Best Bollywood Boys Podcasts (2024)

1
Sam Langsdale, "Searching for Feminist Superheroes: Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Marvel Comics" (U Texas Press, 2024) 56:46

1h ago56:46

56:46

It’s no secret that superhero comics and their related media perpetuate a model of a straight, white, male hero at the expense of representing women and other minorities, but other narratives exist. Searching for Feminist Superheroes: Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Marvel Comics (University of Texas Press, 2024) by Dr. Sam Langsdale recognizes that…

1
Seth Rogovoy, "Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:12:59

31m ago1:12:59

1:12:59

Seth Rogovoy's latest book for Oxford University Press is called Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison (Oxford University Press, 2024). Often, biographies of musicians put the story of the subject’s life front and center, letting the music recede into the background. For a musician like George Harrison, this would be a mistake. Georg…

1
Nick Butler, "The Trouble with Jokes: Humour and Offensiveness in Contemporary Culture and Politics" (Policy Press, 2023) 33:45

5d ago33:45

33:45

In this podcast, Nick Butler explores humour's complex and often controversial role in shaping modern political discourse, examining how jokes can challenge and reinforce power structures. Whether you're interested in the intersection of humour and politics or curious about the cultural implications of what’s considered "offensive," this conversati…

1
David Suisman, "Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America's Soldiers" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 1:05:03

1h ago1:05:03

1:05:03

In his new book, Instrument of War: Music and the Making of the America's Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2024), David Suisman shows that the US military has deep and multilayered investment in music. It employs thousands of musicians, whose music creates communal norms and identities. Music also helps soldiers to grapple with the realities …

1
Veronica Keller and Sabrina Mittermeier, "From Broadway to the Bronx: New York City’s History through Song" (Intellect, 2024) 56:40

1h ago56:40

56:40

From Broadway to the Bronx: New York City’s History through Song (Intellect, 2024) tells the history of New York City in song across a variety of different genres that the city has been home to and instrumental in developing, covering everything from early twentieth-century sheet music to Broadway’s musical theater, hip-hop, disco, punk, dancehall,…

1
Travis A. Weisse, "Health Freaks: America's Diet Champions and the Specter of Chronic Illness" (UNC Press, 2024) 53:09

2h ago53:09

53:09

In Health Freaks: America's Diet Champions and the Specter of Chronic Illness (University of North Carolina Press, 2024) Dr. Travis A. Weisse tells a new history of modern diets in America that goes beyond the familiar narrative of the nation's collective failure to lose weight. By exploring how the popularity of diets grew alongside patients' frus…

1
Mimi Okabe, "Manga, Murder and Mystery: The Boy Detectives of Japan’s Lost Generation" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 25:22

1h ago25:22

25:22

Little is known about the boy detective in Japanese detective fiction despite his popularity. Who is he, and what mysteries does he unveil about cultural understandings of youth in Japanese society? Manga, Murder and Mystery: The Boy Detectives of Japan’s Lost Generation (Bloomsbury, 2023) answers these questions by exploring the figure of the shon…

1
Peter Singer, "Consider the Turkey" (Princeton UP, 2024) 47:13

6d ago47:13

47:13

A turkey is the centerpiece of countless Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Yet most of us know almost nothing about today’s specially bred, commercially produced birds. In this brief book, bestselling author Peter Singer tells their story—and, unfortunately, it’s not a happy one. Along the way, he also offers a brief history of the turkey and its…

1
Shalini Kakar, "Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) 46:55

1h ago46:55

46:55

Devotional Fanscapes: Bollywood Star Deities, Devotee-Fans, and Cultural Politics in India and Beyond (Rowman and Littlefield, 2023) examines how fans worship film stars as deities. Focusing on temples dedicated to Bollywood (Hindi cinema) stars and the artifacts produced by Hindi and Tamil cinema fans, Shalini Kakar illustrates how the fan constru…

1
Vivian Asimos, "Cosplay and the Dressing of Identity" (Reaktion, 2024) 51:14

25m ago51:14

51:14

Cosplay, born from the fusion of ‘costume’ and ‘play’, transcends mere dress-up by transforming enthusiasts of TV shows, movies, books or video games into living embodiments of their cherished characters. Cosplay and the Dressing of Identity (Reaktion, 2024) by Dr. Vivian Asimos is a close exploration of the vibrant world of cosplay, showing what m…

1
Benjamin Barson, "Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons" (Wesleyan UP, 2024) 1:07:44

18m ago1:07:44

1:07:44

Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons (Wesleyan UP, 2024) recasts the birth of jazz, unearthing vibrant narratives of New Orleans musicians to reveal how early jazz was inextricably tied to the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction and the decades that followed. Benjamin Barson presents a "music history from b…

1
Anthony Kwame Harrison on Cassette Tapes and Hip Hop Culture 1:59:32

7h ago1:59:32

1:59:32

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Kwame Harrison, Alumni Distinguished Professor and Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech. Harrison records and performs under the moniker “Mad Squirrel” and has co-founded two groups—the San-Francisco-based Forest Fires Collective and Washington DC’s The Acorns—as well as releasing various solo projec…

1
Connie DeNave, "The Image Maker: Shattering Rock and Roll's Glass" (2023) 54:15

1h ago54:15

54:15

In The Image Maker: Shattering Rock and Roll's Glass Ceiling (2023), Connie DeNave shares her experiences in the public relations world during the British Invasion and the beginning of rock-n-roll marketing. Born in Brooklyn, New York, DeNave graduated from Hunter College and found herself with no job skills. Throughout the mid-1950s to the 1980s, …

1
Karen M. Dunak, "Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life" (NYU Press, 2024) 37:59

1h ago37:59

37:59

When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis became First Lady of the United States over sixty years ago, she stepped into the public spotlight. Although Jackie is perhaps best known for her two highly-publicized marriages, her legacy has endured beyond twentieth-century pop culture and she remains an object of public fascination today. Drawing on a range of so…

1
Erin Lee Mock, "Changed Men: Veterans in American Popular Culture after World War II" (U Virginia Press, 2024) 1:08:02

28m ago1:08:02

1:08:02

Millions of GIs returned from overseas in 1945. A generation of men who had left their families and had learned to kill and to quickly dispatch sexual urges were rapidly reintegrated into civilian life, told to put the war behind them with cheer and confidence. Many veterans struggled, openly or privately, with this transition. Others in society wo…

1
Elsie Walker, "Life 24x a Second: Cinema, Selfhood, and Society" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:05:43

18d ago1:05:43

1:05:43

Life 24x a Second: Cinema, Selfhood, and Society (Oxford UP, 2023) highlights the life-sustaining and life-affirming power of cinema. Author Elsie Walker pays particular attention to pedagogical practice and students' reflections on what the study of cinema has given to their lives. This book provides multiple perspectives on cinema that matters fo…

1
David Shoemaker, "Wisecracks: Humor and Morality in Everyday Life" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 53:57

9d ago53:57

53:57

What good is a good sense of humour especially when the humour may be ethically questionable? Although humour seems a valuable part of a good conversation and indeed a good life, jokes have never seemed more morally problematic than they do now. How can we then evaluate quips, gibes, pranks, teasing, light mockery, sarcasm when they can all too oft…

1
Hunter Hargraves, "Uncomfortable Television" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:23:47

2d ago1:23:47

1:23:47

From The Wire to Intervention to Girls, postmillennial American television has dazzled audiences with novelistic seriality and cinematic aesthetics. Yet this television is also more perverse: it bombards audiences with misogynistic and racialized violence, graphic sex, substance abuse, unlikeable protagonists, and the extraordinary exploitation of …

1
Sarah Cleary, "The Myth of Harm: Horror, Censorship and the Child" (Bloomsbury, 2022) 58:43

6d ago58:43

58:43

The horror genre has endured a long and controversial success within popular culture. Fraught with accusations pertaining to its alleged ability to harm and corrupt young people and indeed society as a whole, the genre is constantly under pressure to suppress that which has made it so popular to begin with - its ability to frighten and generate dis…

1
Gabe Durham, "Bible Adventures" (Boss Fight Books, 2015) 29:15

4d ago29:15

29:15

In the beginning, a small unlicensed game development company was hit with divine inspiration: They could make a lot of money (and escape the wrath of Nintendo) by creating games for Christians. With the release of the 1990 NES platformer Bible Adventures, the developers saw what they had made, and it was good. Or, at least, good enough. Based on e…

1
Seth E. Jenny et al., "Routledge Handbook of Esports" (Routledge, 2024) 35:37

5d ago35:37

35:37

The Routledge Handbook of Esports (Routledge, 2024) offers the first fully comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of esports, one of the fastest growing sectors of the contemporary sports and entertainment industries. Global in coverage, the book emphasizes the multifaceted nature of esports and explores the most pressing issues defining the compet…

1
Yaraslau Kot, "Central and Eastern European Histories and Heritages in Video Games" (Routledge, 2024) 35:52

26d ago35:52

35:52

Focusing on games that examine a range of national histories and heritages from across Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European Histories and Heritages in Video Games (Routledge, 2024) looks beyond the diversity of the local histories depicted in games, and the audience reception of these histories, to show a diversity of approaches…

1
David Rowell, "The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music" (Melville House, 2024) 1:09:09

8d ago1:09:09

1:09:09

A veteran music journalist argues that the rise of music streaming and the consolidation of digital platforms is decimating the musical landscape, with dire consequences for the future of our culture ... In The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music (Melville House, 2024), former Washington Post writer and editor David Rowe…

1
Jonathan A. Allan, "Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin" (U Regina Press, 2024) 32:51

12d ago32:51

32:51

The “uncut” penis is viewed by some as attractive or erotic, and by others as ugly or undesirable. Secular parents of male infants worry about whether or not the foreskin should be removed so their little boy can grow up to “look like dad” or to avoid imagined bullying in the locker room. Medical experts and public health organisations argue back a…

1
Richard Schoch, "How Sondheim Can Change Your Life" (Atria Books, 2024) 59:56

13d ago59:56

59:56

For fans of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim is one of the true titans – the genius who brought us Sweeney Todd and West Side Story, Into the Woods, and Company. With acclaimed revivals of his landmark shows regularly performed in London and New York, and new generations being introduced to the man who forever transformed musical theatre, Sondheim…

1
Richard Moss, "Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games" (Bitmap Books, 2024) 37:28

13d ago37:28

37:28

Painstakingly researched and written by football-obsessed writer and experienced game journalist, historian, and documentarian Richard Moss – author of Bitmap's own The Secret History of Mac Gaming – A Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games stays keenly on the ball as it shares the rich and influential history of video game footbal…

1
Erika Engelhaupt, "Go to Hell: A Traveler's Guide to Earth's Most Otherworldly Destinations" (National Geographic, 2024) 55:58

21d ago55:58

55:58

With Go to Hell: A Traveler's Guide to Earth's Most Otherworldly Destinations (National Geographic, 2024) by Erika Engelhaupt, you can go to hell and back with the help of this one-of-a-kind illustrated travel guide to real-life underworld destinations around the globe. Full of intrigue, lore, and plenty of brimstone and fire, each of the 54 destin…

1
Andrew deWaard, "Derivative Media: How Wall Street Devours Culture" (U California Press, 2024) 1:21:47

1M ago1:21:47

1:21:47

Sequels, reboots, franchises, and songs that remake old songs—does it feel like everything new in popular culture is just derivative of something old? Contrary to popular belief, the reason is not audiences or marketing, but Wall Street. In this book, Andrew deWaard shows how the financial sector is dismantling the creative capacity of cultural ind…

1
Landon Palmer, "Rock Star/Movie Star: Power and Performance in Cinematic Rock Stardom" (Oxford UP, 2020) 1:04:37

1M ago1:04:37

1:04:37

During the mid-1950s, when Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studios saw an opportunity in making films that showcased performances by rock 'n' roll stars. Rock stars eventually found cinema to be a useful space to extend their creative practices, and the motion pic…

1
Margarette Lincoln, "Perfection: 400 Years of Women's Quest for Beauty" (Yale UP, 2024) 28:55

1M ago28:55

28:55

A colourful account of women's health, beauty, and cosmetic aids, from stays and corsets to today's viral trends. Victorian women ate arsenic to achieve an ideal, pale complexion, while in the 1790s balloon corsets were all the rage, designed to make the wearer appear pregnant. Women of the eighteenth century applied blood from a black cat's tail t…

1
Thinking Machines: The Turing Test at 75 29:03

1M ago29:03

29:03

It’s the UConn Popcast, and this is the first episode in our new series about artificial intelligence and popular culture. In this first episode, we revisit Alan Turing's seminal1950 paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, in which he asks "Can machines think?" In the paper, Turing proposes what became known as "The Turing test," a game of dece…

1
Peter C. Kunze, "Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance" (Rutgers UP, 2023) 1:08:52

1M ago1:08:52

1:08:52

In the early 1980s, Walt Disney Productions was struggling, largely bolstered by the success of its theme parks. Within fifteen years, however, it had become one of the most powerful entertainment conglomerates in the world. Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance (Rutgers University Press, 2023) by Dr. Peter Kunze argue…

1
Ashawnta Jackson, "Soul-Folk" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 1:10:55

1M ago1:10:55

1:10:55

Folk music of the 1960s and 1970s was a genre that was always shifting and expanding, yet somehow never found room for so many. In the sounds of soul-folk, Black artists like Terry Callier and Linda Lewis began to reclaim their space in the genre, and use it to bring their own traditions to light- the jazz, the blues, the field hollers, the spiritu…

1
Brad Balukjian, "The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania" (Hachette, 2024) 1:01:45

2M ago1:01:45

1:01:45

In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose real name was Khosrow Vaziri), to write his biography. Things quickly went south, culminating in the Sheik threatening Balukjian’s life. Now seventeen years later, Balukjian returns to the road in search…

1
Anne Higonnet, "Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution" (Norton, 2024) 47:04

2M ago47:04

47:04

Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had nothing left to lose. After surviving incarceration and forced incestuous marriage during the worst violence of the French Revolution of 1789, they dared sartorial revolt. Together, Joséphine and Téré…

1
Beth Blum on Self-Help, Dale Carnegie to Today (JP) 29:44

2M ago29:44

29:44

Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own…

1
Maurice Suckling, "Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games" (Routledge, 2024) 35:18

2M ago35:18

35:18

James Dunnigan’s memorable phrase serves as the first part of a title for this book, where it seeks to be applicable not just to analog wargames, but also to board games exploring non-expressly military history, that is, to political, diplomatic, social, economic, or other forms of history. Don’t board games about history, made predominantly out of…

1
Virginia Nicholson, "All the Rage: Power, Pain, Pleasure: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty 1860-1960" (Pegasus Books, 2024) 1:09:40

2M ago1:09:40

1:09:40

In All the Rage: Power, Pain, Pleasure: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty 1860-1960 (Pegasus Book, 2024) richly detailed account, Virginia Nicholson provides a richly detailed account to take us to the Frontline of Beauty to reveal the power, the pain and the pleasure involved in adorning the female body. At the heart of this history is the fema…

1
Aviva Dove-Viebahn, "There She Goes Again: Gender, Power, and Knowledge in Contemporary Film and Television Franchises" (Rutgers UP, 2023) 1:05:55

2M ago1:05:55

1:05:55

There She Goes Again: Gender, Power, and Knowledge in Contemporary Film and Television Franchises (Rutgers UP, 2023) interrogates the representation of ostensibly powerful women in transmedia franchises, examining how presumed feminine traits—love, empathy, altruism, diplomacy—are alternately lauded and repudiated as possibilities for effecting lon…

1
Yolonda Youngs, "Framing Nature: The Creation of an American Icon at the Grand Canyon" (U Nebraska Press, 2024) 1:05:41

2M ago1:05:41

1:05:41

Perhaps no American landscape is as iconic as the rainbow rocks of Arizona's Grand Canyon. Yet, as the geographer Yolonda Youngs argues, the Grand Canyon many people think they know is but one sliver of the story of the wider Grand Canyon as a historical and physical place. In Framing Nature: The Creation of an American Icon at the Grand Canyon (U …

