Best The Scholars Circle Interviews Podcasts (2024)

1
Scholars’ Circle – How Christian Nationalism affects elections in US ; Faith based Communities, a study – June 30, 2024 58:01

3d ago58:01

58:01

The rise of the religious right or Christian Nationalism aided in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and has been a significant voting bloc ever since. How much is this movement driving American politics? How organized are the groups that comprise the movement? And what exactly is its political agenda? [ dur: 35mins. ] Katherine Stewart is the …

1
Michelle T. King, "Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food" (Norton, 2024) 45:41

23h ago45:41

45:41

In 1971, the New York Times called the Taiwanese-Chinese chef, Fu Pei-Mei, the “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” But, as Michelle T. King notes in her book Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food (Norton, 2024), the inverse–that Julia Child was the Fu Pei-Mei of French cuisine–might be more appropriate. Fu spent d…

1
Feng-Mei Heberer, "Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and Activism" (U Minnesota Press, 2023) 59:24

2d ago59:24

59:24

Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and Activism (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) explores a multilingual archive of contemporary queer and feminist videos by Asian diasporans in North America, Europe, and East Asia. It grapples with the pressing question of how media representation can critique and advance social justice for raciali…

1
Bayley J. Marquez, "Plantation Pedagogy: The Violence of Schooling Across Black and Indigenous Space" (U California Press, 2024) 1:15:07

4d ago1:15:07

1:15:07

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, teachers, administrators, and policymakers fashioned a system of industrial education that attempted to transform Black and Indigenous peoples and land. This form of teaching—what Bayley J. Marquez names plantation pedagogy—was built on the claim that slavery and land dispossession are fundamentall…

1
Scholars’ Circle – Book Author interviews: Presidential Vetoes an historical view; Paradox of Free Speech – June 23, 2024 58:01

4d ago58:01

58:01

We discuss with John Vile his book Encyclopedia of Presidential Vetoes from Washington through to Biden – History, Subjects, and Procedures. [ dur: 29mins. ] John R. Vile is Dean and Professor of Political Science at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of, The Writing and Ratification of the U.S. Constitution: Practical Virtue in Ac…

1
Episode 2406: Travis Weiland - statistics education research and teacher preparation 36:04

5d ago36:04

36:04

Travis Weiland from the University of Houston (but soon to be at UNC-Charlotte) discusses the chapter "Preparing teachers of statistics: A critical read of standards, review of past research, and future directions" published in The AMTE Handbook of Mathematics Teacher Education (Vol. 5), with chapter co-authors Chris Engledowl and Susan Cannon. Boo…

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

7d 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

7d 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
Ricardo Quintana-Vallejo, "Growing Up in the Gutter: Diaspora and Comics" (U Arizona Press, 2024) 52:31

9d 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
Living with Digital Surveillance in China 31:10

10d 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…

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

10d 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
Orazio Coco, "Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations: From the Treaty of Friendship to the Second World War" (Routledge, 2024) 53:39

11d ago53:39

53:39

Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations: From the Treaty of Friendship to the Second World War (Routledge, 2024) presents a comprehensive narrative and historical analysis of the political and economic relations between China and Italy from the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce signed in October 1866 to the Second World War. Utilizing primary…

1
Andreas Fulda, "Germany and China: How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security" (Bloombury, 2024) 59:55

12d ago59:55

59:55

Germany and China: How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security (Bloomsbury, 2024) is a groundbreaking book, of which the findings have significant implications both for German-China relations and also in understanding the rising influence of autocratic China on liberal democracies globally. In today's interview, Associate Professor…

1
The Religious Landscape of Taiwan: A Discussion with Yushuang Yao 55:40

13d ago55:40

55:40

How is Buddhism seen and practiced in Taiwan? And how do neighbouring countries influence Taiwanese Buddhism? In this episode we explore the religious landscape of Taiwan in conversation with Dr. Yushuang Yao, a leading expert on religion in contemporary Taiwan. Yushuang Yao is an Associate Professor at Fo Guang University, Taiwan, specializing in …

1
M. Girard Dorsey, "Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II" (Cornell UP, 2023) 57:27

13d ago57:27

57:27

In Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II (Cornell UP, 2023), M. Girard Dorsey uncovers just how close Britain, the United States, and Canada came to crossing the red line that restrained poison gas during World War II. Unlike in World War I, belligerents did not release poison gas regularly d…

1
Kathleen DuVal, "Native Nations: A Millennium in North America" (Random House, 2024) 58:18

14d ago58:18

58:18

In this sweeping new history, esteemed University of North Carolina historian Kathleen DuVal makes the case for the ongoing, ancient, and dynamic history of Native nationhood as a critical component of global history. In Native Nations: A Millennium in North America (Random House, 2024), DuVal covers a thousand years of continental history, buildin…

