Best Verso Books Podcasts (2024)

1
Ariella Aisha Azoulay, "Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism" (Verso, 2019) 52:17

8d ago52:17

52:17

Ariella Aisha Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history itself, are all dependent on imperial modes of thinking. Imperialism has segmented populations into differentially governed groups, continually emphasized the possibility of progress while trying to d…

1
Laura Helton, "Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History" (Columbia UP, 2024) 55:31

1h ago55:31

55:31

During the first half of the twentieth century, a group of collectors and creators dedicated themselves to documenting the history of African American life. At a time when dominant institutions cast doubt on the value or even the idea of Black history, these bibliophiles, scrapbookers, and librarians created an enduring set of African diasporic arc…

1
Rubina Raja, "Shaping Archaeological Archives: Dialogues Between Fieldwork, Museum Collections, and Private Archives" (Brepols, 2023) 38:54

6h ago38:54

38:54

Archaeology as a discipline has undergone significant changes over the past decades, in particular concerning best practices for how to handle the vast quantities of data that the discipline generates. As Shaping Archaeological Archives: Dialogues between Fieldwork, Museum Collections, and Private Archives (Brepols, 2023) uncovers, much of this dat…

1
Sarah A. Bendall, "Shaping Femininity: Foundation Garments, the Body and Women in Early Modern England" (Bloomsbury, 2021) 51:31

8d ago51:31

51:31

In sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, the female silhouette underwent a dramatic change. This very structured form, created using garments called bodies and farthingales, existed in various extremes in Western Europe and beyond, in the form of stays, corsets, hoop petticoats and crinolines, right up until the twentieth century. With a nuanc…

1
Natalia Grincheva and Elizabeth Stainforth, "Geopolitics of Digital Heritage" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 56:30

9d ago56:30

56:30

How are digital platforms transforming heritage? In Geopolitics of Digital Heritage (Cambridge UP, 2023), Dr Natalia Grincheva, Program Leader of the BA (Hons) Arts Management at the University of the Arts Singapore and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, and Dr Elizabeth Stainforth, a lecturer in the School of Fine Art,…

1
Danielle Taschereau Mamers, "Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing: Documentation, Administration, and the Interventions of Indigenous Art" (Fordham UP, 2023) 48:29

28d ago48:29

48:29

How do bureaucratic documents create and reproduce a state’s capacity to see? What kinds of worlds do documents help create? Further, how might such documentary practices and settler colonial ways of seeing be refused? Settler Colonial Ways of Seeing: Documentation, Administration, and the Interventions of Indigenous Art (Fordham University Press, …

1
Rose Miron, "Indigenous Archival Activism: Mohican Interventions in Public History and Memory" (U Minnesota Press, 2024) 44:18

21d ago44:18

44:18

The past several decades have seen a massive shift in debates over who owns and has the right to tell Native American history and stories. For centuries, non-Native actors have collected, stolen, sequestered, and gained value from Native stories and documents, human remains, and sacred objects. However, thanks to the work of Native activists, Nativ…

1
Grazia Ingravalle, "Archival Film Curatorship: Early and Silent Cinema from Analog to Digital" (Amsterdam UP, 2024) 1:10:39

1M ago1:10:39

1:10:39

Archival Film Curatorship: Early and Silent Cinema from Analog to Digital (Amsterdam UP, 2023) is the first book-length study that investigates film archives at the intersection of institutional histories, early and silent film historiography, and archival curatorship. It examines three institutions at the forefront of experimentation with film exh…

1
What is Emancipatory Propaganda? with Jonas Staal 48:17

2M ago48:17

48:17

What is Emancipatory Propaganda? with Jonas Staal Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org In this second episode of Cultural Counterpower, Laura asks “What is emancipatory propaganda?” Artist Jonas Staal speaks with Laura about the history of propaganda and its poten…

1
World War 3: The Resonance of Unwritten History 29:51

1M ago29:51

29:51

[S6 E02] World War 3: The Resonance of Unwritten History Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org David Harvey reflects on the eerie similarities between current global political and economic tensions and those of the 1930s, suggesting a potential repetition of histor…

1
Heather Akou, "On the Job: A History of American Work Uniforms" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 1:01:17

2M ago1:01:17

1:01:17

Through a variety of archival documents, artefacts, illustrations, and references to primary and secondary literature, On the Job: A History of American Work Uniforms (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Dr. Heather Akou explores the changing styles, business practices, and lived experiences of the people who make, sell, and wear service-industry uniforms in the …

1
Mpho Ngoepe and Sindiso Bhebhe, "Indigenous Archives in Postcolonial Contexts: Recalling the Pasts" (Routledge, 2024) 46:25

3M ago46:25

46:25

Mpho Ngoepe and Sindiso Bhebhe's Indigenous Archives in Postcolonial Contexts: Recalling the Pasts (Routledge, 2024) revisits the definition of a record and extends it to include memory, murals, rock art paintings and other objects. Drawing on five years of research and examples from Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa, Mpho Ngoepe and Sindiso Bheb…

1
The Martinaise Excursion 3: What Is Book? 1:04:58

3M ago1:04:58

1:04:58

We get nauseous talking to a bookshop owner during our playthrough of Disco Elysium.By Ezri xB & Jake Verso

1
#160 - Critique of the Gotha Program (Part 5) 1:08:54

3M ago1:08:54

1:08:54

We continue our reading and analysis of the new translation of Critique of the Gotha Program with special guest Constance.By Ezri xB & Jake Verso

1
Pablo Alonso González, "Cuban Cultural Heritage: A Rebel Past for a Revolutionary Nation" (UP of Florida, 2018) 51:05

3M ago51:05

51:05

Cuban Cultural Heritage: A Rebel Past for a Revolutionary Nation (UP of Florida, 2018) explores the role that cultural heritage and museums played in the construction of a national identity in postcolonial Cuba. Starting with independence from Spain in 1898 and moving through Cuban-American rapprochement in 2014, Pablo Alonso González illustrates h…

1
The Martinaise Excursion 2: Felix Chanting “Right to Work” 2:05:08

3M ago2:05:08

2:05:08

We continue our playthrough of Disco Elysium and existentially grapple with the game’s (now deprecated) dirtbag left voiceover era. http://patreon.com/swampsidechats http://swampside.chatBy Ezri xB & Jake Verso

1
Politics In Motion Live #1: From the Labor Theory of Value to Homelessness. Q&A with David Harvey and Miguel Robles-Durán. 1:02:46

4M ago1:02:46

1:02:46

Politics In Motion Live #1: From the Labor Theory of Value to Homelessness. Q&A with David Harvey and Miguel Robles-Durán. Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org Join David Harvey and Miguel Robles-Duran for a compelling Patreon discussion on the intersections of po…

1
#159 - Critique of the Gotha Program (Part 4) 1:26:18

4M ago1:26:18

1:26:18

We continue our reading and analysis of the new translation of Critique of the Gotha Program with special guest Constance.By Ezri xB & Jake Verso

1
The Martinaise Excursion 1: Egoist Necktie 1:13:04

4M ago1:13:04

1:13:04

Swampside Chats rings in the new year with a visit to the fantastic land of Martinaise where we wake up disoriented in a hotel room and completely forget who we are. http://patreon.com/swampsidechatsBy Ezri xB & Jake Verso

1
Beyond Borders: Class, Nation & Nationalism 39:48

5M ago39:48

39:48

[S6 E01] Beyond Borders: Class, Nation & Nationalism Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org Professor Harvey investigates a very difficult and thorny problem, not only for Marxists, but for everyone, which is how to understand the concept of nation and the role of n…

1
Robert R. Janes, "Museums and Societal Collapse: The Museum as Lifeboat" (Routledge, 2023) 57:54

4M ago57:54

57:54

Who do you turn to at the brink of the apocalypse? What might help us to mitigate the financial, commercial, political, social, and cultural collapse for which we may be heading? Museums and Societal Collapse: The Museum as Lifeboat (Routledge, 2023) proposes an unlikely hero in this narrative. Robert Janes’ text explores the implications of societ…

1
Jelena Subotić, "Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism" (Cornell UP, 2019) 50:08

4M ago50:08

50:08

In her new book Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism (Cornell University Press, 2019) Jelena Subotić asks why Holocaust memory continues to be so deeply troubled―ignored, appropriated, and obfuscated―throughout Eastern Europe, even though it was in those lands that most of the extermination campaign occurred. As part of acce…

1
Douglas Hunter, "Beardmore: The Viking Hoax That Rewrote History" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2018) 1:10:40

4M ago1:10:40

1:10:40

In 1936, long before the discovery of the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, the Royal Ontario Museum made a sensational acquisition: the contents of a Viking grave that prospector Eddy Dodd said he had found on his mining claim east of Lake Nipigon. The relics remained on display for two decades, challenging understandings of when and where …

1
#158 - Close Reading: Critique of the Gotha Program (Part 3) 1:14:53

4M ago1:14:53

1:14:53

We continue our reading and analysis of the new translation of Critique of the Gotha Program with special guest Constance.By Ezri xB & Jake Verso

1
David R. Brigham, "Two Hundred Years: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1824-2024" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) 52:04

4M ago52:04

52:04

Home to the first two drafts of the U.S. Constitution, an original printer’s proof of the Declaration of Independence, and the earliest surviving American photograph, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) is one of the nation’s largest libraries. Published in conjunction with the anniversary of the Society’s founding in 1824, Two Hundred Yea…

1
Yael A. Sternhell, "War on Record: The Archive and the Afterlife of the Civil War" (Yale UP, 2023) 55:10

5M ago55:10

55:10

Yael A. Sternhell's War on Record: The Archive and the Aftermath of the Civil War (Yale University Press, 2023) is a history of the United States' greatest archival project and how it has shaped what we know about the Civil War. The Civil War generated a vast archive of official records--documents that would shape the postwar era and determine what…

1
The Politics of Humiliation 33:37

5M ago33:37

33:37

[S5.5 E08] The Politics of Humiliation Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org In his book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, economist John Maynard Keynes warned against the humiliation of Germany at the end of World War I. Keynes argued that if you deal with …

1
Saving the Brontë Birthplace 30:38

5M ago30:38

30:38

Where were the Brontë sisters actually born? If this was a quiz question, most people would give the wrong answer. Even standard books on the Brontë family often gloss over the fact that Charlotte, Emily and Anne – along with their wayward brother Branwell – were all born between 1815 and 1820 in Thornton, a village on the edge of Bradford, and not…

1
Simone Gigliotti, "Restless Archive: The Holocaust and the Cinema of the Displaced" (Indiana UP, 2023) 49:50

5M ago49:50

49:50

The global refugee, the ship passenger, the displaced person. How did their homeseeking routes and visual motifs intersect and diverge in the early Holocaust film archive? Simone Gigliotti's Restless Archive: The Holocaust and the Cinema of the Displaced tracks the footsteps and routes of predominantly Jewish refugees and postwar displaced persons …

1
Abigail Bainbridge, "Conservation of Books" (Routledge, 2023) 32:10

5M ago32:10

32:10

Editor Abigail Bainbridge and contributing author Sonja Schwoll join this discussion of Conservation of Books (Routledge 2023), the highly anticipated reference work on global book structures and their conservation. Offering the first modern, comprehensive overview on this subject, this volume takes an international approach. Written by over 70 spe…

1
Matthew Dennis, "American Relics and the Politics of Public Memory" (U Massachusetts Press, 2023) 54:47

5M ago54:47

54:47

The gold epaulettes that George Washington wore into battle. A Union soldier's bloody shirt in the wake of the Civil War. A crushed wristwatch after the 9/11 attacks. The bullet-riddled door of the Pulse nightclub. Volatile and shape-shifting, relics have long played a role in memorializing the American past, acting as physical reminders of hard-wo…

1
Raquel Ukeles et al., "101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel" (Scala Arts, 2022) 39:49

5M ago39:49

39:49

101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel (Scala Arts, 2022) provides a thematic journey through the rich and diverse collections of the National Library of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. Selected by the Library's curators and collections experts, this fine-art volume presents 101 of the most precious items in the Library's collect…

1
Can Cultural Infrastructure Cultivate the Imagination? 28:28

6M ago28:28

28:28

Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org In this first episode of Cultural Counterpower, Laura discusses the relationship between art and the ways we imagine the world around us. She delves into the powerful forces that have narrowed the public imaginary and how they …

1
#157 - Close Reading: Critique of the Gotha Program (Part 2) 1:17:50

6M ago1:17:50

1:17:50

We continue our reading and analysis of the new translation of Critique of the Gotha Program with special guest Constance.By Ezri xB & Jake Verso

1
Ceri Houlbrook,"‘Ritual Litter' Redressed" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 43:06

6M ago43:06

43:06

Ritual deposition is not an activity that many people in the Western world would consider themselves participants of. The enigmatic beliefs and magical thinking that led to the deposition of swords in watery places and votive statuettes in temples, for example, may feel irrelevant to the modern day. However, Dr. Ceri Houlbrook shows in ‘Ritual Litt…

1
Gabriella Giannachi, "Archive Everything: Mapping the Everyday" (MIT Press, 2016) 46:59

6M ago46:59

46:59

In Archive Everything: Mapping the Everyday (MIT Press, 2016; paperback edition, 2023), Gabriella Giannachi traces the evolution of the archive into the apparatus through which we map the everyday. The archive, traditionally a body of documents or a site for the preservation of documents, changed over the centuries to encompass, often concurrently,…

1
The Question of Debt in Our Lives 21:45

6M ago21:45

21:45

[S5.5 E07] The Question of Debt in Our Lives Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org Last week Professor Harvey pointed out that the basic means by which consumerism is developed in such a way is to be consistent with the growth of an economy based upon profit seekin…

1
Where Does Profit Come From? 25:28

7M ago25:28

25:28

[S5.5 E06] Where Does Profit Come From? Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org Professor Harvey takes us back to the very origins of Marx’s Capital by asking the questions, where does profit come from and what are the consequences of profit making? Harvey discusses …

1
Diana Kamin, "Picture-Work: How Libraries, Museums, and Stock Agencies Launched a New Image Economy" (MIT Press, 2023) 56:50

7M ago56:50

56:50

How the image collection, organized and made available for public consumption, came to define a key feature of contemporary visual culture. The origins of today’s kaleidoscopic digital visual culture are many. In Picture-Work: How Libraries, Museums, and Stock Agencies Launched a New Image Economy (MIT Press, 2023), Diana Kamin traces the sharing o…

1
#156 - Close Reading: Critique of the Gotha Program (Part 1) 1:25:19

7M ago1:25:19

1:25:19

We begin our close examination of the Critique of the Gotha Program with Constance.By Ezri xB & Jake Verso

1
Mass and the Politics of Scale 23:53

7M ago23:53

23:53

[S5.5 E05] Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Mass and the Politics of Scale Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org Professor Harvey discusses the UAW strike and the transformation of the automobile industry. He argues that mere electrification of the automobile cannot sol…

1
Janice Rieger, "Design, Disability and Embodiment: Spatial Justice and Perspectives of Power" (Routledge, 2023) 31:52

8M ago31:52

31:52

Janice Rieger's book Design, Disability and Embodiment: Spatial Justice and Perspectives of Power (Routledge, 2023) explores the spatial and social injustices within our streets, malls, schools, and public institutions. Taken-for-granted acts like going for a walk, seeing an exhibition with a friend, and going to school are, for people with disabil…

1
Katrin Nahidi, "The Cultural Politics of Art in Iran: Modernism, Exhibitions, and Art Production" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:05:37

8M ago1:05:37

1:05:37

Modernist Iranian art represents a highly diverse field of cultural production deeply involved in discussing questions of modernity and modernization as practiced in Iran. This book investigates how artistic production and art criticism reflected upon the discourse about gharbzadegi (westoxification), the most substantial critique of Iran's adaptat…

1
The Return of McCarthyism (Part 2) — On The New York Times and other Liberal Media 26:00

8M ago26:00

26:00

[S5.5 E4] Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Return of McCarthyism (Part 2) — On The New York Times and other Liberal Media Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org Professor Harvey discusses the media “red scare” on China and the current persecution of the socialist Ame…

1
A Better Way to Buy Books 34:29

8M ago34:29

34:29

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the most revolutionary new organizations in the book world. Bookshop has found …

1
Valerie Hébert ed., "Framing the Holocaust: Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941" (U Wisconsin Press, 2023) 56:01

9M ago56:01

56:01

Framing the Holocaust: Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023), edited by Valerie Hébert, compiles essays on the meaning of twelve photographs of a terrible atrocity. In December 1941, German police and their local collaborators shot 2,749 Jews at the beach in Sķēde, near Liepāja, Latvia. Twelve photogra…

1
The Return of McCarthyism (Part 1) 29:46

8M ago29:46

29:46

[S5.5 E3] Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: The Return of McCarthyism (Part 1) Stay connected with the latest news from Politics in Motion. Join our mailing list today: https://www.politicsinmotion.org Professor Harvey discusses the persecution of the scholar Owen Lattimore at the hands of Joseph McCarthy. Owen Lattimore was editor of Pacific Affairs, a …

1
Ana Lucia Araujo, "Museums and Atlantic Slavery" (Routledge, 2021) 58:38

9M ago58:38

58:38

Ana Lucia Araujo's book Museums and Atlantic Slavery (Routledge, 2021) explores how slavery, the Atlantic slave trade, and enslaved people are represented through words, visual images, artifacts, and audiovisual materials in museums in Europe and the Americas. Divided into four chapters, the book addresses four recurrent themes: wealth and luxury; …

1
#155 - Close Reading: Critique of the Gotha Program (Prologue) 1:20:47

9M ago1:20:47

1:20:47

We are bringing back the Close Reading series. This time we are joined by Constance to tackle a much larger text: Critique of the Gotha Program. We are working off of the new edition published by Spectre. This episode we review the Gotha Program itself and the 1875 letter from Marx to Bracke concerning the "marginal notes" he sent for private circu…

1
Denise Y. Ho, “Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao’s China” (Cambridge UP, 2017) 1:08:49

9M ago1:08:49

1:08:49

“In Mao’s China, to curate revolution was to make it material.” Denise Y. Ho’s new book explores this premise in a masterful account of exhibitionary culture in the Mao period (1949-1976) and beyond. Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao’s China (Cambridge University Press, 2017) argues that “curating revolution taught people how... Learn…

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