1
John Withington, "A History of Fireworks from: Their Origins to the Present Day" (Reaktion, 2024) 1:00:01

2M ago1:00:01

1:00:01

A History of Fireworks from: Their Origins to the Present Day (Reaktion, 2024) by John Withington illuminates the glittering history of fireworks, from their mysterious beginnings to the dazzling big-budget displays of today. It describes how they enthralled the world’s royal courts and became a sensation across the British Empire. There are storie…

1
Scott Henderson, "Comics and Pop Culture: Adaptation from Panel to Frame" (U Texas Press, 2019) 1:06:53

2M ago1:06:53

1:06:53

It is hard to discuss the current film industry without acknowledging the impact of comic book adaptations, especially considering the blockbuster success of recent superhero movies. Yet transmedial adaptations are part of an evolution that can be traced to the turn of the last century, when comic strips such as “Little Nemo in Slumberland” and “Fe…

1
Alexandre Lefebvre, "Liberalism as a Way of Life" (Princeton UP, 2024) 1:15:19

2M ago1:15:19

1:15:19

Why liberalism is all you need to lead a good, fun, worthy, and rewarding life—and how you can become a better and happier person by taking your liberal beliefs more seriously Where do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one thing: libera…

1
Gerald Sim, "Screening Big Data: Films That Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy" (Routledge, 2024) 1:08:10

2M ago1:08:10

1:08:10

Screening Big Data: Films that Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy (Routledge, 2024) examines the influence of key films on public understanding of big data and the algorithmic systems that structure our digitally mediated lives. From star-powered blockbusters to civic-minded documentaries positioned to facilitate weighty debates about artificial intell…

1
Alessandra Seggi, "Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: Context, Causes, and Consequences" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) 1:10:02

2M ago1:10:02

1:10:02

Listener note: This interview contains discussions of suicide. Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: Context, Causes, and Consequences (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) explores the depiction of suicide in American youth films from 1900 to 2019. Anchored in Sociology, this multidisciplinary study investigates the causes and consequences of suicide and unc…

1
Konrad Bercovici, "The Algonquin Round Table: 25 Years with the Legends Who Lunch" (SUNY Press, 2024) 45:06

2M ago45:06

45:06

Konrad Bercovici's The Algonquin Round Table: 25 Years With the Legends Who Lunch (SUNY Press, 2024) is a previously unpublished manuscript exploring the rich history of a New York City landmark. Located in New York's theatre district, the Algonquin Hotel became an artistic hub for the city and a landmark in America's cultural life. It was a meetin…

1
Jordan Minor, "Video Game of the Year: A Year-By-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977" (Abrams, 2023) 17:07

2M ago17:07

17:07

Pong. The Legend of Zelda. Final Fantasy VII. Rock Band. Fortnite. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For each of the 40 years of video game history, there is a defining game, a game that captured the zeitgeist and left a legacy for all games that followed. Through a series of entertaining, informative, and opinionated critical essays, author and tech …

1
Jane Little Botkin, "The Pink Dress: A Memoir of a Reluctant Beauty Queen" (She Writes Press, 2024) 39:41

2M ago39:41

39:41

Growing up in West Texas, Jane Little Botkin didn’t have designs on becoming a beauty queen. But not long after joining a pageant on a whim in college, she became the first protégé of El Paso’s Richard Guy and Rex Holt, known as the “Kings of Beauty”—just as the 1970’s counterculture movement began to take off. A pink, rose-covered gown—a Guyrex cr…

1
Lisa Fletcher and Elizabeth Leane, "Space, Place, and Bestsellers: Moving Books" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:02:34

2M ago1:02:34

1:02:34

From airport bookstores to deckchairs, as audiobooks downloaded by commuters, and on Kindles and other portable devices, twenty-first century bestsellers move in old and new ways. In Space, Place, and Bestsellers: Moving Books (Cambridge University Press Elements in Publishing and Book Culture series, 2024), Lisa Fletcher and Elizabeth Leane examin…

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