Artificial Intelligence is the most transformative technology since the harnessing of electricity according to former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. A world where personal AI agents anticipate our every need and are our closest companions is potentially just around the corner. And that’s where Don’t Stop Us Now AI Edition comes in. Convinced about the mammoth impact of AI, we’re going all in on AI for the foreseeable future. Together with leading experts, we’ll explore how your job may change or ...
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Interviews with Scholars of Eastern Europe about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies
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Everybody’s had them, everybody can relate to them, and now we’re back with more of the wildest you’ve ever heard, on BAD DATES! Join host Joel Kim Booster (Loot, Fire Island, Netflix) as he invites his favorite funny friends to share their most iconic dating fiascos. From the team behind the hit podcast SmartLess, BAD DATES will make you laugh a lot, cry a little, and cringe just enough. Because as we all know - the worst dates make the best stories. It’s a new host, but the same old mess! ...
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Interviews with scholars of Ukraine about their new books
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Tobias Brinkmann, "Between Borders: The Great Jewish Migration from Eastern Europe" (Oxford UP, 2924)
1:34:29
1:34:29
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1:34:29Between the 1860s and the early 1920s, more than two million Jews moved from Eastern Europe to the United States while smaller groups moved to other destinations, such as Western Europe, Palestine, and South Africa. During and after the First World War hundreds of thousands of Jews were permanently displaced across Eastern Europe. Migration restric…
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Serhii Plokhy, "The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine" (Basic Books, 2015)
1:30:17
1:30:17
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1:30:17As Ukraine is embroiled in an ongoing struggle with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence, celebrated historian Serhii Plokhy explains that today's crisis is a case of history repeating itself: the Ukrainian conflict is only the latest in a long history of turmoil over Ukraine's sovereignty. Situated between Centra…
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A Pair Of Hands Will Tell You (w/ Nicole Aimée Schreiber, Mike Lawrence, and Nore Davis)
41:08
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41:08On a new episode of Bad Dates, host Joel Kim Booster welcomes comedians Nicole Aimée Schreiber, Mike Lawrence, and Nore Davis to discuss their most iconic dating fiascos. Nicole really likes Matzo balls and luckily her date doesn’t mind them either, Mike is bi-curious but in the end it’s just “bye,” and Nore gets introduced to red wine but in the m…
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Katarina Kušic, "Beyond International Intervention: Politics of Improvement in Serbia" (University of Michigan Press, 2025)
1:03:37
1:03:37
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1:03:37Studies of statebuilding and peacebuilding have been criticized for their disregard of people living the consequences of intervention projects. Beyond International Intervention: Politics of Improvement in Serbia (University of Michigan Press, 2025) by Dr. Katarina Kušic takes on the task of engaging with spaces and peoples not usually present in I…
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Antonio J. Muñoz, "Hitler's War Against the Partisans During Operation Barbarossa: June 1941 to the Spring of 1942" (Frontline, 2025)
1:41:25
1:41:25
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1:41:25A detailed history of Nazi anti-partisan warfare on the Eastern Front during Operation Barbarossa. From the start of the war on the Eastern Front, Hitler's Ostheer, his Eastern Army, would wage a vernichtungskrieg, or war of annihilation, in the East. Never before had such a wide-reaching campaign been fought. Preparations for Germany's invasion of…
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Thomas Mutch, "The Dogs of Mariupol: Russia's Invasion and the Forging of Ukraine's Iron Generation" (Biteback, 2025)
42:03
42:03
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42:03In early 2022, as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border, Tom Mutch, a freelance war reporter, took a trip to Mariupol to take the temperature of this (then) culturally vibrant port on the Sea of Azov. What stayed with him was the sound of the stray dogs and their "rhythmic and frantic barking, as if they were shouting a warning in unison". With…
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Thomas Mutch, "The Dogs of Mariupol: Russia's Invasion and the Forging of Ukraine's Iron Generation" (Biteback, 2025)
42:03
42:03
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42:03In early 2022, as Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border, Tom Mutch, a freelance war reporter, took a trip to Mariupol to take the temperature of this (then) culturally vibrant port on the Sea of Azov. What stayed with him was the sound of the stray dogs and their "rhythmic and frantic barking, as if they were shouting a warning in unison". With…
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Speed Dates: Slicing Citrus (w/ Greta Titleman)
19:14
19:14
