Best Comparative Race Theory Podcasts (2025)

1
Unraveling the Mysteries of Ancient China: Looking at Classical Texts, Nationalism, and Comparative Antiquity with Martin Kern 23:42

15d ago23:42

23:42

In this episode, Fred Lawrence speaks with Professor Martin Kern, a leading scholar in Chinese antiquity and a professor at Princeton University. Kern shares his unique academic journey, from growing up in post-war Germany to studying in Beijing during a period of political transformation. He discusses the complexities of interpreting ancient Chine…

1
2024 Lebowitz Prize: A Discussion on the "Dehumanization and its Discontents" 29:48

1M ago29:48

29:48

This special episode of Key Conversations is joined by Kate Manne, associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, and David Livingstone Smith, Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. Each year, the Lebowitz Prize is presented to a pair of philosophers who hold contrasting views of an important philosophical question that…

1
Exploring the Evolution of Animal Weapons and How it Relates to Arms Races in Military Technologies With Professor Doug Emlen 23:54

3M ago23:54

23:54

In this episode, evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen joins Fred Lawrence in a conversation about his research on extreme animal weapons— from the horns of a rhinoceros beetle to elk antlers. He discusses his family's scientific legacy, his early reluctance to follow in their footsteps, and how his childhood experiences in Kenya influenced his path…

1
Unearthing the Voices of the Marginalized Through Medieval Studies with Professor Kristina Richardson 25:29

4M ago25:29

25:29

In this episode, Professor Kristina Richardson, a distinguished historian and Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, joins Fred Lawrence for a compelling conversation about her groundbreaking research on marginalized communities in medieval Islamic societies. Professor Richardson sheds light on the lives of disabled individuals, Romani crafts people, and…

1
2024 Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards 29:38

4M ago29:38

29:38

The Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards are presented annually to three outstanding scholarly books published in the United States. The 2024 winners are Gregg Hecimovich for his book The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative; Jeremy Eichler for his book Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of…

1
How Professor and Journalist Corey Robin Interprets Political Theory in and Beyond the Classroom 25:37

6M ago25:37

25:37

Growing up in a New York City suburb, Corey Robin was influenced by his public high school teachers who taught American history via the Socratic method. Today, Robin tries to replicate that magnetic energy in his own classroom as a political science professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center while authoring books and essays that hav…

1
How Professor Kendra McSweeney uses Geography to Protect Forests in Indigenous Homelands 27:19

7M ago27:19

27:19

For a lot of Americans, geography is just a middle school subject or a trivia night category at their neighborhood bar. But for Professor Kendra McSweeney, the “invisible field” of geography is a way to understand the relationship between people and their environment, from adaptation to climate change to how the drug trade impacts biodiverse forest…

1
How Dr. Shawkat Toorawa Uses Music and Pop Culture to Make Arabic Literature Accessible 27:55

7M ago27:55

27:55

With an international background and love of languages, Professor Shawkat M. Toorawa decided to study intensive Arabic with the encouragement of a highly influential advisor at the University of Pennsylvania, which set him on a path to becoming a professor of Arabic literature, Comparative literature and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Lang…

1
From Dinosaurs to Birds: The Science and Language of Evolution with Dr. Julia Clarke 27:51

8M ago27:51

27:51

For Professor Julia Clarke, paleontology is more than just a passion for exploration and discovery — it’s a shared, global dialogue that has the ability to permeate cultural differences. In this episode, Dr. Clarke recounts how her early interest in the history and philosophy of science merged with her desire to have a practice deeply woven into na…

1
REPLAY: Professor Emily Yeh Advocates for Environmental Protection for Tibetan’s Cultural Legacy 28:49

10M ago28:49

28:49

Professor Emily Yeh is a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she researches the nature-society relationship in political, cultural and developmental relations in the mostly Tibetan parts of China. Although she majored in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, while interning in China, she realized that h…

1
REPLAY: Exploring Disability as an Identity with Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson 26:57

11M ago26:57

26:57

Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is a disability justice and cultural thought leader, bioethicist, educator, and humanities scholar. Garland-Thomson grew up with a congenital disability, an experience that highlighted the barriers that exist for people with disabilities. Inspired by the Civil Rights movement and hearing the narratives from Black…

1
REPLAY: How Natalia’s Experience as a First-Gen Allows her to Connect to the Humanities—and her Students 28:32

12M ago28:32

28:32

Professor Natalia Molina was the first in her family, and her neighborhood, to go to college. Being a first-gen student, the 2020 MacArthur Fellow’s higher education was shaped by curiosity and a being open to new opportunities—even when they brought her across the country for her graduate degree. As an expert of the humanities, Professor Natalia M…

