Best Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities Podcasts (2024)

1
Organized Civic Benevolence and Nationhood 51:37

11d ago51:37

51:37

Santi Furnari (CASBS fellow, 2023-24) engages renowned political sociologist & 2015-16 fellow Elisabeth Clemens on the role of private civic volunteer organizations in co-constructing national identity and state capacity as well as serving as tools of governance, solidarity, and inclusion for much of American history. In what form does civic benevo…

1
EP 57 - Land, Culture, and Belonging: Place-based Community Advocacy 1:18:51

12d ago1:18:51

1:18:51

This episode is part of a series of talks and panel discussions recorded during the breakout sessions of our Othering & Belonging Conference that took place in Oakland this past April. This session is titled "Land, Culture, and Belonging: Place-based Community Advocacy." It looks at the redevelopment of the Henry J. Kaiser Center in Oakland, which …

1
EP 56 - Leaning into Paradox: How We Can Block, Bridge & Build Our Democratic Future Together 31:34

1M ago31:34

31:34

This episode is part of a series of talks and panel discussions recorded during the breakout sessions of our Othering & Belonging Conference that took place in Oakland this past April. This session is titled "Leaning into Paradox: How We Can Block, Bridge & Build Our Democratic Future Together." It includes two speakers from the Horizons Project wh…

1
EP 55 - Democracy in Crisis: The Courage to Re-Humanize One Another 1:03:21

1M ago1:03:21

1:03:21

This episode is part of a series of talks and panel discussions recorded during the breakout sessions of our Othering & Belonging Conference that took place in Oakland this past April. This session is titled "Democracy in Crisis: The Courage to Re-Humanize One Another." It focuses on a project called Bridging for Democracy (B4D), which is developin…

1
EP 54 - Using Data to Advance Belonging without Othering 42:06

1M ago42:06

42:06

This episode is part of a series of talks and panel discussions recorded during the breakout sessions of our Othering & Belonging Conference that took place in Oakland this past April. This session is titled "Using Data to Advance Belonging without Othering." It looks at a set of domains at the intersection of data and civil society, such as racial…

1
EP 53 - Expressions of Belonging 1:17:52

1M ago1:17:52

1:17:52

This episode is part of a series of talks and panel discussions recorded during the breakout sessions of our Othering & Belonging Conference that took place in Oakland this past April. This session is titled "Expressions of Belonging," and it offers a mix of stories, insights, and diverse approaches to advancing belonging at an array of organizatio…

1
Exposing Sources and Impacts of Election Disinformation Campaigns 42:07

1M ago42:07

42:07

Legendary tech journalist John Markoff (CASBS fellow, 2017-18) chats with 2023-24 CASBS fellow Young Mie Kim on her groundbreaking efforts to identify how shadowy groups use algorithms and targeted disinformation campaigns during presidential election cycles; measure their real-world distorting effects on voter mobilization or suppression; and illu…

1
EP 52 - Xenophobia, Resistance, and the Future of the Immigrant Rights Movement 1:33:43

1M ago1:33:43

1:33:43

Episode Note This episode is part of a series of talks and panel discussions recorded during the breakout sessions of our Othering & Belonging Conference that took place in Oakland this past April. This session is titled "Xenophobia, Resistance, and the Future of the Immigrant Rights Movement." It includes panelists Annette Wong, who is the Managin…

1
EP 51 - Resisting Austerity: Keeping Public Infrastructure Public 1:00:41

1M ago1:00:41

1:00:41

Episode Notes This episode is part of a series of talks and panel discussions recorded during the breakout sessions of our Othering & Belonging Conference that took place in Oakland this past April. This session is titled "Resisting Austerity: Keeping Public Infrastructure Public." It includes panelists Donald Cohen, founder and executive director …

1
EP 50 - Bridging Through High School Ethnic Studies 1:03:38

2M ago1:03:38

1:03:38

Episode Notes This episode is part of a series of talks and panel discussions recorded during the breakout sessions of our Othering & Belonging Conference that took place in Oakland this past April. This session is titled "Bridging Through High School Ethnic Studies," and was curated by OBI's Hossein Ayazi. It includes panelists from the UC Berkele…

1
The Gold Standard of Economic Historians 1:12:58

3M ago1:12:58

1:12:58

Stefan Link, a 2023-24 CASBS fellow, chats with Barry Eichengreen, a 1996-97 CASBS fellow and world renowned for his expertise at the nexus of international economics and economic history. They discuss some of Eichengreen's most prominent works — including "The European Economy Since 1945," which emerged from his CASBS experience, and "Golden Fette…

