Best Worldbuild With Us Podcasts (2025)

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Episode 271: What If Your Camp Counselor Was Also a Mecha Pilot? (Land of a Thousand Finales Part 6) 57:00

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13d ago57:00

57:00

Hey. You should watch Iron Blooded Orphans. Just sayin. And if you're feeling particularly generous, you can support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/worldbuildwithus Chat with us on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/SRFhWV3 Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@worldbuildwithus Email us your suggestions: WorldbuildW…

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Judicial Territory: Law, Capital, and the Expansion of American Empire with Shaina Potts 47:23

15h ago47:23

47:23

In this episode, we sit down with Shaina Potts, author of Judicial Territory: Law, Capital, and the Expansion of American Empire (Duke University Press, 2024)—a groundbreaking book that reveals how U.S. courts have quietly become instruments of global economic governance. Drawing on legal geography and a sharp understanding of finance and political…

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David Crystal, "Bookish Words and Their Surprising Stories" (Bodleian Library, 2025) 48:35

15h ago48:35

48:35

In Bookish Words & their Surprising Stories (Bodleian, 2025) by Dr. David Crystal, explore how books have played a pivotal role in the history of English vocabulary. The noun itself is one of the oldest words in the language, originating from boc in Old English, and appears in many commonly used expressions today – by the book, bring to book and bo…

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Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Payne, "Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game" (Amherst College Press, 2024) 30:12

15h ago30:12

30:12

Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game (Amherst College Press, 2024) is the first scholarly book to focus exclusively on the long-running Ultima series of computer role-playing games (RPG) and to assess its lasting impact on the RPG genre and video game industry. Through archival and popular media sources, examinations of fan c…

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Kevin Nguyen, "My Documents" (One World, 2025) 48:23

10h ago48:23

48:23

Kevin Nguyen, My Documents (One World, 2025) Kevin Nguyen is the author of the novel New Waves, published in 2020. He is the features editor at The Verge, where he publishes award-winning stories about labor, business, and policing, and was previously a senior editor at GQ. He lives in Brooklyn. Recommended Books: Annelise Chen, Clam Down Tash Aw, …

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Jeremy Stolow, "Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography" (MIT Press, 2025) 1:19:58

15h ago1:19:58

1:19:58

Picturing Aura: A Visual Biography (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Jeremy Stolow is the first book of its kind: an extended historical, anthropological, and philosophical study of modern efforts to visualize the hidden radiant force encompassing the living body known as our aura. This rich, interdisciplinary study by Dr. Stolow chronicles the rise and glo…

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Carly A. Kocurek and Matthew Payne, "Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game" (Amherst College Press, 2024) 30:12

15h ago30:12

30:12

Ultima and World-Building in the Computer Role-Playing Game (Amherst College Press, 2024) is the first scholarly book to focus exclusively on the long-running Ultima series of computer role-playing games (RPG) and to assess its lasting impact on the RPG genre and video game industry. Through archival and popular media sources, examinations of fan c…

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Omneya Ayad, "Love in Sufi Literature: Ibn ‘Ajiba’s Understanding of the Divine Word" (Routledge, 2023) 39:33

15h ago39:33

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Love in Sufi Literature: Ibn ‘Ajiba’s Understanding of the Divine Word (Routledge, 2023) explores the role of divine love in the Quranic commentary of the Moroccan Sufi scholar Aḥmad Ibn ʿAjība (d. 1224/1809). Through close textual analysis of Ibn ʿAjība’s exegesis al-Baḥr al-madīd—The Abundant Ocean—and drawing on his other Sufi writings the book …

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

10h 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…

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Dominik Zechner, "The Violence of Reading: Literature and Philosophy at the Threshold of Pain" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) 43:22

15h ago43:22

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The Violence of Reading: Literature and Philosophy at the Threshold of Pain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) expounds the scene of reading as one that produces an overwhelmed body exposed to uncontainable forms of violence. The book argues that the act of reading induces a representational instability that causes the referential function of language to c…

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Chris Horton, "Ghost Nation: The Story of Taiwan and Its Struggle for Survival" (MacMillan, 2025) 1:04:40

1d ago1:04:40

1:04:40

Chris Horton is a freelance journalist who has been based in Taiwan since 2015, before many Western publications had any dedicated presence on the island. Over the last decade, he has contributed to the New York Times, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, and numerous other publications regarding Taiwan-related topics. In this episode of the New Books Network,…

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James D. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025) 32:18

1d ago32:18

32:18

Richard Sorge is one of history’s most famous spies. This hard-drinking, womanising, motorcycle-crashing Soviet officer penetrated the German embassy in Tokyo during the 1930s and gathered intelligence credited with changing the course of the Second World War. It is an intriguing tale; but Sorge’s spy ring was just one chapter in a much longer hist…

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Trans Technologies 1:07:27

1d ago1:07:27

1:07:27

How can technology creates new possibilities for transgender people? How do trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology? Trans Technologies, (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Oliver L. Haimson, explores how and why mainstream technologies often exclude or marginalize transgender users. Trans Technologies describes what happens when t…

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Laura Frances Goffman, "Disorder and Diagnosis: Health and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Arabia" (Stanford UP, 2024) 53:05

1d ago53:05

53:05

Disorder and Diagnosis: Health and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Arabia (Stanford UP, 2024) offers a social and political history of medicine, disease, and public health in the Persian Gulf from the late nineteenth century until the 1973 oil boom. Foregrounding the everyday practices of Gulf residents--hospital patients, quarantined passe…

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John Man, "Conquering the North: China, Russia, Mongolia: 2,000 Years of Conflict" (Oneworld Publications, 2025) 50:20

1d ago50:20

50:20

China, famously, built the Great Wall to defend against nomadic groups from the Eurasian steppe. For two millennia, China interacted with groups from the north: The Xiongnu, the Mongols, the Manchus, and the Russians. They defended against raids, got invaded by the north, and tried to launch diplomatic relations. John Man, in his book Conquering th…

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Emmanuel Akyeampong, "Independent Africa: The First Generation of Nation Builders" (Indiana UP, 2023) 1:25:27

1d ago1:25:27

1:25:27

Independent Africa: The First Generation of Nation Builders (Indiana UP, 2023)explores Africa's political economy in the first two full decades of independence through the joint projects of nation-building, economic development, and international relations. Drawing on the political careers of four heads of states: Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Ahmed Séko…

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Prema Kurien, "Claiming Citizenship: Race, Religion, and Political Mobilization Among New Americans" (Oxford UP, 2025) 39:18

1d ago39:18

39:18

Claiming Citizenship: Race, Religion, and Political Mobilization Among New Americans (Oxford UP, 2025) looks at Indian Americans, currently the second-largest group of immigrants in the United States, and a group that has seen significant representation in the three most recent presidential administrations. Prema Kurien asks how Indian Americans ha…

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Prithwiraj Choudhury, "The World Is Your Office: How Work from Anywhere Boosts Talent, Productivity, and Innovation" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) 1:00:00

1d ago1:00:00

1:00:00

As the debate around remote versus in-office work rages on, leaders in a wide range of industries continue to implement radically flexible work practices. Though there has been some pushback, many employers are still allowing most, if not all, of their employees to work from anywhere. The reason is that they understand that geographic flexibility o…

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Atinuke O. Adediran, "Disclosureland: How Corporate Words Constrain Racial Progress" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 33:46

1d ago33:46

33:46

The 2020 murder of George Floyd sparked mass protests that challenged many institutions, including large for-profit companies, to reflect on how to address racial inequality. Large corporations began making systematic public statements to show alignment with causes that impact people of color. These statements were also used to protect corporate re…

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Trans Technologies 1:07:27

1d ago1:07:27

1:07:27

How can technology creates new possibilities for transgender people? How do trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology? Trans Technologies, (MIT Press, 2025) by Dr. Oliver L. Haimson, explores how and why mainstream technologies often exclude or marginalize transgender users. Trans Technologies describes what happens when t…

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Emily Hauser, "Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It" (Univ of Chicago Press, 2025) 55:39

1d ago55:39

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Achilles. Agamemnon. Odysseus. Hector. The lives of these and many other men in the greatest epics of ancient Greece have been pored over endlessly in the past three millennia. But these are not just tales about heroic men. There are scores of women as well—complex, fascinating women whose stories have gone unexplored for far too long. In Penelope’…

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A Book Imprint from The Nation Magazine Launches with Bhaskar Sunkara and Colin Robinson 40:01

1d ago40:01

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The Nation Magazine, known for its long and storied history as a publisher of in-depth political and cultural analysis, has launched a new book imprint with OR Books. The Nation’s president, Bhaskar Sunkara, and OR Books publisher, Colin Robinson, joined editor Caleb Zakarin to discuss the project and the upcoming slate of books set for publication…

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Emily Webber, "Mining Men: Britain's Last Kings of the Coalface" (Penguin, 2025) 32:42

3d ago32:42

32:42

The story of the last generation of British miners: fathers and sons, brothers and comrades, big hitters and broken men, strikers and scabs. Mining Men: Britain's Last Kings of the Coalface (Penguin, 2025) by Dr. Emily P. Webber explores how these men felt when the pits were closed and what happened next, including former miners who became factory …

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Helen Sheehy, "Just Willa" (Cave Hollow Press, 2025) 32:57

3d ago32:57

32:57

Just Willa (Cave Hollow Press, 2025) is a family chronicle of rare beauty-more than reminiscent of Willa Cather in capturing the regional flavors of America-stretching over a span of decades through an intimate focus on the life of one woman. In it, Helen Sheehy gives us a character of indomitable spirit who fuels and anchors her family with love a…

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Violet Moller, "Inside the Stargazer's Palace: The Transformation of Science in 16th-Century Europe" (OneWorld, 2024) 40:38

3d ago40:38

40:38

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus declared the earth revolved around the Sun, overturning centuries of scholastic presumption. A new age was coming into view – one guided by observation, technology and logic. But omens and elixirs did not disappear from the sixteenth-century laboratory. Charms and potions could still be found nestled between glistening …

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Anna Gjika, "When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age" (Univ of California Press, 2023) 52:25

3d ago52:25

52:25

Stories of teen sexting scandals, cyberbullying, and image-based sexual abuse have become commonplace fixtures of the digital age, with many adults struggling to identify ways to monitor young people's digital engagement. In When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age (Univ of California Press, 2023), Anna Gjika argues that ra…

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Howard A. Husock, "The Projects: A New History of Public Housing" (NYU Press, 2025) 39:35

3d ago39:35

39:35

How housing policy failed the people it was designed to help -- and how to fix it As the US struggles to provide affordable housing, millions of Americans live in deteriorating public housing projects, enduring the mistakes of past housing policy. In The Projects: A New History of Public Housing (NYU Press, 2025), Howard A. Husock explains how we g…

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Chinese in Qatar 43:54

3d ago43:54

43:54

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Tazin Abdullah speaks with Dr. Sara Hillman, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and English at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Tazin and Sara discuss Qatar’s multilingual ecology and its Linguistic Landscape, focusing on Sara’s research on th…

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Jack Black and Joseph S Reynoso eds., "Sport and Psychoanalysis: Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires, Fantasies, and Fears" (Lexington Books, 2024) 1:07:32

3d ago1:07:32

1:07:32

Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires, Fantasies, and Fears (Lexington Books, 2024) explores the intersection of sport and psychoanalysis, emphasizing the often-overlooked psycho-social dimensions underpinning the experience of sport. In this podcast, Jordan Osserman speaks to editors Jack Black and Joseph S. Re…

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Soma Chaudhuri and Jane Ward, "The Witch Studies Reader" (Duke UP, 2025) 51:59

3d ago51:59

51:59

Soma Chaudhuri and Jane Ward, eds. The Witch Studies Reader. (Duke University Press, 2025). Stories about witches are by their nature stories about the most basic and profound of human experiences—healing, sex, violence, tragedies, aging, death, and encountering the mystery and magic of the unknown. It is no surprise, then, that witches loom large …

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Candace Lukasik, "Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire" (NYU Press, 2025) 54:58

3d ago54:58

54:58

Coptic Orthodox Christians comprise the largest Christian community in the Middle East and are among the oldest Christian communities in the world. While once the objects of American missionary efforts, in recent years Copts have been in the spotlight for their Christianity. A spate of ISIS-related bombings and attacks have garnered worldwide atten…