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19:14On this Speed Dates episode, host Joel Kim Booster sits down with one of his favorites, the hilarious Greta Titleman, to talk about how you know the one’s the one, how you know this one’s not the one, the 80s romcoms and stand-up sex scenes that have warped her romantic perspective, and what’s making her believe in love this week (spoiler alert: th…
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Keir Giles, "Who Will Defend Europe?: An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent" (Hurst & Co., 2024)
42:18
42:18
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42:18Who will defend Europe? The answer should be obvious: Europe should be able to defend itself. Yet, for decades, most of the continent enjoyed a defence holiday, outsourcing protection to the United States while banking an increasingly illusory ‘peace dividend’. Now, after three decades of reducing armed forces and drawing down defence industries, E…
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Keir Giles, "Who Will Defend Europe?: An Awakened Russia and a Sleeping Continent" (Hurst & Co., 2024)
42:18
42:18
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42:18Who will defend Europe? The answer should be obvious: Europe should be able to defend itself. Yet, for decades, most of the continent enjoyed a defence holiday, outsourcing protection to the United States while banking an increasingly illusory ‘peace dividend’. Now, after three decades of reducing armed forces and drawing down defence industries, E…
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Greta Lynn Uehling, "Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025)
53:32
53:32
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53:32In 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 …
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Re-Release: Dull-Eyed Manatees (w/ Amy Miller, Guy Branum, and Kyle Ayers)
39:28
39:28
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39:28Happy Memorial Day! Please enjoy this re-release of Joel's first episode as host. On this episode, Joel Kim Booster welcomes comedians Amy Miller, Guy Branum, and Kyle Ayers to discuss their most iconic dating fiascos. Amy would rather not belong to a club that now has her as a member, Guy simply demands Stacey Dash or better, and Kyle fakes a not-…
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Claire Knight, "Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953" (Cornell UP, 2024)
1:26:23
1:26:23
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1:26:23Stalin's Final Films: Cinema, Socialist Realism, and Soviet Postwar Reality, 1945-1953 (Cornell UP, 2024) explores a neglected period in the history of Soviet cinema, breathing new life into a body of films long considered moribund as the pinnacle of Stalinism. While film censorship reached its apogee in this period and fewer films were made, film …
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Greta Lynn Uehling, "Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025)
53:32
53:32
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53:32In 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 …
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Yitzhak Conforti, "Zionism and Jewish Culture: A Study in the Origins of a National Movement" (Academic Studies Press, 2024)
55:50
55:50
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55:50What many people don’t realize is that Zionism is not a monolithic term. From its inception there were rigorous debates about the nature and direction of the movement? Thinkers had argued about some of the fundamental questions around Israel. Where would a future Jewish state be located? What language would they speak? Should Israel come about thro…
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Charles Hecker, "Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia" (Oxford UP, 2025)
1:03:56
1:03:56
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1:03:56Today I interviewed Charles Hecker about Zero Sum. The Arc of International Business in Russia (Oxford UP, 2025). Hecker, a journalist and business consultant, speaks with dozens of Western business executives, bankers, and financiers who reaped immense profits for themselves and their companies in the Russian market, which suddenly opened to forei…
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Jan Borowicz, "Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders" (Routledge, 2024)
1:15:10
1:15:10
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1:15:10Today I interviewed Jan Borowicz about Perverse Memory and the Holocaust: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Polish Bystanders (Routledge, 2024). "The assumptions of my book rely on a simple thesis: indifference to violence is impossible and that the primal scene for Polish culture is the experience of Nazism. In Poland we have still a humanitarian …
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In this week’s episode, we speak with Dr Nici Sweaney, founder of AI Her Way, who brings a powerful perspective on why women urgently need to engage with artificial intelligence - not just for their own personal productivity, but for the future quality of AI itself. Nici's journey into AI consulting and training began with a moment of clarity while…
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Richard Calis, "The Discovery of Ottoman Greece: Knowledge, Encounter, and Belief in the Mediterranean World of Martin Crusius" (Harvard UP, 2025)
1:01:51
1:01:51
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1:01:51In the late sixteenth century, a German Lutheran scholar named Martin Crusius compiled an exceptionally rich record of Greek life under Ottoman rule. Although he never left his home in the university town of Tübingen, Crusius spent decades annotating books and manuscripts, corresponding with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, and interviewing Greek Orth…
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The Ol’ Cincinnati Funny Bone (w/ Pete Lee, Lili Michelle, and Rachel Scanlon)
52:05
52:05
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52:05On a new episode of Bad Dates, host Joel Kim Booster welcomes comedians Pete Lee, Lili Michelle, and Rachel Scanlon to discuss their most iconic dating fiascos. Pete gives us the epic tale of the threesome that never was, Lili tells a comically large story from her Year Of Yes, and Rachel is either on a date or a Make-A-Wish, it’s hard to say. If y…
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Júlia Király, "Hungary and Other Emerging EU Countries in the Financial Storm: From Minor Troubles to Global Hurricane" (Springer, 2020)
46:31
46:31
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46:31Donald Trump is putting liberal democracy through its greatest test in 80 years. None of it is original. His style of rule is straight from the democratic backsliders' playbook. To secure long-term power rather than short-term office, rulers must take over the institutions that check and balance majority rule and bend them to their will. Trump has …
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Victoria Khiterer, "Bitter War of Memory: The Babyn Yar Massacre, Aftermath, and Commemoration" (Purdue UP, 2025)
1:39:28
1:39:28
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1:39:28Bitter War of Memory: The Babyn Yar Massacre, Aftermath, and Commemoration (Purdue UP, 2025) discusses the Holocaust in Kyiv and the efforts to memorialize the Babyn Yar massacre. Babyn Yar is one of the largest Holocaust sites in the Soviet Union and modern Ukraine, where the Nazis and their collaborators killed virtually all the Jews who remained…
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Paul R. Magocsi and Yohanan Petrovskiĭ-Shtern, "Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-existence" (U Toronto Press, 2018)
56:16
56:16
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56:16There is much that ordinary Ukrainians do not know about Jews and that ordinary Jews do not know about Ukrainians. As a result, those Jews and Ukrainians who may care about their respective ancestral heritages usually view each other through distorted stereotypes, misperceptions, and biases. This book sheds new light on highly controversial moments…
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Paul R. Magocsi and Yohanan Petrovskiĭ-Shtern, "Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-existence" (U Toronto Press, 2018)
56:16
56:16
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56:16There is much that ordinary Ukrainians do not know about Jews and that ordinary Jews do not know about Ukrainians. As a result, those Jews and Ukrainians who may care about their respective ancestral heritages usually view each other through distorted stereotypes, misperceptions, and biases. This book sheds new light on highly controversial moments…
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I Gave Indiana My Banana (w/ Tom Thakkar, Charlotte Dobre, and Sam Lantz)
31:38
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31:38On a new episode of Bad Dates, host Joel Kim Booster welcomes Tom Thakkar, Charlotte Dobre, and Sam Lantz to discuss their most iconic dating fiascos. Tom’s date is sorry not sorry but she should maybe explore just being plain sorry, Charlotte lives a reverse “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” and Sam’s daddy is a hoarder of everything, including his exes. …
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Alex Storozynski, "Spies In My Blood: A Polish Family’s Secret Fight Against Nazis & Communists" (Polestar-Media, 2025)
51:12
51:12
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51:12Spies In My Blood: A Polish Family’s Secret Fight Against Nazis & Communists (Polestar-Media, 2025) is the true story of two brothers raised in New York by WWII exiles and their journey to Poland. Each takes a different path to infiltrate the Communist secret police on a mission to uncover the truth about their family of soldiers, spies, and assass…
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Victoria Khiterer, "Bitter War of Memory: The Babyn Yar Massacre, Aftermath, and Commemoration" (Purdue UP, 2025)
1:39:28
1:39:28
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1:39:28Bitter War of Memory: The Babyn Yar Massacre, Aftermath, and Commemoration (Purdue UP, 2025) discusses the Holocaust in Kyiv and the efforts to memorialize the Babyn Yar massacre. Babyn Yar is one of the largest Holocaust sites in the Soviet Union and modern Ukraine, where the Nazis and their collaborators killed virtually all the Jews who remained…
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Chris Webb and Artur Hojan, "The Chelmno Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance" (Ibidem Press, 2019)
53:43
53:43
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53:43The Chelmno Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (Ibidem Press, 2019) is a comprehensive account of the Chelmno death camp. Chelmno was not only the first Nazi death camp, it also set a horrific example in establishing gas vans as the first mass use of poison gas to kill Jews. Chris Webb and Artur Hojan cover the construction and the devel…
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