1
A Scholar's Commitment to Workers' Economic Justice 50:44

4M ago50:44

50:44

Labor historian & 2023-24 CASBS fellow Gabriel Winant in conversation with 2018-19 CASBS fellow Ruth Milkman, among the nation's most renowned sociologists of labor. In addition to interrogating divisions within and segmentation across labor markets in recent decades, Milkman also has remained attuned to the complexity of the overall working class …

1
Bridging Adaptive Algorithms and the Public Good 42:23

5M ago42:23

42:23

Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist John Markoff chats with 2022-23 CASBS fellow Nathan Matias about often-overlooked public interest questions and concerns regarding the deployment of tech platform algorithms and AI models. Specifically, Matias is a player in filling the two-way knowledge gaps between civil society and tech firms with an eye on…

1
A Social Science of Caregiving 1:04:20

6M ago1:04:20

1:04:20

Recorded before a live audience, Margaret Levi, Alison Gopnik, & Anne-Marie Slaughter discuss a CASBS project, "The Social Science of Caregiving," which is reimagining the philosophical, psychological, biological, political, & economic foundations of care and caregiving. The goal is a coherent empirical and theoretical account or synthesis of care …

1
The Shadow of Cybersecurity Expertise 39:30

7M ago39:30

39:30

Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist & 2017-18 CASBS fellow John Markoff chats with 2022-23 CASBS fellow Rebecca Slayton on how the field of computing expertise evolved, eventually giving rise to the niche of professionals who protect systems from cyber-attacks. Slayton's forthcoming book explores the governance & risk implications emerging from …

1
The Enemy of Morality Is Not Modernity, It’s Me 44:20

8M ago44:20

44:20

The great English essayist and linguist Samuel Johnson was writing during the Enlightenment – the period some historians identify as the beginning of the modern age. American author and philosopher David Foster Wallace worked more than two centuries later, in the “post-modern” style. But these two writers shared a common problem: once modernity fra…

1
Challenging History Erasures to Expand Possible Futures 1:05:50

8M ago1:05:50

1:05:50

Two-time CASBS fellow Fred Turner engages CASBS board of directors chair Abby Smith Rumsey before a live audience to discuss her new book "Memory, Edited: Taking Liberties with History." When the erasure or distortion of collective memory through storytelling hijacks fact, truth, and history itself, what kind of information infrastructures can effe…

1
A Genealogy of Gun Violence 51:21

8M ago51:21

51:21

The problem of gun violence is as old as guns themselves. According to historian Priya Satia, America’s present epidemic of gun violence has its roots in the industrial revolution. Satia tells the story of British gun-maker Samuel Galton, Jr., who was called to task by his Quaker community for manufacturing rifles. As a professed pacifist, Galton h…

1
A Medieval Anti-Racist 52:09

9M ago52:09

52:09

What if racism shared an origin with opposition to racism? What if the condemnation of injustice gave rise both to an early form of anti-racism and to the racial hierarchies that haunt the modern era? Rolena Adorno, David Orique, María Cristina Ríos Espinosa tell the story of how Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican missionary to New Spain, came to …

1
Picturing Race in Colonial Mexico 1:00:06

9M ago1:00:06

1:00:06

Race is sometimes treated as a biological fact. It is actually a modern invention. But for this concept to gain power, its logic had to be spread – and made visible. Art historian Ilona Katzew tells the story of how Spanish colonists of modern-day Mexico developed theories of blood purity and used the casta paintings – featuring family groups with …

1
Toward a Society of Shared Recognition 46:53

9M ago46:53

46:53

Renowned sociologist Michèle Lamont (CASBS fellow, 2002-03) discusses her new book, Seeing Others, with former CASBS director Woody Powell. The book assembles decades of Lamont’s scholarship, engaging some of contemporary society’s most elemental challenges and advancing key building blocks toward a shared human experience marked by greater inclusi…

1
Jamestown and the Myth of the Sovereign Family 45:28

9M ago45:28

45:28

What is the “traditional American family?” Popular images from the colonial and pioneer past suggest an isolated and self-sufficient nuclear family as the center of American identity and the source of American strength. But the idea of early American self-sufficiency is a myth. Caro Pirri tells the story of the precarious Jamestown settlement and h…