1
Why Dr. Talitha Washington’s Determined to Make Science More Equitable 26:10

1y ago26:10

26:10

Growing up in a tight-knit African-American community in Evansville, Indiana, Dr. Talitha Washington quickly understood the role that her race and racism would play in her life—always choosing to rise above it all. Amongst her Black cohort at Spelman College, Dr. Washington felt she was finally able to learn freely, and without the pressure of bein…

1
2023 Lebowitz Prize: A Discussion on the “Norms of Attention” by Two Philosophers 27:41

1y ago27:41

27:41

This special episode of Key Conversations is joined by Dr. Kristie Dotson, the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Susanna Siegel, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. Each year, the Lebowitz Prize is presented to a pair of philosophers who hold contrasting views…

1
Why Professor Corey D.B. Walker Looks to the Past to Understand Today’s Complex World 27:51

1y ago27:51

27:51

Professor Corey D. B. Walker is the Dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, and Director of the Program in African American Studies. He pursued his education at two HBCUs and two of the oldest schools in America, and talks about how each of these formations gave him the ability to develop into…

1
Professor Emily Yeh Advocates for Environmental Protection for Tibetan’s Cultural Legacy 28:20

1+ y ago28:20

28:20

Professor Emily Yeh is a Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she researches the nature-society relationship in political, cultural and developmental relations in the mostly Tibetan parts of China. Although she majored in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, while interning in China, she realized that h…

1
2023 Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards 48:59

1+ y ago48:59

48:59

The Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards are presented annually to three outstanding scholarly books published in the United States. The 2023 winners are Dennis Tyler for his book Disabilities of the Color Line: Redressing Antiblackness from Slavery to the Present; Jennifer Raff for her book Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas; and Deborah Cohen for he…

1
Exploring the Muddled Middle with Cathleen Kaveny 27:09

1+ y ago27:09

27:09

Scholar and author Cathleen Kaveny focuses on the relationship of law, religion, and morality. As the Darald and Juliet Libby Millennium Professor at Boston College, she has dual appointments in both the Theology Department and the Law School—the first to hold the joint appointment. Kaveny has devoted her career to exploring the connection between …

1
Exploring Disability as an Identity with Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson 26:26

1+ y ago26:26

26:26

Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is a disability justice and cultural thought leader, bioethicist, educator, and humanities scholar. Garland-Thomson grew up with a congenital disability, an experience that highlighted the barriers that exist for people with disabilities. Inspired by the Civil Rights movement and hearing the narratives from Black…

1
How Natalia’s Experience as a First-Gen Allows her to Connect to the Humanities—and her Students 28:01

1+ y ago28:01

28:01

Professor Natalia Molina was the first in her family, and her neighborhood, to go to college. Being a first-gen student, the 2020 MacArthur Fellow’s higher education was shaped by curiosity and a being open to new opportunities—even when they brought her across the country for her graduate degree. As an expert of the humanities, Professor Natalia M…

1
REPLAY: Professor Ed Ayers on Teaching a Morally Engaging History 26:31

1+ y ago26:31

26:31

The Civil War historian talks about combining intellectual, cultural, social, and economic history to truly grasp the U.S.’s past, especially events that took place in the South. He shares with Fred how he helps make free, nonpartisan, educational resources for teaching lively history lessons.By The Phi Beta Kappa Society

1
REPLAY: Sociologist Marta Tienda on Why Demography is Not Destiny 25:06

2y ago25:06

25:06

The Princeton University professor shares how instrumental one teacher was in her own path to college, and why the U.S. should do more to invest in higher education. She speaks to Fred about how important public policy is in shaping our individual and collective destinies.By The Phi Beta Kappa Society

1
REPLAY: Biologist Victoria Sork on What Trees Teach Us 26:40

2y ago26:40

26:40

The UCLA professor shares how the life-changing revelation that she could be a scientist, and work outdoors, led to her research on tree genomes and evolutionary biology. Plus, how she harnesses the teaching power of plants as the director of UCLA’s botanical garden.By The Phi Beta Kappa Society

1
Why Harvard History Professor Maya Jasanoff Studies the Past to Understand the Present 23:56

2y ago23:56

23:56

Growing up, Professor Maya Jasanoff was surrounded by academics and scholars—an environment she believes gave her the confidence to explore academia herself. Initially, her fellowship at Cambridge sparked her interest in studying the British Empire, and as she dove deeper into the subject matter, she began recognizing the many ways that British imp…

1
Understanding the Intricacies of Life Expectancy with Professor Mark Hayward 25:11

2y ago25:11

25:11

An assumption about life expectancy is that the richer the society, the longer and healthier the individuals in that society will live—but in the case of life expectancy, money can’t collectively buy us more time. Sociologist and demographer Mark Hayward has spent the majority of his career studying all-things life expectancy, and in this episode h…

