Best Dave Hicking Podcasts (2025)

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Todd A. Henry ed., "Queer Korea" (Duke UP, 2025) 49:06

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2h ago49:06

49:06

Edited by Todd A. Henry, Queer Korea (Duke UP, 2020) offers a vital and long-overdue examination of this subject. More than an academic text, it is a powerful collection that brings to light the hidden histories of non-normative sexuality and gender expression on the Korean Peninsula. The book challenges the notion that queerness is a recent, Weste…

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Christa Anne Bentley et al, eds., "Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans" (Routledge, 2025) 1:11:42

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Only 35 years old, Taylor Swift has already had a long career and is a pop culture icon. Her music and career are reported on by the world’s press, and her most devoted fans dissect her every move looking for hidden meanings and clues about her next album and her life. Taylor Swift: The Star, The Songs, The Fans (Routledge, 2025) edited by Christa …

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Timothy Williams, "Memory Politics After Mass Violence: Attributing Roles in the Memoryscape" (Bristol UP, 2025) 1:00:08

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Memory Politics After Mass Violence: Attributing Roles in the Memoryscape (Bristol UP, 2025) explores how political actors draw on memories of violent pasts to generate political power and legitimacy in the present. Drawing on fieldwork in post-violence Cambodia, Rwanda and Indonesia, the book demonstrates in what way power is derived from how role…

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Scott Beekman, "The Last Gladiator: William Muldoon and the Making of American Sports" (U Texas Press, 2025) 41:21

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William Muldoon was an infamous athlete whose prowess, savvy, and chicanery across his six-decade career led him to wealth, cultural importance, and political power. Muldoon, the child of poor Irish immigrants, began wrestling in the 1870s and quickly became one of the most famous athletes of the post–Civil War era. He started acting and modeling a…

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Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth, "Lady Charlotte Schreiber, Extraordinary Art Collector" (Lund Humphries, 2025) 1:02:32

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Lady Charlotte Schreiber, Extraordinary Art Collector (Lund Humphries, 2025) emphasises Lady Charlotte Schreiber (1812-1895) — also known as Lady Charlotte Guest, née Bertie — as one of the most significant women in the history of collecting. An extraordinary collector, historian and philanthropist, Charlotte subverted gendered norms and challenged…

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Mark Vellend, "Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More than We Think, from Proteins to Politics" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:05:12

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How the science of evolution explains how everything came to be, from bacteria and blue whales to cell phones, cities, and artificial intelligence Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More Than We Think, from Proteins to Politics (Princeton UP, 2025) reveals how evolutionary dynamics shape the world as we know it and how we are harnessing the…

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Vanessa Warne, "By Touch Alone: Blindness and Reading in Nineteenth-Century Culture" (U Michigan Press, 2025) 49:41

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By Touch Alone: Blindness and Reading in Nineteenth-Century Culture (U Michigan Press, 2025) by Dr. Vanessa Warne demonstrates how reading by touch not only changed the lives of nineteenth-century blind people, but also challenged longstanding perceptions about blindness and reading. Over the course of the nineteenth century, thousands of blind peo…

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Carol Atack, "Plato: A Civic Life" (Reaktion, 2025) 1:12:55

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Plato is a key figure from the beginnings of Western philosophy, yet the impact of his lived experience on his thought has rarely been explored. Born during a war that would lead to Athens’ decline, Plato lived in turbulent times. In Plato: A Civic Life (Reaktion, 2025), Carol Atack explores how Plato’s life in Athens influenced his thought, how he…

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Árni Heimir Ingólfsson , "Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland" (Indiana UP, 2019) 1:08:17

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In Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland (Indiana University Press, 2019), Árni Heimir Ingólfsson provides a striking account of the dramatic career of Iceland's iconic composer. Leifs (1899–1968) was the first Icelander to devote himself fully to composition at a time when a local music scene was only beginning to take form. He was a ferv…

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Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, "The Creation of Half-Broken People" (House of Anansi, 2025) 41:33

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In this NBN episode, NBN host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu about her phenomenal novel, The Creation of Half-Broken People. (House of Anansi Press, 2025). Stupendous African Gothic, by the winner of Yale University’s Windham–Campbell Prize Showcasing African Gothic at its finest, The Creation of Half-Broken People is the extraord…

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Natacha Chetcuti-Osorovitz and Sara Garbagnoli "La Pensée Wittig: Une Introduction" (Payot, 2025) 43:23

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How is it possible to be a subject when faced with oppression? The revolutionary thought and work of French novelist and lesbian thinker Monique Wittig are today in dialogue with feminist and LGBTQIA+ analyses and politics. Her materialist theorization of lesbianism subfuses contemporary feminism and queer political and social movements. By proposi…

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Sahan Jayasuriya, "Don't Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen" (Feral House, 2025) 1:08:46

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In Don't Say Please: The Oral History of Die Kreuzen (Feral House, 2025), Sahan Jayasuriya brings readers into the world of 1980s hardcore in the Midwest. Amidst this explosion of American punk and experimental music, a band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, emerged with a groundbreaking sound. Die Kreuzen, a group that defied genre boundaries, fused punk…

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Mark A. Schneegurt, "Everyday Holiday: A Jewish Calendar of Events and Observances" (Independently Published, 2024) 52:33

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Because Every Day Is a Special Day on the Jewish Calendar. Giant Jewish Calendar. More than 2400 Jewish events. Holidays - Biblical - History. Hundreds of Rabbinic Yarzheits. Modern Celebrities and Sports Figures. Every Day Is a Special Day to Celebrate. Everyday Holiday: A Jewish Calendar of Events and Observances (Independently Published, 2024) i…

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Elizabeth E. Imber, "Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialism" (Stanford UP, 2025) 1:12:46

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Following the British conquest of Ottoman Palestine, Jews across the British Empire—from Jerusalem to Johannesburg, London to Calcutta—found themselves at the heart of global Jewish political discourse. As these intellectuals, politicians, activists, and communal elites navigated shifting political landscapes, some envisioned Palestine as a British…

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Aaron Cayer, "Incorporating Architects: How American Architecture Became a Practice of Empire" (U California Press, 2025) 34:35

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By the end of the twentieth century, US architecture and engineering firms held more capital than entire countries, employed more people than were housed in most cities, and rented offices in more nations than comprised the UN. Within them, architects were designing not single buildings but urban systems, including the multinational infrastructures…

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Gen Z Uprising: Youth, Protest and Political Change in Nepal 32:56

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In early September 2025, Nepal witnessed an extraordinary week of upheaval that many now refer to as the ‘five-day revolution’. Within the span of a single week, youth-led ‘Gen Z’ protests spread across Kathmandu and other major cities, the prime minister and his government resigned, the army intervened, parliament was dissolved, and Nepal’s new (a…

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John L. Campbell, "Pay Up!: Conservative Myths about Tax Cuts for the Rich" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 34:35

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Since the Reagan era, conservatives in the United States have championed cutting taxes, especially for wealthy individuals and corporations, as the best way to achieve economic prosperity. In his new book, Pay Up!: Conservative Myths about Tax Cuts for the Rich (Cambridge UP, 2025) John L. Campbell shows that while these claims are highly influenti…

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Michael Jabara Carley, "Stalin's Gamble: The Search for Allies Against Hitler, 1930-1936" (U Toronto Press, 2023) 1:25:35

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Shedding light on the origins of the Second World War in Europe, Stalin's Gamble: The Search for Allies Against Hitler, 1930-1936 (University of Toronto Press, 2023) aims to create a historical narrative of the relations of the USSR with Britain, France, the United States, Poland, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Romania during the 1930s. The bo…

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Thea Riofrancos, "Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism" (W.W. Norton, 2025) 1:25:41

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Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism (W.W. Norton, 2025) is an in-depth analysis into the growing industry of green technologies and the environmental, social, and political consequences of the mining it requires. In the fight against climate change, lithium's role in reducing emissions by powering green economies is a mixed blessing. Draw…

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Mary E. Hicks, "Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025) 1:06:43

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From the bustling ports of Lisbon to the coastal inlets of the Bight of Benin to the vibrant waterways of Bahia, Black mariners were integral to every space of the commercial South Atlantic. Navigating this kaleidoscopic world required a remarkable cosmopolitanism--the chameleonlike ability to adapt to new surroundings by developing sophisticated m…

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Julia Rensing, "Troubling Archives: History and Memory in Namibian Literature and Art" (Transcript Publishing, 2025) 46:14

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Namibia’s colonial history casts a long shadow over the country’s present. Contemporary authors and artists confront the legacies of German and South African colonial rule and engage creatively with the persistent remnants of the past. In their works, the archive remains both an invaluable and fraught resource for accessing obscured histories. In T…

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Rosinka Chaudhuri, "India's First Radicals: Young Bengal and the British Empire" (India Viking, 2025) 52:09

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In 1831, the India Gazette wrote about a group of radical young thinkers that it credited for an upheaval in social and religious politics in Calcutta. These were the Young Bengal, the proteges of Henry Derozio of Hindu College. These thinkers, according to Rosinka Chaudhuri, were India’s first radicals, trying to reshape Indian politics as it came…

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J. Doyne Farmer, "Making Sense of Chaos" (Yale UP, 2024) 59:09

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We live in an age of increasing complexity--an era of accelerating technology and global interconnection that holds more promise, and more peril, than any other time in human history. The fossil fuels that have powered global wealth creation now threaten to destroy the world they helped build. Automation and digitization promise prosperity for some…

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Jonn Elledge, "A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders: Surprising Stories Behind the Lines on Our Maps" (Experiment, 2024) 56:57

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In this eye-opening investigation into the most remarkable points on the map, a single boundary might, upon closer inspection, reveal eons of history—from epic tales of conquest, treaties, and alliances to intimate, all-too-human stories of love, greed, and folly. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, none of the lin…

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Robert Waxler and David Beckman, "You Say, I Say: Staying Alive with Literature, Language, and Friendship" (Rivertown Books, 2025) 49:53

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In a world increasingly dominated by visual and electronic noise, Robert Waxler and David Beckman's You Say, I Say: Staying Alive with Literature, Language, and Friendship (Rivertown Books, 2025) captures the enduring power of literature-not to resolve the great questions of human existence, but to help us explore those questions in ways that are e…

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Kenneth R. Valpey, "Yoga and Animal Ethics" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) 43:42

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This open access book, Yoga and Animal Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) offers a comprehensive understanding of yoga theory and practice as it bears on several dimensions of animal-related ethical reflection and action. "Yoga" has become a household word in recent decades and, increasingly, has drawn physical yoga practitioners to explore its phil…

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Fiona J. Mackenzie, "The Cadence of a Song: The Life of Margaret Fay Shaw" (Birlinn, 2025) 46:08

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The American-born folklorist and musician Margaret Fay Shaw’s passion for the Hebrides led her to the island of South Uist in 1929 and then to Canna in 1935 as the wife of the eminent folklorist John Lorne Campbell. Her extraordinary work in documenting and preserving traditional Gaelic songs and customs remains a vital resource for understanding H…

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Debra Michals, "She's the Boss: The Rise of Women’s Entrepreneurship since World War II" (Rutgers UP, 2025) 43:55

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In the years after World War II, as women were being pushed from wartime jobs for returning soldiers, government and business leaders—and women themselves—saw small business ownership as a viable economic solution. In just five years, US women owned nearly a million of the nation’s businesses. In the decades since, women have moved increasingly int…