In this week’s episode, Anurag discusses the history of colors, such as indigo and carmine, and how they can help us understand what the world was like in the past. Christina talks about a few incidents of white people in the West starting businesses related to Asian cuisine and the Twitter feuds that followed. We also discuss the Chinese reality T…

In this episode, Anurag and Christina talk to Dr. Samantha Chisholm Hatfield about Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). How do indigenous people develop and use TEK to thrive along with nature, rather than exploiting it? We also discuss things like how time is perceived differently in indigenous communities and how the global fight against clima…

Christina and Anurag talk to Dr. Teevrat Garg about how people are being affected by rising temperatures, and how they might adapt as temperatures around the world rise in the coming decades. Dr. Garg talks to us about various research studies from around the world that document how more days of extreme heat result in effects ranging from lower pro…

This week, Christina and Anurag discuss how influencer and data-driven shopping apps have supercharged e-commerce around the world. Christina takes the example of fast fashion to illustrate how new technologies and parasocial relationships with influencers have been accelerating trends and consumption. They also discuss other ways influencers creat…

In this episode, we talk about the modern history of coffee, its relationship with the environment and the people who grow it, and how all this affects the coffee we drink. We speak to Dr. Stuart McCook, professor of world history at the University of Guelph in Canada. He is also the author of "Coffee Is Not Forever: A Global History of the Coffee …

In this episode, we speak to Kyle Moody, an associate professor of communications media at Fitchburg State University, about the role that local news played during the pandemic. We also discuss the decline of local news and closures of news outlets in the US over the course of the pandemic, as well as the past decade(s), and the lasting effects tha…

Christina and Anurag discuss how boba, or bubble tea, made its way from Taiwan to the US, and how chai has done the same from India. How has boba tea remained a drink mostly sold by and for Asians, while chai, like yoga and golden milk (turmeric milk), has become a symbol of gentrification and an elite lifestyle?…

This week we're joined by anthropologist Dr. Sarah Besky of Cornell University to discuss the colonial history of tea and the people who produce it. Her research uses ethnographic and historical methods to study the intersection of inequality, nature, and capitalism. Her work on tea plantation and labour is focused on the Darjeeling and surrounding…

Why is everyone suddenly interested in GameStop stock, bitcoin, and NFTs? Why are people gathering in the millions to coordinate their investments? New apps like Robinhood have made investing simple for almost anyone. What does this tell us about 21st century capitalism? We speak to Gayle Rogers at the University of Pittsburgh, a scholar and author…

In this episode, we talk about three different fan cultures. We discuss how K-pop and C-pop fans organize online to support their idols. Then, we talk about Tollywood fans (that is, fans of the Telugu film industry in India) who are much smaller in number but equally fanatical in their support, and finally the tension between the local and global s…

We speak to Dr. Nidhi Gonnakuti and Rohith Vedira, a civil contractor building COVID-19 facilities, about their experiences as frontline workers during the deadly second wave in India. We also talk about the vaccine shortage, super-spreader events, and how government negligence led to where we are now.…

In this episode, Christina and Anurag discuss the inadequacies of new terms in American English to describe life during the pandemic. If you’re also sick of ‘pandemic wall,’ Christina gives examples of words in other languages that better capture complex, emotional responses to world events. Anurag takes you on a 15 minute world tour of dumplings. …

This week, we're in conversation with Dr. Michael Svoboda, a professor of writing at George Washington University, to discuss how the climate crisis is depicted in movies and books. We talk about why movies aren’t exactly inspiring us to change the world through climate change stories, and how we can improve that. Dr. Svoboda regularly reviews most…

In this week's episode, we revisit surveillance systems with Karen Li Xan Wong and look at how governments and corporations use our data to track us. She explains how these systems are all around us and all around the world. There have been reports this week that the EU is planning to regulate the use of AI for mass surveillance and social credit s…

In this episode, we chat with psychiatrist Sharat Vallurupalli about his time treating patients during COVID-19 and how we should be rethinking what 'health' means. Is the rise of people seeking therapy because there is more awareness about mental health, or is there something about modern society that is making us ill? Warning: there is some discu…

The ‘social credit system’ in China has people worried about the dystopian future that is unfolding. But what actually is the system in China, and what does Western media get wrong about it? Are there similar types of systems all around us that we don’t even notice? We talk about all of this and more with Xin Dai, a law professor at Peking Universi…

This episode, Christina talks about anti-Asian violence as a Chinese American, the lack of cohesion in the Asian American community, and why she doesn’t think anti-Asian hate will end anytime soon. Anurag talks about how he thinks his years growing up in India were very different to kids who grow up in the US in one big way. Finally Anurag also tal…

We introduce ourselves, talk about why we're making this podcast, and go over some of the topics we'll be covering.By Anurag Papolu and Christina Li