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Intellectual History
High Theory April 1, 2022

Welcome to High Theory!

Kim Adams and Soronik Bosu

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Welcome to High Theory! High Theory is a podcast in which we get high on the substance of theory. And we ask the three standard questions, to each other, and …

Intellectual History

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Interviews with intellectual historians about their new books.

Jewish Studies August 11, 2022

Power and Progress

Joseph Ibn Kaspi and the Meaning of History

Alexander Green

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
The philosopher and biblical commentator Joseph Ibn Kaspi (1280–1345) was a provocative Jewish thinker of the medieval era whose works have generally been overlooked by modern scholars.  Power and Progress …
General History August 10, 2022

Feminism's Empire

Carolyn J. Eichner

Hosted by Michael Vann
Feminism's Empire (Cornell UP, 2022) investigates the complex relationships between imperialisms and feminisms in the late nineteenth century and demonstrates the challenge of conceptualizing "pro-imperialist" and "anti-imperialist" as binary positions …
Jewish Studies August 10, 2022

The Crowns on the Letters

Essays on the Aggada and the Lives of the Sages

Ari D. Kahn

Hosted by Matthew Miller
Rabbi Ari Kahn’s The Crowns on the Letters: Essays on the Aggada and the Lives of the Sages (OU Press, 2020) represents a major achievement in the study of the lives …
Environmental Studies August 9, 2022

Encountering Water in Early Modern Europe and Beyond

Redefining the Universe Through Natural Philosophy, Religious Reformations, and Sea Voyaging

Lindsay Starkey

Hosted by Aspen Brown
What is holding the oceans back from entirely flooding the earth? While a twenty-first century thinker may approach the answer to this question within a framework of gravity and geologic deep-time, Lindsay Starkey …
Jewish Studies August 8, 2022

The Idea of 'Israel' in Second Temple Judaism

A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity

Jason A. Staples

Hosted by Michael Morales
How did the concept of Israel impact early Jewish apocalyptic hopes of restoration? How diverse was Israelite identity in antiquity? Tune in as we talk with Jason A. Staples about …
Darts & Letters August 8, 2022

January 6th and the Myth of the Mob

The Pervasive Power of Crowd Theory

Hosted by Gordon Katic
This week, we’re showcasing some of our favourite past episodes of Darts and Letters themed around “Activism & Academia”. Today’s episode originally aired a little earlier this summer. In the …
General History August 5, 2022

The Memory of Colonialism in Britain and France

The Sins of Silence

Itay Lotem

Hosted by Michael Vann
In The Memory of Colonialism in Britain and France: The Sins of Silence (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021), Itay Lotem explores the remembering of empire in Britain and France. By comparing these two former …
History of Science August 4, 2022

Minerva's French Sisters

Women of Science in Enlightenment France

Nina Rattner Gelbart

Hosted by Victor Monnin
In Minerva’s French Sisters: Women of Science in Enlightenment France (Yale University Press, 2021), Nina Gelbart, Professor of History and Anita Johnson Wand Professor of Women’s Studies at Occidental College …
Jewish Studies August 3, 2022

Thinking about Good and Evil

Jewish Views from Antiquity to Modernity

Wayne Allen

Hosted by Matthew Miller
Today I talked to Rabbi Wayne Allen about his book Thinking about Good and Evil: Jewish Views from Antiquity to Modernity (U Nebraska Press, 2021). Starting with the Bible and Apocrypha …
Literary Studies August 3, 2022

The Obsolete Empire

Untimely Belonging in Twentieth-Century British Literature

Philip Tsang

Hosted by Gargi Binju
Modernist literature at the end of the British empire challenges conventional notions of homeland, heritage, and community. The waning British empire left behind an abundance of material relics and an …
Literary Studies August 2, 2022

Free Indirect

The Novel in a Postfictional Age

Timothy Bewes

Hosted by Iqra Shagufta Cheema
What is the purpose of a novel? What purpose or logic do literary critics assign to a novel? How has the novel changed? What does that mean for its readers …
Intellectual History August 1, 2022

Social Science for What? (Part 2 of 2)

Battles over Public Funding for the “Other Sciences” at the National Science Foundation

Mark Solovey

Hosted by Keith Krueger
This is part two of a two part interview. Mark Solovey’s Social Science for What? is essential reading for anyone in either the history of science policy or the history of …
Literary Studies July 29, 2022

Bad Humor

Race and Religious Essentialism in Early Modern England

Kimberly Anne Coles

Hosted by John Yargo
Kimberly Anne Coles is Professor of English at the University of Maryland; her first book, Religion, Reform and Women’s Writing in Early Modern England, was published with Cambridge University Press …
French Studies July 29, 2022

The Military Enlightenment

War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon

Christy Pichichero

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Covering the pivotal period from the mid-seventeenth century through the era of the French Revolution, Christy Pichichero's The Military Enlightenment: War and Culture in the French Empire from Louis XIV to Napoleon (Cornell …
Religion July 28, 2022

The Origin of Sin

Greece and Rome, Early Judaism and Christianity

David Konstan

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
Where did the idea of sin arise from? In The Origin of Sin: Greece and Rome, Early Judaism and Christianity (Bloomsbury, 2022), David Konstan takes a close look at classical …
American Studies July 27, 2022

Benjamin Franklin

The Religious Life of a Founding Father

Thomas S. Kidd

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years …
Intellectual History July 27, 2022

The Discovery of Iran

Taghi Arani, a Radical Cosmopolitan

Ali Mirsepassi

Hosted by Kaveh Rafie
The Discovery of Iran: Taghi Arani, a Radical Cosmopolitan (Stanford UP, 2021), opens with a fascinating passage about the 1934 decree whereby foreign delegates were instructed to refer to the country as …
Gender Studies July 27, 2022

How to Be Authentic

Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment

Skye Cleary

Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Skye C. Cleary is a philosopher, writer and university teacher. In her new book How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) …
Religion July 25, 2022

The Story of Religion in America

An Introduction

James P Byrd and James Hudnut-Beumler

Hosted by Jackson Reinhardt
The Story of Religion in America: An Introduction (Westminster John Knox Press, 2021) presents the broad scope of the story of religion in the American colonies and the United States. While …