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Geography
American West December 7, 2022

Cheap Land Colorado

Off-Gridders at America's Edge

Ted Conover

Hosted by Daniel Moran
Today I talked to Ted Conover, author of Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America's Edge (Knopf, 2022) In May 2017, Conover went to Colorado to explore firsthand a rural way of …

Geography

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Law December 3, 2022

The Spaces of Mental Capacity Law

Moving Beyond Binaries

Beverley Clough

Hosted by Jane Richards
This book cuts new ground, challenging the assumption of law as an objective concept. It draws out the way that binary frameworks situate and create the notion of the individual in …
Geography December 3, 2022

Unpayable Debt

Denise Ferreira Da Silva

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
Unpayable Debt (Sternberg Press, 2022) examines the relationships among coloniality, raciality, and global capital from a black feminist “poethical” perspective. Inspired by Octavia E. Butler's 1979 sci-fi novel Kindred, in …
Sociology December 2, 2022

Egypt's Housing Crisis

The Shaping of Urban Space

Yahia Shawkat

Hosted by Rituparna Patgiri
Along with football and religion, housing is a fundamental cornerstone of Egyptian life: it can make or break marriage proposals, invigorate or slow down the economy, and popularize or embarrass …
Japanese Studies December 2, 2022

Ryokan

Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan

Chris McMorran

Hosted by John Traphagan
Today I talked to Chris McMorran about his new book Ryokan: Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2022). Amid the decline of many of Japan’s rural communities, the hot springs …
Recall This Book December 1, 2022

The Nature of the Future

A Discussion with Elizabeth Kolbert

Elizabeth Kolbert

Hosted by Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz
How should humans respond to our ongoing human-made climate catastrophe? To answer that question, Recall this Book turned to prize-winning climate reporter Elizabeth Kolbert, who visited Brandeis this Fall. The …
Middle Eastern Studies November 30, 2022

Protesting Jordan

Geographies of Power and Dissent

Jillian Schwedler

Hosted by Ronay Bakan
Protest has been a key method of political claim-making in Jordan from the late Ottoman period to the present day. More than moments of rupture within normal-time politics, protests have …
African Studies November 29, 2022

Space, Place and Identity

Wodaabe of Niger in the 21st Century

Florian Köhler

Hosted by Maggie Freeman
Known as highly mobile cattle nomads, the Wodaabe in Niger are today increasingly engaged in a transformation process towards a more diversified livelihood based primarily on agro-pastoralism and urban work …
Asian Review of Books November 24, 2022

Himalaya

Exploring the Roof of the World

John Keay

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
“History has not been kind to Himalaya,” writes historian and travel writer John Keay in his latest book Himalaya: Exploring the Roof of the World (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022). The region …
American Studies November 23, 2022

A Great and Rising Nation

Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic

Michael A. Verney

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic (University of Chicago Press, 2022) by Dr. Michael A. Verney illuminates the unexplored early decades …
British Studies November 18, 2022

The History of the London Underground Map

Caroline Roope

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Few transportation maps can boast the pedigree that London’s iconic ‘Tube’ map can. Sported on t-shirts, keyrings, duvet covers, and most recently, downloaded an astonishing twenty million times in app …
World Affairs November 14, 2022

Spatializing Authoritarianism

Natalie Koch

Hosted by Geoffrey Gordon
How do authoritarian political leaders use the built environment to shape understandings of national identity and history? How do major urban development projects affect the political fortunes of authoritarian governments …
Caribbean Studies November 7, 2022

Natural Disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean

Coping with Calamity

June Carolyn Erlick

Hosted by Aleem Mahabir
In Natural Disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean: Coping with Calamity (Routledge, 2021), June Carolyn Erlick explores the relationship between natural disasters and civil society, immigration and diaspora communities …
Anthropology November 4, 2022

Subaltern Frontiers

Agrarian City-Making in Gurgaon

Thomas G. Cowan

Hosted by Garima Jaju
In urban and peri-urban areas across the Global South, politicians, planners and developers are engaged in a voracious scramble to refashion land for global real estate investment and transfer state …
Geography November 1, 2022

In the Midst of Things

The Social Lives of Objects in the Public Spaces of New York City

Mike Owen Benediktsson

Hosted by Stentor Danielson
How ordinary urban objects influence our behavior, exacerbate inequality, and encourage social change Assumptions about human behavior lie hidden in plain sight all around us, programmed into the design and …
Economic and Business History October 31, 2022

Geography Is Destiny

Britain and the World: A 10,000-Year History

Ian Morris

Hosted by Javier Mejia
In Geography Is Destiny: Britain and the World--A 10,000-Year History (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2022), Ian Morris chronicles the eight-thousand-year history of Britain's relationship to Europe as it has changed in …
Science, Technology, and Society October 17, 2022

The Digital Border

Migration, Technology, Power

Lilie Chouliaraki and Myria Georgiou

Hosted by Padmapriya Govindarajan
How do digital technologies shape the experiences and meanings of migration? As the numbers of people fleeing war, poverty, and environmental disaster reach unprecedented levels worldwide, states also step up …
Literary Studies October 14, 2022

Space, Utopia and Indian Decolonization

Literary Pre-Figurations of the Postcolony

Sandeep Banerjee

Hosted by Gargi Binju
Sandeep Banerjee's book Space, Utopia and Indian Decolonization: Literary Pre-Figurations of the Postcolony (Routledge, 2021) illuminates the spatial utopianism of South Asian anti-colonial texts by showing how they refuse colonial spatial …
Sociology October 12, 2022

The Social Significance of Dining Out

A Study of Continuity and Change

Alan Warde, Jessica Paddock, and Jennifer Whillans

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Dining out used to be considered exceptional. However, the Food Standards Authority reported that in 2014, one meal in six was eaten away from home in Britain. Previously considered a …
Anthropology October 12, 2022

Contesting Race and Citizenship

Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean

Camilla Hawthorne

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean (Cornell University Press, 2022) is an original study of Black politics and varieties of political mobilization in Italy. Although there is extensive …