Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchT. Corey Brennan, "The Fasces: A History of Ancient Rome's Most Dangerous Political Symbol" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Episode 1418
"Fascism" is a word ubiquitous in our contemporary political discourse, but few know about its roots in the ancient past or its long, strange evoluti…
2 years, 8 months ago
Meredith Martin and Gillian Weiss, "The Sun King at Sea: Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV's France" (Getty, 2022)
Episode 155
Mediterranean maritime art and the forced labour on which it depended were fundamental to the politics and propaganda of France’s King Louis XIV (r. …
2 years, 8 months ago
Criticism
Episode 139
In this episode of High Theory, Matt Seybold tells us about Criticism, the glue that holds the bricks of culture together. Cultural critics are a nec…
2 years, 8 months ago
Ed Simon, "Relic" (Bloomsbury. 2024)
Episode 284
Object Lessons is a Bloomsbury series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book, Relic, by Dr. Ed Sim…
2 years, 8 months ago
Ana Lucia Araujo, "The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Episode 180
The Gift: How Objects of Prestige Shaped the Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism (Cambridge University Press, 2023) explores how objects of prestige…
2 years, 8 months ago
Devin Griffiths and Deanna Kreisel, "After Darwin: Literature, Theory, and Criticism in the Twenty-First Century" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Episode 278
Creative storytelling is the beating heart of Darwin's science. All of Darwin's writings drew on information gleaned from a worldwide network of scie…
2 years, 8 months ago
Dustin Kiskaddon, "Blood and Lightening: On Becoming a Tattooer" (Stanford UP, 2023)
Episode 338
Any tattoo is the outcome of an intimate, often hidden process. The people, bodies, and money that make tattooing what it is blend together and form …
2 years, 9 months ago
Sabina Andron, "Urban Surfaces, Graffiti, and the Right to the City" (Routledge, 2024)
Episode 20
Sabina Andron's book Urban Surfaces, Graffiti, and the Right to the City (Routledge, 2024) focuses on urban surfaces, on exploring their authorship a…
2 years, 9 months ago
William L. Bird, "In the Arms of Saguaros: Iconography of the Giant Cactus" (U Arizona Press, 2023)
Episode 152
An essential—and monumental—member of the Sonoran Desert ecosystem, the saguaro cactus has become the quintessential icon of the American West.
In the…
2 years, 9 months ago
Alex Burchmore, "New Export China: Translations Across Time and Place in Contemporary Chinese Porcelain Art" (U California Press, 2023)
Episode 512
Why do so many contemporary Chinese artists use porcelain in their work? How do artists make sense of the legacy that porcelain has in China, and how…
2 years, 9 months ago