Best The Norton Library Podcasts (2025)

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Less Like You're Reading Her, More Like You're Listening to Her (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Part 1) 33:04

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2d ago33:04

33:04

In Part 1 of our discussion on Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself, we welcome editor Evie Shockley to discuss the author's family background, lively language as a storyteller, and influence on Shockley's own creative process as a poet. Evie Shockley is the Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English…

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

18h ago1:08:17

1:08:17

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

38m ago1:25:41

1:25:41

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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Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, "More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy" (Harper, 2025) 50:35

5d ago50:35

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It has become habitual to think of our relationship with energy as one of transition: with wood superseded by coal, coal by oil, oil by nuclear and then at some future point all replaced by green sources. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s devastating but unnervingly entertaining book shows what an extraordinary delusion this is. Far from the industrial era p…

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Bob Wyss, "Black Gold: The Rise, Reign, and Fall of American Coal" (University of California Press, 2025) 47:28

2d ago47:28

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For decades coal has been crucial to America's culture, society, and environment, an essential ingredient in driving out winter's cold, cooking meals, and lighting the dark. In the coalfields and beyond, in Black Gold: The Rise, Reign, and Fall of American Coal (University of California Press, 2025) Bob Wyss describes how this magical elixir sparke…

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Jon Mills, "End of the World: Civilization and Its Fate" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) 41:46

6d ago41:46

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Dr. Jon Mills, has had an impressive career as practicing professional, researcher, educator and writer in the psychology and psychoanalytic field. His work bounds the world of philosophy and psychology, focusing upon both individual human behavior and the manifestation of the collective behavior in the social context. He is the author and/or edito…

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Our Common Future: The Birth of Liberal Environmentalism 1:08:16

5d ago1:08:16

1:08:16

This is the second episode of Cited Podcast’s new season, Green Dreams. Green Dreams tells stories of radical environmental thinkers and their dreams for our green future. Should we make those dreams reality, or are they actually nightmares? For the rest of the episodes, visit the series page, and subscribe today (Apple, Spotify, RSS). An Albertan …

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Stephen A. Harris, "50 Plants That Changed the World" (Bodleian Library, 2025) 45:53

7d ago45:53

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Have you ever stopped to think about how your morning cappuccino came to be? From the coffee bush that yielded the beans, to the grass for the cattle – or perhaps the soya – that produced the milk, plants are an indispensable part of our everyday life. Beginning with some of the earliest uses of plants, in 50 Plants that Changed the World (Bodleian…

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Spike Bucklow, "The Year: An Ecology of the Zodiac" (Reaktion Books, 2025) 42:48

9d ago42:48

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Spike Bucklow joins Jana Byars to talk about The Year: An Ecology of the Zodiac (Reaktion, 2025). This delightful book defies genre. It is a journey through nature’s yearly cycle, blending science, history and poetic reflection.The Year takes us on a journey exploring how nature transforms across twelve months, each chapter focusing on a specific m…

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The High Frontier: Gerard O’Neill’s Space Utopia 1:26:54

11d ago1:26:54

1:26:54

This is the first episode of Cited Podcast’s new season, Green Dreams. Green Dreams tells stories of radical environmental thinkers and their dreams for our green future. Should we make those dreams reality, or are they actually nightmares? For the rest of the episodes, visit the series page, and subscribe today (Apple, Spotify, RSS). In the 1970s,…

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Devika Shankar, "An Encroaching Sea: Nature, Sovereignty and Development at the Edge of British India, 1860-1950" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:09:13

12d ago1:09:13

1:09:13

Ecological and political instability have time and again emerged as catalysts for risky development projects along India's south-west coastline. In An Encroaching Sea: Nature, Sovereignty and Development at the Edge of British India, 1860-1950 (Cambridge UP, 2024) Devika Shankar probes this complicated relationship between crisis and development th…

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Jessica Urwin, "Contaminated Country: Nuclear Colonialism and Aboriginal Resistance in Australia" (U of Washington Press, 2025) 53:23

19d ago53:23

53:23

Though a nonnuclear state, Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth century. From uranium extraction to nuclear testing, Australia’s lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development. The continent was subject to rampant nuclear colo…

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Joanne Yao, "The Ideal River: How Control of Nature Shaped the International Order" (Manchester UP, 2022) 39:05

20d ago39:05

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Environmental politics has traditionally been a peripheral concern for international relations theory, but increasing alarm over global environmental challenges has elevated international society's relationship with the natural world into the theoretical limelight. IR theory's engagement with environmental politics, however, has largely focused on …

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Bénédicte Meillon, "Ecopoetics of Reenchantment: Liminal Realism and Poetic Echoes of the Earth" (Bloomsbury, 2022) 53:59

19d ago53:59

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Ecopoetics of Reenchantment: Liminal Realism and Poetic Echoes of the Earth (Bloomsbury, 2022) tackles the reenchantment process at work in a part of contemporary ecoliterature that is marked by the resurfacing of the song of the earth topos and of Gaia images. Focusing on the postmodernist braiding of various indigenous and ecofeminist ontologies,…

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Michaela Vieser and Isaac Yuen, "The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds Across Landscapes and Imagination" (Reaktion, 2025) 1:00:34

25d ago1:00:34

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In The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds across Landscapes and Imagination (Reaktion, 2025), nature writers Michaela Vieser and Isaac Yuen set out in search of sounds beautiful and loathsome, melodious and disturbing, healing, strange and intimate. The phenomena of sound may be fleeting and evanescent, but the memory of it can open a window in…

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Anne Lawrence-Mathers, "Medieval Meteorology: Forecasting the Weather from Aristotle to the Almanac" (Cambridge UP, 2019) 31:23

28d ago31:23

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In this episode we speak to Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Professor of History at the University of Reading about her new book Medieval Meteorology: Forecasting the Weather from Aristotle to the Almanac, out this year, 2020, with Cambridge University Press. The practice of weather forecasting underwent a crucial transformation in the Middle Ages. Explorin…

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Joshua Specht, "Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America" (Princeton UP, 2019) 30:37

28d ago30:37

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Why do Americans eat so much beef? In Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America (Princeton University Press, 2019), the historian Joshua Specht provides a history that shows how our diets and consumer choices remain rooted in nineteenth century enterprises. A century and half ago, he writes, the colonialism and appropri…

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Maan Barua, "Plantation Worlds" (Duke UP, 2024) 58:49

27d ago58:49

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In Plantation Worlds (Duke UP, 2024), Maan Barua interrogates debates on planetary transformations through the histories and ecologies of plantations. Drawing on long-term research spanning fifteen years, Barua presents a unique ethnography attentive to the lives of both people and elephants amid tea plantations in the Indian state of Assam. In the…

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Ian Scoones, "Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World" (Polity, 2024) 1:04:00

1M ago1:04:00

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Uncertainties are everywhere. Whether it’s climate change, financial volatility, pandemic outbreaks or new technologies, we don’t know what the future will hold. For many contemporary challenges, navigating uncertainty – where we cannot predict what may happen – is essential and, as the book explores, this is much more than just managing risk. But …

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Timothy Barnard, "Imperial Creatures: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942" (NUS Press, 2019) 44:02

1M ago44:02

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In Imperial Creature: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942 (National University of Singapore Press, 2019), Timothy Barnard explores the more-than-human entanglements between empires and the creatures they govern. What is the relationship between the subjugation of human communities and that of animals? How did various interacti…

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Gregg Mitman, "Empire of Rubber: Firestone's Scramble for Land and Power in Liberia" (New Press, 2021) 42:00

1M ago42:00

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In the early 1920s, Americans owned 80 percent of the world’s automobiles and consumed 75 percent of the world’s rubber. But only one percent of the world’s rubber grew under the U.S. flag, creating a bottleneck that hampered the nation’s explosive economic expansion. To solve its conundrum, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company turned to a tiny We…

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Jack Buffington, "Environmental Innovation: An Action Plan for Saving the Economy and the Planet by 2050" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) 43:43

1M ago43:43

43:43

Environmental sustainability policy has failed due to focusing on symptoms rather than the root cause problems. Through significant research and a detailed roadmap for how to achieve sustainability by 2050, Buffington provides a realistic, game changing path forward that is both good for the environment and the economy. Dr. Jack Buffington received…

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Tim Lenton, "Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis" (Oxford UP, 2025) 56:53

1M ago56:53

56:53

As global change escalates, we are already starting to experience damaging tipping points in the social, ecological and climate systems that we depend upon - and much worse is to come. These shocks tell us we have left it too late for incremental change to save us: we need to change course fast to avoid the worst, yet we are acting far too slowly. …

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Alyssa Battistoni, "Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature" (Princeton UP, 2025) 1:31:59

1M ago1:31:59

1:31:59

Capitalism is typically treated as a force for relentless commodification. Yet it consistently fails to place value on vital aspects of the nonhuman world, whether carbon emissions or entire ecosystems. In Free Gifts, Alyssa Battistoni explores capitalism’s persistent failure to value nature, arguing that the key question is not the moral issue of …

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Jamie Wang, "Reimagining the More-Than-Human City: Stories from Singapore" (MIT Press, 2024) 50:53

1M ago50:53

50:53

As climate change accelerates and urbanization intensifies, our need for more sustainable and livable cities has never been more urgent. Yet, the imaginary of a flourishing urban ecofuture is often driven by a specific version of sustainability that is tied to both high-tech futurism and persistent economic growth. What kinds of sustainable futures…

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Domale Dube, "Ogoni Women's Activism: The Transnational Struggle for Justice" (University of Illinois Press, 2025) 33:48

2M ago33:48

33:48

A Glimpse of Ogoni Women’s Activism: The Transnational Struggle for Justice (University of Illinois Press, 2025) with Mariam Olugbodi “Ogoni Women’s Activism” is a democratic feminist movement, and a nonviolent struggle against oil spills and environmental destruction in the Niger-Delta Nigeria in the 90s. The Federation of Ogoni Women Activists (…

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154 Planetary Boundaries are Non-Negotiable: Kim Stanley Robinson 46:23

2M ago46:23

46:23

With influential series on California, on the terraforming of Mars, and on human civilization as reshaped by rising tides, Kim Stanley Robinson has established a conceptual space as dedicated to sustainability as his own beloved Village Homes in Davis, California. All of that, though, only prepared the ground for Ministry for the Future, his 2020 v…

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Timothy W. Kneeland, "Declaring Disaster: Buffalo's Blizzard of '77 and the Creation of FEMA" (Syracuse UP, 2021) 1:15:17

2M ago1:15:17

1:15:17

Join me for an insightful and timely conversation with historian Timothy Kneeland about his book Declaring Disaster: Buffalo's Blizzard of '77 and the Creation of FEMA (Syracuse University Press, 2021). This book masterfully bridges the gap between academic research and real-world policy implications. Hear from the author himself as he reflects on …

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Yuki Kato, "Gardens of Hope: Cultivating Food and the Future in a Post-Disaster City" (NYU Press, 2025) 1:07:12

2M ago1:07:12

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Gardens are often spaces of hope, expected to solve many problems in a city including food insecurity and climate resilience. In fact, there has been a historical trend of urban gardening gaining popularity during times of crisis. Gardens of Hope is the story of urban gardening in New Orleans in the decade after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita…

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Kurt D. Fausch, "A Reverence for Rivers: Imagining an Ethic for Running Waters" (OSU Press, 2025) 33:28

2M ago33:28

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In A Reverence for Rivers: Imagining an Ethic for Running Waters (OSU Press, 2025), Kurt Fausch draws on his experience as a stream ecologist, his interest in Indigenous cultures, and a thoughtful consideration of environmental ethics to explore human values surrounding freshwater ecosystems. Focusing on seven rivers across the globe—from the Salmo…

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It's Never Too Late to Discover Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms, Part 2) 33:45

2M ago33:45

33:45

In Part 2 of our discussion on Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Norton Library podcast host Mark Cirino returns to the guest seat (with producer Michael von Cannon stepping behind the microphone as host). The two discuss the cover design of the Norton Library edition, essential historical context for understanding the novel, and the ever-increasing …

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Robert N. Spengler, "Nature's Greatest Success: How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity" (Univ of California Press, 2025) 35:59

2M ago35:59

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The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labor force--and the science behind it. Domesticated crops were not human creations, and agriculture was not simply invented. As Robert N. Spengler shows, domestication was the result of an evolutionary process in which people played a role only unwittingly and as actors i…

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Has the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown? 34:53

2M ago34:53

34:53

It has been 10 years since the Paris Agreements of 2015 and – despite the initial enthusiasm – global investment in fossil fuels has increased and we seem to be on course to overshoot the limit of 1.5 degrees warming. Why is this happening? In this episode Licia Cianetti talks with Wim Carton about his book (co-authored with Andreas Malm) Overshoot…

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A Tale of Love and a Tale of War (A Farewell to Arms, Part 1) 33:52

3M ago33:52

33:52

In Part 1 of our discussion on Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, we welcome Norton Library podcast host Mark Cirino to the guest seat for the first time (with producer Michael von Cannon stepping behind the microphone as host). The two discuss the balance of autobiography and fiction in the text, situate A Farewell to Arms in the establishment of Hem…

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Emma Marris, "Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World" (Bloomsbury, 2021) 53:15

3M ago53:15

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In Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), Emma Marris wrestles with big ethical questions facing the conservation field. Emma takes us through several experiences that informed the book, exposing us to relevant on-the-ground decisions impacting the life or death of animals. When the interests of in…

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Myles Lennon, "Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Shadows of Racial Capitalism" (Duke UP, 2025) 1:06:47

3M ago1:06:47

1:06:47

In the face of accelerating climate change, anticapitalist environmental justice activists and elite tech corporations increasingly see eye to eye. Both envision solar-powered futures where renewable energy redresses gentrification, systemic racism, and underemployment. However, as Myles Lennon argues in Subjects of the Sun: Solar Energy in the Sha…

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Rachel Killean and Lauren Dempster, "Green Transitional Justice" (Routledge, 2025) 1:05:36

3M ago1:05:36

1:05:36

In this episode, host Alex Batesmith sits down with Dr Rachel Killean and Dr Lauren Dempster to discuss their groundbreaking new book, Green Transitional Justice (Routledge, 2025). The conversation explores the urgent need to rethink transitional justice (TJ) in light of the environmental crises facing post-conflict societies. Dr Killean and Dr Dem…

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Judith Scheele, "Shifting Sands: A Human History of the Sahara" (Basic Books, 2025) 1:06:25

3M ago1:06:25

1:06:25

What comes to mind when we think about the Sahara? Rippling sand dunes, sun-blasted expanses, camel drivers and their caravans perhaps. Or famine, climate change, civil war, desperate migrants stuck in a hostile environment. The Sahara stretches across 3.2 million square miles, hosting several million inhabitants and a corresponding variety of lang…

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Kelsea Best, Kayly Ober, Robert A. McLeman, "Migration and Displacement in a Changing Climate" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 44:18

3M ago44:18

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This book provides insight into the impact of climate change on human mobility - including both migration and displacement - by synthesizing key concepts, research, methodology, policy, and emerging issues surrounding the topic. It illuminates the connections between climate change and its implications for voluntary migration, involuntary displacem…

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Brent Z. Kaup and Kelly F. Austin, "The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease" (U of California Press, 2025) 51:41

3M ago51:41

51:41

The Pathogens of Finance: How Capitalism Breeds Vector-Borne Disease (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Brent Z. Kaup & Dr. Kelly F. Austin is an exploration of how the rising power and profits of Wall Street underpin the contemporary increases in and inadequate responses to vector-borne disease. Over the past fifty years, insects have t…

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Hector and Achilles are More Alike Than You Think (The Iliad, Part 2) 35:33

3M ago35:33

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In Part 2 of our discussion on Homer's Iliad, translator Emily Wilson returns to discuss the red and gold cover design of the Norton Library edition, recount her decision to recreate a new translation of the epic, and give a performance in the original ancient Greek. Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania…

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Todd May "Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times" (Crown, 2024) 58:22

3M ago58:22

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These days it’s harder than ever to watch TV, scroll social media, or even just sit at home looking out of the window without contemplating the question at the heart of philosopher Todd May’s Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times (Crown, 2024). Facing climate destruction and the revived specter of nuclear annihilat…

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Michael Grunwald, "We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate" (Simon & Schuster, 2025) 46:39

3M ago46:39

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Michael Grunwald is a well renown journalist, who over the last thirty years has focused on public policy and national politics, with the last fifteen years having him zeroing in or climate-related issues. His current book, which he wrote this after six years of research. It was a passionate journey to understand, not to advocate for any position. …

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Johanna Drucker, "Affluvia: the Toxic Off-Gassing of Affluent Culture" (Bridge Art, 2025) 49:13

3M ago49:13

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In the latest episode of Unlocking Academia, Tarin Ahmed, the host, is joined by guest, Johanna Drucker, an American author, book artist, visual theorist, and cultural critic. In a discussion on Drucker's recent publication, Affluvia: The Toxic Off-Gassing of Affluent Culture (Bridge Books, 2025), they cover topics of invisible labour, globalisatio…

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Char Miller, "Burn Scars: A Documentary History of Fire Suppression, from Colonial Origins to the Resurgence of Cultural Burning" (Oregon State UP, 2024) 1:14:58

3M ago1:14:58

1:14:58

Fire is a means of control and has been deployed or constrained to levy power over individuals, societies, and ecologies. In Burn Scars: A Documentary History of Fire Suppression, from Colonial Origins to the Resurgence of Cultural Burning (Oregon State UP, 2024), Pomona College professor Char Miller has edited a collection of documents and essays …

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Ali Aslam, David W. McIvor, and Joel Alden Schlosser, "Earthborn Democracy: A Political Theory of Entangled Life" (Columbia UP, 2024) 52:20

3M ago52:20

52:20

Ecological crises threaten all forms of life on earth. Democracy too is endangered, as popular discontent, elite malfeasance, and unresponsive institutions imperil its survival. Present political concepts have proven inadequate to meeting these challenges, and their inadequacies are themselves symptoms of the failures of prevailing political, cultu…

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Wolfram H. Dressler, "For the Sake of Forests and Gods: Governing Life and Livelihood in the Philippine Uplands" (Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2025) 50:30

3M ago50:30

50:30

For the Sake of Forests and Gods: Governing Life and Livelihood in the Philippine Uplands (Cornell University Press, 2025) examines the impacts of religious and environmental non-governmental actors on the lives of highlanders on Palawan Island, the Philippines. The absence of the state in Palawan's mountainous regions have meant that these non-gov…

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Barbara Allen, "Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds: Stories of Extinction" (Reaktion, 2025) 1:03:03

3M ago1:03:03

1:03:03

Lost Animals, Disappearing Worlds: Stories of Extinction (Reaktion, 2025) by Reverend Barbara Allen presents thirty-one extinct species through the personal perspectives of those animals. This intimate approach not only highlights each species but explores the broader implications of losing a species forever. How do we honour such a loss? Can we gr…