Best American Dream U Podcasts (2024)

1
Rerun: The Role of Higher Ed in the American Dream 49:35

16d ago49:35

49:35

New York Times columnist and author David Leonhardt discusses his new book, “Ours Was The Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream." In his conversation with Michael and Jeff, they talk about the impact of the high-school movement on the U.S. economy last century, what a similar higher ed movement might look like in this century, and why the…

1
Nora Stone, "How Documentaries Went Mainstream: A History, 1960-2022" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:08:59

16m ago1:08:59

1:08:59

How Documentaries Went Mainstream: A History, 1960-2022 (Oxford University Press, 2023) provides a more comprehensive and meaningful periodization of the commercialization of documentary film. Although the commercial ascension of documentary films might seem meteoric, it is the culmination of decades-long efforts that have developed and fortified t…

1
Nora Stone, "How Documentaries Went Mainstream: A History, 1960-2022" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:08:59

28m ago1:08:59

1:08:59

How Documentaries Went Mainstream: A History, 1960-2022 (Oxford University Press, 2023) provides a more comprehensive and meaningful periodization of the commercialization of documentary film. Although the commercial ascension of documentary films might seem meteoric, it is the culmination of decades-long efforts that have developed and fortified t…

1
Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack, "What's Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service" (Dutton, 2024) 1:03:30

2h ago1:03:30

1:03:30

Twenty-five years ago, The West Wing premiered to great acclaim. This book is a behind-the-scenes look into the creation and legacy of the series, as told by cast members Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack. The authors help us step back inside the world of President Jed Bartlet’s Oval Office as they reunite the West Wing cast and crew, including…

1
Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack, "What's Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service" (Dutton, 2024) 1:03:30

38m ago1:03:30

1:03:30

Twenty-five years ago, The West Wing premiered to great acclaim. This book is a behind-the-scenes look into the creation and legacy of the series, as told by cast members Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack. The authors help us step back inside the world of President Jed Bartlet’s Oval Office as they reunite the West Wing cast and crew, including…

1
Na'ou Liu, "Urban Scenes" (Cambria Press, 2023) 1:01:08

2h ago1:01:08

1:01:08

"In this tango palace everything was swaying rhythmically to and fro, bodies of men and women, beams of colored light, brilliant wine glasses, red and green liquids, slender fingers, pomegranate-colored lips, and feverish eyes. Tables and chairs, together with the crowd of people, cast their reflections on the center of the shiny floor. Everyone wa…

1
Franz Nicolay, "Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music" (U Texas Press, 2024) 41:26

11m ago41:26

41:26

A close look at the lives of working musicians who aren't the center of their stage. Secret (and not-so-secret) weapons, side-of-the-stagers, rhythm and horn sections, backup singers, accompanists—these and other “band people" are the anonymous but irreplaceable character actors of popular music. Through interviews and incisive cultural critique, w…

1
Alexandra Popoff, "Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success" (Yale UP, 2024) 1:00:03

11m ago1:00:03

1:00:03

Ayn Rand is a provocative and polarizing figure. Strongly pro-capitalist and anti-communist, Rand was a dogmatic preacher of her moral philosophy. Based on what she called "rational self-interest", Rand believed in prosperity-seeking individualism above all. Alexandra Popoff's deeply researched biography traces Rand's journey from her early life as…

1
Franz Nicolay, "Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music" (U Texas Press, 2024) 41:26

15m ago41:26

41:26

A close look at the lives of working musicians who aren't the center of their stage. Secret (and not-so-secret) weapons, side-of-the-stagers, rhythm and horn sections, backup singers, accompanists—these and other “band people" are the anonymous but irreplaceable character actors of popular music. Through interviews and incisive cultural critique, w…

1
Jessica Roda, "For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age" (NYU Press, 2024) 1:07:43

15m ago1:07:43

1:07:43

Mainstream portrayals of ultra-Orthodox religious women often frame their faith as oppressive: they are empowered only when they leave their community. For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age (NYU Press, 2024), by Jessica Roda, flips this notion on its head. Drawing on six years of fieldwork between …

1
Emily Cousens, "Trans Feminist Epistemologies in the US Second Wave" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) 46:49

31m ago46:49

46:49

Why do "second wave" and "trans feminism" rarely get considered together? Challenging the idea that trans feminism is antagonistic to, or arrived after, second wave feminism, Emily Cousens re-orients trans epistemologies as crucial sites of second wave feminist theorising. By revisiting the contributions of trans individuals writing in underground …

1
Edward Shanks, "The People of the Ruins" (MIT Press, 2024) 1:01:02

11m ago1:01:02

1:01:02

In The People of the Ruins (originally published in 1920), Edward Shanks imagines England in the not-so-distant future as a neo mediaeval society whose inhabitants have forgotten how to build or operate machinery. Jeremy Tuft is a physics instructor and former artillery officer who is cryogenically frozen in his laboratory only to emerge after a ce…

1
Edward Shanks, "The People of the Ruins" (MIT Press, 2024) 1:01:02

1h ago1:01:02

1:01:02

In The People of the Ruins (originally published in 1920), Edward Shanks imagines England in the not-so-distant future as a neo mediaeval society whose inhabitants have forgotten how to build or operate machinery. Jeremy Tuft is a physics instructor and former artillery officer who is cryogenically frozen in his laboratory only to emerge after a ce…

1
Rerun: The Future of the Ph.D. 43:44

2h ago43:44

43:44

Hosts Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn are joined by Dr. Len Cassuto, an author and professor at Fordham University, and focus their conversation on the role of PhD students and what the challenges in that part of academia might mean for higher ed. They dive into the subjects that Len explores in his new book, The New PhD: How to Build a Better Gradua…

1
Mark Walker, "Hitler's Atomic Bomb: History, Legend, and the Twin Legacies of Auschwitz and Hiroshima" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:01:04

3d ago1:01:04

1:01:04

Who were the German scientists who worked on atomic bombs during World War II for Hitler's regime? How did they justify themselves afterwards? Examining the global influence of the German uranium project and postwar reactions to the scientists involved, Mark Walker explores the narratives surrounding 'Hitler's bomb'. The global impacts of this proj…

1
Gregory A. Daddis, "Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines" (Cambridge UP, 2020) 59:45

17m ago59:45

59:45

In his compelling evaluation of Cold War popular culture, Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines (Cambridge UP, 2020), Gregory Daddis explores how men's adventure magazines helped shape the attitudes of young, working-class Americans, the same men who fought and served in the long and bitter war in Vietnam. The 'macho pu…

1
Gregory A. Daddis, "Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines" (Cambridge UP, 2020) 59:45

13m ago59:45

59:45

In his compelling evaluation of Cold War popular culture, Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines (Cambridge UP, 2020), Gregory Daddis explores how men's adventure magazines helped shape the attitudes of young, working-class Americans, the same men who fought and served in the long and bitter war in Vietnam. The 'macho pu…

1
Goth Diss 1:01:56

1d ago1:01:56

1:01:56

With My Gothic Dissertation, University of Iowa PhD Anna M. Williams has transformed the dreary diss into a This American Life-style podcast. Williams’ witty writing and compelling audio production allow her the double move of making a critical intervention into the study of the gothic novel, while also making an entertaining and thought-provoking …

1
Nadirah Simmons, "First Things First: Hip-Hop Ladies Who Changed the Game" (Twelve, 2024) 1:17:16

2h ago1:17:16

1:17:16

This enlightening book reframes the history of hip-hop—and this time, women are given credit for all their trailblazing achievements that have left an undeniable impact on music. First Things First: Hip-Hop Ladies Who Changed the Game (Twelve, 2024), hip-hop is not just the music, and women have played a big role in shaping the way it looks today. …

1
Nadirah Simmons, "First Things First: Hip-Hop Ladies Who Changed the Game" (Twelve, 2024) 1:17:16

1h ago1:17:16

1:17:16

This enlightening book reframes the history of hip-hop—and this time, women are given credit for all their trailblazing achievements that have left an undeniable impact on music. First Things First: Hip-Hop Ladies Who Changed the Game (Twelve, 2024), hip-hop is not just the music, and women have played a big role in shaping the way it looks today. …

1
Yiman Wang, "To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong's Cross-Media World" (U California Press, 2024) 1:00:16

1h ago1:00:16

1:00:16

Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theatre, radio, and American television. Born in Los Angeles, yet with her US citizenship scrutinised due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong—a defiant misfit—innovated nuanced performances to subvert the racism and sexism…

1
Yiman Wang, "To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong's Cross-Media World" (U California Press, 2024) 1:00:16

32m ago1:00:16

1:00:16

Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theatre, radio, and American television. Born in Los Angeles, yet with her US citizenship scrutinised due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong—a defiant misfit—innovated nuanced performances to subvert the racism and sexism…

1
Susan Stryker, "When Monsters Speak: A Susan Stryker Reader" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:00:15

14m ago1:00:15

1:00:15

Susan Stryker is a foundational figure in trans studies. When Monsters Speak: A Susan Stryker Reader (Duke UP, 2024) showcases the development of Stryker’s writing from the 1990s to the present. It combines canonical pieces, such as “My Words to Victor Frankenstein,” with her hard to find earlier work published in zines and newsletters. Brought tog…

1
Kate Hext, "Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:10:06

5d ago1:10:06

1:10:06

Hollywood is haunted by the ghost of playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde. Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Kate Hext is the story of his haunting, told for the first time. Set within the rich evolving context of how the American entertainment industry became cinema, and how cinema …

1
Kate Hext, "Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:10:06

28m ago1:10:06

1:10:06

Hollywood is haunted by the ghost of playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde. Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Kate Hext is the story of his haunting, told for the first time. Set within the rich evolving context of how the American entertainment industry became cinema, and how cinema …

1
Laura Beers. "Orwell’s Ghosts Wisdom and Warnings for the 21st Century" (Norton, 2024) 46:06

28m ago46:06

46:06

Is Orwell still relevant today? In Orwell’s Ghosts Wisdom and Warnings for the 21st Century (Norton, 2024), Laura Beers, a Professor of History at American University examines the life and writing of Orwell to offer lessons for contemporary politics and society. The book examines the influences that shaped Eric Blair’s nom de plume, as well as show…

1
Iman Mersal, "Traces of Enayat" (Transit Books, 2023) 1:03:13

28m ago1:03:13

1:03:13

Traces of Enayat (Transit Books, 2023) is a work of creative nonfiction tracing the mysterious life and erasure of Egyptian literature’s tragic heroine. It begins in Cairo, 1963. Four years before her lone novel is finally published, the writer Enayat al-Zayyat takes her own life at age 27. For the next three decades, it’s as if Enayat never existe…

1
Kate Hext, "Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:10:06

28m ago1:10:06

1:10:06

Hollywood is haunted by the ghost of playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde. Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Kate Hext is the story of his haunting, told for the first time. Set within the rich evolving context of how the American entertainment industry became cinema, and how cinema …

1
Kate Hext, "Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:10:06

1h ago1:10:06

1:10:06

Hollywood is haunted by the ghost of playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde. Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Kate Hext is the story of his haunting, told for the first time. Set within the rich evolving context of how the American entertainment industry became cinema, and how cinema …

1
Kate Hext, "Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:10:06

2h ago1:10:06

1:10:06

Hollywood is haunted by the ghost of playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde. Wilde in the Dream Factory: Decadence and the American Movies (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Kate Hext is the story of his haunting, told for the first time. Set within the rich evolving context of how the American entertainment industry became cinema, and how cinema …

1
Immigration Options for Victims of Labor Violations 19:22

1h ago19:22

19:22

By Otis Landerholm

1
Laura van den Berg, "State of Paradise" (FSG, 2024) 55:16

2h ago55:16

55:16

It's another summer in a small Florida town. After an illness that vanishes as mysteriously as it arrived, everything appears to be getting back to normal: soul-crushing heat, torrential downpours, sinkholes swallowing the earth, ominous cats, a world-bending virtual reality device being handed out by a company called ELECTRA, and an increasing num…

1
Tisha Brooks, "Spirit Deep: Recovering the Sacred in Black Women’s Travel" (U Virginia Press, 2023) 37:23

2h ago37:23

37:23

What would it mean for American and African American literary studies if readers took the spirituality and travel of Black women seriously? With Spirit Deep: Recovering the Sacred in Black Women’s Travel (U Virginia Press, 2023), Tisha Brooks addresses this question by focusing on three nineteenth-century Black women writers who merged the spiritua…

1
Robert Baker, "Making Modern Medical Ethics: How African Americans, Anti-Nazis, Bureaucrats, Feminists, Veterans, and Whistleblowing Moralists Created Bioethics" (MIT Press, 2024) 1:02:56

6d ago1:02:56

1:02:56

The little-known stories of the people responsible for what we know today as modern medical ethics. In Making Modern Medical Ethics: How African Americans, Anti-Nazis, Bureaucrats, Feminists, Veterans, and Whistleblowing Moralists Created Bioethics (MIT Press, 2024), Robert Baker tells the counter history of the birth of bioethics, bringing to the …

1
¿Cómo puedo obtener una decisión antes de las elecciones? 16:36

33m ago16:36

16:36

By Otis Landerholm

1
Jim Higgins, "Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground" (Trouser Press, 2024) 50:55

17m ago50:55

50:55

From the time he began recording with the Velvet Underground in the 1960s until his death in 2013, Lou Reed released nearly 50 original albums. In Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground (Trouser Press Books, 2024), Jim Higgins delves into each one, with descriptions, details, analysis and appraisals that will ampl…

1
Aysegül Savas, "The Anthropologists" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 30:40

1h ago30:40

30:40

Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist…

1
Matthew H. Sommer, "The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China" (Columbia UP, 2024) 1:26:55

4h ago1:26:55

1:26:55

The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China (Columbia University Press, 2024) is a fascinating study of transgender lives and practices in late imperial China. This book takes as its core subject matter six court cases from Qing China that involve people who moved away from the gender they were assigne…

1
Steven E. Lindquist, "The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya" (SUNY Press, 2024) 1:04:20

1h ago1:04:20

1:04:20

In The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya (SUNY Press, 2024), Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary production in the "life" of Yājñavalkya, the most important ancient Indian literary figure prior to the Buddha. Known for his sharp tongue and deep thought, Yājñavalkya is associated with a number of "fi…

