Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchJames Davison Hunter, "Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis" (Yale UP, 2024)
Episode 139
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that…
1 year, 2 months ago
Sam Wetherell, "Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Episode 521
What does the history of Liverpool tell us about the future of Britain? In Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain (Bloomsbury, 2025), Sam Wetherall, a…
1 year, 2 months ago
Ståle Holgersen, "Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World" (Verso, 2024)
Episode 522
In Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World (Verso, 2024), Ståle Holgersen develops a conceptualization of 'crisis' that moves beyo…
1 year, 2 months ago
Chiara Calzana and Valentina Gamberi, "Haunting Ruins: Ethnographies of Ruination and Decay" (Berghahn Books, 2025)
Episode 359
In the contemporary world, ruins, rubble, and decaying material have become increasingly iconic landscapes. They can foster a more layered theory of …
1 year, 2 months ago
Anna Maria Busse Berger and Henry Spiller, "Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago" (U California Press, 2025)
Episode 358
Although the history of Indonesian music has received much attention from ethnomusicologists and Western composers alike, almost nothing has been wri…
1 year, 2 months ago
Tuomas Tammisto, "Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier" (Helsinki UP, 2024)
On the podcast today I am joined by socio-cultural anthropologist, Tuomas Tammisto, who is an academy research fellow in Social Anthropology at Tampe…
1 year, 2 months ago
Adam J. Berinsky, "Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Episode 150
Political rumors and misinformation pollute the political landscape. This is not a recent phenomenon; before the currently rampant and unfounded rumo…
1 year, 2 months ago
Becky Yang Hsu, "The Extraordinary in the Mundane: Family and Forms of Community in China" (Columbia UP, 2024)
How do individuals address serious challenges in a context where organized gatherings are subject to strict government control? This new edited volum…
1 year, 2 months ago
We Have Never Been Woke: A Conversation with Musa al-Gharbi
Why does occupation reliably predict political leanings? What is social capitalism, and how does it span income classes? If social capitalists are si…
1 year, 2 months ago
Tiffany D. Joseph, "Not All In: Race, Immigration, and Health Care Exclusion in the Age of Obamacare" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025)
Episode 410
Despite progressive policy strides in health care reform, immigrant communities continue to experience stark disparities across the United States. In…
1 year, 2 months ago