Best Lightman Podcasts (2024)

1
Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992) 55:06

13m ago55:06

55:06

Einstein’s Dreams (Vintage, 1992) by Alan Lightman, set in Albert Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, is a novel about the cultural interconnection of time, relativity and life. As the young genius creates his theory of relativity, in a series of dreams, he imagines other worlds, each with a different conceptualization of time. In one, time is circu…

1
Andrew S. Jacobs, "Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:06:49

26m ago1:06:49

1:06:49

What if the original teachings of Jesus were different from the Bible's sanitized 'orthodox' version? What covert motivations might inspire those who decide what the text of the Bible 'says' or what it 'means'? For some who ask conspiratorial questions like these, the Bible is the vulnerable victim of secular forces seeking to divest the USA of its…

1
Jurgen Buchenau and Timothy Henderson, "The Mexican Revolution: A Documentary History" (Hackett, 2022) 1:08:14

26m ago1:08:14

1:08:14

In The Mexican Revolution: A Documentary History (Hackett, 2022), "Henderson and Buchenau have done an excellent and thoughtful job of collecting a wide range of voices for students to learn about the Mexican Revolution and its causes, both from ‘above’ and from ‘below’. I’m particularly appreciative of the authors’ inclusion of women’s voices and …

1
Miranda Melcher, "Securing Peace in Angola and Mozambique: The Importance of Specificity in Peace Treaties" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 1:15:56

26m ago1:15:56

1:15:56

Explaining how and why there are such diverging outcomes of UN peace negotiations and treaties, this book offers a detailed examination of peace processes in order to demonstrate that how treaties are negotiated and written significantly impacts their implementation. Drawing on case studies from the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars, Miranda Melche…

1
David J. Hand, "Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters" (Princeton UP, 2020) 1:18:03

26m ago1:18:03

1:18:03

There is no shortage of books on the growing impact of data collection and analysis on our societies, our cultures, and our everyday lives. David Hand's new book Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters (Princeton University Press, 2020) is unique in this genre for its focus on those data that aren't collected or don't get analyzed. More than an …

1
Avgi Saketopoulou, "Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia" (NYU Press, 2023) 1:08:26

26m ago1:08:26

1:08:26

Today I talked to Avgi Saketopoulou about her book Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia (NYU Press, 2023). My conversation with Dr. Saketopoulou begins in the clinic “one of the most scary and difficult places one can find oneself in” she says because it is in the consulting room that sometimes things “become traumatic for the first…

1
Breathing Together 44:57

26m ago44:57

44:57

Working across and among languages, media, and art forms, Caroline Bergvall’s writing takes form as published poetic works and performance, frequently of sound-driven projects. Her interests include multilingual poetics, queer feminist politics and issues of cultural belonging, commissioned and shown by such institutions as MoMA, the Tate Modern, a…

1
Eve J. Chung, "Daughters of Shandong" (Berkley Books, 2024) 38:31

23m ago38:31

38:31

Daughters of Shandong (Berkley Books, 2024), the author’s first and based on the life of her grandmother, follows the fortunes of a mother and three daughters abandoned by their wealthy family in soon-to-be Communist China. It is 1948, and Chairman Mao’s forces have moved into Shandong Province, driving the Nationalist Army into retreat. Although t…

1
Robert E. Jones, "Priesthood, Cult, and Temple in the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran: Analyzing a Pre-Hasmonean Jewish Literary Tradition" (Brill, 2023) 52:19

26m ago52:19

52:19

The Hellenistic period was a pivotal moment in the history of the Jewish priesthood. The waning days of the Persian empire coincided with the continued ascendance of the high priest and Jerusalem temple as powerful political, cultural, and religious institutions in Judea. The Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran, only recently published in full, testify to …

1
Donna Drucker, "Contraception: A Concise History" (The MIT Press, 2020) 23:53

26m ago23:53

23:53

The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding of this facility, and the clinical provision of contraception that it enabled, marked the moment when physicians started to take the prevention of pregnancy seriously as a medical concern. In Contracep…

1
Eve J. Chung, "Daughters of Shandong" (Berkley Books, 2024) 38:31

26m ago38:31

38:31

Daughters of Shandong (Berkley Books, 2024), the author’s first and based on the life of her grandmother, follows the fortunes of a mother and three daughters abandoned by their wealthy family in soon-to-be Communist China. It is 1948, and Chairman Mao’s forces have moved into Shandong Province, driving the Nationalist Army into retreat. Although t…

1
Donna Drucker, "Contraception: A Concise History" (The MIT Press, 2020) 23:53

26m ago23:53

23:53

The beginning of the modern contraceptive era began in 1882, when Dr. Aletta Jacobs opened the first birth control clinic in Amsterdam. The founding of this facility, and the clinical provision of contraception that it enabled, marked the moment when physicians started to take the prevention of pregnancy seriously as a medical concern. In Contracep…

