Best Jack Lin Podcasts (2025)

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Marion Gibson, "Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials" (Scribner, 2023) 49:26

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2h ago49:26

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Witchfinder General, Salem, Malleus Maleficarum. The world of witch-hunts and witch trials sounds archaic and fanciful, these terms relics of an unenlightened, brutal age. However, we often hear ‘witch-hunt’ in today’s media, and the misogyny that shaped witch trials is all too familiar. Three women were prosecuted under a version of the 1735 Witch…

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Andy Cowan, "B-Side: A Flipsided History of Pop" (Headpress, 2023) 49:10

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In his new book B-Sides: A Flipsided History of Pop (Headpress, 2023), Andy Cowan explores a century of music b-sides. Pop music would be a different beast without the B-Side. Music history is riven with songs deemed throwaway that revolted against their lowly status and refused to be denied. Be it rock'n'roll's national anthem ('Rock Around The Cl…

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Sara Byala, "Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:07:39

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Travel to virtually any African country and you are likely to find a Coca-Cola, often a cold one at that. Bottled asks how this carbonated drink became ubiquitous across the continent, and what this reveals about the realities of globalisation, development and capitalism. Bottled: How Coca-Cola Became African (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. …

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Kate Clancy, "Period: The Real Story of Menstruation" (Princeton UP, 2023) 28:21

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Menstruation is something half the world does for a week at a time, for months and years on end, yet it remains largely misunderstood. Scientists once thought of an individual's period as useless, and some doctors still believe it's unsafe for a menstruating person to swim in the ocean wearing a tampon. Period: The Real Story of Menstruation (Princ…

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Agata Fijalkowski, "Law, Visual Culture, and the Show Trial" (Routledge, 2023) 1:11:59

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Addressing the relationship between law and the visual, this book examines the importance of photography in Central, East, and Southeast European show trials. The dispensation of justice during communist rule in Albania, East Germany, and Poland was reliant on legal propaganda, making the visual a fundamental part of the legitimacy of the law. Anal…

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Scott A. Mitchell, "The Making of American Buddhism" (Oxford UP, 2023) 58:52

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Scott A. Mitchell is the Dean of Students and Faculty Affairs and holds the Yoshitaka Tamai Professorial Chair at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. He teaches and writes about Buddhism in the West, Pure Land Buddhism, and Buddhist modernism. As of 2010, there were approximately 3-4 million Buddhists in the United States, and that figur…

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Amitav Acharya, "Tragic Nation: Burma--Why and How Democracy Failed" (Penguin Random House, 2023) 35:07

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What went wrong with Burma’s democratic experiment? How are we to understand the country’s turbulent politics in the wake of the 2021 coup? In this conversation with Duncan McCargo, Amitav Acharya talks about his new book on Burma, which draws extensively on communications with young activists he refers to as “thought warriors”. He also discusses t…

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Martin Jay, "Immanent Critiques: The Frankfurt School under Pressure" (Verso, 2023) 1:22:23

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The Frankfurt School’s own legacy is best preserved by exercising an immanent critique of its premises and the conclusions to which they often led. By distinguishing between what is still and what is no longer alive in Critical Theory, Immanent Critiques: The Frankfurt School Under Pressure (Verso, 2023) seeks to demonstrate its continuing relevanc…

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Michael Newton, "It's a Wonderful Life" (British Film Institute, 2023) 1:05:21

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Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of the best-loved films of Classical Hollywood cinema, a story of despair and redemption in the aftermath of war that is one of the central movies of the 1940s, and a key text in America's understanding of itself. This is a film that remains relevant to our own anxieties and yearnings, to all the contradic…

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Eric G. Wilson, "Point Blank" (British Film Institute, 2023) 46:43

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John Boorman's Point Blank (1967) has long been recognized as one of the seminal films of the sixties, with its revisionary mix of genres including neo-noir, New Wave, and spaghetti western. Its lasting influence can be traced throughout the decades in films like Mean Streets (1973), Reservoir Dogs (1992), Heat (1995), The Limey (1999) and Memento …

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Richard Bradford, "Tough Guy: The Life of Norman Mailer" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 1:12:09

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Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, firstly in 1969 for The Armies of the Night and again in 1980 for The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's life comes as close as is possible to being the Great American Novel: beyond reason, inexplicable, wonderfully grotesque and addictive.The Naked and the Dead was acclaimed not so much for its intrinsic qualit…

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Kathryn Cornell Dolan, "Breakfast Cereal: A Global History" (Reaktion Books, 2023) 1:07:58

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Breakfast Cereal: A Global History (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Kathryn Dolan presents the long, distinguished and surprising history of breakfast cereal. Simple, healthy and comforting, breakfast cereals are a perennially popular way to start the day around the world. They have a long, distinguished and surprising history – around 10,000 years ago, wit…

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Donna J. Drucker, "Fertility Technology" (MIT Press, 2023) 30:20

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A concise overview of fertility technology—its history, practical applications, and ethical and social implications around the world. In the late 1850s, a physician in New York City used a syringe and glass tube to inject half a drop of sperm into a woman’s uterus, marking the first recorded instance of artificial insemination. From that day forwar…

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Philippe Huneman, "Why?: The Philosophy Behind the Question" (Stanford UP, 2023) 1:26:23

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Why did triceratops have horns? Why did World War I occur? Why does Romeo love Juliet? And, most importantly, why ask why? In Why?: The Philosophy Behind the Question (Stanford UP, 2023), philosopher Philippe Huneman describes the different meanings of "why," and how those meanings can, and should (or should not), be conflated. As Huneman outlines,…

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Stephanie Barczewski, "How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023) 57:29

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How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Stephanie Barczewski is an exploration of the evolution of the quintessentially English country house. Country houses have come to be regarded as quintessentially English, not only in terms of their architectural style but because they appear to embody national values of continuity and in…

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Jean Pfaelzer, "California, a Slave State" (Yale UP, 2023) 54:34

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California owes its origins and sunny prosperity to slavery. Spanish invaders captured Indigenous people to build the chain of Catholic missions. Russian otter hunters shipped Alaska Natives--the first slaves transported into California--and launched a Pacific slave triangle to China. Plantation slaves were marched across the plains for the Gold Ru…

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Jeremy Black, "A History of Artillery" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) 38:17

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Jeremy Black's book A History of Artillery (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) traces the development of artillery through the ages, providing a thorough study of these weapons. From its earliest recorded use in battle over a millennium ago, up to the recent Gulf War, Balkan, and Afghanistan conflicts, artillery has often been the deciding factor in battl…

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Helle Strandgaard Jensen, "Sesame Street: A Transnational History" (Oxford UP, 2023) 57:23

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In Sesame Street: A Transnational History (Oxford UP, 2023), author Helle Strandgaard Jensen tells the story of how the American television show became a global brand. Jensen argues that because the show's domestic production was not financially viable from the beginning, Sesame Street became a commodity that its producers assertively marketed all …

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Rethinking Success | Mia Birdsong 1:08:35

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Radical advice on rethinking success, individualism, and the American dream. Mia Birdsong is a pathfinder, culture change visionary, and futurist. She is the founding Executive Director of Next River, a think tank and culture change lab for interconnected freedom. In her book How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community, Mia maps sw…

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Matthew Pawlak, "Sarcasm in Paul's Letters" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 31:38

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In this recent monograph Sarcasm in Paul's Letters (Cambridge University Press 2023, Matthew Pawlak offers the first treatment of sarcasm in New Testament studies. He provides an extensive analysis of sarcastic passages across the undisputed letters of Paul, showing where Paul is sarcastic, and how his sarcasm affects our understanding of his rheto…

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

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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…

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Jacob Bricca, "How Documentaries Work" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:05:43

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Previous guest Jacob Bricca (Documentary Editing: Principles and Practice) is a professional film editor and director, specializing in documentaries. In his new book, he breaks down the hidden conventions of the documentary film in accessible language for film students and documentary enthusiasts alike. Chapters on Narrative and Meaning show how do…

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Divine Materialism and Integral Cosmology: Consciousness, Science, and the Spiritual Turn with Marco Masi 1:24:31

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In this episode, we explore Marco Masi’s article “The Integral Cosmology of Sri Aurobindo: An Introduction from the Perspective of Consciousness Studies.” Marco’s work sits at the intersection of the hard sciences and spirituality, advancing the provocative notion of “divine materialism.” We examine the limitations of contemporary philosophy of min…

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Jolyon Baraka Thomas and Matthew D. McMullen, "The New Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 1:00:26

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For nearly two decades, the Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions (U Hawaii Press, 2024) has served as a valuable resource for students and scholars of religion in Japan. This exciting update expands the audience to include non-specialists of Japan while also complicating the notions of "Japan" and "religion." Asking the provocative question "why stud…

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Andrew Porwancher, "American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews" (Princeton UP, 2025) 30:31

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A scion of the Protestant elite, Theodore Roosevelt was an unlikely ally of the waves of impoverished Jewish newcomers who crowded the docks at Ellis Island. Yet from his earliest years he forged ties with Jews never before witnessed in a president. American Maccabee traces Roosevelt’s deep connection with the Jewish people at every step of his daz…

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Jack Z. Bratich, "On Microfascism: Gender, War, and Death" (Common Notions, 2022) 1:05:45

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In On Microfascism: Gender, War, and Death (Common Notions, 2022) Dr. Jack Z. Bratich explores the cultural elements in American society that support fascism. Microfascism appears in many aspects of culture engaging consumers to think of others and their own self in ways that extend fascism into everyday life while constantly adapting to cultural a…

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Thomas David DuBois, "China in Seven Banquets: A Flavourful History" (Reaktion Books, 2024) 1:13:58

2d ago1:13:58

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In this episode of New Books Network, Laura Goldberg speaks with Thomas David DuBois, Professor at Beijing Normal University, about his book China in Seven Banquets, which traces Chinese history through seven extraordinary meals. Gastronomy and dining rituals offer a revealing historical framework: they make visible social order, ethical values, an…