Thomas J. Barfield, "Shadow Empires: An Alternative Imperial History" (Princeton UP, 2023)
Empires are one of the most common forms of political structure in history—yet no empire is alike. We have our “standard” view of empire: perhaps the Romans, or the China of the Qin and Han Dynasties—...
1 Mar 202449min
Terry Williams, "Life Underground: Encounters with People Below the Streets of New York" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Aboveground, Manhattan’s Riverside Park provides open space for the densely populated Upper West Side. Beneath its surface run railroad tunnels, disused for decades, where over the years unhoused peop...
1 Mar 202427min
Steve Ferzacca, "Sonic City: Making Rock Music and Urban Life in Singapore" (NUS Press, 2021)
The basement of a veteran shopping mall located in the central business district of Singapore affords opportunities to a group of amateur and semi-professional musicians, of different ethnicities, age...
29 Feb 20241h 6min
Ina Marie Lunde Ilkama, "The Play of the Feminine" (HASP, 2023)
In Tamil Nadu, the nine-night autumnal Navarātri festival can be viewed as a celebration of feminine powers in association with the goddess. Ina Marie Lunde Ilkama's book The Play of the Feminine (HAS...
29 Feb 202442min
Alessandro Gerosa, "The Hipster Economy: Taste and Authenticity in Late Modern Capitalism (UCL Press, 2024)
Today, being authentic has become an aspiration and an imperative. The notion of authenticity shapes the consumption habits of individuals in the most diverse contexts such as food and drinks, clothin...
27 Feb 202449min
Mai Corlin, "The Bishan Commune and the Practice of Socially Engaged Art in Rural China" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)
On the podcast today, I am joined by Mai Corlin, who is researcher at the department of cross-cultural and regional studies in the University of Copenhagen. Mai will be talking about her new book, The...
26 Feb 202451min
Yanis Varoufakis, "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism" (Melville House, 2023)
In Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism (Melville House, 2023), Yanis Varoufakis argues that capitalism is dead and a new economic era has begun. Insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float...
26 Feb 202452min
Calla Hummel, "Why Informal Workers Organize: Contentious Politics, Enforcement, and the State" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Informal workers make up over two billion workers or about 50 percent of the global workforce, and yet scholarly understandings of informal workers’ political and civil society participation remain li...
25 Feb 202453min
