheist …
National Security

Ports, Crime and Security

Governing and Policing Seaports in a Changing World

Anna Sergi, Alexandria Reid, Luca Storti, and Marleen Easton

Hosted by Geert Slabbekoorn
The COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and the US-China trade dispute have  heightened interest in the geopolitics and security of modern ports.  Ports are where contemporary societal dilemmas converge: the (de)regulation of international …
Indian Religions

Soaring with Bharati in the Wisdom-Chariot (Ñānaratam)

Radha Raghunathan

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Mahakavi Subramania Bharati was a multi-faceted genius, an innovative poet who initiated a new era in Tamil literature. He was the first writer to have introduced to the Tamil literary …
Geography

Atlas of the Invisible

Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World

James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Award-winning geographer-designer team James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti transform enormous datasets into rich maps and cutting-edge visualizations. In this triumph of visual storytelling, they uncover truths about our past, reveal …
Children's Literature

Flowers Are Pretty . . . Weird!

Rosemary Mosco

Hosted by Mel Rosenberg
Here I talk to Rosemary Mosco about her career and brand new book, Flowers are Pretty . . .  Weird (Tundra, 2022). Rosemary makes books, articles, cartoons and graphics that connect …
Think About It

Paul Edwards on Toni Morrison's "Playing in the Dark"

Book Talk 53

Paul Edwards

Hosted by Uli Baer
Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination is a must-read for anyone interested in American literature and in the formation of American identity in general. In …
Book of the Day/ Philosophy

On Believing

Being Right in a World of Possibilities

David Hunter

Hosted by Robert Talisse
According to many standard philosophical accounts, beliefs are a kind of stance one takes toward a proposition. To believe that Nashville is in Tennessee is to adopt a certain attitude towards the proposition ‘Nashville is in Tennessee’. One advantage of this view is that it seems to make clear how beliefs can be right or wrong: to believe a proposition that is false is to have a false belief, while …
Art

The ABC of the Projectariat

Living and Working in a Precarious Art World

Kuba Szreder

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
Labour has taken an about-turn. From Adam Smith’s proposal for specialisation which saw the factory line reorganised so that each worker needed to understand only a small aspect of the …
Latin American Studies

Embodying Modernity

Global Fitness Culture and Building the Brazilian Body

Daniel Silva

Hosted by Patricio Simonetto
Daniel Silva’s Embodying Modernity: Global Fitness Culture and Building the Brazilian Body (U Pittsburgh Press, 2022) examines the current boom of fitness culture in Brazil in the context of the …
Human Rights

Principles in Power

Latin America and the Politics of U. S. Human Rights Diplomacy

Vanessa Walker

Hosted by Jo Butterfield
Vanessa Walker's Principles in Power: Latin America and the Politics of U. S. Human Rights Diplomacy (Cornell University Press, 2020) explores the relationship between policy makers and nongovernment advocates in …
Popular Culture

Curious about George

Curious George, Cultural Icons, Colonialism, and US Exceptionalism

Rae Lynn Schwartz-DuPre

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In 1940, Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey built two bikes, packed what they could, and fled wartime Paris. Among the possessions they escaped with was a manuscript that would …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast

The Secret Body

How the New Science of the Human Body Is Changing the Way We Live

Daniel M. Davis

Hosted by Mark Klobas
Imagine knowing years in advance whether you are likely to get cancer or having a personalized understanding of your individual genes, organs, and cells. Imagine being able to monitor your …
German Studies

The Hygienic Apparatus

Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder

Paul Dobryden

Hosted by Paul Lerner
The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder (Northwestern UP, 2022) traces how the environmental effects of industrialization reverberated through the cinema of Germany’s Weimar Republic. In the early twentieth …
Anthropology

War Virtually

The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future

Roberto J. González

Hosted by Jolon Timms
A critical look at how the US military is weaponizing technology and data for new kinds of warfare—and why we must resist. War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize …
Women's History

Institutional Sexual Abuse in the #metoo Era

Jason D. Spraitz and Kendra N. Bowen

Hosted by Jeannette Cockroft
In Institutional Sexual Abuse in the #metoo Era (Southern Illinois UP, 2021), editors Jason D. Spraitz and Kendra N. Bowen bring together the work of contributors in the fields of …
Latin American Studies

Bedlam in the New World

A Mexican Madhouse in the Age of Enlightenment

Christina Ramos

Hosted by Lisette Varon Carvajal
In Bedlam in the New World: A Mexican Madhouse in the Age of Enlightenment (UNC Press, 2022), Cristina Ramos tells us the story of Mexico city’s oldest public institution for …
Islamic Studies

The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War

Faith, Firepower, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards

Annie Tracy Samuel

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War: Faith, Firepower, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (Cambridge UP, 2021) represents a fascinating and carefully documented intellectual history of how Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps …
On Religion

On Black Religion and Racial Identity

A Discussion with Judith Weisenfeld

Judith Weisenfeld

Hosted by Gregory Soden
Dr. Judith Weisenfeld teaches in the Department of Religion at Princeton University where she is the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion and Associated Faculty in the …
High Theory

Trace

A Discussion with Farah Bakaari

Farah Bakaari

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Farah Bakaari talks about Trace, a core concept in deconstruction, that denotes an absent presence, a mark of something that is no longer there. She talks about how in her …
Eastern European Studies

I Am Jugoslovenka!

Feminist Performance Politics During and After Yugoslav Socialism

Jasmina Tumbas

Hosted by Iva Glisic
With I Am Jugoslovenka!: Feminist Performance Politics During and After Yugoslav Socialism (Manchester UP, 2022), Jasmina Tumbas examines forms of feminist political and artistic engagement in Yugoslavia and its successor nations …
Geography

Black to Nature

Pastoral Return and African American Culture

Stefanie K. Dunning

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
In Black to Nature: Pastoral Return and African American Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2021), author Stefanie K. Dunning considers both popular and literary texts that range from Beyoncé’s Lemonade to Jesmyn …
Nordic Asia Podcast

The Struggle for Hong Kong

A Conversation with Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Hosted by Duncan McCargo
Why should we view the anti-China protests that began in Hong Kong in 2019 through a comparative lens? How do earlier episodes in Hong Kong’s history help us make sense …
Grinnell College: Authors and Artists

From Biological Bench Science to Teaching at Grinnell College

A Chat with Charvann Bailey

Charvann Bailey

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Today I chatted with Charvann Bailey, assistant professor of biology at Grinnell College. We discussed her route to a Ph.D. in biology, the struggles of post-docing and bench science, and her …
The Imperfect Buddha Podcast

Derrida Meets Nagarjuna

A Discussion with Peter Salmon

Peter Salmon

Hosted by Matthew O'Connell
In an historic event, the second Buddha himself Nagarjuna returns from the dead to team up with Jacques Derrida, non-Buddha, perhaps, to take on emptiness. They clash with identity politics …