Best Pattern Libraries Podcasts (2025)

1
Midnight Rooftop in Barcelona | Urban White Noise 2:02:20

2h ago2:02:20

2:02:20

Recorded from a rooftop high above the winding side streets of central Barcelona. The city breathes gently below—alive but subdued. Distant footsteps, the murmur of late-night voices, and the warm hush of spring air rise into a textured wash of urban white noise. There's a quiet communion in the stillness—part city, part sky, part sleep. Crafted fo…

1
Two California Counties Battle Trump Administration Over Homelessness Funding 11:30

5h ago11:30

11:30

Lawyers for San Francisco and Santa Clara counties are back in court Wednesday. They’re fighting with the Trump administration over new rules around homelessness funding. Reporter: Marisa Lagos, KQED Teachers in Temecula can teach about race without fear of running afoul of the school board, at least for now. This comes after a California Appeals C…

1
Derek J. Penslar, "Zionism: An Emotional State" (Rutgers UP, 2023) 1:02:12

11m ago1:02:12

1:02:12

Emotion lies at the heart of all national movements, and Zionism is no exception. For those who identify as Zionist, the word connotes liberation and redemption, uniqueness and vulnerability. Yet for many, Zionism is a source of distaste if not disgust, and those who reject it are no less passionate than those who embrace it. The power of such emot…

1
Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:21:01

6h ago1:21:01

1:21:01

Why did so many rulers throughout history risk converting to a new religion brought by outsiders? In his award-winning Unearthly Powers (2019), Dr. Alan Strathern set out a theoretical framework for understanding the relation between religion and political authority based on a distinction between two kinds of religion - immanentism and transcendent…

1
Jan Borowicz, "Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders" (Routledge, 2024) 1:15:10

2h ago1:15:10

1:15:10

Today I interviewed Jan Borowicz about Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders (Routledge, 2024). "The assumptions of my book rely on a simple thesis: indifference to violence is impossible and that the primal scene for Polish culture is the experience of Nazism. In Poland we have still a humanitarian …

1
Christine McNair, "Toxemia" (Book*hug Press, 2024) 48:40

11m ago48:40

48:40

NBN host Hollay Ghadery speaks with the wonderful Ottawa writer, Christine McNair about her 2024 book of lyric essays and prose poetry, Toxemia (Book*hug Press, 2024). In this alchemy of anger and love, history and memoir, Christine McNair delves into various forms of toxicity in the body—from the effects of two life-threatening preeclampsia diagno…

1
Charles Hecker, "Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:03:56

11m ago1:03:56

1:03:56

Today I interviewed Charles Hecker about Zero Sum. The Arc of International Business in Russia (Oxford UP, 2025). Hecker, a journalist and business consultant, speaks with dozens of Western business executives, bankers, and financiers who reaped immense profits for themselves and their companies in the Russian market, which suddenly opened to forei…

1
Executive Power and the President Who Would Not Be King: A Conversation with Michael McConnell 52:05

9h ago52:05

52:05

In this episode of Madison’s Notes, Michael McConnell examines the gap between the Founders’ vision of a limited presidency and today’s expansive executive power. Drawing on his book The President Who Would Not Be King (Princeton University Press, 2022), we discuss how the Constitution’s safeguards against monarchical authority have eroded over the…

1
Andrew Porter, "The Imagined Life: A Novel" (Knopf, 2025) 40:17

18m ago40:17

40:17

Steven Mills has reached a crossroads. His wife and son have left, and they may not return. Which leaves him determined to find out what happened to his own father, a brilliant, charismatic professor who disappeared in 1984 when Steve was twelve, on a wave of ignominy. As Steve drives up the coast of California, seeking out his father’s friends, fa…

1
Kirsten Macfarlane, "Lay Learning and the Bible in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World" (Oxford UP, 2024) 45:49

1h ago45:49

45:49

Early modernity has long been seen as a crucial period in the history of biblical scholarship, witnessing rapid advances in studies of Hebrew, Greek, and the ancient Jewish and Christian past. Historians have devoted much attention to how these developments were received by the academic and clerical elite, and yet there is little research on their …

1
Lori Jo Marso, "Feminism and the Cinema of Experience" (Duke UP, 2024) 50:11

11m ago50:11

50:11

Political theorist Lori Marso has been intrigued by filmmaker Chantal Ackerman for many years and has integrated Ackerman’s work into her courses at Union College and into her writings and scholarship as well. So it is no surprise that Feminism and the Cinema of Experience (Duke UP, 2024) is both an academic and a personal journey into Ackerman’s w…

1
Selda Altan, "Chinese Workers of the World: Colonialism, Chinese Labor, and the Yunnan-Indochina Railway" (Stanford UP, 2024) 55:51

11m ago55:51

55:51

Chinese workers helped build the modern world. They labored on New World plantations, worked in South African mines, and toiled through the construction of the Panama Canal, among many other projects. While most investigations of Chinese workers focus on migrant labor, Chinese Workers of the World: Colonialism, Chinese Labor, and the Yunnan-Indochi…

1
Christopher Hanscom, "Impossible Speech: The Politics of Representation in Contemporary Korean Literature and Film" (Columbia UP, 2024) 1:11:14

1h ago1:11:14

1:11:14

How does art engage with its social context? What does 'the politics of art' even mean? In his new book Impossible Speech: The Politics of Representation in Contemporary Korean Literature and Film (Columbia University Press, 2023), Christopher P. Hanscom takes on these questions in the context of contemporary Korean literature. Moving away from rea…

