Best Marc Clair Podcasts (2025)

1
Todd Reisz, "Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai" (Stanford UP, 2021) 42:31

15h ago42:31

42:31

Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai (Stanford UP, 2020) by Todd Reisz is a critical historical account of Dubai’s transformation into a global urban spectacle. Reisz examines how architecture, master planning, and international expertise contributed to the construction of Dubai’s modern image, focusing particularly on the period between the…

1
Qingfei Yin, "State Building in Cold War Asia: Comrades and Competitors on the Sino-Vietnamese Border" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 47:15

15h ago47:15

47:15

Departing from conventional studies of border hostility in inter-Asian relations, Yin Qingfei explores how two revolutionary states - China and Vietnam - each pursued policies that echoed the other and collaborated in extending their authority to the borderlands from 1949 to 1975. Making use of central and local archival sources in both Chinese and…

1
Dennis Ross, "Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Survive in a Multipolar World" (Oxford UP, 2025) 54:54

15h ago54:54

54:54

In a multipolar world where America wields less relative power, the United States can no longer get away with poor statecraft. To understand how the US can approach future national security challenges, I spoke with Dennis Ross, a senior US diplomat and the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East…

1
Manahil Bandukwala, "Heliotropia" (Brick Books, 2024) 33:44

1h ago33:44

33:44

In this NBN episode, host and poet Hollay Ghadery speaks with Manahil Bandukwala about her second collection, Heliotropia (Brick Books, 2024). This book of poems is a meditation on love during times of social and political upheaval. As a sunflower’s growth reaches toward the sun, so, she suggests, is a lover’s growth compelled by the gravitational …

1
Aviva Briefel, "Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism" (Cornell UP, 2025) 1:01:06

15h ago1:01:06

1:01:06

Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Aviva Briefel argues that Victorians turned to the dead to understand the material culture of their present. With the rise of spiritualism in Britain in the early 1850s, séances invited participants to contact ghosts using material thi…

1
Betsy Bird, "Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme" (Union Square Books, 2025) 49:18

15h ago49:18

49:18

Betsy Bird is the Collection Development Manager of Evanston Public Library and the former Youth Materials Specialist of New York Public Library. She writes for the School Library Journal blog A Fuse #8 Production and reviews for Kirkus. She is the host of the Story Seeds podcast as well as the co-host of the Fuse 8 n' Kate podcast that she creates…

1
Andrew Holter, ed., "Going Around: Selected Journalism / Murray Kempton" (Seven Stories Press, 2025) 1:02:49

15h ago1:02:49

1:02:49

From 1949 until his death in 1997, Murray Kempton was a distinct presence in New York City journalism. Peddling around town on a three-speed bicycle wearing a three-piece suit, he wrote about everything from politics to jazz to the Mafia. His writing was eloquent, his perspective unique, and his moral judgements driven by a profound sympathy for lo…

1
Dionne Koller, "More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport" (U California Press, 2025) 32:52

15h ago32:52

32:52

Tens of millions of children in the United States participate in youth sport, a pastime widely believed to be part of a good childhood. Yet most children who enter youth sport are driven to quit by the time they enter adolescence, and many more are sidelined by its high financial burdens. Until now, there has been little legal scholarly attention p…

1
Ben Jackson, "Material Masculinities: Men and Goods in Eighteenth-Century England" (Manchester UP, 2025) 58:41

15h ago58:41

58:41

Material Masculinities: Men and Goods in Eighteenth-Century England (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Ben Jackson examines the material and consumer practices of over 1000 men from the middling and upper ranks of eighteenth-century society, c.1650-1850. It draws upon evidence from over 35 archives and museum collections to detail how mater…

1
The Politics of Andor (Season 2, Episodes 10-12): Freedom and Order 58:57

15h ago58:57

58:57

It’s the UConn Popcast, and we continue our analysis of Andor season 2 with the conclusion to the series. We break down, analyze, and explain the political themes in these finale episodes, focusing on freedom, order and their interconnectedness in both the rebellion and the Empire. We explore the extent to which farce is an operative mode of storyt…

