Episodes

  • Sanaullah Khan, "Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self" (Lexington Books, 2023)

    Sanaullah Khan, "Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self" (Lexington Books, 2023)
    Nov 3 2024
    Carceral Recovery: Prisons, Drug Markets, and the New Pharmaceutical Self (Lexington Books, 2023) explores the interrelation between carceral conditions and substance use by considering the intersections between drug markets, sidewalks, households, and prisons in Baltimore. Sanaullah Khan argues that while housing, medicalization, and incarceration fundamentally create the conditions for substance use, individuals are increasingly experiencing the paradoxes of care and punishment by being propelled into a new regime of recovery which creates new pharmaceuticalized identities. By shedding light on how addiction and the impetus for healing moves through families and institutions of the state, Khan provides an account of the different competing forces that shape substance use, recovery, and relapse. Through a combination of archival research and ethnography, the book makes a case for disentangling punishment from recovery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    54 mins
  • Brian Groom, "Made in Manchester: A People's History of the City That Shaped the Modern World" (Harpernorth, 2024)

    Brian Groom, "Made in Manchester: A People's History of the City That Shaped the Modern World" (Harpernorth, 2024)
    Nov 2 2024
    Long before Manchester gave the world titans of industry, comedy, music and sport, it was the cosmopolitan Roman fort of Mamucium. But it was as the ‘shock city’ of the Industrial Revolution that Manchester really made its mark on the world stage. A place built on hard work and innovation, it is no coincidence that the digital age began here too, with the world’s first stored-program computer, Baby. A city as radical as it is revolutionary, Manchester has always been a political hotbed. The Peterloo Massacre is immortalised in British folklore and the city was a centre for pioneering movements such as Chartism. Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst hailed from here and the city still treasures its wilful independence. Manchester’s spirited individuality has carried through into its artistic output too, bringing the world Anthony Burgess, L.S. Lowry, Jeanette Winterson, Joy Division and Oasis. Mention United or City almost anywhere and you’ll find fans, and opinions. Until Made in Manchester: A People's History of the City That Shaped the Modern World (Harpernorth, 2024), this magnificent city did not have its definitive history. From Brian Groom, the author of the bestselling Northerners, this work of unrivalled authority and breadth tells the story of a changing place and its remarkable people. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    28 mins
  • Sabina Faiz Rashid, "Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows" (Routledge, 2024)

    Sabina Faiz Rashid, "Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows" (Routledge, 2024)
    Oct 29 2024
    Poverty, Gender and Health in the Slums of Bangladesh: Children of Crows (Routledge, 2024) provides comprehensive ethnographic accounts that depict the daily life experiences and health hardships encountered by young women and their families living in the slums of Dhaka city and the injustices they face. The analysis focuses on two specific historical eras: 2002-2003 and 2020-2022 and shows that despite recent improvements in employment opportunities and greater mobility for young women, their lives reflect ongoing challenges reminiscent of those faced two decades earlier. While national and global organizations acknowledge the nation's economic and social progress, those on the outskirts of society continue to grapple with enduring poverty. They are excluded from the advantages of economic growth, oppressed by unjust local, national, and global systems, discriminatory laws, and policies. Their struggles go unnoticed as they confront a slew of challenges, including slum evictions, enforced lockdowns, income losses, food insecurity, and ongoing crises related to health, injuries, fatalities, and exploitation and harassment by law enforcement and influential individuals within the slum and the city. After two decades, these obstacles persist, and life remains tenuous, with health severely compromised. This book will appeal to students, academics, and researchers in the fields of Public Health, Medical Anthropology, Gender Studies, Urban Studies, Development Studies, Social Sciences, as well as professionals engaged in urban health and poverty-related work. Rituparna Patgiri is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati. Her research interests lie in the areas of food, media, gender and public. She is also one of the co-founders of Doing Sociology. Patgiri can be reached at @Rituparna37 on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • Megan Steigerwald Ille, "Opera for Everyone: The Industry's Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age" (U Michigan Press, 2024)

    Megan Steigerwald Ille, "Opera for Everyone: The Industry's Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
    Oct 25 2024
    Every year a relatively small number of canonic operas are produced around the world. Many companies shy away from new works, afraid of alienating a predominantly white, older, wealthy audience who are comfortable with operatic traditions. But opera can also be a site of incredible innovation. Opera for Everyone: The Industry’s Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age (University of Michigan Press, 2024) by Megan Steigerwald Ille examines one of the most disruptive opera companies in the United States. The Los Angeles-based company, The Industry, wants to make opera for everyone by breaking down hierarchies, undermining the expectations of both audiences and performers, and confronting how opera is part of harmful systems of exclusion and marginalization. Rather than simply analyzing some operas and interviewing a handful of key players in the company, Steigerwald Ille spent years observing rehearsals and interviewing many of the participants in the Industry’s productions. Focusing on the period between 2012 and 2020, her ethnographic work yields a thorough and nuanced analysis of the company and its operas and the many ways they challenge the conventions of Western classical music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    51 mins
  • René Boer, "Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives" (Valiz, 2023)

    René Boer, "Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives" (Valiz, 2023)
    Oct 22 2024
    In cities across the world, a new urban condition is spreading rapidly: an ever-increasing push toward efficiency, sanitization, surveillance and the active eradication of any aberration, friction or alternative. From Dubai, Hong Kong and London to Amsterdam and Cairo, the smooth city, with its gated communities and theme-park zones, insidiously transforms urban life into seamless "experience." While the demand for safe, clean and well-functioning urban environments is understandable, the ascent of the smooth city corrodes the democratic and emancipatory potential of cities, leaving little space for the experimental and the non-normative. In Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives (Valiz, 2023), René Boer investigates the origins, characteristics and consequences of "smoothness" and points toward possible alternatives. René Boer is a critic, curator and organizer in and beyond the fields of architecture, art, design and heritage. Based in Amsterdam, he is a founding partner of Loom-practice for cultural transformation and an editor at Failed Architecture. This interview was conducted by Timi Koyejo, a graduate student in urban studies at the University of Vienna. He has worked professionally as a researcher at the University of Chicago and as an urban policy advisor to the City of Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Adam Greenfield, "Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire" (Verso, 2024)

    Adam Greenfield, "Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire" (Verso, 2024)
    Oct 22 2024
    In Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire (Verso, 2024), Adam Greenfield presents a compelling vision for collective resilience in an age of perpetual crisis. As we grapple with what Greenfield terms the "Long Emergency"—an era marked by cascading disasters from pandemics to climate-driven catastrophes—this timely book explores how we might reclaim agency and foster community in the face of overwhelming challenges. Greenfield's central argument is both radical and deeply pragmatic: by synthesizing diverse tactics of mutual aid and community organizing, we can construct a coherent way of life that not only helps us survive but potentially thrive amidst upheaval. Drawing inspiration from a rich tapestry of historical and contemporary examples, he illustrates how grassroots networks of care and solidarity can serve as powerful bulwarks against despair and disempowerment. The author takes readers on a journey through various models of collective action and self-organization. He examines the Black Panthers' survival programs and the remarkable effectiveness of Occupy Sandy's disaster relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Greenfield also highlights the crucial role played by neighborhood-based mutual aid groups during the COVID-19 lockdowns, demonstrating how local initiatives can fill gaps left by institutional failures. However, Greenfield's vision extends beyond ad hoc responses to specific crises. He invites readers to consider larger-scale experiments in participatory democracy and communal living, such as the municipalist movements in Spain and the autonomous region of Rojava in Syria. These examples serve as proof of concept for alternative forms of social and political organization that prioritize collective well-being and ecological sustainability. Lifehouse is both a manifesto and a call to action. It is an invitation to rediscover and nurture our individual and collective capacities that have long been suppressed under late capitalism. Greenfield argues that by building robust networks of mutual support and reimagining local power structures, we can create resilient communities capable of weathering the storms ahead. This book arrives at a critical juncture as the effects of climate change become increasingly apparent and traditional institutions struggle to address mounting global challenges. Greenfield's work offers not just a critique of the current system but a roadmap for creating meaningful alternatives rooted in solidarity and shared purpose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    49 mins
  • Amanda Shoaf Vincent, "Constructing Gardens, Cultivating the City: Paris's New Parks, 1977-1995" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

    Amanda Shoaf Vincent, "Constructing Gardens, Cultivating the City: Paris's New Parks, 1977-1995" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
    Oct 18 2024
    In the space of about two decades, five major parks were proposed, designed, and created in Paris. Some emerged from competitions between professional landscape architects, others were imagined by planners working for the city, all represented a shift in what Amanda Shoaf Vincent calls “post-modern” understandings of the role of parks and garden in the city. In Constructing Gardens, Cultivating the City: Paris's New Parks, 1977-1995 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023), Vincent explores the development of parks as “cultural objects” in Paris’ urban landscape, helping students and scholars of urbanism, architecture, and social and cultural history understand how parks served not only as places where people could sit, read a book, or watch their children play, but also as places where new theories about leisure and life in the city played out. In our conversation, Vincent explains how she developed this study out of a broader interest in architecture and urban space and takes listeners through each of the major parks that are the focus of her book: from Maine-Montparnasse high above the Montparnasse train station on the Left Bank to Les Halles in the center of Paris to the Park de Bercy, just a short walk away from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Along the way, we talk about gardeners, ironwork, and a surprising lack of park scandals in the City of Light and learn to “take parks a little more seriously,” as Vincent herself has learned to do. Amanda Shoaf Vincent is Associate Professor in the Department of French Studies at Wake Forest University. Her research focuses on the representation and production of designed spaces (from parks to gardens to cities and buildings) in twentieth and twenty-first century France. Her work has previously appeared in French Cultural Studies, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, and Contemporary French Civilization, among other venues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Meghana Joshi, "Children are Everywhere: Conspicuous Reproduction and Childlessness in Reunified Berlin" (Berghahn, 2024)

    Meghana Joshi, "Children are Everywhere: Conspicuous Reproduction and Childlessness in Reunified Berlin" (Berghahn, 2024)
    Oct 15 2024
    Children are Everywhere: Conspicuous Reproduction and Childlessness in Reunified Berlin (Berghahn Books, 2024) by Dr. Meghana Joshi engages with how demographic anxieties and reproductive regimes emerge as forms of social inclusion and exclusion in a low fertility Western European context. This book explores everyday experiences of parenting and childlessness of ‘ethnic’ Germans in Berlin, who came of age around the fall of the Berlin Wall, and brings them into conversation with theories on parenting, waithood, non-biological intimacies, and masculinities. This is the first ethnographic work by a South Asian author on demographic anxieties and reproduction in Germany and reverses the anthropological gaze to study Europe as the ‘Other.’ This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 mins