Best J R R Tolkien Podcasts (2024)

1
Breanne Fahs, "Burn It Down: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution" (Verso, 2020) 58:02

8m ago58:02

58:02

Burn It Down: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution (Verso, 2020), Breanne Fahs has curated a comprehensive collection of feminist manifestos from the nineteenth century to today. Fahs collected over seventy-five manifestos from around the world, calling on feminists to act, be defiant and show their rage. This thought-provoking and timely collect…

1
Tiffany Gill, "To Turn the Whole World Over: Black Women and Internationalism" (U Illinois Press, 2019) 40:18

8m ago40:18

40:18

Black women undertook an energetic and unprecedented engagement with internationalism from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s. In many cases, their work reflected a complex effort to merge internationalism with issues of women's rights and with feminist concerns. To Turn the Whole World Over: Black Women and Internationalism (U Illinois Press…

1
Donald L. Miller, "Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy" (Simon and Schuster, 2019) 1:27:45

8m ago1:27:45

1:27:45

In Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign that Broke the Confederacy (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Donald L. Miller explains in great detail how Grant ultimately succeeded in taking the city and turning the tide of the war in favor of the Union. Miller begins his tale with events in Cairo and leads the reader through all the important events that lead to success …

1
Arang Keshavarzian, "Making Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East" (Stanford UP, 2024) 1:04:04

8m ago1:04:04

1:04:04

The Persian Gulf has long been a contested space--an object of imperial ambitions, national antagonisms, and migratory dreams. The roots of these contestations lie in the different ways the Gulf has been defined as a region, both by those who live there and those beyond its shore. Making Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle E…

1
Francine Banner, "Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems" (U California Press, 2024) 55:32

8m ago55:32

55:32

Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Francine Banner is a fascinating cultural diagnosis that identifies our obsession with complicity as a symptom of a deeply divided society. The questions surrounding what it means to be legally complicit are the same ones we may ask ourselves…

1
Lucia Hulsether, "Capitalist Humanitarianism" (Duke UP, 2023) 1:12:46

8m ago1:12:46

1:12:46

The struggle against neoliberal order has gained momentum over the last five decades – to the point that economic elites have not only adapted to the Left's critiques but incorporated them for capitalist expansion. Venture funds expose their ties to slavery and pledge to invest in racial equity. Banks pitch microloans as a path to indigenous self-d…

1
Steve Gillon, “The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After” (Basic Books, 2009) 1:12:42

8m ago1:12:42

1:12:42

You could fill a large library with books about JFK’s assassination. We’ve even touched on the subject here. The topic of the transfer of power from JFK to LBJ, however, has been neglected. I was under the impression that after JFK was pronounced dead, LBJ took an oath and that was that. As Steve Gillon points out in his terrific new The Kennedy As…

1
Arie Perliger, "American Zealots: Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism" (Columbia UP, 2020) 1:03:56

8m ago1:03:56

1:03:56

In an unsettling time in American history, the outbreak of right-wing violence is among the most disturbing developments. In recent years, attacks originating from the far right of American politics have targeted religious and ethnic minorities, with a series of antigovernment militants, religious extremists, and lone-wolf mass shooters inspired by…

1
Yanagawa Seigan, "The Same Moon Shines on All: The Lives and Selected Poems of Yanagawa Seigan and Kōran" (Columbia UP, 2024) 54:00

8m ago54:00

54:00

Yanagawa Seigan (1789–1858) and his wife Kōran (1804–79) were two of the great poets of nineteenth-century Japan. They practiced the art of traditional Sinitic poetry—works written in literary Sinitic, or classical Chinese, a language of enduring importance far beyond China’s borders. Together, they led itinerant lives, traveling around Japan teach…

1
Frances Tanzer, "Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) 1:07:58

5m ago1:07:58

1:07:58

In Vanishing Vienna: Modernism, Philosemitism, and Jews in a Postwar City (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) historian Frances Tanzer traces the reconstruction of Viennese culture from the 1938 German annexation through the early 1960s. The book reveals continuity in Vienna's cultural history across this period and a framework for interpreting Viennese c…

