Best Benjamin Sparks Podcasts (2025)

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Naomi Xu Elegant, "Gingko Season: A Novel" (W. W. Norton, 2025) 37:13

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8h ago37:13

37:13

Naomi Xu Elegant’s debut novel, Gingko Season (W. W. Norton: 2025), stars Penelope Lin, a young Chinese woman living in New York in the faraway year of 2018. With difficult parents and a bad break-up, she works for a museum’s exhibition on bound feet, with a gaggle of other, somewhat clueless friends. But a meeting with Hoang, a researcher at a can…

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How do Small States Navigate and Shape the Liberal World Order? A conversation with Dylan Loh 35:09

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Globally, the liberal international order has been under pressure for quite some time, but we often tend to discuss this in relation to big international players such as the United States and China. But how do small states like Singapore navigate and shape this increasingly contested space? Join Petra Alderman as she talks to Dylan Loh about Singap…

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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) 54:30

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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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Elena Jackson Albarran, "Good Neighbor Empires: Children and Cultural Capital in the Americas" (Brill, 2024) 42:42

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A class of child artists in Mexico, a ship full of child refugees from Spain, classrooms of child pageant actors, and a pair of boy ambassadors revealed facets of hemispheric politics in the Good Neighbor era. Good Neighbor Empires: Children and Cultural Capital in the Americas (Brill, 2024) by Dr. Elena Jackson Albarran explores how and why cultur…

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Wilson T. Bell, "Stalin's Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War" (University of Toronto Press, 2018) 1:35:06

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Stalin's Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War (University of Toronto Press, 2018) places the Gulag within the story of the regional wartime mobilization of Western Siberia during the Second World War. The author explores a diverse array of issues, including mass death, informal practices, and the respo…

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J. P. Mallory, "The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution Is Rewriting Their Story" (Thames & Hudson, 2025) 48:04

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Today the number of native speakers of Indo-European languages across the world is approximated to be over 2.6 billion—about 45 percent of the Earth’s population. Yet the idea that an ancient, prehistoric population in one time and place gave rise to a wide variety of peoples and languages is one with a long and troubled past. In this expansive inv…

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Louis P. Masur, "A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison, and the Forging of a Friendship" (Oxford UP, 2025) 36:17

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Between May 21 and June 16, 1791, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison went on a trip together through Upstate New York and parts of New England on horseback. This "northern journey" came at a moment of tension for the new nation, one in whose founding these Virginians and political allies had played key roles. The Constitution was ratified and Presi…

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

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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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Ali Aslam, David W. McIvor, and Joel Alden Schlosser, "Earthborn Democracy: A Political Theory of Entangled Life" (Columbia UP, 2024) 56:20

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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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How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America 46:17

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In How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America, (Harvard Education PR, 2024) Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students’ concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity. Dr. Chávez-Moreno sheds light on how the complex in…

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Will Putin help Iran rebuild its nuclear program? 18:12

20h ago18:12

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One of Iran’s closest allies outside the Middle East is Russia. So, why did Vladimir Putin decide not to come to Tehran’s aid and provide military support as Israel and then America worked to destroy its nuclear program? Today, Anna Borshchevskaya from the Washington Institute, an expert in Russia’s policy in the Middle East, on what the war means …

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Kay Sohini, "This Beautiful, Ridiculous City: A Graphic Memoir" (Ten Speed Graphic, 2025) 23:50

1d ago23:50

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Kay Sohini about her graphic memoir, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City: A Graphic Memoir (published by Ten Speed Graphic, 2025). A vibrant graphic memoir of a woman—an immigrant, a survivor, a writer, a foodie, and, ultimately, an optimist—who rebuilds her life in New York City while recovering fro…

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The May 2025 Mid-Term Elections in the Philippines 47:08

1d ago47:08

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Today’s episode focuses on the mid-term elections in the Philippines which were held in May of this year, including all local elected positions, all seats in the House of Representatives, and twelve of the twenty-four seats in the Senate. The elections have been viewed as a reflection on the administration of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, …

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Improving Quality of Care for Patients with Limited English 41:09

1d ago41:09

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In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick speaks with Dr. Leah Karliner. Dr. Karliner is Professor in Residence in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco in the United States. She is Director of the Center for Aging in Diverse Communities and Director o…

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Danielle Leavitt, "By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025) 57:09

1d ago57:09

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An intimate, affecting account of life during wartime, told through the lives that have been shattered. Even as scores of Americans rally to the Ukrainian cause and adopt Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero, the lives of Ukrainians remain opaque and mostly anonymous. In By the Second Spring, the historian Danielle Leavitt goes beyond familiar portraits of…

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Tie Ning, Annelise Finegan trans., "My Sister's Red Shirt" (Sinoist Books, 2025) 36:30

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Growing up in a glittering new decade of possibility, Anran is radically different to her sister. Outspoken and idealistic, she relishes in challenging hypocrisy, unlike the older Anjing, whose memories of a turbulent past remind her of the perils of going against the grain. When Anran is gifted a stylish red shirt that becomes the talk of their sl…

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Is Sinners a New Classic of Political Utopianism? 50:35

1d ago50:35

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It’s the UConn Popcast, and we analyze the movie Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan, just released on streaming. We address the political themes of the movie, focusing on its generic identity as a Southern Gothic, the historical context in which the movie takes place, its engagement with ideas of utopia, community, freedom, and the siren songs tha…

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Maya J. Berry, "Defending Rumba in Havana: The Sacred and the Black Corporeal Undercommons" (Duke UP, 2025) 1:31:12

1d ago1:31:12

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In Defending Rumba in Havana: The Sacred and the Black Corporeal Undercommons (Duke University Press, 2025), anthropologist and dancer Maya J. Berry examines rumba as a way of knowing the embodied and spiritual dimensions of Black political imagination in post-Fidel Cuba. Historically a Black working-class popular dance, rumba, Berry contends, is a…

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Ryan G. Van Cleave, "The Witness Trees: Historic Moments and the Trees Who Watched Them Happen" (Bushel & Peck, 2023) 49:05

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Dr. Ryan van Cleave is the author of over 100 books for children and adults, editorial director of Bushel & Peck Publishers, college professor and head program (Ringling), writing coach, ghostwriter, poet and more. In our wonderful conversation we celebrate his picture book The Witness Trees: Historic Moments and the Trees Who Watched Them Happen (…

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Yaroslav Hrytsak, "Ukraine: The Forging of a Nation" (PublicAffairs, 2024) 1:24:37

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When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the world witnessed the “creative, freewheeling, darkly humorous, and deeply resilient society” that is contemporary Ukraine. In this timely and original history, a bestseller in Ukraine, the historian Yaroslav Hrytsak tells the sweeping story of his nation through a meticulous examination of the major events, c…

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Vali Nasr, "Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History" (Princeton UP, 2025) 53:41

1d ago53:41

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Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country’s goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran’s political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today’s I…

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Philip Kadish, "The Great White Hoax: Frauds, Forgeries, and 200 Years of Selling Racism in America" 1:11:14

2d ago1:11:14

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Fake news, outright political lies, a shamelessly partisan press, and the collapse of truth, civility, and shared facts, Dr. Philip Kadish argues, are nothing new. The Great White Hoax: Two Centuries of Selling Racism in America (The New Press, 2025), a masterpiece of historical and literary sleuthing, reveals that the era of Fox News and Donald Tr…

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Kate Folk, "Sky Daddy: A Novel" (Random House, 2025) 38:11

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Kate Folk, Sky Daddy (Random House, 2025) Kate Folk is the author of the novel Sky Daddy and the short story collection Out There. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, n+1, the New York Times, Granta, and The Baffler, among other venues. A former Stegner Fellow, she’s also received fellowships and residencies from MacDowell…

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Judith Weisenfeld, "Black Religion in the Madhouse: Race and Psychiatry in Slavery’s Wake" (NYU Press, 2025) 55:12

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In the decades after the end of slavery, African Americans were committed to southern state mental hospitals at higher rates as white psychiatrists listed “religious excitement” among the most frequent causes of insanity for Black patients. At the same time, American popular culture and political discourse framed African American modes of spiritual…

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Nicole Watts, "Republic of Dreams: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Struggles, and the Future of Iraqi Kurdistan" (NYU Press, 2025) 50:33

2d ago50:33

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Nicole F. Watts's Republic of Dreams: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Struggles, and the Future of Iraqi Kurdistan (NYU Press, 2025) is a harrowing portrait of Iraqi Kurdistan and its history, as it weathers Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds, a civil war, the US invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring, and the sustained neglect of the city of…

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Michelle Phillipov, "Digital Food TV: The Cultural Place of Food in a Digital Era (Routledge, 2023) 1:05:23

2d ago1:05:23

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Michelle Phillipov's Digital Food TV: The Cultural Place of Food in a Digital Era (Routledge, 2023) explores the new theoretical and political questions raised by food TV’s digital transformation. Bringing together analyses of food media texts and platform infrastructures—from streaming and catch-up TV to YouTube and Facebook food videos—it shows h…

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Kathryn Mockler, "Anecdotes" (Book*hug Press, 2023) 34:51

2d ago34:51

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In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Kathryn Mocker about her wildy acclaimed award-winning collection of hyrbrid fiction/prose poetry/autofiction, Anecdotes (Book*hug Press, 2023). With dreamlike stories and dark humour, Anecdotes is a hybrid collection in four parts examining the pressing realities of sexual violence, abuse, and e…

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Christopher Clarey, "The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay" (Grand Central Publishing, 2025) 1:15:22

2d ago1:15:22

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In The Warrior: Rafael Nadal and His Kingdom of Clay (Grand Central Publishing, 2025) Christopher Clarey illuminates the skill and determination it took to accomplish Rafael Nadal’s most mind-blowing achievement: 14 French Open titles. Nadal has won big on tennis's many surfaces en route to becoming one of the greatest players of all time: securing…

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Simon Tolkien, "The Palace at the End of the Sea: A Novel" (Lake Union Publishing, 2025) 28:04

2d ago28:04

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A young man comes of age and crosses continents in search of an identity--and a cause--at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War in a thrilling, timely, and emotional historical saga. New York City, 1929. Young Theo Sterling's world begins to unravel as the Great Depression exerts its icy grip. He finds it hard to relate to his parents: His father, a Je…

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Milton E. Clarke, "The Community College Reform Movement: Contentions and Ideological Origins" (Routledge, 2025) 1:23:00

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In his new book, The Community College Reform Movement: Contentions and Ideological Origins (Routledge, 2025), political scientist Milton Clarke critically examines the rise of the higher education reform movement, often referred to as the “completion agenda,” which, since the early 2000s, has sought to restructure core aspects of the community col…