Best Matthew Goldman Podcasts (2025)

1
Richard Calis, "The Discovery of Ottoman Greece: Knowledge, Encounter, and Belief in the Mediterranean World of Martin Crusius" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:01:51

22h ago1:01:51

1:01:51

In 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…

1
Helen Thompson on Disorder and the Analysis of Contemporary Geopolitics 1:16:20

22h ago1:16:20

1:16:20

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University and co-host of the great podcast, These Times, about her approach to geopolitical analysis and the centrality of energy geopolitics in that approach. The pair start by talking about Thompson’s book, Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st C…

1
Book Talk 66: Political Hope, with Loren Goldman 1:29:13

22h ago1:29:13

1:29:13

How to find hope in these times? I spoke with political scientist Loren Goldman about the principle of political hope: why we should have hope, how to have hope in dark times, and how political hope differs from naïve optimism, faith in progress, or passive reliance on a hidden logic that will save us in the end. Goldman, who is Associate Professor…

1
Yosie Levine, "Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate" (Littman Library, 2024) 41:43

22h ago41:43

41:43

My recent interview with Rabbi Dr. Yosie Levine about his book, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate (Littman Library, 2024), illuminated the dynamic interplay between Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions-a theme that resonates deeply with our mission at the Unity Through Diversity Institute. From the outset, Rabb…

1
Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:21:01

22h ago1:21:01

1:21:01

Why did so many rulers throughout history risk converting to a new religion brought by outsiders? In his award-winning Unearthly Powers (2019), Dr. Alan Strathern set out a theoretical framework for understanding the relation between religion and political authority based on a distinction between two kinds of religion - immanentism and transcendent…

1
Kai Shmushko, "Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics" (Leiden UP, 2024) 1:04:04

22h ago1:04:04

1:04:04

In the past decades, various forms of Buddhism have emerged in-between, above, and beyond conventional conceptions of religious and spiritual life in China. Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics (Leiden UP, 2024) is a qualitative study exploring manifestations of the massive revival …

1
Andrew Ofstehage, "Welcome to Soylandia: Transnational Farmers in the Brazilian Cerrado" (Cornell UP, 2025) 46:19

22h ago46:19

46:19

Following a group of US Midwest farmers who purchased tracts of land in the tropical savanna of eastern Brazil, Welcome to Soylandia: Transnational Farmers in the Brazilian Cerrado (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Andrew Ofstehage investigates industrial farming in the modern developing world. Seeking adventure and profit, the transplanted f…

1
From Hal to Siri: How Computers Learned to Speak 54:27

22h ago54:27

54:27

Today we learn how computers learned to talk with Benjamin Lindquist, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University’s Science in Human Culture program. Ben is the author “The Art of Text to Speech,” which recently appeared in Critical Inquiry, and he’s currently writing a history of text-to-speech computing. In this conversation, we explore:…

1
Tamara Lea Spira, "Queering Families: Reproductive Justice in Precarious Times" (U California Press, 2025) 1:06:09

22h ago1:06:09

1:06:09

Envisioning queer futures where we lovingly wager everything for the world's children, the planet, and all living beings against all odds, and in increasingly precarious times. Tamara Lea Spira's Queering Families: Reproductive Justice in Precarious Times (U California Press, 2025) traces the shifting dominant meanings of queer family from the late…

1
Chana B. Getter, "Mapito: Embrace Yourself" (BookBaby, 2025) 55:45

22h ago55:45

55:45

In Mapito: Embrace Yourself (BookBaby, 2025), Chani Getter presents both a collection of stories and a personal guide to becoming your most authentic self. Through a collection of memorable stories―sometimes funny, often poignant―this trailblazing trauma expert reveals profound truths about the human experience. "Mapito" reconnects you to what real…

1
Book Talk 66: Political Hope, with Loren Goldman 1:29:13

10h ago1:29:13

1:29:13

How to find hope in these times? I spoke with political scientist Loren Goldman about the principle of political hope: why we should have hope, how to have hope in dark times, and how political hope differs from naïve optimism, faith in progress, or passive reliance on a hidden logic that will save us in the end. Goldman, who is Associate Professor…

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

2d 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

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

2d 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
Dennis Ross, "Statecraft 2.0: What America Needs to Survive in a Multipolar World" (Oxford UP, 2025) 54:54

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

2d 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
Qingfei Yin, "State Building in Cold War Asia: Comrades and Competitors on the Sino-Vietnamese Border" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 47:15

2d 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
Andrew Holter, ed., "Going Around: Selected Journalism / Murray Kempton" (Seven Stories Press, 2025) 1:02:49

2d 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
Todd Reisz, "Showpiece City: How Architecture Made Dubai" (Stanford UP, 2021) 42:31

2d 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
Betsy Bird, "Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme" (Union Square Books, 2025) 49:18

2d 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
Marc Katz, "Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life" (U Nebraska Press, 2024) 50:56

2d 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

3d 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
Aviva Briefel, "Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism" (Cornell UP, 2025) 1:01:06

3d 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
Timothy A. Lee, "The Syriac Peshiṭta Bible: The New Testament" (Gorgias Press, 2023) 30:41

3d 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
Emily Colbert Cairns and Nieves Romero-Diaz, "Early Modern Maternities in the Iberian Atlantic" (Amsterdam UP, 2024) 48:49

3d 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

3d 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
Nicholas Borst, "The Bird and the Cage: China’s Economic Contradictions" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2025) 57:26

3d 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
Jon Shelton, "The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy" (Cornell UP, 2023) 1:11:39

3d 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
Lines of Control: India’s Foreign Policy and China 39:56

3d 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
Jody Benjamin, "The Texture of Change: Dress, Self-Fashioning, and History in Western Africa, 1700-1850" (Ohio UP, 2024) 1:17:14

3d 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…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Matthew Goldman Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen