Best DC Public Library Podcasts (2025)

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Jean-Thomas Tremblay, "Breathing Aesthetics" (Duke UP, 2022) 1:03:40

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1h ago1:03:40

1:03:40

In Breathing Aesthetics (Duke University Press (2022), Jean-Thomas Tremblay argues that difficult breathing indexes the uneven distribution of risk in a contemporary era marked by the increasing contamination, weaponization, and monetization of air. Tremblay shows how biopolitical and necropolitical forces tied to the continuation of extractive cap…

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Michael McCulloch, "Building a Social Contract: Modern Workers’ Houses in Early Twentieth-Century Detroit" (Temple UP, 2023) 56:25

4h ago56:25

56:25

The dream of the modern worker’s house emerged in early twentieth-century America as wage earners gained access to new, larger, and better-equipped dwellings. Building a Social Contract: Modern Workers’ Houses in Early Twentieth-Century Detroit (Temple UP, 2023) is a cogent history of the houses those workers dreamed of and labored for. Dr. Michael…

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Nicholas Gamso, "Art After Liberalism" (Columbia UP, 2022) 1:23:31

2h ago1:23:31

1:23:31

Art After Liberalism (Columbia UP, 2022) is an account of creative practice at a moment of converging political and social rifts – a moment that could be described as a crisis of liberalism. The apparent failures of liberal thinking are a starting point for an inquiry into emergent ways of living, acting, and making art in the company of others. Wh…

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RERUN: Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid 1:34:10

1h ago1:34:10

1:34:10

S07.33, originally released on April 29, 2025. The Rest For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2025/4/28/0733-heated-rivalry-by-rachel-reid If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside …

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Taylor McCall, "The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe" (Reaktion Books, 2023) 36:55

4h ago36:55

36:55

Taylor McCall's The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe (Reaktion, 2023) is the first history of medieval European anatomical images. Richly illustrated, The Art of Anatomy in Medieval Europe explores the many ways in which medieval surgeons, doctors, monks, and artists understood and depicted human anatomy. Taylor McCall refutes the common misconcep…

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Allison Christine Meier, "Grave" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 50:17

3d ago50:17

50:17

Grave (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Allison C. Meier takes a ground-level view of how burial sites have transformed over time and how they continue to change. As a cemetery tour guide, Meier has spent more time walking among tombstones than most. Even for her, the grave has largely been invisible, an out of the way and unobtrusive marker of death. However,…

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White House Clubhouse by Sean OBrien 27:24

1h ago27:24

27:24

Former White House speechwriter Sean O'Brien takes us inside the building to a secret passageway to the past in his mystery "White House Clubhouse." Readers from Oak View Elementary School in Fairfax, Virginia discuss how Theodore Roosevelt's mantras are still relevant to them today. Actress Elizabeth Logun is celebrity reader. Kitty Felde is host.…

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Lauren E. M. Everett, "Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing" (Temple UP, 2025) 49:42

4d ago49:42

49:42

Rent control and other tenant protections have profound and positive impacts on individuals’ and communities’ lives. Dr. Lauren Everett’s Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica’s Rent-Controlled Housing (Temple UP, 2025) shows how rent control impacts the lives of the renters themselves. Dr. Everett interviews residents about…

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Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, "Barbarian Architecture: Thorstein Veblen’s Chicago" (MIT Press, 2024) 39:36

4d ago39:36

39:36

An important critic of modern culture, American economist Thorstein Veblen is best known for the concept of “conspicuous consumption,” the ostentatious display of goods in the service of social status. In the field of architectural history, scholars have employed Veblen in support of a wide range of arguments about modern architecture, but never ha…

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S08.11: Holiday Romance 2025 1:41:07

3d ago1:41:07

1:41:07

The end of the year is nigh, and it's our holiday romance novel episode! We're talking about a collection of romances that are entirely new to us (except for the one moment where Sarah talks about that old McNaught short story that installed all her cold-weather romance buttons). We've got Austen retellings, Regency cats, characters playing with ho…

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Sebastian Truskolaski, "Adorno and the Ban on Images" (Bloomsbury, 2022) 58:05

4d ago58:05

58:05

Adorno and the Ban on Images (Bloomsbury, 2022) upends some of the myths that have come to surround the work of the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno – not least amongst them, his supposed fatalism. Sebastian Truskolaski argues that Adorno's writings allow us to address what is arguably the central challenge of modern philosophy: how to picture a world…

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Marek Kohn, "The Stories Old Towns Tell: A Journey Through Cities at the Heart of Europe" (Yale UP, 2023) 59:34

6d ago59:34

59:34

Historic quarters in cities and towns across the middle of Europe were devastated during the Second World War—some, like those of Warsaw and Frankfurt, had to be rebuilt almost completely. They are now centers of peace and civility that attract millions of tourists, but the stories they tell about places, peoples, and nations are selective. They ar…

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Tom White, "Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster" (Repeater, 2025) 39:40

7d ago39:40

39:40

Once used extensively in schools, hospitals, and housing, asbestos has taken the lives of millions. Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster (Repeater, 2025) by Tom White traces the international history of the asbestos disaster — from mining operations in apartheid South Africa to the factories and shipyards of the UK – and tells the story of …

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Ilan Kelman, "Antarcticness: Inspirations and Imaginaries" (UCL Press, 2022) 42:16

5d ago42:16

42:16

Antarcticness: Inspirations and Imaginaries (UCL Press, 2022) edited by Ilan Kelman Antarcticness joins disciplines, communication approaches, and ideas to explore meanings and depictions of Antarctica. Personal and professional words in poetry and prose, plus images, present and represent Antarctica, as presumed and as imagined, alongside what is …

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Housing in 2026: Counties Come to the Table With Solutions 41:01

20h ago41:01

41:01

Housing will take center stage in the 2026 legislative session, and counties are ready. This week, Kevin Kinnally, Michael Sanderson, and Dom Butchko walk through MACo's major legislative initiative, the BAMBY Act (Build Affordably in My Backyard). Together they trace the recent history of housing policy in Maryland, unpack the 2025 session, and ou…

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Ana Patricia Rodríguez, "Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area" (University of Arizona Press, 2025) 33:03

10d ago33:03

33:03

For more than four generations, Salvadorans have made themselves at home in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and have transformed the region, contributing their labor, ingenuity, and culture to the making of a thriving but highly neglected and overlooked community. In this episode, we sit down with Ana Patricia Rodríguez, author of Av…

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Ana Patricia Rodríguez, "Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area" (University of Arizona Press, 2025) 33:03

10d ago33:03

33:03

For more than four generations, Salvadorans have made themselves at home in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and have transformed the region, contributing their labor, ingenuity, and culture to the making of a thriving but highly neglected and overlooked community. In this episode, we sit down with Ana Patricia Rodríguez, author of Av…

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Ana Patricia Rodríguez, "Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area" (University of Arizona Press, 2025) 33:03

10d ago33:03

33:03

For more than four generations, Salvadorans have made themselves at home in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and have transformed the region, contributing their labor, ingenuity, and culture to the making of a thriving but highly neglected and overlooked community. In this episode, we sit down with Ana Patricia Rodríguez, author of Av…

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Favorite Books from You and the National Book Festival 10:42

1h ago10:42

10:42

If you've listened to the show before, you know that we ask everybody our favorite question: What's your favorite book and why. We ask it in classrooms, we ask it in libraries, and we ask if of YOU. A pair of twin brothers from Washington state picked up a phone and recorded their answers on the voice memo app of a smartphone and sent it to us. We …

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Dustin Condren, "An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:07:57

9d ago1:07:57

1:07:57

An Imaginary Cinema: Sergei Eisenstein and the Unrealized Film (Cornell UP, 2024) explores the unfinished cinematic projects developed and abandoned by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein between 1927 and 1937. Centred on seven major film concepts, the book examines what it means for a work of art—particularly a film—to remain unfinished or unrealis…

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S08.10: The Best Romance Novels of 2025 1:51:30

5d ago1:51:30

1:51:30

It's that time of year! We're talking about the Best Romance Novels of 2025. We've chosen ten books that we love and that cover a range of historical, contemporary and paranormal, featuring romance with werewolves and cowboys, vaudeville actresses and vikings, Dukes and the actual Devil. This year, you can buy the Fated Mates Best of 2025 Book Pack…

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Henry H. Sapoznik, "The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City" (SUNY Press, 2025) 47:40

12d ago47:40

47:40

The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City (SUNY Press, 2025) by Henry H. Sapoznik explores a century of Yiddish popular culture in New York City. Sapoznik--the author of Klezmer! Jewish Music fro0m Old World to Our World and a Peabody Award-winning coproducer of NPR's Yiddish Radio Project--tells his story through chapters on eating, archit…

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Rizvana Bradley, "Anteaesthetics: Black Aesthesis and the Critique of Form" (Stanford UP, 2023) 1:02:09

13d ago1:02:09

1:02:09

In Anteaesthetics: Black Aesthesis and the Critique of Form (Stanford UP, 2023), Rizvana Bradley begins from the proposition that blackness cannot be represented in modernity's aesthetic regime, but is nevertheless foundational to every representation. Troubling the idea that the aesthetic is sheltered from the antiblack terror that lies just beyon…

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Cybersecurity, AI Bots & Public Records: What Counties Need to Know 29:44

12d ago29:44

29:44

In this week's episode of the Conduit Street Podcast, Karrington Anderson talks with Sarah Sample to break down the rapidly evolving world of Public Information Act (PIA) requests in Maryland and why counties are feeling the pressure. They talk through the effects of the rise of automated and anonymous AI-generated PIA requests, cybersecurity threa…

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Carolyn T. Adams et. al, "Greater Philadelphia: A New History for the Twenty-First Century" (Penn Press, 2025) 37:06

16d ago37:06

37:06

Informed by current scholarship and richly illustrated with full-color photographs and maps, Greater Philadelphia: A New History for the Twenty-First Century (Penn Press, 2025) brings to the public an up-to-date, diverse history of Philadelphia across its many dimensions. Volume 1 adopts "Greater Philadelphia" to indicate a regional scope, but not …

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A Conversation with Janet Macreery 6:23

14d ago6:23

6:23

We have a conversation with "A Little Wicked" author Janet Macreery about two kids of writers: plotters and pantsers. Kitty Felde is host.By Kitty Felde

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S08.09: Our Favorite Romance Microtropes 1:27:03

39m ago1:27:03

1:27:03

We had a great week, and so we decided we all need nice things, which means it's time to just talk about the stuff we love in romance. We're talking about our favorite microtropes in romance novels--the things that give us pure shots of joy. There's all sorts of stuff in here: contemporaries, historicals, paranormals, mafia, hockey, tattoos, pierci…

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Ihnji Jon, "Cities in the Anthropocene: New Ecology and Urban Politics" (Pluto Press, 2021) 43:07

22d ago43:07

43:07

Climate change is real, and extreme weather events are its physical manifestations. These extreme events affect how we live and work in cities, and subsequently the way we design, plan, and govern them. Taking action 'for the environment' is not only a moral imperative; instead, it is activated by our everyday experience in the city. Based on the a…

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Hot Takes: Shutdowns, SNAP, and the State of Countyland 36:20

19d ago36:20

36:20

This week on the Conduit Street Podcast, Kevin Kinnally, Michael Sanderson, and Karrington Anderson debut a new recurring segment – Conduit Street Podcast Hot Takes, where our hosts break down what’s “news” and what’s just… “noise” in Maryland policy and politics. In this episode, the trio tackles the ongoing federal government shutdown, exploring …

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Mattin, "Social Dissonance" (MIT Press, 2022) 59:44

21d ago59:44

59:44

We are not what we think we are. Our self-image as natural individuated subjects is determined behind our backs: historically by political forces, cognitively by the language we use, and neurologically by sub-personal mechanisms, as revealed by scientific and philosophical analyses. Under contemporary capitalism, as the gap between this self-image …

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NPR's Susan Stamberg live from the National Archive 41:03

22d ago41:03

41:03

We pay tribute to NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg as we reprise an episode taped before a live audience at the National Archives in 2017. Readers from the Girlfriends BookClub Baltimore discuss A Little Wicked by Janet Macreery with host Kitty Felde. Susan Stamberg is our celebrity reader. You can read a special tribute to Susan at our web…

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William J. Glover, "Reformatting Agrararian Life: Urban History from the Countryside in Colonial India" (Stanford UP, 2025) 56:58

25d ago56:58

56:58

Reformatting Agrarian Life presents a stealth urban history from the countryside that foregrounds the mutual entanglements of agrarian and urban expertise. William J. Glover traces an essential genealogy for understanding how urbanism unexpectedly left the city in late colonial India and began to settle in agrarian space, exploring how two milieus …

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S08.08: Romance Short Stories and the Ladies in Waiting Anthology 2:10:01

21d ago2:10:01

2:10:01

We definitely have a hope became reality hangover this morning, but we also have a very fun episode for you today! We're talking romance shorts -- not novellas, not short novels, but actual short stories under 15,000 words (or about 50 pages). We talk about why this is such a difficult goal to hit, about why romance lends itself to longer formats, …

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Cynthia Paces, "Prague: The Heart of Europe" (Oxford UP, 2025) 46:05

28d ago46:05

46:05

In this episode of the CEU Review of Books Podcast, I sat down with Cynthia Paces to talk about her new book, Prague: The Heart of Europe (Oxford UP, 2025). Prague is the first English-language book to trace the history of the city from the tenth century to the present. Cynthia discusses her personal connection to Prague, highlights key moments in …

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Elizabeth Currie, "Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio" (Reaktion, 2025) 37:51

26d ago37:51

37:51

In late sixteenth-century Rome, artists found inspiration in bustling streets and taverns, depicting soldiers, Romani fortune tellers, sex workers and servants among the city’s poorest inhabitants. Street Style: Art and Dress in the Time of Caravaggio (Reaktion, 2025) by Dr. Elizabeth Currie explores these hidden lives, uncovering how the stories o…

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C. Yamini Krishna, "Film City Urbanism in India: Hyderabad, from Princely City to Global City ,1890-2000" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 49:26

29d ago49:26

49:26

Film City Urbanism in India: Hyderabad, from Princely City to Global City ,1890-2000 (Cambridge UP, 2025) is about the reciprocal relationship between cinema and the city as two institutions which co-constitute each other while fashioning the socio-political currents of the region. It interrogates imperial, postcolonial, socio-cultural, and economi…

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Pablo Meninato and Gregory Marinic, "Urban Labyrinths: Informal Settlements, Architecture, and Social Change in Latin America" (Routledge, 2025) 1:17:22

1M ago1:17:22

1:17:22

Urban Labyrinths: Informal Settlements, Architecture, and Social Change in Latin America examines intervention initiatives in informal settlements in Latin American cities as social, spatial, architectural, and cultural processes. From the mid-20th century to the present, Latin America and other regions in the Global South have experienced a remark…

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Claudia Gastrow, "The Aesthetics of Belonging: Indigenous Urbanism and City Building in Oil-Boom Luanda" (UNC Press Books, 2024) 58:19

1M ago58:19

58:19

After centuries of colonial rule, the end of Angola’s three-decade civil war in 2002 provided an irresistible opportunity for the government to reimagine the Luanda cityscape. Awash with petrodollars cultivated through strategic foreign relationships, President José Eduardo dos Santos rolled out a national reconstruction program that sought to tran…

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Pitching Policy & Fielding a Federal Shutdown - A DC View with Congressman Johnny O 47:19

27d ago47:19

47:19

This week on the Conduit Street Podcast, Kevin Kinnally and Michael Sanderson sit down with Congressman Johnny Olszewski, Jr., a former Maryland Delegate, Baltimore County Executive, and 2025 MACo President, now serving Maryland’s Second Congressional District. Congressman Olszewski discusses the federal shutdown and the strain it places on Marylan…

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159 Glenn Patterson: You Can Choose Who You Are (JP, DC) 1:05:10

1M ago1:05:10

1:05:10

In Belfast, good fences can make for bad neighbors. David Cunningham ( Wash U. sociologist, author of There’s Something Happening Here and Klansville, U.S.A and frequent RTB visitor) joins John to speak about the Troubles and their aftermath with the brilliant Northern Irish novelist/essayist/memoirist Glenn Patterson. His fiction includes The Inte…

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Cosima Clara Gillhammer, "Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy" (Reaktion Books, 2025) 1:12:24

29d ago1:12:24

1:12:24

With implications for the history of religion and art alike, an exploration of the lasting influence of Christian liturgy across a range of media. Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy (Reaktion Books, 2025) offers a captivating journey through the history of religious rituals in Western Europe, showcasing the profound impact of Christ…

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A Conversation with Lisa Thompson 8:18

28d ago8:18

8:18

Does a background in radio help you write dialogue? What's the one thing you should never include in a book designed for readers with dyslexia? We ask the expert: Lisa Thompson, author of "The Light Jar" and other middle grade novels.By Kitty Felde

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Adair Rounthwaite, "This Is Not My World: Art and Public Space in Socialist Zagreb" (U Minnesota Press, 2024) 1:01:44

1M ago1:01:44

1:01:44

This Is Not My World: Art and Public Spaces in Socialist Zagreb (U Minnesota Press, 2024) examines the Group of Six Authors—a collective of young artists who staged provocative art events in the public spaces of socialist Yugoslavia during the 1970s and early 1980s. The book analyses how these spaces, which had long been forums of state ideological…