Best Andrew Hsu Podcasts (2025)

1
Greta Lynn Uehling, "Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025) 53:32

4m ago53:32

53:32

In Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025), anthropologist Dr. Greta Lynn Uehling illuminates the untold stories of Russia’s occupation of Crimea from 2014 to the present, revealing the traumas of colonization, foreign occupation, and population displacement. Drawing upon extensive …

1
Toine van Teeffelen, "The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir" (Wipf and Stock, 2024) 1:03:20

8m ago1:03:20

1:03:20

The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir (Wipf and Stock, 2024) is a narrative of a Christian family in Bethlehem in the West Bank. Based on diary entries and interviews from 2000 to 2023, the Dutch author--an anthropologist and peace activist--chronicles the spontaneous reactions of his Palestinian children and wife navigating the challen…

1
Camilla Annerfeldt, "Clothing and Identity in Early Modern Rome" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 30:22

8m ago30:22

30:22

Camilla Annerfeldt joins to discuss Clothing and Identity in Early Modern Rome (Bloomsbury, 2025). This is the first book-length exploration of the clothes worn in early modern Rome and provides novel insights into the city of Rome during one of its most fascinating periods. It also challenges the notion – well-established in dress historical resea…

1
Michelle H. S. Ho, "Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo's Pink Economies" (Duke UP, 2025) 41:28

9m ago41:28

41:28

In Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo's Pink Economies (Duke UP, 2025), Michelle H. S. Ho traces the genders manifesting alongside Japanese popular culture in Akihabara, an area in Tokyo renowned for the fandom and consumption of anime, manga, and games. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in josō and dansō cafe-and-bars, establishments wher…

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

6m 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
Andrew Ofstehage, "Welcome to Soylandia: Transnational Farmers in the Brazilian Cerrado" (Cornell UP, 2025) 46:19

6m ago46:19

46:19

Following a group of US Midwest farmers who purchased tracts of land in the tropical savanna of eastern Brazil, Welcome to Soylandia: Transnational Farmers in the Brazilian Cerrado (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Andrew Ofstehage investigates industrial farming in the modern developing world. Seeking adventure and profit, the transplanted f…

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

8h 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
Maron E. Greenleaf, "Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon" (Duke UP, 2024) 49:46

9d ago49:46

49:46

Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon (2024) is an ethnography of forest carbon offsets and the wider effort to make the living rainforest valuable in the Brazilian Amazon. Situated in the state of Acre, which continuously had to grapple with a complex positionality between frontier and periphery, Maron E. Greenleaf explor…

1
Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe 1:14:22

11d ago1:14:22

1:14:22

What is the growing appeal of fascist idealism for young people? Why is radical nationalism on the rise in Europe and throughout the world? In Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe (Princeton UP, 2024), Dr. Agnieszka Pasieka provides an in-depth account of the ideas and practices that are driving the varied forms of far-rig…

1
Deana Jovanović, "Staging the Promises: Everyday Future-Making in a Serbian Industrial Town" (Cornell UP, 2025) 1:23:24

13d ago1:23:24

1:23:24

Built on the shifting grounds of post-Yugoslav transformation, Staging the Promises examines how the residents of Bor — a Serbian copper-mining town marked by both socialist prosperity and post-socialist decline — became spectators to the staged enactments of promised futures. Deana Jovanović traces how local authorities and the copper-processing c…

1
Ipek A. Celik Rappas, "Filming in European Cities: The Labor of Location" (Cornell UP, 2025) 44:59

15d ago44:59

44:59

Filming in European Cities: The Labor of Location (Cornell University Press, 2025) explores the effort behind creating screen production locations. Dr. Ipek A. Celik Rappas accounts the rising demand for original and affordable locations for screen projects due to the growth of streaming platforms. As a result, screen professionals are repeatedly t…

1
Diana Graizbord, "Indicators of Democracy: The Politics and Promise of Evaluation Expertise in Mexico" (Stanford UP, 2024) 52:44

23d ago52:44

52:44

The spread of democracy across the Global South has taken many different forms, but certain features are consistent: implementing a system of elections and an overarching mission of serving the will and well-being of a country's citizens. But how do we hold politicians accountable for such a mission? How are we to understand the efficacy of the pol…

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

17d 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
Tim Grady, "Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars" (Yale UP, 2025) 54:30

18d ago54:30

54:30

In Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars (Yale University Press, 2025), Tim Grady recounts here a detailed history of the fate of combatants who died on enemy soil in England and Germany in World Wars I and II. The books draws on a rich archive of personal family experiences, and describes the often touching…

1
Chloe Ahmann, "Futures After Progress: Hope and Doubt in Late Industrial Baltimore" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 36:32

19d ago36:32

36:32

Factory fires, chemical explosions, and aerial pollutants have inexorably shaped South Baltimore into one of the most polluted places in the country. In Futures After Progress: Hope and Doubt in Late Industrial Baltimore (U Chicago Press, 2024), anthropologist Chloe Ahmann explores the rise and fall of industrial lifeways on this edge of the city a…

1
Maliha Safri et al., "Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation" (U of Minnesota Press, 2025) 1:06:18

20d ago1:06:18

1:06:18

In this episode, Maliha Safri, Marianna Pavlovskaya, Stephen Healy, and Craig Borowiak talk about their new co-authored book Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation (University of Minnesota Press, 2024). This volume is part of the Diverse Economies and Livable Worlds series. Solidarity economies, characterized by di…

1
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024) 1:07:52

23d ago1:07:52

1:07:52

After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in the early 2000s, Chinese policymakers came to see waste management as…

1
Lorna Gibb, "Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages" (Princeton UP, 2025) 39:47

22d ago39:47

39:47

An enthralling tour of the world’s rarest and most endangered languages Languages and cultures are becoming increasingly homogenous, with the resulting loss of a rich linguistic tapestry reflecting unique perspectives and ways of life. Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages (Princeton University Press, 2025) tells the stories of the w…

1
Eleanor Paynter, "Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present" (U California Press, 2024) 54:38

23d ago54:38

54:38

Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Eleanor Paynter responds to the crisis framings that dominate migration debates in the global north. This capacious, interdisciplinary open-access study reformulates Europe's so-called "migrant crisis" from a sudden disaster to a site of…

1
Katie Rose Hejtmanek, "The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon" (NYU Press, 2025) 1:08:28

1M ago1:08:28

1:08:28

CrossFit in the United States has become increasingly popular, around which a fascinating culture has developed which shapes everyday life for the people devoted to it. CrossFit claims to be many things: a business, a brand, a tremendously difficult fitness regimen, a community, a way to gain salvation, and a method to survive the apocalypse. In Th…

1
Christof Lammer, "Performing State Boundaries: Food Networks, Democratic Bureaucracy and China" (Berghahn, 2024) 1:42:23

1M ago1:42:23

1:42:23

On the podcast today I am joined by Christof Lammer, a social anthropologist based at the University of Klagenfurt and inherit fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin. Christof is joining me to talk about his new book, Performing State Boundaries: Food Networks, Democratic Bureaucracy and China published in Open Access by Berghahn Books in 2024. Th…

1
Political Mythmaking in Nepal 33:12

1M ago33:12

33:12

How and why do local political processes in rural Nepal become an arena for political mythmaking? And, how do political myths obscure their own historical construction, thereby making hierarchical power structures appear inevitable? In this episode we discuss these questions with Ankita Shrestha whose ethnographic explorations into these issues for…

1
Agnieszka Pasieka, "Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe" (Princeton UP, 2024) 46:29

1M ago46:29

46:29

Radical nationalism is on the rise in Europe and throughout the world. Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe (Princeton University Press, 2024) provides an in-depth account of the ideas and practices that are driving the varied forms of far-right activism by young people from all walks of life, revealing how these social mo…

1
Sarah Saddler, "Performing Corporate Bodies: Multinational Theatre in Global India" (Routledge, 2025) 1:10:32

1M ago1:10:32

1:10:32

How do corporations use theater to reconcile the crises of late capitalism? In our latest interview on Ethnographic Marginalia, we speak with Dr. Sarah Saddler about her new book Performing Corporate Bodies (Routledge, 2024), where she describes how corporations have borrowed techniques from activist theater to manage their workers in India and bey…

1
Mingwei Huang, "Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:05:34

1M ago1:05:34

1:05:34

In Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century (Duke UP, 2024), Mingwei Huang traces the development of new forms of racial capitalism in the twenty-first century. Through fieldwork in one of the “China malls” that has emerged along Johannesburg’s former mining belt, Huang identifies everyday relations of power and differen…

1
Dána-Ain Davis and Christa Craven, "Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) 56:21

1M ago56:21

56:21

How do we acquire knowledge about societies? Does how we acquire social knowledge shape what we know? How conscious must we be of our own experiences as we do our research? What does feminism add to our methods and modes of research? Now in its second edition, Feminist Ethnography: Thinking through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities (Rowm…

1
Engage and Evade in 2025: Asad L. Asad on Latino Immigrants in America 51:48

1M ago51:48

51:48

Today I’m speaking with Asad L. Asad, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. He is the author of Engage and Evade: How Latino Immigrant Families Manage Surveillance in Everyday Life (Princeton UP, 2023). A highly relevant book, Engage and Evade documents the interactions between undocumented people and the agents and institutions …

1
Chiara Calzana and Valentina Gamberi, "Haunting Ruins: Ethnographies of Ruination and Decay" (Berghahn Books, 2025) 47:19

1M ago47:19

47:19

In the contemporary world, ruins, rubble, and decaying material have become increasingly iconic landscapes. They can foster a more layered theory of time, change and memory. The seven ethnographic case studies in Haunting Ruins (Berghahn Books, 2025) trace human engagements with the temporal forces of ruins, which can trace the past and transform t…

1
Anna Maria Busse Berger and Henry Spiller, "Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago" (U California Press, 2025) 1:09:04

1M ago1:09:04

1:09:04

Although the history of Indonesian music has received much attention from ethnomusicologists and Western composers alike, almost nothing has been written on the interaction of missionaries with local culture. Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago (U California Press, 2025) represents the first attempt to concentrate…

1
Tuomas Tammisto, "Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier" (Helsinki UP, 2024) 2:05:32

1M ago2:05:32

2:05:32

On the podcast today I am joined by socio-cultural anthropologist, Tuomas Tammisto, who is an academy research fellow in Social Anthropology at Tampere University. Tuomas is joining me to talk about his recently published book, Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier (Helsinki UP, 2024) Hard Work exa…

1
Becky Yang Hsu, "The Extraordinary in the Mundane: Family and Forms of Community in China" (Columbia UP, 2024) 49:00

2M ago49:00

49:00

How do individuals address serious challenges in a context where organized gatherings are subject to strict government control? This new edited volume brings together a diverse group of scholars to explore the many ways people in China self-organize and create varied forms of coordination to solve important problems. Through compelling, detail-rich…

1
Martha S. Jones, "The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir" (Basic Books, 2025) 54:14

2M ago54:14

54:14

Martha S. Jones grew up feeling her Black identity was obvious to all who saw her. But weeks into college, a Black Studies classmate challenged Jones’s right to speak. Suspicious of the color of her skin and the texture of her hair, he confronted her with a question that inspired a lifetime of introspection: “Who do you think you are?” Now a prizew…

1
Hemangini Gupta, "Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India" (U California Press, 2024) 41:59

2M ago41:59

41:59

Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India (U California Press, 2024) is an in-depth ethnography of the transformation of Bengaluru/Bangalore from a site of "backend" IT work to an aspirational global city of enterprise and innovation. The book journeys alongside the migrant workers, technologists, and entrepreneurs who sh…

1
Azmeary Ferdoush, "Sovereign Atonement: Citizenship, Territory, and the State at the Bangladesh-India Border" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:22:44

2M ago1:22:44

1:22:44

The former border enclaves of Bangladesh and India existed as extra-territorial spaces since 1947. They were finally exchanged and merged as host state territories in 2015. Sovereign Atonement: Citizenship, Territory, and the State at the Bangladesh-India Border (Cambridge UP, 2024) focuses on the protracted territorial exchange and experiences of …

1
Syaifudin Zuhri, "Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia: Inventing a Sacred Tradition" (Leiden UP, 2022) 1:10:48

2M ago1:10:48

1:10:48

Syaifudin Zuhri’s book Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia: Inventing a Sacred Tradition (Leiden, 2022) is a detailed examination of the recent emergence of the Wali Pitu (“Seven Saints”) tradition in Bali, Indonesia. The study is a multi-sited ethnography of pilgrimage traditions to the grave sites of the Wali Pitu, which is a part …

1
Besties: We just did the Hoffman Process. What "10 years of therapy in one week" was like. 36:56

2M ago36:56

36:56

Andrew Hsu and Will Chang each did the Hoffman Process individually. Here's our discussion sharing our experiences with each other.By Will Chang, Lee Chang, Andrew Hsu

1
V. Chitra, "Drawing Coastlines: Climate Anxieties and the Visual Reinvention of Mumbai's Shore" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:04:16

2M ago1:04:16

1:04:16

Drawing Coastlines: Climate Anxieties and the Visual Reinvention of Mumbai's Shore (Cornell UP, 2024) reveals the ways that technical images such as weather infographics, sea-level projections, and surveys are fast remaking Mumbai's coasts and coastal futures. They set in place infrastructural interventions, vocabularies of development and conserva…

1
Tracie Canada, "Tackling the Everyday: Race and Nation in Big-Time College Football" (U California Press, 2025) 1:14:16

2M ago1:14:16

1:14:16

Big-time college football promises prestige, drama, media attention, and money. Yet most athletes in this unpaid, amateur system encounter a different reality, facing dangerous injuries, few pro-career opportunities, a free but devalued college education, and future financial instability. In one of the first ethnographies about Black college footba…

1
Ben Bowles, "Boaters of London: Alternative Living on the Water" (Berghahn Books, 2024) 1:10:12

2M ago1:10:12

1:10:12

Boaters of London is an ethnography that delves into the process of becoming a boater, adopting an alternative lifestyle on the water and the political impact that this travelling population has on the state. London and the Southeast of England in general is home to many people and families who live on narrowboats, cruisers and barges, along a netw…

1
Mia Consalvo et al., "Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch" (MIT Press, 2025) 43:20

2M ago43:20

43:20

The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch (MIT Press, 2025) Dr. Mia Consalvo, Dr. Marc Lajeunesse, and Dr. Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to …

1
Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall, "Ain't I an Anthropologist: Zora Neale Hurston Beyond the Literary Icon" (U Illinois Press, 2023) 1:15:43

2M ago1:15:43

1:15:43

Iconic as a novelist and popular cultural figure, Zora Neale Hurston remains underappreciated as an anthropologist. Is it inevitable that Hurston's literary authority should eclipse her anthropological authority? If not, what socio-cultural and institutional values and processes shape the different ways we read her work? Jennifer L. Freeman Marshal…

1
Brendan A. Galipeau, "Crafting a Tibetan Terroir: Winemaking in Shangri-La" (U Washington Press, 2025) 1:19:20

2M ago1:19:20

1:19:20

Aiming to explore the Sino-Tibetan border region, which is renamed “Shangri-La” by the Chinese government for tourism promotion, Crafting a Tibetan Terroir (U Washington Press, 2025) examines how the deployment of the French notion of terroir creates new forms of ethno-regional identities and village landscapes through the production of Tibetan win…

1
Vera Tiesler, "Ancient Maya Teeth: Dental Modification, Cosmology, and Social Identity in Mesoamerica" (U Texas Press, 2024) 47:05

3M ago47:05

47:05

Dental modification was common across ancient societies, but perhaps none were more avid practitioners than the Maya. They filed their teeth flat or pointy, polished and drilled them, and crafted decorative inlays of jade and pyrite. Unusually, Maya of all social classes, ages, and professions engaged in dental modification. What did it mean to the…

1
Webb Keane, "Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination" (Princeton UP, 2025) 58:01

3M ago58:01

58:01

Revolutions in technology are fundamentally transforming what it means to be human. Or are they? As Webb Keane points out, before humans consulted ChatGPT, they propitiated oracles. Before they fell in love with robot boyfriends, they ventured into the forest to marry nature spirits. In his new book Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Im…

1
John Boswell et al., "The Art and Craft of Comparison" (Cambridge UP, 2019) 45:20

3M ago45:20

45:20

There are many books giving advice about research methods on the market, but The Art and Craft of Comparison (Cambridge UP, 2019) is the first monographic marriage of comparative and interpretive methods. In this episode of the special series New Books in Interpretive Political and Social Science, two of its authors, John Boswell and Jack Corbett, …

1
Deborah Reed-Donahay, "Sideways Migration: Being French in London" (Routledge, 2025) 32:10

3M ago32:10

32:10

Sideways Migration: Being French in London (Routledge, 2025) examines the relationship between migration and socioeconomic status. In particular, it charts a set of middle-class aspirations that lead people to move to a nearby nation that is similar in wealth and social indicators - a type of horizontal relocation that it terms "sideways migration.…

1
Asim Qureshi and Walaa Quisay, "When Only God Can See: The Faith of Muslim Political Prisoners" (Pluto Press, 2024) 1:00:59

3M ago1:00:59

1:00:59

When Only God Can See: The Faith of Muslim Political Prisoners (Pluto Press, 2024), uncovers the unique experiences of Muslim political prisoners held in Egypt and under US custody at Guantanamo Bay and other detention black sites. This groundbreaking book explores the intricate interplay between their religious beliefs, practices of ritual purity,…

1
Paul G. Keil, "The Presence of Elephants: Shared Lives and Landscapes in Assam" (Routledge, 2024) 57:15

3M ago57:15

57:15

How to dwell in a forest alongside giants, avoid disturbing a living god, assist an animal with their manners, and help an elephant cross the road. The Presence of Elephants: Sharing Lives and Landscapes in Assam (Routledge, 2024) is an anthropological consideration of coexistence, grounded in people’s everyday interactions with Asian elephants. Dr…

1
Steven Lesk, "Footprints of Schizophrenia: The Evolutionary Roots of Mental Illness" (Prometheus, 2023) 1:05:12

3M ago1:05:12

1:05:12

Of all the mental illnesses, schizophrenia eludes us the most. No matter the strides scientists have made in neurological research nor doctors have made in psychiatric treatment, schizophrenia remains misunderstood, almost complacently mythologized. Without a reason for the illness, patients feel even more alienated than they already do, families a…

1
Steve Hsu - AI Arms Race: China & US 1:07:12

3M ago1:07:12

1:07:12

If you like my work and would like access to bonus episodes, early access to episodes, all my writing, and the Subversive Community, please consider signing up on my Substack or Patreon: ⁠⁠https://www.alexkaschuta.com/⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/aksubversive⁠ The story about AI in the West is escalating —breakthrough after breakthrough, each more …

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Andrew Hsu Podcasts

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