Best T&G Productions Podcasts (2025)

1
Marcia C. Schenck, "Remembering African Labor Migration to the Second World: Socialist Mobilities between Angola, Mozambique, and East Germany" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) 45:23

Play Pause

4h ago45:23

45:23

This open access book is about Mozambicans and Angolans who migrated in state-sponsored schemes to East Germany in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. They went to work and to be trained as a vanguard labor force for the intended African industrial revolutions. While they were there, they contributed their labor power to the East German econom…

1
Meredith L. Roman, "The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of Human Rights Movements" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 54:10

36m ago54:10

54:10

The contemporaneous movements for human rights that Soviet rights defenders and the Black Panthers waged during the 1960s are analysed in a comparative fashion here for the very first time. The book also examines the extra-legal measures that both the KGB and FBI employed to destroy them. The Black Panthers and the Soviets: A Comparative History of…

1
Emma Ashford, "First Among Equals: U. S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World" (Yale UP, 2025) 35:24

2h ago35:24

35:24

A fresh, concise roadmap for U.S. grand strategy in a multipolar world For the past thirty years, post-Cold War triumphalism and a desire to reshape the world have defined U.S. foreign policy. But the failures of the global war on terror, the return of conflict to Europe, and growing tensions with China all suggest that this approach to the world i…

1
David M. Whitford, "The Making of a Reformation Man: Martin Luther and the Construction of Masculinity" (Routledge, 2025) 57:59

36m ago57:59

57:59

David Whitford joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, The Making of a Reformation Man: Martin Luther and the Construction of Masculinity (Routledge, 2025). This volume explores how Martin Luther's life and teachings reshaped and redefined masculinity during the Reformation, offering a more nuanced portrayal of him as a man grappling with the …

1
Amanda Belantara and Emily Drabinski, "Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create" (Litwin Books, 2024) 36:15

2h ago36:15

36:15

Ways of Knowing: Oral Histories on the Worlds Words Create (Litwin Books, 2025) sits at the heart of the library project, shaping how materials are described and organized and how they can be retrieved. The field has long understood that normative systems like Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress do this inadequately and worse, deploying language …

1
Cooper Smith, "Allusive and Elusive: Allusion and the Elihu Speeches of Job 32-37" (Brill, 2022) 31:12

1h ago31:12

31:12

Within the Book of Job, Elihu is one of the most diversely evaluated characters. For example, are Elihu’s speeches so insignificant he’s absolutely ignored afterward, or do they actually form an introduction to the speeches of the LORD? What are we to make of Elihu? Find out as we speak with Cooper Smith about his recent monograph, Allusive and Elu…

1
Angela Jones and Barbara G. Brents, "Sex Work Today: Erotic Labor in the Twenty-First Century" (NYU Press, 2024) 37:29

2h ago37:29

37:29

A cutting-edge volume on current trends in sex work, from sugar relationships and cyber brothels to financial domination, sex worker activism, and feminist porn Sex is for sale in more ways than ever. It can be bought and sold online, in sex clubs, on the street, and around the world. As with many industries, discrimination, exploitation, and inequ…

1
Carlotta Daro, "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication" (MIT Press, 2025) 37:23

36m ago37:23

37:23

The Architecture of the Wire explores the development of telecommunications infrastructure and its impact on the architectural and urban culture of the modern age—from poles, wires, and cables, to “micro-architectures,” such as the théâtrophone and the telephone booth. Starting with the intrepid worldwide infrastructures of the late nineteenth cent…

1
Xiaobo Lü, "Domination and Mobilization: The Rise and Fall of Political Parties in China's Republican Era" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 57:25

3h ago57:25

57:25

How and why did the Chinese Communist Party rise to power in the 1940s at the expense of its Nationalist (KMT) rival? In his new book, Domination and Mobilization: The Rise and Fall of Political Parties in China’s Republican Era (Cambridge University Press, 2025), Professor Xiaobo Lü (UC Berkeley) adopts a new model for thinking about this question…

