Best Positiv Podcasts (2024)

1
Post-Positivism Revisited: A Discussion with Salman Sayyid 45:04

2d ago45:04

45:04

This episode is the first of three special episodes in this season of Radio ReOrient in which we look back on the first principles of Critical Muslim Studies. In this episode, Hizer Mir talks to Salman Sayyid about post-positivism - what it means, what it offers, and how it relates to the project of decolonising. The discussion that we kick off her…

1
183. Dasa Mahavidyas – The Ten Tantric Wisdom Goddesses with Tova Olsson 39:49

13d ago39:49

39:49

This week’s episode guest is Tova Olsson who has been teaching yoga and meditation for nearly 20 years. She holds a MA in religious studies from the University of Gothenburg and is specialised in yogic and tantric traditions. She teaches the philosophy section of several yoga teacher trainings and is appreciated for her skills in storytelling and h…

1
Sorayya Khan, "We Take Our Cities with Us: A Memoir" (Ohio State UP, 2022) 58:12

4m ago58:12

58:12

Today’s book is: We Take Our Cities With Us (Ohio State UP, 2022), by Sorayya Khan. After her mother’s death, Sorayya Khan confronts her grief by revisiting their relationship, her parents’ lives, and her own Pakistani-Dutch heritage in a multicultural memoir that unfolds over seven cities and three continents. We Take Our Cities with Us ushers us …

1
Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider, "The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual" (The New Press, 2024) 31:17

4m ago31:17

31:17

A perfectly timed book for the educational resistance—those of us who believe in public schools Culture wars have engulfed our schools. Extremist groups are seeking to ban books, limit what educators can teach, and threaten the very foundations of public education. What’s behind these efforts? Why are our schools suddenly so vulnerable? And how can…

1
Amy Schiller, "The Price of Humanity: How Philanthropy Went Wrong—And How to Fix It" (Melville House, 2023) 48:33

4m ago48:33

48:33

Amy Schiller, who spent a number of years working in both political and major gift fundraising, has a new book detailing some of the fundamental problems currently afflicting American philanthropy and how to correct some of these problems. Schiller, a political theorist currently at Dartmouth College’s Society of Fellows, brings two important persp…

1
Post-Orientalism Revisited: A Conversation with Salman Sayyid 38:29

1h ago38:29

38:29

The third episode of this season of Radio ReOrient continues our project this season of returning to the first principles of Critical Muslim Studies. In the previous episode, Hizer Mir and Salman Sayyid discussed post-positivism: here they turn to post-orientalism. The advent of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 shook the foundations of many academ…

1
Jeremy Schipper, "Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial" (Princeton UP, 2022) 1:13:48

4m ago1:13:48

1:13:48

In Denmark Vesey's Bible: The Thwarted Revolt that Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial (Princeton UP, 2022), Dr. Jeremy Schipper tells the story of a free Black man accused of plotting an anti-slavery insurrection in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1822. Vesey was found guilty and hanged along with dozens of others accused of collaborating with him. …

1
Post-Orientalism Revisited: A Conversation with Salman Sayyid 38:29

4m ago38:29

38:29

The third episode of this season of Radio ReOrient continues our project this season of returning to the first principles of Critical Muslim Studies. In the previous episode, Hizer Mir and Salman Sayyid discussed post-positivism: here they turn to post-orientalism. The advent of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 shook the foundations of many academ…

1
Barbara Klinger, "Immortal Films: 'Casablanca' and the Afterlife of a Hollywood Classic" (U California Press, 2022) 1:04:53

4m ago1:04:53

1:04:53

Casablanca is one of the most celebrated Hollywood films of all time, its iconic romance enshrined in collective memory across generations. Drawing from archival materials, industry trade journals, and cultural commentary, in Immortal Films: "Casablanca" and the Afterlife of a Hollywood Classic (University of California Press, 2022), Dr. Barbara Kl…

1
Shyam Ranganathan, "Yoga - Anticolonial Philosophy: An Action-Focused Guide to Practice" (Singing Dragon, 2024) 35:18

4m ago35:18

35:18

Providing a decolonial, action-focused account of Yoga philosophy, Yoga - Anticolonial Philosophy: An Action-Focused Guide to Practice (Singing Dragon, 2024) from Dr. Shyam Ranganathan, pioneering scholar in the field of Indian moral philosophy, focuses on the South Asian tradition to explore what Yoga was like prior to colonization. It challenges …

1
The Democratic Regression: The Political Causes of Authoritarian Populism 34:41

4m ago34:41

34:41

Why are so many democracies experiencing the rise of authoritarian populism? And what can we do to address this? Join Nic Cheeseman as he talks to Armin Schäfer and Michael Zürn about their new book The Democratic Regression: The Political Causes of Authoritarian Populism (Polity Press, 2023). Armin and Michael explain what authoritarian populism i…

1
Jin Feng, "The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China" (Association for Asian Studies, 2024) 39:42

4m ago39:42

39:42

In 2009, Fudan University launched China’s first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs’ founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2…

1
J. Megan Greene, "Building a Nation at War: Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II" (Harvard UP, 2022) 1:20:02

4m ago1:20:02

1:20:02

Building a Nation at War: Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II (Harvard UP, 2022) argues that the Chinese Nationalist government’s retreat inland during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), its consequent need for inland resources, and its participation in new scientific…

1
On "Silence" (Shtikah) in Shelakh 39:56

4m ago39:56

39:56

This week, Modya and David discuss parshat Shelakh (also known as Shelakh Lekha) in the Book of Numbers, using the lens of the attribute of Shtikah, or Silence. In the Mussar tradition, silence refers to the deliberative pause taken before speaking, to make sure that what is said is truthful and beneficial to self and others. This Torah portion inc…

1
American Muslim Women on Campus 25:12

5h ago25:12

25:12

A conversation with award-winning academic Dr. Shabana Mir discussing her book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity (UNC Press, 2016) Interviewer: Sofia Rehman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/ne…

1
John Thomas Maier, "The Disabled Will: A Theory of Addiction" (Routledge, 2024) 49:32

5h ago49:32

49:32

John T. Maier's The Disabled Will: A Theory of Addiction (Routledge Press, 2024) defends a comprehensive new vision of what addiction is and how people with addictions should be treated. The author argues that, in addition to physical and intellectual disabilities, there are volitional disabilities - disabilities of the will - and that addiction is…

1
Frederick Klaits et al., "Pentecostal Insight in a Segregated US City: Designs for Vitality" (Bloomsbury, 2022) 59:04

7h ago59:04

59:04

In Pentecostal Insight in a Segregated US City: Designs for Vitality (Bloomsbury, 2022), Frederick Klaits compares how members of one majority white and two African American churches in Buffalo, New York receive knowledge from God about their own and others' life circumstances. In the Pentecostal Christian faith, believers say that they acquire div…

1
Simon Heffer, "Sing As We Go: Britain Between the Wars" (Penguin, 2024) 1:02:33

5h ago1:02:33

1:02:33

Simon Heffer's book Sing As We Go: Britain Between the Wars (Penguin, 2024) is an astonishingly ambitious overview of the political, social and cultural history of the country from 1919 to 1939. It explores and explains the politics of the period, and puts such moments of national turmoil as the General Strike of 1926 and the Abdication Crisis of 1…

1
Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī and Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh, "The Philosopher Responds: An Intellectual Correspondence from the Tenth Century" (NYU Press, 2019/22) 1:28:14

5h ago1:28:14

1:28:14

Today I talked to James Montgomery, one of the translators of The Philosopher Responds: An Intellectual Correspondence from the Tenth Century, two volumes (NYU Press, 2019 and 2022). About the book: Why is laughter contagious? Why do mountains exist? Why do we long for the past, even if it is scarred by suffering? Spanning a vast array of subjects …

1
Peter Hill, "Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East" (Oneworld Academic, 2024) 39:25

5h ago39:25

39:25

Today I talked to Peter Hill about his new book Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East (Oneworld Academic, 2024). In 1813, high in the Lebanese mountains, a thirteen-year-old boy watches a solar eclipse. Will it foretell a war, a plague, the death of a prince? Mikha’il Mishaqa’s lifelong search for truth star…

1
Saqib Khan, "Tribe-Class Linkages: The History and Politics of the Agrarian Movement in Tripura" (Routledge, 2024) 34:17

5h ago34:17

34:17

Tribe-Class Linkages: The History and Politics of the Agrarian Movement in Tripura (Routledge, 2023) is a historical study of the development of agrarian class relations among the tribal population in Tripura. Tracing the evolution of Tripura and its agrarian relations from monarchy in the nineteenth century to democracy in the twentieth century, t…

1
Frederick Klaits et al., "Pentecostal Insight in a Segregated US City: Designs for Vitality" (Bloomsbury, 2022) 59:04

5h ago59:04

59:04

In Pentecostal Insight in a Segregated US City: Designs for Vitality (Bloomsbury, 2022), Frederick Klaits compares how members of one majority white and two African American churches in Buffalo, New York receive knowledge from God about their own and others' life circumstances. In the Pentecostal Christian faith, believers say that they acquire div…

1
Life in a New Language, Part 3: African Migrants 31:45

5h ago31:45

31:45

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
Faith, Business, and the Nature of Desire: Luke Burgis on René Girard and Mimetic Desire 1:05:49