1
What Is Genealogy? 45:49

9M ago45:49

45:49

Genealogy, in Charles Darwin’s terms, is the study of “descent with modification.” Taken as an analogy for the study of history, genealogy can guard against the potential dangers of claiming modernity. Against the effort to erase the past, genealogy asserts that our ancestry will always be with us. Against the effort to master the past, genealogy r…

1
What Is Modernity? 36:01

9M ago36:01

36:01

We often think of modernity as a distinct time period in history – one that is said to start at different places, but which always includes us. Yet people have been claiming to be modern since at least the third century BC. Harvard scholar Michael Puett takes us back to ancient China, when a series of emperors laid claim to modernity in order to co…

1
Climbing the Mountains of Modernity 46:03

9M ago46:03

46:03

We all know many stories about how modernity came about. But what does it mean to be “modern?” This episode comes at the question through the test case of mountain climbing and rock climbing. Claims to becoming modern through climbing often point back to Italian humanist Francesco Petrarch’s ascent of Mt. Ventoux in 1336, a climb that made him, acc…

1
Toward Cross-disciplinary Consensus About Our (Mis)Information Environment 49:07

10M ago49:07

49:07

Fully understanding and regulating our complex information ecosystems will require creating new cultures and modes of collaborating, new organizational frameworks and, yes, working with generative AI models in service of aggregating actionable scientific knowledge. Angela Aristidou (CASBS fellow, 2022-23) navigates the crucial questions and challen…

1
The Memory Science Disruptor 51:05

11M ago51:05

51:05

Dan Simon, a 2022-23 CASBS fellow and USC law professor, joins in conversation with Elizabeth Loftus, a 1978-79 CASBS fellow and Distinguished Professor at UC Irvine. Loftus is known in the public sphere through her decades-long study of memory – specifically, its malleability and fallibility – as well as her application of findings as an expert wi…

1
Jonathan Jansen's Power of Craft 53:08

12M ago53:08

53:08

While you're listening to this episode, 2016-17 CASBS fellow Jonathan Jansen likely will write another few thousand words. As a scholar of education & leader of education institutions, Jansen is South Africa's most towering figure. To call him prolific is a gross understatement. He writes a steady stream of books & more books. As a public intellect…

1
Deploying Behavioral Science on the Front Lines of Social Protest 1:37:00

1y ago1:37:00

1:37:00

What are the most effective collective actions that social protest movements can or should undertake in the context of deep societal conflict and polarization? CASBS fellows Eran Halperin (2022-23) & Robb Willer (2012-13, 2020-21) compare their cross-national research findings and explore Halperin's real-time applied work with the dramatic, ongoing…

1
Frederick Cooper's Illumination of History 45:52

1y ago45:52

45:52

Drawing upon a career of scholarship extending from studies of labor, citizenship, and the state in Africa to explorations of global empire, colonialism, and globalization, three-time CASBS fellow Frederick Cooper – in conversation with 2022-23 fellows Jean Beaman and Martin Williams – gives a master class on how critical and relational thinking se…

1
Developing AI Like Raising Kids - Alison Gopnik & Ted Chiang 55:56

1y ago55:56

55:56

This episode is produced in association with the CASBS project "The Social Science of Caregiving," and draws further inspiration from the CASBS project "Imagining Adaptive Societies." Learn more about both: https://casbs.stanford.edu/programs/projects/social-science-caregiving https://casbs.stanford.edu/programs/projects/imagining-adaptive-societie…

1
New Visions for Effective Worker Influence 1:26:34

1y ago1:26:34

1:26:34

This is a podcast version of a live CASBS webcast event. View video of the event here. The event was produced in association with CASBS's program on Creating a New Moral Political Economy. Learn about the program here. CASBS's moral political economy program guest-curated the Winter 2023 issue of Dædalus, a publication of the American Academy of Ar…

1
A Different Glenn Loury 1:11:22

1+ y ago1:11:22

1:11:22

Glenn Loury on Google Scholar Coate & Loury (1993), "Will Affirmative-Action Policies Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?" Loury, The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (The Du Bois Lectures) The Tanner Lectures at Stanford (2007) Lecture 1 | Lecture 2 Loury (2008), Race, Incarceration, and American Values Loury (2019), "Why Does Racial Inequality Persist?" …

1
Make a Life and a Living 23:35

1+ y ago23:35

23:35

In this episode, Walter Cabal shares how studying philosophy helped him to forge his own path and build a career that integrates passions for writing, design, and craft. After college, Walter built his own craft leather goods business while continuing to hone his writing skills through a variety of freelance assignments. Today, he works as a univer…

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