1
Marc Katz, "Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life" (U Nebraska Press, 2024) 50:56

19h ago50:56

50:56

Some two thousand years ago, as the story goes, a rabbi named Yochanan makes the epitome of pragmatic gambles—wagering the entire fate of the Jewish people. In dialogue with the soon-to-be Roman emperor Vespasian, Yochanan tacitly acknowledges the Romans’ planned destruction of Jerusalem in return for a plot of land in a town called Yavneh. There, …

1
Ewa Herbst, "Visionaries from Lviv: The Story of a Jewish Hospital" (Academic Studies Press, 2024) 1:26:39

1d ago1:26:39

1:26:39

Year 2023 marked 120 years of the Lazarus Jewish Hospital in Lviv (Lwów/Lemberg). This richly illustrated book is a tribute to its place in the once-vibrant Jewish community of the city and in the society at large during the period 1903-1939. Visionaries from Lviv: The Story of a Jewish Hospital (Academic Studies Press, 2024) presents the hospital’…

1
Nicholas Borst, "The Bird and the Cage: China’s Economic Contradictions" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2025) 57:26

1d ago57:26

57:26

The Chinese Communist Party’s complex and contradictory embrace of capitalism has played a pivotal role in shaping China’s economic reforms since the late 1970s. The Bird and the Cage: China's Economic Contradictions (Palgrave MacMillan, 2025) explores the persistent tensions between state control and market forces in China. It shows how these tens…

1
Timothy A. Lee, "The Syriac Peshiṭta Bible: The New Testament" (Gorgias Press, 2023) 30:41

1d ago30:41

30:41

This is the first Syriac reader for the New Testament. It guides the reader through the Syriac New Testament Peshitta, glossing the uncommon words and parsing difficult word forms. It is designed for two groups of people. First, for students learning Syriac after a years’ worth of study this series provides the material to grow in reading ability f…

1
Lines of Control: India’s Foreign Policy and China 39:56

1d ago39:56

39:56

This podcast episode, hosted by Kikee Doma Bhutia from the University of Tartu, features journalist and analyst Aadil Brar discussing India's foreign policy amidst rising global tensions. The conversation focuses on India’s balancing act between the US, China, and its own strategic autonomy in a contested Indo-Pacific region. Key topics include Ind…

1
Ben Jackson, "Material Masculinities: Men and Goods in Eighteenth-Century England" (Manchester UP, 2025) 58:41

1d ago58:41

58:41

Material Masculinities: Men and Goods in Eighteenth-Century England (Manchester University Press, 2025) by Dr. Ben Jackson examines the material and consumer practices of over 1000 men from the middling and upper ranks of eighteenth-century society, c.1650-1850. It draws upon evidence from over 35 archives and museum collections to detail how mater…

1
Aviva Briefel, "Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism" (Cornell UP, 2025) 1:01:06

1d ago1:01:06

1:01:06

Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Aviva Briefel argues that Victorians turned to the dead to understand the material culture of their present. With the rise of spiritualism in Britain in the early 1850s, séances invited participants to contact ghosts using material thi…

1
Emily Colbert Cairns and Nieves Romero-Diaz, "Early Modern Maternities in the Iberian Atlantic" (Amsterdam UP, 2024) 48:49

1d ago48:49

48:49

Emily Colbert Cairns of Salve Regina University and Nieves Romero-Díaz of Mount Holyoke join Jana Byars to talk about Early Modern Maternities in the Iberian Atlantic (Amsterdam University Press, 2024). It is the first volume to emphasize women's personal experiences and their life trajectories as mothers within the Peninsula and across the Atlanti…

1
Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir, "Ghosts, Trolls, and the Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends" (Reaktion, 2025) 49:44

1d ago49:44

49:44

Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir joins Jana Byars to talk about her new book, Ghosts, Trolls, and Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends (Reaktion, 2025). This unique and enchanting book opens the door to a captivating world of Icelandic folk legends. The six chapters of this anthology are each based on a different setting: farm, wilderness, da…

1
Emily Colbert Cairns and Nieves Romero-Diaz, "Early Modern Maternities in the Iberian Atlantic" (Amsterdam UP, 2024) 48:49

1d ago48:49

48:49

Emily Colbert Cairns of Salve Regina University and Nieves Romero-Díaz of Mount Holyoke join Jana Byars to talk about Early Modern Maternities in the Iberian Atlantic (Amsterdam University Press, 2024). It is the first volume to emphasize women's personal experiences and their life trajectories as mothers within the Peninsula and across the Atlanti…

1
Jon Shelton, "The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy" (Cornell UP, 2023) 1:11:39

1d ago1:11:39

1:11:39

The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy (Cornell UP, 2023) questions the idea that education represents the best, if not the only, way for Americans to access economic opportunity. As Jon Shelton shows, linking education to economic well-being was not politically inevitable. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for ins…

1
David Kraemer, "Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:00:52

1d ago1:00:52

1:00:52

Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora (Oxford University Press, 2025) analyzes biblical and rabbinic texts, philosophical treatises, studies of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and a multiplicity of modern expressions for a comprehensive history of Jewish responses to and justifications of their diasporas. It shows that Diaspora Jews through the ages in…

1
Jody Benjamin, "The Texture of Change: Dress, Self-Fashioning, and History in Western Africa, 1700-1850" (Ohio UP, 2024) 1:17:14

1d ago1:17:14

1:17:14

The Texture of Change: Dress, Self-Fashioning, and History in Western Africa, 1700 – 1850 (Ohio UP, 2024) examines historical change across a broad region of western Africa—from Saint Louis, Senegal, to Freetown, Sierra Leone—through the development of textile commerce, consumption, and dress. Indigo-dyed and printed cotton, wool, linen, and silk c…

1
Rochelle Rojas, "Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675" (Cornell UP, 2025) 45:09

3d ago45:09

45:09

Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Rochelle Rojas tells riveting stories of witchcraft in everyday life in early modern Navarra. Belief in witchcraft not only emerged in moments of mass panic but was woven into the fabric of village life. Some villagers believed witc…

1
Michael A. Meyer, "Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler" (CCAR Press, 2025) 44:53

3d ago44:53

44:53

Reform Judaism looks different today than it did a century ago. There are a lot of factors that lead to that change, but among these is Rabbi Alexander Schindler (1925-2000). Doing most of his work in the middle of the 20th century, Schindler was either part of or directly responsible for the changes in Reform (and even American) Judaism that we se…

1
Rosa Castellano, "All Is the Telling" (Diode, 2025) 51:19

14h ago51:19

51:19

In this NBN Poetry podcast, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Rosa Castellano about her gorgeous debut collection, All is the Telling (Diode, 2025). All is the Telling is a compelling, transformative collection bridging the personal and political with an emotional intensity that lingers long after the final page. With an intimate and expansive voice,…

1
Carrie Helms Tippen, "Unpalatable: Stories of Pain and Pleasure in Southern Cookbooks" (UP of Mississippi, 2025) 1:17:09

3d ago1:17:09

1:17:09

The cookbook genre is highly conventional with an orientation toward celebration and success. From glossy photographs to heartwarming stories and adjective-rich ingredient lists, the cookbook tradition primes readers for pleasure. Yet the overarching narrative of the region is often one of pain, loss, privation, exploitation, poverty, and suffering…

1
Rasheedah Phillips, "Dismantling the Master's Clock: On Race, Space, and Time" (AK Press, 2025) 58:11

3d ago58:11

58:11

Why do some processes—like aging, birth, and car crashes—occur in only one direction in time, when by the fundamental symmetry of the universe, we should experience time both forward and backward? Our dominant perception of time owes more to Western history and social order than to a fact of nature, argues writer Rasheedah Phillips, delving into Bl…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Marc Clair Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen