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South Asian Studies May 30, 2023

A Part Apart

The Life and Thought of B. R. Ambedkar

Ashok Gopal

Hosted by Rituparna Patgiri
Listen:
Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) is perhaps the most iconised historical figure in India. Born into a caste deemed ‘unfit for human association’, he came to define what it means to be human. How and why did Ambedkar, who revered and cited the Gita till the 1930s, turn against Hinduism? What were his quarrels with Gandhi and Savarkar? Why did he come to see himself as Moses? How did the lessons …
Science, Technology, and Society May 29, 2023

The Possibility of Life

Science, Imagination and Our Vision of the Cosmos

Jaime Green

Hosted by John Traphagan
Listen:
In this episode we talk to Jaime Green about her superb cultural and scientific exploration of alien life and the cosmos. It examines how the possibility of life on other planets shapes our understanding …
Biblical Studies May 28, 2023

Armageddon

What the Bible Really Says about the End

Bart D. Ehrman

Hosted by Frances Sacks
A New York Times bestselling Biblical scholar, reveals why our popular understanding of the Apocalypse is all wrong—and why that matters.You’ll find nearly everything the Bible has to say about the …
General History May 27, 2023

The West

A New History of an Old Idea

Naoíse Mac Sweeney

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Dr. Naoíse Mac Sweeney presents a radical new account of how the idea of the West has shaped our history, told through the stories of fourteen fascinating lives in her …
Islamic Studies May 26, 2023

Broken

The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion

Evelyn Alsultany

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion (NYU Press, 2022), Evelyn Alsultany, Professor at the University of Southern California, argues that, even amid challenges to institutionalized Islamophobia, diversity initiatives …
Women's History May 25, 2023

The Suffragist Peace

How Women's Votes Lead to Fewer Wars

Robert F. Trager and Joslyn N. Barnhart

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
In the modern age, some parts of the world are experiencing a long peace. Nuclear weapons, capitalism and the widespread adoption of democratic institutions have been credited with fostering this …
Chinese Studies May 24, 2023

Reproductive Realities in Modern China

Birth Control and Abortion, 1911-2021

Sarah Mellors Rodriguez

Hosted by Laurie Dickmeyer
In Reproductive Realities in Modern China: Birth Control and Abortion, 1911-2021 (Cambridge UP, 2022), assistant professor of history at Missouri State University, Sarah Mellors Rodriguez explores the longue durée history …
Medieval History May 23, 2023

Rome and the Invention of the Papacy

The Liber Pontificalis

Rosamond McKitterick

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
The remarkable, and permanently influential, papal history known as the Liber pontificalis shaped perceptions and the memory of Rome, the popes, and the many-layered past of both city and papacy …
Political Science May 22, 2023

Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood

White Women, Class, and Segregation

Rebecca Brückmann

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation (U Georgia Press, 2021) offers a comparative sociocultural and spatial history of white supremacist women involved in massive resistance. The …
Science, Technology, and Society May 21, 2023

We Have Always Been Cyborgs

Digital Data, Gene Technologies, and an Ethics of Transhumanism

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner

Hosted by Frances Sacks
The concept of transhumanism emerged in the middle of the 20th century, and has influenced discussions around AI, brain–computer interfaces, genetic technologies and life extension. Despite its enduring influence in …
Political Science May 20, 2023

The State

Philip Pettit

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
In The State (Princeton University Press, 2023), the prominent political philosopher Philip Pettit embarks on a massive undertaking, offering a major new account of the foundations of the state and …
Media May 19, 2023

City of Newsmen

Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington

Kathryn J. McGarr

Hosted by James Kates
Kathryn McGarr’s City of Newsmen: Public Lies and Professional Secrets in Cold War Washington (U Chicago Press, 2022) explores foreign policy journalism in Washington during and after World War II—a …
Interpretive Political and Social Science May 18, 2023

Freedom Inside?

Yoga and Meditation in the Carceral State

Farah Godrej

Hosted by Nick Cheesman
Are meditation and yoga offered to prisoners merely to have them acquiesce to being incarcerated and degraded? Or can they help prisoners interrogate the political and social structures that incarcerate …
Chinese Studies May 17, 2023

The Dean of Shandong

Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University

Daniel A. Bell

Hosted by Keith Krueger
I am not now nor at any time have ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet I serve as dean of a large faculty of political …
Politics & Polemics May 16, 2023

Naked Feminism

Breaking the Cult of Female Modesty

Victoria Bateman

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Is it right that, despite the promises of feminism, women’s bodies remain at the mercy of state, society and religion? Should a scantily clad woman, or a promiscuous one, be …
Economics May 15, 2023

The Power of Hope

How the Science of Well-Being Can Save Us from Despair

Carol Graham

Hosted by Joseph Tasca
In a society marked by extreme inequality of income and opportunity, why should economists care about how people feel? The truth is that feelings of well-being are critical metrics that …
French Studies May 14, 2023

Cacaphonies

The Excremental Canon of French Literature

Annabel L. Kim

Hosted by Roxanne Panchasi
Annabel Kim's second book*, Cacaphonies: The Excremental Canon of French Literature (University of Minnesota Press, 2022) digs into fecal matter as a preoccupation of modern French literature. Inspired by the author's observations …
American South May 13, 2023

30 Days a Black Man

The Forgotten Story That Exposed the Jim Crow South

Bill Steigerwald

Hosted by Boris Karpa
The dangerous, trailblazing work of a white journalist and black leader who struck a shocking early blow against legal segregation In 1948, most white people in the North had no …
European Politics May 12, 2023

The Russo-Ukrainian War

The Return of History

Serhii Plokhy

Hosted by Tim Jones
"The Ukrainian nation will emerge from this war more united and certain of its identity than at any other point in its modern history," writes Serhii Plokhy at the end of …
Early Modern History May 11, 2023

An Artful Relic

The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy

Andrew R. Casper

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
In 1578, a fourteen-foot linen sheet bearing the faint bloodstained imprint of a human corpse was presented to tens of thousands of worshippers in Turin, Italy, as one of the …