1
John Mathias, "Uncommon Cause: Living for Environmental Justice in Kerala" (U California Press, 2024) 54:27

3h ago54:27

54:27

How can activists strike a balance between fighting for a cause and sustaining relationships with family, friends, and neighbors? In this episode John Mathias joins host Elena Sobrino to talk about Uncommon Cause: Living for Environmental Justice in Kerala (2024, University of California Press). Uncommon Cause follows environmental justice activist…

1
Danya Ruttenberg, "On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World" (Beacon Press, 2022) 31:46

1d ago31:46

31:46

Winner of the National Jewish Book Awards in Contemporary Jewish Life & Practice and Myra H. Kraft Memorial Award On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World (Beacon Press, 2022) is a crucial new lens on repentance, atonement, forgiveness, and repair from harm—from personal transgressions to our culture's most painful and unres…

1
Octavian Gabor, "Immigrant on Earth: A Philosopher on the Road to Emmaus" (Wipf and Stock, 2025) 1:05:09

1d ago1:05:09

1:05:09

In a world where faith and reason are perceived as enemies, this book describes them as companions. Readers of Immigrant on Earth: A Philosopher on the Road to Emmaus (Wipf and Stock, 2025) are invited to travel into the souls of ordinary people and the minds of philosophers and theologians, experience the meekness coming from faith, or attempt to …

1
Árni Heimir Ingólfsson, "Music at World's End: Three Exiled Musicians from Nazi Germany and Austria and Their Contribution to Music in Iceland" (SUNY Press, 2025) 55:47

1d ago55:47

55:47

A fascinating story of how three musicians, who escaped the Nazis, inspired Iceland's modern classical music. In Iceland in the 1930s, classical music was only beginning to be seriously practiced, at the same time when musicians of Jewish heritage were fleeing Nazi Germany and Austria. Despite the country's strict immigration policy, three outstand…

1
Alicia M. Walker and Arielle Kuperberg, "Bound by BDSM: Unexpected Lessons for Building a Happier Life" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 38:34

1d ago38:34

38:34

Why are BDSM practitioners so happy? It turns out, BDSM isn't just about whips and chains. With engaging stories and a warm, conversational tone, Bound by BDSM: Unexpected Lessons for Building a Happier Life (Bloomsbury Acacdemic, 2025) by Dr. Alicia M. Walker and Dr. Arielle Kuperberg reveals how BDSM practitioners use clear boundaries, enthusiast…

1
Gerta Keller, "The Last Extinction: The Real Science Behind the Death of the Dinosaurs" (Diversion Books, 2025) 59:52

1d ago59:52

59:52

The story behind Dr. Gerta Keller’s world-shattering scientific discovery that dinosaur extinction was NOT caused by asteroid impact, but rather by volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula, a discovery that highlights today’s existential threat of greenhouse gasses and climate change—and one that sparked an all-out war waged by the scientific est…

1
Audrey Golden, "Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats" (Da Capo Press, 2025) 43:17

1d ago43:17

43:17

In Shouting Out Loud: Lives of The Raincoats (Da Capo Press, 2025) Audrey Golden traces the history of the iconic band The Raincoats staring of the founding by Art students Gina Birch and Ana da Silva in 1977. Since the release of their seminal early records, the band has been revered by punk, queer, feminist, and indie pop artists alike.The Rainco…

1
Georgios Varouxakis, "The West: The History of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:09:52

1d ago1:09:52

1:09:52

How did “the West” come to be used as a collective self-designation signaling political and cultural commonality? When did “Westerners” begin to refer to themselves in this way? Was the idea handed down from the ancient Greeks, or coined by nineteenth-century imperialists? Neither, writes Georgios Varouxakis in The West: The History of an Idea (Pri…

1
Sarah Hurwitz, "As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us" (HarperOne, 2025) 50:28

1d ago50:28

50:28

An urgent exploration of how antisemitism has shaped Jewish identity and how Jews can reclaim their tradition, by the celebrated White House speechwriter and author of the critically acclaimed Here All Along. At thirty-six, Sarah Hurwitz was a typical lapsed Jew. On a whim, she attended an introduction to Judaism class and was astonished by what sh…