5h ago1:05:49

1:05:49

Why do we want what we want? Philosopher, theologian, and literary critic René Girard posits that we draw our desires largely from the people around us, a fact which has implications for everything from how we should plan our careers to the direction of foreign policy. Following a career spanning business, religious discernment, and academia, Luke …

1
American Muslim Women on Campus 25:12

5h ago25:12

25:12

A conversation with award-winning academic Dr. Shabana Mir discussing her book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity (UNC Press, 2016) Interviewer: Sofia Rehman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/is…

1
Peter Hill, "Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East" (Oneworld Academic, 2024) 39:25

5h ago39:25

39:25

Today I talked to Peter Hill about his new book Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East (Oneworld Academic, 2024). In 1813, high in the Lebanese mountains, a thirteen-year-old boy watches a solar eclipse. Will it foretell a war, a plague, the death of a prince? Mikha’il Mishaqa’s lifelong search for truth star…

1
Ishita Tiwary, "Video Culture in India: The Analog Era" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:03:48

5h ago1:03:48

1:03:48

Ishita Tiwary’s book Video Culture in India: The Analog Era (Oxford UP, 2024) is an unprecedented attempt in foregrounding the diverse media history of the analog video era in India. It reconstructs the evolution of analog video culture through interdisciplinary approaches, including oral histories, archival resources, and discarded tapes. At the s…

1
Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo, "Growing Up in the Gutter: Diaspora and Comics" (U Arizona Press, 2024) 52:31

1d ago52:31

52:31

Growing Up in the Gutter: Diaspora and Comics (U Arizona Press, 2024) by Dr. Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo offers new understandings of contemporary graphic coming-of-age narratives by looking at the genre’s growth in stories by and for young BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and diasporic readers. Through a careful examination of the genre, Dr. Quintana-Vallejo analyses …

1
Molly Giles, "Life Span" (WTAW Press, 2024) 24:33

1d ago24:33

24:33

Molly Giles remembers when her father came back after WWII in 1945. Her memoir, Life Span (WTAW Press, 2024) opens when she is three years old, sitting in the front seat of a moving van as her father drives from San Francisco to their new home in Sausalito. Well-known editor and author of four story-collections and two novels, Giles referenced the …

1
Emily Zackin and Chloe N. Thurston, "The Political Development of American Debt Relief" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 58:27

1d ago58:27

58:27

A political history of the rise and fall of American debt relief. Americans have a long history with debt. They also have a long history of mobilizing for debt relief. Throughout the nineteenth century, indebted citizens demanded government protection from their financial burdens, challenging readings of the Constitution that exalted property right…

1
Jerry Rafiki Jenkins, "Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction" (Ohio State UP, 2024) 45:08

1d ago45:08

45:08

In Anti-Blackness and Human Monstrosity in Black American Horror Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2024), Jerry Rafiki Jenkins examines four types of human monsters that frequently appear in Black American horror fiction--the monsters of White rage, respectability, not-ness, and serial killing. Arguing that such monsters represent specific ideologies of Amer…

1
Donald Stoker, "Purpose and Power: US Grand Strategy from the Revolutionary Era to the Present" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 46:54

1d ago46:54

46:54

In our interview, I spoke with Donald Stoker about the changes in American grand strategy over the past 250 years and the major themes from his new book: Purpose and Power: US Grand Strategy from the Revolutionary Era to the Present (Cambridge UP, 2024). Across the full span of the nation’s history, Stoker challenges our understanding of the purpos…

1
Shuchi Kapila, "Postmemory and the Partition of India: Learning to Remember" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024) 57:18

1d ago57:18

57:18

Shuchi Kapila, Postmemory and the Partition of India: Learning to Remember (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024) Dr. Shuchi Kapila, Professor of English at Grinnell College, has a new book that explores the India/Pakistan Partition in 1947 through the lens of memory, generational conversation and inheritance. Postmemory and the Partition of India: Learning to…

1
Edward A. Alpers and Thomas F. McDow, "A Primer for Teaching Indian Ocean World History: Ten Design Principles" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:20:51

1d ago1:20:51

1:20:51

A Primer for Teaching Indian Ocean World History: Ten Design Principles (Duke UP, 2024) is a guide for college and high school educators who are teaching Indian Ocean histories for the first time or who want to reinvigorate their courses. It can also serve those who are training future teachers to prepare their own syllabi as well as those who want…

1
Graham McNeill, "Horus Heresy - False Gods" (Games Workshop, 2014) 31:39

1d ago31:39

31:39

For years, fans have been clamoring for novels about the Horus Heresy - the bloody civil war that set Space Marine against Space Marine and nearly spelled the end of mankind at the hands of the traitor Horus. False Gods takes the epic story onwards as Horus struggles to keep his armies in line and the seeds of his downfall are sown. Join us as we s…

1
Thomas Hendriks, "Rainforest Capitalism: Power and Masculinity in a Congolese Timber Concession" (Duke UP, 2021) 1:06:34

1d ago1:06:34

1:06:34

In this episode we are joined by Thomas Hendriks, an anthropologist studying capitalism and resource extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hendriks' work is amongst the most innovative in the anthropological study of capitalism, drawing upon queer theory, feminist ethnography, and phenomenology to make sense of cutting down large trees in…

1
A Drummer's Tale 41:13

2d ago41:13

41:13

Charles Hayward is one of the most propulsive, resourceful and generative rock-plus drummers of the past half-century. An influential percussionist, keyboardist, songwriter, singer of songs, and forward thinker through sound, Charles spoke with Phantom Power about a 40thanniversary touring with a partly reformed and enlarged This Heat as This Is No…

1
After Hours 22:26

2d ago22:26

22:26

“Kafkaesque” is the word usually used to describe After Hours, Martin Scorsese’s 1985 comedy—a fair point, since there’s a scene in the film that dramatizes Kafka’s “Before the Law.” But the writer whose imagination this film really taps is Lewis Carroll: as in Alice in Wonderland, a naïve but likable young person chases a white rabbit to a differe…

1
Matthijs Lok, "Europe Against Revolution: Conservatism, Enlightenment, and the Making of the Past" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 56:51

2d ago56:51

56:51

Contemporary Europe seems to be divided between progressive cosmopolitans sympathetic to the European Union and the ideals of the Enlightenment, and counter-enlightened conservative nationalists extolling the virtues of homelands threatened by globalised elites and mass migration. Europe Against Revolution: Conservatism, Enlightenment, and the Maki…

1
Adam B. Seligman and Robert P. Weller, "How Things Count as the Same: Memory, Mimesis, and Metaphor" (Oxford UP, 2019) 1:05:29

2d ago1:05:29

1:05:29

In How Things Count as the Same: Memory, Mimesis, and Metaphor (Oxford UP, 2019), Adam B. Seligman and Robert P. Weller address a seemingly simple question: What counts as the same? Given the myriad differences that divide one individual from another, why do we recognize anyone as somehow sharing a common fate with us? For that matter, how do we li…

1
Ann Powers, "Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell" (Dey Street Books, 2024) 51:46

2d ago51:46

51:46

For decades, Joni Mitchell's life and music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Mitchell has inspired countless musicians--from peers like James Taylor, to inheritors like Prince and Brandi Carlile--and authors, who have dissected her music and her life in their writing. At the same time, Mitchell has al…

1
Anna Abraham, "The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths" (MIT Press, 2024) 1:09:54

2d ago1:09:54

1:09:54

A nuanced, science-based understanding of the creative mind that dispels the pervasive myths we hold about the human brain—but also uncovers the truth at their cores. What is the relationship between creativity and madness? Creativity and intelligence? Do psychedelics truly enhance creativity? How should we understand the left and right hemispheres…

1
Trish Kahle on the Labor History of Energy Systems 1:01:21

2d ago1:01:21

1:01:21

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Trish Kahle, Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University-Qatar, about Kahle's new project, "Power Up: A Social History of American Electricity," which focuses especially on the labor history of both constructing and maintaining the electricity grid. They also talk about Kahle's forthcoming boo…

1
Post-Positivism Revisited: A Discussion with Salman Sayyid 45:04

2d ago45:04

45:04

This episode is the first of three special episodes in this season of Radio ReOrient in which we look back on the first principles of Critical Muslim Studies. In this episode, Hizer Mir talks to Salman Sayyid about post-positivism - what it means, what it offers, and how it relates to the project of decolonising. The discussion that we kick off her…

1
Ann Johnson and Johannes Lenhard, "Cultures of Prediction: How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools" (MIT Press, 2024) 1:01:58

2d ago1:01:58

1:01:58

A probing examination of the dynamic history of predictive methods and values in science and engineering that helps us better understand today's cultures of prediction. The ability to make reliable predictions based on robust and replicable methods is a defining feature of the scientific endeavor, allowing engineers to determine whether a building …

1
Living with Digital Surveillance in China 31:10

2d ago31:10

31:10

How do Chinese citizens make sense of digital surveillance and live with it? What narratives do they come up with to deal with the daily and all-encompassing reality of life in China? What mental tactics do they apply to dissociate themselves from surveillance? Ariane Ollier-Malaterre explores these questions in her book Living with Digital Surveil…

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