Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchPaul G. Keil, "The Presence of Elephants: Shared Lives and Landscapes in Assam" (Routledge, 2024)
Episode 407
How to dwell in a forest alongside giants, avoid disturbing a living god, assist an animal with their manners, and help an elephant cross the road. T…
1 year, 2 months ago
Noam Leshem, "Edges of Care: Living and Dying in No Man's Land" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Episode 294
“No man’s land” invokes stretches of barren landscape, twisted barbed wire, desolation, and the devastation of war. But this is not always the realit…
1 year, 2 months ago
Laureen D. Hom, "The Power of Chinatown: Searching for Spatial Justice in Los Angeles" (U California Press, 2024)
Episode 180
Chinatown neighborhoods in the United States are about more than restaurants, shops, and architecture, argues San Jose State urban studies associate …
1 year, 2 months ago
Sybil Derrible, "The Infrastructure Book: How Cities Work and Power Our Lives" (Prometheus Books, 2025)
Episode 44
Clean water, paved roads, public transit, electricity and gas, sewers, waste processing, telecommunication, even the Internet – all this infrastructu…
1 year, 2 months ago
Raheel Dhattiwala, "Keeping the Peace: Spatial Differences in Hindu-Muslim Violence in Gujarat in 2002" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
Episode 267
In times of extreme violence, what explains peace in some places? This book investigates geographic variation in Hindu-Muslim violence in Gujarat in …
1 year, 2 months ago
The Internet, Power, and the Deep State: Zeynep Tufekci on Technology and Democracy Today
Episode 161
As the second Trump administration reshapes the U.S. government and its role in the world, how do technology, media, and political power intersect? I…
1 year, 2 months ago
Eeva Luhtakallio et al., "Youth Participation and Democracy: Cultures of Doing Society" (Bristol UP, 2024)
Episode 406
How do young people participate in democratic societies? Youth Participation and Democracy: Cultures of Doing Society (Bristol UP, 2024) introduces t…
1 year, 2 months ago
Kelly Alexander, "Truffles and Trash: Recirculating Food in a Social Welfare State" (UNC Press, 2024)
Episode 168
On a fragile planet with spreading food insecurity, food waste is a political and ethical problem. Examining the collaborative, sometimes scrappy ins…
1 year, 2 months ago
Ting Guo, "Religion, Secularism, and Love As a Political Discourse in Modern China" (Amsterdam UP, 2025)
Episode 108
What is the meaning of love in modern Chinese politics? Why has 愛 ai (love) been a crucial political discourse for secular nationalism for generation…
1 year, 2 months ago
Gary D. Jaworski, "Erving Goffman and the Cold War" (Lexington Books, 2023)
Episode 405
Erving Goffman has always seen as somewhat of an enigma by sociologists and historians of the discipline. In his provocative new book Erving Goffman …
1 year, 2 months ago