Best Polemics Podcasts (2025)

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Foluke Taylor, "Unruly Therapeutic: Black Feminist Writings and Practices in Living Room" (Norton, 2023) 1:06:33

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19h ago1:06:33

1:06:33

In 1977, The Combahee River Collective, a group of Black American feminists issued a statement communicating the harrowing following: “The psychological toll of being a Black woman…can never be underestimated. There is a low value placed on Black women’s psyches in this society, which is both racist and sexist. We are dispossessed psychologically a…

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Polemics Rec. | Decolonising Education Systems in Greenland with Linda Lyberth Kristiansen - S03E04 19:35

23h ago19:35

19:35

In this episode, we speak with Linda Lyberth Kristiansen about what it means to decolonise education systems in Greenland. Together, we explore how colonial legacies still shape classrooms today, why change is needed, and how education can become a tool for cultural empowerment and self-determination. Linda shares her experiences and insights from …

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Experimental Preaching 1:12:36

9d ago1:12:36

1:12:36

In this episode of Kingdom Polemics, Pastor Aldo Leon takes listeners into the heart of what has long shaped robust Reformed preaching but has recently become neglected: experimental preaching. Drawing from historic Reformed tradition, Aldo and his guest, Gavin Beers, outline how true preaching is not just doctrinal or exegetical—it is experiential…

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Episode 25 – Migration beyond Myths & Polemics 41:40

9d ago41:40

41:40

We already seem to have forgotten it, but it has only been weeks that President Donald J. Trump federalized the National Guard to re-establish order in the city of Los Angeles amidst protests against deportations of undocumented immigrants. What L.A. mayor Karen Bass and California’s Governor Gavin Newsom condemned as a presidential abuse of power,…

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Episode 26 – American Compass and the New Conservatives 51:44

1d ago51:44

51:44

American Compass is, at 5 years, a relatively young think tank, but it has already become well-known for mapping an alternative to right-wing economic orthodoxy. Its founder, Oren Cass, has tirelessly explained the reason why American Compass believes the US economy – and, above all, US workers, will benefit from an overall tariff of 10 percent and…

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Mark R. Rank, "Poorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong about Poverty" (Oxford UP, 2021) 41:03

4d ago41:03

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Few topics have as many myths, stereotypes, and misperceptions surrounding them as that of poverty in America. The poor have been badly misunderstood since the beginnings of the country, with the rhetoric only ratcheting up in recent times. Our current era of fake news, alternative facts, and media partisanship has led to a breeding ground for all …

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The Tug of War: Why Racial Progress Often Meets Resistance and Backlash 33:52

5d ago33:52

33:52

Dr. Karyne Messina and Dr. Felicia Powell-Williams, the host and co-host of “Psychoanalytic Perspectives of Racism in America” sponsored by The American Psychoanalytic Association explored how employing mechanisms of defense perpetuates racial injustice’s movement forward and the resistance it faces as a tug of war, i.e., progress followed by backl…

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Agathe Demarais, "Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests" (Columbia UP, 2022) 1:07:28

5d ago1:07:28

1:07:28

Sanctions have become the go-to foreign policy tool for the United States. Coercive economic measures such as trade tariffs, financial penalties, and export controls affect large numbers of companies and states across the globe. Some of these penalties target nonstate actors, such as Colombian drug cartels and Islamist terror groups; others apply t…

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James Cairns, "In Crisis, on Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times" (Wolsak and Wynn, 2025) 48:50

6d ago48:50

48:50

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery interviews author and academic James Cairns about his collection of essays, In Crisis, On Crisis: Essays in Troubled Times (Wolsak & Wynn, 2025). In 2022, the Collins Dictionary announced that its word of the year was “permacrisis,” which it defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, espec…

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Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, "The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want" (Harper, 2025) 1:05:13

7d ago1:05:13

1:05:13

Is artificial intelligence going to take over the world? Have big tech scientists created an artificial lifeform that can think on its own? Is it going to put authors, artists, and others out of business? Are we about to enter an age where computers are better than humans at everything? Linguist Emily M. Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make clear…

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Linda Quiquivix, "Palestine 1492: A Report Back" (Wild Ox Books, 2024) 1:13:57

7d ago1:13:57

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Hello, I'm Eric LeMay, a host on the New Books Network. Today I speak with Linda Quiquivix, author of the new book Palestine 1492: A Report Back (Wild Ox Books, 2024). This is a book that so many of us need right now, and by "right now," I mean that I am recording this in July of 2025, when Palestinians in Gaza are on the verge of mass starvation a…

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Polemics Rec. | Working as a UN Youth Delegate with Markus Wane - S03E03 24:28

14d ago24:28

24:28

Together with the current Austrian UN Youth Delegate Markus Wane we explore how he uses his position to promote the interests of young people, and discuss how you as a young person can get actively involved as well. --- --- --- Polemics Rec. is the official podcast of Polemics Magazine. As a student-run production, the podcast will feature the voic…

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Elizabeth Popp Berman, "Thinking like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy" (Princeton UP, 2022) 52:56

16d ago52:56

52:56

For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way …

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Savannah Mandel on an Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration 1:04:35

16d ago1:04:35

1:04:35

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with space anthropologist, writer, and Virginia Tech doctoral candidate, Savannah Mandel, about her book, Ground Control: An Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration (Chicago Review Press, 2025). The book uses history, ethnography, participant observation in policy-making, and other forms of evidence …

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PCA GA Reflections 1:20:28

18d ago1:20:28

1:20:28

In this unfiltered, detailed, and thoughtful reflection, Aldo Leon offers his personal account and theological evaluation of the 2025 PCA General Assembly. Unlike curated recaps or safe institutional summaries, this episode brings a pastor's-eye view of what actually went down—from overtures to worship debates, controversial speeches, and questions…

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On Bullshit in Politics 33:00

18d ago33:00

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Today we’re continuing our series on philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s seminal work, On Bullshit. Our guest is Michael Patrick Lynch, Provost Professor of the Humanities and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. Michael is the author of the recently published book, On Truth in Politics: Why Democracy …

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Carl Rhodes, "Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire" (Policy Press, 2025) 54:12

19d ago54:12

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Billionaires are an ultra-elite social class whose numbers are growing alongside their obscene wealth while others struggle, suffer or even die. They represent a scourge of economic inequality, but how do they get away with it? A set of dangerous and deceptive inter-connected myths portrays them as a ‘force for good’: -the ‘heroic billionaire’ asse…

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Joseph Darda, "Gift and Grit: Race, Sports, and the Construction of Social Debt" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:13:15

23d ago1:13:15

1:13:15

In 1998, Bill Clinton hosted a town hall on race and sports. 'If you've got a special gift,' the president said of athletes, 'you owe more back.' Gift and Grit shows how the sports industry has incubated racial ideas about advantage and social debt since the civil rights era by sorting athletes into two broad categories. The gifted athlete received…

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Paul Tucker, "Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order" (Princeton UP, 2024) 49:48

26d ago49:48

49:48

How to sustain an international system of cooperation in the midst of geopolitical struggle? Can the international economic and legal system survive today’s fractured geopolitics? Democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states that is entangling much of public policy with global security issues. In Global Discord: Values and P…

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Didi Kuo, "The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't" (Oxford UP, 2025) 55:10

26d ago55:10

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As the crisis of democratic capitalism sweeps the globe, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't (Oxford University Press, 2025) makes the controversial argument that what democracies require most are stronger political parties that serve as intermediaries between citizens and governments. Once a centralizing force…

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Episode 24 – Happy Fourth of July! 9:45

26d ago9:45

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Today, Americans celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 - or do they? As you can suspect from such a rhetorical question, the answer is "not quite." In fact, the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, but it was only signed later, on August 2, 1776. In this very short episode, we take a look at the histor…

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Angela Katrina Lewis-Maddox ed., "Disrupting Political Science: Black Women Reimagining the Discipline" (SUNY Press, 2025) 55:04

27d ago55:04

55:04

Political Scientist Angela K. Lewis-Maddox has pulled together an important and useful edited volume focusing on black women political scientists and their experiences in the discipline itself and in studying topics that include race and gender. Political Science, as a discipline, is a bit more than 100 years old, and studies politics, power, insti…

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The attack on democracy in the United States, and the new resistance 39:01

27d ago39:01

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The attack in democracy under President Donald Trump in the United States is both broader and deeper than you think. In this timely conversation with Carl LeVan, Professor and Chair of Politics, Governance, and Economics at American University – but speaking only in his personal capacity – we hear about the way that the government has attempted to …

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Antinomianism and Apostasy 1:23:38

30d ago1:23:38

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In this episode of Kingdom Polemics, Aldo Leon offers a direct response to a recent episode of the Theocast podcast titled "Did John Piper Get Perseverance Wrong?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUcqFgIieZ0). Using that conversation as a launch point, Aldo examines the biblical, theological, and confessional categories of perseverance, assurance,…

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Bryan D. Jones, The Southern Fault Line: How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History" (Oxford UP, 2025) 58:29

1M ago58:29

58:29

The Southern Fault Line: How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History (Oxford University Press, 2025) explores the under-appreciated division in the South between the oligarchic rule of plantation owners and industrialists on the one hand, and the more democratic mindset of the mountain-dwelling small farmers on the other. These two mind…

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Nubar Hovsepian, "Edward Said: The Politics of an Oppositional Intellectual" (AUC Press, 2025) 34:47

1M ago34:47

34:47

Edward Said was one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. A literary scholar with an aesthete’s temperament, he did not experience his political awakening until the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, which transformed his thinking and led him to forge ties with political groups and like-minded scholars. Said’s subsequent writings, whi…

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David Zweig, "An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions" (MIT Press, 2025) 57:39

1M ago57:39

57:39

An Abundance of Caution: American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions (MIT Press, 2025) is a devastating account of the decision-making process behind one of the worst American policy failures in a century—the extended closures of public schools during the pandemic. In fascinating and meticulously reported detail, David Zweig shows how…

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The Truth About Bullshit: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary Edition of On Bullshit with Pamela Hieronymi 36:52

1M ago36:52

36:52

Today I’m thrilled to launch a brand new series for the Princeton UP Ideas Podcast. 20 years ago, Princeton University Press published a short volume with an excellent title: On Bullshit (Princeton UP, 2025). Written by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit was adapted from an essay that explored the meaning, uses, and consequences of bullshit. …

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PCA GA Overtures 2:04:12

1M ago2:04:12

2:04:12

As the PCA's 2025 General Assembly approaches, Pastor Aldo Leon and guest George Sayour walk through many of the most discussed and debated overtures on the docket. From Christian Nationalism to church governance and from weekly communion to worship standards, this episode of Kingdom Polemics offers a sharp, theologically grounded, and at times hum…

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Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, "Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays and Writings" (Harper, 2025) 44:47

1M ago44:47

44:47

The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfiction debut with this personal and thought-provoking work that explores the journeys and possibilities of Black women throughout American history and in contemporary times. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a cr…