1
California Medicaid Recipients In GOP District See Potential Cuts As A "Disaster" 11:40

1d ago11:40

11:40

Part of President Trump's self-described big, beautiful bill includes congressional Republicans' plans to change Medicaid. The proposal would cut billions from the safety net program. Many Republican lawmakers see this as a needed savings to slash what they see as waste in the system, but recent estimates show millions of Americans stand to lose th…

1
Emily Leachman and A. Garrison Libby, "A Complete Guide to Training Library Staff: From Onboarding to Offboarding" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 58:39

1d ago58:39

58:39

Written for library managers and training leaders, A Complete Guide to Training Library Staff (2025, Bloomsbury) presents a comprehensive lifecycle for staff development with a focus on tools and techniques to build a sustainable training program, set staff up for success in their positions, and develop a positive and supportive community across th…

1
Maureen Stanton, "The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir" (Columbus State UP, 2025) 23:08

6h ago23:08

23:08

Maureen Stanton’s new memoir, The Murmur of Everything Moving (Columbus State University 2025) opens when she was in her early twenties, working at a bar saving for a backpacking trip through Europe. She meets and falls for Steve, an electrician who at 27 is the father of three children going through a divorce. They are deeply in love, now back in …

1
Stephen R. Platt, "The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II" (Knopf, 2025) 1:13:07

1d ago1:13:07

1:13:07

The extraordinary life of forgotten World War II hero Evans Carlson, commander of America’s first special forces, secret confidant of FDR, and one of the most controversial officers in the history of the Marine Corps, who dedicated his life to bridging the cultural divide between the United States and China “He was a gutsy old man.” “A corker,” sai…

1
Nicholas Barry et al., "Constitutional Conventions: Theories, Practices and Dynamics" (Routledge, 2025) 51:34

6h ago51:34

51:34

Constitutional Conventions: Theories, Practices and Dynamics (Routledge, 2025) is an excellent edited volume exploring the various ways in which governments and constitutional structures operate in the spaces that are not necessarily articulated in law, edict, or formal documents. This is not a text about the folks who gathered together in 1787 in …

1
Sébastien Tremblay, "A Badge of Injury: The Pink Triangle as Global Symbol of Memory" (de Gruyter, 2023) 1:03:27

1d ago1:03:27

1:03:27

Sébastien Tremblay is a historian specialized in queer, global, and conceptual history. Born in Montreal / Tiohtià:ke, he received his PhD at the DFG Graduate School 'Global Intellectual History' at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institute in 2020. He is currently a Postdoc at the Department for History and Didactics of History at the University of Flensbu…

1
Quentin Skinner, "Liberty as Independence: The Making and Unmaking of a Political Ideal" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 57:23

21m ago57:23

57:23

What does liberty entail? How have concepts of liberty changed over time? And what are the global consequences? Liberty as Independence: The Making and Unmaking of a Political Ideal (Cambridge UP, 2025) surveys the history of rival views of liberty from antiquity to modern times. Quentin Skinner traces the understanding of liberty as independence f…

1
Julia McClure, "Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire" (Oxford UP, 2025) 42:51

6h ago42:51

42:51

Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Julia McClure examines how changing concepts of poverty in the long-sixteenth century helped shape the deep structures of states and empires and the contours of imperial inequalities. While poverty is often understood to have become a politic…

1
Postcript: Calibrating the Outrage-Democratic Erosion, Legality, and Politics 44:25

21m ago44:25

44:25

We’ve been focusing on the dynamics of democratic backsliding in the United States and beyond. In this episode of Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science, Susan talks the co-founder and co-director of the Democratic Erosion Consortium, Dr. Robert Blair about how the Consortium offers FREE resources to teachers, students, journal…

1
M. Myrta Leslie Santana, Transformismo: Performing Trans/Queer Cuba" (U Michigan Press, 2025) 58:47

6h ago58:47

58:47

In Transformismo, M. Myrta Leslie Santana draws on years of embedded research within Cuban trans/queer communities to analyze how transformistas, or drag performers, understand their roles in the social transformation of the island. Once banned and censored in Cuba, transformismo, or drag performance, is now state-sponsored events. Transformismo su…

1
Z'ev Ben Shimon Halevi: "The Kabbalistic Tree of Life" and "The Anointed" 24:22

1d ago24:22

24:22

The late Z'ev Ben Shimon HaLevi (Warren Kenton 1933-2020) wrote The Kabbalistic Tree of Life (KS Books, 2025), a metaphysical scheme based on ancient, medieval and modern views of its principles, which describes the structure and dynamic of cosmic laws that operate throughout the four Worlds of Jacob's Ladder and humanity. HaLevi also wrote The Ano…

1
Kai Shmushko, "Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics" (Leiden UP, 2024) 1:04:04

40m ago1:04:04

1:04:04

In the past decades, various forms of Buddhism have emerged in-between, above, and beyond conventional conceptions of religious and spiritual life in China. Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics (Leiden UP, 2024) is a qualitative study exploring manifestations of the massive revival …

1
Should designers know how to code? 29:45

3h ago29:45

29:45

The age old question – should designers know how to code? Or more specifically, how much should designer know when it comes to code? Considering it's the medium that we're designing for, it's still surprising how much this topic splits opinion. Luke and special guest Rob Whitfield will dive into the pros and cons, and give some practical advice if …

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