1
David J. Hand, "Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters" (Princeton UP, 2020) 1:18:03

1h ago1:18:03

1:18:03

There is no shortage of books on the growing impact of data collection and analysis on our societies, our cultures, and our everyday lives. David Hand's new book Dark Data: Why What You Don't Know Matters (Princeton University Press, 2020) is unique in this genre for its focus on those data that aren't collected or don't get analyzed. More than an …

1
Natasha L. Mikles, "Shattered Grief: How the Pandemic Transformed the Spirituality of Death in America" (Columbia UP, 2024) 56:06

26m ago56:06

56:06

The COVID-19 pandemic left millions grieving their loved ones without the consolation of traditional ways of mourning. Patients were admitted to hospitals and never seen again. Social distancing often meant conventional funerals could not be held. Religious communities of all kinds were disrupted at the exact moment mourners turned to them for supp…

1
Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992) 55:06

1h ago55:06

55:06

Einstein’s Dreams (Vintage, 1992) by Alan Lightman, set in Albert Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, is a novel about the cultural interconnection of time, relativity and life. As the young genius creates his theory of relativity, in a series of dreams, he imagines other worlds, each with a different conceptualization of time. In one, time is circu…

1
Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992) 55:06

9m ago55:06

55:06

Einstein’s Dreams (Vintage, 1992) by Alan Lightman, set in Albert Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, is a novel about the cultural interconnection of time, relativity and life. As the young genius creates his theory of relativity, in a series of dreams, he imagines other worlds, each with a different conceptualization of time. In one, time is circu…

1
Russell Sandberg and Daniel Newman, "Law and Humanities" (Anthem Press, 2024) 1:38:15

9m ago1:38:15

1:38:15

In Law and Humanities (Anthem Press, 2024), Professor Russell Sandberg and Dr Daniel Newman provide an accessible introduction to the law and humanities. Each chapter explores the nature, development and possible further trajectory of a disciplinary ‘law and’ field, tackling a wide ranging series of topics as law and geography, law and history, law…

1
Tabitha Stanmore, "Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic" (Bloombury, 2024) 33:13

9m ago33:13

33:13

Imagine: it's the year 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they've been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you're facing a trial. Maybe you're looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do? In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might have been cunning folk: practitioners of “service mag…

1
Jonathan Judaken, "Critical Theories of Anti-Semitism" (Columbia UP, 2024) 1:16:29

9m ago1:16:29

1:16:29

Despite its persistence and viciousness, anti-Semitism remains undertheorized in comparison with other forms of racism and discrimination. How should anti-Semitism be defined? What are its underlying causes? Why do anti-Semites target Jews? In what ways has Judeophobia changed over time? What are the continuities and disconnects between mediaeval a…

1
Bonni Goldberg, "Doña Gracia Saved Worlds" (Kar-Ben Publishing, 2023) 56:58

9m ago56:58

56:58

Bonni Goldberg, award-winning poet, writer, and educator, writes non-fiction for children and adults. In our animated discussion, we talk about how her recent picture book, Doña Gracia Saved Worlds (published December, 2023, by Kar-Ben and illustrated by Alida Massari) which came about, her life and writing career, Judaism, and advice for aspiring …

1
Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992) 55:06

31m ago55:06

55:06

Einstein’s Dreams (Vintage, 1992) by Alan Lightman, set in Albert Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, is a novel about the cultural interconnection of time, relativity and life. As the young genius creates his theory of relativity, in a series of dreams, he imagines other worlds, each with a different conceptualization of time. In one, time is circu…

1
Jonathan Tran, "Asian Americans and the Spirit of Racial Capitalism" (Oxford UP, 2021) 31:20

9m ago31:20

31:20

Any serious consideration of Asian American life forces us to reframe the way we talk about racism and antiracism. There are two contemporary approaches to antiracist theory and practice. The first emphasizes racial identity to the exclusion of political economy, making racialized life in America illegible. This approach's prevalence, in the academ…

1
Kathryn Hughes, "Catland: Louis Wain and the Great Cat Mania" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024) 59:44

9m ago59:44

59:44

In 1900, Britain and America were in the grip of a cat craze. An animal that had for centuries been seen as a household servant or urban nuisance had now become an object of pride and deep affection. From presidential and royal families who imported exotic breeds to working-class men competing for cash prizes for the fattest tabby, people became en…

1
Darshana Sreedhar Mini, "Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India" (U California Press, 2024) 1:21:40

8h ago1:21:40

1:21:40

In the 1990s, India's mediascape saw the efflorescence of edgy soft-porn films in the Malayalam-speaking state of Kerala. In Rated A: Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India (U California Press, 2024), Darshana Sreedhar Mini examines the local and transnational influences that shaped Malayalam soft-porn cinema—such as vernacular pulp fic…

1
Jake Johnson, "The Possibility Machine: Music and Myth in Las Vegas" (U Illinois Press, 2023) 57:38

9m ago57:38

57:38

Las Vegas is a place the American dream made; a city built in the middle of desert visited by millions of people every year hoping to make their dreams (big or small) come true. The essays in The Possibility Machine: Music and Myth in Las Vegas (University of Illinois Press, 2023) examines Las Vegas not as a kitschy, vaguely embarrassing American t…

1
Sandra Hirsh, "Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) 56:30

9m ago56:30

56:30

Building on the success and impact of Library 2020: Today’s Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow’s Library by Joseph Janes, Library 2035: Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) edited by Sandra Hirshupdates, expands upon, and broadens the discussions on the future of libraries and the ways in which they transform i…

1
Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992) 55:06

11m ago55:06

55:06

Einstein’s Dreams (Vintage, 1992) by Alan Lightman, set in Albert Einstein’s “miracle year” of 1905, is a novel about the cultural interconnection of time, relativity and life. As the young genius creates his theory of relativity, in a series of dreams, he imagines other worlds, each with a different conceptualization of time. In one, time is circu…

1
Timothy Barnard, "Singaporean Creatures: Histories of Humans and Other Animals in the Garden City" (NUS Press, 2024) 31:44

1h ago31:44

31:44

In Singaporean Creatures: Histories of Humans and Other Animals in the Garden City (NUS Press, 2024), historian Tim Barnard and his colleagues offer an edited volume of historical and ecological analysis, in which various institutions, perspectives and events involving animals provide insight into the development of Singapore as a modern, urban nat…

1
The (ir)Rational Rainbow (the DSM & the Fight to Depathologize Homosexuality) 1:14:39

14m ago1:14:39

1:14:39

The psychological establishment has long pathologized diverse forms of sexual identity and gender expression. In the mid-century, a brave movement of gays and lesbians fought back and claimed: no, actually, we’re healthy. But in the process, did they define other identities unhealthy? This is episode two of Cited Podcast's returning season, the Rat…

1
Timothy Grieve-Carlson, "American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:05:11

39m ago1:05:11

1:05:11

American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius (Oxford UP, 2024) explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Focusing on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensivel…

1
The (ir)Rational Rainbow (the DSM & the Fight to Depathologize Homosexuality) 1:14:39

1h ago1:14:39

1:14:39

The psychological establishment has long pathologized diverse forms of sexual identity and gender expression. In the mid-century, a brave movement of gays and lesbians fought back and claimed: no, actually, we’re healthy. But in the process, did they define other identities unhealthy? This is episode two of Cited Podcast's returning season, the Rat…

1
Dmitri Alperovitch, "World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century" (PublicAffairs, 2024) 48:31

1h ago48:31

48:31

In his book World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the 21st Century (PublicAffairs, 2024), Dmitri Alperovitch (with Garrett M. Graff) argues that the United States is in a “Cold War II” with China, and lays out a set of policy recommendations for how the US can win this new Cold War. Alperovitch is currently the Founder and …

1
Elizabeth Storr Cohen and Marlee J. Couling, "Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Modern World" (Amsterdam UP, 2023) 47:33

1h ago47:33

47:33

Elizabeth Cohen, Professor Emerita at York University, joins Jana Byars to talk about her new volume, Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Modern World (Amsterdam University Press, 2023), edited with Marilee Couling. Non-elite or marginalized early modern women-among them the poor, migrants, members of religious or ethnic minorities, abused …

1
Catherine Tan, "Spaces on the Spectrum: How Autism Movements Resist Experts and Create Knowledge" (Columbia UP, 2024) 45:41

1h ago45:41

45:41

Movements that take issue with conventional understandings of autism spectrum disorder, a developmental disability, have become increasingly visible. Drawing on more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with participants, Dr. Catherine Tan investigates two autism-focused movements, shedding new light on how members contest expe…

1
Jeremy Black, "A World History of Rail: From the Steam Regime to Today" (Amberley Publishing, 2023) 22:17

1h ago22:17

22:17

There were 20,000 miles of railways in 1865 and about a million by 2020. Scale has always been a key theme in railway history. In the First World War, the London and North West Railway transported 325,000 miles of barbed wire and over twelve million pairs of army boots. At the end of the twentieth century, Indian Railways sold 4.5 billion tickets a…

1
Neena Mahadev, "Karma and Grace: Religious Difference in Millennial Sri Lanka" (Columbia UP, 2023) 1:24:28

1h ago1:24:28

1:24:28

Around the turn of the millennium, Pentecostal churches began to pepper majority-Buddhist Sri Lanka, setting off a sense of alarm among Buddhists who saw Christianity as a neocolonial threat to the nation. Rumors of foul play in the death of a Buddhist monk, as well as allegations of proselytizing in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami and during the…

1
Timothy Grieve-Carlson, "American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:05:11

1h ago1:05:11

1:05:11

American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius (Oxford UP, 2024) explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Focusing on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensivel…

1
Jessie Abrahams, "Schooling Inequality: Aspirations, Opportunities and the Reproduction of Social Class" (Bristol UP, 2024) 55:36

1h ago55:36

55:36

Despite a mass expansion of the higher education sector in the UK since the 1960s, young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds remain less likely to enter university than their advantaged counterparts. Drawing on unique new research gathered from three contrasting secondary schools in England, including interviews with children f…

1
Ellen Gough, "Making a Mantra: Tantric Ritual and Renunciation on the Jain Path to Liberation" (U Chicago Press, 2021) 1:01:51

1h ago1:01:51

1:01:51

Jainism originated in India and shares some features with Buddhism and Hinduism, but it is a distinct tradition with its own key texts, art, rituals, beliefs, and history. One important way it has often been distinguished from Buddhism and Hinduism is through the highly contested category of Tantra: Jainism, unlike the others, does not contain a ta…

1
117: Winning and Losing Millions in Crypto Confidential 1:10:45

2h ago1:10:45

1:10:45

“I could hardly form the words. My mouth wasn’t working. My heart hammered in my ears and pins and needles burned my hands and feet. I squeezed my fists as hard as I could to get them to stop hurting as I stumbled into my office and fumbled through my laptop password, pulling up the message that had thrown me out of bed: “Nat, someone found a way t…

1
Nat Reeve, "Nettleblack" (Cipher Press, 2022) 49:33

3d ago49:33

49:33

1893. Henry Nettleblack has to act fast or she’ll be married off by her elder sister. But leaving the safety of her wealthy life isn’t as simple as she thought. Ambushed, robbed, and then saved by a mysterious organisation – part detective agency, part neighbourhood watch – a desperate Henry disguises herself and enlists. Sent out to investigate a …

1
Elizabeth Aislinn O'Brien, "Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770-1940" (UNC Press, 2023) 53:53

15m ago53:53

53:53

In Surgery & Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770-1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), Elizabeth O’Brien foregrounds the racial and religious meanings of surgery to draw important connections between historical and contemporary politics regarding fetal and maternal healthcare. She traces practices of caesarean …

1
Jeremy Black, "Defoe's Britain" (St. Augustine's Press, 2023) 24:15

15m ago24:15

24:15

The Weight of Words Series continues with Defoe's Britain (St. Augustine's Press, 2023), as historian Jeremy Black uses this writer to interpret Britain in the late 1600s, and likewise looks to the times to interpret the fiction. As seen in previous studies on Christie, Smollett, Fielding, and the Gothic novelists, Black tells the story of the stor…

1
Marsha Gordon, "Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott" (U California Press, 2024) 1:07:33

15m ago1:07:33

1:07:33

Credited with popularizing the label "ex-wife" in 1929, Ursula Parrott wrote provocatively about divorcées, career women, single mothers, work-life balance, and a host of new challenges facing modern women. Her best sellers, Hollywood film deals, marriages and divorces, and run-ins with the law made her a household name. Part biography, part cultur…

1
Politics in Action 2024: Laos Update 25:27

15m ago25:27

25:27

Politics in Action is an annual forum in which invited experts provided an analysis of the current political situation in Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam, and discussed the broader implications of events in these countries for the region. After the event, each of the six speakers sat for a podcast to chat with Dr Natali Pe…

1
Samira Mehta, "The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging" (Beacon Press, 2023) 57:02

15m ago57:02

57:02

The Racism of People Who Love You: Essays on Mixed Race Belonging (Beacon Press, 2023) is an unflinching look at the challenges and misunderstandings mixed-race people face in family spaces and intimate relationships across their varying cultural backgrounds. In this emotionally powerful and intellectually provocative blend of memoir, cultural crit…

1
Marsha Gordon, "Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott" (U California Press, 2024) 1:07:33

35m ago1:07:33

1:07:33

Credited with popularizing the label "ex-wife" in 1929, Ursula Parrott wrote provocatively about divorcées, career women, single mothers, work-life balance, and a host of new challenges facing modern women. Her best sellers, Hollywood film deals, marriages and divorces, and run-ins with the law made her a household name. Part biography, part cultur…

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