1
Matt Stoller, "Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy" (Simon & Schuster, 2020) 55:03

5m ago55:03

55:03

In Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Matt Stoller explains how authoritarianism and populism have returned to American politics for the first time in eighty years, as the outcome of the 2016 election shook our faith in democratic institutions. It has brought to the fore dangerous forces that ma…

1
Stephen Harris, "Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Santideva on Virtue and Well-Being" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 1:18:20

5m ago1:18:20

1:18:20

An influential eighth-century Buddhist text, Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, or Guide to the Practices of Awakening, how to become a supremely virtuous person, a bodhisattva who desires to end the suffering of all sentient beings. Stephen Harris’s Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Śāntideva on Virtue and Well-Being (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024)…

1
Stephanie Balkwill, "The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century" (U California Press, 2024) 1:06:54

5m ago1:06:54

1:06:54

In the late fifth century, a girl whose name has been forgotten by history was born at the edge of the Chinese empire. By the time of her death, she had transformed herself into Empress Dowager Ling, one of the most powerful politicians of her age and one of the first of many Buddhist women to wield incredible influence in dynastic East Asia. In th…

1
Ujju Aggarwal, "Unsettling Choice: Race, Rights, and the Partitioning of Public Education" (U Minnesota Press, 2024) 39:31

5m ago39:31

39:31

What do universal rights to public goods like education mean when codified as individual, private choices? Is the “problem” of school choice actually not about better choices for all but, rather, about the competition and exclusion that choice engenders—guaranteeing a system of winners and losers? Unsettling Choice: Race, Rights, and the Partitioni…

1
Pekka Hämäläinen, "Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power" (Yale UP, 2019) 40:02

5m ago40:02

40:02

The names of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse are often readily recognized among many Americans. Yet the longer, dynamic history of the Lakota - a history from which these three famous figures were created - remains largely untold. In Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power (Yale, 2019), historian Pekka Hämäläinen, author of The C…

1
Krista E. Hughes et al., "Ecological Solidarities: Mobilizing Faith and Justice for an Entangled World" (Penn State UP, 2019) 1:27:27

5m ago1:27:27

1:27:27

Operating on the premise that our failure to recognize our interconnected relationship to the rest of the cosmos is the origin of planetary peril, Ecological Solidarities: Mobilizing Faith and Justice for an Entangled World (Penn State University Press, 2019) presents academic, activist, and artistic perspectives on how to inspire reflection and mo…

1
Eric Reinders, "Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy and Translation" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 57:21

5m ago57:21

57:21

Approaching translations of Tolkien's works as stories in their own right, Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy and Translation (Bloomsbury, 2024) reads multiple Chinese translations of Tolkien's writing to uncover the new and unique perspectives that enrich the meaning of the original texts. Exploring translations of The Lord of the Rings…

1
Michael J. Douma, "The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York: A Cultural, Economic, and Demographic History, 1700-1827" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 51:29

5m ago51:29

51:29

Original and deeply researched, The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York: A Cultural, Economic, and Demographic History, 1700-1827 (Cambridge University Press, 2024) provides a new interpretation of Dutch American slavery which challenges many of the traditional assumptions about slavery in New York. With an emphasis on demography and economics,…

1
Anthony Kaldellis, "The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:02:45

5m ago1:02:45

1:02:45

In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features,…

1
Kendra Sullivan, "Reps" (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2024) 57:29

7m ago57:29

57:29

Kendra Sullivan's latest book of poetry, Reps (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2024), cycles through a series of operational exercises that gradually enable her to narrate an attempted escape from the trappings of narrativity—plot, character, chronology, and the promise of a probable future issuing forth from a stable past. From deep within a narrowly constr…

1
Sören Schoppmeier, "Playing American: Open-World Videogames and the Reproduction of American Culture" (De Gruyter, 2023) 25:08

6m ago25:08

25:08

Videogames have always depicted representations of American culture, but how exactly they feed back into this culture is less obvious. Advocating an action-based understanding of both videogames and culture, this book delineates how aspects of American culture are reproduced transnationally through popular open-world videogames. Playing American: O…

1
Hamilton Nolan, "The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor" (Hachette Books, 2024) 54:19

7m ago54:19

54:19

Inequality is America's biggest problem. Unions are the single strongest tool that working people have to fix it. Organized labor has been in decline for decades. Yet it sits today at a moment of enormous opportunity. In the wake of the pandemic, a highly visible wave of strikes and new organizing campaigns have driven the popularity of unions to h…

1
Özge Çelikaslan, "Archiving the Commons: Looking Through the Lens of bak.ma" (DPR Barcelona, 2024) 39:43

7m ago39:43

39:43

“Stories of archives are always stories of phantoms, of the death or disappearance or erasure of something, the preservation of what remains, and its possible reappearance—feared by some, desired by others,” writes Thomas Keenan. Archiving the Commons: Looking Through the Lens of bak.ma (DPR Barcelona, June 2024) is about those stories and much mor…

1
Pottery, Moral Enhancement, and Science-Fiction with Pei-hua Huang 30:20

6m ago30:20

30:20

In this episode Pat speaks with Dr Pei-hua Huang. Dr Pei-hua Huang’s work lies where bioethics and political philosophy intersect. She is interested in the interaction of social issues and medical technologies. She has a special interest in philosophical issues raised by human and moral enhancement technologies and the treatment of morally relevant…

1
Robert Weis, "For Christ and Country: Militant Catholic Youth in Post-Revolutionary Mexico" (Cambridge UP, 2019) 1:14:49

7m ago1:14:49

1:14:49

Why did José de León Toral kill Álvaro Obregón, leader of the Mexican Revolution? So far, historians have characterized the motivations of the young Catholic militant as the fruit of fanaticism. Robert Weis's book For Christ and Country: Militant Catholic Youth in Post-Revolutionary Mexico (Cambridge UP, 2019) offers new insights on how diverse sec…

1
Filmmaker, Artist, Writer: A Conversation with Paromita Vohra 50:45

7m ago50:45

50:45

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media a…

1
The Middah of "Silence" in Balak 37:15

6m ago37:15

37:15

In this week's episode, David and Modya speak with Rebecca Schliser, a core faculty member at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and rabbinical student at Aleph, The Alliance for Jewish Renewal. They explore the middah of silence through the stories in parsha Balak and see how a donkey may be more in tune with the Divine than a human by employin…

1
Laura Moretti and Satō Yukiko, "Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi" (Brill, 2024) 1:03:36

11h ago1:03:36

1:03:36

Part of a formidable publishing industry, cheap yet eye-catching graphic narratives consistently charmed early modern Japanese readers for around two hundred years. These booklets were called kusazōshi (“grass books”). Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi (Brill, 2024) is the first English-language publication of its k…

1
Alessandra Montalbano, "Ransom Kidnapping in Italy: Crime, Memory, and Violence" (U Toronto Press, 2023) 52:00

6m ago52:00

52:00

For over thirty years, modern Italy was plagued by ransom kidnappings perpetrated by bandits and organised crime syndicates. Nearly 700 men, women, and children were abducted from across the country between the late 1960s and the late 1990s, held hostage by members of the Sardinian banditry, Cosa Nostra, and the ’Ndrangheta. Subjected to harsh capt…

1
Michelle Moffat, "Scottish Society in the Second World War: Tradition, Tension, Transformation" (Edinburgh UP, 2023) 59:02

19m ago59:02

59:02

Surprisingly little is known about Scottish experiences of the Second World War. Scottish Society in the Second World War (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) by Dr. Michelle Moffat addresses this oversight by providing a pioneering account of society and culture in wartime Scotland. While significantly illuminating a pivotal episode in Scottish hist…

1
Orientalism in Representations of Muslims: A Discussion with Laury Silvers 1:14:30

7m ago1:14:30

1:14:30

In this episode of Radio ReOrient we return to the literary theme of this season, to explore the work of Laury Silvers. Laury is the author of many successful book series set in the past and present of the Islamicate, including her Sufi Mysteries Quartet set in 10th Century Baghdad. In this interview she tells Saeed Khan and Salman Sayyid about her…

1
Anthony Di Renzo, "Pasquinades: Essays from Rome's Famous Talking Statue" (Cayuga Lake Books, 2023) 43:21

7m ago43:21

43:21

Anthony Di Renzo's Pasquinades: Essays from Rome's Famous Talking Statue (Cayuga Lake Books, 2023) is the most audacious guide to Rome you will ever read. Pasquino, the city’s witty talking statue, will introduce you to the gallant heroes and grotesque villains, humble peddlers and flamboyant nobles, whores and saints and movie stars who have reign…

1
Jeremiah Coogan, "Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:22:22

7m ago1:22:22

1:22:22

The development of Christian scriptures did not terminate once, for example, following Irenaeus and other influential patristic figures, the four gospels that would later be located at the front of the church’s New Testament were accepted by most churches and transmitted together in the same codex. Instead, erudite Christian readers employed new an…

1
Diana P. Parsell, "Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington's Cherry Trees" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:00:51

7m ago1:00:51

1:00:51

Eliza Scidmore (1856-1928) was a journalist, a world traveler, a writer, an amateur photographer, the first female board member of the National Geographic Society — and the one responsible for the idea to plant Japanese cherry trees in Washington DC. Her fascinating life is expertly told by Diana Parsell in Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journali…

1
Kevin Loughran, "Parks for Profit: Selling Nature in the City" (Columbia UP, 2022) 1:03:56

7m ago1:03:56

1:03:56

A new kind of city park has emerged in the early twenty-first century. Postindustrial parks transform the derelict remnants of an urban past into distinctive public spaces that meld repurposed infrastructure, wild-looking green space, and landscape architecture. For their proponents, they present an opportunity to turn disused areas into neighborho…

1
Fida Jiryis, "Stranger in My Own Land: Palestine, Israel and One Family's Story of Home" (Hurst, 2022) 1:16:02

7m ago1:16:02

1:16:02

In this very moving and heartwarming interview I had the opportunity to discuss with Fida Jiyris her work, a beautifully written memoir that tells the story of her and her family journey, which is also the story of Palestine, from the Nakba to the present—a seventy-five-year tale of conflict, exodus, occupation, return and search for belonging, see…

1
Freeman's Challenge: The Murder That Shook America's Original Prison for Profit 58:38

7m ago58:38

58:38

Today’s book is: Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder That Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit (U Chicago Press, 2024), by Dr. Robin Bernstein, which tells the story of a teenager named William Freeman. Convicted of a horse theft he insisted he did not commit, he was sentenced to five years of hard labor in Auburn’s new prison. Uniting incarcerat…

1
What Would Jesus Say about Diversity and Inclusion? (with Pete Imperial) 55:17

7m ago55:17

55:17

Pete Imperial has been principal of St. Mary’s Catholic High School in Berkeley, California, a Lasallian Catholic School of 160 years and going strong. Yet only 45% of the students are Catholics (though a similar number are Protestant Christians) and some of the kids have had no religious experience at all. How does a good Catholic school infuse th…

1
Bill Lascher, "A Danger Shared: A Journalist’s Glimpses of a Continent at War" (Blacksmith Books, 2024) 52:09

7m ago52:09

52:09

Melville Jacoby was a U.S. war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese War and, later, the Second World War, writing about the Japanese advances from Chongqing, Hanoi, and Manila. He was also a relative of Bill Lascher, a journalist–specifically, the cousin of Bill’s grandmother. Bill has now collected Mel’s work in a book: A Danger Shared: A Journa…

1
"Prairie Schooner" Magazine: A Discussion with John Kuligowski and Zainab Omaki 28:42

7m ago28:42

28:42

John Kuligowski is a Nonfiction Assistant Editor at Prairie Schooner and also currently a PhD student in English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He worked as an assistant editor for volumes 392 and 394 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography and has published in a number of venues both online and in print. Zainab Omaki is likewise a Nonficti…

1
Reid B. Locklin, "Hindu Mission, Christian Mission: Soundings in Comparative Theology" (SUNY Press, 2024) 28:08

7m ago28:08

28:08

For some four hundred years, Hindus and Christians have been engaged in a public controversy about conversion and missionary proselytization, especially in India and the Hindu diaspora. Hindu Mission, Christian Mission: Soundings in Comparative Theology (SUNY Press, 2024) reframes this controversy by shifting attention from "conversion" to a wider,…

1
Seth A. Berkowitz, "Equal Care: Health Equity, Social Democracy, and the Egalitarian State" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024) 28:56

7m ago28:56

28:56

Health inequity is one of the defining problems of our time. But current efforts to address the problem focus on mitigating the harms of injustice rather than confronting injustice itself. In Equal Care: Health Equity, Social Democracy, and the Egalitarian State (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024), Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, MPH, offers an innovative vision for t…

1
Mark R. Beissinger, "The Revolutionary City: Urbanization and the Global Transformation of Rebellion" (Princeton UP, 2022) 54:00

18m ago54:00

54:00

Examining the changing character of revolution around the world, The Revolutionary City: Urbanization and the Global Transformation of Rebellion (Princeton UP, 2022) focuses on the impact that the concentration of people, power, and wealth in cities exercises on revolutionary processes and outcomes. Once predominantly an urban and armed affair, rev…

1
Thomas Zeller, "Consuming Landscapes: What We See When We Drive and Why It Matters" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022) 1:15:41

18m ago1:15:41

1:15:41

What we see through our windshields reflects ideas about our national identity, consumerism, and infrastructure. For better or worse, windshields have become a major frame for viewing the nonhuman world. The view from the road is one of the main ways in which we experience our environments. These vistas are the result of deliberate historical force…

1
Yaakov Beasley, "Joel, Obadiah, and Micah: Facing the Storm" (Maggid, 2024) 40:02

18m ago40:02

40:02

Joel, Obadiah, and Micah all prophesied not after a calamity struck but right before a potential crisis or during the crisis itself. Facing immanent catastrophe, the Jewish people had to decide where their loyalties lay. Join us as we speak with Rav Yaakov Beasley about his book Joel, Obadiah, and Micah: Facing the Storm (Maggid, 2024). He draws fr…

1
Mahjabeen Dhala, "Feminist Theology and Social Justice in Islam: A Study on the Sermon of Fatima" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:14:48

18m ago1:14:48

1:14:48

Fatima, the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, has an interesting legacy, one that is often shaped by sectarian differences and tensions. The sermon of Fatima, which is the focus of Mahjabeen Dhala's Feminist Theology and Sociology of Islam: A Study of the Sermon of Fatima (Cambridge University Press, 2024), though itself riddled with questions of authe…

1
Sultan vs Dracula 19:36

18m ago19:36

19:36

An interview with renowned calligrapher and author Razwan ul-Haq talking about his graphic novel Sultan vs. Dracula (al-Oblong Books, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network…

1
Life in a New Language, Part 6: Citizenship 40:53

18m ago40:53

40:53

This episode of the Language on the Move Podcast is part of the Life in a New Language series. Life in a New Language is a new book just out from Oxford University Press. Life in a New Language examines the language learning and settlement experiences of 130 migrants to Australia from 34 different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin Americ…

1
Nuria Silleras-Fernandez, "The Politics of Emotion: Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:00:17

18m ago1:00:17

1:00:17

The Politics of Emotion: Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Nuria Silleras-Fernandez explores the intersection of powerful emotional states—love, melancholy, grief, and madness—with gender and political power on the Iberian Peninsula from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. U…

1
Ying Qian, "Revolutionary Becomings: Documentary Media in Twentieth-Century China" (Columbia UP, 2023) 1:16:51

18m ago1:16:51

1:16:51

Welcome to another episode of New Books in Chinese Studies. Today, I will be talking to Columbia University professor Ying Qian about her new book, Revolutionary Becomings: Documentary Media in Twentieth-Century China (Columbia UP, 2023). The volume enriches our understanding of media’s role in China’s revolutionary history by turning to documentar…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

J R R Tolkien Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide