Best Startup Cornell Podcasts (2025)

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Episode 45: Kimberle Lau wants to treat your sweet tooth, but in a healthy way 35:16

10d ago35:16

35:16

Our new episode features Kimberle Lau, '01 founder of Bake Me Healthy, a company that offers plant-based, allergen-free and upcycled baking mixes and cookies. Yum!By Startup Cornell

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Episode #138: Carley Hart - Startup Advisor at Cornell Tech, Founder at Ahhhsome Kids 32:21

13d ago32:21

32:21

Carley Hart has spent her career advising, mentoring and teaching customer discovery to entrepreneurs which she currently does as Director of Partnerships for Cornell Tech’s Runway Startups Program. Cool job! But Carley has also applied everything she’s learned along the way in launching her own lifestyle company, Ahhhsome Kids, with a mission to “…

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1869, Ep. 167 w/ Robyn Klingler-Vidra & Ramon Pacheco Pardo, authors of Startup Capitalism 34:54

30d ago34:54

34:54

Learn more about Startup Capitalism (and use promo code 09POD to save 30%):https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501781391/startup-capitalism/Transcript: https://otter.ai/u/Tmx6NA_VRaCB-WSUO1lIHbWfO9c?utm_source=copy_urlRobyn Klingler-Vidra is Reader in Entrepreneurship and Sustainability at King's Business School, King's College London.Ram…

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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…

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1869, Ep. 168 with Stephan Rindlisbacher, author of Borders in Red 26:07

5d ago26:07

26:07

Read Borders in Red for FREE!https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501780554/borders-in-red/#bookTabs=1Transcript: https://otter.ai/u/3ndhPn4qPVQKBrbos5QrSp41j_8?utm_source=copy_urlStephan Rindlisbacher is a postdoctoral researcher at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder).We spoke to Stephan about how his new book, the first com…

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Yasmin Moll, "The Revolution Within: Islamic Media and the Struggle for a New Egypt" (Stanford UP, 2025) 1:03:07

6d ago1:03:07

1:03:07

The New Preachers of Egypt—so named because of their novel preaching styles, which incorporate everything from melodrama to music to self-help—came to prominence on the world's first Islamic television channel on the cusp of the Arab Spring uprisings. They promoted an innovative and inclusive Islamic piety that millions of young middle-class viewer…

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Kevin B. Anderson, "The Late Marx's Revolutionary Roads: Colonialism, Gender, and Indigenous Communism" (Verso, 2025) 1:04:22

13d ago1:04:22

1:04:22

Kevin Anderson’s The Late Marx's Revolutionary Roads: Colonialism, Gender, and Indigenous Communism (Verso, 2025) encourages to look again at the intellectual and political work of a figure some may assume has been exhausted: Karl Marx. Following on from his earlier landmark study Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity and Non-Western Socie…

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Tamar R. Shirinian, "Survival of a Perverse Nation: Morality and Queer Possibility in Armenia" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:10:40

15d ago1:10:40

1:10:40

Tamar Shirinian is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her new book, Survival of a Perverse Nation: Morality and Queer Possibility in Armenia (Duke UP, 2024), studies the relationships between gender, sexuality, nationalism, political-economy, and social reproduction and how these are experienced,…

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Robert Garland, "What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife" (Princeton UP, 2025) 53:49

18d ago53:49

53:49

A lively story of death, What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Dr. Robert Garland explores the fascinating death-related beliefs and practices of a wide range of ancient cultures and traditions—Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hindu, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, Earl…

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Andrew Smith, "First People: The Lost History of the Khoisan" (Jonathan Ball, 2022) 1:18:34

18d ago1:18:34

1:18:34

First people communities are the early groups of hunter gatherers, herders, and the oldest human lineages of Africa, some migrating from as far as East Africa to settle across southern Africa, in countries like Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. In First People: The Lost History of the Khoisan, archaeologist Andrew Smith, who has excavated at some…

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Agustín Fuentes, "Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary" (Princeton UP, 2025) 45:11