1
Qian Wei, "The Governance of Philanthropic Foundations in Authoritarian China" (Routledge, 2022) 1:16:34

16d ago1:16:34

1:16:34

Chinese philanthropic foundations navigate a uniquely challenging terrain shaped by authoritarian governance. The Governance of Philanthropic Foundations in Authoritarian China: A Power Perspective (Routledge, 2022) examines these complexities, delivering a novel multilevel analysis of the power dynamics that underpin the governance of nonprofit or…

1
Scholars’ Circle – Votes counted in India, Mexico and South Africa – June 16, 2024 58:01

16d ago58:01

58:01

While much of the world is in a democratic backslide, some nations’ democracies are thriving. What do the elections in Mexico, South Africa, and India portend? We will examine the election of these three leading Global South nations, the impact of dominant parties losing some support, and the general state of democracy in each nation. How might the…

1
John Keane and Baogang He, "China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:08:44

17d ago1:08:44

1:08:44

In China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (Oxford University Press, 2024), authors Dr. John Keane and Dr. Baogang He, target a development of enormous significance: China's return, after two centuries of decline and subjugation, to a position of prominence in world affairs. The daring thesis is that China is…

1
Hannah Forsyth, "Virtue Capitalists: The Rise and Fall of the Professional Class in the Anglophone World, 1870–2008" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 44:42

18d ago44:42

44:42

Virtue Capitalists: The Rise and Fall of the Professional Class in the Anglophone World, 1870–2008 (Cambridge UP, 2023) explores the rise of the professional middle class across the Anglophone world from c. 1870 to 2008. With a focus on British settler colonies - Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States - Hannah Forsyth argues that the …

1
Episode 2405: Practice-Driven Professional Development Project - Incremental PD 34:59

21d ago34:59

34:59

Zandra de Araujo (University of Florida), Amber Candela (University of Missouri, St Louis), and Paul Wonsavage (University of Florida) join Sam Otten (University of Missouri, Columbia) to discuss their NSF-funded project entitled Practice-Driven Professional Development (PDPD). They share thoughts on why they are pursuing an incremental approach ra…

1
Casey James Miller, "Inside the Circle: Queer Culture and Activism in Northwest China" (Rutgers UP, 2023) 1:21:11

23d ago1:21:11

1:21:11

After the end of the Maoist era in the People's Republic of China, the rise of queer communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has generated growing public and academic attention. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in northwest China, Casey James Miller offers a novel, compelling, and intimately personal perspective on C…

1
Casey James Miller, "Inside the Circle: Queer Culture and Activism in Northwest China" (Rutgers UP, 2023) 1:21:11

23d ago1:21:11

1:21:11

After the end of the Maoist era in the People's Republic of China, the rise of queer communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has generated growing public and academic attention. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in northwest China, Casey James Miller offers a novel, compelling, and intimately personal perspective on C…

1
Scholars’ Circle – Trump’s conviction of Felony charges affect his candidacy for President in 2024 – June 9, 2024 58:01

24d ago58:01

58:01

For the first time since the nations founding a former President was convicted of a felony. What does the criminal conviction mean for Trumps ability to run for President and to govern if he wins? And why does the US have such a challenge in prosecuting former Presidents, when it has a history of prosecuting other former office holders? What does t…

1
Thomas Larkin, "The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of British Colonial Society" (Columbia UP, 2024) 32:10

27d ago32:10

32:10

What roles did Americans play in the expanding global empires of the nineteenth century? In The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of British Colonial Society (Columbia University Press, 2024), Thomas M. Larkin examines the Hong Kong–based Augustine Heard & Company, the most prominent American trading firm in treaty-port China, to explore t…

1
Scott Crawford, "The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC-89 AD: The Struggle of China and a Steppe Empire Told Through Its Key Figures (Pen & Sword, 2023) 44:59

28d ago44:59

44:59

For two centuries, the Xiongnu people–a vast nomadic empire that covered modern-day Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang—were one of the Han Dynasty’s fiercest rivals. They raided the wealthy and prosperous Chinese, and even forced the Han to treat them as equals—much to the chagrin of those in the imperial court. There’s not much known abou…

1
Vivien Marsh, "Seeking Truth in International TV News: China, CGTN, and the BBC" (Routledge, 2023) 1:00:55

1M ago1:00:55

1:00:55

In Seeking Truth in International News: China, CGTN and the BBC (Routledge, 2023) Dr Vivien Marsh analyses the differences between journalistic traditions in China and the West, and extent to which this impacts the ability of news media to hold power to account. This facilitates a fascinating account of the role of journalists in seeking truth from…

1
Emma Heaney, "Feminism Against Cisness" (Duke UP, 2024) 46:56

1M ago46:56

46:56

The contributors to Feminism Against Cisness (Duke UP, 2024) showcase the future of feminist historical, theoretical, and political thought freed from the conceptual strictures of cisness: the fallacy that assigned sex determines sexed experience. The essays demonstrate that this fallacy hinges on the enforcement of white and bourgeois standards of…

1
Scholars’ Circle – Iran Presidential election, for whom does it matter. – June 2, 2024 58:01

1M ago58:01

58:01

What challenges and crises are the sudden death of Iran’s president and his succession revealing? What’s happening inside the country? What’s happening with Iran internationally? We speak with four Iranian scholars on Iran’s political system, internal politics, social and political repression and alienation between state and society. How much of Ir…

1
Eleanor Medhurst, "Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion" (Hurst, 2024) 44:28

1M ago44:28

44:28

Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian history. Lesbians, in turn, are integral to the history of fashion. The way that we dress can help us to present who we are to the world, or it can help us to hide ourselves. It can align us with a communit…

1
Jonathan A. Seitz, "Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) 1:02:29

1M ago1:02:29

1:02:29

With a focus on Robert Morrison, Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) evaluates the role of nineteenth-century British missionaries in the early development of the cross-cultural relationship between China and the English-speaking world. As one of the first generation of British Protestant …

1
Sarah Nooter, "How to Be Queer: An Ancient Guide to Sexuality" (Princeton UP, 2024) 30:38

1M ago30:38

30:38

The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. Sarah Nooter's How to Be Queer: An Ancient Guide to Sexuality (Princeton UP, 2024) is an infatuating collection of these writings about desire, love, and lust between men, between …

1
Margot Weiss, "Unsettling Queer Anthropology: Foundations, Reorientations, and Departures" (Duke UP, 2024) 53:01

1M ago53:01

53:01

This field-defining volume of queer anthropology foregrounds both the brilliance of anthropological approaches to queer and trans life and the ways queer critique can reorient and transform anthropology. Consisting of fourteen original essays by both distinguished and new voices, Unsettling Queer Anthropology: Foundations, Reorientations, and Depar…

1
Yi-Han Lin, "Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise" (HarperVia, 2024) 40:30

1M ago40:30

40:30

In this episode, Jenna Tang shares with us her translation of Lin Yi-Han's Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise: A Novel (HarperVia, 2024), one of the most iconic works of Taiwan's #MeToo movement. Thirteen-year-old Fang Si-Chi lives with her family in an upscale apartment complex in Taiwan, a tightknit community of strict yet doting parents and privi…

1
Kazushi Minami, "People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations During the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:10:03

1M ago1:10:03

1:10:03

In People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2024), Kazushi Minami shows how the American and Chinese people rebuilt US-China relations in the 1970s, a pivotal decade bookended by Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China and 1979 normalization of diplomatic relations. Top policymakers i…

1
Aslı Zengin, "Violent Intimacies: The Trans Everyday and the Making of an Urban World" (Duke UP, 2024) 59:46

1M ago59:46

59:46

In Violent Intimacies: The Trans Everyday and the Making of an Urban World (Duke UP, 2024), Aslı Zengin traces how trans people in Turkey creatively negotiate and resist everyday cisheteronormative violence. Drawing on the history and ethnography of the trans communal life in Istanbul, Zengin develops an understanding of cisheteronormative violence…

1
Sa’ed Atshan, "Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique" (Stanford UP, 2020) 55:47

1M ago55:47

55:47

In Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique (Stanford University Press, 2020) anthropologist and activist Sa’ed Atshan explores the Palestinian LGBTQ movement and offers a window into the diverse community living both in historic Palestine and in diaspora. His timely and urgent account contends that the movement has been subjected to an “empire o…

1
Bodie A. Ashton, "The Pet Shop Boys and the Political: Queerness, Culture, Identity, and Society" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 59:16

1M ago59:16

59:16

In The Pet Shop Boys and the Political: Queerness, Culture, Identity, and Society (Bloomsbury, 2024), editor Bodie Ashton compiles twelve essays exploring the impact of Pet Shop Boys across the past four decades. The Pet Shop Boys came of age at a time of deep socio-political tension. From the rise of sexual politics and awareness to Thatcherite ne…

1
Scholars’ Circle – Insights into student protests at university campuses – May 26, 2024 58:00

1M ago58:00

58:00

With massive protests on university campuses over the war in Gaza, universities have chosen to aggressively and violently break up the protests putting student protesters at risk. How does non-violent protest turn to violence at the hands of the police? How have national politics driven the responses to student protests? As university space has bec…

1
Peter Harmsen, "Bernhard Sindberg: The Schindler of Nanjing" (Casemate, 2024) 36:39

1M ago36:39

36:39

In December 1937, Bernhard Sindberg arrives at a cement factory outside of Nanjing. He’s one of just two foreigners, and he gets there just weeks before the Japanese invade and commit the now infamous atrocities in the Chinese city. As the writer Peter Harmsen notes, Bernhard’s background isn’t particularly compelling: He’s bounced from job to job,…

1
Benjamin Brose, "Embodying Xuanzang: The Postmortem Travels of a Buddhist Pilgrim" (U Hawaii Press, 2023) 1:05:06

1M ago1:05:06

1:05:06

Xuanzang (600/602–664) was one of the most accomplished and consequential monks in the history of East Asian Buddhism. Celebrated for his sixteen-year pilgrimage from China to India, his transmission and translation of hundreds of Buddhist texts, and his training of a generation of masters in China, Korea, and Japan, Xuanzang’s life and legacy are …

1
Christine Abigail L. Tan, "Freedom's Frailty: Self-Realization in the Neo-Daoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang's Zhuangzhi" (SUNY Press, 2024) 52:10

1M ago52:10

52:10

Christine Tan argues that the most fruitful way to read the Zhuangzi, if one is seeking political and ethical insight, is through the Jin Dynasty commentator Guo Xiang. In Freedom’s Frailty: Self-Realization in the Neo-Daoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang’s Zhuangzi (SUNY Press, 2024), she lays out her reasoning for this position, offering her interpreta…

1
Anjali Arondekar, "Abundance: Sexuality’s History" (Duke UP, 2023) 52:13

1M ago52:13

52:13

In Abundance: Sexuality’s History (Duke UP, 2023), Anjali Arondekar refuses the historical common sense that archival loss is foundational to a subaltern history of sexuality, and that the deficit of our minoritized pasts can be redeemed through acquisitions of lost pasts. Instead, Arondekar theorizes the radical abundance of sexuality through the …

1
Scholars’ Circle – Politics and Elections in India – May 19, 2024 58:01

2M ago58:01

58:01

With its 1.4 billion population and a billion registered voters, India stands as the world’s largest democracy and 5th largest economy. India is holding national elections, which will decide its leaders for the next five years. What are the role of its institutions in supporting democracy and how are their elections conducted? What is the state of …

1
Jennifer Liu, "Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 1:10:00

2M ago1:10:00

1:10:00

Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960 (U Hawaii Press, 2024) examines how the Guomindang (GMD or Nationalists) sought to maintain control of middle-school students and cultivate their political loyalty over the trajectory of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Civil War, and postwar Taiwan. D…

1
Wei Wu, "Esoteric Buddhism in China: Engaging Japanese and Tibetan Traditions, 1912–1949" (Columbia UP, 2023) 1:08:02

2M ago1:08:02

1:08:02

During the Republican period (1912–1949) and after, many Chinese Buddhists sought inspiration from non-Chinese Buddhist traditions, showing a particular interest in esoteric teachings. What made these Buddhists dissatisfied with Chinese Buddhism, and what did they think other Buddhist traditions could offer? Which elements did they choose to follow…

1
En Li, "Betting on the Civil Service Examinations: The Lottery in Late Qing China" (Harvard UP, 2023) 38:47

2M ago38:47

38:47

During the Qing dynasty in China, a wide variety of people participated in a lottery game named weixing (“surname guessing”), which had participants placing bets on the surnames of civil service examination candidates. A fiercely competitive process, those who passed the various levels of the civil service and military examinations could climb the …

1
Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson, "Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade" (Harvard UP, 2024) 1:19:56

2M ago1:19:56

1:19:56

For centuries, the vastness of the Chinese market tempted foreign companies in search of customers. But in the 1970s, when the United States and China ended two decades of Cold War isolation, China’s trade relations veered in a very different direction. In Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade (Harvard Universit…

1
Jennifer Dorothy Lee, "Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, 1978-1985" (U California Press, 2024) 1:23:09

2M ago1:23:09

1:23:09

Today I had the great pleasure of talking to Associate Professor Jennifer Dorothy Lee on her new book, Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, 1978-1985 (U California Press, 2024). Anxiety Aesthetics is the first book to consider a prehistory of contemporaneity in China through the emergent creative practices in the aftermath of the Mao era. …

1
Ban Wang, "At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China" (Duke UP, 2022) 51:46

2M ago51:46

51:46

In his latest book At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China (Duke UP, 2022), Ban Wang uses an ecocritical lens to examine anthropocentrism, technoscientific hubris, and ecologically destructive modes of production in modern China. Analyzing modern discourse, literature, film, and science fiction, Wang asserts that …

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