Best Anthropology Podcasts (March, 2015)

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Best Anthropology podcasts (updated March 3, 2015). Explore human cultures from big cities to remote jungles.

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Weekly

Published about 11 hours ago

Virtue in the Wasteland Podcast

Culture, religion and ideas that matter.

Every few days

Published 1 day ago

Notebook on Cities and Culture

(Formerly The Marketplace of Ideas.) A world-traveling interview show where Colin Marshall sits down for in-depth conversations with cultural creators, internationalists, and observers of the urban scene about the work they do and the world cities they do it in, from Los Angeles to Osaka to Mexico City to London to Seoul and beyond.

Weekly

Published 11 days ago

New Books in Anthropology

Discussions with Anthropologists about their New Books

Every few months

Published 29 days ago

AnthroPod

AnthroPod is produced by the Society for Cultural Anthropology (http://www.culanth.org). Each episode, we explore what anthropologists and anthropology can teach us about the world and people around us.

Every few months

Published 9 months ago

American Anthropological Association

This podcast delievers current news on information within the discipline of anthropology with a domestic and international focus. Look for our Podcast in the iTunes Music Store.

Episodes

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Overcoming the Absurd

1:05:29 about 12 hours ago

Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto, author of Triumph of the Absurd, discusses ways in which we can apply lessons from Vietnam for today's crises.

Korea Tour: Ruled by the Heart with Andrew Salmon

1:07:45 1 day ago

In Seoul's Susong-dong, Colin talks with Andrew Salmon, author of To the Last Round: The Epic British Stand on the Imjin River, Korea 1951; Scorched Earth, Black Snow: Britain and Australia in the Korean War, 1950; and All That Matters: Modern Korea. They discuss how Korean culture has influenced the names of his cats; the dullness of London by comparison to Seoul, especially in drinking term; the provocative positions he has taken, such as finding the Koreans "a little unfair toward the Japanese"; how he sees the conflict between Korea and Japan over the Dokdo islets; the "drab, miserable-looking" Seoul full of "fierce" people to which martial arts brought him in 1989; the Korean shift from diligence as the sole virtue to diversity of lifestyle; how Korea came to look like a place he could live; why he "wanted answers" from Korea since his time here began; how everything Korean, in this land "ruled by the heart, not the head," opposes everything English; the meaning of the 1988 Olympics...

Korea Tour: Gangbuk Style with Daniel Tudor

1:08:38 6 days ago

In Seoul's Hongdae district, Colin Marshall talks with Daniel Tudor, former Economist correspondent in Korea, co-founder of craft beer pizza pub chain The Booth, author of the books Korea: The Impossible Country, A Geek in Korea, and (with James Pearson) North Korea Confidential. They discuss the difference between Gangnam and Gangbuk style; the recently emerging trend toward Korean nostalgia, and what happens when you pull out an two-year-old mobile phone; what he discovered in Korea during the time of the 2002 World Cup; his time among the "studying machines" that constitute Korean youth, and why so few want to break from that hard-driving mode; education, especially abroad, as a means of "jumping the queue" back in Korea; the greater progressivism he's found among Koreans who've never left the country; why it matters when a foreigner voices the same criticism of Korea that Koreans think; whether he felt any fear of legal action when he publicly stated that Korean beer sucks; why Korean...

Introvert Uprising

1:14:42 8 days ago

Introverts, introversion, C. G. Jung, dreams, and how to live an optimal life as an introvert or someone who loves an introvert. What is the MBTI test and does it matter? Should it lock us in to patterns of life? Dr. Cosgrove is a Prof. of Psychology at Concordia University Irvine. virtueinthewasteland.com This is episode #111.

Korea Tour: One Long Bike Party with Coby Zeifman

1:03:43 9 days ago

In Changwon, "Environmental Capital of South Korea," Colin Marshall talks with Coby Zeifman, former outreach coordinator for Nubija, the city's bike share system. They discuss what makes Changwon a cool town; why a feature like Nubija, despite its impressiveness, needed the kind of outreach he has tried his utmost to provide; Changwon's history as a manufacturing town for the conglomerate LG; what makes it a "Young City," including its plan modeled after Canberra; how the city expanded, and how Nubija expanded along with it; how he got to Korea in the first place, on nothing more than the advice of two friends who already lived there; how "livable" he found Changwon even at first; what makes Nubija inconvenient for foreigners; why so many services in Korea require a Korean cellphone; how Changwon's Nubija compares to Daejeon's Tashu; when he started to get the sense that he could not use Nubija, but contribute to it; how he began Changwon Bike Party (by "Tyler Durdening it"); where he's...

Cabeiri Robinson, “Body of Victim, Body of Warrior: Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadists”

54:06 12 days ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in Islamic Studies] The idea of jihad is among the most keenly discussed yet one of the least understood concepts in Islam. In her brilliant new book Body of Victim, Body of Warrior: Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadists (University of California Press, 2013), Cabeiri Robinson, Associate Professor of International Studies and South Asian Studies at the University of Washington engages the question of what might an anthropology of jihad look like. By shifting the focus from theological and doctrinal discussions on the normative understandings and boundaries of jihad in Islam, Robinson instead asks the question of how people live with perennial violence in their midst? The focus of this book is on the Jihadists of the Kashmir region in the disputed borderlands between India and Pakistan, especially in relation to their experiences as refugees (muhajirs). By combining a riveting ethnography with meticulous historical analysis, Robinson documents...

Korea Tour: ¿Por Qué Corea? with Sofía Ferrero Cárrega

1:05:03 13 days ago

At a coffee house somewhere in Busan, Colin talks with Sofía Ferrero Cárrega, film critic and enthusiast of Korean cinema. They discuss whether she'd recommend other movie-lovers move to Busan; how the Busan International Film Festival attracted her to the city (and the importance of its parties); why, in Busan, "everybody says yes"; the state of Korean film criticism in Spanish; how she first encountered Korean cinema, and how its auteurs got her to know Korea; the bad first impression Korean culture can sometimes give on film; what happens when you mention kimchi in Argentina; why her move to Korea became inevitable; her experience of understanding nothing in Korea even after having studied the language for years before arriving; what makes the dialogue in Hong Sangsoo movies easier to understand than the dialogue in other movies (and why Korea struck her as a real-life Hong Sangsoo movie when she arrived); whether she feels a kinship with Isabelle Huppert's character in In Another Country;...

Giving Up

1:03:01 14 days ago

We're not giving up on this show. But we are talking about ways in which giving something up for a time might be good for us. Just days after Valentine's Day, we ask what's up with Lent? Is it worth giving a shot? Even if we aren't Roman Catholic? Or even religous at all? Jeff explains why he has recently changed his favorite holiday from Ash Wednesday to an unlikely day on the calendar (for him). Dan goes deep into major artists in popular culture, like REM and the Pixies. Listen to find out how (or whether) this all fits together.

Korea Tour: The Biggest Small Town with Jeff Liebsch

1:05:04 16 days ago

Near Busan's Kyungsung University, Colin talks with Jeff Liebsch, managing editor and partner at the magazine Busan Haps. They discuss what makes Korean baseball games more fun than baseball games in the West; the Toronto-Detroit sports divide in his hometown of Windsor; why a disproportionate number of the Westerners in Korea seem to have come from Canada; the difficulty of understanding Busan, and of leaving it; the traces of "country people" Busan's population has retained, even as it has supposedly turned international; the funniest Korean-film subtitle he's ever seen; how he learned to speak Korean without studying; how Busan Haps got started, and how he got involved; some of the strategies the magazine has used to attain prominence in the English-language media in Korea and abroad; how he observes people he spots reading the magazine; the importance of "beautiful pictures of food" to their Korean readership; the changing coffee situation in Busan, and what else has evolved since he...

50 Shades of Love

1:04:22 17 days ago

A Valentine's day bonus. Sociologist Kristen Koenig joins us to deconstruct relationships in contemporary culture, the holiday called Valentine's day, the nature of passion, eros, love, commitment, and our era's dissolution. This is episode #109 virtueinthewasteland.com

Korea Tour: Midnight Riding with Chad Kirton

1:05:04 20 days ago

Colin sits down at Busan's eFM with broadcaster, teacher, rapper, and television star Chad Kirton, also known as Fusion. They discuss whether the setting gets him into Korean or English mode; how he came up with his show segment "Don't Trust the Dictionary"; what a "bunnyhug" is; how the Korean desire for perfection affects their acquisition of foreign languages; the danger of agreeing in Korean when you have no idea what people are saying; what he seeks out in Busan when he goes on television; what powers burnt eel can supposedly give you; why many Koreans seem to forget Busan exists; the perpetually educational nature of Korean media; how he travels for hardworking Koreans live vicariously through television; what constitutes his 16-hour workday; when he first came to Korea, studying tae kwon do in Pohang; how Korea sometimes brings out in the Westerner the desires they might not have let out at home; how bilingual broadcasting became his speciality, beginning with the English-learning...

