Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchA Very Jewish Christmas: When Jesus Spoke Yiddish
Episode 306
It is a curious fact that among the first Yiddish books ever printed was a translation of the New Testament, which appeared in 1540, only 18 years af…
2 months, 1 week ago
Beronda L. Montgomery, "When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy" (Henry Holt & Co.)
Episode 305
The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; syca…
2 months, 1 week ago
Jacob Hagstrom, "Asymmetric Warfare: Politics and Cultures of Violence in the Modern Era" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Episode 304
Asymmetric Warfare: Politics and Cultures of Violence in the Modern Era (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
The forces that fight asymmetric wars are…
2 months, 1 week ago
Tár
Episode 303
Tod Field’s Tár (2022) is one of the best ghost stories we’ve discussed on the show. The story of a troiubled genius, the film is also a wonderfully …
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Jehnie Burns on Mixtape Culture
Episode 302
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with writer and researcher, Jehnie I. Burns about her book, Mixtape Nostalgia: Culture, Memory, and Represen…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Kiara Wyndham, "Diversityland: Hiding Racial Inequality in an American Suburb" (U California Press, 2026)
Episode 301
Fort Bend County, Texas, looks like the America we claim to want: a suburb where Black, White, Asian, and Latinx families share cul-de-sacs, schoo…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Jeana Jorgensen, "Sex Education 101: Approachable Essays on Folklore, Culture, & History" (Fox Folk Press, 2023)
Episode 300
Do you look back at your sex ed classes and wonder WTF?! Are you a parent looking at your kid’s curriculum and asking the same question?
Sex Educat…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Amihai Mazar and Nava Panitz-Cohen, "Tel Rehov: A Bronze and Iron Age City in the Beth-Shean Valle" (The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University, 2020)
Episode 299
This interview with Professor Amihai Mazar was conducted by Željko Stanojević for the New Books Network. The conversation focuses on Tel Reḥov: A Bro…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Ting Hui Lau, "Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism" (Stanford UP, 2026)
Episode 298
A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How do pe…
2 months, 2 weeks ago
Karène Sanchez Summerer and Sary Zananiri eds., "Palestine in Transition: Frank Scholten's Visual Archive of the British Mandate Period" (CEU Press, 2026)
Episode 297
In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) talks with Karène Sanchez Summerer and Sary Zananiri, the editors of Palestine in Transition: Frank …
2 months, 2 weeks ago