Environmental Studies

Environmental Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of the environment about their new books.

Andrew Flachs, "Feeding the World as If People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

July 24, 2026

Feeding the World as If People Mattered

Andrew Flachs

Backyard gardens flush with cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers where bees buzz and chickens scratch. Beyond, a forest filled with blackberries and jewel…

Maria Pinto, "Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival" (UNC Press, 2026)

July 21, 2026

Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless

Maria Pinto
Hosted by Sullivan Summer

In Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival (University …

Timothy Mitchell, "The Alibi of Capital: How We Broke the Earth to Steal the Future on the Promise of a Better Tomorrow" (Verso, 2026)

July 21, 2026

The Alibi of Capital:

Timothy Mitchell
Hosted by Thomas Kingston

Stealing the future and concealing the theft—capitalism’s method, as examined by the author of the acclaimed Carbon Democracy Today, extraordinary wea…

Elana Resnick, "Refusing Sustainability: Race and Environmentalism in a Changing Europe" (Stanford UP, 2025)

July 19, 2026

Refusing Sustainability

Elana Resnick

Sustainability has become a touchstone for development worldwide, promising an antidote to environmental degradation and capitalism's excess: waste. R…

Georgia Holly et al, .eds., "Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond"  (U Edinburgh Press, 2025)

July 18, 2026

Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond

Georgia Holly, Jon Henderson, Arturo Rey da Silva, Annie Edwards, Hannah Cocks, and Athena Trakadas
Hosted by Helen Dewar

Heritage in the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) and Beyond (U Edinburgh Press, 2025) outlines the need to embed Oce…

Angela Frederick, "Disabled Power: A Storm, A Grid, and Embodied Harm in the Age of Disaster" (NYU Press, 2025)

July 18, 2026

Disabled Power

Angela Frederick
Hosted by Shu Wan

A call to place disability at the center of climate and disaster responsesEvery disaster is a disability disaster, argues Angela Frederick. Disabled P…

Gretchen Heefner, "Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

July 18, 2026

Sand, Snow, and Stardust

Gretchen Heefner
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Deserts, the Arctic, outer space—these extreme environments are often seen as inhospitable places at the edges of our maps. But from the 1940s thr…

Spirituality, Science and Environmentalism in Taiwan

July 16, 2026

Spirituality, Science and Environmentalism in Taiwan

Koen Wellens

Who is Shennong, the Divine Farmer? And how can he help us understand the intricate relationships between spirituality, science and environmentalism i…

Mary E. Mendoza, "Deadly Divide: How Insects, Pathogens, and People Defied the US-Mexico Border" (UNC Press, 2026)

July 11, 2026

Deadly Divide

Mary E. Mendoza
Hosted by Stephen Hausmann

As many as ten thousand people attempt to illegally cross the border between the US and Mexico each month, braving deserts, rivers, and other environm…

Ali Fard, "Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

July 10, 2026

Grounding the Cloud

Ali Fard
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Since the 1990s, technologists have promoted a vision of the “cloud” as a shapeless and intangible entity. Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow…

Meena Khandelwal, "Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women's Technology in India" (U Arizona Press, 2026)

July 8, 2026

Cookstove Chronicles

Meena Khandelwal
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Stove improvers have been designing and promoting “clean” or “efficient” biomass cookstoves in India since the 1940s and have been frustrated to …

Sadiah Qureshi, "Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction" (Penguin, 2025)

July 4, 2026

Vanished

Sadiah Qureshi
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Anyone alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living: over 90% of species that ever existed are now extinct. How did we come to think of…

Making Microbes Explicit

July 3, 2026

54 Making Microbes Explicit

Sarah Elton and Maya Hey
Hosted by Gastronomica

This episode takes listeners into the latest issues of Gastronomica, with a special feature on microbes. Sarah Elton and Maya Hey talk with Dan Bender…

Audio and Ideas Panel #3

July 3, 2026

Audio and Ideas Panel #3

Allison Carruth and Ellen Horne

This is a special edition of the New York Institute for the Humanities’ Vault podcast. On May 13, 2026, Princeton’s Center for Human Values hosted a d…

Shawn William Miller, "Dream Road to Pan America: A Century in Pursuit of the World's Longest Highway" (U California Press, 2026)

June 29, 2026

Dream Road to Pan America

Shawn William Miller
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

A century after the Pan-American Highway was first conceived, its story remains largely unknown—even to the hundreds of motorists who annually attempt…

Susannah Crockford, "A Perturbed System: Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

June 29, 2026

A Perturbed System

Susannah Crockford
Hosted by Gregory Soden

Our ecological system is disturbed, and with it, every other system we’ve built to inhabit it. We do not face inevitable destruction, yet many of us c…

Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context

June 26, 2026

Christian Environmentalism in a Hindu Majoritarian Context

Why has the Catholic Church in India become so engaged in environmental initiatives? And what does the wider Indian political context defined by an as…

Introducing Periodically: A UC Press Journals Podcast with Journals Director David Famiano

June 25, 2026

Introducing Periodically

David Famiano
Hosted by Jessica Chesnutt

1. A complete list of University of California Press journals is available at UC Press Journals 2. Clare E. B. Cannon; Advancing sustainable transit…

Ciruce A. Movahedi-Lankarani, "Accelerant: Energy Infrastructures and the Natural World in Making Modern Iran" (Stanford UP, 2026)

June 24, 2026

Accelerant

Ciruce A. Movahedi-Lankarani

Between the late 1940s and the end of the twentieth century, natural gas became Iran's bedrock energy source. Billed as a futuristic fuel for a future…

Laura Borghetti and Thomas Arentzen, "Ecologizing Late Ancient and Byzantine Worlds" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

June 22, 2026

Ecologizing Late Ancient and Byzantine Worlds

Laura Borghetti and Thomas Arentzen
Hosted by Michael Motia

How can we study the late ancient and Byzantine history from ecological perspectives? How might one grapple with the more-than-human in sources and me…