Hope

1:02:25 21 days ago

We try to move past the meaninglessness of some ideologies, past the cheap hope of the positive thinking movement, and on to a path to hope. We have an ethical obligation to hope until its last embers have been extinguished. Patience, friends. Things are going to be fine. There's a crack in everything, as Leonard Cohen says, but that's how the light gets through. This is episode 108. virtueinthewasteland.com faithfulmasks.org

Korea Tour: Sexy Concepts with James Turnbull

1:07:27 23 days ago

In Busan's Daeyeon-dong, Colin talks with James Turnbull, author of The Grand Narrative, a blog on Korean feminism, sexuality, and popular culture. They discuss what Westerners find so unappealing about Korean plastic surgery; the associations of the "double eyelids" so often surgically created; why he used to believe that Koreans "want to look white"; the meaning of such mystifying terms as "V-line," "S-line," and "small face"; the uncommon seriousness about the Western-invented concept of the "thigh gap"; how corn tea became publicly associated with the shape of the drinker's jaw; Korea's status as the only OECD country with young women getting thinner, not fatter; Korean advertising culture and the extent of its involvement with the "minefield" of Korean irony; the prominence of celebrities in Korean ads, and why the advertisers don't like it; how long it takes to get tired of the pop industry's increasingly provocative "sexy concepts"; the result of Korea's lack of Western-style reality...

Korea Tour: Outsider Status with B.R. Myers

1:00:21 26 days ago

At Busan's Dongseo University, Colin talks with North Korea analyst Brian Reynolds Myers, author of such books as A Reader's Manifesto and The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters. They discuss why South Koreans don't care about the Sword of Damocles that is North Korea; how Korea's capital-centricity looks from relatively far-flung Busan; why Koreans from outside Seoul seem to lack "local patriotism"; why Busan feels, to him, more like an "aggregation of apartment buildings than a community," but nevertheless like home; the benefits he enjoys of his outsider status in Korean society; the intellectual questions he can ask about Korea that a Korean couldn't; what makes the Koreans as an "ahistoric people," like the Greeks and unlike the Egyptians (and more Confucian societies); why he thinks Koreans should learn Indonesian, and why they refuse to; the difference between what Koreans tell themselves and what they tell the world; why so many fewer expatriates...

Korea Tour: Taking the Stage with Bruce Fulton

1:00:45 28 days ago

Near the University of Seoul, Colin talks with Bruce Fulton, Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation in the Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia and, with his wife Ju-chan Fulton, half of an acclaimed Korean literary translation team. They discuss when Korean writers get too good at reflecting their own society; his first experience with Korea in the Peace Corps in 1978; his window past the military culture onto the rest of the culture; what he gained by his host family's running a restaurant; how the divide between city and countryside has changed since first he observed it from North Jeolla; when Korea's literature entered his life; how quickly world-class Korean stories started appearing in publication in the 20th century; why authors have had to "check in" with traditional subjects; the extent to which the Peace Corps expected him to learn Korean; why Koreans study english, and why that reason doesn't help them learn English; where you...

Bindis at Coachella with Jenn Koiter

1:24:51 28 days ago

Jenn Koiter shares her poetry with us as we discuss her nonprofit work in India, the value of poetry, the problems of poverty tourism and cultural appropriation, suffering, sex trafficking in Asia, Zen, and why one might stick with their Western spiritual heritage through it all. We did not censor this episode, though even grandma should find it tame overall. This is episode 106. virtueinthewasteland.com

15. Naisargi Dave on Animal Rights Activism in India

1:01:45 29 days ago

Naisargi Dave talks with us about the origins of her interest in animal activism, her experiences doing fieldwork, and reads selections from her essay and forthcoming work.

Korea Tour: Telling the Grayness with Krys Lee

1:03:23 about 1 month ago

In Seoul's Seodaemun-gu, Colin talks with Krys Lee, author of the story collection Drifting House. They discuss the impression of Korean life as a living hell; the way she prefers to mix the light and the dark; the "obsession with violence" that led her to write about a woman who longs to be beaten; "Koreanness" as Drifting House's accidental unifier; what brought her to identify with "the outsider"; her suspicions of "socialization in general"; why she thinks about what it would be like if one person simply told another, "I wish I were a raccoon"; whether one can keep a foot in reality and a foot "somewhere else" through solitude; the surprising presence in Korea of "ideas, strangeness," "girls who wear dog collars," and at least one person with a pet squirrel; her problem with genre boundaries; what makes her focus on "individuals both of and not of their culture"; her own pathway from Korea, then around the world and back to Korea again; the importance, in her time in the United Kingdom...

Usury and Debt

1:31:43 about 1 month ago

Lending with interest in European history, Adam Smith, social ethics, borrowing, debt, greed, and cash societies. The song we play at the break is "Gimme Some Money" by the spoof band Spinal Tap.

Korea Tour: Cool Koreania with Barry Welsh

1:04:54 about 1 month ago

In Seoul's Yangjae station, Colin talks with Barry Welsh, host of the Seoul Book & Culture Club and Seoul Film Society as well as professor at Sookmyung Women’s University. They discuss what Koreans know about the Isle of Man, the last place he lived; how he founded his now well-known book club; his literary encounters with the concept of han; how Kim Young-ha's I Have the Right to Destroy Myself introduced him to the real Seoul; how little time people have to waste in Korea versus how much they have on the Isle of Man; how his life in various parts of the British Isles prepared him for the kind of regional differences important in Korea; whether he endorses the view of Koreans as "the Irish of Asia"; what got him out of his homeland in the first place; the rich mundanity he experienced when he first came to Seoul; who turns up when the Book Club talks about North Korea; how Korean movies, especially older ones by auteurs of previous generations, have helped him get a grip on things...

Korea Tour: Eating It All Together with Daniel Gray

1:01:11 about 1 month ago

Right across the street from Seoul's Insadong district, Colin talks with Daniel Gray, creator of the site Seoul Eats, proprietor of craft beer restaurants Brew 3.14π and Brew 3.15π, and for four years a partner at O'ngo Food Communications. They discuss his weariness of the term "Seoul food"; what part of Korean culture happens around the table; what goes into "Daniel Gray's Ultimate Food Tour"; the pre-existing perceptions food tourists bring about Korean cuisine; the two senses in which Koreans "eat everything together"; why Koreans ask not if foreigners want to eat Korean food, but if they can; how he grew up adopted in Delaware and decided to explore Korea only after college; his first encounter with Korea in adulthood, attempting to find breakfast in Gyeongju; whether any remnants of the Korean language remained in his mind from the first five years of his life; how he got started writing not about food, but about his experience seeking out his biological mother; the meals that made...

Silence

1:35:12 about 1 month ago

Shūsaku Endō, his Tanizaki Prize winning novel Silence, when mentors disappoint you, Jesuits, the Catholic mission to Japan in the early modern era, Francis Xavier, Martin Scorsesse, Pure Land Buddhism, Jodo Shu, Jodo Shinshu, faith, doubt, martyrdom, and the silence of God in the midst of suffering and abandonment. We won't give any spoilers till after the music break. Check out other wasteland companions if you dig this sort of thing.

Korea Tour: Korean Dreams with Alex Jensen

1:06:14 about 1 month ago

In Seoul's Itaewon district, Colin talks with Alex Jensen, host of weekday news show This Morning on TBS eFM. They discuss whether he envisions who he's talking to when he's talking on-air; what first strikes him about the Tube whenever he goes back to London; when he very first took to the airwaves; how much he knew about the existence of English broadcasting in Korean when he headed there in pursuit of the probable love of his life; how he developed his professional broadcasting life in Korea through "friends of friends"; what put him off music radio, and "the full breadth of life" offered by current-events radio; his grasp of the "raw emotions" of Korean, and how they came into play when he reported the sinking of the Sewol (and how it compared to his newsroom experience during the London bombings of 2005); his preference of fairness over neutrality; how the movies introduced him to the depth of Korean sentiment; why Seoul doesn't confront you with packs of drunken fifteen-year-olds...

Rita Denny and Patricia Sunderland, “Handbook of Anthropology in Business”

36:28 about 2 months ago

Rita Denny and Patricia Sunderland‘s book Handbook of Anthropology in Business (Left Coast Press, 2014) is a groundbreaking collection of essays all related to Business Anthropology. As with all interdisciplinary subjects, business anthropology has been infiltrated by other social scientists, designers and marketers. Denny and Sunderland made sure to also include those perspectives among the 60 plus authors that are featured in the handbook. This is a great reference for any anthropologist in practice, and an interesting read about the ways in which anthropology is adapting and changing. Questions about how to present anthropological findings and conduct fieldwork in a business setting are analyzed through the lenses of the academic discipline and the industry, If you have any interest in practicing anthropology, conducting ethnography, or anthropological research methods in business, this is a must have reference for your shelf.
By New Books Network

Steven Shaviro, “The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism”

1:01:24 about 2 months ago

[Cross-posted from the New Books Network Seminar] Steven Shaviro’s new book is a wonderfully engaging study of speculative realism, new materialism, and the ways in which those fields can speak to and be informed by the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. While The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) will satisfy even advanced scholars working on “object-oriented ontology” and related issues, it’s also a fantastic introduction for readers who have never heard of “correlationism” or panpsychism, don’t quite understand what all of the recent humanities-wide Whitehead-related fuss is all about, and aren’t sure where to begin. After a helpful introduction that lays out the major terms and stakes of the study, seven chapters each function as stand-alone units (and thus are very assignable in upper-level undergrad or graduate courses) while also progressively building on one another to collectively advance an argument for what Shaviro calls a “speculative...
By New Books Network

S. Lochlann Jain, “Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us”

29:51 about 2 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in Medicine] Cancer pervades American bodies—and also habits of mind. Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us (University of California Press, 2013) is a sharp, adventurous book by the established legal anthropologist, S. Lochlann Jain. The book simultaneously complicates and clarifies the multiple ways in which cancer and patient-hood gets appropriated, embodied and reproduced through seemingly quotidian activities—from opening an insurance bill to enjoying yoga class. Jain shows, in other words, exactly how and in what way cancer becomes you and me. The book draws together interviews, observations, and Jain’s first-hand experience as a cancer patient, as well as a range of cultural remains, from literature to law to life tables. In doing so, Jain holds a mirror to corporate stakeholders, to everyday Americans, and to herself in order to show, paradoxically, how modern Americans reinvest in cancer in the very practices designed to promote health. The book is a critique...
By New Books Network

Sarah Besky, “The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Plantations in India”

45:00 about 2 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in South Asian Studies] In this wonderful ethnography of Darjeeling tea, Sarah Besky explores different attempts at bringing justice to plantation life in north east India. Through explorations into fair trade, geographic indication and a state movement for the Nepali tea workers, Besky critically assesses the limits of projects that fail to address underlying exploitative structures. The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Plantations in India (University of California Press, 2014) is a readable and theoretically nuanced book that should be of interest to many.
By New Books Network

Korea Tour: Cowboys and Yangban with Charles Montgomery

1:04:10 about 2 months ago

In Seoul's Haebangchon district, Colin Marshall talks with Charles Montgomery, professor in the English Interpretation and Translation Division of Dongguk University, editor of the site KTlit.com, and global ambassador of Korean literature in translation. They discuss the first Korean books that excited him; the mistakes he made in choosing his first works of Korean literature to read; the significance of bestseller authors Kim Young-ha and Shin Kyoung-sook; the impossibility of getting around the literary prize system, and how that suppresses genre; how the substantial literature of the Korean War compares to what literature America has of its own Civil War; how his Korean best friend influenced the course of his professional life; why he burnt out as a marketing director and how it led him to Korea; the intense nature of Korean emotional bonds (and the intensity of their absence); why you have to treat everyone in the United States as a "potential shooter"; what happens when you read...

David E. Sutton, “Secrets from the Greek Kitchen: Cooking, Skill, and Everyday Life on an Aegean Island”

51:48 about 2 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in Food] David E. Sutton’s book beguiles. Secrets From the Greek Kitchen: Cooking, Skill, and Everyday Life on an Aegean Island (University of California Press, 2014) seems like a simple chronicle of the most basic food practices on the island of Kalymnos. But what practices they are. Cutting boards are not used. Cooks cut food while holding it and the ingredients drop directly into a bowl or a pot. Just that simple action reveals a connection to what is eaten that opens up a world. It is a world worth a visit – and certainly a listen – as Prof. Sutton and I discuss some of our favorite places on earth, the ancient and ebullient islands of the Aegean sea.
By New Books Network

Antiwisdom

1:18:20 about 2 months ago

What is anti-wisdom? What is it's purpose? How does it inform our spirituality, emotions, ethics, and philosophy? Job and Ecclesiastes are examples in the Hebrew Bible. They deal with themes that assist us during times when conventional wisdom can't help us.

Korea Tour: Dive Right In with Steve Miller

1:05:00 about 2 months ago

In Anyang, Colin talks with Steve Miller, creator of the Asia News Weekly podcast, and the vlogger formerly known as QiRanger. They discuss whether he notices what goes on on around him has he records himself on video on the streets of various countries; the suburbs of Seoul versus the suburbs of Phoenix; the possible pronunciations of "QiRanger"; why he lives in Asia, and in this moment Korea; whether he researched Korea beforehand or just plunged in; when and why he made his first video ever; how his travel videos came as a natural extension of old family slideshows; the origin of his "walk-and-talk" videos, in which he does exactly that; the usefulness of neighborhood maps in Korean subway stations, especially when they got calorie counts added to them; why he enjoys Korean food in the Philippines so much; his experience as a tall white guy with a shaved head in a homogenous Asian country, and how his youth at a black school prepared him for it; how he got into news podcasting; the cafe...

Korea Tour: Humans of Seoul with Keith Kim

1:02:40 about 2 months ago

In Seoul's Hongdae district, Colin talks with Keith Kim, creator of the travel and culture site Seoulistic. They discuss how Birkenstocks became the dominant Korean trend in the summer of 2014; what a gyopo is, and what it means to live in Korea as one; his ability to present himself as both a Korean and a foreigner; the Korean expectations to which he can least adhere; how little the old and the young understand one another in Korea; how the tattoo and smoking situation has changed in society since he first arrived; what he found when he first visited Korea during the celebratory time of the 2002 World Cup; the difficulty of finding a coffee shop in Apgujeong not attached to a plastic surgery clinic; why Koreans assume certain personality traits correlate with certain facial features; why you can do "Humans of New York", but you couldn't do "Humans of Seoul"; the advantages of "not counting" in Korean society; the power of "Korean stink eye"; why he chose to live in Japan as well; the...

Matt Tomlinson, “Ritual Textuality: Pattern and Motion in Performance”

1:02:37 about 2 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in Religion] Religious ritual has been a staple of anthropological study. In his latest monograph, Ritual Textuality: Pattern and Motion in Performance (Oxford University Press 2014), cultural anthropologist Matt Tomlinson takes up the topic anew through a set of four case studies drawn from his fieldwork in Fiji. Each one illustrates a component of what Tomlinson calls ritual entextualization, the process by which discourse becomes texts that are detachable from their original contexts and thus replicable. Through this framework, Tomlinson explores how rituals are patterned, repeated events that are also in “motion,” flexible and dynamic. Along the way, readers are introduced to linguistic performances in Pentecostal revivals, semiotic similarities between kava drinking and Christian communion, spectacles of a “happy death” in nineteenth-century missions, and political wrangling following the recent military coup d’état.
By New Books Network

The Interview

1:08:31 about 2 months ago

We discuss the recent film by James Franco and Seth Rogan, its cultural effects, and its international implications. We discuss the difficulty of liking things on facebook that have ideological baggage. We share our new year's resolutions for each other. Episode 102

Korea Tour: Doing Korea with Chance Dorland

1:14:34 about 2 months ago

In Seoul's Hongdae district, Colin talks with Chance Dorland, radio- and podcast-hosting expat in countries like Germany, Colombia, and now South Korea, currently of Groove magazine's Groovecast, TBS eFM's "Chance Encounters" segment, and Chance and Dan Do Korea. They discuss the one thing that unites Americans; the origins of his Korean podcasting career; whether people knew what the Peace Corps was after he got out of the Peace Corps; why he rejected both Los Angeles and New York; how he made peace with growing up in a small Iowa town, despite what he never got to learn there; mudding; what it felt like, growing up, to meet someone who had been to a major city; how he acquired a "fake family"; what, in adolescence, he somehow "knew" America had more of than any other country; the affliction that made class attendance difficult; when he realized Boston, where he went for college, doesn't count as a big city; the enthusiasm for World War II that got him applying to go to Germany; the comparative...

Korea Tour: Why Is This Here? with Nikola Medimorec

1:00:03 2 months ago

On the Seoul Floating Islands, Colin talks with Nikola Medimorec, co-author of Kojects, an English-language blog on transport, urban planning, and development projects around Korea. They discuss the first Korean city he ever experienced, and what introduction it gave him to both the country's festival culture and its development culture; what makes the transit different in Asia than in elsewhere; the installation he witnessed of glass panels on the subway platforms, and how that not just prevents suicides but improves the riding experience; the question that got him studying geography in the first place; the success of his posts on KTX stations he wrote in his first, German-language blog, and how that led to Kojects; why he most enjoys writing about Korean bicycle infrastructure, now that it has become possible to bike there; the difference between cycling in Korea and cycling in Germany, where he grew up; how old Korean men all listen to the radio on their bicycles; how he plunged right...

Joseph D. Hankins, “Working Skin: Making Leather, Making a Multicultural Japan”

1:08:13 2 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in East Asian Studies] Joseph D. Hankins’s marvelous new ethnography of the contemporary Buraku people looks at the labor involved in “identifying, dismantling, and reproducing” the Buraku situation in Japan and beyond. Taking readers on a journey from Lubbock, Texas to Tokyo, India, and back again, Working Skin: Making Leather, Making a Multicultural Japan (University of California Press, 2014) brings a diverse range of ethnographic experiences to bear on understanding the conception, management, recognition, and experience of the burakumin, a “contagious category” of minority identity in today’s Japan. In three major sections that each advance a particular argument, Hankins’s book considers the production and non-production of signs of modern Buraku identity. These fascinating chapters offer thoughtful accounts of the making and remaking of bodily markers and ties of kinship, occupation, and residence that can be mobilized to make Buraku identity, the political...
By New Books Network

Korea Tour: Forbidden Places with Jon Dunbar

1:01:24 2 months ago

At a bar by the train tracks near Yongsan, Colin talks with Jon Dunbar, urban explorer, editor of long-running Korean punk zine Broke in Korea, and author of Daehanmindecline. They discuss the difference between a Korean abandoned place and a Canadian abandoned place; how Seoul got re-inhabited after the war; the development of poor "moon villages" on the hillsides; how he defines "urban exploring," and why he dislikes that name; the urban renewal process that causes the abandonment of neighborhoods; the hired goons who harass people to leave areas slated for demolition; how big a city all the abandoned buildings he's visited would constitute by themselves; his experience in the tunnel from The Host; what it means to explore Korea's abandoned/disputed/places as a foreigner, and the difficulty of getting Koreans interested in urban exploration; the time he ran into a man collecting scrap metal, and why that man felt embarrassment for his country; the difference between the Korea he came...

Disobey

1:18:19 2 months ago

Shelley, Thoreau, Ferguson, the police, the law, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ideology, Žižek, and our post-Christmas depression.

Korea Tour: Shapeshifter with Stephane Mot

58:38 2 months ago

In Seoul's Sinchon district, Colin talks with Stephane Mot, "conceptor," writer of fiction, nonfiction, "nonsense," and author of the blog Seoul Village as well as the collection Dragedies. They discuss Paris as a "recurring hero" of literature and Seoul as a "shapeshifter" glimpsed from different angles in different stories; how he got involved in the early days of internet gaming, surviving three startups in three years; the French embassy job that brought him to Seoul in 1991; why he prefers winter in Seoul to winter in Paris; the difficulty of walking in Seoul when first he got there; the first of the city's "villages" that convinced him to explore more; what kind of relationship with Paris he has as a ninth-generation Parisian, and what it has gained by his becoming a partial outsider; when he first began writing about Korea; why of the two important subjects of love and death, he sticks to death; his "Borgesian experience" of discovering the internet; the subjects to which he finds...

Korea Tour: The Jokes Come Last with Darcy Paquet

1:07:46 2 months ago

In Seoul's Garosu-gil, Colin talks with Darcy Paquet, critic of Korean film, founder of koreanfilm.org and the Wildflower Film Awards, author of New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves, teacher, and occasional actor. They discuss why movies have a hard time capturing Seoul; the unusual way the Park brothers' Bitter, Sweet, Seoul captures the city; how Cold Eyes relocated a Hong Kong story into Seoul; how, after arriving in Korea in 1997, he got to know the city in step with getting to know the cinema; how he knew Seoul would grow dramatically as soon as he got there, but how nobody expected the Korean film industry would grow so much; why, right when Korean culture started going worldwide; Korean filmmakers were ready; which Korean movies Koreans tried to steer foreigners away from, and which they themselves have returned to more recently; what strengths older Korean films whose makers had to "fight the system" have that modern ones don't; how effectively one can ready oneself for Korean...

The Sociology of Kristmas

1:26:21 2 months ago

For our hundredth episode, we discuss the sociology and cultural implications of Christmas traditions in the west. Joining us are Faithful Mask Fellows, Dr. Koenig (a sociologist) and Dr. Armstrong (a classics scholar and occasional pulpit jockey). This one gets a bit giddy and a tad out of hand, since we recorded at the end of a semester and were celebrating the fact that we hit 100.

Alex Nading, “Mosquito Trails: Ecology, Health and the Politics of Entanglement”

53:42 2 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in Latin American Studies] Dengue fever is on the rise globally. Since it is transmitted by mosquitoes which reside and reproduce in human environments, eradication efforts involve households and the people who keep them clean as well as moral and persuasive campaigns of surveillance and invigilation. In his new book Mosquito Trails: Ecology, Health and the Politics of Entanglement (University of California Press, 2014), Alex Nading follows the trails of garbage collectors and recyclers, local health care workers, and the mosquitoes themselves in this fascinating ethnography of Nicaragua’s Ciudad Sandino’s efforts to deal with dengue fever. He argues that these efforts are better understood as a series of entanglements and attachments that bring human and more than human actors together in intimate relationships. Nading’s book offers readers new ways to think about the relationships among the state and local actors as mediated through a series of objects: houses...
By New Books Network

Korea Tour: Stickers, Starcraft, Success with Danny Crichton

1:07:00 3 months ago

In Seoul's Sinchon district, Colin talks with Danny Crichton, researcher and writer on regional innovation hubs and a contributing writer for TechCrunch. They discuss the hardest thing about being a Korean entrepreneur; what the concentration of Seoul has facilitated about Korean innovation; how he got from an interest in China "because it's China" to a more fully developed interest in Korea; what happened to Sony, and thus Japan; how he responds to the current Korean of question, "Is this really a developed country?"; how people have stopped putting up with the country's corruption, perhaps one of the drivers of its astonishing growth; how the ideas of the "heterodox" economist Ha-joon Chang apply to all this; why the concept of the subway-station "virtual grocery store" caught his eye; why Silicon Valley is so much more boring than Seoul; the significance of Kakaotalk and its abundance of purchasable "culturally ambiguous stickers"; why so many things, like playing Starcraft in stadiums...