19d ago45:11

45:11

Being human entails an astonishingly complex interplay of biology and culture, and while there are important differences between women and men, there is a lot more variation and overlap than we may realize. Sex Is a Spectrum offers a bold new paradigm for understanding the biology of sex, drawing on the latest science to explain why the binary view…

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Katarina Kušic, "Beyond International Intervention: Politics of Improvement in Serbia" (University of Michigan Press, 2025) 1:03:37

20d ago1:03:37

1:03:37

Studies of statebuilding and peacebuilding have been criticized for their disregard of people living the consequences of intervention projects. Beyond International Intervention: Politics of Improvement in Serbia (University of Michigan Press, 2025) by Dr. Katarina Kušic takes on the task of engaging with spaces and peoples not usually present in I…

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Lina Pinto-García, "Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia" (U Chicago Press, 2025) 1:04:34

21d ago1:04:34

1:04:34

In Maraña: War and Disease in the Jungles of Colombia (University of Chicago Press, 2025), Lina Pinto-García delves into the relationship between war and disease, focusing on Colombian armed conflict and the skin disease known as cutaneous leishmaniasis. Leishmaniasis is transmitted through the bite of female sandflies. The most common manifestatio…

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Maya Mayblin "Vote of Faith: Democracy, Desire, and the Turbulent Lives of Priest Politicians" (Fordham UP, 2024) 1:23:46

22d ago1:23:46

1:23:46

A richly cinematic and compelling look at priest-politicians in Brazil and their religious and secular entanglements, Vote of Faith: Democracy, Desire, and the Turbulent Lives of Priest Politicians (Fordham UP, 2024) explores the complex intersection of democracy, patriarchy, and religiosity in Brazil. For over a hundred years, Catholic priests hav…

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Dmitri N. Shalin, "Erving Manuel Goffman: Biographical Sources of Sociological Imagination" (Routledge, 2024) 2:44:13

26d ago2:44:13

2:44:13

We have long lacked a biography of Erving Goffman. Partly this can be explained by Goffman’s direction for his papers not to be opened to researchers after his death. This meant those who may wish to write Goffman’s biography had a lack of material to draw upon. Dmirti Shalin, author of Erving Manuel Goffman: Biographical Sources of Sociological Im…

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Greta Lynn Uehling, "Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025) 53:32

27d ago53:32

53:32

In Decolonizing Ukraine: The Indigenous People of Crimea and Pathways to Freedom (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025), anthropologist Dr. Greta Lynn Uehling illuminates the untold stories of Russia’s occupation of Crimea from 2014 to the present, revealing the traumas of colonization, foreign occupation, and population displacement. Drawing upon extensive …

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Toine van Teeffelen, "The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir" (Wipf and Stock, 2024) 1:03:20

28d ago1:03:20

1:03:20

The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir (Wipf and Stock, 2024) is a narrative of a Christian family in Bethlehem in the West Bank. Based on diary entries and interviews from 2000 to 2023, the Dutch author--an anthropologist and peace activist--chronicles the spontaneous reactions of his Palestinian children and wife navigating the challen…

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Camilla Annerfeldt, "Clothing and Identity in Early Modern Rome" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 30:22

28d ago30:22

30:22

Camilla Annerfeldt joins to discuss Clothing and Identity in Early Modern Rome (Bloomsbury, 2025). This is the first book-length exploration of the clothes worn in early modern Rome and provides novel insights into the city of Rome during one of its most fascinating periods. It also challenges the notion – well-established in dress historical resea…

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Michelle H. S. Ho, "Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo's Pink Economies" (Duke UP, 2025) 41:28

29d ago41:28

41:28

In Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo's Pink Economies (Duke UP, 2025), Michelle H. S. Ho traces the genders manifesting alongside Japanese popular culture in Akihabara, an area in Tokyo renowned for the fandom and consumption of anime, manga, and games. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in josō and dansō cafe-and-bars, establishments wher…

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M. Myrta Leslie Santana, Transformismo: Performing Trans/Queer Cuba" (U Michigan Press, 2025) 58:47

1M ago58:47

58:47

In Transformismo, M. Myrta Leslie Santana draws on years of embedded research within Cuban trans/queer communities to analyze how transformistas, or drag performers, understand their roles in the social transformation of the island. Once banned and censored in Cuba, transformismo, or drag performance, is now state-sponsored events. Transformismo su…

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

1M 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…

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

1M 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 …

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Episode 44: Van Hamilton Barbeau boosts healthcare startups 31:31

1M ago31:31

31:31

Our new episode features Van Hamilton Barbeau, AVP at Ochsner Ventures, the venture capital arm of Ochsner Health, which invests in healthcare companies from seed-stage to growth-stage. He has spent his career building, advising and investing in healthcare companies. Barbeau earned his undergrad degree from Cornell in 2011, where he studied politic…

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1869, Ep. 166 with Andrew Ofstehage, author of Welcome to Soylandia 27:03

1M ago27:03

27:03

Learn more about Welcome to Soylandia (and use promo code 09POD to save 30%):https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501780233/welcome-to-soylandiaTranscript: https://otter.ai/u/8TCrPkBnKy2b52Fo2o7NCxkmKfE?utm_source=copy_urlAndrew Ofstehage is Program Coordinator of the Global Academy at North Carolina State University.We spoke to Andrew abo…

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Maron E. Greenleaf, "Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon" (Duke UP, 2024) 49:46

1M ago49:46

49:46

Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon (2024) is an ethnography of forest carbon offsets and the wider effort to make the living rainforest valuable in the Brazilian Amazon. Situated in the state of Acre, which continuously had to grapple with a complex positionality between frontier and periphery, Maron E. Greenleaf explor…

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Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe 1:14:22

1M ago1:14:22

1:14:22

What is the growing appeal of fascist idealism for young people? Why is radical nationalism on the rise in Europe and throughout the world? In Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe (Princeton UP, 2024), Dr. Agnieszka Pasieka provides an in-depth account of the ideas and practices that are driving the varied forms of far-rig…

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Deana Jovanović, "Staging the Promises: Everyday Future-Making in a Serbian Industrial Town" (Cornell UP, 2025) 1:23:24

2M ago1:23:24

1:23:24

Built on the shifting grounds of post-Yugoslav transformation, Staging the Promises examines how the residents of Bor — a Serbian copper-mining town marked by both socialist prosperity and post-socialist decline — became spectators to the staged enactments of promised futures. Deana Jovanović traces how local authorities and the copper-processing c…

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Ipek A. Celik Rappas, "Filming in European Cities: The Labor of Location" (Cornell UP, 2025) 44:59

2M ago44:59

44:59

Filming in European Cities: The Labor of Location (Cornell University Press, 2025) explores the effort behind creating screen production locations. Dr. Ipek A. Celik Rappas accounts the rising demand for original and affordable locations for screen projects due to the growth of streaming platforms. As a result, screen professionals are repeatedly t…

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Diana Graizbord, "Indicators of Democracy: The Politics and Promise of Evaluation Expertise in Mexico" (Stanford UP, 2024) 52:44

2M ago52:44

52:44

The spread of democracy across the Global South has taken many different forms, but certain features are consistent: implementing a system of elections and an overarching mission of serving the will and well-being of a country's citizens. But how do we hold politicians accountable for such a mission? How are we to understand the efficacy of the pol…

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Lian Sinclair, "Undermining Resistance: The Governance of Participation by Multinational Mining Corporations" (Manchester UP, 2024) 36:47

2M ago36:47

36:47

Why do multinational mining corporations use participation to undermine resistance? Do the struggles of local communities, activists and NGOs matter on a global scale? Why are there so many different global standards in mining? Undermining Resistance: The Governance of Participation by Multinational Mining Corporations (Manchester UP, 2024) develop…

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1869, Ep. 165 with Rochelle Rojas, author of Bad Christians and Hanging Toads 22:24

2M ago22:24

22:24

Learn more about Bad Christians and Hanging Toads (and use promo code 09POD to save 30%):https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501779718/bad-christians-and-hanging-toads/Transcript: https://otter.ai/u/CnB_Cc_KV636TZN-ChfDW0A8OGw?utm_source=copy_urlRochelle Rojas is Assistant Professor of History at Kalamazoo College.We spoke to Rochelle abo…

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Tim Grady, "Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars" (Yale UP, 2025) 54:30

2M ago54:30

54:30

In Burying the Enemy: The Story of Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars (Yale University Press, 2025), Tim Grady recounts here a detailed history of the fate of combatants who died on enemy soil in England and Germany in World Wars I and II. The books draws on a rich archive of personal family experiences, and describes the often touching…

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Chloe Ahmann, "Futures After Progress: Hope and Doubt in Late Industrial Baltimore" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 36:32

2M ago36:32

36:32

Factory fires, chemical explosions, and aerial pollutants have inexorably shaped South Baltimore into one of the most polluted places in the country. In Futures After Progress: Hope and Doubt in Late Industrial Baltimore (U Chicago Press, 2024), anthropologist Chloe Ahmann explores the rise and fall of industrial lifeways on this edge of the city a…

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Maliha Safri et al., "Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation" (U of Minnesota Press, 2025) 1:06:18

2M ago1:06:18

1:06:18

In this episode, Maliha Safri, Marianna Pavlovskaya, Stephen Healy, and Craig Borowiak talk about their new co-authored book Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation (University of Minnesota Press, 2024). This volume is part of the Diverse Economies and Livable Worlds series. Solidarity economies, characterized by di…

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Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024) 1:07:52

2M ago1:07:52

1:07:52

After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in the early 2000s, Chinese policymakers came to see waste management as…

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Lorna Gibb, "Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages" (Princeton UP, 2025) 39:47

2M ago39:47

39:47

An enthralling tour of the world’s rarest and most endangered languages Languages and cultures are becoming increasingly homogenous, with the resulting loss of a rich linguistic tapestry reflecting unique perspectives and ways of life. Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages (Princeton University Press, 2025) tells the stories of the w…

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Eleanor Paynter, "Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present" (U California Press, 2024) 54:38

2M ago54:38

54:38

Emergency in Transit: Witnessing Migration in the Colonial Present (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Eleanor Paynter responds to the crisis framings that dominate migration debates in the global north. This capacious, interdisciplinary open-access study reformulates Europe's so-called "migrant crisis" from a sudden disaster to a site of…

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1869, Ep. 164 with Andrew Mertha, author of Bad Lieutenants 30:51

2M ago30:51

30:51

Read Bad Lieutenants for FREE here: (use promo code 09POD to save 30% on the print edition): https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501781025/bad-lieutenants/#bookTabs=1Transcript: https://otter.ai/u/a8G8EDW_TZoMrgdZUjox_q2LKt4?utm_source=copy_urlAndrew Mertha is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies and Director of the Schoo…

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Katie Rose Hejtmanek, "The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon" (NYU Press, 2025) 1:08:28

2M ago1:08:28

1:08:28

CrossFit in the United States has become increasingly popular, around which a fascinating culture has developed which shapes everyday life for the people devoted to it. CrossFit claims to be many things: a business, a brand, a tremendously difficult fitness regimen, a community, a way to gain salvation, and a method to survive the apocalypse. In Th…

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Christof Lammer, "Performing State Boundaries: Food Networks, Democratic Bureaucracy and China" (Berghahn, 2024) 1:42:23

2M ago1:42:23

1:42:23

On the podcast today I am joined by Christof Lammer, a social anthropologist based at the University of Klagenfurt and inherit fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin. Christof is joining me to talk about his new book, Performing State Boundaries: Food Networks, Democratic Bureaucracy and China published in Open Access by Berghahn Books in 2024. Th…

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Political Mythmaking in Nepal 33:12

2M ago33:12

33:12

How and why do local political processes in rural Nepal become an arena for political mythmaking? And, how do political myths obscure their own historical construction, thereby making hierarchical power structures appear inevitable? In this episode we discuss these questions with Ankita Shrestha whose ethnographic explorations into these issues for…

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Agnieszka Pasieka, "Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe" (Princeton UP, 2024) 46:29

2M ago46:29

46:29

Radical nationalism is on the rise in Europe and throughout the world. Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe (Princeton University Press, 2024) provides an in-depth account of the ideas and practices that are driving the varied forms of far-right activism by young people from all walks of life, revealing how these social mo…

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Sarah Saddler, "Performing Corporate Bodies: Multinational Theatre in Global India" (Routledge, 2025) 1:10:32

2M ago1:10:32

1:10:32

How do corporations use theater to reconcile the crises of late capitalism? In our latest interview on Ethnographic Marginalia, we speak with Dr. Sarah Saddler about her new book Performing Corporate Bodies (Routledge, 2024), where she describes how corporations have borrowed techniques from activist theater to manage their workers in India and bey…

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Episode #137: Doug Keith - Insights Consultant/Moderator, Bass Player, Former Public Radio Host 54:33

2M ago54:33

54:33

Doug Keith started his career in public broadcasting, both as a producer and an on-air host. A grad program in communications led him to transition his career to insights. Today, Doug is 18 years into his research consultancy, was co-chair for the 2025 QRCA speaker committee and is a co-founder of the Insights Career Network. Doug shares his career…

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Mingwei Huang, "Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century" (Duke UP, 2024) 1:05:34

2M ago1:05:34

1:05:34

In Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century (Duke UP, 2024), Mingwei Huang traces the development of new forms of racial capitalism in the twenty-first century. Through fieldwork in one of the “China malls” that has emerged along Johannesburg’s former mining belt, Huang identifies everyday relations of power and differen…

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Dána-Ain Davis and Christa Craven, "Feminist Ethnography: Thinking Through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) 56:21

2M ago56:21

56:21

How do we acquire knowledge about societies? Does how we acquire social knowledge shape what we know? How conscious must we be of our own experiences as we do our research? What does feminism add to our methods and modes of research? Now in its second edition, Feminist Ethnography: Thinking through Methodologies, Challenges, and Possibilities (Rowm…

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Engage and Evade in 2025: Asad L. Asad on Latino Immigrants in America 51:48

2M ago51:48

51:48

Today I’m speaking with Asad L. Asad, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Stanford University. He is the author of Engage and Evade: How Latino Immigrant Families Manage Surveillance in Everyday Life (Princeton UP, 2023). A highly relevant book, Engage and Evade documents the interactions between undocumented people and the agents and institutions …

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Chiara Calzana and Valentina Gamberi, "Haunting Ruins: Ethnographies of Ruination and Decay" (Berghahn Books, 2025) 47:19

2M ago47:19

47:19

In the contemporary world, ruins, rubble, and decaying material have become increasingly iconic landscapes. They can foster a more layered theory of time, change and memory. The seven ethnographic case studies in Haunting Ruins (Berghahn Books, 2025) trace human engagements with the temporal forces of ruins, which can trace the past and transform t…

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Anna Maria Busse Berger and Henry Spiller, "Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago" (U California Press, 2025) 1:09:04

3M ago1:09:04

1:09:04

Although the history of Indonesian music has received much attention from ethnomusicologists and Western composers alike, almost nothing has been written on the interaction of missionaries with local culture. Missionaries, Anthropologists, and Music in the Indonesian Archipelago (U California Press, 2025) represents the first attempt to concentrate…

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Becky Yang Hsu, "The Extraordinary in the Mundane: Family and Forms of Community in China" (Columbia UP, 2024) 49:00

3M ago49:00

49:00

How do individuals address serious challenges in a context where organized gatherings are subject to strict government control? This new edited volume brings together a diverse group of scholars to explore the many ways people in China self-organize and create varied forms of coordination to solve important problems. Through compelling, detail-rich…

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