Best Andrew Berger Podcasts (2025)

1
Anne M. Blackburn, "Buddhist-Inflected Sovereignties Across the Indian Ocean: A Pali Arena, 1200-1550" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 57:21

Play Pause

8m ago57:21

57:21

From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries new kingdoms emerged in Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia. Sovereignty in these new kingdoms was expressed in terms we understand today as coming from ‘Theravada Buddhism’. Crucial to this tradition was the Pali language. Anne Blackburn’s new book, Buddhist-Inflected Sovereignties across the Indian…

1
823: Probing Protein Dynamics from Molecular Switches to Shape-Changing Viral Particles - Dr. Ganesh Anand 41:11

3d ago41:11

41:11

Dr. Ganesh Anand is an Associate Professor of Chemistry as well as Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Pennsylvania State University. He is also an elected Board Member of the International Society for Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX-MS). Research in Ganesh’s lab examines molecular switches. He wants to know how molecules inter…

1
Chiara Formichi, "Islam and Asia: A History" (Cambridge UP, 2020) 1:11:31

4d ago1:11:31

1:11:31

Challenging the geographical narrative of the history of Islam, Chiara Formichi’s new book Islam and Asia: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2020), helps us to rethink how we tell the story of Islam and the lived expressions of Muslims without privileging certain linguistic, cultural, and geographic realities. Focusing on themes of reform, pol…

1
Childhood malnutrition and pneumonia in Timor-Leste 31:52

6d ago31:52

31:52

Dr Nick Fancourt is a Horizon Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Sydney Medical School. He also works as a paediatrician at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Nick researches childhood pneumonia, particularly in low and middle income countries. He lived in Timor-Leste from 2018-2020, working with local partners on intitiatives to strengthen commun…

1
822: Using Lake Sediments to Get to the Core of Key Issues in Ecology and Conservation - Dr. Jacquelyn Gill 51:57

10d ago51:57

51:57

Dr. Jacquelyn Gill is an Assistant Professor of Paleoecology and Plant Ecology at the University of Maine. Jacquelyn is a paleoecologist. She studies ecology and climate change over the past 20,000 years since the end of the ice age. This involves taking a forensics-like approach to analyzing the sediments and fossil records in lakes and bogs that …

1
Gary Kulik, "Conscientious Objectors at War: The Vietnam War's Forgotten Medics" (Texas Tech UP, 2025) 59:14

12d ago59:14

59:14

During the war in Vietnam, thousands of young men served as conscientious objector medics. They had been certified by their local draft boards as noncombatants, but many would know intense combat nonetheless. Without weapons training, they ran through the infantry lines, answering the desperate call, "Medic!" Many displayed exemplary heroism even a…

1
Phyu Phyu Oo, "Conflict-related Sexual Violence in Myanmar: The Role of the State" (De Gruyter, 2025) 44:36

14d ago44:36

44:36

Systemic sexual violence by the Myanmar army and proxies began to be widely reported in the 2010s, in the course of genocidal violence against Rohingya in the country’s west. At the same time, the Myanmar government, which was then a military-civilian hybrid, negotiated with international organisations to set up a mechanism to monitor and deal with…

1
Kelly A. Spring, "SPAM: A Global History" (Reaktion, 2025) 34:00

15d ago34:00

34:00

The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, a conflict that solidified SPAM’s place in global food culture. Created by Hormel Foods in 1937 to utilize surplus pork shoulder during the Great Depression, SPAM became an essential resource during the Second World War, and helped shape perceptions of American culture. SP…

1
Simon Butt, "Judicial Dysfunction in Indonesia" (Melbourne UP, 2023) 42:13

16d ago42:13

42:13

Indonesia's judicial system has long been described as dysfunctional. Many of its problems developed out of decades of authoritarian rule, which began in the last few years of the reign of Indonesia's first president, Soekarno. By the time President Soeharto's regime fell in 1998, the judiciary had virtually collapsed. Judicial dependence on govern…

1
821: Illuminating the Quantum Physics of Ultracold Atoms - Dr. Chad Orzel 40:20

17d ago40:20

40:20

Dr. Chad Orzel is the R. Gordon Gould Associate Professor of Physics at Union College. He is also author of the popular science books How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog, Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, and the soon-to-be-released book Breakfast with Einstein: The Exotic Physics of Everyday Objects. In ad…

1
Kampung Activism in Indonesia 22:30

17d ago22:30

22:30

My village, my kampung. The term kampung is a Malay word, referring to a "village hamlet" or "urban informal settlement." As rapid urbanization takes place both regionally and globally, the designation of kampung accrued a negative connotation associated with impoverishment and obsolescence. However, commencing in the mid-2010s, a countermovement a…

1
Tina Chen and Charlotte Eubanks, "Global Asias: Tactics & Theories" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 1:12:37

20d ago1:12:37

1:12:37

Global Asias: Tactics & Theories is the inaugural volume in an exciting new series that explores critical concerns animating Global Asias scholarship. It challenges the silos of academic knowledge formation that currently make legible and organize the study of Asia and its multiple diasporas. Transits, Indigeneity, Epistemology, Language, and A/Geo…

1
820: Studying the Molecular Information Cells Use to Move Through Their Environments - Dr. Michelle Starz-Gaiano 36:14

24d ago36:14

36:14

Dr. Michelle Starz-Gaiano is Professor and Chair of Biological Sciences at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Michelle’s research uses fruit flies to examine how cells in the body go to the right place at the right time. Understanding why and how cells use their genetic information to move through the body is critical because if th…

1
Zev Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025) 46:54

28d ago46:54

46:54

For centuries, scribes across East Asia used Chinese characters to write things down–even in languages based on very different foundations than Chinese. In southern China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, people used Chinese to read and write–and never thought it was odd. It was, after all, how things were done. Even today, Cantonese speakers use Chinese …

1
Heather Sutherland, "Seaways and Gatekeepers: Trade and State in the Eastern Archipelagos of Southeast Asia, C.1600-c.1906" (NUS Press, 2021) 55:47

30d ago55:47

55:47

The eastern archipelagos stretch from Mindanao and Sulu in the north to Bali in the southwest and New Guinea in the southeast. Many of their inhabitants are regarded as “people without history”, while colonial borders cut across shared underlying patterns. Yet many of these societies were linked to trans-oceanic trading systems for millennia. Indee…

1
Malaysian-Nordic Relations 19:55

1M ago19:55

19:55

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…

1
819: Making Great Leaps Studying the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of Tropical Frogs - Dr. Maureen Donnelly 49:41

1M ago49:41

49:41

Dr. Maureen (Mo) Donnelly is a Professor of Biology and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida International University (FIU). She is also a Research Associate in the Department of Herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Mo studies amphibians like frogs and toads. These org…

1
Wolfram H. Dressler, "For the Sake of Forests and Gods: Governing Life and Livelihood in the Philippine Uplands" (Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2025) 54:30

1M ago54:30

54:30

For the Sake of Forests and Gods: Governing Life and Livelihood in the Philippine Uplands (Cornell University Press, 2025) examines the impacts of religious and environmental non-governmental actors on the lives of highlanders on Palawan Island, the Philippines. The absence of the state in Palawan's mountainous regions have meant that these non-gov…

1
How do Small States Navigate and Shape the Liberal World Order? A conversation with Dylan Loh 35:09

1M ago35:09

35:09

Globally, the liberal international order has been under pressure for quite some time, but we often tend to discuss this in relation to big international players such as the United States and China. But how do small states like Singapore navigate and shape this increasingly contested space? Join Petra Alderman as she talks to Dylan Loh about Singap…

1
The May 2025 Mid-Term Elections in the Philippines 47:08

1M ago47:08

47:08

Today’s episode focuses on the mid-term elections in the Philippines which were held in May of this year, including all local elected positions, all seats in the House of Representatives, and twelve of the twenty-four seats in the Senate. The elections have been viewed as a reflection on the administration of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, …

1
818: Shining Light on the Exciting Capabilities of Quantum Computing - Dr. Mark Saffman 35:07

1M ago35:07

35:07

Dr. Mark Saffman is a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received is B.Sc. with honors in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology. Mark’s research focuses on quantum computing. He and his colleagues are trying to build a new kind of computer called a quantum computer that can solve …

1
Vivian Kong, "Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:07:30

1M ago1:07:30

1:07:30

What does it mean to be British? To answer this, Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong, 1910–45 (Cambridge UP, 2023) by Dr. Vivian Kong takes us to an underexplored site of Britishness – the former British colony of Hong Kong. Vivian Kong asks how colonial hierarchies, the racial and cultural diversity of the British Empire, and glo…

1
Lieba Faier, "The Banality of Good: The UN's Global Fight Against Human Trafficking" (Duke UP, 2024) 58:44

1M ago58:44

58:44

In The Banality of Good: The UN’s Global Fight against Human Trafficking (Duke University Press, 2024), Dr. Lieba Faier examines why contemporary efforts to curb human trafficking have fallen so spectacularly short of their stated goals despite well-funded campaigns by the United Nations and its member-state governments. Focusing on Japan’s efforts…

1
Kevin Nguyen, "My Documents" (One World, 2025) 48:23

1M ago48:23

48:23

Kevin Nguyen, My Documents (One World, 2025) Kevin Nguyen is the author of the novel New Waves, published in 2020. He is the features editor at The Verge, where he publishes award-winning stories about labor, business, and policing, and was previously a senior editor at GQ. He lives in Brooklyn. Recommended Books: Annelise Chen, Clam Down Tash Aw, …

1
817: Creating New Cancer Models and Advancing Regenerative Medicine - Dr. Luiz Bertassoni 43:00

2M ago43:00

43:00

Dr. Luiz E. Bertassoni is the founding director of the Knight Cancer Precision Biofabrication Hub and Professor in the Division of Oncological Sciences at the Knight Cancer Institute, where he is also co-section head for Discovery and Translational Oncology. He is also faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the Cancer Early Detection …

1
816: Deciphering Genetic Variations in Bacteria that Lead to Disease - Dr. Shannon Manning 35:55

2M ago35:55

35:55

Dr. Shannon Manning is a Michigan State University (MSU) Foundation Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. The goal of Shannon’s research is to understand how pathogens (bacteria or viruses) cause disease in people. How likely a person is to get sick may be due to the different types of pathogens they are expo…

1
Geoffrey Wawro, "The Vietnam War: A Military History" (Basic Books, 2024) 1:12:52

2M ago1:12:52

1:12:52

The Vietnam War cast a shadow over the American psyche from the moment it began. In its time it sparked budget deficits, campus protests, and an erosion of US influence around the world. Long after the last helicopter evacuated Saigon, Americans have continued to battle over whether it was ever a winnable war. Based on thousands of pages of militar…

1
815: Fascinated by the Effects of Material Properties on the Form and Function of Fishes - Dr. Adam Summers 50:02

2M ago50:02

50:02

Dr. Adam Summers is a Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences and Department of Biology at the University of Washington, and he conducts research in his lab within the Friday Harbor Laboratories there. With a background in engineering and mathematics, Adam works on applying engineering and physics principles to living systems. He …

1
Sven Trakulhun, "Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 40:54

2M ago40:54

40:54

Siam had been dealing with Christian missionaries for centuries, but from the 1830s a new wave of Protestant missionaries began to work in Siam, just as the European imperial powers were encroaching on Southeast Asia. They brought with them modern science and technology, which was of interest to the Siamese elite, but at the same time they challeng…

1
Xing Hang, "The Port: Hà Tiên and the Mo Clan in Early Modern Asia" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:05:09

2M ago1:05:09

1:05:09

The Port (present-day Hà Tiên), situated in the Mekong River Delta and Gulf of Siam littoral, was founded and governed by the Chinese creole Mo clan during the eighteenth century and prospered as a free-trade emporium in maritime East Asia. Mo Jiu and his son, Mo Tianci, maintained an independent polity through ambiguous and simultaneous allegiance…

1
814: Uncovering the Secrets of Ancient Creatures By Studying Fossils and the Fossilization Process - Dr. Sarah Gabbott 51:23

2M ago51:23

51:23

Dr. Sarah Gabbott is a Professor of Palaeontology in the School of Geography, Geology, and the Environment at the University of Leicester. She is also Director of Green Circle Nature Regeneration CIC, a non-profit organization in the UK, and she is co-author of the recently released book Discarded: How Technofossils Will be Our Ultimate Legacy. As …

1
Marine Environment Assessment in Palawan, Philippines 25:47

2M ago25:47

25:47

Dr Billy Haworth is a geographer interested in human-environment interactions, with expertise positioned at the intersection of human geography, critical GIS (geographic information systems), and international disaster studies. Billy’s work tries to better-understand experiences of, and adaptation to, environmental change and disruption, and often …

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

2M 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
The Activator Advantage with Matt Dixon 34:54

2M ago34:54

34:54

In this episode of Brainfluence, host Roger Dooley welcomes back Matt Dixon, founding partner of DCM Insights and co-author of the bestselling "The Challenger Sale." Dixon shares insights from his latest book, The Activator Advantage: What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently, which is rooted in groundbreaking research on how top professionals win and…

1
Gazi Mizanur Rahman, "In the Malay World: A Spatial History of a Bengali Transnational Community" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 50:53

2M ago50:53

50:53

Gazi Mizanur Rahman’s In the Malay World: A Spatial History of a Bengali Transnational Community (Cambridge University Press, 2024) offers the first sustained historical study of Bengali migration to British Malaya from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth. Drawing on archival research in South and Southeast Asia, as well as oral histor…

1
813: Investigating the Impacts of the Gut Microbiome on Immunotherapy Cancer Treatments - Dr. Jennifer Wargo 35:18

2M ago35:18

35:18

Dr. Jennifer Wargo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and a Stand Up To Cancer researcher. Jennifer is a physician scientist, and this means she splits her time between providing care to patients and doing research to find better ways of treating disease. Specificall…

1
Qingfei Yin, "State Building in Cold War Asia: Comrades and Competitors on the Sino-Vietnamese Border" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 47:15

3M ago47:15

47:15

Departing from conventional studies of border hostility in inter-Asian relations, Yin Qingfei explores how two revolutionary states - China and Vietnam - each pursued policies that echoed the other and collaborated in extending their authority to the borderlands from 1949 to 1975. Making use of central and local archival sources in both Chinese and…

1
Guo Quan Seng, "Strangers in the Family: Gender, Patriliny, and the Chinese in Colonial Indonesia" (SAPP, 2023) 55:53

3M ago55:53

55:53

In Strangers in the Family: Gender, Patriliny, and the Chinese in Colonial Indonesia (SAPP, 2023), Guo-Quan Seng provides a gendered history of settler Chinese community formation in Indonesia during the Dutch colonial period (1816–1942). At the heart of this story lies the creolization of patrilineal Confucian marital and familial norms to the col…

1
812: Studying the Evolutionary Diversity of Squishy Sea Creatures - Dr. Joseph Ryan 38:00

3M ago38:00

38:00

Dr. Joseph Ryan is an Assistant Professor of Biology at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience at the University of Florida. Joe studies DNA from squishy marine invertebrates like ctenophores (e.g. comb jellies), cnidarians (e.g. jellyfish), tunicates (e.g. sea squirts), and sea cucumbers. His goal is to understand how different types of anim…

1
811: Investigating Clams with Photosynthetic Algae, Parasites in Mud Shrimp, and Other Species Interactions that Shape Evolution - Dr. Jingchun Li 42:59

3M ago42:59

42:59

Dr. Jingchun Li is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, and she is the Curator of Invertebrates at CU Boulder’s Museum of Natural History. She is also a Packard Foundation Fellow and a National Geographic Explorer. Jingchun studies how different species interact with eac…

1
Audacious with Mark Schaefer: How Humans Win in an AI World 32:57

3M ago32:57

32:57

Brainfluence host Roger Dooley sits down with marketing thought leader and bestselling author Mark Schaefer, who returns to the show with insights from his latest book, Audacious. Mark shares his unique approach to writing—how each of his books is inspired by real problems facing marketers—and discusses the existential challenges and opportunities …

1
Zev J. Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025) 45:26

3M ago45:26

45:26

While other ancient nonalphabetic scripts—Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Mayan hieroglyphs—are long extinct, Chinese characters, invented over three thousand years ago, are today used by well over a billion people to write Chinese and Japanese. In medieval East Asia, the written Classical Chinese language knit the region together in …

1
Lian Sinclair, "Undermining Resistance: The Governance of Participation by Multinational Mining Corporations" (Manchester UP, 2024) 36:47

3M ago36:47

36:47

Why do multinational mining corporations use participation to undermine resistance? Do the struggles of local communities, activists and NGOs matter on a global scale? Why are there so many different global standards in mining? Undermining Resistance: The Governance of Participation by Multinational Mining Corporations (Manchester UP, 2024) develop…

1
Talking Thai Politics: Reporting Thai Politics Internationally 29:53

3M ago29:53

29:53

What is it like to be a foreign correspondent in Thailand? How can someone develop sufficient understanding of this complex society to write effective news stories about Thai politics and business? In this podcast, Francesca Regalado, until recently a Bangkok correspondent for the Japanese-owned online news magazine Nikkei Asia, discusses her three…

1
810: Studying Social Behavior, Reproduction, and Health in Female-Dominant Species - Dr. Christine Drea 42:15

3M ago42:15

42:15

Dr. Christine Drea is the Earl D. McLean Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology, as well as Professor in the Department of Biology, the University Program in Ecology, and the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences at Duke University. Research in Christine’s lab examines animal behavior from an integrative perspective. She and her colleagues are investig…

1
Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:02:22

3M ago1:02:22

1:02:22

In our conversation about The Battle of Manila (Oxford University Press, 2025), Nicholas Evan Sarantakes explains how U.S. forces under General Douglas MacArthur won a climactic battle in the Pacific during World War II, but at a terrible cost. In 1945 the United States and Japan fought the largest and most devastating land battle of their war in t…

1
809: Bright Researcher Studying Exoplanets and their Stars and Developing New Astrophysics Technology - Dr. Kevin France 33:53

3M ago33:53

33:53

Dr. Kevin France is an Assistant Professor in the Department for Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences as well as an investigator within the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Kevin’s research focuses on improving our understanding of planetary systems outside of our own solar system. His research he…

1
Farouk Yahya, "Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts" (Brill, 2015) 32:26

3M ago32:26

32:26

Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts (Brill, 2015) offers an integrated study of the texts and images of illustrated Malay manuscripts on magic and divination from private and public collections in Malaysia, the UK and Indonesia. Containing some of the rare examples of Malay painting, these manuscripts provide direct evidence for t…

1
Is Democracy and Peace Possible in Myanmar? A Conversation with Claire Smith 41:11

4M ago41:11

41:11

As the civil conflict in Myanmar passes its fourth anniversary, is this ethnically complex country any closer to a peaceful resolution of its internal conflict? Do opposition forces have a singular vision for what a post-conflict Myanmar might look like, or could the country simply break apart? Join Petra Alderman as she talks to Claire Smith about…

1
Insects as a Natural and Cultural Resource across Southeast Asia 32:22

4M ago32:22

32:22

Every year, World Wildlife Conservation Day is observed on 4 December. It reminds us of the importance of protecting our biodiversity, a message that is all the more urgent in the face of polycrises intensifying across the globe. At the foundational level of our ecosystems lie insects, which provide invaluable services to maintain healthy environme…