Daniel Cloud, “The Domestication of Language: Cultural Evolution and the Uniqueness of the Human Animal”

55:08 3 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in Big Ideas] One of the most puzzling things about humans is their ability to manipulate symbols and create artifacts. Our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom–apes–have only the rudiments of these abilities: chimps don’t have language and, if they have culture, it’s extraordinarily primitive in comparison to the human form. What we have between apes and humans is not really a continuum; it’s a break. So how did this break occur? The answer, of course, is evolutionarily. It stands to Darwinian reason that our distant ancestors must have been selected for symbolic use and cultural production, and it was in this natural selective way that they became human. That’s fine as far as it goes, but it presents us with another puzzle: why is human language and culture so astoundingly complex? In order to prosper in the so-called “era of evolutionary adaptation,” neither needed to have been complex at all. A Hominin with a smallish fraction of the symbolic and cultural...
By New Books Network

Korea Tour: Wormholing with Charlie Usher

59:45 3 months ago

Not far from Seoul's Anam station, Colin talks to Charlie Usher, author of the blog Seoul Sub→urban and the book 찰리와 리즈의 서울 지하철 여행기 (Charlie and Liz's Seoul Subway Travelogue). They discuss the first subway stations his life in Korea revolved around; the identity of Liz, the photographer in Charlie and Liz; what makes the Seoul subway system the best framework in which to get to know the city; the impressive integration of the subway with the city itself, meaning that city life doesn't stop at the station entrance; whether he began with any methods and systems for documenting his subway travel; how the whole project came about through "a sense of guilt"; which stations, in and of themselves, make for cool Seoul places; why the concept of shopping in a stations surprises Americans; where, and whether, urban Seoul ends and suburban Seoul begins; how he came to understand Seoul's role as the focal point of Korea; when he realized Seoul Sub→urban had taken him where he wouldn't have gone before...

ViW75 Optimize Yourself

1:23:25 3 months ago

This isn't your normal self-help conversation. Dr. Lu is brutally honest. He is all about research and not so much of the fluff. But we can learn some things about parenting, continuous improvement, setting realistic and motivating goals, and letting go of our egos.

Thom Scott-Phillips, “Speaking Our Minds: Why Human Communication is Different, and How Language Evolved to Make it Special”

54:25 3 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in Language] I hope I’m not being species-centric when I say that the emergence of human language is a big deal. John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry it as one of the “major transitions in evolution”, placing it in exalted company alongside the evolution of multicellularity, sociality, sexual reproduction, and various other preoccupations of ours. But the nature of the transition is hotly disputed: is there a sudden shift involving the emergence of complex syntax, or is the process more gradual and socially driven? In his entertaining and approachable volume Speaking Our Minds (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Thom Scott-Phillips argues for a different approach. On his view, there is a categorical difference between human language and its precursors, but the critical ingredient is ostensive-inferential communication – that is, the ability to express and recognise intentions – and this underlies the expressive power of language. His view calls for a reappraisal of...
By New Books Network

Korea Tour: Literary Aejeong with Gregory Limpens

1:03:09 3 months ago

Above Seoul's Itaewon district, Colin talks with Open Books acquiring editor Gregory Limpens. They discuss what kind of foreign literature Koreans like to read, and their loyalty to authors they've already enjoyed; how the mission of Open Books fits into shaping that taste; how he got from growing up in Belgium to bringing foreign literature in Korea (and practicing trademark law somewhere in the middle); what about his first, traveling impressions of Seoul stoked his desire to live there; his impression of the future-orientation of Korea versus the historical orientation of Belgium; the nature of "Brusselization"; how he discovered the traditional Korean sensibility of not showing off (and how he sees that changing); whether the multilingualism of his homeland helped him get in the frame of mind to learn Korean; the widening vase as a metaphor for language acquisition; whether Koreans have any particular expectations of Belgians, and where they fit into the apparent hierarchy of foreigners...

Jamie Cross, “Dream Zones: Anticipating Capitalism and Development in India”

52:14 3 months ago

[Cross-posted from New Books in South Asian Studies] Dream Zones: Anticipating Capitalism and Development in India (Pluto Press, 2014), the excellent new book by Jamie Cross, explores the ways in which dreams of the future shape the present. Centring in and around a large Special Economic Zone in south India, the book analyses anticipation amongst politicians, managers, workers, land-owners and activists.
By New Books Network