1
Wynter and Quijano on Politics, Coloniality, and the Human 55:20

2y ago55:20

55:20

A discussion of Sylvia Wynter's essay "Toward the Sociogenic Principle" and Aníbal Quijano's "Coloniality of Power" essay, with particular attention to how each diagnoses the pathologies of the colonial relation, the world is buoys, and the kinds of racial and national identities it produces. How can we think outside the coloniality of power? How c…

1
Glissant on Difference, Opacity, Traces, and Creolization 39:04

2y ago39:04

39:04

A conversation about Édouard Glissant's work on creolization, with particular emphasis on how that conceptualization of relation emphasizes both the right to opacity and the necessity of cultural contact. What happens to concepts, to art, to expressive life when it is put in contact with differences? How do vulnerable communities and traditions pro…

1
Celan, Levinas, and Derrida on Representation and the Unrepresentable 44:04

2y ago44:04

44:04

A discussion of Paul Celan's essay "The Meridian," along with companion pieces of Emmanuel Levinas. Claude Lanzmann, and Jacques Derrida, with particular focus on the poetic word's capacity to bring the deconstructive, dismantling, and interruptive function of absence in reckoning with traumatic experience. How does such a word reflect an ethics of…

1
Spillers on Gender, Race, Naming, and Possibility 59:20

2y ago59:20

59:20

A discussion of Hortense Spillers' essay "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book," with particular emphasis on the critical possibilities opened up by her interrogation of naming, gender, and race after The Moynihan Report. What does the Report tell us about the status of the phrase "Black woman"? And what remains to be thought after w…

1
2022 Lebowitz Prize: What Is Wrong With Democracy and What We Should Do According to These Two Philosophers 27:27

2y ago27:27

27:27

This special episode of Key Conversations is joined by Dr. Cristina Lafont, Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University, and Dr. Alex Guerrero, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Each year, the Lebowitz Prize is presented to a pair of philosophers who hold contrasting views of an important philosop…

1
Kristeva on Abjection, Misogyny, and the Symbolic-Political Order 1:01:29

2y ago1:01:29

1:01:29

Long discussion of Julia Kristeva's The Powers of Horror, with special attention to how her theory of abjection informs political strategies of oppression and exploitation rooted in the body. Our discussion works through the conception of the abject and its relation to misogyny and patriarchal cultural formation and reproduction, with particular at…

1
Spivak on the Subaltern, Epistemic Violence, and Representation 38:30

2y ago38:30

38:30

A discussion of Gayatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?," an essay that interrogates the discursive conditions of speaking and the coloniality of such conditions. We focus here on silence, withdrawal, and the refusal to enter into discourse as a form of resistance and ethics. In particular, we are here interested in why Spivak makes this claim -…

1
Derrida on Origin, Supplement, and Deconstructive Practice 31:36

2y ago31:36

31:36

A discussion of Jacques Derrida's deconstructive practice, which seeks to identify "the supplement" to any origin story or set of claims in a text. What are the characteristics of this readerly practice? What motivates Derrida to make these kind of readerly, critical interventions? And where does deconstructive practice bring us as thinkers, critic…

1
Why Professor Kay E. Holekamp’s Research into Animal Behavior is Beneficial to Humans 24:14

2y ago24:14

24:14

The Michigan State University Professor of Integrative Biology shares how her early fascination for animals led to an extensive career in researching mammalian behavioral development, and the importance of studying the social, ecological, and endocrine variables of a species. As a leading behavioral ecologist, Professor Holekamp’s initial field stu…

1
Morrison on Memory, Imagination, and Place 42:45

2y ago42:45

42:45

A discussion of a cluster of Toni Morrison's non-fiction pieces concerned with gender, memory, and the imagination. We explore the relation between Morrison's meditations and our previous conversations about place and memory, in particular how transcendence is brought to sites through memory-work and the imagination. As well, the ways in which memo…

1
Murray and Ellison on Blues, Memory, Embodiment, and the Origins of Tradition 52:24

2y ago52:24

52:24

This podcast is bookended by musical pieces by Arthur Cooper, Malaco Records recording artist and great grandfather of participant and University of Maryland doctoral student Timmy R. Bridgeman. A conversation about Albert Murray's The Hero and the Blues and two essays by Ralph Ellison, "Living with Music" and "Blues People." In this discussion, we…

1
On Heidegger, Dwelling, Art, and the Fourfold 37:57

2+ y ago37:57

37:57

A process piece reflecting on our discussion of two essays by Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art" (1936) and "Building, Dwelling, Thinking" (1951), with particular emphasis on how he rethinks the object of art and our sense of place. Heidegger's essays attend to the experience of alienation from what he calls "the fourfold," our relat…

1
Violence, Love, and Influence in Bloom and Senghor 46:59

2+ y ago46:59

46:59

Discussion of Harold Bloom's 1973 book The Anxiety of Influence, with attention to the limits of the book and also how a perversion or transformation of revisionary ratios might provide insight into anti- and even post-colonial literature and cultural production. In particular, we discuss how Bloom's work presupposes and needs antagonism and violen…

1
Kathryn Lofton Thinks About Religion Through Unique Systems of Worship 26:50

2+ y ago26:50

26:50

The Yale University Professor of Religious and American Studies thinks outside the box when it comes to religion, and shares why she looks at everything from pop culture and video game communities to celebrities – like Oprah Winfrey and the Kardashians – for ways to talk about what guides moral decision-making in the U.S. Plus, how her background a…

1
Barbara Christian, "The Race for Theory" 34:24

2+ y ago34:24

34:24

By John E. Drabinski

1
Ricardo Padrón is Mapping Spanish Exploration of the Pacific 25:57

2+ y ago25:57

25:57

The UVA Spanish Professor dives into the literature and cartography of European expansion, including the colonial history of early modern Spain and the transpacific, and reflects on the Renaissance and themes that remain relevant today. Plus he discusses how he views maps as context-rich stories of subjective interpretations made by cartographers.…

1
Why Geographer Bill Moseley Grounds His Work in Real Life 26:43

2+ y ago26:43

26:43

The Macalester College Professor of Geography shares how his time in the Peace Corps in Mali led to his lifelong love of indigenous agricultural practices, and a lasting interest in what people experience in their home countries. He continued to ground his years of development work and extensive studies in geography and agricultural policy on peopl…

1
Laurence Smith Knows the Many Stories Rivers Tell Us 21:22

2+ y ago21:22

21:22

The Brown University professor of Environmental Studies shares his lifelong admiration of rivers and how he came to study many kinds of flowing water, including the melting glaciers of the Arctic. He encourages listeners to look for the nearest body of water to them and appreciate how we’re taking better care of the planet, in addition to how much …

1
Buddhist Scholar Donald Lopez on the Staying Power of Ancient Questions 24:09

2+ y ago24:09

24:09

The Buddhist and Tibetan Studies professor at the University of Michigan recalls how a tumultuous period in U.S. politics led him to his area of expertise. Plus, what he’s learned from his many meetings with a leading Buddhist philosopher, the Dalai Lama. And what attracted him to out-of-the-box thinkers like poet Gendun Chopel.…

1
Howard Bloch Sees Human Choices in Medieval History 26:13

2+ y ago26:13

26:13

The Yale professor of French and Humanities shares how cathedral fires “of suspicious origin” played a role in the transition from Romanesque to Gothic-style architecture in Europe. Plus, how his scholarship challenges existing narratives on everything from historical relics to literary movements.By Florence Barrau-Adams, Paulina Velasco, Hadley Kelly, Fred Lawrence, Kojin Tashiro

1
Biologist Victoria Sork on What Trees Teach Us 26:29

3y ago26:29

26:29

The UCLA professor shares how the life-changing revelation that she could be a scientist, and work outdoors, led to her research on tree genomes and evolutionary biology. Plus, how she harnesses the teaching power of plants as the director of UCLA’s botanical garden.By Fred Lawrence, Paulina Velasco, Kojin Tashiro, Hadley Kelly

1
Sociologist Marta Tienda on Why Demography is Not Destiny 24:55

3y ago24:55

24:55

The Princeton University professor shares how instrumental one teacher was in her own path to college, and why the U.S. should do more to invest in higher education. She speaks to Fred about how important public policy is in shaping our individual and collective destinies.By Fred Lawrence, Kojin Tashiro, Hadley Kelly

1
Professor Ed Ayers on Teaching a Morally Engaging History 26:20

3y ago26:20

26:20

The Civil War historian talks about combining intellectual, cultural, social, and economic history to truly grasp the U.S.’s past, especially events that took place in the South. He shares with Fred how he helps make free, nonpartisan, educational resources for teaching lively history lessons.By The Phi Beta Kappa Society

1
Editor Bob Wilson Celebrates A Career of Literary Journalism 24:28

3y ago24:28

24:28

The retiring editor of The American Scholar magazine reflects on decades producing literary journalism, why he always supported women writers, and the role of journalists in turbulent times.By Hadley Kelly, Kojin Tashiro, Paulina Velasco

1
2021 Lebowitz Award Winners on How We Perceive Our Selves 30:47

3y ago30:47

30:47

The Lebowitz Award is presented each year to a pair of outstanding philosophers who hold contrasting views on a topic of current interest in the field. The 2021 winners, New York University's Ned Block and Johns Hopkins University's Ian Phillips, speak with Fred about how they approach philosophy of mind – specifically, our powers of perception and…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Comparative Race Theory Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen