Best Carl Rollyson Podcasts (2025)

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Carl Rollyson, "The Making of Sylvia Plath (UP Mississippi, 2024) 55:03

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1d ago55:03

55:03

Since her death, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has become an endless source of fascination for a wide audience ranging from readers of The Bell Jar, her semiautobiographical novel, to her groundbreaking poetry as exemplified by Ariel. Beyond her writing, however, interest in Plath has also been fueled in part by the tragic nature of her death. As a resu…

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Gilles Deleuze, "On Painting" (U Minnesota Press, 2025) 1:39:48

1h ago1:39:48

1:39:48

Charles J. Stivale (Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Wayne State University) and Dan Smith (Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University) join me to discuss: Deleuze, Gilles. 2025. On Painting. Edited by David Lapoujade, translated by Charles J. Stivale. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Although Charles is the translator of this New Book,…

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Patrick Parr, "Malcolm Before X" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024) 26:16

2h ago26:16

26:16

Drawing upon interviews, correspondence, and nearly 2000 pages of never-before-used prison records, Malcolm Before X is the definitive examination of the prison years of civil rights icon Malcolm X. The book was a Kirkus Nonfiction Book of the Year for 2024, a Spectator best book of the year, and a finalist for the 2025 ASALH book prize. In Februar…

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Ashley D. Farmer, "Queen Mother: Black Nationalism, Reparations, and the Untold Story of Audley Moore" (Pantheon, 2025) 25:50

1d ago25:50

25:50

In the world of Black radical politics, the name Audley Moore commands unquestioned respect. Across the nine decades of her life, Queen Mother Moore distinguished herself as a leading progenitor of Black Nationalism, the founder of the modern reparations movement, and, from her Philadelphia and Harlem homes, a mentor to some of America's most influ…

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Tim Beasley-Murray, "Critical Games: On Play and Seriousness in Academia, Literature and Life" (Manchester UP, 2025) 42:00

3m ago42:00

42:00

Which parts of life are serious, and which are a game? In Critical Games: On Play and Seriousness in Academia, Literature and Life (Manchester UP, 2025) Tim Beasley-Murray, an Associate Professor of European Thought and Culture and Vice-Dean (Innovation and Enterprise) for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at University College London, offers a se…

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Sarah Smarsh, "Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class" (Scribner, 2024) 1:04:56

1d ago1:04:56

1:04:56

National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her career writing memoir, essays, and journalism centered on the experience of the rural working class in the US. Her essay in The Common’s fall 2014 issue, “Death of the Farm Family,” became part of her 2018 book Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being B…

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Hector Vera, "Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America" (Vanderbilt UP, 2025) 57:44

33m ago57:44

57:44

Why is there no metric system in the United States? Why is it that a country known for its openness to the future, its scientific innovations, and its preference for practicality has not adopted the most practical, scientific, and innovative system of measurement? Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America (Vanderbilt UP, 2025) by Dr. Hector Ve…

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Scott D. Anthony, "Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) 1:03:49

2d ago1:03:49

1:03:49

Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) arrives at the perfect moment as artificial intelligence and other technologies promise to unleash another wave of major transformation. This book is a kaleidoscopic look at how eleven disruptive innovations—including the iPhone, transistor, disposab…

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Michael B. Cosmopoulos, "The World of Homer: Archaeology, Social Memory, and the Emergence of Greek Epic Poetry" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:22:08

2d ago1:22:08

1:22:08

Epic poetry, notably the Iliad and the Odyssey, stands as one of the most enduring legacies of ancient Greece. Although the impact of these epics on Western civilization is widely recognized, their origins remain the subject of heated debate. Were they composed in a single era or over the course of centuries? Were they crafted by one or by many poe…

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Harry Cliff, "Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe" (Doubleday, 2024) 1:06:13

2d ago1:06:13

1:06:13

Nothing captivates the human imagination like the vast unknowns of space. Ancient petroglyphs present renderings of the heavens, proof that we have been gazing up at the stars with wonder for thousands of years. Since then, mankind has systematically expanded our cosmic possibilities. What were once flights of fancy and dreams of science fiction wr…

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Abhimanyu Kumar and Aletta André, "The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy" (HarperCollins India, 2025) 45:42

3d ago45:42

45:42

Begum Wilayat Mahal, the self-proclaimed heir to the House of Awadh, has fascinated journalists and writers for decades. She claimed she was Indian royalty, descended from the kings of Awadh, a kingdom annexed by the British in 1856. She spent a decade in the waiting room of the New Delhi train station, receiving journalists intrigued by the image …

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What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophical Guide to Figuring Out What Matters 1:04:41

3d ago1:04:41

1:04:41

What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money, work for justice, run marathons, sing in a choir, have children, travel the world? The things we care about in life—family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals—often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don’t always know what we really wan…

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Arnab Roy and Paul Ugor eds., "The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics, and Aesthetic Reinventions" (U Alberta Press, 2025) 35:49

4d ago35:49

35:49

Offering a fresh comparative lens, The Postcolonial Bildungsroman: Narratives of Youth, Representational Politics, and Aesthetic Reinventions (U Alberta Press, 2025) demonstrates how postcolonial writers have transformed the Bildungsroman from an eighteenth-century European genre meant to express local concerns around childhood development into one…

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Greg Soden, "Unscripted Moments: Conversations with Propagandhi (2020-2025)" (Earth Island Books, 2025) 38:59

4d ago38:59

38:59

Propagandhi formed in 1986 in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Canada and are now based in Winnipeg. Their outspoken influence and consistency in anti-fascist, animal-friendly, gay-positive, and pro-feminist ideas have inspired thousands of hardcore, thrash metal and punk rock music fans across four decades. Unscripted Moments: A Podcast About Propaga…

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Kathryn Robson, "Beyond the Happy Ending: Imagining Happiness in Contemporary French Women's Writing and Film" (Liverpool UP, 2025) 47:07

3d ago47:07

47:07

In Kathryn Robson's Beyond the Happy Ending: Imagining Happiness in Contemporary French Women's Writing and Film (Liverpool UP, 2025), happiness (and the question of how to define, measure and facilitate it) has become a key theme in political, economic and social discourses in recent decades in France and elsewhere, yet research on happiness in Fr…

1
Carl Rollyson, "The Making of Sylvia Plath (UP Mississippi, 2024) 55:03

5d ago55:03

55:03

Since her death, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has become an endless source of fascination for a wide audience ranging from readers of The Bell Jar, her semiautobiographical novel, to her groundbreaking poetry as exemplified by Ariel. Beyond her writing, however, interest in Plath has also been fueled in part by the tragic nature of her death. As a resu…

1
Megan Walsh, "The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters" (Columbia Global Reports, 2022) 38:01

5d ago38:01

38:01

What does contemporary China’s diverse and exciting fiction tell us about its culture, and the relationship between art and politics? The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters (Columbia Global Reports, 2022) by Megan Walsh takes us on a lively journey through a literary landscape like you’ve never seen before: a vast migrant-worker poet…

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Maurice Samuels, "Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair" (Yale UP, 2024) 39:17

2d ago39:17

39:17

On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting “Death to Judas!” In Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair (Yale UP, 2024), Maurice Samuels gives readers new insight into Dreyfus himself—the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus’s early life in Paris, his prom…

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Megan Walsh, "The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters" (Columbia Global Reports, 2022) 38:01

2d ago38:01

38:01

What does contemporary China’s diverse and exciting fiction tell us about its culture, and the relationship between art and politics? The Subplot: What China Is Reading and Why It Matters (Columbia Global Reports, 2022) by Megan Walsh takes us on a lively journey through a literary landscape like you’ve never seen before: a vast migrant-worker poet…

1
Carl Rollyson, "The Making of Sylvia Plath (UP Mississippi, 2024) 55:03

2d ago55:03

55:03

Since her death, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has become an endless source of fascination for a wide audience ranging from readers of The Bell Jar, her semiautobiographical novel, to her groundbreaking poetry as exemplified by Ariel. Beyond her writing, however, interest in Plath has also been fueled in part by the tragic nature of her death. As a resu…

1
Peter C. Zimmerman, "The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight" (UP of Mississippi, 2021) 56:05

2d ago56:05

56:05

The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight (UP of Mississippi, 2021) is a celebration of jazz and the men and women who created and transformed it. In the twenty-one conversations contained in this engaging and highly accessible book, we hear from the musicians themselves, in their own words, direct and unfiltered. Peter Zimmerman’s interviewing…

1
Carl Rollyson, "The Making of Sylvia Plath (UP Mississippi, 2024) 55:03

2d ago55:03

55:03

Since her death, Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) has become an endless source of fascination for a wide audience ranging from readers of The Bell Jar, her semiautobiographical novel, to her groundbreaking poetry as exemplified by Ariel. Beyond her writing, however, interest in Plath has also been fueled in part by the tragic nature of her death. As a resu…

1
Stephen Fritz, "The First Soldier: Hitler as a Military Leader" (Yale UP, 2018) 1:16:34

4d ago1:16:34

1:16:34

In his new book, The First Soldier: Hitler as a Military Leader (Yale University Press, 2018), Stephen Fritz professor of history at East Tennessee State University reexamines Hitler as a military commander and strategist. That Hitler saw World War II as the only way to retrieve Germany’s fortunes and build an expansionist Thousand-Year Reich is un…

1
Peter C. Zimmerman, "The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight" (UP of Mississippi, 2021) 56:05

3d ago56:05

56:05

The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight (UP of Mississippi, 2021) is a celebration of jazz and the men and women who created and transformed it. In the twenty-one conversations contained in this engaging and highly accessible book, we hear from the musicians themselves, in their own words, direct and unfiltered. Peter Zimmerman’s interviewing…

1
Stevie Suan, "Anime's Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan" (U Minnesota Press, 2021) 58:38

6d ago58:38

58:38

A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its global reach raises a perplexing question--what happens when anime is produced outside of Japan? Who actually makes anime, and how can this help us rethink notions of cultural production? In Anime's I…

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Anthony Valerio, "Semmelweis: The Women's Doctor" (Zantedeschi Books, 2019) 1:00:44

3d ago1:00:44

1:00:44

Though his advice has saved the lives of millions of people, the name Ignaz Semmelweis is not one commonly known today. In his book Anthony Valerio’s Semmelweis: The Women's Doctor (Zantedeschi Books, 2019). Valerio details the many struggles Semmelweis faced in winning acceptance for his advice on antiseptic procedures. The son of a Buda spice mer…

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Elliott Rabin, "The Biblical Hero: Portraits in Nobility and Fallibility" (Jewish Publication Society, 2020) 58:18

3d ago58:18

58:18

Today I talked to Elliott Rabin about his book The Biblical Hero: Portraits in Nobility and Fallibility (Jewish Publication Society, 2020). Approaching the Bible in an original way—comparing biblical heroes to heroes in world literature—Rabin addresses a core biblical question: What is the Bible telling us about what it means to be a hero? Focusing…

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Anthony Valerio, "Semmelweis: The Women's Doctor" (Zantedeschi Books, 2019) 1:00:44

3d ago1:00:44

1:00:44

Though his advice has saved the lives of millions of people, the name Ignaz Semmelweis is not one commonly known today. In his book Anthony Valerio’s Semmelweis: The Women's Doctor (Zantedeschi Books, 2019). Valerio details the many struggles Semmelweis faced in winning acceptance for his advice on antiseptic procedures. The son of a Buda spice mer…

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Bradley Morgan, "U2: Until the End of the World" (Weldon Owen, 2025) 34:46

4d ago34:46

34:46

Bradley Morgan’s U2: Until the End of the World (Gemini Books, 2025) celebrates fifty years of U2 with a career-spanning retrospective featuring more than 150 images that trace the band’s journey from Dublin pubs to sold-out arena tours. Morgan delves into the history of U2, offering an intimate look at their formation and the evolution of their un…

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Bill V. Mullen, "James Baldwin: Living in Fire" (Pluto Press, 2019) 59:58

4d ago59:58

59:58

In the first major biography of Baldwin in more than a decade, James Baldwin: Living in Fire (Pluto Press, 2019), Bill V. Mullen celebrates the personal and political life of the great African-American writer who changed the face of Western politics and culture. As a lifelong anti-imperialist, black queer advocate, and feminist, Baldwin (1924-1987)…

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Bill V. Mullen, "James Baldwin: Living in Fire" (Pluto Press, 2019) 59:58

4d ago59:58

59:58

In the first major biography of Baldwin in more than a decade, James Baldwin: Living in Fire (Pluto Press, 2019), Bill V. Mullen celebrates the personal and political life of the great African-American writer who changed the face of Western politics and culture. As a lifelong anti-imperialist, black queer advocate, and feminist, Baldwin (1924-1987)…

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Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen, "Icelandic Pop: Then, Today, Tomorrow, Next Week" (Reaktion Books, 2025) 43:19

8d ago43:19

43:19

Iceland punches well above its weight in the world of music, producing global icons like Björk, Sigur Rós, Of Monsters and Men, and Laufey, while at the same time nurturing a vibrant local scene. Icelandic Pop: Then, Today, Tomorrow, Next Week (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen explores how Iceland’s unique social habits, institutions …

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Hilary Holladay, "The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2025) 57:59

9d ago57:59

57:59

A major American writer, thinker, and activist, Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) transformed herself from a traditional, Radcliffe-educated lyric poet and married mother of three sons into a path-breaking lesbian-feminist author of forceful, uncompromising prose as well as poetry. In doing so, she emerged as an architect and exemplar of the feminist movem…

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Hilary Holladay, "The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2025) 57:59

6d ago57:59

57:59

A major American writer, thinker, and activist, Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) transformed herself from a traditional, Radcliffe-educated lyric poet and married mother of three sons into a path-breaking lesbian-feminist author of forceful, uncompromising prose as well as poetry. In doing so, she emerged as an architect and exemplar of the feminist movem…

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Francis L. Sampson, "Look Out Below!: A Story of the Airborne by a Paratrooper Padre" (Catholic U of America Press, 2023) 48:21

10d ago48:21

48:21

A veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, Francis L. Sampson was a real-life hero whose exploits inspired one of the most famous war films of all time, Saving Private Ryan. From rural beginnings in northwestern Iowa, Sampson’s life would take him from the University of Notre Dame to the battlefields of Normandy on D-Day, the ambitious f…

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Maggie Gram, "The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History" (Basic Books, 2025) 1:03:03

7d ago1:03:03

1:03:03

Maggie Gram is a writer, cultural historian, and designer. She leads an experience-design team at Google. She has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and Harvard University, and she has written for N+1 and the New York Times. She lives in New York. The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History (…

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The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit 50:27

10d ago50:27

50:27

As a child in the foothills of the Himalayas, Priyanka Kumar was entranced by forest-like orchards of diverse and luscious fruit—especially apples. These biodiverse orchards seemed worlds away from the cardboard apples that lined supermarket shelves in the United States. Yet on a small patch of woods near her home in Santa Fe, Kumar discovered a wi…

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Emily Gee, "Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman" (Liverpool UP, 2025) 49:06

8d ago49:06

49:06

Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman (Liverpool University Press, 2025) by Emily Gee is the first comprehensive study of the campaigns to house a new generation of working women, the specialised design of the buildings and the women whose lives were changed by this architectural movement. After 1900, t…

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Najmeh Moradiyan-Rizi and Shilyh J. Warren eds., "Women and Global Documentary: Practices and Perspectives in the 21st Century" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) 33:46

11d ago33:46

33:46

Women and Global Documentary: Practices and Perspectives in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025), edited by Najmeh Moradiyan-Rizi and Shilyh J. Warren, answers the urgent need to re-evaluate not only the significance of women's documentary practices and their contributions to feminist world-building, but also the state of documentary studie…

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Martin Austin Nesvig, "The Women Who Threw Corn: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Mexico" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:00:47

11d ago1:00:47

1:00:47

The Women Who Threw Corn: Witchcraft and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Cambridge UP, 2025) tells the stories of women from Spain, North Africa, Senegambia, and Canaries accused of sorcery in sixteenth-century Mexico for adapting native magic and healing practices. These non-native women - the mulata of Seville who cured the evil eye; the…

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Signal Award Re-Release: Lost Women of Disco 50:33

11d ago50:33

50:33

We're thrilled to announce that our episode “S2.E2. Lost Women of Disco” has been named a finalist in the Best Indie Podcast category at the 2025 Signal Awards! This powerful episode dives deep into the untold stories of the trailblazing women who shaped the culture we now call “disco”, but were overshadowed by history. We are re-releasing this epi…

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Signal Award Re-Release: Lost Women of Disco 50:33

10d ago50:33

50:33

We're thrilled to announce that our episode “S2.E2. Lost Women of Disco” has been named a finalist in the Best Indie Podcast category at the 2025 Signal Awards! This powerful episode dives deep into the untold stories of the trailblazing women who shaped the culture we now call “disco”, but were overshadowed by history. We are re-releasing this epi…

1
Mahboob Qirvanian and Behnaz Mirzai, "Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran" (U Toronto Press, 2025) 1:00:38

10d ago1:00:38

1:00:38

Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoman Empire and Iran: The Autobiography of Mahboob Qirvanian provides a translation of a compelling autobiography that chronicles the life of Mahboob Qirvanian, from childhood and enslavement in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire to his eventual liberation in Iran. The Life of an Enslaved African in the Ottoma…

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Utopia is Boring with Evie Kendal 33:21

9d ago33:21

33:21

In this episode Pat speaks with Dr Evie Kendal. Dr Evie Kendal is a bioethicist and public health scientist whose work focuses on emerging technologies. They discuss nostalgia TV, ectogenesis, and the uses and misuses of science fiction. A transcript of this episode will be available on the Concept : Art website here. Concept : Art is produced on m…

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Cassandra S. Tully de Lope, "Masculinity and Identity in Irish Literature: Heroes, Lads, and Fathers" (Routledge, 2024) 51:48

9d ago51:48

51:48

Masculinity and Identity in Irish Literature: Heroes, Lads, and Fathers (Routledge, 2024) addresses Irish identity in Irish literature, especially masculinity in some of its forms through an interdisciplinary methodology. The study of language performance through literary analysis and corpus studies will enable readers to approach literary texts fr…

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Jason Schneider, "That Gun in Your Hand: The Strange Saga of Hey Joe' and Popular Music's History of Violence" (Anvil Press, 2025) 57:05

14d ago57:05

57:05

This is the story of a song. Yet, it is a song that binds nearly every strand of 20th-century American popular music. “Hey Joe” was written sometime in the early 1960s by a man named Billy Roberts, an obscure singer and guitarist from South Carolina who moved to New York City, drawn by the burgeoning folk music scene in Greenwich Village. It was a …

1
Matthias Egeler, "Elves and Fairies: A Short History of the Otherworld" (Yale UP, 2025) 42:59

15d ago42:59

42:59

Originating in Norse and Celtic mythologies, elves and fairies are a firmly established part of Western popular culture. Since the days of the Vikings and Arthurian legend, these sprites have undergone huge transformations. From J. R. R. Tolkien’s warlike elves, based on medieval legend, to little flower fairies whose charms even Sir Arthur Conan D…

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Lorraine Besser, "The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It" (Balance, 2024) 50:16

15d ago50:16

50:16

What is a good life? Traditionally, philosophers have seen it as an equation: The Good Life = Happiness + Meaning. But, if it's really that simple, why don't more of us achieve that truly "good" life? In The Art of the Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It (Balance, 2024), Lorraine Besser, Professor of Ph…

1
Chris Dalla Riva, "Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 1:09:42

15d ago1:09:42

1:09:42

Popular music history collides with data analytics, charts, and numbers in this insightful and surprising look at the greatest hits and musicians, fads, forgotten artists, and much more. Data analyst and musician Chris Dalla Riva reframes everything you thought you knew about music. Did you know that hit songs in the late 1950s were regularly about…

1
Matthias Egeler, "Elves and Fairies: A Short History of the Otherworld" (Yale UP, 2025) 42:59

15d ago42:59

42:59

Originating in Norse and Celtic mythologies, elves and fairies are a firmly established part of Western popular culture. Since the days of the Vikings and Arthurian legend, these sprites have undergone huge transformations. From J. R. R. Tolkien’s warlike elves, based on medieval legend, to little flower fairies whose charms even Sir Arthur Conan D…