Best Oregon State University Podcasts (2025)

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Gender Crisis N.Y.C. 49:45

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3m ago49:45

49:45

In the premiere episode of Soundscapes N.Y.C., host Ryan Purcell talks with celebrated writer Lucy Sante about the landscape of gender logics within the New York rock scene. It was a nebulous soundscape of counterculture formed around gender explorations and social upheaval set to the soundtrack of an aggressive style of rock ’n’ roll that critics …

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Hans Joas and Matthias Bormuth eds., "The Anthem Companion to Karl Jaspers" (Anthem Press, 2025) 1:39:40

3m ago1:39:40

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The Anthem Companion to Karl Jaspers (Anthem Press, 2025) edited by Hans Joas and Matthias Bormuth is a collection of articles by an international group of leading experts has its special focus on the relevance of Karl Jaspers’s philosophy for the social sciences. It also includes classical evaluations of Jaspers’s thinking by renowned authors Talc…

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Malaysian-Nordic Relations 19:55

7m ago19:55

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In the latest episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, Professor Julie Yu-Wen Chen of the University of Helsinki speaks with Mr. Mohamed Ariff Bin Mohamed Ali, Chargé d’Affaires of the Malaysian Embassy in Helsinki, Finland. Their discussion centered on Malaysia's Foreign Policy, Malaysia’s current ASEAN 2025 Chairmanship, and the country’s engagement w…

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An Interview with Colby Sharp 46:47

18m ago46:47

46:47

Colby Sharp is widely considered one of the leading mavens on children's literature. He is co-author of several books, including Game Changer! Book Access for All Kids (Scholastic, 2018). He started the Nerdy Book Club blog, co-hosts The Yarn podcast with Teacher Librarian Travis Jonker, serves on the Nerd Camp Michigan team and has taught schoolch…

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Minxin Pei, "The Sentinel State: Surveillance and the Survival of Dictatorship in China" (Harvard UP, 2024) 39:45

3m ago39:45

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Rising prosperity was supposed to bring democracy to China, yet the Communist Party’s political monopoly endures. How? Minxin Pei looks to the surveillance state. Though renowned for high-tech repression, China’s surveillance system is above all a labor-intensive project. Pei delves into the human sources of coercion at the foundation of CCP power,…

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Libby Buck, "Port Anna" (Simon & Schuster, 2025) 24:22

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After Gwin Gilmore loses her adjunct teaching job, mother, and boyfriend, she leaves the south and heads for the cottage she’s just inherited on the Maine coast. It’s in the town her family visited every summer, people still remember her, and she has some old friends there, but it’s also filled with terrible memories of her sister’s drowning. And t…

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Cheryl Thompson, "Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict and Freedom, 1812-1895" (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2025) 1:18:32

4m ago1:18:32

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Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897 (Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2025) traces the origins of theatre, dance, and concert singing in Canada and their connection to British and American song and dance traditions. When theatrical acts first appeared in the late eighteenth century, chattel slave…

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Elisabeth Åsbrink, "1947: Where Now Begins" (Other Press, 2019) 1:04:37

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An award-winning writer captures a year that defined the modern world, intertwining historical events around the globe with key moments from her personal history. The year 1947 marks a turning point in the twentieth century. Peace with Germany becomes a tool to fortify the West against the threats of the Cold War. The CIA is created, Israel is abou…

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Jennifer Kabat, "Nightshining" (Milkweed, 2025) 1:11:59

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Nightshining (Milkweed, 2025) Jennifer Kabat is the author of The Eighth Moon, her writing has also appeared in Frieze, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and The Believer. She teaches at the school of Visual Arts and the New School. An Apprentice herbalist, she lives in rural Upstate New York and serves on her volunteer fire department. Recommended Books: Hél…

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Sven Saaler, Kudō Akira, and Tajima Nobuo eds., "Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860-2010" (Brill, 2017) 1:12:05

3m ago1:12:05

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Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860-2010 (Brill, 2017) examines the mutual images formed between Japan and Germany from the mid-nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, and the influence of these images on the development of bilateral relations. Unlike earlier research on Japanese-German relations, which focused on the sim…

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Felix Cowan, "The Kopeck Press: Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908-1918" (U Toronto Press, 2025) 51:56

22h ago51:56

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In this episode, Alisa interviews Dr. Felix Cowan about his new book, The Kopeck Press Popular Journalism in Revolutionary Russia, 1908–1918 (University of Toronto Press, 2025). The Imperial Russian penny press was a vast network of newspapers sold for a single kopeck per issue. Emerging in cities and towns across the empire between the 1905 Revolu…

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Considering Leaving Academia? 57:35

22h ago57:35

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Today we again explore what it means to leave academia, as Dr. Sophia Basaldua-Sun shares how an informational interview was key to her success in landing a job outside academia, and what her life in the world of publishing is like. Leaving Academia is an ongoing sub-series with the Academic Life, with guests candidly sharing their decisions to sta…

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Jack Snyder, "Human Rights for Pragmatists: Social Power in Modern Times" (Princeton UP, 2024) 48:03

1d ago48:03

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Human rights are among our most pressing issues today. But rights promoters have reached an impasse in their effort to achieve rights for all. Human Rights for Pragmatists (Princeton University Press, 2022) explains why: activists prioritize universal legal and moral norms, backed by the public shaming of violators, but in fact, rights prevail only…

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Paul R. Beckett, "An Anatomy of Tax Havens: Europe, the Caribbean and the United States of America" (de Gruyter, 2023) 1:04:21

22h ago1:04:21

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Tax havens in offshore lands like Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas were once considered a rarity, the preserve of the super-rich. Today, they are big business available to the masses. Their goal? To avoid any form of accountability. Own nothing. Possess everything. Be answerable to no one. Where are these tax havens? What forms can t…

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Sarah Bull, "Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 45:32

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What is the relationship between medicine and commerce? In Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2025), Sarah Bull, an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Toronto Metropolitan University, explores the relationships between doctors, sexual reform campaigners, publ…

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Yonatan Y. Brafman, "Critique of Halakhic Reason: Divine Commandments and Social Normativity" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:05:20

22h ago1:05:20

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For centuries, Jewish thinkers have asked two parallel questions. First, what is the reasoning behind an individual commandment and second, why bother heeding a command at all, something Dr. Brafman terms “reasons for” vs “reasons of” the commandments. In his newest book, Critique of Halakhic Reason: Divine Commandments and Social Normativity (Oxfo…

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Lindsay Zier-Vogel, "The Fun Times Brigade" (Book*hug Press, 2025) 44:49

22h ago44:49

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Lindsay Zier-Vogel about her new novel, The Fun Times Brigade (Book*hug Press, 2025). From acclaimed author Lindsay Zier-Vogel comes an insightful and heart-rending exploration of motherhood, grief, and the search for identity. Amy is a new mother, navigating the fog of those bewildering early da…

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Jonathon Stuart Wright, "Joseph and Aseneth After Antiquity: A Study in Manuscript Transmission" (de Gruyter, 2025) 1:03:34

22h ago1:03:34

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Joseph and Aseneth: A Study in Manuscript Transmission (de Gruyter, 2025) expands a few verses from the book of Genesis into a novella-length work. It is increasingly used as a source for Judaism and Christianity at the turn of the Common Era. Scholarly attention has largely focused the work's provenance, the priority of a longer or shorter text ve…

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Matthew Wisnioski on the History of the Idea and Culture of “Innovation” in the United States 1:39:16

22h ago1:39:16

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Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Matt Wisnioski, Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech, about his new book, Every American an Innovator: How Innovation Became a Way of Life. The pair talk about how the new book connects to Matt’s earlier book, Engineers for Change; how what Matt calls “innovation expertise” fir…

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Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper, "Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins" (University of Chicago Press, 2025) 1:01:29

22h ago1:01:29

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A thrilling exploration of competing cosmological origin stories, comparing new scientific ideas that upend our very notions of space, time, and reality. By most popular accounts, the universe started with a bang some 13.8 billion years ago. But what happened before the Big Bang? And how do we know it happened at all? Here prominent cosmologist Nia…

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Sarah Kenny, "Growing Up and Going Out: Youth Culture, Commerce, and Leisure Space in Post-War Britain" (Manchester UP, 2025) 43:44

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Sarah Kenny Growing up and going out: Youth culture, commerce and leisure space in post-war Britain Manchester University Press 2025 How did young people spend their time in the post-war era? In Growing up and going out: Youth culture, commerce and leisure space in post-war Britain Sarah Kenny, a lecturer in Modern History at the University of Birm…

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Sarah Gold McBride "Whiskerology: The Culture of Hair in Nineteenth-Century America" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:13:20

2d ago1:13:20

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Hair is always and everywhere freighted with meaning. In nineteenth-century America, however, hair took on decisive new significance as the young nation wrestled with its identity. During the colonial period, hair was usually seen as bodily discharge, even “excrement.” But as Dr. Sarah Gold McBride shows in Whiskerology: The Culture of Hair in Nine…

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Tochi Onyebuchi, "Harmattan Season: A Novel" (Tor Books, 2025) 33:49

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Tochi Onyebuchi’s novel Harmattan Season: A Novel (Tor Books, 2025) follows Boubacar, a veteran and private eye living in French occupied West Africa, as he begins a reluctant journey to discover what happened to the bleeding woman who stumbled onto his doorway and vanished soon after. That mystery quickly drags Bouba into exactly the kind of viole…

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Jade Elizabeth French, "Modernist Poetics of Ageing: The Late Lives and Late Styles of Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, and H.D." (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:04:09

2d ago1:04:09

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What happens when the 'modern woman' ages? Modernist Poetics of Ageing (Oxford University Press, 2025) answers this question by being the first book-length study of three late modernist women's writers. Drawing on their place within wider modernist networks, this monograph is primarily framed around work by Mina Loy, H.D. and Djuna Barnes, who are …

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Bianca Marais, "A Most Puzzling Murder" (Harper Collins, 2025) 35:59

2d ago35:59

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Bianca Marais about her delightful and highly entertaining new book, A Most Puzzling Murder (Harper Collins, 2025), How do you solve a murder that hasn't happened yet? Destiny Whip is a former child prodigy, world-renowned enigmatologist and very, very alone. A life filled with loss has made her …

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Todd May "Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times" (Crown, 2024) 1:02:22

2d ago1:02:22

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These days it’s harder than ever to watch TV, scroll social media, or even just sit at home looking out of the window without contemplating the question at the heart of philosopher Todd May’s Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times (Crown, 2024). Facing climate destruction and the revived specter of nuclear annihilat…

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Amogh Dhar Sharma, "The Backstage of Democracy: India's Election Campaigns and the People Who Manage Them" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:30:12

2d ago1:30:12

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About the Book Over the last decade, election campaigns in India have undergone a dramatic shift. Political parties increasingly rely on political consulting firms, social media volunteers, pollsters, data-driven insights, and hashtag wars to mobilize voters. What is driving these changes in the landscape of electioneering? The Backstage of Democra…

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Elana Gomel, "The Pilgrim Soul: Being a Russian in Israel" (Cambria Press, 2009) 1:06:01

2d ago1:06:01

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Elana Gomel is a former senior lecturer in the Department of English and American Studies at Tel Aviv University, where she also served as department chair for two years. This book investigates the Russian community in Israel, analyzing the narratives through which Russian Jewry defines itself and linking them to the legacy of Soviet history. Gomel…

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Sergey Radchenko, "To Run the World: The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:14:35

2d ago1:14:35

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What would it feel like To Run the World? The Soviet rulers spent the Cold War trying desperately to find out. In To Run The World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power, Sergey Radchenko provides an unprecedented deep dive into the psychology of the Kremlin's decision-making. He reveals how the Soviet struggle with the United States and Chin…