1
Jim Higgins, "Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground" (Trouser Press, 2024) 50:55

3d ago50:55

50:55

From the time he began recording with the Velvet Underground in the 1960s until his death in 2013, Lou Reed released nearly 50 original albums. In Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground (Trouser Press Books, 2024), Jim Higgins delves into each one, with descriptions, details, analysis and appraisals that will ampl…

1
Rerun: How Small Schools Can Thrive As Higher Ed Changes 41:33

1h ago41:33

41:33

In this rerun from episode 150, Jeff Selingo welcomes Lynn Perry Wooten, President of Simmons University, for a conversation on the unique position of smaller universities in higher education. They discuss some vital concerns facing smaller universities like Simmons, such as combining less popular liberal arts majors, combatting dropping college en…

1
Resonant Grains 44:09

35m ago44:09

44:09

In the 1950s, a schoolteacher named Carleen Hutchins attempted a revolution in how concert violins are made. In this episode, Craig Eley of the Field Noise podcast tells us how this amateur outsider used 18th century science to disrupt the all-male guild tradition of violin luthiers. Would the myth of the never-equaled Stradivarius violin prove to …

1
Christopher T. Fan, "Asian American Fiction After 1965: Transnational Fantasies of Economic Mobility" (Columbia UP, 2024) 1:50:19

1h ago1:50:19

1:50:19

After the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act loosened discriminatory restrictions, people from Northeast Asian countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and eventually China immigrated to the United States in large numbers. Highly skilled Asian immigrants flocked to professional-managerial occupations, especially in science, technology, engin…

1
Collateral 31:13

26m ago31:13

31:13

Collateral was made in 2004, ten years after Speed—and while both films have the same story of a good guy trying to stop a killer in real time, Collateral feels decades away from the innocence of Speed. Much of that has to do with the villain, who espouses a set of assumptions about the world that we se all around us on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Shark…

1
Kathleen Loock, "Hollywood Remaking: How Film Remakes, Sequels, and Franchises Shape Industry and Culture" (U California Press, 2024) 1:07:10

1h ago1:07:10

1:07:10

From the inception of cinema to today’s franchise era, remaking has always been a motor of ongoing film production. Hollywood Remaking: How Film Remakes, Sequels, and Franchises Shape Industry and Culture (U California Press, 2024) challenges the categorical dismissal in film criticism of remakes, sequels, and franchises by probing what these forma…

1
Fella Benabed, "Applied Global Health Humanities: Readings in the Global Anglophone Novel" (de Gruyter, 2024) 52:32

22m ago52:32

52:32

Fella Benabed's book Applied Global Health Humanities: Readings in the Global Anglophone Novel (de Gruyter, 2024) highlights the importance of global Anglophone literature in global health humanities, shaping perceptions of health issues in the Global South and among minorities in the Global North. Using twelve novels, it explores the historical, p…

1
Robyn Hitchcock, "1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left" (Akashic Books, 2024) 52:47

1h ago52:47

52:47

1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left (Akashic Books, 2024) explores how that pivotal slice of time tastes to a bright, obsessive-compulsive boy who is shipped off to a hothouse academic boarding school as he reaches the age of thirteen--just as Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited starts to bite, and the Beatles's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club…

1
Robyn Hitchcock, "1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left" (Akashic Books, 2024) 52:47

28m ago52:47

52:47

1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left (Akashic Books, 2024) explores how that pivotal slice of time tastes to a bright, obsessive-compulsive boy who is shipped off to a hothouse academic boarding school as he reaches the age of thirteen--just as Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited starts to bite, and the Beatles's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club…

1
Lindsay Goss, "F*ck The Army!: How Soldiers and Civilians Staged the GI Movement to End the Vietnam War" (NYU Press, 2024) 40:47

28m ago40:47

40:47

F*ck The Army! How Soldiers and Civilians Staged the GI Movement to End the Vietnam War (NYU Press, 2024) offers a comprehensive history of the FTA, an antiwar variety show featuring Jane Fonda that played to tens of thousands of active-duty troops over nine months in 1971. From its conception, the civilian-led show was directed towards making visi…

1
Kathleen Loock, "Hollywood Remaking: How Film Remakes, Sequels, and Franchises Shape Industry and Culture" (U California Press, 2024) 1:07:10

28m ago1:07:10

1:07:10

From the inception of cinema to today’s franchise era, remaking has always been a motor of ongoing film production. Hollywood Remaking: How Film Remakes, Sequels, and Franchises Shape Industry and Culture (U California Press, 2024) challenges the categorical dismissal in film criticism of remakes, sequels, and franchises by probing what these forma…

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