1
Suzy Levinson, "Dinos That Drive" (Tundra Books, 2025) 50:46

1d ago50:46

50:46

Suzy Levinson is a children’s author and poet whose work has been featured in numerous anthologies, including A World Full of Poems (DK Children), I Am a Jigsaw (Bloomsbury Education), and Shaping the World (Macmillan), and magazines, including Highlights and Cricket. Her critically acclaimed debut picture book–length poetry collection, Animals in …

1
Vincent Pak, "Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 53:28

2d ago53:28

53:28

Queer Correctives: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in Singapore (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that coaxes change in the queer individual. In Singapor…

1
Raymond J. McKoski, "David Davis, Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Judge" (U Illinois Press, 2025) 57:47

2d ago57:47

57:47

One of Abraham Lincoln's staunchest and most effective allies, Judge David Davis masterminded the floor fight that gave Lincoln the presidential nomination at the 1860 Republican National Convention. This history-changing event emerged from a long friendship between the two men. It also altered the course of Davis's career, as Lincoln named him to …

1
Michelle Bumatay, "On Black Bandes Dessinées and Transcolonial Power" (Ohio State UP, 2025) 49:29

2d ago49:29

49:29

On Black Bandes Dessinées and Transcolonial Power (The Ohio State UP, 2025) is the first book-length study in English about Black francophone cartoonists and their work. Author Michelle Bumatay decenters Eurocentric conceptions of francophone comic art and foregrounds the ubiquity of Western racial stereotypes encoded in mainstream French and Belgi…

1
Jürgen Schaflechner, "Hinglaj Devi: Identity, Change, and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan" (Oxford UP, 2018) 1:26:58

2d ago1:26:58

1:26:58

About two hundred kilometers west of the city of Karachi, in the desert of Baluchistan, Pakistan, sits the shrine of the Hindu Goddess Hinglaj. Despite the temple's ancient Hindu and Muslim history, an annual festival at Hinglaj has only been established within the last three decades, in part because of the construction of the Makran Coastal Highwa…

1
Emília Barna, "Working in Music on the Semi-Periphery: Local Cultural Production and Global Capitalism" (CEU Press, 2025) 45:27

2d ago45:27

45:27

In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) sat down with Emília Barna to discuss her new book, Working in Music on the Semiperiphery: Local Cultural Production and Global Capitalism (CEU Press, 2025). We talked about the changes and continuities that the Hungarian music industry underwent from the communist to the post-communist era, the impa…

1
Jamal J. Elias, "After Rumi: The Mevlevis and Their World" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:02:52

2d ago1:02:52

1:02:52

Jamal J. Elias' new book After Rumi: The Mevlevis & Their World (Harvard UP, 2025) takes us on a historical journey through the development of the Mevlevi community after Jalaluddin Rumi’s passing in 1273. He frames the Mevlevis as an “emotional community” that is anchored in affective engagements with Rumi and his Masnavi. The book is organized ar…

1
Daniel K. Sodickson, "The Future of Seeing: How Imaging is Changing the World" (Columbia UP, 2025) 1:09:43

2d ago1:09:43

1:09:43

Over the centuries, we have learned to peer into what was once invisible. Imaging devices like cameras, telescopes, microscopes, and MRI machines map the world around, beyond, and within us in ways the naked eye could never see. In so doing, these technologies have transformed our understanding of our place in the universe and our conception of our…

1
Deepa Das Acevedo, "The War on Tenure" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:02:47

2d ago1:02:47

1:02:47

As academia increasingly comes under attack in the United States, The War on Tenure (Cambridge UP, 2025) steps in to demystify what professors do and to explain the importance of tenure for their work. Deepa Das Acevedo takes readers on a backstage tour of tenure-stream academia to reveal hidden dynamics and obstacles. She challenges the common bel…

1
Michael Fernandez and Amauri Serrano, "Streaming Video Collection Development and Management" (Bloomsbury Libraries Unlimited, 2025) 47:03

2d ago47:03

47:03

Streaming video is not new to the library environment, but recent years have seen an exponential growth in the number of platforms and titles available for streaming. For libraries, this has meant an increasingly complex acquisitions landscape, with more vendors occupying the marketplace and larger portions of the budget dedicated to streaming. Use…