Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchNaomi Kanakia, "What's So Great About the Great Books?: Why You Should Read Classic Literature (Even Though It Might Destroy You) (Princeton UP, 2026)
Episode 1898
Writer Naomi Kanakia has spent her adult life reading the so-called “great books,” those classic works of literature which are–depending who you ask–…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Margaret E. Farrar and Adam Kaul, "Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)
Episode 1897
Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest (U Nebraska Press, 2026) centers on the tiny community of Bishop Hill,…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Edward T. G. Anderson, "Hindu Nationalism in the Indian Diaspora: Transnational Politics and British Multiculturalism" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Episode 1896
Hindu nationalism is transforming India as an increasingly dominant ideology and political force. But it is also a global phenomenon, with section…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Max Perry Mueller, "Wakara's America: The Life and Legacy of a Native Founder of the American West" (Basic Books, 2025)
Episode 1895
In the mid-19th century, anyone who was anyone in the American West had heard of the Ute leader Wakara. Yet, by the early twenty first century, his s…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Georgia Kernell, "Inside Parties: How Party Rules Shape Membership and Responsiveness" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Episode 1894
Inside Parties: How Party Rules Shape Membership and Responsiveness (Cambridge UP, 2025) by Georgia Kernell examines how party rules determine how pa…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Carly Thomsen, "Reproductive Justice, Queerly" (U California Press, 2026)
Episode 1893
Queer theory and reproductive justice need each other—now more than ever. As liberals and leftists increasingly frame reproductive justice in terms o…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
Valena Beety, "Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity" (New Press, 2026)
Episode 1892
A woman miscarries—and is charged with murder. A new mother tests positive for a drug her hospital administered—and loses custody of her newborn. F…
2 months, 3 weeks ago
James W. Cortada, "Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Episode 1891
Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times (Bloomsbury, 2025) describes tacit knowledge, what it is, how i…
2 months, 4 weeks ago
Luca Anceschi, "Pandemic Politics in Central Asia: Authoritarian Contagion" (Routledge, 2026)
Episode 1890
Pandemic Politics in Central Asia: Authoritarian Contagion (Routledge, 2026) examines how the authoritarian regimes of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and …
2 months, 4 weeks ago
Virginia McGee Richards, "The Inner Passage: An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway" (MIT Press, 2026)
Episode 1889
Some of the earliest canals in colonial America, referred to as the Inner Passage, were constructed by enslaved people living in the Lowcountry of …
2 months, 4 weeks ago