Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchJoshua Paul Dale, "Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World" (Profile Books, 2023)
Episode 181
Why are some things cute, and others not? What happens to our brains when we see something cute? And how did cuteness go global, from Hello Kitty to …
2 years, 2 months ago
Anru Lee, "Haunted Modernities: Gender, Memory, and Placemaking in Postindustrial Taiwan" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)
Episode 84
On the podcast today, I am joined by Professor Anru Lee, who is professor of anthropology at John Jay College, the City University of New York. Anru …
2 years, 3 months ago
John Horgan, "Terrorist Minds: The Psychology of Violent Extremism from Al-Qaeda to the Far Right" ( Columbia UP, 2023)
Episode 112
What makes a person want to become a terrorist? Who becomes involved in terrorism, and why? In what ways does participating in violent extremism chan…
2 years, 3 months ago
Steven High, "Deindustrializing Montreal: Entangled Histories of Race, Residence, and Class" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
Episode 22
Point Saint-Charles, a historically white working-class neighborhood with a strong Irish and French presence, and Little Burgundy, a multiracial neig…
2 years, 3 months ago
Bryce Henson, "Emergent Quilombos: Black Life and Hip-Hop in Brazil" (U Texas Press, 2023)
Episode 283
Known as Black Rome, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, is a predominantly Black city. The local art, food, and dance are closely linked to the population's …
2 years, 3 months ago
Calvin John Smiley, "Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition" (U California Press, 2023)
Episode 21
In Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition (University of California Press, 2023), Calvin John Smiley explores the lives of people who we…
2 years, 3 months ago
Hedwig Amelia Waters, "Moral Economic Transitions in the Mongolian Borderlands: A Proportional Share" (UCL Press, 2023)
Episode 513
In the early 1990s, Mongolia began a transition from socialism to a market democracy. In the process, the country became more than ever dependent on …
2 years, 3 months ago
Youjin B. Chung, "Sweet Deal, Bitter Landscape: Gender Politics and Liminality in Tanzania's New Enclosures" (Cornell UP, 2024)
Episode 233
During the “global land grab” of the early twenty-first century, legions of investors rushed to Africa to acquire land to produce and speculate on ag…
2 years, 3 months ago
Vani Kant Borooah, "Economics, Religion and Happiness: God, Mammon and the Search for Spiritual and Financial Wealth" (Routledge, 2023)
Episode 219
Many books on happiness suggest that we have considerable control over our level of happiness by doing or not doing specific things, like mediation, …
2 years, 3 months ago
Lisa L. Phillips et al., "Grassroots Activisms: Public Rhetorics in Localized Contexts" (Ohio State UP, 2024)
Episode 174
What is the nature of grassroots activism? How and why do individuals get involved or attempt to make change for themselves, others, or their own com…
2 years, 3 months ago