Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchTullia d'Aragona, "The Wretch, Otherwise Known As Guerrino" (Iter Press, 2024)
Episode 37
This is an unabridged bilingual, fully annotated edition of Tullia d’Aragona’s epic poem The Wretch. This mid-century epic reflects the many historical and religious changes taking place in the first…
Published on 17 hours ago
Machiya, Seikatsu Bunka, and Changing Domestic Culture in the Japanese Urban Environment
Kyoto is known as a pinnacle of Japanese history and culture, drawing visitors of more than double its resident population many times over every year. In this and the subsequent episode we explore Ky…
Published on 17 hours ago
Ulinka Rublack, "Dürer's Coats: Renaissance Men and Material Cultures of Social Recognition" (CEU Press, 2025)
Jana Byars meets one of her academic heroes when Ulinka Rublack joins her to talk about Dürer's Coats: Renaissance Men and Material Cultures of Social Recognition (Routledge, 2025). During the Renais…
Published on 17 hours ago
Matthew A. Tattar, "Innovation and Adaptation in War" (MIT Press, 2025)
Episode 313
An analysis of advances in military technology that illustrates the importance of organizational flexibility in both an attacker’s innovations and an opponent’s adaptations.
How important is military …
Published on 17 hours ago
Chaim Gingold, "Building SimCity: How to Put the World in a Machine" (MIT Press, 2024)
Episode 56
Building SimCity explores the history of computer simulation by chronicling one of the most influential simulation games ever made: SimCity. As author Chaim Gingold explains, Will Wright, the visiona…
Published on 17 hours ago
Aubrey Gabel, "The Politics of Play: Oulipo and the Legacy of French Literary Ludics" (Northwestern UP, 2025)
Episode 158
Showing the political importance of play in postwar French literature In postwar France, authors approached writing ludically, placing rules and conditions on language and on the context of compositi…
Published on 17 hours ago
Graham Harman, "Waves and Stones: The Continuous and the Discontinuous in Human Thought" (Allen Lane, 2025)
Episode 390
A new exploration of our conception of reality, by one of the world’s most influential philosophers.
How do we understand the world and our place in it? Do our lives consist of a small number of drama…
Published on 17 hours ago
John Tolan, "Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Episode 369
A concise new narrative history of Islam that draws on the transformative insights of recent research to emphasize the diversity and dynamism of the tradition. Today’s Muslim world has been experienc…
Published on 17 hours ago
Somia Sadiq, "Gajarah" (GFB, 2025)
With stunning lyricism, Somia Sadiq's Gajarah (GFB, 2025) tells the story of a fearless woman torn between two worlds-Pakistan and Canada-whose life is upended by sexual violence. Emahn is big haired…
Published on 1 day, 17 hours ago
Joseph L Graves, "Why Black People Die Sooner: What Medicine Gets Wrong about Race and How to Fix It" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Episode 227
Why Black People Die Sooner is a powerful and rigorous examination of the ways racism shapes health and disease. Joseph L. Graves Jr. demonstrates that the medical profession still fails to grasp bas…
Published on 1 day, 17 hours ago