Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchThe Technocratic International: Experts and the Making of a World from Nowhere with Jan Eijking (Oxford UP, 2026)
Episode 1531
Most international organisations today-from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the World Health Organisation-present themselves as tech…
2 weeks, 6 days ago
The Biggest Lie: The Prehistory of American Fascism, 1818-1915
Episode 1529
When American fascists suddenly goose-stepped down Main Street in the 1930s, fascism was seen by the rest of the country as a terrifying and radical …
3 weeks ago
Learning Under Algorithmic Conditions with Elizabeth de Freitas, Matthew X. Curinga, and Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
Episode 1528
What does it mean to learn when algorithms increasingly shape how knowledge is produced, organized, and interpreted? Editors Elizabeth de Freitas, Ma…
3 weeks, 1 day ago
Soviet Blocks: The Bizarre Puzzle of How Tetris Embraced Western Values with Julien Mailland (MIT Press, 2026)
Episode 1527
A geopolitical and legal history of the bestselling videogame Tetris—the stunningly successful game that began in a Soviet research lab monitored by …
3 weeks, 3 days ago
The Hypocrisy Trap: How Changing What We Criticize Can Improve Our Lives with Michael Hallsworth (MIT Press, 2026)
Episode 1526
In our increasingly distrusting and polarized world, accusations of hypocrisy are everywhere. But our attempts to stamp out hypocrisy may backfire, …
3 weeks, 4 days ago
Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control with Kelly Lytle Hernández (Norton, 2026)
Episode 1523
Kelly Lytle Hernández joins Michael Stauch to discuss how the US immigration system has always been “racist by design.” Many Americans’ understanding…
3 weeks, 5 days ago
Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing with Rahim Kurwa (U California Press, 2025)
Episode 1525
In this episode, Lilyanna D'Amato speaks with Rahim Kurwa about his book Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing (U California P…
3 weeks, 6 days ago
The Range of the River: A Riverine History of Empire Across China, India, and Southeast Asia with Iftekhar Iqbal (Stanford UP, 2025)
Episode 1524
Six great Asian river systems have their origins in the Tibetan glacial region: the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy, the Salween, the Mekong, the Red and …
4 weeks ago
Strong State, Weak Links: Eugenics and the Southern Politics of Welfare with Anna Krome-Lukens (UNC Press, 2026)
Episode 1522
In the early twentieth century, most US states established eugenics programs to improve the human race through selective breeding. North Carolina ran…
4 weeks, 1 day ago
Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey's Kurdish Borderlands with Fırat Bozçalı (Stanford UP, 2025)
Episode 1521
The Kurdish-populated Wan/Van Province is a major smuggling hub between Turkey and Iran. Kurdish smugglers cross this 180-mile-long land border, tran…
1 month ago