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General History May 17, 2022

Blood and Bronze

The British Empire and the Sack of Benin

Paddy Docherty

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
The Benin Bronzes are among the British Museum’s most prized possessions. Celebrated for their great beauty, they embody the history, myth and artistry of the ancient Kingdom of Benin, once …

Art

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Interviews with artists and scholars of art about their new books.

Art May 16, 2022

Actional Poetics-Ash She He

The Performance Actuations of Alastair MacLennan, 1971-2020

Sandra Johnston, Chérie Driver, and Paula Blair

Hosted by Brandon Sward
A retrospective monograph of Alastair MacLennan’s performance art practice, its influence on the Belfast art scene, and its relationships with wider art histories. Actional Poetics-Ash She He: The Performance Actuations …
Anthropology May 11, 2022

Prophets and Ghosts

The Story of Salvage Anthropology

Samuel J. Redman

Hosted by Lukas Rieppel
Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology (Harvard UP, 2021) is a searching account of nineteenth-century salvage anthropology, an effort to preserve the culture of “vanishing” Indigenous peoples through …
African American Studies May 10, 2022

Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination

An Artist's Reckoning with the South

Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore

Hosted by Amanda Joyce Hall
In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents and interprets the artistic life of Romare Bearden …
Art May 10, 2022

The Problem with Museums

A Conversation with Georgina Adam and Nizan Shaked

Georgina Adam and Nizan Shaked

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
In the past few years, museums of contemporary art have come under a fair deal of scrutiny. Pressures from groups such as Decoloinise This Space or the oxycontin scandal have …
High Theory May 6, 2022

Computational Creativity

A Discussion with Tuhin Chakrabarty

Tuhin Chakrabarty

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Saronik talks to Tuhin Chakrabarty about the creative processes of Artificial Intelligence, what we can expect from it, and how to keep the results fair. (Saronik messes up the word …
High Theory May 4, 2022

Mimesis

A Discussion with Alliya Dagman

Alliya Dagman

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Kim interviews Alliya Dagman about mimesis. Alliya references Plato’s Republic and various internet memes, including a John Oliver meme about how Xi Jinping hates being compared to Winnie the Pooh …
The Future of . . . with Owen Bennett-Jones May 3, 2022

The Future of Statues

A Conversation with Alex Von Tunzelmann

Alex Von Tunzelmann

Hosted by Owen Bennett-Jones
What are the rights and wrongs of toppling statues? Sometimes everyone agrees it’s a good idea. After the second world war, for example, the defeat of fascism meant that all …
Grinnell College: Authors and Artists May 3, 2022

Otto Dix and the First World War

Grotesque Humor, Camaraderie and Remembrance

Michael Mackenzie

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Otto Dix fought in the First World War for the better part of four years before becoming one of the most important artists of the Weimar era. Marked by the …
Nordic Asia Podcast April 22, 2022

What Remains: Textiles from Tuol Sleng

Magali-An Berthon in Conversation with Terese Gagnon

Magali-An Berthon

Hosted by Terese Gagnon
What can textiles tell us about histories of genocide and the lived experiences of prisoners? In this episode, Dr. Magali-An Berthon discusses the treatment of prisoners at S-21 and how …
Japanese Studies April 21, 2022

The Visual Culture of Meiji Japan

Negotiating the Transition to Modernity

Ayelet Zohar and Alison J. Miller

Hosted by Jingyi Li
The Visual Culture of Meiji Japan: Negotiating the Transition to Modernity (Routledge, 2021) examines the visual culture of Japan's transition to modernity, from 1868 to the first decades of the …
Art April 21, 2022

Modern Art and the Remaking of Human Disposition

Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen

Hosted by Allison Leigh
With this book, Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen brings a new formal and conceptual rubric to the study of turn-of-the-century modernism, transforming our understanding of the era’s canonical works. Butterfield-Rosen analyzes a hitherto …
Art April 20, 2022

The Invention of Norman Visual Culture

Art, Politics, and Dynastic Ambition

Lisa Reilly

Hosted by Tanja Tolar
In The Invention of Norman Visual Culture: Art, Politics, and Dynastic Ambition (Cambridge UP, 2020), Lisa Reilly establishes a new interpretive paradigm for the eleventh and twelfth-century art and architecture …
Art April 20, 2022

Media Primitivism

Technological Art in Africa

Delinda Collier

Hosted by Holiday Powers
In Media Primitivism: Technological Art in Africa (Duke University Press, 2020) Delinda Collier provides a sweeping new understanding of technological media in African art, rethinking the assumptions that have conceptualized African …
Jewish Studies April 19, 2022

Belonging and Betrayal

How Jews Made the Art World Modern

Charles Dellheim

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Since the late-1990s, the fate of Nazi stolen art has become a cause célèbre. In Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made the Art World Modern (Brandeis UP, 2021), Charles Dellheim …
Architecture April 19, 2022

Architecture, State Modernism and Cultural Nationalism in the Apartheid Capital

Hilton Judin

Hosted by Bryan Toepfer
Hilton Judin's book Architecture, State Modernism and Cultural Nationalism in the Apartheid Capital (Routledge, 2021) is the first comprehensive investigation of the architecture of the apartheid state in the period of …
British Studies April 19, 2022

The Culture of Male Beauty in Britain

From the First Photographs to David Beckham

Paul R. Deslandes

Hosted by Manamee Guha
Spanning the decades from the rise of photography to the age of the selfie, The Culture of Male Beauty in Britain: From the First Photographs to David Beckham (University of Chicago Press …
Latin American Studies April 13, 2022

Selling Black Brazil

Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia

Anadelia Romo

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Selling Black Brazil: Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia (University of Texas Press, 2022), Anadelia Romo argues that visual images were central to the shift from emulating …
General History April 12, 2022

Bandits, Misfits, and Superheroes

Whiteness and Its Borderlands in American Comics and Graphic Novels

Josef Benson and Doug Singsen

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
American comics from the start have reflected the white supremacist culture out of which they arose. Superheroes and comic books in general are products of whiteness, and both signal and …
High Theory April 12, 2022

Autonomous Work of Art

A Discussion with Pardis Dabashi

Pardis Dabashi

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Kim talks with Pardis about Theodor Adorno’s concept of the autonomous work of art, as articulated in his Aesthetic Theory, and The Dialectic of Enlightenment (with help from Max Horkheimer) …